Discussions of Robert Lewis Dabney
Robert Lewis Dabney Document Public Domain
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Published before the 1931 public-domain cutoff. Local source is Internet Archive metadata plus OCR text from public-domain scans of volumes 1-4. Volume 3 contains the philosophical discussions. Dabney's 1897 Practical Philosophy remains discovery-only in this pass because no rights-clean local Internet Archive OCR source was found; no Monergism, CCEL, OLL, publisher-reprint, printdisabled-only, or curated restricted file is ingested.
Included for historically documented Old School Presbyterian corpus research; inclusion is not endorsement.
Contains nineteenth-century polemical material, including racist and pro-slavery argumentation in portions of the Discussions set.
Volume I Discussions
Introduction
VI CONTENTS.
Page.
The World White to Harvest : Reap, or it Perishes 575
The Gospel Idea of Preaching 595
Our Comfort in Dtisg I 602
The Christian Soldier 614
The Sin of the Teiipter 626
Meditation a Means of Grace 643
The Popular Arguments against Endless Punishment Unsatisfac- tory AS A Sure Ground of Hope 654
Prayer Reasonable 670
Parental Responsibilities 676
A Phase OF Religious Selfishness 694
Our Secular Prosperity 699
The Christian's Duty towards his Enemies 706
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
IN introducing these volumes to the reading world, it is proper that something should be said in reference to the character and the points of view of the man to whose abilities and imtiring energy they owe their origin. Student, teacher, farmer, mechanic, author, soldier, financier, theologian, philosopher, and preacher of the gospel, his varied gifts have spread themselves ovej* such a variety of employ- ments and displayed such efficiency in everything he touched, that it will be impossible to form a just judgment of the works now collected together, or of the genius and character of the author, without some brief notice of his life and the principles which have regvilated his en- ergies.
Robert Lewis Dabney was born in the county of Louisa, in Vir- ginia, on the 5th day of March, 1820. He was the son of Charles Dabney, a native of Louisa county, though of an old Hanover lineage, and Elizabeth Price, daughter of Captain Thomas Randolph Price, and Barbara Winston, his wife. The family of Charles Dabney con- sisted of himself, his wife, and their eight children, four boys and four girls. Robert was the sixth in this scale. His early education was conducted in country day-schools, created by the joint efforts of his father and some of his neighbors. These schools, in plain log cabins, were common at that day, and were often very efficient instru- ments of education. All three of the early teachers of Robert Dab- ney— Caleb Burnley, Thomas Meredith, and Charles Burnley — were faithful and capable men. Under them in succession he was trained in the rudiments of English, in geometry, and pursued quite an extended course in Latin and Greek. This training brought him to the close of the year 1835. From the beginning to the middle of 1836 he pur- sued his studies under the direction of Rev. James Wharey, the pastor of the church. During these six months he rode a colt seven miles once a week to recite. Li the month of Junfe of that year he entered Hampden-Sidney College as a sophomore, half advanced, passed through the junior course, and left in September, 1837, without graduating. He then returned home to his mother, now a widow, and for two years taught a country school in the neighborhood, similar to the schools in which he had been taught as a boy. In Decembei', 1839, he entered
Vlll BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
the University of Vii-ginia, and ia 1842 I'etii'ed with the degree of A. M. In July, 1842, he again returned to his paternal home, and spent niore than two years in managing the affairs of his mother and teaching a select private school, with the view of educating her yoimger children. He entered Union Seminary in October, 1844, took the full three years' course in two years, and was licensed to preach in May, 1846. His health at this time was nearly rioined. He spent one year as a mis- sionary in his native county, and at the beginning of July, 1847, became pastor of Tinkhng Spring Church, in the county of Augusta, where he remained six years and two months. At that period he was elected to the chair of Ecclesiastical History in Union Seminary, which he held tmtil 1869. In that year, after serving as Adjunct-Professor of Theo- logy in addition to discharging the duties of his owai chair, he was made full Professor of Theology. He discharged the duties of this position until 1883, when, warned by his physician of the necessity of a change of chmate, he accepted an invitation to take charge of the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Texas, the duties of which he still discharges with characteristic energy, in spite of a blindness now become total, and of general health giving way. The only interruption to the long term of his services in the Seminary w'as occasioned by the war, and for sixteen years of his stay in the school of theology he served as co-pastor of the College Church along with his colleague and brother-in-law. Dr. B. M. Smith. This regular parochial work he was at length constrained by bronchitis to resign. Discharging this ac- cumulation of duties, interspersed Avith various literary labors and the management of the little farm attached to his professional residence, some conception may be formed of the immense labor w«hich for many years taxed all the resom-ces of his energetic mind.
The war between the States began in April, 1861. ^\Tien the Sem- inary session closed in May, Dr. Dal3ney proposed to the session of the College Church that Dr. Smith should solely occupy the pulpit during the summer, and he himself should be allowed to follow the young men who, in considerable numbers, had left the congregation to go into the army, and serve as chaplain. But the directors of the Seminaiy had expressly ordered the facult}^ to keej^ the Seminaiy open. This compelle,d Dr. Dabney to take only a temporary position as chaplain, and return to the Seminary in October, 1861. This was always a matter of regret to him, as it broke up the chaplain's work, which he felt he ought to have done during the whole war. Early in 1862 the conscription law emptied the Seminary, as he had foreseen. The wife of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, then living in Dr. Dabney's fam- ily, being related to Dr. Dabney's wife, reported to Gen. Jackson that he was virtually out of all obligations to the school. Jackson promptly
BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH. IX
offered him the post of chief of staff to his corps, with the privilege of doing missionary work in the army every Sunday. Dabney had no military education, and the offer seemed to him at first to l)e unreason- able. But the patriots and divines of his acquaintance urged him to accept, and with many misgivings he did so. After fully justifying the singular but shrewd judgment of his chief, in the latter part of the campaign of 1862 his health broke down, in accordance with his own misgivings, and, resigning his post, he returned home. As soon as the fatal termination of the war allowed the Seminary to resume its work he resumed the duties of his chair.
Such is a brief outHne of the history of the author of these volumes. They are the result of his systematic labor in the intervals of a time devoted mainly to the business of his professorship and pastoral charge. They are not the only results of it ; other volumes, consisting in part of his own original work and in part of an editorial arrangement of the works of other men, which involved about as much labor, in one in- stance at least, as if the work was his own, give equal testimony to the energy of his will. The valuable Commentary of Dr. Francis S. Samp- son on the Hebrews is an instance of one of these labors ; his own Life of Gen. Btonetoall Jackson is an instance of another.
These remarkable results of a busy life were due to the systematic habits of a judicious student, combined with the extraordinary talents and energy of the man. His habits were simple, and brought under a systematic control. His time was regulated, and ever3'thing to be done was assigned to its own period. He secured for himself a full allowance of healthful sleep. His hour for retiring would have seemed to many students absurdly early. At ten o'clock he was in bed, and always allowed himself eight houi's for repose. He thought it no economy of time or energy to cheat nature of the full amount of rest which was necessary to keep up his strength to its full vigor. He had time allotted to all his employments, and had it in sufficiency for his outdoor business, for the close inspection of his affairs, and for the en- tertainment of his friends. When the period for study came, he worked with the speed and power of an engine, and accomplished results which would have done credit to a student who never left his study. This systematic arrangement of his time, and the energy with which he turned it to account, allowed play for faculties not usually conceived as part of the furniture of a man of letters. Trained in the manage- ment of his mother's affairs, he was skilled in the arts of the planter, and made an excellent farmer of the little tract of land which he owned, adjoining the official residence allotted to him as professor. He was a capital mechanic, skilled in the use of tools, making no Uttle of the furniture of his house and the tools of his farm. Without any instruc-
X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
tion in the arts of the architect and the map-drawer, he di'ew plans for churches and private dwellings with all the elaborate detail of a pro- fessional artist, and the wall of his class-room was adorned with a map of his own drawing. He was a close economist on a principle of Chris- tian obhgation, early adopted and carried out with characteristic steadiness ; a financier whose judgment had the testimony of a steady success in the increase of his property ; and he was at the same time a generous patron of every Christian interest, the ready helper of kin- dred and friend in time of need. His powers of observation were close and keen, and his interest in topographical matters, and his habit of close questioning the chance acquaintances he made about the soil, cH- mate, productions, and modes of management of the sections where they lived, made him the most minutely and widely informed man of his time touching aU parts of his own State and of mauy of the sur- rounding States. His studies were not confined to the lines of his own pi'ofession. He was a student of nature, a student of law, a student of philosophy, and a student of poHtics on the highest range of states- manlike investigation. He was a political economist of a high order, and studied the bearings of progress in the development of society, in the growth of towns, in the increased facilities of transportation, in the multiplication of employments, in all the physical changes of the age, as few professional statesmen studied them. He was wide awake to the effects of such things on the political and social, as well as on the moral and religious, interests of society. He had the prophetic forecast of the true thinker, as well as the practical judgment of the man of business. When the war for Southern independence broke out, he threw himself into it on the side of his own people with char- acteristic energy, and the pecuhar traits of his practical and strong understanding came out on a theatre altogether foreign to the habits of a man of his profession. He joined the army as chief of staff to, Gen. Stonewall Jackson. It is a strong tribute to the sagacious and energetic qualities of the man that that cautious and keen soldier shoiild have selected a teacher in a theological school as the chief of his own military family. The two men were congenial spirits, and on the strong common sense and keen habit of observation of his clerical officer Jackson placed more rehance than he did on others far more thoroughly drilled in military technics.
The characteristics of his mental and moral natui'e appear in strongly marked forms in these volumes now given to the world. He will here be seen, as he was, a force at once independent and intensely conser- vative, thrown into the great battle-field of the period in Avhich he hved. One of the leading traits of his mind — its inflexible conservatism — brought him into resolute opposition to many of the results of the pro-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, XI
gressive spirit of tlie times. This trait was the fountain of much that was valuable in his labors, and of much that brought on him the cen- sure of more adventurous and less cautious minds. He may have yielded too much occasionally to this conservative tendency, for it is human to err, and all virtues in fallible human nature may pass into evil by excess. But it can be said, without fear of contradiction, that in the vast bulk of Dr. Dabney's labox's his conservative tendencies were the ministers of truth and righteousness. There is always need for a re- straining as well as a progressive force in the onward movement of society, and the one is as wise and useful as the other. In an age like the present, where the progressive tendencies have been stimulated to the highest degree, and have passed into excesses as obviously danger- ous as some of its results have proved beneficial, the rise of a restrain- ing iuiluence, confronting the excesses and exposing the evil impulses from which they have flowed, is unquestionably a thing which wisdom will approve. In no age of the world's history has thero been more need for a wise and resolute conservatism than in the present era. This century will stand preeminent in history for the great movements which, for good and evil, have exerted, and will continue to exert, an un- paralleled influence on the destinies of the human race. Distinguished for great activity of thought, for the extension of popular intelligence, for the infinite development of the communication of information, for inventiveness, for scientific discoveries, for advanced scholarship, for a wide-spread and audacious skepticism, for vast development of trans- portation, commerce and manufactures, this remarkable age has ac- complished results, both for good and evil, which will qualify the cur- rent of affairs for centuries to come. The progress of speculation has assailed the Christian faith and the foundations of moral obhgation, with the undisguised intent of overthrowing both as forces in society. During the active period of our author's life, the most sustained and determined conflict with infidelity the gospel has ever waged has pre- vailed. The struggles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were child's play compared with it. The battle has raged along the whole line of Hterar}', scientific, philosophic, and even religious inves- tigation. The assault has been met with corresponding ardor and ability wherever it has been made. The Christian response, too, has come in wonderful forms, not only in the field of argument, but in the field of action. Never before have the propagandist powers of the church been so greatly displayed, at least since the age of the apostles. If the age is the age of skepticism, it is also the age of missions. If it is the age of unbelief, it is also the age of faith. Never has the power of the gospel preached in its simplicity been more consj)icuously displayed than in the work of Moody the evangelist, and Spm'geon the
XU BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
pastor. Never lias the power of prayer been more scornfully assailed than by the rationalism of T^Tidall and Huxley, and never more glo- riously vindicated than in the work of George Mtiller. Never has the influence of a refusal to abide by the moral precepts of the Tables of Stone, and the moral teachings of the New Testament, been followed by results so vast and openly ruinous. The exaggerated construction of the theories of civil freedom, and the repudiation of the voice of the Holy Ghost touching the relation ol master and slave, have issued in the blood of hundreds of thousands of the human race, in the desola- tion of eleven States of the American Union, in the overthrow of the fimdamental principle of the Constitution of the United States govern- ment— goverament based upon consent — in the loss of millions of trea- Biu*e, in the misery of milhons of a once free and happy people, and in raising issues which overhang the future with the impenetrable and menacing darkness of a midnight tempest. The same causes have lui- settled the securities of society, the stability of governments, the safety of property, and the immunities of a refined civilization over all Europe. The vast, vague menace of socialism and communism rises in every en- lightened nation like a ghost in Ossian. The same causes have intro- duced the reign of vast social corruption, the distui'bance of the com- forts of domestic hfe, the decay of commercial integrity, the disgrace of political faithlessness, and the tyi annies of democratic communities as ruthless and bloody as the despotism of an Oriental despot, on a scale larger than the despotism of an individual ever reached. It has produced not only the liberation of millions of half-civilized slaves, but the tremendous peril of theii' enfranchisement. It has shaken the securities of every nation of Christendom.
Among that noble host of .Christian champions who have met the assaults of infidels, the author of these volumes has made a noble re- cord. Difi"ering radically in some things from many of his fellow- soldiers in the sacred warfare, he has proved equal to the foremost of them, if not in the learning peculiar to their separate depariments, certainly in independence and energy of thought, superior to them all in the staunch conservatism of his principles, and above all in the uni- form subjection of his bold intellect to the word of God. Conserva- tive to the core, he has stood in the old paths, and confronted the au- dacious novelties of modern speculation with consummate tenacity. His work on the SensualistiG Philosophy^ steeped in the essence of common sense, is the most overwhelming demonstration the age has produced of the imsoundness of the positive and relative speculations of the age. His mind, in its great leading characteristic, has shown itself eminently realistic and i^ractical. Philosophical speculations, no matter how acute or profound, were to him nothing worth if they
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XUl
brought out conclusions at war with common sense. He was a truer disciiDle of the great Scottish school than Sir William Hamilton him- self. An enthusiastic believer in the possibility and the value of a real philosophy, he repudiated every theory which discounted its confor- mity with the primitive intuitions of the human understanding. Re- verencing the Bible as the word of Almighty God, he had no patience with processes or conclusions which insulted its supreme claim to ab- solute authority. He abhorred especially the saintly villainy which, dressed in gown and bands, and standing demure as the wolf in sheep's clothing in the pulpits of the Christian church, assailed the teachings of the sacred Scriptiu'es in doctrine or morals. The intellectual as well as the moral qualities of the man bound him to this species of open and unsparing war on all the heresies which sprang up in the course of the so-called advanced thought of the age. These quahties explain, not only the positions which he took, but the method of his defence and assault ; not only the matter of his thought, but the mode of its expression. The matter was always gi'oimded on the intuitions of common sense or the lessons of experience, ou the examples of his- tory or on the teacliiugs of the Bible. The mode of its expression was determined by his intense convictions, his indignation against every moral obliquity, his full recognition of the authority of truth, and his fearless spirit. His power of analysis was wide and keen his judgment sound; his capacity of observation close and vigilant his temper hot, eager and resolute ; his sensibilities just and tender his powers of sarcasm and invective extraoi'dinaiy ; his mastery of Ian guage rich and fertile, fully equal to all the demands of his thoughts his fancy pregnant with poetic beauty ; his capacity of moral indigna- tion, tender feeling, sympathy with suffering, and deep convictions of truth, unusually great; his sense of justice keen; his hatred of all tergiversation, fraud and faithlessness to covenants passionately vehe- ment ; and his courage, both moral and physical, of the truest temper. All these qualities are impressed upon his work. Such a mental and moral structure, ruled by such absolute reliance on the authority of common sense and the word of God, might have been expected to wage war with error as Cceur de Lion waged among the ranks of the Saracens.
This keen expression of moral indignation sometimes jari'ed on the nerves of timid persons, and the wi'iter was accused of indulging in unlawful passion. But this is a false judgment. There is such a thing as just anger. Our Lord himself grew angry at the desecration of the temple and the bottomless hypocrisies of the Pharisees. It is wrong to deal with dangerous error and want of candor in its propagation, as if it were empty of all moral significance. That Dr. Dabney made no
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mistakes in this direction is obviously improbable. That his generous and ardent temper never passed over into some excess, none of his most loyal friends — a host among his own people — are disjjosed to deny. But his keenest assaults never bore the least taint of malice towards jDersons. His faults were the excess of noble impulse in every case, and no one was ever more ready to confess them, no one ever more gentle in receiving the admonition of those who were entitled to ad- mouish him. All the defects, however, which may be found in the large products of his long and energetic labors are literally nothing in compaiison with their value. All the peculiarities of his mental and moral nature are impressed upon them, and give a charm to the ap- preciative reader. His approach to a subject was always direct and straightforward. He evaded no difficulty ; he bent to no complication ; he yielded to no evasion. He seized at once on the heart of the mat- ter, and moved straight on the lines of discrimination which led to the true evolution of its substance. His style was after the model of Swift, in the main character plain, didactic, seeking the most direct and clear expression, flexible to ever}' shade of his thought, energetic, free of flow, and, unlike that of the cynic of St. Patrick, not disdaining to rise occasionally into rich poetic beauty. His taste in letters, as in all his general habits of mind, was at once simple and poetic, clinging to the old simplicities of life in which he was bred, and j-et keen in the appreciation of all beauty in nature and in art. Patient and pains- taking in all he undertook, the energy of his nature drove him to in- cessant and varied labors. His strong conservatism led him to the full conviction that the haught}', progressive spirit of the age often left behind the valuable achievements of the past, and as often abandoned old truth as it discovered new. To him truth was truth, no matter how old, and he reverenced the grand intellects of an earlier day and their approved work more than the untested pretenders of the modern world. He believed in the crucible of time.
Hating injustice with intense feeling, he scorned the self seeking which truckles to triumphant and unjust power for mere advantage. Beheving utterly in the word of God, he never flinched from denounc- ing the errors which flowed, with all their desolating efi'ects, from a refusal to abide by the teachings of the Scriptures. He spoke out boldly in defence of revealed moral truth repudiated by angry millions, and fearlessly uttered his sympathies with half a continent over- whelmed by a triumphant fanaticism. Reverencing truth — the truth of the past not less than the truth of the present^ — nothing could per- suade him that past evils could change their nature into good, or had any claim to be delineated in any other colors than their own ; a spade was a spade, and it was a lie to say it was not. His bold and uncom-
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, XV
promising convictions never brooked the timid prudence of conceal- ment in deference to the passions of hostile multitudes. Hence he often came in collision with that apprehensive expediency which could see no recourse but in silent submission, leaving truth to pass out of view, and lawful self-protection to cower under the dread of fanaticism armed with power and insolent with victory. Hence he often en- countered the censure of those whose rights, honor and interests he defended with the most intense sympathy.
The brave and unfortunate people of his own section never had a truer or moi'e faithful friend than the author of these volumes. His active fancy and tender sensibilities ne'^er lost sight of the miseries of his countrymen in his own comparatively complete exemption from pov- erty and want. If any one is disposed to deprecate the fearless asser- tion of the truth which vindicates the scriptural authority of the social institutions which provoked the hostility of a fanaticism essentially in- fidel, we would ask such a one if the moral teachings of the word of God are to be suppressed or buried out of sight just because they convict that fanaticism of its guilt ? Are the old and glorious annals of the Southern States to be allowed no vindication before the bar of history'? Are they to relinquish that defence thrown over fhem by the word of God himself 1 Are the countrymen of Washington and Henry to al- low the slander to go down unresisted to posterity that they were criminals of the deepest dye because they stood in a relation which is warranted by the finger of God on the granite record of the moral law? Shall they submit to have a record of untainted fidelity to all their obligations under the constitution covered vjith oblivion, while the record of their antagonists is blazoned in the heavens, although it is blotted with breach after breach of their constitutional obhgations ? Rest assured, this cannot be; and if so, let the voice of this ti'ue servant of God and his country be heard ; let his vindication of the moral and political principles of his peo^jle be admitted to an impartial judgment. Nothing is to be gained by the attempt to send the truth into perpetual exile. It must prevail at last.
While these volumes will contain a defence of the substantial rights of the Southern people, they will also contain the most abundant evi- dence that the most ultra friends of Southern independence after the struggle commenced were passionately imbued with the hope that the issue might not be raised, and that the conflict might be averted. More than one paper in these collections will show with what intense Christian solicitude Dr. Dabney, always a type of the most decided Southern feeling, endeavored to avert the calamity. That testimony will aj^pear in that section of the publication which comes out under the auspices of the Committee of Publication. It will also appear in the fourth volume, for which the chm-ch assumes no responsibility.
XVI BIOGEAPHICAL SKETCH.
Another gratifying element in these volumes, strongly marked, is the type of religious feeling and principle in the character of the au- thor. His whole religious frame of thought and feeling was moulded by that form of Christian truth called Calvinistic. He accepted the Bible as the absolute word of God, after the old model of faith in the church. He received it as not only inspired in its matter, but in- spired in its expression, not only as knowledge given of the Holy Ghost, but as given in words taught of that divine agent. He accepted all its humihating lessons of human guilt and depravity as a true diagnosis and exposure of the moral condition of the human soul. He accepted the sovereign grace and power of God as the only source of hope to man, considered as an individual or considered as a race. He accepted the atoning sacrifice of Chiist as the only purchase of redemption — his positive righteousness as the only ground of title to eternal hfe. He ac- cepted the offices of the Holy Spirit as the only deliverance from the unholiness of the human heart, and the deadly habit growing out of personal sin. These truths he received from the word of God, and saw them reproduced in his own consciousness more and more as his own intuitions were more and more purged into clear vision under the power of grace in his own soul. His view of the sanctity and autho- rity of the law of God, and the righteousness of its prescriptions, was peculiarly strong. His personal religious character was moulded by these strong truths, and partook of their strength. His intuitions were vigorous and steady, his principle of obedience was staunch, his affec- tions undemonstrative, but intense. His apprehension of sin was in proportion to his apprehension of the excellence of divine law; and with all the manifestations of his energy and courage, his jjersonal humihty, his sense of his own faults, were both deep and tender. His piety, modified by the habit of reflection in his professional employ- ments, was profoundly reflective; he studied constantly the phenomena of his own soul under the various phases of his religious experience. Eelying on the truth as the sole instrument of sanctification, he learned much of the false phases of religious feehng bred by error, as well as of the true effects on the moral nature of the truth as it is in Jesus. Ee- lying on the truth, he approved all the legitimate activities of the Christian work growing out of it, and had but small regard for so- called Christian activities growing out of human devices appended to the divine system of ordinances and instrumental means. The thought- ful paper in these volumes on admitting persons to the communion of the chm-ch is a fail* example of this wise reverence for the truth.
His religious character was eminently one of principle, and when clear in his own consciousness of acting under a motive drawn from the teachings of the word of God, he submitted quietly to miscon-
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structious -which, in the censures of good men, touched hhu to the quick. An example of tliis is found in the discussion on Christian Economy, which formulated the pi'inciple in his heart that regulated the man- agement of his property all his life. He was censured as unduly rigid in his economical measures; but he was only obedient to the law of the Master under whom he was a steward; and when the time came for the outgo of these carefully husbanded resources, they flowed as freely imder the same wise regulation. This reign of steadfast prin- ciple gave a force and struggle to Dabney's religious life which can never be imitated without eminent advantage to the cause of rehgion. His ardent, deep-toned, reflective piety gives many an invaluable les- son in these pages. At once steadfast and adventurous for the truth, bowing his ear to the teachings of the Holy Spirit, while his eyes fixed on the written word as the guiding Unes to correct any misapprehen- sion of what was coming to his own intuitions, the author has given many a lesson of such value to his brethren in the ministry, and to the church at large, that it is to be hoped they will not willingly let them die.
The deep and staunch texture of Dr. Dabney's piety is receiving a noble test in his last years. Stone-bhnd, and frequently suffering in- tense pain as his health gives way, he is still doing the full work of the chair of Philosophy in the University of Texas, and of the chair of Theology in the nascent Theological School in Austin, and doing all with such happy cheerfulness as vindicates the grace of God and the trust of his servant in a way to touch the very heart of all who see the noble proof of both.
In his person Dr. Dabney was about six feet high, originally slender, in his middle manhood stalwart and powerful. His complexion was dark, his hair a dark, silky brown, his brow broad, under the large sockets of which a pair of keen black eyes gazed out, his gait without grace, but strong and steady, his lips thin, his nose large and well- formed, the whole face comely and striking to the most casual looker. For many years a flowing brown beard fell from lip, chin and cheek. As a speaker he was direct, plain, clear in thought, and always moved by strong convictions, and frequently eloquent in a high degree. As a preacher his sermons were crammed full of thought, and frequently moving fi'om the deep and sometimes unmastered sensibility they con- tained. He had but few peers in the pulpit of his day. His speeches in the courts of the church were always weighty in their logic, and on occasions when he deemed the truth or the church to be in dansrer from the policy or intrigue of mistaken men, the torrent of argument and passion flowed, fused like the iron and the white heat from the crucible of a furnace. His great work, however, was done with his pen, and a material part of it is now presented to the public in these
XVm BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
collections. The niimber of his publications was veiy large ; the pre- sent series is far from exhausting the catalogue. In the latter part of his life a talent for poetical composition and a disposition to indulge it, of which no susj)icion existed before, has made its appearance. Several of these pieces have been printed in the last few years, exhib- iting the characteristic marks of strong conception and deep feehng under poetical forms, which have illustrated his mastery of English phrase in a direction entirely new. But the most valuable of his nu- merous and diligently elaborated works are to be found in his defences of evangelical truth, and his expositions of the philosophy underlying the gospel system. In these the church is left heir to expositions which will never cease to be of value in its long, stern conflict with the powers of darkness.
The part borne by the nominal editor of these volumes is inten- tionally reduced to a mere supervision. Dr. Dabney speaks for him- self. His life-long friend, whose name appears in a nominal relation to the work, will not quahfy the utterances of a mind so indepen- dent and so fully entitled to speak out its own convictions. He will only say to a certain class of readers, who are not accustomed to a rigid construction of positive argument, that they are following the thought of a thinker so trained to exact discrimination that he does not always explain the exact jDui'pose of his distinctions, and sometimes leaves his reader to discover it for himself. An example will be found in the discussion on the "Various Eeadings of the New Testament Versions." He has been charged with upholding as certain truth the authority of the disputed passage in 1 John v. 7, against the general consent of scholars that it is spurious. He expressly disclaims doing more than keeping this an open question ; but the disclaimer is over- looked in the mass of reasoning which is gathered around the assertion of its probable genuineness. But that j^owerful argument is explicitly designed to keep the question open, and not to affirm the positive canonicity of the disputed paragraph. He does develop the force of the claim to genuineness, so as to justify his pm-pose to keep the ques- tion open until it is more satisfactorily settled. It is easier to sneer at the " antiquated scholarship " of the plea than to set it aside. Yet nothing but a want of attention could fail to see that the author does not claim for it a decisive overthrow of the strong external evidence as now arrayed against it ; he only proves that, in spite of the external evidence, the internal evidence is so strong as to enforce the propriety of its being kept an open question imtil final research has settled it by an external evidence sufficiently powerful to overcome the powerful in- ternal evidence in its favor. Dr. Dabne}' always has a definite object in view in his discussions, and he seldom misses his mark.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. XIX
Hoping that a spirit of impartial candor in those whose views are combatted in these able papers may give fair play to their power for good, they are now committed to the world to run their course, and commended to the acceptance of that Divine Master whose glory they seek in a world full of error.
C. R. Vaughan.
New Pbovidence Manse, May 14, 189U.
PRIXCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
THE liistoiy of the Cliristian world sliows that there has been a wide-spread sensibihty in the consciences of Christians to the sin of indulgence in superfluities. This sensibility has sometimes shown itself in a morbid, and sometimes in a blind,, nndistinguishiug way. Among the mendicant and some mo- nastic orders of the Romish communion, poverty and simplicity of life formed a part of the vows and rules, however little pa]?t they may have had in their practice. Among the churches of the' Reformation we find the Mennonites forbidding, not only all luxuries of dress, equipage and furniture, but even the fine arts and liberal education. The denomination of Quakers, as is well knoA^Ti, practiced a similar sobriety. A part of the original dis- cipline of the Methodists was to enforce a strict renunciation of all the pomps and vanities of the world. These facts indicate that the conscience of the Christian world has had an extensive feeling of the obligation to moderation and self-denial in the use of wealth, though they may prove that this feehng has not been, very well defined nor intelligent.
Several things in the present state of the church induce the belief that there is a strong demand for the discussion and en- forcement of the true principles of Christian economy at this day. These circumstances are the great increase of material wealth, and consequently of luxuries, in civiUzed nations, in con- sequence of the amazing applications of physics to the arts of production ; the obvious and constant progress of genteel society in the style of living ; the strong similarity of rich Christians to rich unbelievers in regard to the style of li\dng; and the pe- cidiar demands of God's cause for pecuniary resources in this, the golden opportunity for evangelical effort.
If the attempt be made to settle the principles of Christian self-denial in expenditures, by .di'awing a line between the part to be appropriated to ourselves and the part to be appropriated
A PEINCIPLES OF CHEISTIAN ECONOMY.
to God, we see not where or how that Hne can be safely drawn. How much revenue has God a right to draw from our posses- sions ? How much is due to us ? What general ratio shall be taken for making the division ? We can see but one scriptural or rational answer which the Christian can make to these questions : Our property is purely a trtist fund, and the whole of it is to he used for the henejit of the owner. There is to be no division at all. There is to be no line drawn between God's portion and our portion. All is God's, and all is to be employed for him. Here is the only true and safe starting-point for deducing our practical rules of Christian expenditure.
The idea of a stewardship is a correct illustration of the nature of the tenure by which we hold our possessions. This is plain from the fact that the Scriptures employ it to illustrate our re- sponsibility for all the means of serving God, and our property among the rest. A steward is one who manages property which does not belong to him. This is just the case with us. The property in our hands is literally God's property. He created it. He preserves it. He calls it his own while it is in our hands. ^' Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thou- sand hills." The most important property of a pastoral people is cattle, and God expressly claims the domesticated cattle, as well as the wild animals Avhich were not appropriated as indi- Tidual possessions. Now, it is the plainest truth in the world, that the steward is to manage the estate committed to him, not for his private advantage or profit, but for that of the owner. The owner, as a just and benevolent man, will of course allow lis steward a competent subsistence out of the estate ; but the profits of the property are his, not his servant's ; and the general aim -with which the whole is managed is to promote his advan- tage.
But the Scripture likens our relation to God to one far closer and stricter than the steward's. We are ourselves God's pro- perty. We belong to him, body and soul, just as truly as the riches which he has lent us. "And ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's" "Also he that is called, be- ing free, is Christ's servant." "Ye also have a Master in lieaven." It is a settled rule of law, that a slave can own no property. Whatever he has, and whatever he may acquire, be-
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 3
long to tlie master to wliom lie belongs, except so far as the master may lend him the nse of it. So we, God's slaves, can own nothing. Hence we argue that if all which is, in human language, most essentially our own, our limbs, our faculties, and the fruits of their exertions — if we ourselves, in the very essence that constitutes our being, belong to God, and ought therefore to be employed for his exclusive use, much more does our property, which is only entrusted to us. Our property may be viewed as one class of material and instruments, lent to us, with which to Avork. Now, of course, if the limbs and faculties, with all the products of their exertions, belong to God, the results of these borrowed tools and materials belong to him by a double right.
The same conclusion follows from all those passages of Scrip- ture in which it is taught that we are to render to God all the ser- vice of which our faculties and circumstances admit. We are to employ all the lawful means within our reach, and to exert every nerve, to serve and glorify him. "For of him, and through him, and to lihn,^XQ all things." "And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." "Whether there- fore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." And Christian love is a feeling eminently practical; "for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." According to these rules, the only limit to the service we are to render to God is the limit of our strength, means and oppor- tunities. In whatever way it is possible for us to do anything, without sin, whereby the glory of God may be promoted, that thing it is our duty to do. We are to serve God xoith all ottr strength. Our property is a part of our strength, and therefore we are to serve him with all our property. It is to be noticed, also, that though no Christian acts up to this perfect rule, yet no true Christian desires or aims at any less. No true peni- tent is satisfied with any imperfection, for imperfection is sin. If, then, there is any part of our property of which it is im- possihle to make any lawful use for the glory of God, that part, and that part alone, we may spend upon ourselves. And where « shall that part be found, when there is so much want, ignorance and sin to be relieved, and while there are so many thousand thirsty channels in which benevolence might flow ?
4 PEINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
It is important also to bear in mind this : it is not enough to be able to say that the use which we make of our property is an innocent one, and has some tendency to promote the glory of God. It is our duty to make the best use of every part of our possessions that is possible in our circumstances. If there was any way within our reach in which our money might have pro- duced more good and more honor to God when we spent it in something innocent, but less beneficial to his service, we have come short of our duty. We have sinned. For the only rule allowed us is to serve him "with all our strength'' We have no right to waste any part of our efficiency.
The principle that we are to use the whole property entrusted to us for the highest advantage of the owner is surely established by superabundant proof. The steps by which the above reason- ings have led us are so simple and short that there can be no hesitation in admitting them, unless hesitation be produced by what is very ob^dous at the first glance, that the principle now established will condemn the habitual conduct of Christians to a woful extent. How few are there who put their hands into their pockets mth a constant and conscientious recollection of their stewardship ! How few earn for God ! How few look around them amidst the demands of God's suffering cause, or suffering poor, for the strongest claim and the best means of glorifying him with their supei-fluous wealth ! Do we not rather look with- in, among the idle desires of vanity or self-indulgence, to see which we shall gratify first, thinking we have been very con- scientious if we 'stop to enquire whether it is innocent ?
We pass now to some specimens of the manner in which this principle applies. And first : it is proper that we should emjjloy so much of God's property as is necessary in our own sustenance* The servant must be duly fed and clothed, in order that he may be able to work for his master. This expenditure is most strictly an expenditure in God's service, since it results in work done for him. And this justifies us, not only in expending on ourselves what is needful to sustain the body, as wholesome food, raiment, and shelter, but also whatever is truly needed to give the highest efficiency to both body and mind for God's service, and whatever truly promotes the noblest development of our, moral qualities. This will include, for instance, that comfort and cleanliness in food and dress, and those recreations and en-
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 5
joyments wliicli are necessary to give the greatest firmness to the muscles and most healthy energy to the animal spirits, food for the mind, such as jiidicions education, good books and use- inl accomplishments, proper medicines and remedies in sickness, and a wholesome and natural cultivation of those tastes which tend to refine and elevate the moral nature. We beheve that neither God's providence nor law has designed that man shall serve him as a dull, over-worked hack, but that the rendering of the highest and best and greatest service is perfectly consistent with man's highest enjoyment of the natural and rational bless- ings of life. The simple and temperate use of all those enjoy- ments strengthens man for his work, by promoting the content- ment and cheerfulness of his feelings. In one word, it is right to expend on ourselves all that will qualify us to serve God -vN-ith the greatest efliciencj-. This is strictly expending God's pro- perty in his own service.
If we are. asked whether this admission can be extended to an allowance of artificial luxuries and the costly refinements of fashionable life, an answer will be found in this question : Can any way be shown in which they make us more efficient servants of God? Do they promote health? No, they are debilitating. Do they cultivate the mind? No, they dwarf it. Do they pro- mote cheerfulness? They are much more fruitful of care and petty jealousies. Are they necessary to give that respectability among men which extends the influence for good? No. Do they promote that humility, that spiritual mind, which are more essential to usefulness than health or animal spirits? Alas! no. Let an honest conscience answer these questions, and an answer is fou.nd for the other.
Second: it is right to employ a part of our Master's pos- sessions in sustaining and rearing the famihes which he has committed to us. Next to the preservation of our own lives, this is the most obligatory of all uses which we are required to make of the property entrusted to us. God's providence points to us as the proper agents for the sustenance of our own families and the training of our children for usefulness, by placing them nearer to us than to any one else. In sustaining his servants and rearing new servants for his use, we are strictly applying his proj)erty to his advantage. And the same remarks made con- cerning the extent of the provision for our own sustenance and
6 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
equipment for service apply to our liouseliolds. We should ex- pend on tliem so much as mil bring their bodies, minds and heaiis to the highest efficiency for God's ser\dce that our cir- cumstances mil permit. But surely we have no right to mis- spend our Master's property in providing for our families luxuries, amusements, fineries, or wealth, which add nothing to their en- ergies, bodily, mental or moral, but, on the contrary, produce vanity, eifeminacy, envy and self-indulgence, and unfit them to "endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ." That this is the tendency of the refinements and luxuries of fashionable life, especially Tvith the young, Avhose characters are in a forming state, is too clear to be disputed. Let this single fact testify, that not only in the church, but in the worldly professions, few of the men who make their mark and serve their generation are reared in the lap of wealth. The useful 7nen, the workingmen of every community, are usually the sons of poverty or of plain mediocrity. To use God's wealth in bestowing such indulgences is a double dishonesty. It embezzles the trust, and it robs him of the services of our children by disqualifying them for active usefulness, A kindred abuse of the trust is committed b}^ those who stint their children of a thorough education for usefulness because so large a portion of their means is appropriated to sel- fish indulgences, or more frequently to the schemes of avarice.
Third : a part of the possessions entrusted to us may be right- fully employed in making a reasonable provision for ourselves and those dependent on us against the contingencies of the future. As the parent is charged now with the sustenance of his children, it is proper that he should lay by in store something to keep them from want when he is taken from them b_\' death. How much of God's property may be rightfully retained for this 2)urpose must be decided in each case by its o^vn circumstances. But this much may be said in general, that we are certainly not justified in lapng up wealth for our children by any considera- tion of our obhgation to God ; for, as experience declares, there is nothing which is so apt to make a young person worthless, both to his Maker and his fellow-men, as a large inheritance. How, then, can we be right in abstracting a large part of that trust which we are bound to use wholly for God's glory, and employ- ing it to destroy the usefulness of one of his creatures? The rule proper to men of large wealth seems to be this : that they
PRIXC'IPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 7
shall set apart for tliose dependent persons wlioui tliey sliall leave behind them a comfortable maintenance, and appropriate the rest to the glor j of God. Or, if they leave more than this in the hands of their heirs, it should be with the express under- standing that those heirs shall take it only as the successors in their stewardship. Where there is a reasonable j)robability that the heir will not be faithful to this trust, the parent has no right to bequeath him the surplus property above a competency, whether the unfaithfulness of the heir arise from wasteful- ness or avarice. ^Tiat would be thought of a steward who, when compelled to take a long journey and to employ a substi- tute in his trust, should entrust his master's property to a hand known to be faithless { So the steward of God, going that journey from which he will never return, has no right to commit his Master's possessions to faithless hands because those hands happen to be his son's. He should himself appropriate his siu'- plus wealth to its 0"svner's use before he goes hence. There is nothing which more betrays the defective views of Christian men concerning their property than the manner in which they be- queath it. How few are there who remember, in making a ^^dll, that the possessions of which they are about to dispose do not heloiig to tJiem, and that the utmost they can presume to do, as Christians, is to appoint successors to themselves in their stew- ardship ? If they wittingly appoint an unfaithful one from their weak pai-tiality, they are themselves unfaithful stewards. How shall they be able to stand up in judgment and "give an account of their stewardship," when its last act has been to place the trust in a defaulter's hands ? When the conscience of the church is properly awakened and enlightened on this point, there will be more instances like those rare and honorable ones of which we occasionally hear, when Christians who are en- trusted with much wealth will bequeath more of it to pious and charitable uses than to their children.
Those who have any property remaining after these three law- fid deductions are made are required obviously, by our prin- ciples, to use it in doing good. The particular modes in which wealth may be made to promote the glory of its owner, God, are exceedingly various ; and the choice in each case must be left to the conscience of the individual steward. But there Avill be no danger of serious mistake if the sincere purpose in every case is
8 I'KINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ErOXO:\rY.
to use all oiir possessions for tlie highest gloiy of God. And let the truth be again impressed, that, as we are commanded to love and serve God "with all our strength, it is not enough to be able to say that the object we have selected for the expenditxn^e of any surplus wealth is innocent and has some tendency to honor God. Our duty is not done till we have conscientiously selected that object by which our expenditure 'wdll do the highest honor to God and good to his creatures that are "uithin our reach.
It now requires Httle argument to show that the whole hst of supei-fluities, fashionable indulgences, and extravagances, is cut off. N^o Christian, no man, can expend his Master's wealth upon them without committing sin. For we might even admit that a multitude of these extravagances were innocent, that they had some tendency to refine the taste ; in a word, we might admit all that the softest luxury could plead in theii' behalf ; and yet, while it is true that there are other ways open, in the pro^^dence of God, in which wealth may do a higher good, it is a sin and a waste to spend any of it in superfluities. Who does not know that there are thousands of ways for doing that higher good with wealth in this world of want and ignorance ? And the greater the contrast between the beneficence and utihty of these works of mercy and the supposed advantages of these selfish super- fluities, the clearer is the sin of indulging them. Some may ask, What is superfluity, and what is extravagance? AYe do not at all dispute that to draw the line between the allowable com- foits of life and sinful extravagance, by a general rule fitting every particular case, may be impossible. But it is not at all necessary to draw such a line. All that is necessary is to establish in the consciences of men sound principles on this subject, and in their hearts the supreme love of God. The particulars Anil then easily take care of themselves.
But it will not be diflicult to illustrate the subject by a number of instances, which are clearly on the AVT^ong side of the supposed line, and in which multitudes of wealthy Christians will find them- selves clearly condemned. TMien a Christian man, who has pro- fessed to dedicate himself and his all, body, soiil and^ estate, to the highest glory of God and love of his fellow-creatui'es, passes by the hundreds of starnng poor and degraded sinners around him, the thousands of ignorant at home, and the millions of per- ishing heathen, whom his money might instriimentally rescue
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 9
from hell-fire, and sells for a song his safe, strong, comfortable family carriage, and expends hundreds in procuring another, be- cause his rich neighbor is about to outstrip him in this article of equipage ; or when he sacrifices his plate and china to buy new at a great cost, because the style of the old was a little past ; or when he pulls down his commodious dwelling to expend thousands in building another, because the first was unfashionable ; is not this sinful waste ? Wlien hundreds and thousands of God's money are abstracted from the wants of a perishing world, for which the Son of God died, to purchase the barbaric finery of jewelry, as offensive to good taste as to Christian economy, jewelry which keeps out no cold l)last in winter, and no scorching heat in sum- mer, which fastens no needful garment and promotes no bodily comfort, is not this extravagance ? When large sums of money are expended on exotics not half so pretty as a clover blossom nor so fragrant as a common apple-tree flower, whose only merit is that no other lady in town has obtained one, what is this but extrav- agance? We are deeply convinced that if our principle of self- dedication were honestly carried through the usages and indul- gences of fashionable society, a multitude of common superfluities Avould be cut off. Indeed, we doubt not that the depth to which it would cut, and the extent to which it would convict the fashion- able Christian world (^f delinquency, would be the grand argument against it.
In a v.'ord, the awakening of the ' Christian conscience of the church to the truth, and to its duty, would reduce all Christians to a life of comfortable simplicity, embellished, among those who possessed taste, by natural and inexpensive elegance, and all else would be retrenched. The whole of that immense wealth now sacrificed to luxury would be laid on the altar of rehgious be- nevolence, or devoted to works of public utility. The real polite- ness and true refinements of life would be only promoted by the change. Every useful branch of education, all training by which mind and body are endued with a higher efiiciency for God's service, would be secured, cost what it might. Every truly en- nobling taste would receive a simple and natural cultivation. But the material luxuries and adornments of life would be sternly retrenched, and Christian society would be marked in dress, in equipage, in buildings, sacred and domestic, in food, and in every other sensuous gratification, by a Spartan simpHcity, united with
10 PKINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
a pure and cliaste decency. Wealth woidd be held as too sacred a trust to expend any part of it m anything which was not truly necessary to the highest glory of God in the rational and spirit- ual welfare of his creatures, our fellow-men.
As has been before indicated, every one will perceive that such an appHcation of the principles of Christian economy would bring about a great revolution in the manners of our Christian people. Even well-meaning Christians who are possessed of wealth every- where allow themselves a vastly wider license and act on far different principles. We shall therefore beg leave to pursue the discussion of this part of the subject farther, and suggest other reasons for carrjdng our Christian sobriety to the extent indi- cated.
And first, we strongly urge that some principle far stricter than that on which Christians usually act is imperatively demanded, to remove the reproach of worldly conformity. The external likeness of the church to the world is the bane of our efficiency in saving souls. We profess a difference between ourselves and the unrenewed, as radical as that between light and darkness, almost as wide as that between heaven and hell. But in all the visilile and practical concerns which interest the unrenewed heart, we nearly resemble them. Our words say that we believe riches to be vanity and emptiness. Our acts seem to say that we love and seek them as intensely as those do who make them their all and their god. We say in words that "we have here no continuing city," but in act are as eager to adorn our dwellings here as though they were our only home. We profess that we have richer and nobler enjoyments than the pomp of this life, and then swell and rustle with as much pomp as any other human insect of a day. Wliat is the result ? The world believes our conduct and not our words, hke a shrewd world as it is. Prac- tical skepticism seals their consciences against the teachings of the pulpit. Our worldly conformity gives the lie to all our as- sertions of nobler principles, of the birth of a new and higher nature, and of the treachery of earthly good. However inefficient the world's conscience may be to control its own sins, it is abun- dantly acute to perceive the demands of consistency ; and men feel that those who have the hopes and principles, those who acknowledge the tremendous obligations to a dying world of brethren, which Christians profess, ought to use their wealth in
PEINCIPLES OF CHEISTIAN ECONOMY. 11
a manner utterly unlike the world. When they see us use it on the same selfish aud grovelling principles with themselves, the inevitable impression, unacknowledged it may be, in the con- sciousness of those who were trained to respect religion, but yet potent and blighting in all, is that religion is a "sham." But now let Christians seek and use wealth wholly for God. Let them show by their conscientious simplicity of indulgence and conscientious alms-doings that they have conquered that covet- ousness which worldly men feel to be their strongest passion, and could calmly place their feet upon those indulgences and vanities which worldly men feel to be their highest pleasures; and the world will own, with conviction and reverence, that Christianity is a living, a lovely and fearful thing. The world will at least believe that Christians believe that there is a heaven, a hell, and a strict day of account. The world will be convinced at least that Christians believe their perishing fellow- men have souls to be saved, worth a little more than fashionable eclat, jewelry and equipage. Men will at least believe that we are earnest in our warnings.
In this connection it may be remarked, that the extent to which the worldly conformity of the church follows on the heels of the advancing luxuries of the world, plainly indicates that something is wrong with us. Every age has added to the wealth of civilized societies, and every generation, nay, every year, the style of ex- penditures advances. More costly dwellings are built. What were commodious aud respectable mansions a few years ago, are now dragged away as so much rubbish ; and if Providence per- mits our much-abused wealth still to increase, the places we now build will be pulled down to make room for the more luxurious palaces of our children. New and unheard-of indulgences are invented. What our fathers regarded as luxuries almost extrav- agant, we have accustomed ourselves to look upon as ordinary comforts, almost despised for their cheapness. More capricious wants are indulged; more costly articles of adornment are in- vented. And, as if to repudiate in the most direct and expres- sive mode every remnant of the obligations of sobriety, costliness has become the very element of fashion. Because the ornament is monstrously expensive, in proportion to its true utility, there- fore it is* sought. Now, let extravagance of expenditure take as enormous strides as it will, the indulgence of Christians follows
12 PEINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
close on its heels. No species of adornment, however outrage- ously wasteful; no imaginary indulgence, however capricious, has become fashionable, but rich Christians have soon proceeded to employ it almost as commonly as the world. Some of the most enormously luxurious dwellings are those occupied by Christian families. The most extravagant finery is often seen on Christian backs. Now, where is this to stop ? Do the prin- ciples on which Christians now expend God's possessions fix no hmit any where f If they do not, they must be erroneous. Let us see some line drawn beyond which artificial and imaginary wants are not to encroach on the claims of our stewardship. No such line exists. On the present principles of the church, lux- urious expenditure has before it the prospect of indefinite pro- gress. And let it be observed, that those who ride on the flood- tide of extravagance are not merely those inconsistent persons whose piety is under grievous suspicions on all hands, liut often they are those who stand fair and are much esteemed in the church. Now, if it shall be objected to the principles here ad- vocated that there will be no limit to their fair and legitimate apphcation till they reduce us to a cynical rudeness of life, the just retort is, that to the opposite principles on which the Chris- tian w^orld usually acts there is no limit. They will admit one extravagance after another, on the plea of usage and the customs of society, and the innocence of the particular indulgence in itself, to the utmost extent to wdiich an apostate world may please to run in its waste of God's abused bounties. Hence it is evi- dent that there must be error in those principles. And let any one attempt to go back and review them, comparing them with the principles of the Bible in order to eliminate that error, and he will find that there is no rational or scriptural stopping place short of the strict rule we have advocated.
Another reason for the application of this strict rule is found in the prevalence of covetousness in the church. Much has been said, and justly said, concerning this sin, and the opposite virtue of Christian liberality, recently. The religious w'orld has rung with denunciations of prize tracts, some of which have proclaimed covetousness to be the master sin of the church. This may be true or untrue. It is sufficient for our purpose to say, what everybody will admit, that it is a sin prevalent and ruinous to a fearful extent. Now, we believe that the great spur to covetous-
PEINCIPLES OF CHKISTIAN ECONOMY. 13
uess, in the general, is this cnstom of fashionable expenditure prevalent in the Christian world. That the fiercest covetousness must usually be the result of prodigality has been clearly seen, at least since Sallust's well known character of Cataline was writ- ten, "Alie?ii appete?is, Sniprqfusus, ardens in cupid'dlhusr And we suppose that, usually, the craving for gain is the child of a craving to spend. Few examples of the actual miser present themselves, where coin is hoarded and gloated over and loved for its own sake. Money is usually valued inordinately, because men's hearts inordinately desire the supposed style, edat, and distinction of fashionable expenditure which wealth will enable them to attain. But now, could the pulpit and the religious press only succeed in establishing correct sentiments of Christian economy in the public opinion of the religious world ; could all useless expenditure in a Christian be set in the same inconsistent and odioT^is light in which cards and dancing are usually regarded by Presbj^terians, the sinews of covetousness in the church would be cut. The usual motive to covetousness would no longer exist with any who regarded their good name ; because that expendi- tiu'e could not be indulged for which large wealth is coveted. Were those who made large gains compelled to regard them as gains made for God, the instances of rapacity would be as rare as the instances in which servants and apprentices are found too industrious in earning money for their masters.
The nature of the motives by which luxurious expenditures are prompted, one would think, ought to be sufficient to reveal the inconsistency of all such indulgences in Christians. Very inno- cent and plausible motives may be feigned, and in some cases may be truly felt ; as when men say that they are only filling the obUgation of their stations and complying with the demands of genteel society in living expensively. There may be some who persuade themselves that this is their feeling. But it is very plain that the usual motives of expensive living are self-indul- gence and sensuality, ostentatious pride, cowardly weakness and dread of the charge of singularity, petty rivalry, and personal vanity. Are these motives which Christians ought to foster? Surely they are utterly at war with the humility and spirituality which our Saviour commands. It is our constant duty to choke them and watch against them ; and were expensive living per- fectly innocent and free from other objection, the fact that it
14 PEINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
ministers to feelings so vile would require us to shun it. The mere fact that it was often the minister of these unholy and con- temptible sentiments in other minds should lead us to shun it, though as 3-et unconscious of their taint. We are told to pray, " Lead us not into temptation." If we would not be hypocrites, oui' conduct must be conformed to our prayers.
A reference to the views which prevailed in former ages con- cerning the e^dl effects of luxury A^•ill suggest another considera- tion. The time was when wise heathens and vrise Christians alike looked upon luxury as a vice in itself — a thing which emas- culated the hardihood and energy of the character, stimulated all the "sdces, as tropical heat and moisture force up the vegeta- tion of a wealthy soil, and unfitted man for usefulness. Wise legislators excluded luxury as the bane of commonwealths and as a crime unworthy of manhood. Historians constantly pointed at the luxury which accumulated wealth had provoked as the cause of Persian imbecihty, of Grecian decline, and of the down- fall of imperial Rome. Senates made repeated attempts to re- strain it by sumptuary laws ; attempts which were vain indeed, and ill-judged, but which evinced the reality of the evil. The plain, good sense of the olden times pointed out the stubborn fact, which men had not then learned to dodge by a deceitful philosophy, that luxurious expenditures, in wasting the labor of working hands and the products of labor, must be ruinous to pubUc wealth. What has now become of these old-fashioned facts and truths ? How is it that a Christian ethics, in a Chris- tian age, professing to be unspeakably pui'er than all pagan sys- tems, is silent concerning a A^ce which old jjagan Sparta and Rome reprobated? How is it that Christian people indulge, without a whisper of disapprobation or a fi"OA\Ti of jDublic opin- ion, in luxuries more elaborate than those which even a polished Cicero denounced as disgusting and contaminating in the young men of licentious Rome ? How is it that it has become proper, and manly, and wise, for the soldiers of the cross, who ought to be girded for the ten-ific war -with " principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places," to soften their effemi- nate limbs with indulgences which would have been shameful and ruinous in the secular soldier or athlete ? It passes our wit to tell ! To us, who remember how Paul commanded "to crucify the flesh -mth. the affections and lusts," how he set the example
PEINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECOXOMY. 15
of "keeping under liis body and bringing it into subjection," and liow lie lias charged us " to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ," how every Christian has dedicated himself, pro- fessedly, soul and body, to a tremenduous conflict, for a stake which is composed of his own soul, Avorth more than a world, and a world of immortal souls like his ; to us it does seem that every indulgence which diminishes the hardihood and self-denial of the man, or unnerves him for the strife, is a crime and a trea- son, leaving out of view the waste it causes of the material, means for carrying on the great cause. Do the fashionable indulgences now common among rich Christians have this eJBfect ? Let the fact before referred to give the answer, that the worJvhuj men of the age are usually the sons of simple mediocrity.
And not only are these indulgences objectionable as weaken- ing to the Christian character, but they waste the attention and time of those Avho love them. He who goes to warfare should not encumber himself mth much baggage. The true soldier has no time to provide gorgeous caparisons for his horse and drapery for his own limbs. All that he can take care of is to have his weapons in fighting order. All else is an incumbrance. When Darius and Alexander met at Arbela, the Macedonian phalanx was horrid Avitli brass and iron. The only things which glittered along tlie sturdy ranks were the deadly j)oints of the pikes and the sword-blades. But the half-armed men and horses of the Persian came sweating under gorgeous draperies of worsted and purple and gold, which swept the earth. Which conquered ? Of Frederick the Great, Macaulay says :
' ' Some young Englishmen of rank proposed to visit Germany as volunteers, for tte purpose of learning the art of war under the greatest of commanders. This last proof of British attachment and admiration Frederick politely but firmly de- clined. His camp was no place for amateur students of military science. The Prussian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The officers, while in the field, were expected to practice an abstemiousness and self-denial such as were hardly surpassed by the most rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, however high their rank in the service, they were not permitted to eat from anything better than pewter. It was a high crime even in a count and field-marshal to have a sin- gle silver spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and luxury, would not easily submit to these Spartan restraints ; and the king could not venture to keep them in order as he kept his own subjects in order.
Thus act the children of this world, who are wise in their gen- eration. And thus should act the children of light. They should
16 PRINCIPLES OP CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
be too busy iu tlie service of tlieir king to have a tliouglit for gewgaws, and too anxious for efficiency to burden tliemselves with superfluities.
But, after all, the most plain and direct reason for strict sim- plicity of expenditure is found in the fact that God has conde- scended to make wealth an instrument for promoting his cause, and in the urgent demands of that cause. When we consider the good that money may do, if prayerfully devoted to God's service, and the good that needs to be done, how can any one who professes to aim to love God with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself, waste any portion of it in any thing ap- proaching superfluity? Let those to whom God has entrusted wealth, think how many destitute families there may be within tlieir reach, who suffer acute anxieties and many destitutions from poverty, to whom a little aid would l)ring unspeakable re- lief and thankfulness. Let them think how many agencies of good near them, how many Sabbath-schools, how many poor ministers, are crippled by want of pecuniary means. Let them listen to the continual prayer of all our missionary departments for more means. Let them remember the almost countless plans and schemes of beneficence, devised by pious zeal, in which nfoney may promote the glory of God and the good of man. Let them cast their eyes around a perishing world, where hun- dreds of millions are hurrying, in one generation, to eternal, irreparable destruction for lack of the gospel, and remenilier that money can be employed as an agency to assist in their rescue, and that their alms-giving can now be borne speedily to any remote and destitute spot on the wide field of death. And then let them ask themselves, with the cry of a perishing world in their ears, and that dread account in their eye where we must answer for having done our utmost for the rescue of our race, whether they have anything to spare for superfluities. Is it enough, when this tremendous destitution stands before us, that we shall be able to say that we have made contributions to all the usual objects of Christian alms-giving, and contributions liberal, according to the public opinion of a perverted and selfish world, while stores of wealth still remain to be wasted on objects which are required by no rational want? No, it is not enough. We have not done our duty till we have looked above and beyond the grovelling standard of self-indulgence, and have exerted the
PEINCirLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 17
full efficiency of all that God lias entrusted to us, be it units or millions.
Could the church but be brought up to its duty, possessing as it does in all Protestant lands so large a share of the world's wealth, how would Zion prosper? While no true comfort of life would be deducted, and no rational and wholesome enjoy- ment lost among the rich, while the true dignity and refinement of society would he only promoted, how would the Lord's vine- yard flourish? Our missionary boards, staggering under the burdens of perishing millions at home and abroad, would no longer groan for aid, but would thank God and take courage. Instead of crying for means to feed their poor, half-sustained and faithful workmen, with overflowing treasuries they would call for willing hands to approach and employ the bounty of the pious. How many hearts among the poor would sing for joy ? How many useful hands and heads would be raised from ob- scurity and poverty, and made fruitful of good to their fellow men ? The church would again advance on her grand mission of evangelism, with a power and speed fulfilling the prophetic vision of the Apocalypse, " aii angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to every nation, and kin- dred, and people, and tongue."
Protestants look upon the Bible as their complete and suffi- cient rule of duty. Hence our readers may feel that, after rep- resenting Christian economy as so strictly binding, and superflu- ous expenditures for things not in themselves necessarily sinful, as so clearly a sin, we should be able to show that the Bible is not silent on this subject. It is to be observed, however, that the Bible never promised to give a specific precept for every de- tail of duty. It is a complete rule of life, in laying down princi- ples and precepts which, by clear and easy application, will direct us in all the details of duty. We refer our readers, accordingly, to the scriptural truths from which we set out, and demand if our application of those truths was not fair, easy and obvious. If it was, this is enough. But we are not compelled to fall back on such a reference by any dearth of specific precepts in the Bible. In Luke, xiv. 12, our Saviour expressly asserts the prin- ciple, that the rich should refrain from ostentatious and unneces- sary hospitalities to their equals, in order to be able to relieve the truly destitute. We see not how one who l)elieves in plenary
Vol. I.— 2.
18 TRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOin'.
inspiration, and who reverences the word of Scripture too much to tamper with its fair meaning, can make this passage anything else than an explicit prohibition of unnecessary expenditure in liospitalites. And this, too, is one of the most generous, gi-aceful and popular modes of expenditui-e ; the form of extravagance which men would regard as most " leaning to virtue's side." 1 Timothy and 1 Peter forbid Christian females to indulge in "gold, pearls, broidered or plaited hair, and costly array." A most sensible expositor has well remarked, that the prohibition would of course liave been extended to the stronger sex had not the apostles taken it for granted that manliness alone would be a sufficient safeguard against such follies in them. Now, we by no means exalt the letter over the spirit so far as to interpret the apostles as meaning that curled hair would be innocent while braided hair was sinful, or to interpret them as placing obedience to the precept in the shunning of those particular follies there men- tioned. But a fair interpretation cannot avoid this conclusion, that the two apostles concur in exphcitly forbidding personal adornment "ndth means expensive, either of time or money, as a thing inconsistent with Christian character. We are all aware that an accommodating exegesis has frequently come to the aid of fashionable Christianity in attempting to whittle away the j)oint of the precepts. And among others, a recent WT.-iter has politely come to the rescue, in remarking upon the passage from Peter, by representing the gist of the apostle's meaning as this : that Christian wives may wear these foUies ; he, of course, does not condescend either to allow or forbid things so innocent, and unessential and trifling; but if they wear them, they rnvst not re- gard them as their ornaments. We think it reply enough to ask, for what should the good ladies wear them, then ? We feel sure that the female mind at least "udll concur wdth us in saying, that to forbid the wearing of any costly array as ornament will be a very efficient, practical prohibition of wearing it at all. Once compel people to regard it as no adornment, and they will not troul)le themselves to put it on. Let the reader also consult 1 John ii. 16.
The remainder of these remarks ^\ill be devoted to considering the most common objections w^hich are made against the princi- 2Dles we have advocated, and in justification of expensive habits. In this negative form some ideas may perhaps be introduced
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 19
wliich. are of great importance as positive supports of our views.
We are well aware that the prompt objection against what we have said ^ill be this : that if the principles we have advocated Avere carried out to their fair extent they would cut oft' every- thing but the baldest necessaries of life and reduce society to a Gothic rudeness. Every man who would be truly consistent must be a Diogenes. The same rule which would forbid the ex- pensive refinements of the most wealthy, if justly applied, would also cut off the cheaper refinements of middle life, and would re- duce man to just so much clothing as would cover his nakedness, and that of the coarsest quality which would suffice. The very buttons on the backs of our coats must be cut oft' and thrown into a missionary box, because they can button nothing. And thus, as our principles prove too much, they prove nothing.
Now, what is all this but an argument to our ignorance and our prejudices? It does not disprove the Scripture rule, but only announces fear of it, lest it should cut deeper than the self- indulgence and weakness of the objectors possibly can or will endure. Grant that the rule, when strictly applied, should cut off all the refinements now common in Christian societ}', it might only prove that society has gone exceedingly far astray from its duty, (a ver}- possible supposition, at least with those who believe in the universal depravity of human nature,) and not that the rule was false. Suppose that those who support this rule in theory, and among others the author of these remarks, should be found un^villing to follow it to the extent of cutting the buttons off the backs of their coats. It might onlj- prove that their conduct was inconsistent with their principles, and not that their principles vrere wrong.
But a further and entirely satisfactory explanation of the ob- jection will be found by recurring to what was said in defining the allowable and proper subsistence of one of God's servants. In order that he may be fitted to work most efficiently for his Master, that substance should include, not only supplies for his immediate bodily necessities, but all that promotes the most noble and perfect development of the bodily, mental and moral man. Neat and decent apparel, lodging, food, are necessaries of life, not indeed of animal existence, but of that dignified, rational and moral existence by which God's servant is able to glorify him and
20 PRINCIPLES OF CIHKISTIAN ECONOMY.
bless his fellow-men. The natural and useful accomphsliments of life are necessaries of life. They are necessary to that highest style of man by which most good is done and most honor rendered to the jjower of Christianity. And we do assert that the distinction between that sordid manner of life which sacrifices one's useful- ness by inevitably incurring constant ridicule, contempt and dis- like, and a chaste and strict simplicity, is a distinction perfectly easy to all except those who do not wash to see it. There is an extreme of simplicity in dress and living to which any man of truly respectable qualities may go without incurring inconvenient notoriety as an oddity, and without incurring necessary contempt. This is evident from the Spartan example of many noble men, of whom we may mention John Howard and Chief- Justice Marshall. And we do assert again, that this extreme of simplicity lies far, far beyond the customary style which the average of rich Christians now allow themselves. Tliere lies the 'projier line. Any man whose heart is right can find it.
The objection we have described might be sufficiently removed even by considerations of pecuniary economy. We do not dress in blankets and live in shanties because true economy forbids it. The coarse fabric will become so worn as to admit the assaults of weather and disease so much sooner than the moderately fine and substantial cloth, that it is true economy to wear the latter. It might be possible to live in a shanty of boards ; but this shanty would require to be so perpetually patched and renewed that, in the end, it would prove more expensive than a substantial brick house. And again, good taste costs no money when allowed its true, natural and chaste developments. Economy itself having dictated that we shall select for a covering a moderately good cloth, we 'discover that it is actually less wasteful to cut this cloth into decent and comely shape than to make a clownish botch of it. The parent of six children observes that health and decency and chastity require that his dwelling shall contain a given number of chambers. And when this is determined, he will find that a true architectural taste is j)erfectly at one wdth economy. To adopt a chaste and graceful outline for his build- ing, in which every essential element of the construction shall be an ornament, and no ornament shall be superfluous, to protect his materials wdth good paint, to employ skilful mechanics who will keep out the weather by making good joints, all this is as
PRINCIPLES OP CHKISTIAN ECONOMY. 21
necessary to procuring the requisite cubic feet of house room, at the cheapest ultimate cost, as it is to true architectural taste. And anything more expensive than this is as tnily a sin against j)ure taste as it is a sin against Christian economy.
We have thus passed to the discussion of what we had marked doM'n as the second objection : that so stern a simplicity would cut off the indulgence and education of all the refining tastes. This objection proceeds upon the postulate, that wherever our Creator has implanted native and instinctive propensities in us, their very existence shows that there must be some innocent and proper indulgence for them somewhere. Thus : it was he who implanted hunger ; there must be, therefore, some indulgence of the appetite which does not partake of the sin of gluttony. It was God who implanted the capacity for feeling indignation ; there must be, therefore, such a thing as " being angry and sin- ning not." If every possible exercise of the propensity had been sinful, a holy Creator would not have implanted it. But surely this does not imply that every indulgence to which the perverted jDropensity may attach itself is therefore innocent. Is there, then, nothing by which those instinctive and refining tastes for the graceful and beautiful in form, color, and sound may be gratified, except the "costly array" of luxury? If we condemn as sinful waste the employment of a company of foreign mu- sicians, at a cost ten-fold greater than that which would pro- cure the labors and talents of the noblest waniors and statesmen to the nation, or at a price sufficient to feed all the starving poor of a commonwealth, shall we be charged with banishing every indulgence of musical taste when we leave to men the music of nature, of singing birds, and babbling brooks, and sighing winds, the sweet symphony which comes up with the morning breeze from the lowing kine, mixed with the ploughman's mellow song as he lounges fieldward, and the cooing of the dove in the dewy tree-top ? Shall we be accused of banishing music when we leave men the inexpensive but sweet domestic concert, the song of praise to God, and the soft harmonies of children's voices? And if we forbid men to waste God's precious treasures in bar- baric fineries of dress, or building, or equipage, shall we be ac- cused of robbing them of all that is beautiful in form and tinge, when we leave them the countless beauties of sky, and earth, and sea? No. We admit that a proper cultivation of these
22 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
tastes lias a tnie tendency, thougli, where nnaccompanied A^itli better agencies, a most weak and insufficient tendency, to elevate man's sonl. Bnt tlieir proper and beneficial cultivation is by tlie enjoyment of the beauties and harmonies of nature. The arti- ficial and expensive pursuit of the fine arts, as it is seen in lux- urious society, tends only to substitute in place of true sensibility a nauseous affectation of taste, concealing a callousness as truly brutal as that of the Yandal. The truest and most wholesome indulgences of taste are those which nature presents to us at least cost. Luxurious indulgences deprave this capacity of our souls as truly as they waste God's property.
Again, in support of expensive living we often hear a great deal said about " the style proper to one's standing in society." And such a style is represented as necessary to distinguish the different ranks in society. The truth lies in just the opposite direction. This is just one of the chiefest social byHb resulting from luxury, that it assists in confounding the proper distinctions of society. When expensiveness of living becomes the index of rank and gentility, then whoever can procure wealth, by fair means or foul, claims that rank. Thus, by this very boasted means of keeping up the proper distinctions of society, vulgar and ignorant persons are admitted into the society of the pure and well-informed, and that vilest and most despicable of all aristocracies, an aristocracy of wealth, is introduced. The con- sequence is, that the coarseness and low principles of the rich boors are diffused through all the circle into which their luxu- riousness has introduced them. And an unrighteoiis standard of admission is erected, which excludes humble worth, and talent, and taste, because united ^^dth poverty. But if extravagance were disreputable and were banished from professedly "\drtuous society, if the rich practiced a simplicity of li-sing equally attain- able by all of moderate means, the distinctions of society would necessarily be dra^\Ti by some other criterion than wealth. They cannot possibly be drawn by any other so base and in- jurious.
But let lis admit that the principle claimed is correct. Let us suppose that there ought to be gradations of expenditiu'e ac- cording to the possessions and social position. The Christian who professes the obligation to use all liis property for the glory of God surely ought not to assume any higher grade of expendi-
PKINCIPLES OF CHEISTIAN ECONOMY. 23
tiu'e than is really necessary to maintain his social position. Surely lie should not expend for this object, granting its pro- jDriety, more of God's wealth than is necessary, when so much is needed for the cause of God and our perishing fellow-meu. Now let us take, for the sake of example, some one grade of wealth aijd social standing. Let it be the hundred thousand dollar men. Among this class several will be found who, either from prudence, or covert avarice, or from a sort of very sensible lazi- ness, which is unwilhng to be fatigued with pomp, spend far less than the average of their peers. They are not sordid, but they live far within their means and beneath the expenditure of simi- lar men around them. Every large society presents such in- stances. Now, are these men ostracized by their class ? Is their social j)osition compromised ? Is there any lack of respect when the}^ enter the society of their equals ? Not at all. The fact then proves that a higher grade of expenditure than theirs is not necessary for any social advantage. Why, then, cannot all Christians of a similar grade of wealth stop at their limit of ex- penditure ? Even upon the mistaken grounds upon which we argue, all that goes beyond this is clearly sin. It is waste and perversion of a trust that should have been sacred to noble and blessed ends. All know how far rich Christians, even those whose religious character stands fair, go beyond that Une of supposed social necessity as it is drawn by the actual facts of society. Even by this imperfect rule a great dereliction fi^om. Christian economy is proved upon the church of this day.
There is another justification for luxury which assumes a pro- founder air, and proceeds upon pretended grounds of political economy. It is claimed that "luxurious expenditures on the part of those who have wealth are, in fact, beneficent to the community, by encouraging and employing and paying the in- dustry of all who produce those luxuries. "Such expenditure," it is said, "is the legitimate means for distributing again the ac- cumulations of wealth, so that they may circulate for the com- mon good. The rich man, therefore, who, without immoral dissipations, expends a splendid income in splendid living, is fulfilling a public duty." We unhesitatingly assert that he is a public curse. His splendid living may, in one sense, " distribute " coin or bank notes, but it is a whirlpool that absorbs and de- stroys public wealth, and his luxuries, instead of encouraging
24 I'RI^'CIPLES OP CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
and rewarding indvistiy, only pervert it and misdirect it. We will explain.
It is the most ^iilgar delusion to suppose that coin or bank notes are public wealth. Every college boy knows that they are only the conventional representatives of wealth. The wealth of the community consists in the productions of the skill and labor of its citizens, exerted on material nature. If a ploughman ex- pends a year's work in raising five hundred bushels of corn, that corn is a j)art of the public wealth. If an artisan expends a year's work in making a trinket worth five hundred bushels of corn, that trinket is pubHc wealth. If the five hundred bushels of corn are exchanged with a foreign merchant for a basket or two of costly wine, that vdne is a part of the public wealth. But if that trinket or wine is bought by some rich citizen for money, the community is no richer than before. The piu'chaser now has the item of wealth, and the seller has in its stead some coins Avhich are not wealth, brtt which, being the established represen- tative of wealth, will serve him to produce him some other item of wealth when he pleases. Now let us suppose that this rich purchaser thrusts a hole through his daughter's ear with an awl and sticks this trinket in it, where it is finally lost, or becomes worthless through change of fashion ; or that he drinks up this wine at a splendid entertainment, then there is a positive and ir- reparable loss of public wealth. This item is forever consumed, and has left no equivalent behind it. A year's work of an indus- trious citizen is consumed. And the skill, industry and time of its laboring citizens are the true wealth of a community, because they alone produce wealth. The money which this rich man paid for the year's work, which has been destroyed, is not a sub- stitute for its value to the community, because the community before possessed both the money and the commodity ; now it has only the money. Every luxurious indulgence is therefore de- structive of public w^ealth. As all political economists know, it is u)iproductive consuraptioii. The idea on which the old sumj)- tuary laws were partly founded, that every luxurious expenditure tends to impoverish the country, is a stubborn fact.
Let us look also at "the encouragement of industry" which such expenditures produce. We have said, what none can dis- pute, that the true wealth of a nation consists in the time, skill and labor of its working citizens. The public welfare, so far as
PKINCIi'LES OF CHRISTIAX ECONOMY. 25
it is corporeal, consists iu an adequate supply of all the objects required by man's actual and natural wants for all the people. A certain total of those objects, such as food, clothing, etc., vriR be necessary annually to provide for all its citizens. JToic, the only source froin irJiich the nation can clraic this supply is the an- na al industry of its own citizens (unless, indeed, it is engaged in predator}^ warfare). Some of the articles of that supply may be imported from abroad; but if so, these impoiis are produced, not with money, but with some product of the nation's own in- dustry. International commerce must always be, in the main, a barter. A ceiiain number of the working hands of the nation must therefore be e-sddently employed annually in the production of the supply for the natural and necessary wants of the whole people. If too few hands are employed, the supply becomes in- adequate, and those who are least able to buy at increased prices siiffer want. Now it is very plain, that if many of the working hands of the nation are turned aside from the production of these suppUes for real wants, to producing the objects of imagi- nary and artificial wants, by the seduction of better wages from the rich, the result is an inadequate supply of sohd values, and suffering and misery at the other extreme of society. The per- version of industry may result in an increase to the individual laborer in the shape of larger money wages, Ijut the inevitable result to the nation at large is a deficiency of the necessaries of life and consequent misery to the laboring class in general. Money fills no hungry stomach and clothes no shivering back of itself. It is only the representative of other things which do. We will illustrate. Let us suppose that the increase of luxiuy causes the transference of a thousand laboring hands from the production of corn or other actual values which the nation bar- tered for foreign corn to the production of plate and jewelry. Their wages as farm laborers were fifty cents per day, and their wages as artisans are now one dollar per day. The change has seemed to result in advantage to these thousand laborers, be- cause their wages are better. But the total result is that there is thus much less corn in the nation to feed it, and the price of corn rises, and as many people suffer for bread as were formerly supplied by the industry of these thousand men. And the use of the plate and jewelry produced is wholly an unproductive con- siimption, a total and irreparable abstraction from the national
26 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOJIY.
wealth, while a large part of this corn, if these laborers had been suffered to continite producing corn, would have been eaten by working men, who would have used their strength in earning wealth in some form. Thus it would have been productive con- sumption.
The expenditure of money on artificial wants is therefore not an encouragement, but a misdirection of industry. It results, not in the increase, but in the final destruction of portions of the public wealth. Instead of diffusing accumulated wealth for the benefit of the laboring classes, it depresses those classes in gene- ral, begets starvation, and enhances the prices of the necessaries of life. The artisans who profit at the time by these expendi- tures of course deny these conclusions, but just as sure as there is truth in political science, or the teachings of history, they are correct in the main.
These remarks explain at once the fact, so often remarked, that in every country the extremes of destitution among the poor are equal to the extremes of accumulation among the rich. The usual results of accumulated wealth must be indulgence in luxury, and luxury begets a misapplied industry and consequent want.
A plain corollary from these truths is this, that all laws of pri- mogeniture, and all legislation which fosters large accumulations in single hands, are hostile to public wealth and the general good of the people. That nation is always most truly rich and pros- perous to whom the words of Horace apply :
" Privatus illis census ernt hrevis, commune rnagmim."
We have here an explanation also for the anomalous evils of English society. In unfolding this explanation we shall illustrate the truth we have attempted to explain. The English are an in- dustrious nation. Their agriculture and manufactures are emi- nently skilful. Nowhere on earth is science made to do so large a share of the productive work of human hands ; and yet, with all this teeming production, England cannot comfortably feed and clothe her people any year. We do not now allude to the effect which her taxation and naval and military expenses may produce, but only to social causes. England is distinguished above all other nations by overgrown private fortunes. The in- comes of these fortunes seek channels of expenditure, and the result is that a vast portion of the productive labor of the nation is perverted to the production of supplies for artificial wants.
PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY. 27
Her aristocracy have acted upon the mistaken poHcy of " en- couraging industry" by splendid expenditures until the industry of the nation is crushed. Men who ought to be producers of food and clothing, or of solid values to be bartered with other nations for food and clothing, have been seduced, by the offer of better money wages, to expend their labor on ten thousand things which satisfy no actual necessity of any man : on the man- ufacture of jewelry, and of dress and equipage, on the build- ing of useless palaces, on the enclosing of useless, or partially useful parks, with unnecessary iron railings, on the laborious construction and keeping of pleasure grounds, on the watching of hares and partridges, on the tending of useless horses, dogs and deer, on the driving of unnecessary vehicles, on the render- ing of unnecessary menial services, and a hundred other things. Thus, myriads of hands, which ought to be producing the solid supplies for the nation's actual wants, are industrious about no- thing. And although personally these attendants may receive better wages, the general result is a waste of national industry and national want.
Let none then attempt to defend expensive living on these grounds. This plea contains one of the most valid reasons against it. The Christian should feel every superfluous indul- gence a sin, because its general tendency is to blight the public welfare.
We shall be asked, possibly, " "What, then, do you propose ? Shall the incomes of the rich be hoarded, from year to year, while they confine themselves to the frugal expenditures of this Christian economy ? " We answer, by no means. Let them flow forth freely, and to the last drop ; but let it be in the channels of a true and a wise beneficence. Let a reasonable share of our wealth be devoted to the improvement of the agricultural and other resources of the country, with a benevolent regard to the temporal comfort of our fellow-citizens. But above all, let it be expended A^dth boundless liberality in the great labors of evan- gelism : in printing saving truth, in sustaining teachers and preachers, in diffusing knowledge at home and abroad. Thus will our superfluous wealth employ and reward the industry of multitudes of meritorious men who perform this labor of love, and, unlike the expenditure of luxury, it will not be an un- ■prnduHlve industry to which our money A\ill entice them. There
28 PKINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN ECONOMY.
is uo labor that is more fraitful of public wealth than evangelical labors, whether in the domestic or foreign field. Every ignorant, degraded man who is enlightened and sanctified becomes at once a producer of material wealth, for he is rendered an indus- trious citizen. And every heathen community that is evangel- ized becomes a recipient and a producer of the wealth of peace- ful commerce. Thus superfluous riches may be scattered, not to create a devouring voiiex of the national wealth, but to become, in turn, the seed of wealth, and to bless our fellow-men and the world with temporal welfare. And above all, an income of praise and a harvest of souls may be collected for the great Giver and Owner : " For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things : to whom be glory for ever. Amen." ■
BEECKIXRIDGE'S THEOLOGY.
IF there is to be literary criticism, it is of the first importance to the church that it should be impartial ; and with this jus- tice no personal motive or favor should interfere. This criticism assumes to be a guide to the public opinion of Christians. If it is seduced by any motive to speak partially, it tends to corrupt public opinion, commend error, and debauch the taste of the peojDle. Either praise or blame bestowed indiscriminately and unfairly will soon teach them to distrust such a guide, and thus the influence of this important engine for good will be lost. It might be well for the conductors of the critical press to inquire whetlier their rashness has not nearly produced this effect al- ready. These thoughts, coupled with the conviction produced by a careful perusal of the book, that the notices of Dr. Breckin- ridge's Theology (Vol. I.), which have appeared hitherto, are mostly inaccurate and indiscriminate, determine us to exercise the right of discussing it in a more thorough and impartial man- ner.
There is another consideration which seems to strongly urge, if not compel, such a discussion. This book claims to be a 7'epresentative one. On the first page of the " Preliminary "Words " a representation is made which amounts to this, when stripped of its elegant and animated language : That some one great repre- sentative mind in each age has usually embodied for posterity the most fundamental and important thinking of that age ; that this representative man and these representative thoughts have usually been taken from the midst of the great, master, mental movement of that age ; that these are the elements which make the great literary remains of former centuries so valuable ; that the disruption of 1837-'8 was the great event of our American Presbyterian world in this century ; that Dr. Breckinridge was perhaps the master mind of that movement ; that therefore he is 29
30 beeckinridge's theology.
perhaps the man to ^\Tite the immortal, representative book of this church in this centmy ; and that this is perhaps the book. Now we do not so much cite this to characterize its egotism, al- though a passing protest should be uttered against this and other evidences of that blemish which are not unfrequent in the book. All unseemly personal passions should be sternly banished from the elevated domain of literature, and especially of religious lit- erature. In that realm should reign a pure serenity approach- ing in sacredness the repose of religion, so that the denizens may meet there none but the elevated emotions and purifying influ- ences of the region itself. In this the temple of the muse should be Hke the sanctuaries of religion. It is therefore always a sin against good taste and propriety for an author to introduce any personality of feeHng, either that of personal self-laudation or personal malignity. Only che emotions of the great subject should be felt. But it is rather our purpose to point out that such claims as are insinuated in these "Preliminary Words" leave Presbyterians no option. They must pubhcly accept or reject the representative book which claims to be their exponent. If all our public expressions are those of approval, we shall, as a denomination, be held responsible for the work as a whole, and justly. For this we, for our part, are by no means ready. If there are errors or defects of marked importance, it is far better that we should speak honestly of them ourselves than be trium- phantly convicted of them by rival denominations. We profess also some sensibility to the charge from without of an interested and ungraceful zeal in lauding our own prominent authors. Such praise of ourselves (as it is accounted in a sense) prompts to the suspicion of insincerity, and provokes resistance. A great denomination would better consult its true dignity by remember- ing somewhat the caution of Solomon, " Let another praise thee, and not thine own lips."
After waiting long in the hope that these wei^ity motives would move some abler hand, we shtAl therefore examine this work with entire candor. The claims to originality, which are not obscurely set up, the apparent depreciation of the labors of predecessors, and the manner in which the author has ever ex- ercised the rights of criticism and reply towards others, surely justify impartial and candid investigation. To employ any other would be wrong under any circumstances. We shall not be de-
breckineidge's theology. 31
terrecl from iuclependent expression of opinion by tlie fact (which may very possibly be asserted against us as a fixed and irrever- sible verdict of the public), that so many periodicals and persons have spoken of this work in terms of unmixed and extrava- gant praise. If any one will count the number of books and pamphlets "noticed" in one of our weeklies, and consider the distractions of an editor's life, he will be fully prepared to credit the assertion that in these critiques books are usually praised without being read. We venture the surmise, that it would be quite an amusing occupation to bring these gentlemen to the witness-stand and make them tell, "honor bright," how many of them had read three whole chapters of this book when they penned their praises. It is time, at length, that the scales of liter- ary judgment should be handed over from those who have not read the book to those who have; the atmosphere is perhaps now sufficiently cleared from the dust raised by the first pawings and shoutings to admit some justice of vision. Nor shall we be restrained from independent judgment by the fear of any such fling as was made in one quarter against a judicious and well- informed notice of " Breckinridge's Theology," in the North Caro- lina Presbyterian, where an editor first states that he is not pre- pared to judge between Dr. Breckinridge and his North Carolina reviewer, and then, with equal injustice and inconsistency, pro- nounces judgment by insinuating the charge of spite and perver- sion of testimony. That one who, like us, has ever been an almost enthusiastic admirer of Dr. Breckinridge's talent and elo- quence, and, ten times more than most of tliese laudatory jour- nahsts, an advocate of his ecclesiastical principles and services, should regard such innuendoes in the exercise of that right of crit- icism which every author challenges in the very act of asking the public attention to his book, is a thought only calculated to pro- duce a smile. Americans, and Presbyterians least of all, are not wont to be thus governed. As the public notices of the work have hitherto been marked by almost unmixed praise, we natur- ally begin by stating some of those defects in the book which compel us to dissent from that praise. We shall not be under- stood, we hope, as having found no points in which we can cheerfully concur in it.
1. The first of those grounds of dissent which obtrudes itself on the reader consists of the frequent grammatical and rhetorical
32 bkeckineidge's theology.
blemishes. These are the more surprising, because the author has, both elsewhere and in this book, so often ^^Titten, not onlj ■uith nerve and eloquence, but with precision. But here many sentences are positively incomplete in structure. The last sen- tence in the first paragraph of Dr. Breckinridge's " Preliminary Words," contains three participles vt^hich have no nouns, expressed or impHed. Inadvertences of this kind, and others similar, are repeated in numerous cases, which it is not needful to weary the reader bj quoting. This book would often fail to stand the good, old-fashioned test of coiTect grammar, that the sentences shall all admit of being correctly parsed throughout. There are par- ticiples having no nouns, and a number of sentences in which there is no verb for the subject. Should the book meet that classical destiny which some of its admirers predict for it, and should it be employed as other English classics have been for a text-book in parsing, we sincerely pity the urchins who are re- quired on peril of the birch to construe its unparsable passages. Another frequent defect is the holding of the sense suspended through long, compound sentences, — a structure condemned by the canons of rhetoric, and one which mars perspicuity, and greatly increases the labor of comprehension for the reader. Still another blemish seems to have arisen from the unguarded indulgence of that propensity to which animated popular speakers are hable, of lavishing intense epithets to strengthen the expres- sion. Thus, in this book, a multitude of things are declared to be "infinite," " stupendous," or "immense." It is not only said (on p. 158), but deliberately argued, that Christ performed an "immense" number of miracles in person. If this were true, then miracles would have ceased to be miracles, and common in- stances of natural law would have had a better claim to be con- sidered such. On p. 271, § 7, it is said that the l-notoledye that we nnay gain of God's being is "immense." On p. 369, it is said that the facts of God's personality, unity, spirituality and tiinity, are " stupendous." The fact that human natiu'e was created in the di-sdne image is also called, along with sundry others, a "stu- pendous" fact. To a plain man, who regards that which is stu- pendous (from iftajyere) as something which paralyzes A\'ith fear, it is hard to see how tliis truth, however important or joyful, can be justly described as "stupendous." On the I3age last men- tioned, which was selected at random, we find the pet adjective,
beeckineidge's theology. 33
" infinite," foiu' times, besides " transcendently," "stupendous" twice, and "boundless." Tlie language of a scientific work should be cliaracterized by accuracy ratlier tlian tbe exaggerations of tlie popular speaker. Such phrases in such a work often violate truth as well as taste. These things, together wdtli the vague and changing senses in which metajohysical terms are em- ployed (e. gr., that much-abused word "absolute"), cause the surmise that the author's mind has not been carefully trained to philosophic studies.
It may be urged in defence that these blemishes of style are but spots on the face of the sun, so that it is a trivial criticism to notice them amidst merits so much higher. "We reply, that we have noticed them not as great defects, but still as defects. True, a dull man may be accurate in style who is incapable of Dr. Breckinridge's thought or eloquence. But we conceive that the coiTect way for judging such a blemish is that which a sensible pedagogue of our acquaintance apphed to a vain urchin indifferent to his wretched spelling and proud of his Latinity. " If spelling well is so commonplace that its possession confers little honor, then certainly its lack is all the greater discredit to one who boasts higher accomplishments "
2. To proceed to matters more serious. The classification of this book is as inconvenient and faulty as it is novel. In a science the objects of method are such as these : to secure com- pleteness of view, to set all the truths deduced in their most lu- minous and logical relations among themselves, to secure the in- troduction of each point just where its discussion is most needed and will most facilitate subsequent steps, and thus to promote at once brevity, facility and accuracy. A moment's reflection must con-vince the well-informed theologian, in advance of any exami- nation of this book, that the author has adopted a di-sdsion of his whole subject which he must break at almost every step in order to get on. For at every step the objective (Vol. I.) and the sub- jectiA'e (Yol. II.) must mingle themselves in inextricable imion in any possible discussion. How does the author himself begin his objective volume of the treatise ? By subjective statements as to man's moral condition. He says, in the beginning of his argument of his first book, "To know our own natiu-e and con- dition is the first step towards making this knowledge of God available." Is not this knowledge of ourselves subjective ? The
Vol. i.— 3.
34 bbeckinridge's theology.
chapter wHcli treats of the being and nature of God begins "witli another set of subjective truths : man's consciousness of his oa\ii existence and of a world external to himself ; his consciousness of the distinction of matter and spirit, and his rational intuitions. The writer, if we ^^nderstand him, proposes as the topic of his fourth book, the knowledge of God which we acquire, as distin- guished from the tilings kno^Ti therein. We will not pause to remark farther upon the frequent departures from this topic throughout the book as constituting a violation of his own method. But it is obvious that, just so far as he adheres to this topic, he is treating a subjective aspect of the matter. And the twenty-third chapter, the first of this book, is little less than a statement of the subjective states and intuitions, mental and moral, which must be at the base of all religious knowledge ; a statement indeed manly and comprehensive, and exhibiting the highest excellences of the writer's manner. Again : one of the means by which God makes himself kno^vn to us is said to be the new creation, which is made the subject of a whole chapter in this book. Must not the soul's apprehension of its own regener- ation be all subjective? And so throughout this "objective" volume we find nearly as much of the subjective as of the objec- tive. And we may safely predict that the second volume, which promises to treat " the subjective," "s\ill be found, when it ap- pears, fully as much objective. The division is unpractical and impracticable.
But the effects of the author's compliance with it have been w orse than those of his breaches of it. The abortive attempt to jireserve the method has compelled the postponement of matters which should have been discussed, if at all, near the beginning. Thus, the whole evidence for the inspiration of the Bible is de- ferred to the third volume; and meantime, almost every step assumes the Bible to be true. Not only is this proceeding un- satisfactory to one not yet convinced of such capital j)oints, but there is always a fatal scientific objection to the delay of those demonstrations which are fundamental to all the subsequent. When such capital points are assumed for the present as proved, and a superstructure of many varied propositions is built on that assumption, the reasoner will almost inevitably employ some of these propositions proved by the help of the assumption, when at length he comes to prove the point assumed; and thus his
BBECKINRIDGE S THEOLOGY. 35
whole process will be a vicious circle. It would seem also tliat Dr. Breckinridge's attempt to j^ostpone all polemical work to its proposed place in the third volume has caused him to omit, or exceedingly to maim, a number of other discussions. But can any proposition be proved, without directly or indirectly assail- ing the oj^posite ? And if this distribution into objective, sub- jective, and relative was to prevail in other questions, why not stick to it in all? The chapter on the being of a God is polemi- cal, for it is against the atheist. That chapter which gives a fragment of the old, famihar argument for Christ's divinity is polemical also, for it assails the Socinian. The only res^^lt of the attempted method is, that a very incomplete view is given ol' a demonstration which any intelligent Presbyterian minister would present with respectable completeness.
Another effect of the endeavor to carry out this division has been to dissever the presentation of divine truths from their 23ractical operations on the soul, in a most mischievous manner. For instance, the doctrine of the Holy Ghost is the basis of that of sanctification ; but the former is objective, while the graces of the latter are subjective states of the soul. And so the disciis- sion of them all must be separated by a volume from those ti*uths on which they immediately depend. Christ, the object of faith, and faith, the subjective act which embraces him, must be di- vorced by the space of a whole volume. But why multiply illus- trations ? The book Is full of them.
Cicerc somewhere defines religion as a "rehgatio," a binding back of the soul to God, by its relations to him. Our Catechism says: "The Scriptures principally teach what man is to beheve concerning God, and what duty God requires of man." All re- vealed theology is, then, eminently a science of relations ; for the objective and subjective truths which it teaches concerning God and man all have thjeir value in the relations which exist between them. It is our God, a God related to us, of whom our theology teaches. A God not related to us at all is practically no God. Has not the Epicurean theology been always judged equal to atheism ? The words objective and subjective do exj^ress a dif- ference in the aspect of trviths making up Christian theology; but the same truth is objective, subjective, or relative, according to the point of view. It is therefore to us a simple matter of astonishment that any one should have dreamed of making them
36 BEECKiyEIDGE's THEOLOGY.
the basis of a divisiou iu tlie practical treatment of a science. As well might one talk of separating the doctrines of j';Z?/6^ and minus in algebraic equations into two distinct volumes. The subjective, objective and relative must perpetually intermingle in every apprehension of truth : how can they lie separated into different volumes in the discussion ? In the one and same cog- nition, it is the subject which apprehends, and the objective tnith which is apprehended ; and a relation is then felt between sub- ject and object. They cannot be separated without suppressing the cognition. But when the author comes to define the thu'd or "relative" part of his treatise, we leam, to oiu' surprise, that he does not employ the term in its established, philosophic mean- ing, but that he means by it Polemic Theology! "^'ell," it may be answered, " a writer is entitled to employ an old word in a new sense, provided he defines it." TTe rejoin, that however justifiable this may be in usual cases, the propriety of altering causelessly the established nomenclature of science may well be questioned. But if it is proposed to treat under the term, Kela- tive Theology, truths in contrast with their opposite errors, as a separate division, then the objections above indicated remain in full force against the method. Truth cannot be taught at all without opj)Osing the related error; so that, in this sense, all inculcation of truth is "relative," or polemic. This was not what the old di^'ines meant by Polemic Theology.
In a word, the writer had no sooner adopted his novel classifi- cation, than he found it impracticable ; if he would liudge at all, he must do so by violating it at almost every step. It would have been well if he had not been misled by the determination to be original, and had been content "with some method which the wisdom aiid experience of ages have approved. There are some roads so straight and beaten that they cannot be departed from save at the expense of going wrong.
3. When we proceed to the book itself, we find sundry points for vv'hich Ave would be unwilling that we, or the Presbj'teiian de- nomination, should be held responsible by our sUence. But when we speak of defects, or actual errors in discussion, we would by no means be understood to imply that the book is heretical in the grave sense of that word. Dr. Breckinridge's soundness in the faith generally is so well known, and has been proved in so many ways, that any attempt on our part to assail
beeckinridge's theology. 87
or defend it would only excite a smile; and we would here em- pliaticallj say, once for all, that the great ruling points of theology, which must ever decide the essential difference between Pelagian and Calvinist, such as the total depravity of man, the i^.eed of a proper divine intervention to repair it, the true divinity of the Mediator, are stated mth a manly boldness, and a comprehensive view of their importance, which have given us the highest pleasure.
But in a master work, we are entitled to expect not only or- thodoxy, but accuracy. To claim the former for Dr. Breckin- ridge is claiming no more than every Presb}i;erian minister is ex- pected to possess of course. There may be errors of discussion not affecting the orthodoxy, which yet are worthy of note, be- cause they may have evil effects. And first, we object to Dr. Breckinridge's mode of demonstrating the being of God. It will be noticed that, on page 56, the author states that this mode is one of his own construction. To assist its inspection we will state briefly and fairly in our own words the writer's steps. They are substantially these :
If there had ever been a time when nothing at all existed, there never would have been anything at any subsequent time. But something does exist, at least the inquiring, thinking I; therefore something or other has existed from eternity. Here the aiithor pauses to draw the famihar old inference, that atheism is indemonstrable, because a finite creature never can prove that among these somethings, some of which must have been eternal, there may not be a God. Next. Our necessary intuition di- vides all knov/n substances, numerous and multiform as they are, into two classes, matter and spirit. Therefore one of three pro- positions must be true : either some spirit existed from eternity and produced other spirits and all matter, or some matter existed eternally and produced other matter and all spirits, or something of matter and spirit united existed eternally, and produced all things. Which of the three is true ? The first, says Dr. Breckin- ridge ; because we are conscious that we, compounded of matter and spirit, did not create ourselves or anything else. It is equally clear to us that we were not created by any lower form of being than ourselves, such as an animal, or a being animal and spiritual compounded, but, on the contrary, by some being greatly superior to us. Was this superior substance which
38 BEECKTNErDGE''S THEOLOGY.
created us pure spirit, or mixed like us? Not mixed, because man, the highest being known to be compounded of spirit and matter, cannot create ; and matter cannot create mind ; therefore it must have been spirit which was efjicieyit in the first creation. If then matter was also eternal, it was wholly inert in creation, either by itself or united to spirit. Has matter existed along with spirit from eternity, but thus inert ? No, says Dr. Breckin- ridge, because the very nature of a first cause implies that it is single ; because whatever mystery is found in the supposition of an eternal first cause is doubled by supposing two ; and because it is unphilosophical to introduce the supposition of a second original cause when it is needless. Hence matter which is neither a first nor an efficient nor a creative cause, cannot pos- sibly be an eternal cause ; it must be an effect. And therefore the first eternal something, the creative cause of other things, must have been pure spirit. Last, this spirit must be equal to all that we find him doing, and infinite in power, life, glory and per- fections, for the extent and skill of his created works imply this.
We urgently request the reader to compare this statement with Dr. Breckinridge's chapter, and see for himself whether it is a correct abstract of his argument. Now, we find its first position solid, for it is the basis assumed by the ablest moral reasoners, such as Howe and Samuel Clark. But in Dr. Breckinridge's second step this objection arises : since the distinction between mind and matter is assumed as the necessary postulate, the whole subsequent proof is worthless to the pure idealist and to the materialist ; or else, to have any force with these classes, the author must assume, in advance, all the difficulties of these two great inquiries and dispose of them. Is this politic ? The question is not whether we can admit the postulate that matter and mind are, self-evidently, distinct substances, for we do admit it. But multitudes of thinking men are pure idealists, and some are sincerely materialists. The question is, whether it is forensi- cally wise to give it up, as Dr. Breckinridge seems to do, that to them the existence of a God cannot be proved? Is it wise to make this grand moral truth any more dependent than is abso- lutely necessary on metaphysical propositions which, whether they ought to be questioned or not, many men do question ?
But again, the whole subsequent process is here vitiated as a rigid proof (which Dr. Breckinridge claims it to be), by a tacit
BRECKINRIDGE K THEOLOGY. 39
assumption. It proceeds tlius: All tlie multiform substances hiovm to us fall into two classes, matter and spirit. Does tliis authorize us to claim tliat there carmot hxve heen, from all eternity, nor in all the universe, any other substance ? Surely not. Surely the atheist might here retort on Dr. Breckinridge in the method of his own corollary, and say, " Before man can demonstrate that there cannot be, in all the vast universe, and in all infinite time, anything substantially unlike the two substances known to him, he must himself ba infinite in knowledge." Yet it is most evi- dent that Dr. Breckinridge's whole subsequent process rests on. this assumption, for otherwise there might be other hypotheses than the three alternative ones which he says exhaust the possi- bilities of the case. We cannot perfectly demonstrate the being ^f God by starting with such an assumption. But waiving this ioiol fail js pas, we urge further, the proof that it must have been pure spirit which existed eternally and created all other things is wholly inconclusive on two essential points. It is worthless to exclude the Peripatetic theory, that organization and repro- duction have been from eternity, and the Platonic hypothesis of eternal inert, chaotic matter. Of the former theory, indeed, the author takes no distinct notice. Now, let the reader consider if the making of this supposition, "that the regular operation of natural causes in a finite series, somewhat as we now see them, has been from eternity," would not wholly break down the author's reasoning? And is that supposition wholly answered by him? There is no hinting of any of those j)rofound arguments which Howe, Clark, and Eobert Hall judged so necessary to re- but this supposition, and which seem to us, whether conclusive or not, to embrace all that the human mind has hitherto devised on this subject. But again : the considerations seem to us very in- conclusive by which Dr. Breckinridge attempts to prove that only a pure spirit can create. Surely the fact that we are not aware of a power to create anything is very far from a demonstration that no higher being composed in whole or in part of some other substance than spirit can possibly have power to create. If this inappropriate line of argument is pursued, it can be used with more analogical force against Dr. Breckinridge's conclusion than for it ; for, whatever is the inscrutable nature of the creative act, it is an act of causation — it implies power in the efficient. But so far as the analogy of man's natural knowledge goes, his ma-
40 Breckinridge's theology.
terial body is the necessary instrument or medium, not tlie source, of all liis exercises of power. And whenever the tie is severed between any human spirit and its body, all experimental evi- dences to us of any exercises of power by that spirit cease for ever. Especially is this true of that power which seems to ap- proach nearest to the creative, generative power. So that, if we make our appeal to human experience in the manner Dr. Breck- inridge makes it, aU the analogy would go to prove that the union of matter to spirit does facilitate its efficiency, and so may possibly promote or even be essential unto its power to create. The spirituaHty of the first cause must be proved in some other way than this. Such a way might have been easily found in the famihar treatises.
As to the Platonic theory of creation, that both the intelligenii Creator and the inert material must be fi'om eternity, Dr. Breck- inridge seems at this part of his argument to attempt the proof of no more than this : " If matter has been eternal, it has been inefficient as a cause of other existences. And the very concep- tion of a first cause is that it be single, while the supposition of a second original cause doubles the mystery, and is philosophi- cally unreasonable, because needless." Now all this is utterly inconclusive as against a Platonist; for the Platonist did not conceive of eternal, chaotic matter as a caiuse in the sense of Dr. Breckinridge's proposition ; that is, as a source ofj^oicer, but as the j)assive recipient of causation, the inert, powerless, negative material, on which the first cause and all second causes operate. Let the Platonic conception of causation, as a phenomenon ne- cessarily implying an object as much as an agent preexistent, be supposed — and Dr. Breckinridge has not excluded its j)ossibihty by anything in his argument, — and the presence of matter ineffi- cient, along with efficient spirit, from eternity, becomes most philosophical and necessary. Let the Platonic postulate be (I do not say granted, but) only held not self-contradictory, viz., that the bringing of any real substance into existence out of no- thing is inconceivable and impossible — ex nihilo nil dl fit. Then the creative act, performed in time, as much acquires a preex- istent material, as a preexistent Creator, so that the mystery of a substance from eternity is not doubled, but greatly, yea, essen- tially reheved by the supposition of eternal, inert matter. And be it noticed, that Dr. Breckinridge's argument contains not one
BEECKINRIDGE S THEOLOGY. 41
word or one idea to disprove tlie possibility or even reasonable- ness of that postulate. How reasonable it did seem to man's imassisted intuitions appears from tliis, that every thinking 23agan mind, Pythagorean, Platonist, Stoic, Peripatetic, held it, or something of the same kind still stronger, as an axiom. Surely, when this postulate seems so reasonable to the natural mind, and so utterly explodes all Dr. Breckinridge's reasoning, if granted, his argument is most inconclusive until that point }b settled. Pro- found modern divines have proposed rational arguments to prove that inert matter cannot be from eternity, such as these : that if from eternity it must be necessary, self-existent and independent and so immutable and not amenable to the moulding power of another substance no more self-existent than itself; or that, if necessary, it must be infinite and immense, whereas that which has dimension must have limits ; or that the obvious adaptation of matter to the purposes of the designing first cause gives us a similar gi'ound to conclude that he is the author of its organiza- tion. Whether these reasonings are entirely conclusive, it is not necessary for us to determine. Perhaps it is beyond the power of man's unaided reason to decide this point, and God's creation of all things out of nothing must ever remain purely a doctrine of revelation, as it was first discovered to man by revelation. " Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Heb. xi. 3.)
In conclusion, we cannot but regard that which is new in this argument for the being of God as inconclusive. It would have been better if the author had not only begun aud ended with Howe in his "Living Temple," but had followed him throughout. His alterations from Howe have not been improvements.
4. The chapter on the " Immortality of Man" also contains much that is inconclusive, and several errors less innocent than mere noii-sequiturs.
The writer begins by roundly rebuking all pre^dous morahsts, because they have limited the rational arguments on this subject to the immortality of the soul. They have done this, we are told, in imitation of the poor, blind pagans, who had no means of knowing the resurrection of the body. And in doing so they have narrowed their ground in a senseless way, and surrendered much of both the strength and interest of their subject. Now, we beg
42 breckinkidge's theology.
leave to ^int tliat it is not tlie most modest tiling in tlie world to speak thus, when such men as Bishop Butler have maturely con- cluded that this was the best method in which to consider the merely rational arguments for a future existence. And we ven- ture to add that this reproach of them is captious and causeless, and that it will appear that the "better way" remains still to be discovered, even after the publication of this chapter on the " Immortality of Man." If we appeal to the Scriptures we find the life and immortahty of both soul and body there brought to light, and we accept them as truths mth joyful and implicit confidence on God's mere word. But are there any reasons for our inquiring what 'laere nahiral reason says of man's future ex- istence ? Would it gain us, for instance, the pleasure and com- fort of seeing two converging lines of e"\ddence, reason and Scrip- ture, tending to the same tnith? Would it help to commend God's truth to every man's conscience ? Is it desirable to evince the essential part of this great truth to those unhappy men who reject the authority of God's word? Does Dr. Breckinridge dis- pute the propriety of making such an inquiry at all ? No, he attempts it himself in this very chapter. But if the inquiry be made it must for the present be Hmited to this: what does nnere reason say ? For if we are going to claim any authority for our conclusions over the conscience of him who denies the tmith of Scripture, or if we msh to claim the advantage of the conver- gence between the rational evidence and the scriptural evidence, we must for the present consider the rational evidence by itself, else ovir results will be utterly sophistical ; or if Ave do not care to accompHsh either of these objects, we shoidd leave out the rational argument wholly ; we may all conciu' in compiling a dis- cussion which shall consist of nothing lint Scriptiu'e proof texts. And now, if we are to consider fairly the rational arguments for a future state, they nviist ie hmited for the time to the immor- tahty of the soul, because all the natural analogies or other pre- mises from which we reason apply only to the soul, and owe their whole force to a careful discrimination between the properties of the soul and the body. Concerning the futiu'e resurrection and existence of the body reason has no Hght. The indestructibility of the atoms of matter, if j)roved, proves nothing for the immor- tahty of those organisms called bodies ; or if it proves anything, might prove it equally of the bodies of brutes, and even of veget-
BEECKINErOGE S THEOLOGY, 43
ables. But we can prove tlie possibility of the soiiFs existence separate from tlie body. "We can show the contrast between its properties as a monad, not organized nor discerptible, and those of organized bodies. And thus the argument for the ivimortal- ity of souls is made possible. We venture to assert, then, that Bishop Butler has done a very sensible thing in arguing concern- ing the soul alone "just for the nonc3," because this is the only wa'y in which it can be argued at all. Again : all sound morahsts teach just what our Saviour did when he said (Luke ix. 24, 25), in substance, that a man might save his life and yet lose himself; that is, they teach that the soul, discriminated from the body, is the ego, the sentient, conscious being, the true moral agent, the true subject of blame, and of the misery which is the penalty of it. The body is its tabernacle and instrument, so that if the im- moi-tality of the soul is proved, the essential point is proved, the basis of moral responsibility is well laid ; in a word, all the more essential moral ends of the argument are gained. The censori- ous objections to the common method are therefore unfounded, and have evidently sprung from the disposition so often mani- fested in this book, to find a novel track, right or wrong, rather than from any mature consideration.
But this suggests a more serious error. On page 61 the author very properly repeats, and in animated, eloquent language, the» familiar old truth, that our whole interest in a future existence depends on the continuance of our proper and conscious identity. But he then most preposterously asserts, that the united immortal existence of body as well as soul is essential to a proper, consci- ous personal identity. And to foreclose the apology of a lapsios- liyigiue, the assertion is repeated afterwards in another emphatic form. Is it not the soul, then, which is the proper seat of feeling and consciousness ? Is not the true identity that of the sentient, acting, thinking spirit, rather than of the changing organism which is its tabernacle ? Perhaps we have here a result of Dr. Breckinridge's preference for Locke, his preferred text-book in mental science when at Jefferson College, whose mischievous analysis of personal identity into a result of mere consciousness has been so long exploded. Truly, this- is a psychology which (to borrow a much-abused word from Dr. Breckinridge, applicable however here with strict accuracy,) will lead to "immense" re- sults. One of these results will obviously be, that the disem-
44 beeckinkidge's theology.
bodied saints, between their death and resurrection, can have no proper identity, and therefore no proper moral concern in the conduct of their life, or in its retributions! During that long season, identity is suspended, and, consequently, the enjoyment of rewards and experience of penalties. God need not pour out any glory on Abel, Noah, Abraham, Moses, to reward their faith, during these thousands of years ; for they have no proper identity as yet, and "s\ill not feel the relevancy of the recompense. So ,God has not yet laid one stroke of righteous piinishment on Cain, Dathan, or Judas ; for they would not feel they were smitten for What they themselves did. Is it possible that Dr. Breckinridge means to accept these consequences, which are repugnant both to Scripture and the Confession of Faith ? We suppose, of course, he does not. Will he explain by saying that he only meant to utter a forcible and rhetorical expression of this idea : that he conceives man will possess an identity somewhat more entire, one both mental and personal, one which yn]l heighten our 3on- ception of propriety and relevancy in God's retributive acts towards him, when his soul is reunited to his body ? It is a pity he did not add something, as he has not done, to Umit the inex- perienced reader to this idea.
The author then proceeds, on p. 63, to put forth another as- tounding statement "SN^ith equal distinctness. It is asserted that the resurrection and immortality of the bodies of the wicked is a result of the union of human nature to Christ iu the covenant of grace, just as the fall of all men and their death, bodily and spiritual, were the result of their union to Adam in the covenant of works. It is expressly asserted, that it is impossible to say the wicked would have risen if Christ had not assumed human nature. And this negative statement is then strengthened into the positive by asserting the sense above stated for 1 Cor. xv. 22 : " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall aU be made ahve." Now, if these statements of Dr. Breckinridge are correct, it follows that, if God had provided no Saviour when man fell, there would have been no bodily resurrection at all. Is such a conclusion true or scriptural ? Do the Scriptures represent that there is any vital or gracious union of the reprobates to Christ, by virtue ol which they enjoy a corporeal resurrection? Is it not the residt solely of the almighty and sovereign power of God put forth to prepare them for righteous retribution ? But we
beeckinridge's theology. 45
were informed, by Dr. Breckinridge, in a previous j>aragrapli, tliat without the resurrection of the body the proper identity is im- possible, which is necessary to make retribution in a future state at all relevant. Hence, had God determined that when man fell into bodily and spiritual death by sin ha would furnish no re- demption for a part, none would, have had a bodily resurrection, and consequently none would have had a proper identity, so that future punishment would have had no appropriateness in any case. Of course none would have been imposed. The author, of course, does not intend to favor the ITniversalists ; but in his own exposition of 1 Cor. xv. 22, he is precisely on their ground. The sound, old-fashioned divines have usually interpreted the twenty-second verse in the light of the twenty-first, and have taught that the two terms expressing universality (" all in Adam," "all in Christ") meant, in each case, all those federally con- nected with the respective heads, so that the " all in Adam " are all those connected with him by the covenant of works ; and the "all in Christ" are all those connected mth him by spiritual union in the covenant of grace. The Universahsts persist in making the terms absolutely universal in both cases ; and therein Dr. Breckinridge is of their mind. It will avail Httle for him to distinguish, and say in addition, that the connection of the wdcked with Christ's j)erson taught in this place is different from that of the righteous, and extends only to a corporeal resurrec- tion for retributive purposes; for the Universahsts would say (with truth) that Paul makes no distinction between the different persons who make up the " aU in Christ " as to the vitality and benefits of their union to him. And they would prove fi'om the context that Paul evidently intends a connection of the " alV with Christ as efficient for good as the union of the "aU" with Adam was^ for their nun. T^^as not the death which aU died in Adam spiritual as well as bodily? And should not the life which all regain in Christ be therefore understood to mean spiiitual as well as bodily Hfe, regeneration of souls as well as resui-rection of body? Once more, the "all" who are made ahve in Christ are clearly identical ■v\dth "them that are Christ's" in the twenty- thii'd verse; but the phrase, "they that are Christ's," usually means the redeemed. So that Dr. Breckinridge, by adopting this rash notion, dehvers himself and us over, bound hand and foot (no doubt unintentionally), to the Universahsts.
46 BRECKINErDGE's THEOLOGY.
A part of tli3 reasonings of tlie remainder of this chapter seems to us very inconclusive. Thms the immortahty asserted for man is defined as an immortahty in exactly that mode of existence in which he was created, sinned, fell and died ; that is, an immor- tality of soul and body united in their present union. So far well; but an attemj^t is then made (pp. 64, 65) to prove it by man's consciousness of his spirituahty and of his materiahty. It is argued, he knows he is a spirit, he knows that he has a body, he knows that the two are essentially different, and yet he feels that both combined make up his personahty. Hence he is represented as concluding vahdly, that the continued existence of his personahty must include that of both soul and l:)ody united. If this means that man's conscious identity includes necessarily a bodily identity, then it is false. If it does not, it contains no vahd proof of the inference. We repeat the obvious truth, which Dr. Breckinridge admits even in this section, seemingly uncon- scious of its contradiction to his ovm. inference, that if a bodily identity is necessary to a conscious identity, it is impossible that any soul now in heaven or hell can feel its identity before the last day, which is untrue.
It is then argued that the soul, being immaterial, cannot be destroyed except by the annihilating power of its Maker. And so, matter being indestructible, and the resurrection of the body being assured to us by the Scriptures, the subsequent destruction of the latter is equally impossible, except by annihilation. But as God has not given us any reason in revelation to expect such annihilation in either case, the presumption hes wholly in favor of the immortal existence of both soul and body united. Xow, on this attempted argument Ave remark, first, that it is wholly superfluous. Nobody who had admitted a future resurrection of the body on Bible testimony wiU then contest the continued existence of it afterwards. For everybody understands that if the Bible says man's body wiU rise again, it means of coiu'se that it will be raised to die no more, except those absurd heretics who assert the final annihilation of both soul and body in hell. "Where, then, was the use of arguing the immortahty of the body when raised, from the fact of its resurrection coupled vriih. the soul's immortahty, when nobody who admits the last two facts can possibly have any interest in denying the first ? But sec- ond, the argument is unsound, for it is not true that a resuiTec-
bkeckinridge's theology. 47
tiou body cannot be again destroyed except by annihilation. Is that body material ? Is it not then organized ? Is not a dia- mond as truly an aggregation of particles of carbon as a lump of charcoal, though so much more splendid, and can it not be dissipated by oxygen and heat as truly as the charcoal ? Is it perfectly possible, on natural grounds, that the glorified body might be destroyed by a separation of its atoms hke any other organism ? The fact that the ultimate atoms are imperishable no more proves that it cannot die than it proves a dog immortal. The resurrection body, Hke man's earthly body, will be sustained in existence by the upholding providence of God, and if that providence permitted it might again die by dissolution. The doctrine of the resurrection and endless life of the body is purely one of revelation. Let us joyfully accept it on that ground, and aU is said that can be said in proof of it.
It is "worthy of remark, that Dr. Breckinridge, on pages 66-69, uses some of the feebler of those rational arguments which had been employed by the common current of moral writers before him, and which he began by decrying. He leaves out the strongest and best, which are drawn from man's moral nature and conscience. And those which he employs bear, with that degree of probable evidence which they possess, on the immor- tality of the soul. There is a consideration which commends to us the doctrine of a resurrection of the body when once it is brought to light in the Scriptures. This is the obvious propriety of the soul's being rewarded or j^nnished in and by the same body in which it had Hved and obeyed or rebelled. Dr. Breck- inridge does not distinctly mention this.
5. On page 96, language at least incautious is emjjloyed con- cerning the mediatorial person of Christ. This person is cor- rectly defined as of two natui'es united, but not confounded ; but it is then said that we must not divide the two natures, even in contemplation, as to anything that related to the mediatorial work. If this means that we must not conceive the personal union as broken in the doing of any of those acts which either nature performed, it is correct. But if the language means, what every reader would naturally understand by it, that we must not distinguish, even in thought, between the natures which were immediately concerned in this or that act of Christ, it is im- practicable and unscriptural. Surely it was only the human nature
48 BRECKINRIDGE'S THEOLOGY.
wliicli " grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man ! " Surely it was only tlie human nature which was bap- tized without measure with the Spirit as a preparation for his work! Surely it was only the human part that "knew not the day nor the hour" which God designed for the consummation of all things ! Surely it was the human alone which suffered, feared, wept, and died for us! Can God feel these things? True, the value and dignity of these acts of the human nature are accounted infinite, because the nature which -uTOUght them was united to a divine person. But this is another thing than the one seemingly intended. We mention this instance of incautious statement, not because of its own importance so much as because it is a speci- men of what frequently occurs in the volume.
6. On pages 123 to 127, where the author is treating of the mediatorial estates of Christ, he professes himself somewhat dis- satisfied with the customary distinction of our Saviour's "hu- miliation and exaltation." He therefore proposes another, which is signified to be of his own de^dsing, founded on the doxology with which the Lord's prayer is closed in Matthew vi. 13 : "For thine is the kingdom, and ihepoioer, and the glory for ever." The phrase " kingdom," according to Dr. Breckinridge, embraces the season of Christ's personal ministry on earth. The "power" describes the season from his ascension (or probably from Pen- tecost) till his second coming, a season which is supposed to be pecuharly distinguished by the effusion of spiritual power. And the "glory" signifies all the time from Christ's second coming to eternity
The author claims that this new distribution of Christ's estates is much more accurate and complete than the former, and more fruitful of instructive inferences, as well as more illustrative of the applications of Messianic prophecy. He considers it also rather a lucky thing that the authors of the old distribution (into the estates of humiliation and exaltation) did not go so far WTOng, but that the readjustment of theological language and ideas to his classification, which will have to take place, may be made without any violent change of nomenclature.
Now there are two things to be remarked about this new dis- tribution, which will make the reader consider it rather a queer thing. One is, that the words on which it is founded are very possibly not a part of the word of God at all, but an interpola-
BRECKINRIDGE S THEOLOGY. 49
tion of some early copyist. Without fully discussing tlieir gen- uineness, it is sufficient to say tliat tliey are not found in the Lord's prayer in Luke ; and such are the marks of spuriousness in this place in Matthew, that, of four esteemed modern critics, Griesbach, Scholz and Lachmann expunge them incontinently, as no part of the word of God, and Knapp marks them doubtful. Now we profess no warm sympathy with the expunging verdicts of the critical editors of the sacred text ; we lean always towards the old textus receptus where we can. But what will be thought of this attempt to build a theological classification solely on the basis of one disputed text, which many devout Christians beheve to be no Scripture, and which all the best informed regard as somewhat doubtful? Shall we attempt to explain it by sup- jDOsing Dr. Breckinridge ignorant of these doubts? We shall not make any supposition.
Our second remark is, that if this text is Scripture, as every personal feeling would incline us to wish to regard it, it cer- tainly does not mean what Dr. Breckinridge finds in it. Its scope obviously is, to express the ground or reason upon which the petitioner urges the previous requests. It is as though he said: "We ask these things, our Father, because, being forever possessed of the kingdom, power and glory, thou art able to an- swer." That the three words do not describe three stages, suc- cessive to each other in Christ's mediatorial life, is made as clear as the sun by the text itself ; for the Being addressed is said to possess all three "forever"; and, therefore, all three together. The Being addressed in this prayer is not the Son our Mediator, as Dr. Breckinridge considers, but the Father as rej)resentative of the whole deity, as is proved by our Saviour's own words in John xvi. 24, " Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name," etc. And thus Presbyterians have ever held, arguing as they did that the Lord's prayer could not be a hturgy binding on us, because it contained no reference to a Mediator. Dr. Breckinridge very naively remarks that there cannot be a case found where the words dimamis and doxa are used to describe the kingdom of Christ while he was personally ministering to it. Very true, because there cannot be found a case where they are used to describe it at all. But we can find more than thirty instances where the word hasileia, restricted by Dr. Breckinridge to the kingdom during Christ's personal ministiy, is applied to it in the Vol. I.— 4.
50 Breckinridge's theology.
New Testament after tlie resurrection and ascension. Again, Dr. Breckinridge supposes that the word dunamis^ expresses the season of the power of the Holy Ghost, extending from Pentecost to Christ's second coming, and manifested in the prevalence of his converting influences. But if there is anything established about this word in the New Testament exposition, it is that, when apphed to spiritual efficiency, dunairds signifies rather miraculous than converting effects. But these mu'aculous effects, says Dr. Breckinridge himself, were most frequent during Christ's personal ministry (the icmleia, according to him), and we know that in our day (still a j)art of the da/uams, according to him), they are wholly wanting. This specimen of exegesis we shall not ventui-e to characterize. Xo sensible commentator, who has sup- posed the words to be genuine, ever made any difference or diffi- culty about the meaning, so far as we are informed. Look, for instance, into the two most judicious, Calvin and Scott ; the ob- vious sense is, that the child of God addresses his prayer to him, because he forever possesses kingly authority over the worlds of natiu'e and grace, almighty j)ower, and di^dne perfections and honors. These make him the proper object of worship.
But the classification itself is nearly as bad as the exposition on which it rests. According to the old division, the estate of humiliation was divided from that of the exaltation by the resur- rection. And here there was a marked, a decisive transition, by which our Lord passed from his subjection in the humble form of humanity, to his glory as divine king in the universe, and head over all things to the church. From that time forth his exalta- tion is properly divine, and therefore substantially the same. A partial progress takes place in its manifestations, as his kingdom of grace is gradually extended over the earth, and then trans- ferred to his own presence; but fi'om the resiuTection onward the attitude and state of the mediatorial Person is divinely regal. There is henceforth no essential change. But according to the di^'ision proposed by Dr. Breckinridge the periods of his career are not marked off in any such decisive way. The third is but a continuation of the second.
7. The next point upon which we shall touch is Dr. Breckin- ridge's enumeration and classification of the attril)iites of God. He begins by sajdng that, as God is an infinite being, not only is every perfection in him infinite, but the number of them is also
BEECKINKIDGE'S THEOLOGY.
51
infinite, and those mentioned in the Scriptures are almost count- less. The reader will be prepared, therefore, to expect a cum- brous list. We do not know how we can make intelligible what we have to say on this complicated exhibition of the attributes better than by presenting it to the reader in a kind of tabular view. We request him to examine it attentively, assuring him that it represents Dr. Breckinridge's distribution "\\'ith tolerable coiTectness, and erring, if at all, only by some slight omission. There are five main divisions, subdivided as follows :
I. Primary attributes; i. e., qualifpng God's very being—
f 1. Simplicity.
2. Infinitude.
3. Independence.
4. Self-existence.
5. Necessary existence.
6. Eternity.
7. Incorporeity.
8. Immaterialitj-.
9. Immensity.
10. Incomprehensibility.
11. Life in Hmself. [ And the like.
II. Essential attributes; /. e., qualifying God as an infinite Spirit —
f 1. Intellect, under which are self-intuition, omniscience and infaUibility.
Embracmc^ -| ^ Will, inchiding freedom and actuosity.
3. Power, or omnipotence.
Embracin" J
III. Natural attributes ; i. e., relating to the distinction of true and false —
( 1. Wisdom.
Embracing
( 2. Knowledge.
IV. Moral attributes; /. e., relating to the distinction of good and evil —
f 1. Holiness, or rectitude.
2. Goodness — four forms : f Grace, J Love, 1 Mercy, [ Long-suffering.
3. Justice. 1. 4. Truth.
Embracing
52 Breckinridge's theology.
V. Consummate attributes; i. e., resulting from tlie union and
completeness of all —
f 1. Life and infinite activity.
2. Majesty, or infinite dominion.
-, , . 1 3. Omnipresence.
Embracme. ..J
I 4. All-sufficiency.
5. Uniqueness, or oneness.
6. Blessedness.
Now, if there is any kind of writing in whicli accuracy, care and discrimination are necessary, and tlie lack of tliem unpardon- able, it is in drawing up a scientific classification, and most of all on a subject so vast, mysterious and sacred as the nature of our God. Incorrectness in classification wiU insure the same fault in all the discussion proceeding upon it. If the former is bungling and illogical, confusion, repetition and error must reign in the latter. But we have no wish to state the responsibilities of an author in this matter more strongly than Dr. Breckinridge has done himself on p. 314: "In concluding a subject so im- mense and so difficult, I may be allowed to refer distinctly to the classification of the attributes of God proposed and discussed in the seventeenth chapter. If what has been advanced in the five chapters which succeed that one can be considered a just and true outhne of the most difficult j)art of all knowledge, then the analysis upon which that classification rests must be allowed to be so far comprehensive and exhaustive of the vast subject as to furnish the diligent student ol the Scriptures with important suggestions in his endeavors to reduce to a clear and simple method its sublime revelations touching the nature of the true God." . . . * There can be no doubt that upon such a subject as this a just method is next in importance to a strict adherence to revealed truth, if indeed either is possible without the other."
Now, we find Dr. Breckinridge, in the seventeenth chapter, merely mentions, in order to set aside, all the classifications of the attributes by former divines, without even discussing their merits. We then feel ourselves entitled to expect something bet- ter from him. Let us see. First, as to his five main divisions, we assert that there is no proper ground whatever for separating the essential and prhnary attrihutes, viewed in Dr. Breckinridge's own senses. The primary, he says, are those which qualify God simply conceived as being. The essential are those which are necessarily implied in his essence as an infinite, personal spirit.
Breckinridge's theology. 53
But we liold tliat God's being caunot be conceived nor proved except as tlie being of spirit. We cannot prove tliat God is, ex- cept as wo prove tliat his essence is spirit. When we predicate existence, we must have in the mind a previous conception of the essence of which we predicate it. See now if Dr. Breckinridge's own Hst does not contain a ^drtual admission of this. Thus, among his primary attributes (those quahfj-ing God simplj as leing) we find hiimaterlallty ! On page 263 he says his primary attributes may be regarded " as conditions, if I may so express myself, Avithout which God, considered simply as God, cannot be said to have a being or any other perfection." God's being, then, according to his own admissions*, can only be conceived of as that of spirit ; so that, according to his own definitions, all his " essential attributes " are as truly primary as his " primary." Again, among the so-called " primary attributes " there are sev- eral which cannot be proved except by assuming God's spiritu- ahty beforehand. How, for instance, can God be simple in his essence or immense unless he is spiritual ? Let the reader also note here, that these two cases not only prove the above point, but present two glaring instances of false arrangement. For if there is any propriety at all in Dr. Breckinridge's divisions of "primary" and "essential attributes," then simpUcity and im- mensity undoubtedly belong to the latter class, as he defines them. It is only as God is a spirit that he is either simple or immense.
But to return. Dr. Breckinridge's eighteenth and nineteenth chapters dwell much on a metaphysical distinction between essence and existence {pi which we shall have more to say in due time). The essence of a thing, he teaches, consists in its appre- hension as possible by the divine intellect ; its existence arises from the di\4ne will willing it into being. Now surely, since God's supreme intellect is the pattern of all lower ones, if this is the order of cognition in the divine mind, it ought to be in ours. But in this order the essence must be apprehended first, and in order to apprehending the existence. Hence, if there were any reason for the division of "primary" and "essential" attributes the essential should come first. But in truth, there is none. GocTs heing is the heing of his essence.
In a scientific classification mere plu-aseology is important; everv word should be intelligently selected. Why does Dr.
54: breckineidge's theology.
Breckinridge clioose the word "natural" to name liis third class of attributes, " "wdsdom and knowledge " ? Iq any sense in which the word can be understood of divine attributes, are not those which he marks as " essential" as much natural as are msdom and knowledge ? The word is not discriminative. And in the foui^th class, which Dr. Breckinridge describes as " moral," he tells that he means by them attributes which hpcve relation to " good and e^al." Now these words have two senses. Does he mean right and wrong? Or does he mean the beneficial and the mischiev- ous, the pleasant and the painfiil? Ambiguities should have no place in a classification.
When we coms to examine the list of particular attributes ranked under these five chief heads, we are compelled to say that we iind the strangest confusion. Two cases have already been indicated. The second attribute on the list is "infinitude." If Dr. Breckinridge means by this the infinitude of God's substance, then it is indentical ^nth his immensit}-, and one or the other should have been erased. If he means the infinitude of his quahties, then, according to Dr. Breckinridge's definitions, it should have been put among the "consummate" attributes. Next we have "independence" placed before necessary exis- tence and self-existence, but it is a deduction from them, and should have been placed after them. A little after we have in- cornoreity and immateriahty distinguished. Can any one tell what is the difference ? Dr. Breckinridge, as we have seen, ad- mits but two sorts of substance — matter and spiiit. That which is not Ijodily must be spiritual. Why say the same thing tA\ice over? So far as we can imagine, the only conceivable ground on which a distinction could be drawn would be something hke that of the old P;)i:hagoreans, who described spiritual beings as invested with a sort of ayy^u/i, which was not spirit, nor yet mere matter. There might be some sense in a Pythagorean's adding, after he had called a thing immaterial, that it was also incorporeal (although he would never have called his o'/r^iia proper go)u(j). But Dr. Breckinridge cannot avail himself of this, because, in his j^roof of the being of God, he assumes that there can be but two substances — matter and sj)irit.
Proceeding to the second main division, we find fii-st under it "intellect," manifesting itself in omniscience and infallibility. Now, would not any thinking man suppose that the attributes of
BEECKINEroGE's THEOLOGY. 55
wisdom and knowledge would be introduced here ? Surely tlie distinction of tlie true and false comes under tlie jurisdiction of tlie divine intellect ? Does God know, is God wise, by some other attribute than his intellect ? Wisdom and knowledge then should have been by all means ranked here. But no, they are divorced from their connection by the interposition of other dis- tinct heads, and made into a grand division separate and inde- pendent. Again : why should God's knowledge be distinguished from his omniscience ? Is not his omniscience just his infinite knowledge? and is not the knowledge which Dr. Breckinridge attributes to God under the head of his natural attributes infinite ? He says, God's natural attributes are those which are concerned about the "the true and the false," and then places omniscience and infallibility outside of the head of natural attributes. We are to understand, then, that God's omniscience and infallibility are not concerned about the true and the false.
The last class of attributes is the consummate. We suppose there is no intelhgent Christian who did not expect, when he read Dr. Breckinridge's definition of these, to see God's holiness placed at their head as a thing of course. If there is any attri- bute at all which has claims to this place, holiness is the one. Did Dr. Breckinridge exclude it because it was a moral attribute, and must therefore go into the fourth class? Others ranked as consummate are essential or natural, and should therefore, for equal reason, have been detained in the second or third class. But this class of consummate attributes is as singular in what it contains as in what it omits. First we find mentioned Hfe and infinite activity. That God has Hfe in liimself was asserted as an attribute of the first class, and his acttwsity was ranked in the second. Now we would be -nailing to ofier a small premium for the discovery of the distinction between acti^dty and the newly coined v/ord actuosity. Third among the consummate attributes we find omnipresence. But God's immensity was placed in the first class. Should they not have been placed one immediately after the other? If there is any intelligible distinction, it is in viewing God's immensity as relative to infinite space vacant, and his omnipresence as relative to all being other than his own, coexisting vnih. him in infinite space. So that in any view God's omnipresence is but a phase of his immensity, and should have come next to it. Cei-tainly, if there is any difference, it is less a
56 breckineidge's theology.
''consummate attribute" than his immensity. Again: what is meant bj God's "all-sufficiency?" If it means that he is equal to all the actual and possible emergencies of his universe, it is nothing but his omniscience and omnipotence, and no separate attribute at all. If it means his complete sufficiency to his own ■weU-being, is not this the same as his infinite blessedness ? Once more, we opine that imique-ness is not exactly defined by one-' ness.
Such are some of the obvious confusions and absurdities of this tedious and yet defective classification. "We vnH weary the reader no longer with it. We feel that the intelligent student will arise from his examination with httle less than a feehng of outrage that an author shoidd thus coolly pass in review the clas- sifications of great predecessors only to reject them summarily with no other notice than to infer from their diversity the com- plexity of the subject, and then obtrude as preferable such a jumble of inconsequential and repetitious statements. He mil feel with us that we have here a curious evidence, either of in- competency or of supercilious carelessness. It is time men had learned that the forms of a science matured by so many master minds are not to be so lightly recast.
8. We have now andved at the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters, those which the "North Carolina Pastor" has sho\\Ti to be bori'owed from Stapfer's Polemic Theology, to the no small excitement of our Presbyterian public. We profess that we feel little zeal in the estimating of this charge compared with other eiTors of the book. We speak thus, not because the wholesale borro^\'ing has not been demonstrated, nor because we think it justifiable. Those who will examine Stapfer, Yol. I., Chap, iii., as we have done, will perceive unmistakably that the bulk of two whole chapters is a translation of that aiithor, sometimes Hteral, more often slightly paraphrastic, but always tolerably faithful; with a feio paragraphs and sentences interspersed here and there, seemingly of the author's own composition. The same passages of scripture in many places are quoted in the same order, and to prove the same points. In some cases even the matter of col- lateral remarks in the notes of Stapfer is quoted in the same con- nection. But we have never been keenly given to the watching and detecting of plagiarisms, nor prone to suspect their commis- sion. Almost nothing can now be original in theological discus-
Breckinridge's theology. 57
sion, and we feel far more concerned witli tlie correctness of the principles advanced, wlietlier invented or boiTowed, than -with their source. Yet, as the pubHc has been called to -fitness the trial of this accusation, our literary verdict would seem incom- plete without the expression of an opinion on it. Let us express ifa deliberately and moderately.
To estimate this matter fairly for both sides, the general pe- culiarities of this author and his book must be kept in mind. He has usually borne the character of a thinker, adventurous, independent and original. The treatise seems to be very novel in its method, and breathes to an unusual degree independence of other men. The author seems boldly to strike out and attempt a reconstruction of the science from its primary materials. He tells us in the beginning of his second paragraph in his "Pre- liminary Words:" "I have not aimed to produce a compend of Theology; I aim to teach Theology itself." The public have seen it remarked in laudatory UQWspaper notices that the work does not contain a single reference to any other book but the Bible, and this as a triumphant evidence of its originality. It may be that in this boasting Dr Breckinridge's admirers have misrepresented him, so that he is rather unfortunate than blame- worthy for their perversion of the circumstance. But all these things very naturally account for the fact, that when a thorough scholar met Avith the footmarks of his old Latin friends, Stapfer and others, where he and all the public had been unwittingly led to expect such decided originality, he should consider the thing luiaccountablc and unpardonable.
But on the other hand, let us grant aU fair allowances in Dr. Breckinridge's favor, such as these: That there can be little which is new, and at the same time valuable, on such a subject as Christian Theology in our late day; that the chiu'cli ob- ^-iously should not be forbidden to enjoy the reproduction of the great thoughts of her fathers, merely because they would not then be original; and that he who makes these borrowed thoughts his own by passing them through the alemlnc of his own mind, melting them into unity with his own thinking, and clothing them in his own language, is not to be charged as a plagiarist, because no scholar can do much more in a science so matured. Let us also particularly direct the reader's attention to some sentences of general acknowledgment contained in the
58 beeckineidge's theology.
"Preliminary Words," p. 10, of wliicli tlie following is tlie most explicit: "The details wliicli liave been WTonglxt out by learned, godly and able men in all ages, of many creeds, and in many tongues, have been freely •\\Tought into the staple of this Avork when they suited the place and piirpose, and turned precisely to my thought." For, anxious as we are not to overestimate what is A\Tong in this matter, we really fear lest the general spirit of high egotism and claim of originality which characterize the book at large may have led the reader to overlook the extent of these acknowledgments, as has evidently been the case with many of the pubHc. And let us be distinctly understood as al- loA^dng that these general acknowledgments of help fi'om previous writers do much modify the case. We can well conceive that Dr. Breckinridge may feel that they fairly justify it, and that in his own conscience he may stand clear to himself of the charge of disingenuousness. But still there remains a painful en'or, and the fact that it is committed by one high in fame and office only makes it the more imperative that the voice of just dis- approval should be uttered firmly and loudly, lest such an ex- ample should sanctify in the ejes of younger and smaller men these forms of literary Hcense so painfully prevalent already.
First, then, it must be said, that acknowledgments such as those Dr. Breckinridge makes in his preliminary words have their well-established meaning in the repubhc of letters ; and that meaning is not ike one which his friends have to impute to him in order to his acquittal. Dr. Breckinridge was bound, if he intended these phrases of acknowledgment to mean more than the public understands by them to apprise them distinctly. When an author says, in such phrase, that he has used the la- bors of predecessors, the public understand fi*om him that he has studied them to inform his own mind, and thus prepare himself for writing, that he has embodied the facts and ideas derived from them in the structiu'e which his own reflection rears ; not that he has incontinently transferred nearly whole chapters in the very phrase and form of another mind. Let the reader here recall the judicious and wise terms in which the venerable Dr. Alexander defined this privilege, illustrating it by the case of Symington's treatise on the atonement. And now, that this is what the public expects, when an author uses such language of general acknowledgment, is perfectly clear fi'om the impressioa
breckineidge's theology. 59
■which the first revelation of these extracts made. That impres- sion was one of profound surprise. Editors friendly to Dr. Breckinridge said so in no measured terms. And we know per- fectly well that those ardent friends of Dr. Breckinridge who are now engaged in defending him on the plea of these acknow- ledgments are not satisfied in their hearts ; they feel that their estimate of the book is not precisely what it was before.
But, second, the comparison of Dr. Breckinridge's chapters eighteenth and nineteenth with Stapfer reveals, by conclusive circumstantial evidence, that he has not in this case used Stapfer in any such legitimate mode as literary usage allows. He has not employed him to inform his o^vn mind, and then thoroughly digested the material and assimilated it by his own reflection. On the contrary, it is a plain case of bodily transference ; of the scissors-and-paste mode of bookmaking; of almost mechanical translating. For how else can we account for it that the blun- ders in translating should have been made by Dr. Breckinridge which the "North Carolina Pastor" has revealed; such, for in- stance, as the confusion of casus with causa. These blunders utterly confuse Stapfer's sense and scope. If as clear a mind as Dr. Breckinridge's had been truly redigesting that author's thinking by its own reflections, the blunders would have been impossible. It is therefore perfectly plain, that when those blun- ders were committed Dr. Breckinridge's mind was performing only the servile process of mechanical transference. But a mo- ment's reflection should have convinced Dr. Breckinridge that this sort of thing was not what any man would reasonably ex- pect from his prehminary acknowledgments. How easy would it have been to add four inverted commas, or an asterisk point- ing to one word at the bottom of the page. He should have re- membered that a multitude of his readers are not so familiar as he professes to be with the -svriters " of all ages, of many creeds, and in many tongues," so that, notwithstanding his general refer- ence to them at the beginning, his silence has left them liable, yea subject, to the mistake that this thinking of the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters was done by him. The fact that there is a literary usage of the force of common law in the kingdom of letters requiring a more specific acknowledgment must tend to confirm this mistake. Is there not here, therefore, a suppressio veri f
60 Breckinridge's theology.
Third, it is most unfortunate for Dr. Breckinridge that this very part of his treatise is sprinkled with expressions which must naturally be mistaken by his reader for tacit assumptions or im- pHcations of originality as to that part. Thus, on page 261, (near the top): "The chief classifications of the attributes of God which have been heretofore suggested, as far as I have discov- ered, are these which follow." After giving the list, and assign- ing reasons for using none of them, he says (page 262) : " / Tiave, therefore, ventured to attenvpt such a classification^ He gives it briefly in the seventeenth chapter, and then occupies chapters eighteenth to twenty-second inclusive in expanding it, among which are the two chapters substantially taken from Stapfer. At the close, on j)age 314, he says: "7/i concluding cc suhject so im~ inense and difficult, I may he alloioed to refer distinctly to the classification of the attributes of God proposed and discussed in the seventeenth c7taj>ter. If what has been advanced in the five chapters succeeding that one can be considered a just and true outhue of the most intricate part of all knowledge, then the analysis upon which that classification rests must be allowed to be so far comprehensive and exhaustive," etc. Dr. Breckinridge here distinctly claims the classification of chapter seventeenth as his ovm. At the close of his expanded discussion thereof, he refers distinctly to it, and j^uts in a claim that, if the expansion which follows is successful, then the credit of it helongs to his classification. Let us distinctly acknowledge that this does not amount to a direct claim of the whole expansion as his own ex- clusive work, as well as the seventeenth chapter ; but is it not far better calculated to susfgest such a belief than to hint the opposite fact, that whole chapters of it are the work of another man ? "Would not a thoroughly candid man have felt compelled, when coming so very near a seeming claim of originahty in the whole, to except carefully what was not his o'^vti ? Again, at the top of page 269, he says : " What I am noio to prove and illustrate, therefore, is the perfections of God," etc , M?he proof, for page after page, is almost exclusively Stapfer! On page 273 he says: "That infinite understanding vjhich I have shoion in a former chapter was an attribute," etc. The former chapter is Stapfer's in substance. On page 281 he speaks of the " precise definition " (of miracles) "u-?tirh I have just given." That definition is Stapfer's verhathn, allowing for the difference of Latin and Eng-
beeckinridge's theology. 61
lisli! (The italics are not Dr. Breckinridge's, but our own.) Is this ingenuous ? Is it not worse than a suppressio veri f Dr. Breckinridge may say (or his friends may say for him) that he did not intend all this ego-isvi to be construed as imphdng a claim to originahty in these places, and did not suppose it would be so construed after his general acknowledgment of help from others, and that it is only a malignant ingenuity which forces such a sense on his words. We can only say he is very unfortu- nate, for the common reader will be very apt to think that sense the most natural one. But we have no disposition to charge that it was necessarily his sense. Only, his language is very unlucky.
Fourth, Dr. Breckinridge's pre\dous attitude has been such as almost to insure and compel an unfavorable judgment fi'om the pubHc on this j)oint. His tone has usually been boastful, and depreciatory of the labors of other divines. Is he, of all other men, to be allowed to use the thoughts of others as his own ? In the annual catalogue of Danville Seminary for 1855-'6, for instance, page 11, are the following words, which it is well known came from Dr. Breckinridge's pen. He is commending the method of study without text-book, and exclusively by oral lec- ture, pursued at Dan\dlle :
' ' To tbe professors themselves it need not be denied that teaching in this way is incomparably more difficult than in the ordinary way, nor need it be concealed that professors who are not willing to make themselves comjjetent had better avoid attempting anything of the sort. It is not very difficult to hear recitations out of a text-book, and, if need be, add a few desultory observations by way of commen- tary two or three times a week. The labor is not jjarticularly severe to sui^erin- tend, in a general way, the studies of a class groping along where we have gro^jed befsre them. But to make one's self master of a great subject; to be the text-book yoTirself in a certain sense ; to teach thoroughly and systematically from day to day that which must cohere always and perpetiially illustrate itself ; to quicken, to guide, to develop the faculties of men in their attempts to acquire a profession, which you have loved ardently and practiced intensely yourself ; this is altogether a different kind of work ; different in the enormously increased labor it enacts (ex- acts ?) ; different in the siim of the immense results. "
Now we do not cite this paragi-aph chiefly in order to remark on the cool arrogance exhibited in it, that one of the youngest professors of the church, and in the youngest divinity school, one who had never enjoyed the benefits of oiu' other schools enough nor acquainted himself with them sufficiently to know whether they taught well or ill, should thus depreciate and taimt re-
62 beeckixeidge's theology.
spectable associates in his own employment. Nor need we tarry long to contrast with this the dignified, Christian forbearance of those who have for so many years presided in the other schools which has retrained up to this day fi"om all pubhc notice of these nnwoiihy flings. Our main prurpose is to call the reader's atten- tion to the fact that this book of theology originated, as is well known, in the course of lectiu'es whose method is explained in the above paragraph. So that it is perfectly reasonable the pub- hc should expect, as it did expect, in the book those thorough cpiaUties claimed in the catalogue for the lectures. Now, let the reader re-peruse the long and inflated sentence at the close of the above paragraph, and ask whether it would lead him to ex- pect such a use of the labors of other minds as is found in the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of the Theology. He can draw the contrast for himself. It requires few words to show how easy and just Dr. Breckinridge has made the administration of a scathing retort, should any of his long-suffering associates in the work of instruction desu-e to inflict it. They have but to borrow his strain, modified a Httle more than he has modified his borrowings, after this fashion : " It is not very difficult to manufacture j)rofound lectures by simple translating, ^\dth author and dictionary on knee and pen in hand, out of profound old theologians, now generally unread, adding, if need be, a few de- sultory observations by way of commentary. The labor is not particularly severe to bring before a class a series of lectui'es which shall cause them to think the lecturer some great one, when there is a shelf full of good old authors, *of all ages, of many creeds, and in many tongues,' to draw upon, while the class are not groping along where the j)rofessor has groped before them, because they are told that they need not have any other text -book except the professor himself." Dr. Breckinridge said in his " Prehminary Words " that the fruits of his attainments would manifest themselves to the learned reader. Kow, his divinity students were not learned hearers. "When he deUvered these eighteenth and nineteenth chapters as lectures eighteenth and nineteenth to his class, did he regard the same sort of gen- eral acknowledgment of his obhgations to other authors which he has made to us as sufficient for them also ?
And this suggests the gravest aspect of this matter. A man high in station, an admired preceptor is bound to consider the
BEECKINRIDGE S THEOLOGY. 63
force of liis example; and instead of absurdly arguing tliat a man of station must not have a fault exposed, lest the high in- terests with which the chiu'ch has entrusted him should suffer when his reputation suffers, justice sajs that his faults must be rebuked all the more faithfully, because his station will make them so extensively mischievous. The moral sense of the com- munity does, and Avill ever, justly reprobate the minister who shines in the pulpit in borrowed plumes. When such a man is detected, his reputation is justly impaired. The outraged feelings of his hearers persist in regarding him as a pretender. The de- linquency is that of Falstaff bearing the dead body of Hotspur from the battlefield, aware that the spectators would infer there- from tliat the exploit of sla^dng the hero was his. The confi- dence of the people in that minister's integrity is at an end. Now let us put a case : A young pastor of seeming gifts begins his pulpit labors Avith an opening sermon in which he distinctly informs his j)eople that he expects, as a well-instructed scribe, to use freely the_ matter Avrought out for him by able men of 'other days. But after a season it is discovered that he has preached sermons nearly the whole of which were borrowed from old preachers in their own words from time to time, with- out one farther word of acknowledgment. Is that what the peo- ple expected from his opening sermon ? Is not that man justly " sent to Coventry " by his charge ? Now it is not necessary to assert the exact parallehsm of the two cases. But we assert with confidence, that if the master is justified in doing the one, the pupils will not be slow to take the liberty of doing the other.
In conclusion, such sun-eptitious use of borrowed materials degrades the intellectual faculties no less than the moral. The great benefit of study is not in the mere knowing, but in the di- gestion of acquired thoughts. It is thus only that knowledge is made our own, the mind improved, and its fecundity preserved. But this habit of borrowing fosters indolence and dwarfs the mind, at the same time that it undermines integi'ity and seK-re- spect. It is peculiarly to be regretted that anyt,hing which even approaches an example of such practices should be done by one whom the General Assembly has placed at the head of a school for young ministers, and whose genius and vivacity have given him so much prestige over the minds of J^oung men.
9. But we have no disposition to press the charge of plagiarism
64 Breckinridge's theology.
in the above case ; while we must judge Dr. Breckinridge's course therein mistaken and unfortunate, we repeat that we are willing to grant that he felt justified to his own conscience. There is e\ddence, however, in the discussions adopted from Stapfer far more decisive as to his correctness and scholarship. The reader will find in the nineteenth chapter, pages 274-276, the following speculations taken from Stapfer, Vol. I., § 321 to 354, which we will briefly state in substance. God's intellect is infinite; he therefore must know, mth the scientia sim/pUcls intelllgentice every- thing which is possible. The possibility of anything consists in God's seeing that the existence of it would not imply a natural contradiction. God's true and perfect intellect therefore cannot but see as possibilities all things (whether created or uncreated or never to be created) which are naturally 230ssible. Hence the ideas of all possible entities are in the di%ine intellect, and are there by a necessity, as the result of God's perfection. Now the essence {essentia) of these possible things con f< Ids in their possi- Mlity ; i. e., God's eternal seeing 'that they are naturally possi- ble is what constitutes their essence. Hence the essences of all possible entities are from eternity in God's intellect. They are there of course immutably and necessarily and essentially, be- cause otherwise his intellect and knowledge would be mutable and finite. Therefore (and this is the desired deduction) the essences of all possible entities arise by a metaphysical neces- sity from the intellect of God, and not from his will or choice. It is the existence (the esse) of these entities which j)i'oceeds from the divine will. The possibility, in other words the essence of things, is necessary (in the metaphysical sense), because essen- tial to God as a being of infinite intellect. But to say that a thing is necessarily possible is not the same as to say that it will necessarily exist.
Having stated these things in Stapfer's words translated. Dr. Breckinridge concludes his paragraph by saying (as though draw- ing along breath after the labors of the discussion), "These dis- tinctions, though they may appear intricate, are not only true, but important as bearing upon questions connected with the origin of evil and ^vith the Manichean heresy, which was so long the pest of the church of God." Will not the reader be amused to compare with this the following words from the note which Stapfer appends to this place? ^' Ratio autem cur Pfiilosopld in
beeckineidge's theology. 65
hoc aclstruendo prolixiores sint,])raecipae haec est, id Maniclieh- mum hoc inodo opthne debellare queant, et omnes dijjieultates sol- vere, quae circa Originern inali mover i Solent^ How, tlien, do these spectilatibns solve the difficulty of accounting for the origin of moral evil and to overthrow the Manichean tlieorj about it? If the reader would see, let him turn over the leaves of this same Stapfer to Chapter III., § 438, etc., and he will conclude with us that this is as unlucky a case of borrowing as has ever occurred ; in other words, that this argument is one of the few in that usually excellent and orthodox writer which no educated minis- ter in America, except Dr. Breckinridge, will be willing io fatJier. It is a pity that Dr. Breckinridge did not notice how Stapfer all along credits these speculations (with a candor more worthy of being bori'owed than his discussion) to the celebrated Dr. Chris- tian Wolf and his follower Bulfinger. Now, those who are famihar with the history of theology know that Wolf, the exponent of Leibnitz, matured a method for moral and metaphysical reason- ing of a formahstic and modernized scholastic type which was excessively fashionable in Europe about the time Stapfer wrote. (Wolf flourished from about 1715 to 1750.) This method was vehemently assailed, as well as advocated, by many divines, and with such success that the orthodox king of Prussia for a time deposed Wolf from his professorship in the University of Halle, and banished him from his kingdom for the dangerous and atheistic tendency of some of his reasonings. And among the speculations for which he was thus deposed and banished were these very notions about the source of essences and the solution of the origin of evil. Now, the Wolfian philosophy has been as utterly exploded and is as utterly relinquished at our day by all educated men as the science of alchemy or judicial astrology. Its reign was short, and its principles are now universally held to have been exceedingly aAvkward and sophistical. These places of Stapfer are just the ones which well-informed theologians skip over as blemishes in an other Avise excellent author, while they excuse them as being accordant with the reigning methods of the day. But they are just those which Dr. Breckinridge has selected to borrow.
But let us see their application to Mauicheism. From the above view of essences as consisting in God's intellection of pos- sibilities, Stapfer reasons substantially thus: Hence it follows
Vol. I.— 5.
66 Breckinridge's theology.
that God's toill in calling them out of jjoiise into esse^ or giving them existence, chcmges nothing in them. When the essence is found, the nature, or soi't of entity, is determined. So that whatever of imperfection, metaphysical, physical or moral, at- taches to the imiverse or the things in it, is due, not to God's will, but to the ideas in God's intellect. But they are necessary, essential in God, and it is no fault nor choice in God that they are what they are ; for, to repeat, the essence is but God's in- tellection of the possibihty, and must be according to what it is, unless we would have God's intellect see things as they are not, i. e. see them falsely. Now it is the ^\dll, the voUtions of an in- teUigent free agent, to which we attach all praise or blame. But God's mU, in creating or disposing, changed nothing in the essences; it only superadded to them existence. So that God must not be blamed for any evil in his universe. Thus that awful mystery is solved, why a God who is almighty, and could do exactly what he pleased, should have made a world in which there will always be sin, if indeed he is truly holy and hates sin. Thus the Manichean solution of that mystery, by supposing two eternal first causes, one holy and kind, the other cruel and e^dl, is shown to be superfluous.
Now, is this the Theodlcea which Dr. Breckinridge considers so valuable ? We wonder if he is willing seriously to father it, yea, with a great wonder. Will not the reader be tempted to suspect that when he so naively repeated his reasons for troubhng us with these "intricate yet important distinctions," he knew not what he was talking about? The well informed reader Avill see at once that nothing but a. phase of recdism ever made this argument appear anything else than absurd to those who constructed it, and that nobody can consistently advance it except a Wolfian or a reahst. Is Dr. Breckinridge either? Does Dr. Breckinridge hold that universal ideas are entities, having essences before they exist any where except in God's thought, and separate from the existence of those things of which they are ideas ? Kemove this old scholastic theory, and the whole argument is a shadow. No educated man of this cen- tury that ever we have heard of goe3 farther than the conceptu- ahsts ; all agree that the idea of a thing separate from the thing is no entity, and has no essence of its o-^ti. The idea is nothing but the conceiving act of the mind itself \dewing it. In this
Breckinridge's theology. 67
practical question of the origin of evil, the difference between the idea in 2)osse and the thing in esse is all the difference be- tween nothing and something. There is no essence where there is no existence, other than the essence of the mind that con- ceives the possible something; for the essence can be nothing but the essence of the thing existing. Hence, the distinction which, is insinuated when it is urged that the divine will changes nothing in the essence of the thing willed into existence, is utterly illusory and worthless to every conceptualist, much more to every nominalist. It is the divine will which makes the whole change from the thing's not being at all to its being ; and this is everything.
Even the unlearned reader may clearly see the vanity of this wretched, antiquated piece of scholasticism as a solution of the origin of evil. For, in the first place, if it^Droves anything, it proves that God is absolutely controlled by a metaphysical necessity as to the kind of universe he shall create, so that he is not truly in- dependent and almighty. There has been from eternity a meta- physical necessity that the essence of everything should be what it is, so that God himself is subject to a new kind oifate, as dis- honorable to him as that of the Stoic. In the second place, it smacks of Pantheism, for if the essences of all things are in God eternally, essentially, necessarily and immutably, and if those essences are, before creation, no other than God's own intellect (see Stapfer, § 356, note), they must be equally in God since they came into existence. For that which is in God eternally, essentially and necessarily, in consequence of his very perfection, can in no way and at no time be taken out of him. So that the essence of Dr. Breckinridge, of us, of our readers, of Satan, are all still in God ! Third, on the Wolfian premises even the solu- tion would be sophistical; for, according to him, the essence, i. e., the possibility of all entities which possibly could be, are in God's intellect. Everything is possible, the supposing of which is not opposed by a natural contradiction. God's infinite intel- lect, therefore, contained not only the essence of the universe which he actually brought into existence, but of an infinite num- ber of different universes ; and that some one of these possible universes might have been better than the actual one, or even sinless, is not impossible, for it implies no natural contradiction to conceive it. Hence, among the numberless possibilities in the
68 beeckestridge's theology.
divine intellect, there must have been tlie possibility^ cr, in other words, essence, of a better tmiverse than this. Why, then, did not his will bring that one into actuality instead of the one we have? And last, the same explanation should hold as well to explain any e\dl connected mth man's acts. We also might "do evil that good may come," and the same metaphysical process might be appHed, step by step, to prove just as validly to our poor neighbor groaning under the injury that it did not origi- nate in our will, but in the necessary essence of a 2)0.'<sihility. Here, for instance, is one who, to secure some end lawful in it- self, has voluntarily wounded his brother's body. Says he : " The pain and danger of a wound are attributes of its essence — of a wound in posse. They are necessary attributes, and I had no choice about making them so ; for if my mind conceives truly, as it must if it acts normally at all, it must conceive a possible wound as both painful and dangerous. Of course I did not choose to wound for the sake directly of its pain and danger to you, but for the sake of the ulterior good with which the wound- ing was tied by a nexus of metaphysical necessity. So that my free will should not be blamed for the pain and danger of your wound. Those bad qualities were of its necessary essence ; my moral act only brought that essence into actuahty." A sorry salve this for a smarting sore. And a sorry salve are these worn- out philosophizings for that profound trouble which has tortured every reflecting soul, the oi*igin of evil. It were better to come at first to that solution to which every mind this side of heaven must come at last: "Even so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." "It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? "
10. The attentive reader wiU j^erceive in Dr. Breckinridge's book an obvious hinting of the modern millenarian doctrine. This perhaps is one of the subjects he intends in these words from his preface (page xi.) : " Upon some points which have al- ways agitated the Christian mind, I have spoken with a certain reserve, dictated alike by the appreciation I had of the true na- ture of those questions, and of my official position as teacher of theology, appointed by a church whose standards were framed by men holding almost opposite views on those points, and wisely avoiding defining them as of faith." If our surmise is correct, we can by no means say with him that the Confession of
BEECKINKIDGE S THEOLOGY. 69
Faitli has avoided defining this doctrine as (not) of faith. (See Confession, Ch. XXXII., § II. ; Larger Catechism, Ques. 87, 88.) The varied phases and degrees in which modern miUenarians hold their creed, the brevity and vagueness of the hints of it in this book, and lack of space, forbid extended discussion. Some of those hints may be seen by the reader, pages 85, 86, 133 bottom, 185. To those who consider the theory as we do, as involving no trivial errors, even these hints of approbation constitute a subject of some regret ; for one of the surest ways to secure the adoption of a doubtful doctrine is this frequent reproduction of it without express assertion or argument, but in seeminglv logical connection with other admitted truths. To those who believe in millenarianism these hints of it will, of course, seem an additional merit. Our purpose is fulfilled by merely putting the reader on his guard on this topic. And in doing this we cheerfully accord to Dr. Breckinridge the credit of refraining from the obtrusion of his peculiar views as carefully as can be expected of one who is so zealouslycommitted to them as he is said to be.
11. Perhaps other subjects of criticism might be profitably handled, but the reader has been detained long enough. We plainly avow that we expend more space in pointing out defects than excellences, not because the book has not many things which we would praise with sincerity, but because too much praise has already been given in the newspapers. We well know that the excessive, unqualified, and in some cases fulsome lauda- tions which have been uttered do not express the sober judg- ment of well-informed Presb}i;erians. Some of them could hardly be true of any book, unless its author were more than human. That the Presbyterian press shoidd have spoken as it has of a book marked by such blemishes as we have pointed out has been mortifying to many of the wisest. It indicates either that this press has run miserably low in its stock of sound, discriminating, theological learning, or that it is infected with a servility towards station and brilliant reputation iitterly inconsistent with the parity of the ministry and the manly independence of our people.
Those things which have seemed to us the chief merits of this work we shall enumerate more briefly indeed than we have re- cited defects, but with no less emphasis and sincerity. And the fij-st of these merits, it seems to us, is the uniform tone of high
TO Breckinridge's theology.
and sustained reverence in wliich tlie great tilings of God are discussed. An exalted conception of his majesty and sanctity breathe from many passages, which are in pleasing contrast "nith the flippant dr^Tiess and coldness we sometimes see in the dis- cussions of the pulpit as well as of books. The second point of high merit is the manliness and "s^isdom mth w^hich the great truths which determine decisively between orthodoxy and heter- odoxy are stated. The trumpet is one which gives no uncertain sound ; and these great truths are frequently so put as to e^4nce that not only a true interpretation of Scripture, but a time \'ie"W of man's nature and rehgious wants, are best satisfied by their most unflinching adoption. A third class of excellences will pre- sent itself to the reader in frequent passages of true animation and eloquence. The style is, indeed, not entitled to the praise of simpHcity or perspicuity, but it is always animated, and often elevated. The power and skill of the successful declaimer are often seen in the dramatic and ascending grouping of concep- tions, and sometimes the effect rises even to grandeur. As a specimen of this excellence we would indicate especially the pas- sage ill which the humihation and exaltation of Christ are por- trayed. (Pages 127 to 133.)
If something like a general estimate 'of the work must be given, we would say that it is such a book as those who know Dr. Breck- inridge would expect of him. And in sapng this, we cheerfully allow to him many high and some splendid endowments. Nor shall we deny the valuable services which his courage, general or- thodoxy and zeal have rendered the church. That he has genius, none who have heard his forensic efforis will dispute, nor that his understanding is active, strong, adventurous. But this work shows him rather the man of genius than of science. It is well known that his theological education was abridged and irregular, and that his middle Hfe was spent amidst exciting and diversified labors, not favorable to the systematic digestion of knowledge, however intensely they may have stimulated special and frag- mentary studies. This training, and the temper of his mind, self-rehant, depreciatory of antagonists, and eager for indepen- dence of method and thought, were no safe preparation for walk- ing steadily the narrow and dizzy paths of moral speculation. Patience of mind, to perfect, review and mature, was lacking. In- deed, the brightest displays of Dr. Breckinridge's abihty, as well
BRECKINEIDGE S THEOLOGY. 71
as tlie most eloquent instances of style, have always been de- livered in the excitement of forensic collision. He requires such excitement to steady and brace his powers, to clarify and nerve his otherwise obscure language. His muse is Bellona, his inspi- ration the guadiiim certaminis', his successful logic is that of the concrete. Dr. Breckinridge's friends have committed a grave error in persuading him that he is a dialectician. When he sits down in contemplative calmness to write on abstract subjects, his mind wavers for want of a stronger resistance, and strikes vaguely. To -^Tjite a book on systematic divinity, and especially to write it so hurriedly, was the very thing he should not have done. The department in which his labors would have been most truly useful to the church, and creditable to himself, is that of church poHty; for here his habits of concrete and forensic thought, the legal training of his early life, and his experience of ecclesiastical pohtics, would have qualified him for success.
When we come to the structure of the discussion, we find in addition to the traits indicated in our remarks on Dr. Breckin- ridge's classification, this characteristic : he seems to desire con- tinually to deal only in views of truth the most elevated and ex- panded. There is a constant attempt to assume jjoints of -view so high as to look down ujDon those conclusions to which the rest of us mortals have to toil uj). The consequence is, that the ex- j)ansion of \dew not seldom destroys distinctness of outlme ; we are raised so high that our heads are in the clouds, and we see nothing. Thoughts are enunciated which seem as though they might be very comprehensive and fine, which are certainly extensive enough to contain everything, but so undefined that we feel no assurance they will hold anything. There is a " dim magnificence " which cannot be better characterized than in the language of Aris- tophanes, which Mr. Macaulay apphes, for a similar purpose, to Mr. Gladstone.
& yrj Ton (fOiYij.azo<i^ ux; Ispw, xai rre/zyov, xat zsnarwSsi}.
But it is VOX et 2)t'<it&'i"&^(- nilul. There is also in many parts an indistinctness of scope and purpose, which leaves the reader in doubt whether he has apprehended the intended drift of the author, or the whole of it. He often seems to intend that we shall see pregnant and far-reaching conclusions fi-om the mere juxtaposition of statements, and as we read we are a Vitle
72 Breckinridge's theology.
inclined to feel as though we ought to see them, and find them as valuable as indicated ; and yet, read over as often and atten- tively as we may, we do not, and cannot see them. It is e%ddent that the thoughts have been thrown together vaguely, and only half -evolved from the mist of their conception ; they need to be wrought out into distinctness of outline and connection. This book is one which will never, by any possibihty, be used for the practical purposes of theological instruction.
On the whole, if this work had come from a man not previ- ously knoAVTi it would have been justly regarded as one striking, and, in some respects, remarkable. It will add nothing to Dr. Breckinridge's fame. It shows, indeed, the characteristics of his genius, but in a manner less favorable to his reputation than his pre\dous productions, because he has unfortunately selected in this case unsuitable ground for their display.
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE .fUSTIFICATIOX/
WE learn from the Epistle to the Romans, that Paul had no sooner declared his conclusion, "that a man is justi- fied bj faith without the deeds of the law," than the cavil Avas thrown back, "Shall we, then, continue in sin that grace may abound ?" From that day to this the enemies and maligners of the gospel theology on the one hand, and its perverters on the other, have echoed the same deduction. On the one hand, the tendency to antinomianlsm has adopted and justified it as a correct inference, sometimes openl}', and more often covertly. In the Lutheran Church, Agricola of Eisleben, a contemporary of Luther, and among the English Puritans of the seventeenth century, Dr. Crisp, were charged with this monstrous error ; the first mth justice, the second, probably, unjustly. " Since Christ has vicariously paid the whole legal debt due from sinners to God," the autinomian argues, " and the title to acceptance and life thus accruing is bestowed on every believer through his faith alone, the precept has no further claim, either of penalty or obedience, upon us who beheve. God cannot justly demand payment of the same obligation twice over. If Christ's work was vicarious, we who embrace it are free in every sense. Dis- obedience to the moral law cannot bring us into condemnation. Or, in other words, transgression ceases to be guilty when com- mitted by the justified believer. There may be a certain seem- liness in the grateful hearkening of the behever to the wishes of his divine benefactor. There may be motives draAvn from secular order and temporal advantage in favor of a moral life ; but the justified believer is under no obligation. If his faith is clear, no sin vitiates his title to heaven." But it is seldom such speculations have been openly uttered in the history of Christian
1 This discussion appeared in The Southern Review for April, 1873, being a re- view of, 1. Short Studies on Great Subjects, and History of England : By James Anthony Fronde. 2. Works of William Ellery CJumninrj, D. D. 3. Symbolism of Catholics and ProtestatiU : By J. A. Mohler, D. D. 4. Journal and Works of the Eev. John Wesley, D. D. PMadelphia. Vols. III., IV. 73
74 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
doctrine. Lutlier and some otlier Protestants, in tlie lieat of their zeal against Pharisaism, have perhaps uttered rhetorical assertions of the believer's emancipation from the penalty of the moral law too bold to be safe when torn fi-om their designed connection. It was not seldom the complaint of the best Pro- testant divines, in the Lutheran, the Reformed, and even the Moravian communions, that sluggish and lustful minds perverted their precious gospel of free justification to excuse their idle or profligate living. But what truth peculiar to revelation has not been wrested ? We freely admit, that should a man whose soul is enslaved to his lusts, and wholly unenUghtened by the purify- ing principles of the gospel, be so unlucky as to adopt a false hoj)e of heaven (on any scheme of doctrine), the result will be the emboldening of his evil desires. But this evil effect will be as sure upon a sacramentarian or a Pharisaic theory in the case supposed as upon ours ; and such is the testimony of experience. There have always been a thousand Kcentious professors of the self-righteous schemes to one of the evangelical. In the latter class we have to enumerate those frequent and shocking instances where an unholy life is startlingly illustrated by the contrast of the gracious creed which is so loudly and so falsely professed. But in the former class are found the millions who live in shame- less sin under the altars of the Greek, Roman, and other ritual- istic churches.
But the conclusion, that a free justification must encourage licentious living, is advanced by opposite parties. The Romish, the Socinian, and many worldly writers, argue thus : " The conse- quence is unavoidable, and therefore the principle cannot be true. Por God is a holy God, and Christ's was a holy mission. There- fore the Scriptures cannot have intended to teach so odious a doc- trine. If men are told that no merit of a virtuous life can con- tribute one whit to their acceptance with God, and that, provided they are believers, no sin can jeopardize it, they must be indiffer- ent to obedience. Yea ; the inference is at least jDlausible : The more wickedness in God's children the more his grace is glorified ! It cannot be, then, that the doctrine of justification by faith with- out works is of God."
We must expect that so long as there are minds unenlightened by grace, there will l)e such cavilings. Dr. Thomas Chalmers informs us that in the days of his skeptical worldliness (which
THE MORAL EFFECTS OP A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 75
extended bejoud his ordiuation), he regarded the doctrine with abhoiTence on this ground. But after he had learned to preach Christ crucified in Paul's method, he bore wholly another testi- mony. i^L'ife, by Hanna, Vol. I,, pp. 434-5.) " During.the whole of that period, in which I made no attempt against the enmity of the mind to God ; while I was inattentive to tlie way in which this enmity is dissolved — even by the free offer, on the one hand, and the believing acceptance of the gospel salvation — even at this time I certainly did press the reformation of honor and truth and integrity among my people, but I never once heard of any such reformations having been effected among them. It was not till I took the scriptural way of la^dng the method of reconciliation before them that I ever heard of any of those sub- ordinate reformations."
It is well known to theologians that Romanists uniformly charge a licentious result upon the Protestant doctrine of justification. "We need do no more than cite the most bitter and adroit of their modern polemics. Mohler, in his Symholism (Cli. 3, § 25), labors through dreary pages of fraud to evince this. He charges that the antinomianism of Agrieola of Eisleben, or of Nicholas Ams- dorf, was the legitimate corollary of Luther's teachings. He rep- resents Luther as teaching " an inward and essential opposition between religion and morality." He says that had Luther been sufficiently well informed of the history of opinion, he must have avowed as his own that conclusion of Marcion, so denounced by the Fathers : That the preceptive God of the Old Testament was a different being from the gracious God of the New.
Passing to a very different school of legalists, we quote from the great New England Unitarian, Dr. Channing, a representa- tion of the manner in which the Socinians adopt the same cavil. In his sermon, "Unitarian Christianity more Favorable to Piety," ( Works, Vol. III., p. 190), he says : "Trinitarians also exhibit the work, as well as the character, of Christ, in Hglits less favorable to piety. It does not make the promotion of piety its chief end. It teaches that the highest purpose of his mission was to recon- cile God to man, not man to God. It teaches that the most formidable obstacle to human happiness lies in the claims and threatenings of divine justice. Hence it leads men to prize Christ more for answering these claims and averting these threatenings, than for awakening in the soul human sentiments of love toward
76 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FliEE JUSTIFICATION.
the Fatlier in heaven. Accordingly, multitndes appear to prize pardon more than piety, and think it a greater boon to escape, through Chiist's sufferings, the fii'e of hell, than to receive, through his influence, the spirit of heaven, the spiiit of devotion. Is such a system propitious to a generous, ever-growing piety?"
Froude, in both the worlis cited at the beginning of this aiiicle, discloses very plainly his Socinian and latitudinarian affinities. He is fond of pointing to the Protestant doctrine of justification as the corrupter of the EngHsh people, and of identifpng its fore- most advocates in church and state A^ith corrupt scoundrels. He takes care not to mention that staunch Hugh Latimer and John Knox, whose spotless integrity he cannot but applaud, were the firmest advocates and best exemplars, at once, of that doctrine. In the History (Vol. Y., p. 259,) he writes: "Such was the state of things "which lay before the successors of Somerset (Protector to the child-king, Edward.) They were called upon to fight against corruption, whiqli had infected the whole communit}', and, among the rest, had infected themselves. It was easier and plea- santer to earn the titles of 'Ministers of God,' by patronizing teachers who insisted on the worthlessness of good Avorks, and could distinguish correctly between imputed and infused right- eousness."
Under the heading of "Moral Results of the Eeformation" (p. 405), he ■svT.ites : " The peojole had exchanged a superstition vrhich, in its grossest abuses, prescribed some shadow of respect for obedience, for a superstition vjhich merged ohedience i?i specu- lathe helief: and under that baneful influence, not only the higher \di-tues of self-sacrifice, but the commonest duties of probity and morality were disappearing."
In his Short Studies on Great Suhjects, rmder the title of " The Condition and Prospects of Protestantism," he tells us that he attended in the West of England (cAidently among either the Welsh or the Wesleyan Methodists), a devotional meeting of evangehcal Protestants. Here is a j)art of his malignant travesty of the truths there inculcated : " We were told that the business of each individual man and Avoman in the world was to save his or her soul ; that Ave are all sinners together ; all equally guilty, helpless, lost, accursed children, unable to stir a finger, or do a thing to help ourselves. Happily, Ave were not required to stir a finger ; rather, we were forbidden to attempt it. An antidote had
THE MOEAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 77
been provided for our sins, and a substitute for our obedience. Everything had been done for us. We had but to lay hold of the perfect righteousness which had been fulfilled in our behalf. We had but to put on the vesture provided for our wearing, and our safety was assured. The reproaches of conscience were silenced. We are perfectly happy in this world, and certain to be blessed in the next. If, on the other hand, we neglected the offered grace ; if, through carelessness, or intellectual perverseness, or any other cause, we did not apprehend it in the proper manner, if we tried to please God ourselves by ' works of righteousness,' the sacrifice would then cease to avail for us. It mattered no- thing whether, in the common acceptation of the word, we were good or bad, we were lost all the same, condemned by perfect justice to everlasting torture."
"It is, of course, impossible for human creatures to act toward one another on these principles. The man of business, on week- days, deals with those whom he employs on week-day rules. He gives them work to do, and he expec+s them to do it. He knows the meaning of good desert, as well as of ill desert. He promises and he threatens. He praises and he blames. He will not hear of \acarious labor. He rewards the honest and industrious. He punishes the lazy and the vicious. Ha finds society so con- structed that he cannot exist unless men treat one another as re- sponsible for their actions, and as able to do right as well as wrong," etc., etc. That is to say, Mr. Fronde thinks it very ab- surd that we do not think God ransoms and saves a world of lost, guilty sinners on the same principles on which "the man of busi- ness" governs some of his fellow-creatures and natural equals! Perhaps he might be undeceived if he would listen to such words as the following, from a book of which he manifestly knows little : " Thou thoughtest," says God, " that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee." (Ps. 1. 21.)
We propose, however, as the most effectual way to expose the errors and misconceptions of all these objectors, to present a connected view of the teachings of a number of Protestant Con- fessions upon the doctrine of our justification. If there is any representation of its doctrines for which a church may properly be held responsible, and to which it may appeal, to show what it does and does not teach, it is the creed or confession deliber- ately adopted for itself. We wish to evince, first, the glorious
78 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
harmony (amidst all less important diversities) of all the Protes- tant communities upon this " Articulus Ecclesice stant'is ant ca- deiitis'''' ; and, second, the unanimity mth which they disclaim and denounce the antinomian corollary sought to be fixed upon them.
Let us begin "wdth the most noted of these documents, the Augsburg Confession, \\T:itten by Malancthon, sanctioned by Lu- ther, and presented by the German Protestants to Charles V., in 1540.
"When the gospel accuseth us of sin, our convicted hearts ought to conclude that the remission of sins and justification are
bestowed on us, gratis, for Christ's sake, by faith It is
given gratis, that is, it doth not depend on the condition of our worth, nor is it given for the sake of any works precedent, or the worthiness of [works] following," etc. (Sec. 4.) They then add
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- 1 John v. 7
- John ii. 16
- Heb. xi. 3
- Luke ix. 24
- 1 Cor. xv. 22
- Matthew vi. 13
- John xvi. 24
- Ps. 1. 21
Section 6 " They teach that when we are reconciled by faith, the
righteousness of our good works must necessarily foUoio, which God hath commanded us, as also Christ hath enjoined : ' If thou va\t enter into life, keep the commandments.' "
The Helvetic Confession, composed by BulHnger, Myconius, and Grynffius, A. D. 1536, says, after defining justification as God's " remitting our sins, absolving us from their guilt and pen- alty, receiving us into grace, and pronouncing us just" (§ 15): "But since we receive this justification, not through any works, but through faith on the mercy of God and on Christ, so we teach and beheve with the apostle, that sinful man is justified by faith alone on Christ, not by the law or any works." But, in § 16, they add : "The same apostle called faith 'efficacious,' and
' working by love,' Gal. v This same faith retaineth us
in our duty, which we owe to God and our neighbor, and con- firmeth patience in adversity, and formeth and maketh a true confession, and, to say all in one word, propagateth good fruits of every kind, and good works." "For we teach that works really good are born of a living faith, through the Holy Ghost, and are done by behevers according to the will of God and the rule of his word," etc.
"Although, therefore, we teach with the apostle, that man is justified gratis, through faith in Christ, and not through any good works, still we do not therein -vdhpend or disapprove of good works. For we know that man was neither created, nor is he born again,
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 79
tlirougli faith, in order to idle ; but rather in order that he may do ceaselessly the things which are good and useful," etc.
The Confession of the French Protestant Church, 1561, saj^s (§ 17) : "We believe that we are reconciled to God by that sole sacrifice which Christ offered on the cross, so that we are ac- counted before him as righteous ; since we cannot be pleasing to him, nor possess the fruit of our adoption, save as he pardoneth our sins. Accordingly, we testify that Jesus Christ is our whole and perfect cleansing, in whose death we obtain a full satisfac- tion for guilt," etc. (§ 18) : "Accordingly, we clearly repudiate all other grounds by which men deem they may be justified before God, and, all estimate of our virtues and merits discarded, we rest in the sole obedience of Jesus Christ," etc.
Compare, now, the following from § 22 : " We believe that we, who are by nature servants of sin, when this same faith inter- venes, are regenerated into a new life. But by this faith we re- ceive the grace of living hohly, while Ave embrace that gospel promise, that the Lord mil give us the Holy Spirit. Faith is, then, so far from extinguishing the zeal for living well and hoHly, that it rather wakens and inflames that zeal in us ; whence good works do necessarily proceed."
The well-known Confession of the Westminster divines, adopted by the Presbyterians of Great Britain and America, may sufficiently represent the views of all the Protestants known as Cahinistic ; and a brief citation from it may fairly stand for the Belgic, the Heidelberg, the Augsburg, and other symbols of that school. In the eleventh chapter the Westminster Confession says :
"§ 1. Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely jus- tifieth ; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardon- ing their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous ; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone," etc.
" § 2. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and his right- eousness, is the alone instrument of justification ; jet is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love."
As a representative of the Anabaptist communions, we insert an extract from the Mennonite standards. They show that, Avidely as these sects differed from other Protestants, they were all at one touching justification and good works :
80 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
"Catechism: Ques. 3. — Do you tlien hope to be justified and saved by your good works in keeping tlie commandments of Clirist?'
"Aois. — No; by oui- good works we cannot gain lieaven, or merit eternal blessedness; but it is by grace that we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves ; it is the gift of God." (Eph. ii. 8.)
"Ques. 4. — Whereunto, then, do good works and the keeping of the commandments of Christ serve ?
"A71S. — By good works we show forth and manifest our faith in Jesus Christ; for obedience to the commandments of God, wrought by love, is the light and hfe of faith, and without which faith is dead. (Jas. ii. 20.)"
The Articles of ReHgion adopted by the Episcopal Churches of Great Britain and America (the churches which love the pa- rental relation to the great Wesleyan communion, if often step- parents), state the matter thus :
"Art. XI. — Of the Justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. "Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most whole- some doctrine, and very full of comfort, as more largely is ex- pressed in the homily of justification.
" Art. XII. — Of Good Works. Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot piit away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit."
The Articles as held by our Methodist Episcopal Church are identical, save that in the former of them, the reference to the homily, and in the latter, the word "necessarily," are omitted, and the idiom is a httle modernized.
The most venerable of all these Confessions v/e have, for a par- ticular reason, reserved for the last of our witnesses. It is the Confession of the Bohemian and Moravian ministers and nobles, the leaders of that Reformed Church before the Reformation, whose character was illustrated by the labors and martyrdom of John Huss. This body, at the da^vn of the Reformation, joyfully
THE MOR.IL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 81
recognized the new Protestants as their brethren in the faith. The renewed discussions of the movement, begun by Liither and Z^vinghns, caused the church of "the Picards," as they were styled, to present their formal Confession to their prince, the Austrian king of the Romans, A. D. 1535. At the end of Article VI. they say :
"Thej^ further teach, that men are justified before God by faith, or trust on Jesus Christ, alone, without any strivings, mer- its, and works of their own. As Paul teacheth : ' But to him that worketh not, but belie veth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' Again : ' But now the right- eousness of God without the law is manifested, bein<jc mtnessecl by the law and the propli^ts.' And this righteousness is ' by the faith of Jesus Christ.' Elsewhere: 'Through him, whosoever believeth is justified.' And this sixth Article is among us held the most fundamental of all, as being the sum of all Christianity and piety. Accordingly, our people teach and discuss it with all diUgence and zeal, and strive to inculcate it on all."
Art. YII. — " To this they add : ' Let those who are justified by the sole grace of God, and faith on Christ, do the good works which God commands, and let each one walk worthily in them, according to his vocation, in whatsoever grade of life, state and age he may be. For thus the Lord, with Matthew: 'Teach them,' saith he, 'to observe all things which I command you.* But, since many things are extant in Scripture touching this, we forbear to treat it farther.' .... 'But they teach that good works must thus be done, that faith may be by them approved. For good works are the sure witnessings, seals, and indices of the living faith within, and fruits thereof, by which the tree is distin- guished (Matthew vii.) as good or evil,'" etc.
The point of present interest to us in this witness is, that the great founder of the Wesleyan communion was so largely indebted, under God, to the descendants of this Moravian communion for his final and joyful establishment in the peace of the gospel. A shattered remnant of these Christians, fleeing out of fiery perse- cutions in the eighteenth century, found refuge under Count Zin- zendorf, at Herrnhut, in Priissian Lusatia, and spreading thence, planted themselves in several spots of Europe and America. It was during Wesley's voyage to Georgia that he first saAv these humble Christians, and was struck with their possession of an Vol. I.— €.
82 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FEEE JUSTIFICATION.
assured spiritual peace wliicli he then lacked, not^\dthstanding his ardent strivings. After his return he entered into more inti- mate relations with their ministers in England ; and, finally, seeking the rest his soul craved, he visited their parent seat at Hermhut. There he met Christian Da\'id, a Moravian minister, whose simple and sincere wisdom he learned to esteem above that of the others, and of Count Zinzendorf himself, from whose mouth he received this testimony :
"The word of reconciliation which the apostles preached, as the foundation of all they taught, was : That we are reconciled to God, not by our own works, nor by our own righteousness, but
wholly and solely by the blood of Christ."
" The right foundation is not your contrition, not your righteous- ness, nothing of your oicn, nothing that is wrought in you by the Holy Ghost, but it is something without you, \dz., the righteous- ness and blood of Christ." ..." And when they have re- ceived this gift from God, then their hearts Anil melt for sorrow that they have offended him," etc.
Wesley tells us, in his journal (May 24tli, 1738), the issue of his doubts and fears. "I was now thoroughly convinced, and by the grace of God I resolved to seek it [faith] unto the end. 1. By absolutely renouncing all dependence, in whole or in part, on my own works or righteousness, on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not, from my youth up. 2. By adding to the constant use of all other means of grace continual prayer for this very thing — justif^dng, saving faith, a full rehance on the blood of Christ shed for me, a trust in him as 'iny Christ, as my sole justification, sanctification, and redemp- tion." Thenceforward he was able, with a triumphant hand, to sweep his hallowed l}T-'e, as he took up that strain which was silenced no more, and which to-day he is singing in glory :
"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness, My beauty are, my glorious dress ; Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head. "
AVe shall close our appeal to this " great cloud of witnesses " with two emphatic sentences from those "Sermons" of Wesley which are recognized by Methodists as carrjdng almost the force of a doctrinal covenant among them. In Sermon V., on Justifi- cation, he says:
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 83
•' 5t7i, Faitli, therefore, is the necessary condition of justifica- tiou ; yea, and the onli/ necessary condition thereof. This is the second point carefully to be observed, that the very moment God giveth faith (for it is the gift of God) to the 'ungodly,' that 'worketh not,' that faith is counted to him for righteousness."
These mtnesses evince at least two things : the universal agree- ment of the evangelical churches in excluding the merits of man's works from his justification, and their equally hearty belief that this justification by the sole righteousness of Christ is only con- ducive to holy living. It is the latter proposition which we pro- pose farther to consider. Our purposes are to clear away the slanders and misconceptions of the opposers of the great Protes- tant doctrine, and to admonish ourselves and our brethren against •the secret tendency, should it lurk in any of us, toward pervert- ing the grace of the Redeemer to the excusing of our sluggish- ness. The theme which we argue is, in truth, just the one as- serted by Paul : " Do we, then, make void the law through faith? God forbid; yea, we establish the law." The "war is to be carried into Africa." So far is it from being true that a fi"ee justification disparages the claims of holiness, it enhances them far above any force which they could derive from a plan of jus- tification by works, even were such a plan permitted to sinners.
Let us, in advancing to this issue, sweep away a preliminary obstacle. The few nominal Christians who have been audacious enough to assert a theoretical antinomianism, sustain it, as we saw, by this false logic : " Since Christ has paid our debt vicari- ously, if the law of God put in any claim of positive obhgation on believers, either preceptive or penal, this would be the intrin- sic injustice of requiring payment tT\dce for one claim." This proceeds on the double error of regarding God's claim of right upon man as one of commutative justice only, instead of rectoral justice, and of degrading Christ's satisfaction for sinners to a mere pecuniary equivalent. Let us explain: God is not our equal, trading with us, but our creator, sovereign, proprietor, and chief end. Christ's vicarious righteousness is not a mere commercial equivalent, but a gloriously suitable, yet free, moral equivalent, devised and wi'ought by divine grace at its own op- tion. "When a man is in debt to his fellow, under the rules of commutative justice, if his security oflfer to the creditor the pre- cise amount of money due, in legal coin of the realm, it is "a
84 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
legal tender." Tlie creditor is obliged to accept it as payment, and lias no option to say, "I prefer tlie money of tlie j)i'incipal debtor himself." If lie says this, lie loses liis "wbole claim thence- forward, and the debtor goes free. But it is a miserable degra- dation of Christ's satisfaction to conceive it thus. God, the cred- itor, is sovereign owner of the debtor. The debt is moral, and not commercial. There is no law superior to God, restraining his holy and righteous discretion as to the shape in which his justice shall demand and receive its satisfaction. Hence, when divine mercy proposed a vicarious satisfaction, the free, optional acceptance of the Sovereign was as essential to its validity as the divine worthiness of the Substitute. Now, the greater in- cludes the less, and the whole its parts. If the divine creditor has discretionary right to devise and accept a substitution, of course he has the included right, when he accepts it, to reserve any terms or conditions with the released debtor which he chooses. "What terms he has seen fit, in his mercy, holiness and wisdom, to reserve and stipulate with us sinners, is therefore simply a question of fact. "What saith he in his gospel of this ? The substance of the answer is this: That he graciously accepts " Christ as the end of the law for righteousness to every one that beheveth," reserving to himself these two points — both entirely consistent with a blessed reconciliation — that the beneficiary shall still observe the law as his rule of holy living (though no longer as his covenant of works), and that the Father shall have the option of chastening the reconciled child during his mihtant state, for his good, in love and not in wrath. " These things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works." " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." Now, such being the transactions, and God having expressly stipulated these reservations in the very offer of his mercy, it is a simple impertinence to say that he can no longer require obedience of us without claiming the same debt twice.
We can fully admit the truth of one part of the Eomanist and Socinian objection : no doctrine can be true which abrogates the force of God's commandments over his reasonable creatures. If the doctrine of a gracious justification did this, it could not be true. But such is not its effect. Our God claims holiness as his consummate attribute. "Evil shall not dwell with him."
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 85
Our obligation to imitate and obey him is more original even than any published precept, for it is founded on our natural re- lation to him, as moral creatures of a righteous and beneficent Sovereign. Christ came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil; it was impossible that he should come on the former errand. Hence, whatever change of dispensation man's sin and fall and God's mercy may have prompted, it is simply impossible that there can be anywhere or for any object a dispensation of diso- bedience.
To rebut the charge that the teaching of a gracious justifica- tion encourages license, we might appeal first to experience. It was the testimony of Dr. Chalmers, who at first believed the charge, that he found those who boasted in the merit of their obedience to commend them to God less zealous to obey, while those who claimed no merit of reward for their works were most punctilious in their works. This seeming paradox, Avhen honest observation first forced it on his attention, appeared unaccount- able. Grace afterward taught him the beautiful solution. The fact which we claim in our favor can justly be put in a very pungent form against our accusers : that the most current charge the world has had to bring against the advocates of the evangelical doctrine is that of over-strictness. Wlio were the Protestants stigmatized in the seventeenth century as "Puritans" (purists in their conduct)? The especial advocates, among the Anglican clergy and people, of this doctrine of a gracious justification. We have seen the doctrine of "Wesley ; what was the name of reproach hurled at his adherents? They were "Methodists;" they were so strict in their obedience as to live by a tnetliodus, forsooth ! But a century of the fruits of Christian charity, zeal and virtue, borne among Methodists by this hope of free justifi- cation, has transmuted the term of obloquy into a title of honor. Such is the inconsistency of the indictment. When the gospel doctrine is presented in theory, the world exclaims, " O ! it breeds license of conduct; away with it." But when it is fairly pre- sented in the actual conduct of its representative advocates, the virtue which it prompts is "too strict." This world, just now so jealous of relaxation of life, cannot endure the restraints of such a life.
But to proceed. It is argued that men cannot be longer induced to exert themselves in righteous li-sdng when you have
86 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FEEE JUSTIFICATION.
assured tliem that their righteousness can earn nothing, and that the lack of it forfeits nothing. Such reasoning evidently pro- ceeds upon the assumption that self-interest is the only, or at least the chief, motive to a Christian hfe. We might, then, dis- miss the whole debate bj saying that such is not our estimate of the life of faith ; we can descend to no such grovelling scheme of morals. The behever has better motives to spur him to a cease- less career of duty than a mercenary calculation of advantage to his self-love. Hence, even if all motives of self-interest were ex- tinguished, other and nobler ones would remain. But the evan- gelical doctrine does not propose to extinguish, neither does it neglect, the desire of good to one's self. So far as a rational re- gard for our own welfare here and hereafter is a legitimate affec- tion, it leaves it in full operation. This desire is enUghtened, purified, subordinated to God's will and glory. But we assert that all the force which it can have, or ought to have, as motive to stimulate effort, is left unbroken hy the promise of justifica- tion without the merit of our own works. This we evince in three ways :
First, The gospel teaches us that while beHevers are not re- warded on account of their works, they are rewarded according to their works. This is a plain distinction which the Romanists (as Mohler, in his Sj/ynJjolism,) labor most deceitfully to confound. They represent us as teaching that works done by the aid of Christ's grace are not morally good in God's sight; that they must be classed as in themselves sins at least venial, if not mor- tal sins; that in God's sight the sins of the unrenewed are as rewardable as the obedience of the regenerate. Now, what we teach is, that an act done in sincerity and affection for God, agreeable to his precepts and by the aids of his grace, is the object of moral approbation with God; he is pleased by it. It does stand in moral contrast, in his view, with the sin which "sdo- lates his precept. But we hold that this act, if its good motives be mixed with any remains of indwelling sin, must still be esti- mated by the heai-t-searching God as what it is, short of the perfection required by the divine law. We hold that even a per- fect act of to-day could not atone for the delinquency of yester- day, because, even though we had "done all those things which are commanded us, we must say we are unprofitable servants ; we have done that which was our duty to do. " We beheve, with Paul,
THE MORAL EFFECTS OP A FEEE JUSTIFICATION. 87
" that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh [already sinful and condemned by that law] be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin." This is but sa\dng, that a criminal who had confessed, or been convicted of murder, could not ap- peal to the /statute against murder for acquittal, because the sole legal function of that statute as to that man was to affix his doom. Hence, while we ascribe to all gracious works a right moral quality, approvable by God so far as they are morally right, we refuse to ascribe to them the " condign merit " of the Romish divine ; we do not believe that they create a claim of debt against God to bestow a reward. This were in every point of \dew pre- posterous ; both because we had before forfeited all such claim, and incurred the opposite title, the title to punishment ; l^ecause the credit of the works, in the highest sense, returns to God, whose grace enabled us to do them ; and because he is our sov- ereign proprietor, to whom we and all our services originally belonged. (See Luke xvii. 9.) The slave did not deem that he had brought his owner in debt by rendering a service which the owner rightfully claimed as property. Hence we have no " con- dig7i merit " on which to claim even a restoration to favor.
But when our divine Substitute has effected that restoration to favor gratuitously, then our holy Father can be pleased with all truly good works, as thank-offerings of our gratitude to his undeserved grace. He declares that with such sacrifices "he is well pleased." He has taught us, moreover, that in order to manifest his benevolence and holiness to the world, he will ap- portion the riches of the inheritance Avhich Christ purchased for us, and bestowed "without money and without price," to the amount of our sacrifices for him. And this is not a transaction of commutative or even of distributive justice, but a bestowal of fatherly love. Christ bought this pri^dlege, also, for us. " While sin is the wages of death, eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." That the gift is proportioned by this rule is plain from the parable of the talents. The servant who gained for his lord an increase of ten jjoimds from one, is made ruler over ten cities ; while the servant who gained five pounds, while commended in like manner, is made ruler over five cities. The apostle (in 2 Cor. ix.), while inculcating alms-giA-ing purely as a thank-offering to God, yet adds : * He which soweth spar- ingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully
88 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
shall reap also bountifully." Hence it follows that a sluggish or unholy life, even if it did not suggest any doubt of the whole inheritance, would at least rob it of a large part of its riches. The sordid pleasure of the self-indulgent is short-lived ; the sub- traction of joy and glory from the future prize will be everlast- ing. Here is a motive appealing to enhghtened self-interest, to which a Hving faith cannot be insensible. Does any one say, " No ; any seat, the lowest within the gate of heaven, will fully sate my ambition." The answer is, that such an ambition can attest only a dead faith — a faith which is worthless to place the soul within the gate ; for the soul that loves God and heaven must crave all of heaven that it can attain.
But, second, sluggishness in duty cannot be indulged without bringing our title to the inheritance into doubt. All know our Saviour's maxim, " By their fruits ye shall know them." He has given us this rule, not only for judging the vaUdity of our neigh- bors' titles, but of our own titles, to his favor. Indeed, while the Scriptures everywhere make our works naught, as meritorious grounds of justification, they make much of them as evidences or indices of our justification. They plainly assume that all other ■evidences w^ould become invaUd if they remained without this -vital sign — the fruits of holy living. These simple remarks give lis at once the key to understand and reconcile two large groups of texts which some suppose contradictory. The one class runs thus : " If I wash myself with snow w^ater, and make my hands never so clean ; yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch, and mine own clothes shall abhor me." " I have heard of thee by the hear- ing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee ; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." (Job ix. 30, 31 ; xlii. 5, 6.) " I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." (Ps. Ixxi. 16.) "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." (Ps. cxliii. 2.) "We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do." (Luke xvii. 10.) "But that no man is justi- fied by the law in the sight of God, it is evident ; for, The just shall Uve by faith." (Gal. iii. 11.) " Not by works of righteous- ness w^hich w^e have done, but according to his mercy he saved us," etc. (Titus iii. 5.) The other class reads thus : " Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shaU stand in his holy place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; who hath
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FEEE JUSTIFICATION. 89
not lifted up liis soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully." (Ps. xxiv. 3, 4.) "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." (Jolin XV. 14.) " Of a trutli I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation lie that fearetli him and Avorketh righteousness is accepted A\'ith him." (Acts x. 34, 35.) "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." (Jas. ii. 24.) "Little children, let no man deceive 30U : he that doetli righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." (1 John iii. 7.)
Such are the texts of the second class. Several of them are claimed by the Council of Trent and the Romish Catechism in support of their dogma of justification by their works of in- A\TOught righteousness. To the inconsiderate there may seem to be a contrariety ; but the easy and obvious solution is in the truth that, while our works are naught as a ground of merit for our justification, they are all -important as evidences that we are justified. The man who hath clean hands and a pure heart is the one who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord. Obedience characterizes one as a fiiend of Christ. The fear of God and ■works of righteousness distinguish the man who is accepted of him. The faith which e"sdnces its living power by no works has no power to justify. The justified person is the one that doetli just works. All this is true. But this is far short of saying that the merit of the clean hands and pure heart is what entitled the first-mentioned to his place in the hill of the Lord, that a sin- ner's obedience deserved the bestowal of Christ's friendship, that the fear of God and righteous works purchased Cornelius's ac- ceptance Vfith him. In a word, the personal value of the believer's good works to him in the transaction of his justification is not in their purchasing, but their indicative, power. In the eyes of an enlightened self-interest the latter may be as truly precious as the former. Let us suppose that there were a penniless young man, wdio had received from some generous friend the free gift of a beautiful landed estate in fee simple. The benefactor purchased it for him, we A\ill say, for ten thousand pounds sterling. Upon installing the beneficiary (who is a pauper in his own resources) in the possession of it, he hands him a "title deed," or ■written "instrument of conveyance," which he recommends him to pre- serve jealously. Now, why should the beneficiary lock it xip in his strong box as though it were a set of diamonds ? Is it worth
90 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
anything? In one sense, no. As merchantable "stationery" it is simply a sheet of spoiled parchment or "legal cap," worthy of nobody's desire but the rag-picker's ! It conld purchase nothing, not a loaf, much less a whole estate. But, in another sense, yes. As evidence of title, if no other proof is available, it is worth aE of ten thousand pounds. For, witliout it, the possessor of the land would be liable to be ousted at any time l)y the heirs of the vendor. He will do well, therefore, to guard it as carefully as though it were ten thousand pounds in coin. So the humble be- liever, who claims no merit from his obedience, yet has a reason for valuing it. Self-love is not, indeed, his ruhng spring of ac- tion ; "the love of Christ constraineth him." But so far as a regard for his owti welfare is consistent with grateful love and devotion, he feels the preciousness of his sincere obedience as the only adequate evidence that his faith is justifying. Let us make a practical comparison of the stimulus of self-interest in his case with the case of the legalist. The latter, when betrayed by temptation into unchristian conduct, says to himself, "«-ith sel- fish alarm, " Ah ! I must amend my ways, or the purchase money of my inheritance "will be lacking." The former, in similar back- sliding, says, "My gracious redeemer offers me the inheritance mthout money and without price, but, ah! I must amend my ways, or the evidence that I am his beneficiary is lacking.'* ^\nierein is this stimulus less pungent than the other?
This view implies, of course, that the believer, in examining his assurance of personal grace and salvation, always regards the fruits of holy living in himself as one essential ground thereof. They "spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is dis- cerned by its fruits." (Art. X.) " Show me thy faith without thy works, and I wiU show thee my faith by my works." (James.) " Know ye not your ov.n selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates?" (Paul.) The relation of this confi- dence of hope to faith has been much and needlessly confused amidst the dust of this controversy. Some Protestants, in their over-zeal for defending the believer's right to confidence, have virtually impugned these words of the apostle, asserting that if a Christian permits anything in himself, in any form, to enter as a part of the ground of his confidence, he has forsaken a fi'ee justification, and is building again upon his own works. They
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 91
"VN'ould have our confidence grounded on nothing but our own im- mediate consciousness of faith embracing the Saviour. The Romanist who denies his trembling follower this blessed confi- dence altogether, yet echoes the argument, charging that the view of the Protestant churches, thus understood, really returns back to a rehance on works for our hope. On the other hand, Rome, not very consistently, urges that if the believer is allowed to ground a confidence of hope upon any consciousness of sincere faith, or witnessing of the Spirit ; that if he is encouraged to argue any degree of hope whatsoever from anything else than an inT\TOuglit sanctification attested hv good works, he is betrayed into sheer antinomianism. [And here Rome persistently pro- ceeds : since those good works are so imperfect in all Christians, except the martyrs, as to require penance and purgatory to atone for their defects, so the hope inferred from them must be always imperfect also, and dashed by doubts.] Now, it appears to us, that all this dust is cleared away by addressing the believer thus : True, to conclude that you have hitherto been justified in Christ, while entirely lacking the fruits of holiness which result from union to him, is antinomianism. But to make this past absence of fruits a reason for projecting this 'mistrust into the future, this would be legalism and unbelief. You, weak Christian, would say to an unbeliever, paralyzed by his mistrust from taking Christ's yoke, that his lack of love, peace, and strength for duty, might be very good proof that he had hithei-to been an unre- newed sinner; but it is sheer unbelief to make this miserable past experience a ground for doubting and rejecting Christ's fidl and free salvation offered to faith. You, our doubting brother, would require that sinner to believe hi order to experience the peace and strength. You would not, indeed, encourage him to believe that he was already reconciled while disobedient, but you would tell him that he might be assuredly reconciled and obedi- ent in believing. So the gospel replies to the doubting Chris- tian, "Be not afraid, only believe," and his joys and grace shall follow as the fruits, and not as the roots, of his trust. In other words, an experience of the power of grace, working through, faith all holy living, is not the a priori source or cause of an in- terest in Christ [that would be legalism]; but it is the a 2^osterioi'i sign, because the sure result of our interest in Christ. To refuse that sign would be antinomianism. Thus we find the two great
32 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
triitlis, "Christ our only righteousness," and, "by their fruits ye shall know them," perfectly consistent.
The third point remains to show that a free justification does not diminish the believer's legitimate self-interest in his good works. The gospel assigns a certain relation between faith and that righteousness of Christ which it embraces, on the one hand, and holy character and living on the other. The relation is that of means to end. It is true, indeed, that we are not reconciled to God by merits of our own works, for we have none that are worthy. But Ave are reconciled to him by the merits of another's work, in order to become capable of good works. God "justi- fieth the ungodly," in order that, being justified, he may become godly by the inworking of the purchased grace. It is not neces- sary to multiply many references to the Scriptures to sustain this cardinal truth. "Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." Such is the key-note of the gospel. " Even as Clnist also loved the church, and gave him- self for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the Avashing of Avater by the word, that he might present it to himself a glori- ous church, not having spot or Avrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and Avithout blemish." "Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar 'oeople, zealous of good Avorks." Redemption from the curse, and ^""atuitous restoration to favor, are the means ; restoration to holiness the end. Now, when we deny the place of means to our OAvn righteousness, and assign it to the place of end, surely Ave have not depreciated its importance. The end is higher than the means. It may be true that the practical utility of the essential instrument is virtually that of the end. If there Avere a treasure in a vault, and there Avere no other possi- ble means to reach it besides a certain lost key, then the dis- covery of that key would, in one sense, be worth the treasure. But, yet, the value of the key is derived solely from the A^alue of the treasure. After the vault was rifled of all, the key Avould be useless. So that it remains, the end is practically higher than the means. The man AA^ho understands that Christ has justified him, not by, but in order to, good Avorks, cannot possibly slight their importance. This is so plain that it is hard to see why the self-constituted advocate of good Avorks is not satisfied. It leaves the interest AA'hich he professes to patronize in the place of
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 93
crovming importance. Is not that enough? The true solution of his dissatisfaction is, that this arrangement is unsatisfactory because by it "boasting is excluded." This, and this alone, is the offense. Good works are provided for, and that in the most efficacious possible way ; but it is a way which permits " no flesh .jto glory in his sight." Hence alone the discontent.
This may be set in another light equally strong. No presen- tation of the plan of salvation can be more popular or concrete than this, that it is a plan to raise the heirs of hell to heaven. But what is heaven ? The Bible never represents mere impunity as the inheritance of the believer ; it is only an incident of that inheritance. The essential trait of heaven is holiness. A God of holiness is the source of its bhss, and moral likeness to him the way in which he makes us partakers of that bliss. Purity of heart is essentially the harmony of a rational nature, and is in itself peace. Sin is spiritual disease and death ; to be sinful is to be wretched. These are the truths which lie at the very basis of both law and gospel. Hence, if God had no perfections of justice and holiness concerned in the work of redemption, and his sole aim were to gratify the attribute of benevolence by be- stowing enjoyment uj)on sinners, this aim would still require their sanctification. For if sin is misery, sinners can only be made happy indeed by being made holy. The process of redemp- tion, then, is one whose design throughout is holiness. But a justification encouraging sin would be a preposterous path to lead to such an end. The man who designs to reach the south does not travel toward the frozen north! That pretender to Christianity must be demented, truly, who would pursue a life of sin as the means of entering, through Christ, the way, into a state of perfect holiness.
Indeed, such a debate as Nicholas Amsdorf is said to have held, concerning the relative importance of faith and works in the Christian life, is preposterous. Both are of essential impor- tance ; the one as necessary means, the other as end. It is as though one should debate which is the more essential to a vine, roots or grapes? And when the. generous vine displayed its luxuriant foliage to the sun, with the luscious clusters blushing through the leaves as they bent toward the earth, let us suppose that we heard some one argiie thus : " Those beautiful clusters do not sustain the \ine. It is the unsightly roots, groveUing
94 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
■unseen amidst the mould vmderneatli, whicli perform that func- tion. From these roots comes the ^ital sap which causes all this luxuriant beauty and fruitfulness. Therefore, grapes are of no account in the vine." Such is the antinomian inference. We should answer: "Thou fool! True, the grapes do not sustain the vine, but the root sustains it for the sake of the grapes. True, the fruit is the result and not the cause of the gro-^-th. But it is for the sake of this fruit alone that the \'ine is grown. Without its generous fruit, 'what is the vine tree more than anv tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work, or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon ? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel.' As a fruit tree, which is valueless for its timber, unfit even for the cheapest uses of the mechanic, and prized only for its fi'uit, if it be fruitless, is but rubbish, fit only for fuel, so the pretended believer who does not bear the fi'uits of holiness is 'rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.' "
But these are merely the preludes of our argument. We now leave the defensive position for the aggressive. We claim that we do not " make void the law through faith ;" and we also claim that by this doctrine " we estabhsh the law." The gospel scheme of a gratuitous justification is the best, yea, the only scheme, for evoking works that are really good. To introduce this positive part of our argument, we request the reader to study the simple, yet comprehensive, view by which the apostle (in the sixth chap- ter of Romans) refutes the abhorred inference that "we shall cortinue in sin that grace may abound." What ideas of the gospel can be simpler than these ? Redemption repairs the fall. Christ, the second Adam, imdoes for behevers all that the fall did. But the fall left man both guilty and condemned, and in- wardly depraved. As it left us, we were the "servants of sin" (vs. 17) as well as under condemnation. All of this made up or constituted that curse, that ruin, from which Christ came to lift us, at the prompting of redeeming love. He undertook for us, died for us. " He was made a curse for us," and in this way "hath redeemed us from the curse of the law." Now, can it be that it is but a partial redemption ; that in the remedy the curse is.di^dded, which in the ruin was one and indivisible, and a part is lifted from us, and a part left upon us? Surely not. If we
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are redeemed, we are redeemed from the whole curse, from tlie inward corruption as well as the outward wrath. And this is the more certain because the corruption, the spiritual death of soul into which the fall plunged iis, is so inseparably connected, by action and reaction, with the condemning sentence. Sinners dread and hate God because his justice condemns them, and his justice condemns them because they are so mcked as to dread and hate him, the infinitely holy. Then, for the stronger reason, it cannot be that our Saviour has healed a part of this indivis- ible curse in his saved people, and left a part unhealed. Again, how does Christ interpose for man? He ofiers himself sl^ "the end of the l.iw for righteousness to every one that believeth." Hence, the believer "is not under the law, but under grace." He does not live under the covenant of works as a plant of sal- vation, but under the covenant of grace ; for Christ has fulfilled that broken covenant for us, under which we had fallen and could only perish. But see how, from this blessed fact, the apostle draws precisely the opposite inference from that of the legalist and antinomian (vs. 14). "For sin shall not have do- vximoii over you, for (or hecause) ye are not under the law, l3ut under grace." And this is the consistent, the unavoidable in- ference. Under the covenant of works we fell, with Adam, into a state of condemnation and corruj)tton. Because our gracious Redeemer has taken us out from under that covenant, therefore we must come out from under both the j^enalty and the dominion of sin, which make up the ruined state. If we have come out from the one, then from the other also.
But how? By our own strength ? No. Christ, in redeeming us, bought for us grace also — grace to quicken and convert our souls, to deliver us from the bondage of sin, and .make us ser- vants of righteousness. And as the curse was one, inseparalily one, so the gift is one glorious gift. United to Christ l^y faith, believers share his spiritual life as surely as they share the merit of his justifying righteousness. Just as surely as the body of the Redeemer was emancipated from the grave, so surely are their souls, by that death of the Lord, emancipated from the corruption and bondage of sin, if they cleave to him by faith. It is as impossible that the glorified Saviour can suffer and die again, after he proclaimed " It is finished," as that the believer, who is in Christ by faithj can still live in Satan's bondage. And
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this is precisely what our baptism means. That water, emblem of the sprinkling blood of Calvary, is a "water of separation;" it separates us fi-om our old, sinful life to a new, penitent and holy life ; it marks a transition from the old to the new as clear and distinct as the tomb of Joseph made between the mortal, suffering life of Jesus and his glorified existence after his resur- rection. He becomes to us not only Priest, but King, not only Yictim, but Captain of our salvation ; and no believer who has true faith ever dreams of or desires the separation of the offices. A simple faith embraces a whole Christ. Thus this ministration of free grace is also the most efficacious ministry of holiness.
In farther illustrating this inspired argument, we shall pur- sue two lines of thought, each of which is conclusive. First, then, while the gospel requires us to discriminate justification from sanctification, "that boasting may be excluded," it for- bids us to separate them. Is it by the instrumentality of faith we receive Christ as our jiistification, without the merit of any of our works? Well. But this same faith, if vital enough to em- brace Christ, is also vital enough to " work by love," "to purify our hearts." This, then, is the virtue of the free gospel, as a minis- try of sanctification, that the very faith which embraces the gift becomes an inevitable and a divinely powerful principle of obe- dience. No system of legalism, devised for a sinftd nature, can do that. Dead faith is an intellectual notion, a mere opinion of the head, which, if it is attended liy any conative action of the heart, is only accompanied by the feeble and fickle desires of self- love and remorse. Biit this faith does not justify (as it does not sanctify). Living faith is a hearty, decisive determination of the intelligence and the will together, of the whole, free soul. " With the heart man believeth unto righteoiisness." This is the faith which attains a gratuitous justification. Now, tvhat is its object f To this there is a general answer and a special answer. The first : Its object is the whole word of God so far as known ; the second: The gospel promises. But the two answers find their consistency in this further truth, that faith embraces botli objects on the authority of God, the same God speaking in them. The God who promises and invites is the same God who in- structs, commands, and threatens. Why is faith willing to risk its everlasting all upon his promises ? Because she relies on his truth in them. But the same truth is in the precepts ! Then the
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same faitla vdYl recognize its power and authority there also. Does faith respect God's authority ? — respect it enough to venture its immortahty upon that authority ? Then surely it must respect it in both places. Hence the same faith " acteth differently upon that which each particular passage of the word containeth, Yield- ing obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises, of God."
Now, we ask, when God gives this faith to a man, is there any danger of its embracing the last object, the promises, and being obli"saous of the others ? Can it be vitally alive to the in^dtation, and dead to the precepts and threats ? That vitahty would be monstrous. As well might the surgeon tell us that he had so re- stored life to a paralyzed limb that it could now thrill with pleasure at a soothing touch of the gentle hand of affection, and yet that it was insensible when pierced "srith his steel to the bone ; that it was fully sensitive to the genial warmth, but still callous to the devouring fire. Faith has been called the vital breath of a Christian soul. The analogy is good. Then it will breathe toward both precepts and promises if it is a li\dng soul. It is as preposterous to deny this as it would be to tell us of a living in- fant breathing in only one lung, and yet normal and healthy. If its organs are neither monstrous nor diseased, it must breathe in both lungs in order to breathe in either, else in a few moments it will be a dead child. But it will breaihe in both ; to this every in- stinct of its vitality impels it ; and it will endeavor to do so with an energy w'hich can be repressed by no -violence except one which destroys life.
Thus faith must perform its vital action in lioth the spheres of obedience and of trust, or it cannot Hve. This becomes more manifest when we observe how intimately the precepts and pro- mises are intermingled in the gospel. The requirement of duty and the promise of free grace are entwined together Hke two melodies minghng in one harmony ; the ear of faith cannot sepa- rate either from the heavenly strain, nor would it mar the concord if it could. Not only do both parts of the teaching alternate, as we pass from page to page of God's word ; they are offered to oiTr faith in the very same breath. Would David (in the thirty- second Psalm) sing the blessedness of him " whose transgi'ession is forgiven, whose sin is covered, to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity"? He cannot conclude without adding, "and in whose
98 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
spirit there is no guile." Does tlie apostle reassure us -witli the delightful declaration that "there is now, therefore, no con- demnation to them which are in Christ Jesus?" He cannot even close his sentence without ]3ausing to define those who are entitled to that blessed assurance, as those "who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit." The faith, then, which is the in- strument of a gratuitous justification can never neglect the pre- cepts of its Saviour, for it is as much its nature to quicken the soul to the heeding of them as to the embracing of the promises.
The second line of argument by which we prove that the doc- trine of a free justification is the best instrument for inciting to holy living, is suggested by the adaptation of the gospel, as a system of truth, to this end. It is the beautiful peculiarity of the system that God has so constructed it as to be the most efii- cient possible for the inculcation of hoHness, as it is the most gracious possible for the encouragement of hope in a sinner's bosom. Is it not just the assertion of the apostle, when he says (Titus ii. 11, 12), "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world? " etc. Now, a wise Jehovah does not con- struct his works by chance. He, doubtless, designed this gospel for both these ends. We safely infer, hence, that it was no part of his purpose that the gospel of his grace should be a ministry of licentiousness; but he designed to redeem us unto holiness. Let any trait be examined which disting-uishes the gospel from the revelation of God made in- the works of nature to the natural reason ; it will be found that that trait is a moving appeal to the soul for holy living. We might dwell upon the greater attrac- tiveness which the gospel throws around the di-^dne character, alluring us toward it in reconciling complacency. We might dwell upon the power of the example of Jesus, when he "suf- fered for us, lea^dng us an example that we shoidd follow in his steps." We might display the all-important influences of hope, sweetly encouraged by promised grace, replacing stubborn fear, desperation and self-accusation. It would indeed be profitable to unfold in contrast the chilling and depressing effects of a legal- istic scheme operating upon the infirm, tottering efforts of fallen man. We could easily show how truly " Hagar with her children
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is in bondage until this day." The serious effort of duty cannot but bring the sins of our hearts into comparison with the exalted standard of a spirit aal law. And as this disclosm'e is made to the self-righteous, but convicted, man, that the "law is spiritual, but he is carnal, sold under sin," the task of winning a justifica- tion by rendering, in his own strength, an adequate obedience to this holy law, at once recognized and dreaded, presses upon the galled neck, until the fainting wretch is crushed to desperation. Many is the sinner whose remorseful struggles for reformation have been ended by this very causey who has thrown off the fu- tile and slavish endeavor, and who now goes on with a stoHd hopelessness in those paths of sin which he is too weak to for- sake, and which yet lead, as he knows, to perdition. Now, how inestimable is the boon of well-grounded hope to such a soul ? Teach it that there is a way out of this slough of desj)air, that there is a gratuitous reconciliation, which enlists him under a gracious Captain who will " make strength perfect in his weak- ness," that the beheving soul is "complete in him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," so that the war- fare may be hopefully renewed and the \dctory won, and the news is as life from the dead.
But our design is to explain these points ; that this plan of gratuitous justification is the most efficient ministry of holiness, because it sets in the strongest possible Ught the demands of the di-v-ine holiness, the inflexibility of the law, the absolute necessity of conformity thereto, and the evil of sin ; and because it supplies the generous incentive of devotion as our motive to duty. We may illustrate these positions most faii-ly, and also most forcibly, by showing the parallel applications of the gospel scheme and that of the opposers.
The legalist proposes, for instance, to pay a certain homage to the righteousness of God by signalizing his reconciliation with a reform of his life, and the assumption of a certain round of duties, either of outward morality or rituahsm. He expects the merit of these performances to satisfy the divine rectitude and to earn a favorable reward. Such is his theory. But unless he is besotted with sin, does he not see that his reformation is partial and unstable ; that his duties are prompted by mixed motives, a part of his desire therein being morally indifferent, and a part positively selfish and deceitful ; that his rituahsm is often formal
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and apathetic, and that the whole service is tainted by a merce- nary aim ? This righteousness cannot even satisfy himself in his honest moments, yet he rehes upon it to satisfy God's holiness 1 Then, indeed, is he easUy pleased ! Then, indeed, is his holiness no very exacting thing ! Why should man give himself much concern about the favor of so facile a ruler as this ? The prize so easily won is as easily despised. But the gospel tells a very different story. It shows us a divine holiness so lofty and in- flexible that it is incapable of conni\dng at defect ; it will call no- thing perfect which is not perfect, and yet can accept no less than perfection. So pure is this holiness that the slightest stain of sin renders our raiment unfit to appear before his judgment-seat. Nothing can be displayed there with acceptance except the spot- less robe of Christ's righteousness. Not even the infinite pity which commends itself to us by sending his own Son to die for us when we were enemies, can sway that rectitude to reward any- thing less than perfection. Such is the God with whom we aspire to dwell in heaven ; the God whose holy eyes must judge the imperfect deeds which we present to him as the e\ddences of our title to the righteousness of faith ! No words ara needed to show which of these creeds ^ill most incite to watchfulness and holy fear.
But to hate and fear sin is to seek hohness. Let us contrast the lessons taught by the two creeds touching the evil of sin and the inflexibihty of the law. Tlie legal schemes recognize the ex- istence of sin and guilt, and they propose their satisfaction for them. Saith the Socinian, they are remitted, out of the general kindliness of God, at the price of our repentance and reforma- tion. Saith the ritual morahst, they are atoned for by the "sac- rifice of the altar," and by our penances, and alms, and contrition, and holy works. But what are these atonements ? These refor- mations, are they not shallow and partial ? These few peniten- tial tears are drawn more by selfish fear than by generous grief and love. These penances are but the mercenary traffickings of remorse. These masses are but the vain mumblings of supersti- tion; and the alms and works are ^^Tought in vain glory and selfishness. Can sin and guilt be covered by so cheap an atone- ment as these ? Then, indeed, are they no great things ! God is easily appeased his justice easily satisfied, and what need is there that any sinner should stand in awe of a law which is only
THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION. 101
proclaimed in order to be set aside when the moment of its ap- phcation arrives ? Why regard sin as so dread a thing if it can be so shghtly washed awaj? But now what saith the gospel scheme ? That this law, which so sternly prohibits every sin, is inexorable and eternal in every line, so that heaven and ecirth shall pass away sooner than one jot or tittle shall fail ; that God descended into human flesh, and died on the cross, not to destroy it, but to fulfil ; that when once the deadly stain of guilt falls upon a soul, so deep and dire is that taint in God's eyes no penitential tears can avail to wash it out, though the head were waters, and the eyes a fountain of tears ; no alms nor penances can hide it ; no human priest juggle it away with his spiritual magic ; nothing can purge it save the blood of the Divine Son, or else the endless burning of penal fires. True, that blood flows freely, unbought, for every polluted soul, and wherever faith touches the priceless stream the deadly spot is cleansed ; but yet the in- finite riches of God's throne must be given to purge it. Thus, while the legahst learns in his pride to depreciate his sin and despise the divine justice, the rescued believer stands with holy aAve and adoring gratitude, ever learning a deeper, more solemn lesson of the dreadfulness of sin, as he looks from the blackness of the pit of retribution to the amazing price which was needed for his ransom, and the amazing love that paid it.
Socinian books, and many others which lean toward their errors, teem with assertions of the mischievous efiects of the Bible doctrine of essential justice in God. They say that it paints the heavenly Father in a repulsive aspect ; that it makes the penitent sinner recoil from him with dread ; that it seeks to substitute fear for affection. They flout the idea that sin carries an intrinsic and necessary obligation to penalty. They tell us the pretended justice which demands it is but barbarian revenge cloaked under the veil of principle, and the creed which sjanbol- ized this necessity of just retribution by the perpetual stream of sacrificial blood is but " the theology of the shambles." Instead of that account which the holy Scriptures give of the ground of Christ's suffering, that they were because " the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," these gentlemen propose various subordinate results as the solution of the events of Gethsemane and Calvary. Saith one, *' It was designed solelj^ as an example for us." Another : " It was merely a touching attestation of the
102 THE MORAL EFFECTS OF A FREE JUSTIFICATION.
di\-ine pity." Another : " It was the Father's expedient to draw prodigal children to himself hy a beautiful manifestation of out- gushing love." Now, all this is true in its place ; but they thrust the incidental design into the place of the essential, thus destroy- ing the consistency and the moral effect of the whole plan. These statements express subordinate truths, but they are true, because, and only hecause, CJirlst's sacrifice satisfied the divine j^erfectioiis outraged hy our sins. God and conscience both declare that justice is eternal ; that it cannot properly give place to any ex- pediency, however amiable ; that the 7nan who " does evil that good may come " is woi-thy of a just damnation. Therefore, if this awful instance of di^dne holiness and human innocency im- personated in Jesus, suffering the direst inflictions which provi- dence has ever poured out on guilty men, is to be left unexplained by essential justice, then it is effectually emptied of all its en- couraging lessons of divine pity and penitent hope. It rather stands out as a terrible anomaly, confounding justice T\itli gratu- itous cruelty, principle with expediency, innocence ^^dth the foulest guilt, and converting the foundations of the divine recti- tude into a chaos, the contemplation of which freezes love into horror, and hope into despair. There is no longer a source left in Gethsemane or Calvary for a single influence which may allure the penitent soul to better things. "We retort the charge, then, and assert (what experience bears out) that this humanitarian theology is as corrupting to man as it is dishonoring to God. When one of these professed advocates of " advanced thought " is heard babbling this shallow creed, if he be not simply babbling in the idleness of his conceit, he had best not be trusted with any rights of other people, for he is but confessing his o^vn ob- tuseness to moral obligation. The obKgation of ill-desert to penalty is as original as the obligation of weU-desert to reAvard. He who boasts his influence to the one will not be slow to betray the other. One who is ready so flippantly to strip his God of his judicial rights, is not likely to stickle at plundering his fellow- man of his rights. In this theory of sin, punishment, and atone- ment, he has adopted the creed of expediency. Will lie not act on a similar one in his own affairs ? Worst of all, he has fash- ioned to himself a God of expediency. Nothing can be so cor- rupting to the soul as to have an imperfect or sinful model exalted upon its throne as the object of its adoration, the stan-
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dard of its imitation. " They that make idols are like unto them ; so is every one that tnisteth in them." As the aiTow is ever prone to sink below its aim, so men Tvill ever allow themselves to be worse than the divinities they reverence. Nor can any pre- ceptive stringency repair this corrupting effect. In his precepts God enjoins upon us a rigid standard. He that justifieth the wicked is as abominable to God as he that condemneth the righteous. If ice presume to do evil that good may come, we are justly damned. If expediency prompts us to deny tnitli or right, v:e are forbidden to yield, on the peril of our souls. In this case, he that loveth his own Hfe shall lose it. Thousands of God's dear children have been required to be martp's rather than deny the right. Now, God has also told us that our mor- ality is to consist in the imitation of him. A father prohibits his sons, under the severest penalties, ever to postpone principle to expediency. But the sons see their father do the very thing as often as plausible occasion arises. Such a family government may make them skulking hj^ocrites; it can never make them honest men.
Our crowning plea is, that the gospel plan of gratuitous justi- fication is most promotive of good fruits, because it furnishes us with a supreme motive for obedience, which is at once the most permanent and energetic, and the most worthy. " We love him, because he first loved us," Very little reflection is needed to see that when once human nature became godless, all plans of future blessedness, hj wliat divines call a " covenant of works," that is, engaging to dispense future reward for present service on the ground of merit, became ineffectual. Such was the dispensation of promise made to Adam : " Do and live." For him it was then appropriate. His nature was then pure, and in harmony with the rectitude of his Maker and Lawgiver. The keeping of God's commands, all of which his heart both approved and loved, was intrinsically pleasant to him ; it was sweet to him to obey for the sake of the honor thus done to the Father whom he adored. "When the additional appeal was made to his legitimate desire for his own welfare and for that of his expected offspring, by the promise and threat, this supplied a subordinate motive for the same obedience, consistent watli the higher motives. Thus man's free agency was placed under the most potent and beneficent influences conceivable by us before the gospel was revealed to
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work out for himself a holy and happy destiny. But, since the race has become "alienated from God by wicked works," all this is changed, and that plan has become inappropriate. Some one may reply : " But does not the Bible still say to sinners, ' If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments?'" We answer: Yes ; Christ said this to the young ruler, but it was said in reply to his self-righteous question, "What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" (Matt. xix. 16.) He demanded to know the plan for saving himself by works ; Christ could give him no other answer than the one given by the covenant of works. But the real design of the Saviour was, after all, to lead him to the experimental knowledge that this plan was now im- practicable for sinners. And there can be no better exposition of the reason why, than that which is contained in this instance, viz., that from a sinner Uke him a covenant of works could only pro- cure an obedience which was partial and mercenary. Men, since the fall, are aHenated from God, opposed to godliness, supremely self-willed, and toward God supremely selfish. Now, a hireling may, for wages, serve a master whom he dislikes. That is to say, the loose verbal usage of men speaks of his labor as the service of bis employer. But, in strictness of speech, the un's\dlling hireling is ser\dng himself instead of his employer. He labors, not for the employer, but for his wages; that is, for himself. The Avhole transaction is purely mercenary. And such is the best result which a legal scheme can produce from our fallen nature. But is such a pretended righteousness worthy of approbation before that God who " requireth truth in the inward parts ? " To an earthly parent it would be an insult. How much more must it not be a dishonor to the Father of our spirits ?
The gospel proposes, therefore, no such sorry scheme as this. In devising a religion for sinners, God, acting with a "wisdom worthy of his nature, has omitted the whole notion of purchase and merit as irrelevant to both the legal and moral state of crea- tures condemned and corrupted. He has provided a gratuitous salvation, in which satisfaction to the rights of the law is won- drously combined with the most persuasive love to the culprits, in which " mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Providing in the unspeakable love and pity of redemption the sweetest conceivable instrument for allur- ing the hostile heart to himself, and turning its mistrust into grateful love, it bestows "remission of sins," and " mheritancp
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among all tliem wliicli are sanctified," simply "by faith which is in Christ," as a free gift, the gift of the Father's infinite mercy, Christ's dying love, and the Holy Spirit's condescension, in ad- vance of all workings and earnings of the sinner's own. And, in the bestowing of it, Christ says to the grateful, melting beneficiary, " If thou lovest me, keep my commandments." Let it be sup- posed that any service is ehcited by this tender appeal, then how superior, in its disinterestedness, to that mercenary traffickiag for future advantage which the self-righteous heart had offered to God. But to compare them would be a disparagement to this evangelical obedience. Evidently, if there is practical power in this gospel plan, its fruits, and its fruits alone, are suitable (while creating no claim of debt against our Proprietor and Redeemer) to receive the smile of his approbation. They are the work of his own grace, the residts of Christ's blood and the Spirit's cleansing, the first flush of the returning image of God's holiness.
But moralists sometimes reply, that while this theory may be very beautiful, it is impracticable. They say they know human nature, and they know how Utopian is the hope of governing mankind by disinterested devotion. " Self-interest," they ex- claim, "is the main lever of human action, and if the divines ■wash to produce practical effects, they must place the plea of self-interest in the forefront of their appeal." This we flatly deny. Believing, as we do, that human nature is godless and alienated from all heavenly goodness, we yet assert that it con- tains amidst its ruins enough to refute this miserable philosophy. There are men so degraded as to be supremely selfish, even to- ward their fellows. But when we look at the better instances of social virtue found among the ungodly, we find tliafe self-interest is not the most abiding nor the most energetic principle of ac- tion. Disinterested social affections endure more, and do more, than fear or avarice. That reader must be unblessed, indeed, with those affections who has not experienced this truth in his own history. Let him ask himself, whence it is that he receives the service which is most grateful to his own soul, as well as most prompt and punctual ? Not from the mercenary hirelings who covet his gold, or who fear his fi-own, but from friends or children, who find their happiness in pleasing him. In the hours 3f his anguish and danger, who ministered to him with most un- flagging and self-sacrificing zeaa ? It was a sister, a wife, or a daughter, who, exposed to no wTath or penalty from him, and
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utterly forgetful of the thought of all other reward than his res- cue and his happiness, lavished their strength and care at his bedside vrith. a perseverance which all his gold could not have purchased from a hireUng nurse. But we find our best argu- ment in witnessing the sacrifices of that affection which is the purest and most generous of all the remnants of Eden left in human hearts. In every virtuous household we see a ruler, who is served with an obedience more tireless and uncomplaining than fear ever exacted from the subjects of a despot. No slave of an eastern sultan, with the bow-string or the scimitar suspended over his neck, ever toiled for his monarch as the servant of this ruler for him. At his shghtest call, ease and fatigue are alike disregarded ; his voice silences every other wish, and life itself is not held too dear a sacrifice for him. That king is the infant in his cradle, and the servant is the virtuous mother! He is powerless, dependent, impotent to bestow reward or penalty; but that very helplessness is his sceptre, and by it he rules as autocrat, dominating every other motive in the mother's heart. Love is the mightiest lever of human action, not fear nor selfish- ness. "For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the gi'ave ; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most ve- hement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it ; if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."
Now, then, if grace does beget evangelical love in the believer's heart, we have in it a principle of new obedience as much more permanent and powerful as it is purer than the mercenary selfish- ness of the legalist. But this is just what the gospel promises and effects. "When the penitent beholds the divine compassion flowing in the redeeming blood of his Saviour, and comprehends the freeness and vastness of the love of redemption, he learns that most potent of all motives, " The love of Christ constraineth us." We may righteously join in the indignant reply:
"Talk tliey of morals ? O tlioii bleeding Lamb, Tlie great morality is love to theo !"
It thus appears that the charges of immoral results against the Bible doctrine of gratuitous justification are the antipodes of timth. That doctrine is the best, yea, the only adequate en- forcement of true holiness. It is the glory of the gospel, that faith, and faith alone, "is the victory which overcometh the world."
THE LIGHT OF A HOLY EXAMPLE.
"Let your light so shiue before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." — Matt v. 16.
FG., Esq., was a "lawyer of tlie old school." Born about • the year 1785, the son of a large landholder in one of the Atlantic States, he was reared in the midst of that society, at once graceful, chivah-ous, cultivated and irreligious, which fol- lowed the Revolutionary War and the influence of the French alliance. He was, like the lawyers of his day, deeply read in the old English law, and well acquainted with the English classics, scnipulous in his integrity, deliberate, shrewd, perspicacious in intellect, disdaining all personal and professional meanness with infinite scorn, scrupulous and gravely ornate in dress, and ever dignified and courteous in manner. The "flush times" of 1816, following the depression of the second war with Great Britain, found him in one of the Atlantic cities, in the full tide of his early success. He was tempted, like so many others, to venture every- thing in the purchase of real estate ; and in a few years, chiefly by the treachery of some whom he had trusted, he was bankrupt. This misfortune left him a soured, if not a misanthropic, spirit. To gain the means for the more speedy payment of debts he de- parted alone to the extreme southwest ; and for twenty years his fi'iends saw him no more, and heard little of him, save that he was making large professional gains, had paid off his debts to the last penny, and was living the life of a hon, vivant and man of society among the French of the gay Southern capital.
At the end of that time he returned to the home of his fathers, a man verging on old age. His caustic wit, his ancestral and intellectual pride, his fondness for elegant literature, his misan- thropy, were in no wise diminished, and his irreligious and epi- curean habits much increased. Although the surviving kindred whom he found were decided Christians, he never accompanied them to the house of God, spent his Sabbaths in amusements, and observed the most jealous reserve concerning his religious views. It was understood that he had long learned to disdain
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both Protestantism and popery as rival delusions, and was a low-t}^3e Socinian, or rational deist. As the monotony of a celibate life crept on, his habits of free living grew upon him, until they threatened serious consequences. The account given by a simple servant, who was his valet, was as graphic as it was truthful. " My master," said he, " was very anxious to get some good old spirits, and yet he condemned all he got as adulterated. One time he says to me, 'Take my demijohn, and go to old Mr. J. ; he is an honest, old-fashioned merchant ; tell him to send me some genuine French brandy.' I brought it ; but he was as dis- satisfied as ever. Then he said, ' Do you go to Mr. H. ; he deals with the honest German farmers of the West ; tell him to send me some honest, farm -made, old rye whiskey.' But when this came he pronounced it ' vile stufi".' However, I noticed that, though it was * vile stuff,' wherever it came from, the demijohn always went down very steadily. Well, so it went on, until one day he was very sick, and seemed to have a sort of fit, and not to know any thing. I was so frightened I went off for Dr. A., and he came; and he bled him in a great china basin from the washstaud. However, he got entirely well; and he nibbled at the Sale stuff' very skittishly after that."
Soon after this, Mr. G. astonished his friends by deliberately destropng his stock of drinkables with his o^\-n hands, and adopt- ing the most rigid total abstinence customs. But he declared that he did this from no temperance principles. He considered good "v\T.nes and Uquors a legitimate and very pleasant indulgence, which, he said, he should certainly allow to himself if they could be procured. But he considered himself a connoisseur ; he now found that all wines and liquors in America were adulterated. In good old times they exhilerated, now they stupified ; then gen- tlemen could indulge, even freely, in these convi^-iaHties, and Hve to a ripe old age ; now he noticed that free Hvers died in a few years. He had determined, therefore, never to taste even malt liquors again, simply because he did not ^\dsh to be poisoned like a rat.
Not long after this his sohtude and approaching infirmities caused him to remove to the house of a -tt-idowed sister, where he spent the closing years of his Ufe. Among the childi*en of this Christian family was a son, a young minister of the gospel, but residing away from his native place in his far distant charge.
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and a jounger sister just budding into lovely womanhood. She was beloved by all for her sweet and consistent piety, and her gentle, disinterested charity. This change of residence broiight the wearied man of the world into contact with books and asso- ciates somewhat different fi'om the former. The son was accus- tomed to visit his -wddowed mother annually during the vacations of his pastoral care ; and on one of these visits he noticed some such hint of an intellectual interest in Christianity in the uncle as led him to introduce the subject, though with trepidation. He found that the old man had been reading a number of Christian books, but only for mental amusement. He talked of their topics with the tone with which a naturalist might talk of some cuiious researches in entomology. "Nephew," said Mr. G., "I have been reading lately Dr. Hanna's Life of Chalmers. Did you know that great di\^ne confessed he was a Presb}i;erian minister many years before he was a converted man? Isn't that con- sidered very singular among you? And Dr. Hanna — who, you know, is his son-in-law — relates, that one thing which opened Dr. Chalmers's eyes was his observing that many evangelical per- sons, all of whom he had considered fanatical, were more zealous to live holy and diligent lives of obedience, while claiming ho merit therefrom for their justification, than he and his friends were who relied on that sort of merit. I suppose it must have been true; but it strikes one as very queer, isn't it? Ha! ha! ha!"
In this strain he chatted on in the most communicative and amiable tone. He would make no avowal of any personal con- cern of the heart in these great truths, but admitted that his intel- lect was interested, and avowed himself willing to reexamine the system of redemption, more because it would occupy his abundant leisure in a pleasing manner than for any other reason. The young minister directed him to some suitable books, and especi- ally to the careful study of the Scriptures themselves. His visit terminated ^vdthout other developments.
The next summer he again went, according to his wont, to cheer his widowed mother. Soon after his arrival, she availed herself of a moment of privacy, to say : " My son, strange things have happened here since you went last. Youi' Uncle F. has confessed Christ. He sent for the session of the church, excusing himself for his difficulties of locomotion, and desired them to examine
110 THE LIGHT OF A HOLY EXAMPLE.
into his fitness for tlie communion of the church. They held a sessional meeting in his room; and the Eev. Mr. T\'., who mod- erated the proceedings, says that never was such a meeting of session seen. The elders were so astounded by the strangeness of the change, and still so overawed hj his reputation for sense and cynicism, that they were the questioned rather than the ques- tioners. And then his rehgious experience was so original and queer. They say he seemed only afraid that they should give him credit for more grace than he thinks he has. He regards himseK as a mere babe in gi-ace ; biit says his mind is clearly made up to Hve and die in faith, and therefore he thinks he ought to confess Christ at once. He was as methodical and la^^■Ter-like about it as though he had been ^^^-iting somebody else's A\'ill. However, he was received, and is noAv a regular member of the Q. church."
This narrative the young minister heard with oj^en-eyed won- der. "Do they really think," asked he, " that there is a saving change in him ? " " Indeed we do," rephed she, " there has been a progressive change for some time. You know, though he was always the gentleman, we were always a httle afraid of him ; but now he is always gentle ; his misanthropy and sarcasm are all gone, and he appears to be as Asilling to die as to retire to his nightly rest,"
The yoimg minister sought the first convenient opportunity to congratulate him upon the wondrous change. It must be con- fessed there was also a little tendency to congi-atulate himself as one of the instruments of it ; and hence, he was curious to know how far the instructions he had given or the books he had recom- mended had been useful. But the developments did not seem at all to gratify that vanity.
"Had Uncle F. read such and such books, which he named last year ? "
"Yes."
" Had he been impressed by them ? "
"No; not particularly."
After a httle while the old gentleman seemed to apprehend the drift of these inquiries, and said rather drily, "If you are asking for the means of this change, I cannot say that any of your books wrought it."
" "What then," he was asked, is the instrumentality which has
THE LIGHT OF A HOLY EXAMPLE. HI
■\\Touglit this great revolution ? We all know tliat since last year your infirmities^ave not permitted you to go to cliurcli."
"Well," lie rej)liecl, "I suppose that, so far as it was any one thing, it was Katy." (The niece.)
"T\Tiy," exclaimed the brother, "has she presumed to take on her the task of reHgious monitor ? Does she preach to you ? "
" Oh ! no ; she is too modest for that. But you know, nephew, she is the best person in the world " (and this he uttered mth the pecuhar air of nonchalance and sententiousness with which he asserted his dehberate opinions), "and what I have seen for myself of her principles and conduct since I have hved here has changed all my con^dctions."
Being encoiu'aged to explain himself, he proceeded as follows : "You know that I was all my life a sort of Socinian or rational deist, and regarded the whole system of experimental religion as a fanatical delusion. I saw so much falsehood, pretense, and h}i30crisy, that I believed in no pretensions of superior holiness. Of course I did not deny a God or a hereafter ; but I thought Christ one of the few sincere and pure men whom the world has possessed ; and I flouted the idea that there was any Holy Ghost or regeneration. I supposed that, so far as anybody could pen- etrate the darkness beyond the grave wdth his hopes, those who were philanthropic, truthful, courteous, and just, had the best chance ; and I felt that our chance, who cultivated these social virtues and made none of these pretenses to superior grace, was far better than that of the Christians. My theory about conver- sion was this : In many, it was a rascally pretense (as my deal- ings with mankind showed). lu the rest, it was an amiable delusion. I saw great numbers find out for themselves this fact. And they were truthful enough to avow it, and frankly go back to the world. I saw a number of others who had e-vidently found out also that their supposed conversion was a delusion ; but they had not the candor to say so, and they therefore continued to wear the mask — some fi'om mere cowardice and false shame, others from calculated rascality. The third class was of those who continued sincere, and, evidently, honest devotees. My theory about them was, that they also were deluded, only they had not found it out yet. Many acquaintances whom I highly esteem were among this class, and, as you know, sbme of my dearest relatives. I thouglit I saAv the reason why they remained
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undeceived, in the enthusiasm and romance of their natural tem- perament, and as they, unhke the second clasa, were perfectly honest in their amiable fanaticism, I could love them none the less for this social virtue, nor had I any desire to undeceive them. They seemed to enjoy the delusion, and I was glad that they should do so.
" Such was my theory, and I was thrown close to Katy, and I have studied her thoroughly. I hiow that my estimate of her principles is correct ; I have seen her tried too often. I saw in her not only amiabihty, which I have often loved in others, but an unaffected and supreme disinterestedness and love. I saw in her one person where selfishness was not. I had seen many affect unselfishness, but this I saw was real, for I know the signs of hypocrisy only too well. She wasn't like anybody else. Now, nephew, I know human nature, unfortunately for myself ; I know all about it, and I know that it is a poor, selfish thing. I know of what it is capable, in its lovelier phases, and what it is not. And it was perfectly clear that Katy had something which I with all my pride of integrity and philanthropy never had, which nobody has by nature. And it was an admirable thing, too! Now, you see, I was obliged to ask myself where it came from, and as I was sure it could not come from nature, it must come from above nature. Here, then, was a di^ane principle actually at work. "Wliat else could I conclude? WeU, then, the doctrine of regeneration rmist he true, absurd as I had thought it was be- fore. There was no other solution. I saw that there is such a thing as the implantation of a superhuman, di^ane principle in a human being. And I had to beheve that it came by this gospel. You see, Katy always says that if there is anything good in her, it comes from God, through Christianity ; that she gets it by be- Heviug the gospel and praying through Christ, and I am obHged to believe her. Besides, there wasn't any other way to account for it except that, which was not absurd. But there was the thing, and it had to be accounted for.
"Now, you see, when I saw there really was a way in which God gave a person a new nature, as a man of sense I could not but know that it was good for me too. So I desired it for myself. How can a person see perfect disinterestedness, love, purity, and truth, and not want it ? At least I wanted it ; I knew I had needed it all my life, amidst all my pride. Well, of com'se, the
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only thing to do was to seek it, and I did so. And that is jnst the history of the matter."
"And jon believe, Uncle, that yon have received it?"
" Why, yes ; that is my hope. Understand me, I don't think I know much about it ; I know very little. I have only this on© point : I know there is a redemption in Christ, for I see it wrought in one person ; I know I need it ; it is promised to prayer ; I rely upon that."
After an interval he added, "with the same tone of inimitable nonchalance: "Nephew, I am not the least afraid to die; I shouM like very well to die this evening. I have pains and in- firmities that nobody knows of, and, as I am getting of less and less account, I should like to be gone. But it is all right ; I am. ready when my time comes."
His time did come after some months of increasing sufferings, which I :-- bore with Christian resignation and gentleness, and his darling Katy was one of those who received his parting breath. A few yeiirs after she followed him, in the prime of her loveli- ness. We doubt not that they are now together before the throne ; the old man of learning, and logic, and earthly -uisdom, as spiritual child, and the gentle young maiden as spiritual parent.
This remarkable experience of a very singular man is not pre- sented as a symmetrical type. But it is exceedingly instructive as showing how the witness of a true and holy life is made the divine warrant of the gospel. This is the continuous miracle, the spiritual resurrection which proves that " Christ is risen in- deed." Mr. F. G. had doubtless been conversant with other genuine instances of holy living before, and he had not been convinced by them. But the living power of this last holy ex- ample, where previous ones had failed, may be partly explained by the exquisite tact, grace, and genius which embellished tliis instance of the divine life, disarming his spirit of adverse criti- cism, and gaining for it a dispassionate judgment; and chiefly by the fact that God's time to set to work by his Sj)irit had now arrived. The most valuable lesson of this history is this : We see here how " the logic of a holy life " wrought, when once it was listened to, with a mind singularly perspicacious, deHberate, and cautious, trained in all the learning of the law to the apprecia- tion of valid e^'idence, and the distingiiishing of false from true. When circumstances at length enabled this man to verify one
Vol. I. —8.
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instance of undoubted spiritual mindedness, it was enougli. He recognized it as the signature of a divine work, and by a process of inference as rigid as legal proof, ascending ('.posteriori horn. effect to cause, lie ascertained tlie personal agency of the Holy Ghost, the di^^.nity of Christ, the doctrine of regeneration, the duties of faith and prayer.
The light of a holy example is the gospel's main argument.
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"And many more believed, because of his own word; and said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world. " — John iv. 41, 42.
TO him who reflects, the claim with which the gospel presents itself must appear exceeclinglj remarkable. Wherever it comes it demands immediate behef, as the first duty, and on pain of damnation, while it does not pause an instant to consider the knowledge of him whom it addresses concerning the literary evi- dences of its authenticity or his opportunity for informing him- self. To the unlettered laborer, as to the laborious antiquary, she says alike, " Believe, and thou shalt be saved," and " He that believeth not shall be damned." On the other hand, the gospel demands an intelligent and rational faith ; it contemns and sternly rejects the pretended assent of ignorance, prejudice, and subserviency, requiring us to be " able to give a reason for the hope that is in us." What is the explanation of this high and exacting attitude ? What is that common ground of rational evidence, accessible to every reader and hearer, upon which this claim can justly rest ?
The solution of the mocking infidel is prompt and simple. The faith of the unlearned Christian, he decides, is naught but igno- rant prejudice, blind imitation, or prescription. What right, he asks, has such a man to an opinion here ? What does he know of the extended and intricate discussions concerning the compo- sition of the canon of Scripture, the history of these documents called inspired ; the historical evidence of their genuineness ; the correct state of their text ? He does not even know one sen- tence of the dead languages in which they are composed. His pretended faith is, then, but the accident of his birth and rearing, and is as worthless as that of the Moslem, who believes in Allah
' A sermon preached in the chapel of Union Theological Seminarj'.
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and Mohammed only because he happened to be born in Arabia, or of the pagan, who worships imaginary gods only because his ' stupid mind has been drugged from infancy "with the fables of polytheism.
The papist also assails the Protestant's rule of faith (which is the Bible alone, received on rational evidence,) with almost the same cavils. And this is but one instance of several in which Rome is found leagued with the infidel enemies of Christ. " The Protestant rule of faith," says the popish controversialist, " is ab- surd and impossible. Protestantism professes to scout an im- phcit faith as unworthy of a rational being. But how shall the convicted soul of the trembhng sinner, who is most probably un- furnished T\-ith letters, and prevented by the exactions of secular labor fi-om investigation (for such are the most of mankind), who is perhaps, in addition, urged by approaching death and harrassed with sickness, perform that extensive work of inquiry necessary to an intelligent exercise of private judgment ? Can he master these learned discussions ? Can he become such an adept in the languages of Scripture as to verify, by his own comparison, the correctness of the translation which his minister has placed in his hand ? Has he time to thread the thorny mazes of the expositors, and ascertain the orthodox interpretation of its lan- guage? But unless he has done all this, he has no right to assert a behef in the exercise of his private judgment. His faith, after all his boasts of intelligence and pretended scorn of the implicit behef of the docile son of the church, is but blind pre- scription, for this learned process is plainly impracticable for the bulk of mankind. The only difference is, that while the un- learned Romanist trusts imphcitly to the authority of a holy, infalhble church, the unlearned Protestant is led blindfolded by his heretical parson." Such is, in substance, the charge of the papist.
But we reply unanswerably, that from the very nature of the human mind, belief cannot possibly arise without evidence, any more than bodily vision can take place without hght. This humble and teachable son of Rome must, then, have adequate knowledge that she is the true church, holy and infallible ; that Christ has made her sovereign declaration the laile of faith to his soul, and promised salvation to him w^ho adopts it ; that some one system amidst the different ones promulgated in the course
THE BIBLE ITS O'SYN AVITXESS. 117
of ages, by different popes and councils, is the true creed of the church ; that this is consistent Avith the teachings of the apostles, from whom the popes claim succession. Is there not here a field of inquiry at least as extensive and thorny as that which he has imagined for the Protestant? But unless it is investigated, the papist has no right to hold his rule of faith ; for behef without e\"idence is a mockery. And what means have common men to ascertain the testimony of the church, save the instructions of their several priests? What means have they to verify the teachings of their spiritual guides, by comparing them for them- selves "svith the voluminous and contradictory y^/Zo-^ of the Homan doctors? Manifestly, then, this boasted popish rale of faith comes practically to this, that to the individual layman his indi- vidual priest is his rule of faith, his gospel ! And this priest is uninspired ; he works no miracle or sign to guarantee his lofty claim ; he is perhaps not recognized in other respects as even a man of personal integrity or sanctity. Thus terribly may their cavil be retorted.
These instances show us, my brethren, the direction in which lies the answer to the question -wdth which we set out. Since Christ demands of us an inteUigent faith, and that irrespective of our possession or lack of literary cultiu-e, it appears plain that he regards his gospel as containing its own self-evidencing hght. The Hterary evidences of its divine origin, dra-\vn by the learned from antiquity, have their value ; but wherever the Bible is read •with honesty, it presents, within itself, sufficient proof to evince that its claims are reasonable. Only on this supposition can its lofty and imperative attitude be justified.
The text presents us an apt instance of this species of internal evidence. Our Kedeemer had come, an utter stranger, to the Avell of Sychar, and had preached his gospel to the Samaritans whom he met there. They were unwoi-thy members of a hostile sect, knew nothing of Jesus of Nazareth, had made no effort, as they had no means, to verify his antecedents, or test his creden- tials as the Messiah whom they, in common with the Jews, ex- pected. But yet reason showed them evidence enough of his claim in the matter of his discourse itself. They did not now need the preliminary inquiry. Common sense told them that a being who could depict the past life without any human means of learn- ing it, and read the sinful heart, and teach such truths of grace
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and holiness anu power, must be clotlied witli tlie divine sanc- tion. Witli well-grounded conviction, the woman exclaimed, " Come, see a man wliicli told me all things that ever I did : is not this the Christ ?" " And many more beUeved, because of his own word ; and said unto the woman. Now we beUeve, not be- cause of thy saying, for we have heard him oui'selves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savioui* of the world." The truth which I desire to teach you from these words, my brethren, is this, that the contents of a message mav be such as to demon- strate its authenticity, mthout external inquiry touching the messenger. The messages dehvered by the ambassador may themselves constitute his sufficient credentials. So the gospel hriiigs its ovyn self-evidencing liglit.
That I may meet all such cavils as those of the infidel and papist in the most thorough and candid way, I shall suppose the j)lain, unlettered inquirer, with no book save his English Bible, and with no means or leisure for investigation, other than such as are demanded of every man by the supreme importance of the subject, honestly pondering the demand which he sees God there making upon his immediate and inteUigent faith. I shall not indeed paint the Christian faith as the easy acquisition of folly and prejudice, or of an indolent and perfunctory glance at di\*ine truths; for truths so grand and sacred as those of the gospel will appear, when demonstrated to the reason, to deserve and re- quire the most laborious and impartial efforts of our faculties. But I shall suppose a case, involving no other learning or "wis- dom than that of the simple Enghsh reader weighing the con- tents of his English Bible with such diligence and impartiahty as the worth of an immortal soul deserves. He has been told tlmt the EngUsh which he reads is not the tongue in which the inspired men wrote ; he is aware that the words before him pro- fess to be a translation of the actual words of inspiration, care- fully made by capable and honest, but fallible men ; but he is unable to verify its fideHty for himself. The chief external proof of that point, within the reach of his mind, is but this, that he observes this Enghsh Bible possesses the confidence of all the honest, the pure, the wise, and the learned within his acquaint- ance. Now let us suppose this unlettered inquirer setting him- self, from this posture, to study this book, and to decide whether it contains within itself sufficiently obvious marks of divine origin.
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We shall find that the only difficulty of our task is the univer- sal diffusion of this light of evidence over the whole field of sacred Scripture. Our appreciation of its elements is the less easy be- caiise of the very fact that, as Bible readers, our minds have been immersed in and surrounded by it from youth. My effort to analyze it before you and define its parts is beset ^\ith a dif ficTilty like that of the physicist who should endeavor to separate a beam of sunhght into its prismatic colors in an open field bathed "with the radiance of noonday. Were he and his specta- tors shut up in a darkened hall to which only one pencil of sun- light was permitted to enter, the exhibition of his theorem would be easy. But amidst the glare of mid-day, the very profusion of the light would serve to obscure his result. So in my proof, my difficulty in causing you to see the analysis of the evidence arises only from the breadth and universal diffusion of the light.
I. TJie manifest excellence and truth o/'the contents and peg- posed END of revelation commend it to our minds.
The most immediate and universal result of human reflection is the conviction of a God, supreme first cause, uncreated Crea- tor of all other things. The admission of this foundation truth may be regarded as the first and loudest requirement of our rea- son. Well, the Bible is in perfect harmony with this require- ment, in that it does not begin liy setting about the demonstration of the being of God, but assmnes it as a first trath, needing no inspired assertion. But, then, while this book nobly confirms all that a correct reason could surmise of "his eternal power and godhead," it proceeds to reveal to us a circle of perfect and in- finite attributes, not only of omnipresence, poAver and omnis- cience, by which he ap]3ears competent to his whole gi'and work and supremacy, but of truth, righteousness, goodness and holi- ness, by which he is necessarily and intuitively seen to be worthy of adoring ap]5roval and delightful moral acquiescence. Here is a perfect object, concerning which right reason cannot but say that it is precisely thus God ought to exist ; a full approbation of his excellence and glory can only be withheld at the cost of outraging our own undertakings and violating our own con- sciences. Does this book paint him mth " clouds and darkness round about him?" Yet, *' justice and judgment are the habi- tation of his throne." Nor does our reason utter any clearer dictate than this, that since the finite cannot comprehend the in-
120 THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS.
finite, lie would not be truly God in wliom there was to us no mystery.
Next, tlie most profound and intimate conclusion to wliicli our reason impels us, from our belief in the being of God, is his pro- ■vidence, which we recognize as a silent, but supreme superinten- dence, impressing an order which is both M-ise and righteous upon all creatures and all their actions. But now we find that this truth is the very key-note of the system of this book. It proposes itself to us as nothing more than a history of this pro- Yidence, which it perpetually asserts and explains. When we look into its teachings we see there familiarly asserted the very truths as to God's ways and will which furnish us with the ex- planation of that course of nature, with its profoundest laws, which we observe around us. Providence and this book set forth jDrecisely the same system of things. Yea, more ; the least learned of the penmen of these Scriptures habitually announce, as their familiar maxims, those principles of the divine rule which are the conclusions of oiu' wddest experience, the inevitable tie between character and destiny, the dependence of posterity on the virtues of their fathers, the superintendence of a secret but almighty will over the voHtions of free agents. How strong the proof here that the book is from the same God whose control we obviously see and feel in our daily lives !
When we proceed from the description it gives of God's nature and ways to his law, we find every precept worthy of his recti- tude. Whereas ve hwiu that all men are sinners, we read in this book a code of duties absolutely without taint of sin, which condemns by its spirituality every man under heaven, and yet commands, by its miraculous purity, the approval of every one whom it condemns. We find a mviltitude of points in this code which corrupt man could never have invented; and yet, when taught us here, they aU appear evidently worthy of God, and just and wholesome for man. Especially when we read the Deca- logue, do we find what no human virtue or genius could have constructed, and least of all the -wisdom of an age and a race formed under the debasing influences of Egyptian polytheism, — a digest of all human duties towards God and man, into ten propo- sitions, so wondrousiy simple and comprehensive that nothing is omitted, and nothing confused. The understanding of a moral creature is ine\'itabiy impelled to conclude, that if the precepts
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of the Bible did uot come from God, they are certainly worthy of that origin, and can be reasonably accounted for by no other. For else, this code of perfect holiness must be accounted the off- spring of the very sin it condemns.
The marvellous consistency of these books among themselves is enough to show that they all came from one source, and that divine. They profess to have been written by different men, at intervals during more than a thousand years ; and the internal evidence is abundant to show that this is in the main true. These authors were of different languages, characters and culture, legis- lators, warriors, scholars, kings, priests, herdsmen, peasants, me- chanics, fishermen. Yet there is such perfect agreement, and that upon subjects the most profound and mysterious, that the fiercest criticisms of eager enemies have to this day been unable to convict them of any substantial discrepancy. Must they not have been taught all by one infallible mind ?
But especially when we listen to the Bible delineation of our owTi moral state, do we find in our own sorrowful and guilty con- sciousness an echo which confesses the perfect justice and fidelity of the description. This wonderful book does what no other, not the most ancient, history or tradition attempts ; it gives the ex- planation of that insoluble mystery : how a ruined and polluted creatxu^e could be found amidst the handiwork of a creator whom we must believe to be at once omnipotent, benevolent and holy. It solves the problem by telling us that " God did create man upright ; and lie sought out many inventions ; " that after man proceeded from his Maker's hand, holy and happy, he fell and was ruined by the sin of his first father. But this is not the chief fact. I point to those clear and decisive statements which sacred Scripture makes of the most profound and melancholy re- velations of our inner consciousness ; of the emptiness and vanity which our experience so bitterly realizes in all those terrene ob- jects to the pursuit of which we are all, nevertheless, obstinately impelled by a perverted heart ; of the ineradicable spring of sin- ful desire within; of a will freely, and yet certainly, directed against the dkta of our own better conscience, by which will we are ever prompted to choose that evil which we are ever com- pelled to reprobate ; of " a certain fearful looking for of judgment " whicli causes us to recoil from that immortality which should be our glory and joy. And of a sorrowful longing, without hope.
122 THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS.
for moral renovation, which yet man is ever too weak and sinful to effectuate. Xow I ask, by what wisdom is it that this book hath revealed an insight so much deeper, mere honest, and more searching, than any human philosophy, into this abyss of our miserable consciousness ? "When man's guilty soul avouches its truth in every groan of his remorse and his anguish, does it not appear obviously the utterance of him w^hose. eyes behold, whose eyelids try the hearts of the children of men? "What artificer of imposture hath ever been wont to deal thus with the \dctims whom he would befool?
But among all the contents of this book, it is its professed chief end which commends itself to the reason with most com- manding force. For the most cursory reading of this book shows us that its burden everywhere, its one great, perpetual annoii:uiee-= ment, its good news {evangel), is the proposal of a work whio^n, if practicable, cannot but challenge the approval of every right- mind, with a self-evidencing hght as clear as our consciousness of our own existence; a work the depreciation of whose escel= lence would betray at once a disregard of self monstrous and suicidal, and a satanic malignity towards our fellows* a work whose mere j^roposal should be so full of blessing and glory, that the refutation or surrender of the hope should be resisted by man's soul "udth the agony of despair. This proposed T/ork is that Avhich no other reformer or philanthropist has ever pre- sumed to suggest ; one which the ceaseless yearning of our misery even had not emboldened us to ask. This proposal is no less than the offer of redemption to man for the glory of God, a complete deliverance from guilt by justification, and from cor- ruption by sanctification. How unique, how satisfying to man's necessities, how worthy of heaven, is this glorious end! It is not like the vain, wicked and impious dreams of philosophy, or of polytheism, or of Mohammedanism, the proposal to find the elements of restoration where, from the nature of the case, it is impossible they can exist, in the nature itself that is ruined ; or to set aside the ob\dous doom of man's ill-desert, leaving God's justice and hohness outraged ; or to endow a corrupt soul with an immortal blessedness which is incompatible with its sinfulness. No ; this gospel offer goes to the foundation of the needed work. It proposes to engage the omnipotence, Iqve and wisdom of God himself, both to satisfy divine justice, and to restore man's ruin
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in sill ; so that the deliverance shall meet fully every demand of offended heaven, and every necessity of fallen humanity, and endow us ^dtli a new blessedness as righteous as it is precious, and as everlasting as it is righteous. Must not every right soul exclaim, Oh ! if this news may but be true ;. never can there de- scend from the skies a word so dear to man, so worth}' of God ! At its announcement must not every most pious and reverent aspu'ation for his honor concur with every holy and legitimate longing of the hungry soul for its own good, and every impulse (^f benevolence for others, in the ardent wish that the reason iiuiy find full authority and e"\T.dence the glad news is true f And why should the most jealous caution resist that joyful conclusion ? Methinks there is abundant confirmation in the message itself; a message too grand and strange to be the fiction of man's folly ; too pure, and noble, and righteous, and benevolent, to be the invention of a mahgnant imposter !
II. If one were sick and full of anguish with a mortal disease, and an entire stranger were to come to him and j^i'ofess the pur- pose of kindly healing, every man must say that the proposal is every wa}' right and good. To test the character of this stranger, it would only remain to see whether his secret intention and his ability corresponded ^vdth his profession. So let us now con- sider that Redeemer whom this book proposes to us as the physician of our sord's malady. Time forbids my staying to argue the constitution of his person, as God in man, and thus able for his undertaking ; or to unfold the perfect adaptation of the offices he assumes to bear, as our prophet, priest, and king, to our necessities ; or to dwell upon his miracles and predictions as di"vane sanctions of his claims. Moreover, I promised that I ■would not go outside of those materials of proof which the plain reader can find in his Enghsh Bible. All that I claim on the above points is, that the reader's common sense must approve the fitness of the character ami fiunction which Jesus Christ seems to assume for the redeeming v'ork tohich he professes to under- tahe. If there can be a real salvation for sinners, it must be by atonement and new bii-tli. And these must be wrought by one who has more than human power, to renew us, and more than human independence and worth, to pay his life for a world of sinners. Now, such do we find Christ's claims in this book. He is here said to be both Son of man and Son of God, in one
124 THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS.
person ; to have aiitliority to lay doA\'u liis life and take it again ; to liave given this life for tlie sins of the world ; and to exercise a divine power in baptizing the heai-ts of sinners mtli the Holy Ghost. The question is, are these wondrous claims true? I offer you, in proof, the lovely and perfect character of Jesus as painted by the evangelists. We read these four histories, and we find there described a being who, from his cradle to his cross, was never guilty of a fault, or even a foible. He is represented to us as having displayed every ^ai-tue of the perfect man, along with the majesty and might of deity. His love and beneficence were only equalled by his truth and rectitude. His onl}' occu- pation on earth was doing good ; his only ambition was to bear away, or at least to Hghten, the sorrows of others. To the claims of selfishness, avarice, ambition, he displayed a lofty insensi- bility, such as no human character has ever approached, yea, such as the imagination of inan had never dreamed of imputing to its most glowing creations. With boundless power at his command, he was never once seen to employ it to gratify, ( )r ag- grandize, or avenge himself; it was used only to bless others, while he remained so poor that he "had not where to lay his head." When he opened his mouth, it was to speak as never man spake ; his discourses breathed only purity, wisdom, and love. Heaven and earth alike pronounce this character holy, harmless, and undefiled ; the utmost malice could lu'ing no taint upon it by the foulest ai-ts of subornation; the pagan pro- curator who condemned him testified that no fault could be found in him ; the very traitor who betrayed him was con- strained to declare him innocent, as he went, lashed by the furies of remorse, to his own place. His sanctity was tested by the fiery furnace of slander, persecution and murder ; yet there was no alloy; equally meek and magnanimous, with a spirit as in- flexible in its moral courage as divine in its forgiveness, he only shone with the purer radiance in the furnace. But why do I attempt to describe that which is indescribable? The moral beauty of this character so reveals itself to the intuitions of the humblest mind, as well as to the most cultivated, that your own conceptions of it perpetually transcends in glory all the images of rhetoric. I thank God that it is so ; and that a complete por- traiture is as needless as it is impossible. For herein is the value of this character, that it requires no training, nor logic, nor
THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS. 125
effort for its apprehension ; it commends itself as immediately to the heart of the child or peasant as of the wise or learned.
Now, is this picture anthentic? Did this man, Jesns, truly speak these words, and live this life, and die this death in Judea? Then, what lie said I must beheve to be true; true by the evi- dence of this sj)otless integrity, love and faithfulness ; true by all the irresistible beauty of his character. To tell me that such virtues as his could be the inventor of a lie, and that a lie so base, so unfeehng, so impious as this would have been, outrages both my reason and my heart; as though one should tell me that night, mth her blackness of darkness, was the parent of the light, and death the author of life. What would you have said to me if I, in my youth, after witnessing from my infancy the steady, consistent integrity of my honored father, and after owing the happiness of so many years to his faithfulness and love, had refused credit to his word on the pretext that I had no know- ledge of the thing he spake ? You would have decided, with dis- gust, that I showed the head of a fool, in that I could not be blind to the evidence of such consistency, and the heart of a scoundrel, in that I refused the instinctive homage of my confi- dence to such excellence. Even so ; if you now saw such a being as Jesus is described, performing his ministry of love and sanctity under your observation, you would be compelled to yield credit to his word. Wlien I contemplate the personal character of Jesus Christy I feel that I can trust everything to his veracity.
But the objection may be imagined that this life and character are not under the inspection of this plain reader of the Enghsh Bible as a present reality ; all that he knows is that this book in his hands, which professes to be a correct translation of certain histories, said to be eighteen centuries old, describes such a life and character. I reply, this is enough. For there is a wondrous description; the question whence it came must be answered. Only two answers are possible ; either it is a fiction, or it is not. Will any one dare to say the former ? Then he must hold that a company of liars have composed the noblest and most beauti- ful model of truth ever seen among men ; that the loveliest image of virtue which has ever entranced the admu-ation of the M-ise and good is the invention of the most loathsome vice. For how foul and cruel and profane must have been the temper which could deliberately set itself to forge such a cheat, in mockery at
126 THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS.
once of God's majesty and mercy and of man's "vroes and dan- gers ? That an exploit of genius wliich tlie noblest intellect and lieart of scholar has never equalled, and which the most profound critics declare to be an inimitable achievement should have been accomplished by men who were ignorant at once and base ; and that these hateful imposters expended all this miraculous art in constructing an imaginary picture of which the only apparent result is to condemn their own falsehood in inventing it, — this is, indeed, not only a greater miracle than the miracles of the gospel, but an impossibility. He who can believe this is more credulous than the most insolent skeptic has represented the humble Christian.
Here, then, is the result of these converging lines of evidence ; that while all else in the Bible is manifestly worthy of God, so far as it is comprehended, this great proposal of the Bible, that man shall be restored to obedience, holiness and happiness, is so self-evidently right and good that to reject it is at once a crime and a folly. And that the Redeemer, sent to do the glorious work, presents a character so consistent "with his proj^osed mis- sion that reason and virtue both imperatively demand for him our full confidence.
III. We now make a third appeal to the common sense of our supposed inquirer, the materials of which are presented by every sane and honest man's intelUgence. We ask him to verify the authenticity or falsehood of this gospel news by its effects on so- ciety around him. Cast your eye, my friend, upon the people within your own knowledge. You see a society, embracing a part of these people, called the Christian Church, which pro- fesses to have made this book the rule of its spiritual life. Now, the demonstration is in this fact, that the 2^<iople in this society verify the very results indicated in the hooh. Among some of them you observe an inconsistency between holy professions and unholy conduct, expressly foretold .by the book, and presenting you with an impressive instance of the maUgnity and virus of that disease of sin which the book imputes to natural men. But among others of them, you observe, what your Bible has also expressly predicted, instances of the sincere adoption and effica- cious influence of the gospel; and uniformly you see that the character of these is lovely and deserving, just in proportion to the degree of fulness with which they embrace and feel the truths
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of tlieir Bibles. The eifect of the book on their character, pre- cisely as they permit it to have its legitimate effect, is to produce a result of such self-evident excellence that to condemn it, or to refuse it your hearty ajDproval, is a manifest outrage against youi own reason and conscience. Moreover, you notice that not only are those the best people who most sincerely embrace and fol- low this book, but that nearly all that is truly good in society flows directly or indirectly from the influence of this book and these people. You think that you discover here and there a gentleman who is honorable and benevolent, or a lady who is pure and amiable, who is not the votary of the Bible ? Yes, but when yon investigate the origin of these persons, you probably find that they derived these lovely qualities toward their fellow- men from Christian parents who drew all their graces from this holy book. Now, I appeal to your common sense: "Doth an evil tree bear good fruit ? Do men gather grapes of thorns oi' figs of thistles ?" If the Bible is false and infidelity true, how is it that error here bears the precious fruits of truth ? If you still deny that this gospel is from God, then it would appear that, so preposterous are the conditions of man's existence here, it is ne- cessary for him to believe a lie in order to make the nearest ap- proach to his true welfare and the true ends of his existence.
But this is only a part of the argument. When you study a little the effects of the Bible upon those who are most obviously its sincere receivers, you perceive that it has been the instrument of making a change in them for which nature cannot account. You saw that the book promised to its recipients a quickening of the soul dead in sin by God's own power — a new birth by the Holy Ghost. Astonishing, amazing promise ! But here are some instances in which it is verified. Here and there, among these nominal or questionable Christians, are some w^ho present the undoubted evidence. of a long and consistent life that they are truly actuated by a heavenly principle. Now you, my friend, know enough of human nature, without any Bible, to perceive that this principle is not naturally in man, and that there is no power in his nature to generate it. You see all men, you see yourself, uniformly, originally, certainly devoted to the world and self-will, in preference to God. It is manifestly the natural law of our radical dispositions of heart. You may sometimes or often have had religious thoughts and purposes ; but you are
128 THE BIBl^E ITS OWN WITNESS.
perfectly aware that they were not godly or heavenly ; they were all but the efforts which self-love, in the form of awcLkeiied fear , exacted of your unAnlliug souls. You know that you have always yielded to or at least harbored the unconquerable desire to return to sin as soon as the spur of remorse was a little withdrawn. But these genuine Christians not only refrain from sin, but hate it ; they not only submit to duty, but dehght in it. They manifest a permanent revolution of soul from self and sin to godliness. Your own understandings also show you very plainly that such a change as this bespeaks more than earthly power ; that the stream of voUtions cannot rise of themselves higher than their o\nx fountain in the evil heart ; that the attractions of heavenly- mindedness cannot, by their mere native power as inducements, reverse that disposition which is naturally dead to them. These men were obviously " born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 13.)
Here, then, is proof of the divine origin of the gospel as prac- tical and impressive as a visible miracle. The book promises such a change to those who embrace it ; the change is above the powers of nature ; but lo ! in these cases where the truth is heartily received it actually occurs. What verification could be more complete?
And now, will any one attempt to break the force of this evi- dence by pointing me to the multitude of spurious or doubtful Christians ? Is it thus insinuated that the reality of this divine change in any case is uncertain ? I reply : What of the many counterfeits ? Is not their existence precisely what Jesus Christ predicted? The question is, whether there has not been at least one within the range of your own observation whose Christian integrity was undoubted? For a single case reveals the finger of God. And I will not believe that you have been so unblessed as never to have possessed at least one such heavenly-minded friend. I point you back to the chambers of your OTvm memory ; I call up the dear and venerated forms of your dead who dwell enshrined in your heart's recollections ; I point you to that re- vered relative, most probably a sainted woman, your aunt, your gentle sister, your mother, whose Christian love was at once the SAveetest blessing and the hohest lesson of your Hfe. Recall, I pray you, the light of that pure example, whose benignant beams filled your home with peace and quiet joy. Eemember that
THE BIBLE ITS OWN WITNESS. 129
steadfast, generous heart, whose unselfish affection was the solace of all jour sorrows ; the unwearied Ufe of magnanimous self-forgetfulness ; the generous patience which bore all your in- gratitude and waywardness, and took no revenge, save by bless- ing; the unquenched fire of devotion burning on with steady flame in privacy, in prosperity, in sorrow ; and that calm, radiant face with which she was wont to come do^vNTi at twihght from the chamber of her secret communings with God. Esjjecially do I remind you of the end, which set the seal upon the consistent testimony of the whole life; w^hen you saw the gentle sufferer he upon her dying bed, and receive the last blessing of a love whose unselfish fire death could not quench ; when you beheld her awaiting, peaceful, weak, it may be, and prostrate and con- trite, yet unappalled, the approach of that last enemy, whose most distant threat, as you well know, tills your guilty heart with shuddering, and ^dtnesse<J her triumph over his sting by the strength of her Redeemer — ah ! you Jcnoio that there was in that breast a principle which you have not and which the world cannot bestow. It was the new nature received through this gospel. I testify unto you that God gave you this holy example, and blessed you with this Christian love, in order to convince you, by the demonstration of a present, living wonder of his grace, that his gospel is no cunningly devised fable. Perhaps you have said to yourself that had you been an eye-mtness of the reputed miracles of Jesus, had you stood with those Jews of Bethany beside the opening grave, and seen Lazarus come forth at the call of the divine voice, bound ^vith grave-clothes, you too would have beheved. But you ask, How do I know that these naiTa- tives are authentic ? How can I verify these professed histories across the chasm of eighteen centuries? I reply: Here God gave you, by the ministry of this same gospel, a moral miracle as unquestionable, and if you consider it aright, as impressive as these — the quickening of a dead soul.
Thus the Bible contains, in its own message and effects, evi- dence which shoidd be sufficient for the common mind, if honest. This evidence has been represented to you here as aj)pealing, not only to the reason, but to the conscience. Will any hearer object for this cause to its strict, demonstrative force ? Shall it be urged against me, that I have j^resented a sentimental, rather than a logical, view of these evidences? I claim that this is no deroga-
VOL. I.— 9.
130 THE BIBLE ITS OV.X AMTNESS.
tion from its just force ; it is rather the glory and strength of the argument. For the moral judgments of the soul which I have addressed are the highest, the most intuitive, and the most im- perative functions of the reason. The student of numbers has a rational judgment of the truth of this statement, that in division, the larger the divisor, the smaller the quotient. So has he a con- scientious judgment that Judas Avas criminal for betraying his Master ; and it is attended with a lively sentiment of reprobation. But is the mind any less certain that the latter proposition is true than that the arithmetical one was true ? Not a whit. When conscience announces her verdict for the right and the just, it is as supremely rational as the clearest perceptions of the true.
Moral and spiritual judgments are no less logical than the scientific. But there is an all-important difference, my hearers, between them; a difference in favor of my cause. The moral truth, when recognized, brings to your soul instantaneous and imperative obligation. Your conviction immediately binds you to the corresponding right action, by a claim which cannot be resisted or postponed without criminality. We have been ex- amining the proposition that in every division, the greater the divisor, the smaller the quotient. Suppose jou deny that this abstract statement is universally true ? I shall say that you must have a queer sort of mind! Suppose you agree with me that the proposition is universally true: What then? Why, nothing! ■unless you choose to enter upon some such arithmetical pro- cesses. But now I come to jon "svith a different, a moral propo- sition : I tell you that in yonder poor-house there is a venerable man, sick, naked, friendless and destitute, and I show you evi- dence which identifies this pitiable sufferer with the generous benefactor of your youth, long lost to your knowledge. Your mind must needs admit the logical force of. that evidence. And now, what ? There immediately emerge to you the obligations of gratitude, of beneficent action, requiting your suffering friend; and to refuse, or even delay that action, brands you as criminal. So, in this gospel argument, the appeal to the rational intuition is partly moral, and not merely scientific ; and ther eiove Jiiith is a duty, and unhelief a sin. Thus the cavil is exploded which objected against the gospel system, for erecting the soul's state of belief into a grace or a crime. It is because the belief on Christ involves right judgments of conscience and clioica of heart, as
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well as correct notions of the intellect. This solemn trait of the gospel is, therefore, strictly consistent. Hearer, will yon now do yonr duty by "becoming obedient to the faith?"
I now take you to witness that, in establishing the truth of this gospel, I have used no other materials than that familiar know- ledge and common-sense which the humblest reader may brino- to his English Bible, if he is honest. Here, then, is the mode in which it becomes a practical rule of faith to common men. And here is the answer to the sneer, that the faith of such Christians is but senseless prescription or prejudice. To the right heart, the gospel is its o-wn sufficient witness.
From this point of view you will see it to be a reasonable pro- position, that the best book to be read by him who is inquiring into the evidence of the Bible is the Bible itself. This is no paradox. There is a stranger who wishes to be received as a trustworthy person. He offers you certain testimonials from abroad which, he claims, will prove satisfactory when verified. But you, as a practical man, thrust them aside, and prefer to converse with the stranger himself. If you can do so frequently and intimately enough, to gain a thorough personal acquaintiance of your own, you prefer to judge him for yourself. Thus do with the Bible. Search the Scriptures honestly and diligently, and you will find out whether they are from God, or whether they speak of themselves.
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.^
WE here group together two books which advocate the Ees- torationist theory of Origen. The first has as its nucleus the five sermons in "Westminster Abbey, in the end of the year 1877, in which the author was understood to preach Univer- sahsm. But as presented in an American di'ess by the Messrs. Dutton, they are preceded by a long controversial preface, inter- mingled with many notes, and followed by five Excursus attempt- ing to sustain its doctrine.
The dc'Ctrine of the endless future punishment of the impeni- tent is one so awful and solemn that it is ^^dth painful reluctance the Christian sees it made a subject of controversy. The odium theologicum must be malignantly developed indeed, to make one forget that in proving the truth he may be only seahng his indi- vidual doom, and is assuredly doing it, unless he attain some degree of the Christ-Uke spirit of love. It is presumed that there is not a right-minded man in any church who would not hail ■v\ath delight the assurance that every creatiu'e of God will be finally holy and happy, provided only it could be given with certainty, and in a way consistent with the honor of God. If there are men who are glad to have the fact the other way for the gi-atification of their own malice or indignation, we have never met them, and we gladly rehnquish them to Canon Farrar's eloquent invective. But we submit that he may be doing great injustice by confound- ing with this harsh temper an honest zeal for the integrity of Scrij)- ture exposition, which they fear he is A-iolating ; and a benevo- lent apprehension lest souls m*iy be ruined by a cry of "peace, when there is no peace." "We can conceive that good men may be actuated by these motives in opposing our author, and yet feel all the solemn and yearning compassion for lost souls which
' This treatise appeared in the Soutliem Presbyterian Bevieip, July, 1879, review- ing, 1. Eternal Hope. By Cauon Farrar. New York: E. P. Diatton & Co. 1878. 2. The Death of Death. By an Orthodox Layman. Richmond, Ya. : Eandolph & English. 1878.
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lie professes, Aud here is the answer to the charge he hiu'ls constantly of the malignant harshness of the orthodox, that the woi-thiest and most deeply convinced men of that opinion have ever been the most self-devoted and affectionate laborers for the rescue of their fellow-men fi'om the horrible fate which they beheve awaits the disobedient. They have demonstrated their philanthropy by toils, sacrifices, and blood, much more valuable than the rhetoric of such as Canon Farrar.
His professed arguments against the orthodox view are many ; his real ones are two. One is, that common Christians act so little like men who Hve among a race rapidly perishing Avdth an everlasting destruction. This argument is, alas, just, not as against God's truth, but as against us; and it ought to fill us "svith wholesome shame and to stimulate us to remove the pretext by the love and faithfulness of our toil for souls. His other argument is purely sentimental: that his sensibilities reject an idea so ghastly as the endless perdition of creatures; he cannot admit a thing so a^\"fuL The awfulness cannot be exaggerated ; but it is forgotten that perhaps, if sin appeared to his mind as abominable as it does to God, and if he appreciated the rights of God's holiness and majesty as a creature ought, he would see that the doctrine is as just as awful, and therefore Hkely to be reaHzed under such a Euier. Thus he might be taught to transfer his abhorrence y/'C7/i Calvinism to sin, as the proper object of the unspeakable awe and revulsion.
If the reader expects from so scholarly a somxe something new and better than the staple arguments of ordinary Univer- salists, he will be mistaken. He gives us only the old exegesis, in the main, so often refuted, and the old, erroneous ground-^'iew of God's moral government, as utihtariau. In this brief review no attempt mU be made to refute his points in detail ; only the sahent pecuharities of the book can be briefly noticed. We can- not honestly ^dthhold the judgment that this book is foohsh, un- candid, and mischievous. Its attempts at argument are weak and self-contradictory, its misrepresentations are patent, and its ten- dencies are to luU impenitent men into a false security, by the delusive prospect of repentance after death. For instance, the oi-thodox doctrine is uniformly painted as including the everlast- ing damnation of a majority of the human family, immensely larger than the number of the saved. If Canon Farrar knew
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enougli to entitle him to preach on this subject, he ought to have kno^\-n that all the orthodox beheve just the opposite. Although at some e\TLl time or place the reprobate may outnumber the saved, they hold that by virtue of the redemption of the infants dying in infancy (nearly half the race) and of the teeming mil- lennial generations, the major part of the race mil ultimately be gathered into heaven, so that mercy shall boast itself against judg- ment.
He uniformly asserts that we hold all this immensity of penal ■woe embraced mthin the immortahty of a lost soul as earned exclusively by the sins of his short life on earth. Surely Canon Fan-ar must know, that while Ave do not concur in his evident light estimate of sin, and while we do not think that man can commit a httle sin against an infinite God, the orthodox always assign an everlasting series of sins as the just ground of endless punishments. If he does not know our express dissent from the papal dogma, that beyond death the soul cannot merit, his igno- rance is mthout excuse. His scarcely veiled preference for the papal theology over the reformed theology of his own church suggests that probably he may hold some such error. But we do not. Hence, if the sinner persists iu sinning everlastingly, justice may punish endlessly.
He represents the orthodox as teaching the odious idea that the saints will find an important element of their bHss in gloating over the despair and torments of those once their fellow-sinners. Among his proofs are citations from Thomas Aquinas, who says that the happiness of the saints will be enhanced by the law of contrast ; and from Jonathan Edwards, teaching that the know- ledge of the nature of the torments from which divine grace has delivered them will enhance the gratitude of the redeemed. Ought not an honest mind to have seen the difference of these statements from his charge? Canon Farrar, let us suppose, has been saved from a shipwi-eck, in which a part'of his comrades have perished. But can he not apprehend how adoring grati- tude and joy for his own rescue would be increased by compar- ing himself, reclining safe and warm liefore the genial fire, with the battered corpses tossing amidst the sea-weed, while yet his whole soul might be melted with pity for them ?
He preaches a sermon to refute the notion, falsely imputed to us, that the redeemed will be the small minority. It is from the
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text, Luke xiii. 23, 24 : " Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Will the reader believe that he closes his sermon without alluding to the next vrords of our Lord? "For many shall seek to enter in, and shall not he ahle."" Had he permitted the last words to be heard, they would have refuted his UniversaUsm ; teaching the solemn truth of Pro v. i. 28, that mercy may be defied until at last the selfish and unholy cry of remorse may be forever too late.
He labors in two places at least to prove that the Anglican Church designedly recognizes his doctrine, in that she did, A. D. 1562, remove from her Articles the forty-second, which rejected restorationism. Yet he knows that this indirect plea is fatally refuted by these facts, that the Litany expressly teaches the people to pray for deliverance from "thy wrath and everlasting damnation ; " that the Prayer Book, in the Visitation of Prison- ers, and also of Those Under Sentence of Death, most expressly teaches the orthodox view, and that the " Irish Articles of Reli- gion," adopted by the Episcopal Church of L'eland, A. D. 1615, and approved by the government. Sec. 101, declares " that the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, there to endure endless tor- ments"
On page 78 he claims, \\dth a taste at least very questionable, the right and quaUfication to tell us, ex cathedra, what auovcot; means: "the word in its first sense simply means age-long."" Yet every lexicon in our reach concurs in saying that its probable root is ati — ever, and gives as the first meaning of auovco::, " time long past and indefinite," and as the second, "of endless dura- tion."
Canon Farrar feels much outraged at l^eiug called a " Univer- salist." He declares more than once that he does not deny the actual endless punishment of some sinners who remain obsti- nately rebellious. In other places he acknowledges that he does not know what he believes touching the duration of hell. Only, he is a firm believer in future punishments, to be (possibly or probably) ended by the repentence of the ofi'enders ; in the case of how many, wdio die impenitent, he does not know. The sum of his theology seems to be here, that he ^vill not believe in any more future punishment than he can help, because he does not like to believe it. Would not the common good sense of men
136 ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.
decide that one whose own belief was in this fluctuating state should not attempt to teach others, lest if perchance the future should turn his doubts into certainty, he might find that he had misled his fellow-sinners to their ruin ? Many of his violent dog- matisms are offensive when thus connected vdth his avowed un- certainty. Thus, among many admissions, page 84 : "I cannot preach the certainty of Universalism." Yet he tells us of "^dcked men who declared that the doctrine of an endless hell, instead of restraining their sins, inflamed their indignation and sense of injustice against (the Calvinist's) God. With this feeling he evidently sympathizes. The language certainly bears the ap- pearance of taking part with these sinners against the represent- ation of God given in the doctrine. Now, as he has confessed that there may be men sinful enough to be endlessly punished, would it not have been best to refrain from thus taking the cul- prit's side against justice, lest he should even be found to fight against God? He admits that a man may be bad enough to re- ceive endless punishment. Yet in other places he denounces the horrors of the doctrine as intolerable to the loving mind. Here, again, let it be supposed that the all-"\vise may see that all who die impenitent are bad enough to be justly punished forever. Can the author safely claim such an acquaintance ^dth the e\dl of sin as to pronounce that supposition impossible ? But should it tiu'n out the true one, where will his argument be ? He de- clares that the doctrine of pimishment is wholly hardening and depraving in this world. Yet his hope of the salvation of multi- tudes after they go to a (temporary) hell, is founded solely on the expectation that they mil be so sanctified and softened by the punishment as to embrace the Christ there whom they wilfully reject here ! His main argument is, that he cannot believe God's infinite placability can be limited by a few years and a separa- tion of the soul from an animal body ; so that if the sinner in hell repents, God mil surely stay his punitive hand. But he is careful not to advert to the vital question : Will any such repent f Thus his Pelagian leaning is betrayed. Again, his whole theory of punishment is utilitarian; he cannot conceive of penalty as inflicted for any other end than the reformation of the sufferer ; and for penalty inflicted to satisfy justice, his softest word is "arbitrary." It is evident that he knows too little of the "sys- tematic theology" which he despises, to be aware of the fatal
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT, 137
contradictions and absvirdities into wliicli liis theory leads liim. The fact of tlie evil angels' condemnation to endless punisliment is, too evidently, fatal to liis wliole argument. This needs no explanation for Presbyterian readers. It is sad to see the evasion. He informs us quietly near the close, that he made up his mind not to complicate the inquiry into human destiny Avith that about the fallen angels. Had he done so, his whole struc- ture vs^ould have tumbled into ruins.
The most prominent feature of Canon Farrar's attempted argu- ment is, that he ascribes the belief in endless punishment to the seeming force of a few texts. But he would have us found doc- trines, not on particular texts, but on "broad, -aniiy iw^ p/'mcij)leii of Scripture," (page 74). On the next page ho cries : "I protest at once and finally against this ignorant tyranny of insulated texts," etc. Proof-texts seem to be his especial bane (except such as he shall be allowed to interpret for us in his own fashion). The naughty orthodox prove too many things by them which he does not like. They have even refuted by them his darling abohtion- ism ! Now, while we all admit that a proof-text is ojilj valid in the sense the Holy Spirit meant it to bear, and that in finding that sense we ought to give much weight to " the analogy of the faith," yet we see in this outcry an injustice to the orthodox, and an absurdity. It was the author's duty to tell his hearers that the orthodox never have considered their doctrine of endless punishments as based only on a few " texts ;" they always claim that they find themselves constrained, with reluctant awe and fear, to recognize it as based on the "unifpng principles" of the whole Bible, as taught in many forms and implied in many of the other admitted doctrines. And again, as the general is made up of particulars we cannot conceive whence we are to draw those " unifying prin- ciples " except from the collecting and grouping of particular texts. If the author rejects each stone individually as a " text," of course he can reject any arch built of stones, no matter how firm.
In fine, his theology is not only against the texts, but it im- pinges upon God's attributes, the fundamental principles of theology, and the facts of Bible history. It overlooks God's sovereignty and majesty, the true nature of sin, the true nature of guilt and penalty, the true condition of man as dead in sin and wholly disabled for any spiritu.d good accompanying salva-
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tion. It builds on tlie " benevolence tbeory," and makes man's welfare, instead of God's glory, the ultimate end.
The second Avork named, although anonymous, bears designed internal niarks of being written by an Episcopalian. While its theory differs but little from Canon Farrar's, its author assiu-es us that it is wholly independent of him. The exact j^osition which the writer wishes to occupy is not clear. For Avhen charged by an objector with a denial of " eternal punishments," he disclaims this construction, and says that he only held that "a hopeless piniishment is nowhere taught" in Scripture. This would seem to give the following position : that on the one hand no sinner's doom condemns him inexorably at death or the judg- ment day to everlasting woe, and whenever a sinner in hell re- lents from his impenitence and j)rays for reconciliation, he will receive it ; yet, on the other hand, it is still always possible, and even likely, that some "^ill suffer everlastingly because they will in fact for ever postpone repentance. This is the only sense we can attach to punishment everlasting . and yet not liopeless. Yet the author afterwards declares that his "theory embraces in the harmony of the universe every creature of God, whether lie be a human being or a fallen angel." He belongs, therefore, to that class of restorationists to which Origen is generally referred. While regarding his argument as inconclusive, we must concede to him a pious and reverent spirit. Every trait of his book be- speaks the good man, the devout Christian, and the gentleman. In every respect save the erroneous logic, in true eloquence, temper, and vigor of thought, lie stands in favorable contrast with his clerical comrade in Westminster Abbey. We conclude, with the Charleston News and Courier, that, " although the argu- ment burns with the fervor of impassioned feeling, it never ceases to be argument; while it rises at times to lofty eloquence, it never suggests, as does Dr. Farrar's, the suspicion of Thetorical display."
Our review must again, for lack of space, omit all detailed ex- amination of particular expositions and arguments. We limit ourselves, at this time, to the notice of one feature. This is the e\ident affinity between the Kestorationist scheme and Semi-Pe- lagianism. We find both these advocates attempting to give their doctrine respectability by quoting the names of Greek Fathers who advocated or at least tolerated it. Prominent among
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 139
*
these are Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. "Well, these are the very men whose theology was most infected by the arrogant views of Neo-Pla- tonism touching the powers of human nature, and who were swayed by that pagan philosophy to deny or depreciate total depra"vnty; and accurate readers of church history know that Theodore, the true father of Nestorianism, expressly adopted the view of Pelagius and Celestius, then becoming current among the Greeks, and conformed to it his conception of the hypostatic union. Our author reveals the logical tie again in a startling manner. He informs us that his scheme is expressly the sequel and application of Dr. Bledsoe's " Theodicy," which he lauds in the main to the skies. He dissents from him, in that Dr. Bledsoe was a firm assertor of everlasting punishments.
Now the readers of this Review remember that this theodicy of God's permission of sin is, that he cannot necessitate with absolute certainty the continuance in holiness of any rational creature, because such necessity would destroy his free-agency. Hence, he claims for God that he may plead he has done all for every lost spirit, human or angelic, which even omnipotence could do, compatibly with its nature as a rational free agent. Because free agency consists in the contingency and self-deter- mination of the will.
This theory the author adopts with all his soul. On it he builds his hope of universal restorationism. "While his lack of acquaintance with theological science prevents his use of its ac- curate nomenclature, his scheme, stated in that nomenclature, is the following : No sinner ever loses his ability of vnR to true faith and repentance, even amidst the obduracy and long-confirmed habits of hell. It is a part of his rational and moral essentia. Since death does not change this essentia, the "faculty of repent- ance," as he sometimes calls it, cannot be terminated by death. Indeed, no sinner can ever lose it, for in doing so he would lose his essential identity, and so his responsibility. Now, then, re- ject the horrible doctrines of "election and reprobation," claim Christ's sacrifice to be universal in design, dispense with the ne- cessity of an effectual call, and suppose the gospel offer of recon- ciliation in Christ to be held forth for ever, and our author reaches his conclusion, that whenever the souls in hell repent, as sooner or later all will, they "will be pardoned out of it. Thus, page 87,
140 ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.
he denies tliat siu is naturallv and certainly self-propagating ; hence lie holds there is no ground for sapng that sinners after death will never repent.
This nnscriptural ^dew of human nature is evidently the corner- stone of his S}"stem. But if the Bible doctrine is true, that man is "dead in trespasses and sins," that "no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him," then all the author's suppo- sitions may be granted, without reaching his conclusion. He is sure, from his con^-iction of God's placability and fatherhood, which are immutable, that the day can never come, to all eter- nity, when the worst sinner who repents will be refused pardon in Christ. But ^yiR any who die impenitent ever truly repent? None truly repent here except they be moved by efficacious grace ; their original sin "udll not be less there. The "faculty of repent- ance " is not natural to man's essentia here ; he cannot lose what he did not possess ; it is a gift of special grace. Hence the very hinge of the whole debate is in the question ivhet/ter Christ will give effectual calling to the condemned in the state of punishment. On that question the Scriptures say at least nothing affirmative. Would it not then be better for us all to be silent where we have no authority to speak, and to avoid the risk of encouraging sin- ners to procrastinate repentance by a hope of amendment after death which they will find, illusory.
The travesty which is given of the doctrine of predestination shows that the amiable author only knows it in the caricatures of its enemies. If he ^^ill study it in the statements of its recog- nized advocates, he will find in it none of the abhorrent features he imagines.
The author overthrows the " Theodicy" of his own teacher, Dr. Bledsoe, in a most instructive manner. He argues that. if men can and do abuse their free agency, in spite of God's strongest moral restraints, so as to make everlasting shipwreck of their being, then Dr. Bledsoe's defence of God is worthless. For, although his omnipotence be not able to necessitate their holi- ness consistently vnth their free-^ill, his omniscience must have foreseen the utter ship^\Teck. So that the frightful question recurs as to the origin of e^•il. Why did not God refrain from CT'eating these reprobate souls ? Thus the author demolishes Dr. Bledsoe's "Theodicy." But now, he argues, let his scheme be added, that God's omniscience foresees no souls finally reprobate.
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 141
that all penal evil is remedial to the sufferers, and that God will make hell itself a means of grace to aU the lost, and he has a true theodicy. Alas that this also should be demolished as quickly as the other ! If God's end in the creation of the universe is beatistic, as his whole argument assumes, then why did not God also refrain from creating all such souls as he foresaw would re- quire these frightful means for their final restoration, and stock his worlds with only such souls as would follow holiness and hap- piness, like the elect angels, withovit being driven into them by this fiery scourge ? Surely the author will not attack God's omnipotence by denying that he was able to do the latter. Then we should have had a universe containing all the good which he supposed "udll be finally presented by the existing one, mintcs all the woes of earth and hell. These, including the penal miseries of those who die impenitent, which the author thinks may con- tinue for multitudes of the more stubborn, through countless, though not literally infinite, years, make up a frightful aggregate. Why did God choose a universe with such an addition of crime and woe when he had the option of one without it ? The author is as far from a theodicy as Dr. Bledsoe.
The speculations of both these writers are obnoxious to this just charge, that in assuming an a priori ground of improbabihty against endless punishments, they go beyond the depth»of the created reason. They tell us that when the everlasting penalty is properly estimated, it is found so enormous that they cannot be convinced that God is capable of inflicting it. Are they certain that they know how enormous an evil sin is in God's omniscient judgment? Does not the greater crime justify the heavier penalty, according to all jurisprudence? Before this question, it becomes us to lay our faces in the dust. But such writers would exclaim, if sin is indeed such a thing as to neces- sitate this fearful treatment by a " God of love," and if so many of our race are actually exposed to it, then should all men take wholly another view of this world and of life than that taken by the most serious believer. Then we ought to regard our smiling world as Httle less dreadful than a charnel house of souls. Then every sane man ought to be, as to his own rescue, " agonizing to enter into the strait gate !" Every good man ought to be toiling to pluck his neighbors as "brands from the burning," like men
142 ENDLESS PUNISHMENT.
around a burning dwelling which still includes a helpless family. There should not be one hour in this world for frivolous amuse- ment or occupation ; and all should be condemned as frivolous save such as bore, directly or indirectly, on the rescue of souls. The man not stony-hearted ought to "Say to laughter, it is mad; and mirth, what doeth it " ? on such a stage as this earth, where such a tragedy is enacting. Every just and humane mind ought to feel that it was little short of treason to human misery to ex- pend on the pomps or luxuries of life one dollar of the money which might send a Bible or an evangelist to ignorant souls.
Well, if it should be even so ? If it be so, the world is insane (Eccles. ix. 3) and the church is shockingly below its proper standard of duty. But is this an impossible supposition ? Unless these writers are justified in sapng so, they are not justified in leaping to the conclusion that the orthodox doctrine cannot be true because it is so awful. One thing appears e\adent : there has been one JSLcui on earth who did appear to frame his whole life and nerve his energies in accordance with this solemn and dreadful view of hum-an destiny. He seemed to live, and strive, and preach, and die, just as a good man should who really be- Heved the sinner's ruin to be everlasting. And this was the one Man who knew the truth by experience, because he came from the other world and returned to it.
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN/
THIS is a posthumous work of Dr. Landis, Professor of The- ology in the Danville Theological Seminary, Kentucky. It arose out of a discussion between him and the admirers of- Dr. Charles Hodge, touching the doctrine of the latter about the man- ner of the imputation of Adam's sin to the race, which Dr. Landis conducted in Tlte Danville Beview and Tlie Soutliem Preshyterian lievieio. He complained that the supporters of Dr. Hodge in the Noi-thern Church, to which Dr. Landis belonged, resented all criticism of their leader, in a factious, tp'annical, and popish spirit, which refused to give a fair hearing to the truth, and even punished him for daring to assert that truth against their great man. Hence Dr. Landis felt that no resource was left him, in defending God's cause and his own good name, except the publi- cation of his full views and their grounds. He therefore devoted the latter years of his life and the riches of his own magnificent theological library to the laborious and careful composition of this volume, which he re\vrote seven times. He then bequeathed it to the Central University of Kentucky, as his literary executor, to which he also gave his collection of books. It is now pub- lished by the University, in fidehty to his memory and wishes. The intelhgent reader wiU of course understand that the Univer- sity considers itself by this act as only performing its engage- ment as to Dr. Landis's memory as a scholar and divine, and not as making itself a partisan on either side of the theological issue debated. That issue is one of those in which, as is generally avowed, honest Calvinists may differ without compromising their orthodoxy. We have, in our own day, seen on one side a Chal- mers and a Hodge, and on the other a Landis, a Breckinridge, and a Baird. The University can therefore claim, indisputably,
' Api3eared in Tlie Southern Preshyterian Review for October, 1884, reviewing Tlie Doctrine of Original Sin, as Revised and Taught by the Churches of the Refor- mation, Stated and Defended. By the Rev. Dr. R. W. Landis. "Whittet & Shep- person, Richmond, Va. 1884.
143
1 14 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
that, in securing for Dr. Landis a full hearing, it lias broken no obligation of courtesy or discretion resting on it as a Presbyterian institution.
Dr. Landis's whole discussion is directed to a single point — the strict theory of Dr. Hodge asserting the antecedent, immediate, and gratuitous imputation of Adam's sin to his race as (in the first stage of the judicial transaction) merely peccatum alieiium. Readers of church history are aware that since the time of Placaeus, about the middle of the seventeenth century, debate has existed among the Reformed whether this imputation was antecedent to the actual moral corruption of the race, and im- mediate, or whether it was consequent thereon, and mediate. The occasion for disclosing this question was an act of the French National Synod condemning any — meaning virtually Placseus and his followers — who should teach that the doctrine of original sin was limited solely to the hereditary subjective corruption of men, and should deny, as a part of the doctrine, the true imputation to men of Adam's first sin. Thereupon Placceus sought adroitly to evade the point of this condemnation by ex- plaining that he did not deny that imputation, but only denied that it was " antecedent and immediate." He held that it was only "mediate and consequential" on men's actual, personal, and subjective corruption.
Of this explanation the Synods seem subsequently to have taken no notice. But sundry of Placieus's brethren remained dis- satisfied, and continued the discussion. In this discussion, an- tagonism of feeling not 'unnaturally developed and fixed the ill-starred distinction, which never ought to have been stated or discussed, between Placaeus's idea of an imputation of Adam's guilt only mediate and consequent on the actual personal corrup- tion of Adam's posterity derived to 'them merely by hereditary descent, and the opposite view of an imputation by God of the guilt of Adam's first sin to men, antecedently, immediately, and gratuitously, God conceiving them as initially holy in their per- sonal estate at the time of this imputation, and then visiting on them, as the penalty of this imputed guilt, the initial depravation of their subjective characters, at least so far as i\\e piivatio jns- titice could go. Now, it has pleased Dr. Hodge to adopt this latter extreme view, and to push its consequences in the hardiest manner, asserting, with his sternest dogmatism, that this, and
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 145
this alone, is the doctrine, and that all the great Calvinistic leaders are with him, and those who dissent are virtually not Presbyterians at all on this point. Dr. Landis undertakes to prove, on the contrary, that none of the great leaders or symbols are with Dr. Hodge in this extreme ; that he has misrepresented or misunderstood them all ; that the church has always rejected Dr. Hodge's extreme view as distinctly as she has discarded Placfeus's, has refused to entertain the mischievous distinction, and has always held that the imputation, ^^'hile in a certain just sense " immediate," proceeded with even step with the actual personal paiiiicipatiou of men in the race sin, and was not " ante- cedent " and " gratuitous " in Dr. Hodge's sense.
This issue may seem a narrow one upon which to write a large book. But it is the hinge question. Its vital importance pro- ceeds from its corollaries and the other vital doctrines involved. These are such as the following : the relations of reason to reve- lation ; the sovereignty and moral attributes of God ; imputation ; satisfaction for human sins ; justification ; lielievers' union with Christ ; effectual calling and sanctification ; God's providence over the posterity of wicked men.
We ^\'ill let Dr. Landis define the question (p. Ill, § 13) :
" Dr. Hodge teaches that the sin of Adam -was made common to the race by a forensic and gratuitous imputation; while, on the contrary, the Calvinistic and Lutheran communions have from the beginning always taught that sin was im- puted because it was common — i. e., the sin alike of Adam and his posterity. This single point presents, in fact, the nucleus of the whole question. For if the siii becomes common only through the forensic or gratuitous imputation of Adam's peccatum alienum, or merely personal guilt, then the doctrine of our participation therein is a figment, and Dr. Hodge's theoryis the true doctrine, and no alternative can remain to us but to accept it with all its fatal sequences as regards our theology, and to acquiesce morsovor in the exegesis by which he claims that it may be sup- ported. But if, on the contrary, the first sin was imputed because it was common, and if such be the unvarj'ing doctrine of the church of God, then, of course. Dr. Hodge has left his brethren no alternative but to regard and treat his theory as a fundamental and fatal departure (as he himself has always conceded) from their cherished faith."
The older readers of this Jievieio will recognize in Dr. Landis's criticisms and exceptions a close resemblance to those advanced in the review of Hodge's Theology, in the number for April, 1873.
Dr. Landis's extended discussion may be virtually reduced to three heads, in which he asserts that Dr. Hodge's exaggerated
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doctrine is, (Ij, illogical; (2), unscriptural ; (3), iincliurcbly. or against tlie uniform teachings of tlie cliurcli's symbols and lead- ers, from Augustine to Edwards.
I. Tlie points wherein Dr. Landis asserts this doctrine to be illogical are chiefly these :
1. That Dr. Hodge, like other Cahdnists, argues to the reason- ableness of the imputation of Adam's sin to the race from that method of di%^ne providence which now visits the sins of the parents on the posterity. But, says Dr. Landis, the essential condition of such proyidential dealing is, that the posterity are also actually and personally sinful. God only visits the parents' sins on the generations "that hate him." Were the case of Adam and the race, then, analogous to these providential deal- ings, it must be just the opposite of what Dr. Hodge represents it. For,
2. The latter asserts that, initially, the guilt of Adam's first sin is imputed to men while as yet unfallen, pure, and guiltless, as behooves them to be when issuing first fi'om the creative hand of God ; for the first depravity comes upon infants as t?ie' j^^n- alty of that merely imputed guilt. Dr. Hodge must hold, as in- deed he says, that the newly created soul has at least an instant of innocent and pure subjective being, not only logically but chronologically, prior to its condemnation for Adam's sin and to that initial depravation which is the penalty therefor. Now, this view leaves the doctrine of imputation opposite to, instead of analogical to, the other case of children sufi'eriug for parents' crimes. So that, for Dr. Hodge, this argument is absurd, and contradicts instead of confirming him. Next, his view is as stubbornly inconsistent -^-ith fact (in another direction) as ■v^■as Plac?eus's ^-iew, and equally contradicts Scripture. For, accord- ing to this, subjective conniption is absolutely as early in each indi\idual case. There are as many and as strong texts which say that man is corrupt from the beginning of his life, as that he is guilty from the beginning. So that, as Placjeus uttered a solecism when he represented the young soul as depraved before it was guilty for imputed sin, so Dr. Hodge utters the couuter- p»ai-t solecism when he represents it as guilty before it is depraved. Scripture says it is both guilty and depraved from the very first. And, once more. Dr. Hodge sins against fact. Scripture, and the invariable teaching of our churches in not only rejecting, but
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 147
ridiciiiing tlie doctrme of our actual ])nTticipation in the first sin. Dr. Hodge sneeringly asks, How could a person participate in an act done before lie had any existence ? He says it is non- sense. He insists that the only sense in which the individuals of the race could have participated in Adam's sin is the formal and forensic putative sense, and that this was the only participa- tion tlie church ever held, or could hold, without stultifying herself. But Dr. Landis asserts, mth equal stoutness, that the church always did hold to the actual participation of the indi- viduals of the race in Adam's sin, in its criminality as well as its guilt ; that our divnnes invariably teach this as a fact, and as the essential condition of the imputation ; and while they admit it to be a mystery, inespUcable by human philosophy, they assert it as made possible by the race unity and community of nature be- tween the head and the branches. And herein Dr. Hodge op- poses scriptures such as John iii. 5, 6, and the Confessions, which assert that we "sinned in Adam" as well as "fell "vsath him." Dr. Landis asserts, moreover, that his opponent is per- petually misled and misleads his readers as to what our divines mean by "Adam's sin'' and the "first sin," by which they always mean that sin as common to Adam and the race, as actually, though mysteriously, shared liy the race ; while Dr. Hodge per- sists in regarding it as Adam's mere personal sin made common to men, in the first stage, by nothing but its formal imputation as peccaturn aliemmi. This Dr. Landis abundantly sustains by profuse citations.
3. He asserts that Dr. Hodge's doctrine tends to make God "the author of sin." For if the initial subjective corruption is the penalty merely of the guilt of Adam's personal sin formally and forensically imputed to us, it is every way natural to con- ceive of God, the judge, as inflicting tJie j)(inalty he pronounces. This is the only intelligible view of judgment and penalty : while the criminal brings about the crime judged, the judge hrings about the penalty righteously affixed, either by inflicting it him- self or efficiently procming its infliction. This is what a judge is for. So that Dr. Hodge should consistently teach that the depraving of every soul since Adam is God's direct doing. Must he not do it with his own hand ? Does he employ the holy angels to doit? Hardly. Or the devils'? or the parents? The latter would be oui doctrine ot original race sin, which Dr. Hodge has
148 THE DOCTRINE OF OIIIGINAL SIN.
rejected. Again : if each soul is subjectively pure when it begins to exist, it is an insufficient explanation to say that each one re- gularly and invariably, though freely, depraves itself. This is too much like the Pelagian theory for accounting for the preva- lence of actual apostasy. And how comes it that this multitude of initially holy wills should invariably choose corruption ? Why does not the result turn out, if it were simple self action, as it did among the angels, where some chose to deprave themselves and some chose to remain pure? In another place. Dr. Hodge, floundering in the meshes of his erroneous speculation, seeks to avoid making God the author of our corruption by saying: If God saw fit simply to vnthdraio the indw^elling of the Holy Spirit from the newly created soul, its depravation by the law of defect would follow. But the hard question for him is. Would God imjDute a peccatum alienv/in to a soul initially pure, and also privileged with the indwelling of the Spirit ? And can any one believe, with the Bible in his hand, that creatures ever had that indwelling efficiently for one instant wdio were at that instant under the curse, "by nature children of wrath," "conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity"?
4. Dr. Hodge concurs often with all the Reformed divines and the Scripture in teaching that our federal and natural union with our head results, according to God's ordinance, in his first sin's affecting us (as being a common sin), both morally and forensi- cally, as it affected himself. This, sa"s Dr. Landis, is good doc- trine. But now come two questions. Are we actually in race union with Adam holy, or ya'Oix Adam corrupted ? Certainly the latter ; because Adam had no child until after his fall, and then he begat sinners, "after his image, in his own likeness." And in Adam's ov»'n person, which preceded, subjective corruption or judicial condemnation? A just God does not condemn a creature until after ha sins, and in the overt sin corrupt motive must have preceded guilty action. Now, then, why do we not represent the seed, like their head, as condemned, because already actually cor- rupted ?
5. But let us see Dr. Hodge's affirmative logic, by whose stress he feels compelled to strain his theory of imputation so high. It is, in substance, this : unless we hold that the imputation of Adam's guilt was immediate, gratuitous, and precedaneous, we cannot consistently hold the imputation of our guilt to a holy
THE DOCTRINE OF OEIGIXAL SIN. 149
Clirist, nor of liis rigliteousness to us vile sinners. For tlie three imputations must be lield as exact parallels. This is implied in Romans v. 11-21, where the apostle illustrates justification in Christ's imputed righteousness by our (admitted) condemnation in Adam, and the honesty and soundness of the apostle's argu- ment require us to suppose an exact parallel between the two imputations, both in fact and in mode. But the imputation of our sins to a holy Christ, and of his righteousness to us, are gratui- tous, whence the apostle must have regarded the imputation of Adam's sin to us as equally gratuitous and immediate. More- over, let the opposite doctrine as to original sin be held, and the exact parallelism be borne in mind, and our theory of justifica- tion must be the popish one ; for as Placaeus held that men's subjective corruption was prior to, and in order to, the imputation of Adam's guilt to them, so the Papists teach that the believer's inherent and sul)jective godliness miist be prior to, and in order to, the imputation to him of Christ's righteousness. Thus Dr. Hodge urges with the utmost tenacity that unless we admit his extreme view, we cannot consistently be Christians at all.
To this sho"wing Dr. Landis objects, that the assumptions made in it are all absolutely erroneous, and tlie inferences of no force whatever. Thus :
That the immediate and gratuitous nature of the imputations in expiation and justification do not at all imply a similar quality in the imputation of Adam's sin to men, because two grand dif- ferences in the two cases intervene. The imputation in the fall was one of justice, that in redemption is one of mercy and gixice. A righteous ruler, in dispensing free gifts and favors, properly holds himself at liberty to exceed the bounds of strict desert. In administering justice, never. To overlook this difference, in order to force on us a favorite speculation, is an amazing over- sight. And, second, an essential difference in the two cases is found in this : that Christ's coming under imputation of guilt was optional and voluntary on his part. And so his righteous- ness is imputed to no soul for justification until that soul freely accepts and chooses it in the act of faith. We must believe in order to be justified. True, it is the merit of the divine substitute, and not the merit of the believing, which justifies ; but none the less is it absolutely true that the sinner must believe in order to have that divine merit imputed to him. So that in both the im-
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putations involved in a sinner's redemption, that of liis sins to Clirist and Christ's merits to him, we find t}us feature of free consent in the party receiving the imputation to be an essential element, which, in the imputation of Adam's sin to iis, would be totally lacking on our part were Dr. Hodge correct. Dr. Hodge unwisely insists on an exact parallel between the three imputa- tions. T^'ell, let it be settled, for argument's sake, that they are exactly parallel. Then we must hold that the free assent of each sinning person to Adam's act as his representative is essential in order to make the imputation of his guilt any parallel at all. And we find that assent only in the old Calvinistic doctrine of actual participation in Adam's sin, as in order to the imputation, which Dr. Hodge so rejects.
Our author in another place carries this point farther ■v\ith great acuteness. Does Dr. Hodge urge that both holy and un- holy creations begin existence with a subjective disposition cer- tainly regulative of their feehngs and choices ; that this law of their character does not, and cannot, originate as the Pelagians vainly fable in an act of that creature's choice, and that, hence, as to his just responsibility for acting •udth that disposition, it is worthless to raise the question how or whence it came to him, and we only ask, Is it Jiis own disposition, and does he freely act it out? Then he is justly responsible. True, says Dr. Lan- dis, just so. And therefore all the cavils of ancient and modern Pelagians, that a created righteousness — in Adam's creation, or the beHever's new creation — cannot be a responsible righteous- ness, are silly and worthless. But Dr. Hodge should have no- ticed that the subjective righteousness inwrought in the soid in regeneration only hecomes a true righteousness as it is accepted and freely2^'^€f^f">'''-'dJ)y the.sonl horn again. The causal source of it is external to the renewed a^tlQ, almighty and suj)ematiu*al? Yes, certainly. But none the less is the infused hoUness the freely chosen preference of the soul from the very instant it is accounted by God as a true holiness. The rule of the di^-ine work is ex- pressed in the text, " My people shall he vnlUng in the day of my power," The very essence of the di'S'ine work within the dead soul is that it renews and quickens the vill, causing the soul to choose and pursue fi'eely that godliness wliich, in the days of its bondage and spiritual death, it had as freely rejected. It ap- pears, then, that in no case does God account hohness or un-
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holiness to a creature, except as there is a voluntary participation in it bv the creature's ow-n will. So that, to establish the symme- try Dr. Hodge so ardently pursues, and to range the imputations of the two covenants in that exact parallelism he demands, he ought to have retained instead of discarding the good old doc- trine that the guilt of Adam's first sin is imputed to us, hecause ice sinned in Jiha, and have an actual participation of our free agency in his crime as well as its guilt.
This train of thought prepares the way for Dr. Landis to wTest Dr. Hodge's next point from him and turn it against him. Does he charge a tendency towards poj)ish justification on Dr. Landis? Dr. Landis charges a more real tendency to Arminian and semi- Pelagian justification on him. For he insists that in original sin the guilt of Adam's personal sin as^j>ecca^?/7/i atienurn is first im- mediately imputed to souls, ^dewedas so far personally pure and guiltless; and consequentially the first subjective corruption comes on them as penalty of that imputed guilt. And the three imputations must be strictly parallel! Then the application of redemption must, of course, be on this wdse : first, the righteous- ness of Christ must be imputed to the sinner, he being still in his state of native spiritual death and sin. On this imputation is grounded his acceptance. And then, as the consequence of this acceptance, and as the first merited reward to this imputed righteousness, the new birth is bestowed, implanting spiritual life and subjective godliness. But this is Arminianh'm. This ill-starred tenacity of Dr. Hodge in adhering to his speculation, despite its bad consequences, receives a striking illustration in his last work, his Theology (Vol. II., p. 249). Ten years after he had been warned by Dr. Landis he prints these sentences as his description of the application of redemption : " It was by the disobedience of one man that all men are constituted sinners, not only by imputation (which is true, and most important), but also by inherent depravity, as it was by the obedience of one that all are constituted righteous, not only by imputation (which is true and ^-itally important), but also by the consequent renewing of their -ndXwxo., fioidng from their reconciUation to God." These words are dangerously incautious. Doubtless Christ has pur- chased for the elect by his priestly work all the blessings of efi'ec- tual calling and sanctification from beginning to end. Doubtless all Calvinists hold that increase in sanctification is one of the
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after-fruits of justification. But liere Dr. Hodge says, not tLat subsequent growtli in lioliness, l^ut the very reneioing of the sin- ner's n&iuYe i^ " coii.seqiien " on .justification, and ^'flows from''' their reconciliation to God, apparently as though he would rather avouch the Arminian theory than recede from his favorite doc- trine about imputation.
For if there is any one thing in which Caivinists are unani- mous, it is that justification follows faith, and that faith is the act only of new-born souls following their renewal. And strong Ar- minians are equally unanimous in assigning this contrary order to the redemptive causations. First, common sufficient grace, evok- ing, with the synergism of the self-determined will, repentance and faith. Next, justification by faith. Then, as the consequence of justification, the regeneration of the soul. And then progi-essive sanctification. A synergistic system calls for this arrangmeut of the steps. And it is equally true that this arrangment im- plies synergism; for the sinner must believe in order to be justified, and be justified in order to be regenerated. Of course, then, faith is an exercise of soul which an unregenerate soul is competent to put forth. Of course, then, no unconditional elec- tion of grace, no almighty quickening is needed to decide the sinner for the gospel; he may decide himself in the sovereign exercise of a self-determining will, while grace follows on and cooperates in the good change which the human -vnll has sov- ereignly instituted! Is that Calvinism? But Dr. Hodge says that such must vii-tually be the adjustment resulting from his theory of imputation. Then his is not the theory of the old Caivinists.
The difficulty he obtrudes as to our view and its resultant popish justification by inherent instead of imputed righteousness is easily solved. Nc) Protestant ever denied, in opposition to Papists, that all justified persons have an inherent righteousness. Our denial is, that our inherent righteousness can be, at the beginning or ever after, the 'formal cause" of our justification. We utterly deny that it is, or can be, the ground of justification "by any merit of condignity or of congruity, not because we doubt whether the believer really has it at the time he is justified, but hecanse it is imperfect, because a condemned creature cannot merit, and because the inherent righteousness is due to GocT^ inworMng, not to that of the man's own natural will. "What
THE DOCTlilNE OF OllIGIX.VL SIN. 153
hast thou, that thou didst not receive ? Now, if thou didst re- ceive it, why dost thou glory in it as though thou hadst not received it?" But saving faith, on which justification instru- mentallj depends, is the exercise of none but a regenerate soul. The instituting of the vital union between the dead soul and Christ is absolutely needed in order to faith. Out of that union all our life, reconciliation, and holiness flow. Chronologically, both the new birth, which is the initiation of the process of sanc- tification, and justification instantly follow that union. But causatively Christ must quicken us first, through the union, in order that we may put forth the true faith which justifies. Were we inclined to insist upon a perfectly symmetrical parallel, then, between the steps of our fall in the first Adam and our redemp- tion in the second, as Dr. Hodge insists, we should be led to a conclusion opposite to his ; that in each case the subjective change is in order to the forensic.
But the great Reformers did not think that Paul's argument in Romans v. proceeded on the idea of such exact parallel. They all say, as Calvin, that the one topic illustrates the other ; which supposes — the apostle being an honest reasoner — that the two imputations have something in common. But that, while they agree in the thing, they obviously differ in mode. Thus, Cahan, CoiwmeRtary , on Romans v. 17, says: "Moreover, it is impoiiant to note here two differences between Adam and Christ," etc. Gomarus, the strict supralapsarian Calvinist: "Adam, by the force of nature {yi naturce), communicates his sin to all and each of his natural offspring ; but Christ communicates his righteous- ness and life to each of his renewed." "But the comparison is twofold, to-wit, of a resemblance and of a difference." Pola^dus of Basle : " Bellarmine deceives himself in his exposition of the analogy contained therein (Rom. v.), since Paul does not coiajxire the modes by which we are in ourselves either sinners or righteous, biit the efiicieut causes whereby we become sinners or righteous before God." Andrew Rivet, the special opponent of Placseus, whom Dr. Hodge claims as wholly his own : "Yet there is nothing in this argument which forbids that we acknowledge the necessity of inherent qualities" (in order to imputation). "For it can only be proved" (from Paul's comparison) "that in Christ we ha^e righteousness, as Ave have in Adam unrighteousness. But there is a comparison of the causes and not of the mode in which the
154 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
tiling is communicated to us. For the sin of Adam is communi- cated to us by generation; but tlie righteousness of Christ by imputation. Therefore, the apostle does not compare the modes in which righteousness is received, but the causes, effects, and subjects of each." A. "\\''illets, "Sixfold Commentarie upon Ro- mans," speaking of the illustration of Romans v., mentions "the disparitie and unlikeness" of the two cases: "The manner how these things (death by Adam and life by Christ) are conveyed 'is diverse : Adam's sin is transmitted by natural propagation, but life and righteousness are conveyed by grace." Theodore Beza, the strictest of Calvinists, Commentary on Romans v. 12: "But this distinction plainly appears" (in the analogy) " pai*tly, in- deed, from the whole comparison of the unrighteousness of Adam with the righteousness of Christ, to-^rit, of the former through propagation, of the latter communicated to us (behevers) through imputation." And (unkindest cut of all to Dr. Hodge) Francis Turrettin (Loc. 16): "Nor, if we are constituted unjust and guilty through the sin propagated from Adam, must we im- mediately be justified through inherent righteousness communi- cated to us by Christ through regeneration ; for the method of each is most different. And Paul here institutes a comparison between the first and second Adam in the thing, and not in the mode of the thing T And yet Dr. Hodge claims Turrettin wholly! TTe have seen how Dr. Landis charges him T\dth misconception of what the Reformers meant by "first sin." They, Dr. Landis holds, uniformly meant by this the breach of the covenant of works in paradise, not merely as Adam's personal act, but also as the common sin of the race. They have in mind always the mysterious fact of our actual participation in that Ijreach. And whereas Dr. Hodge rejects this idea as "unthinkable," the Re- formers uniformly advance it as a revealed mystery, above the comprehension of reason indeed, but not contrary to reason, and the very key to the whole doctrine of original sin. This is well summed up in these remarks of the recent Lutheran dirine, Dr. Julius Muller: "This, therefore, is the point at which all tho threads of the doctrine of the orthodox concerning hereditary sin meet, in which it must be dogmatically justified, if it is at all capable of such justification. It first of all appears as something quite incredible that in the fall of Adam all his natural posterity are supposed to have some participation. If, now, it may be
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 155
shown that this is only the paradox which every deeper connec- tion of things has for ordinary thinking, then all further diffi- culties of the doctrine become involved of themselves." And Dr. Ijandis asks ; Can the Trinity be rationally explained to our finite minds ? Have not the apparent paradoxes involved in the " three in one" been the constant subjects of rationalistic cavil? Yet Dr. Hodge holds that this inexplicable mystery of the Trinity is the essential foundation of the whole doctrine of redemption, as we all do. So, says Dr. Landis, there may be an apparent paradox in the statement that "the race sinned in Adam;" the human mind may be incompetent to explicate the whole concep- tion of a race v.n ity, which is a real fact, and yet does not destroy individuality and personal responsibility. But it does not neces- sarily contradict che intuitive reason ; and it is a revealed fact, and also the clearest of experimental facts, that tlie race became actnally and universally sinfal (except Jesus) in, Adanis sin. And on this fact the doctrine of impiitation hinges. The philo- sophic attempts made, from Augustine to S. J. Baird, to explain this fact have been failures; they have given us no real light; their failure probably shows — as did the failure of the scholastics to give the rationcde of the Trinity — that the conceptions involved concerning such ultimate facts in ontology lie beyond the grasp of the human intellect. And the best philosophers see most clearly that this feature of our oncological beliefs constitutes no oljection tchatever to their rational validity. Could Sir Isaac Newton explicate the notion of gravitation ? No, not at all. Has metajDhysics ever explicated the notions of substance, as distin- guished from essence, of power in cause ? of the unconditioned notions, eternity, infinity, self-existence, abstract number? No; yet every thinker in the world adopts these notions as essential elements of his beliefs. How strangely has Dr. Hodge, then, liere betrayed himself into that rationalistic position which every- where else he so clearly and justly condemns ?
For Dr. Landis asserts next that the peculiar features of his doctrine about imputation, and of his exposition of Romans v., are precisely those advanced by the Socinians, Arians, and Arminians in the Reformation ages, and sternly rejected and re- futed by the Reformers. Socinus, Curcellneus, Whitby, Limborch, and their whole schools, deny the actual participation of man- Mnd in the sin of Adam's fall ; define original sin as consisting
156 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
in the gratuitous immediate imputation of the formal guilt {reatus actualis) of Adam's personal sin, and in that alone ; describe God's act in thus imputing Adam's guilt as one of mere sover- eignty, and not of real judicial righteousness ; so that the evils and natural death which the race incur from this imputation are not properly penal, but the results of this arbitrary formal impu- tation. The same was the doctrine of the papal semi-Pelagians, Pighius and Coutarinus, so sternly resisted by Calvin. And, ac- cordingly, it is in the commentaries of these rationalists on Ro- mans V. that we currently see those features of exposition on which Dr. Hodge insists, and in which he departs from the. line of interpretation before current among the Reformed.
Now, the Socinians, Arians, and semi -Pelagians had certain doctrinal ends to pursue in setting up this theory of original sin, and they are ends thoroughly obnoxious to Dr. Hodge. Strange that he did not see whither his unnatural fellowship was leading him. The vital truths most hated by these Socinians and their sympathizers are these : that the human soul is naturally and decisively corrupted by a connate ungodliness ; that hence man has no longer any self-determination of will to any spiritual good ; that distributive justice is an essential and unchangeable attribute of God ; that hence there is a strict moral necessity for real sat- isfaction to justice for the guilt of sins in order to their remission ; that all the natural evils men suffer are properly penal, and thus their occurrence proves the criminality before a holy God of all that suffer ; that so Christ's sufferings during his humiliation were properh' penal, sacrificial, and expiatory ; that the believer's justification is grounded in the real merit and acceptance of that vicarious satisfaction, and not merely in the arbitrary compas- sion of God. Denials of these are the very lineaments of the So- cinian anti-Christ, from the Racovian Catechism to Dr. "William Channing, as none know better than Dr. Hodge.
Let us now see how these heretics proposed to get rid of these doctrines by their tampering \Ai\\ the Reformed theory of original sin. Thus, if there is no actual criminality in Adam's posterity, but only the formal imputation of the mere guilt {reatiis actualis) of B, peccatum alieniun, and God has really made that imputation and visited all natural evils on such a ground upon creatures wholly devoid of personal criminality or demerit, then it follows that natural evils may occur to responsible creatures which are
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7wt properly 2)enalties of sins. Then the famous argument of tlie Augustinians, that the sufferings of infants prove them sinners, is sho"u-n to be worthless; and then, moreover, it follows that God's dispensing of such sufferings is an act of his arbitrary will, and not of a righteous judicial will. And this plainly implies that distributive justice is not his essential attribute. And thus falls the main argument of the Calvinists for their dogma, the necessity of penal satisfaction in order to remission. Again, since Paul, in Romans v., estabhshes a strict parallelism between the two imputations, and also between the mode of the two, the imputation of behevers' sins to Christ is like that of Adam's sin to his race : not a true judicial judgment, carrying over to Christ a righteous penal obligation, but a mere formal politic arrange- ment, dictated by God's arbitrary will, as moved by his general goodness ; and Christ's sufferings were no more penal, in strict sense, than are the sufferings of sinless infants when they die under the imputation of Adam's guilt. Then there was no true sacrifice, expiation, and satisfaction for man's sins made on the cross ; and the Reformed doctrine of justification founded there- on is senseless and false. These, unquestionably, are the logical ends which the rationalistic divines were pursuing when they vitiated the orthodox church doctrine of the fall in Adam in the manner described. So the Reformed divines apprehended their objects, and for that reason they resisted their expositions ut- terly. These are the objects distinctly pursued and claimed by the Socinians and their sympathizers in these expositions. Yet Dr. Hodge adopts these perilous expositions, so uniformly ex- posed and rejected by the Reformers, and that in the professed defence of strict Calvinism! "What are likely to be the fruits among his blind admirers? It is not charged that he himself had any Socinian or semi-Pelagian leanings ; his loyalty to the truth is here unquestionable. But he is loyal to it by a happy inconsistency ; and the danger is that others may work out his principles to their mischievous results, and introduce So- cinian rationalism into the huge church of which he was the Gamaliel.
II. We are now prepared to touch briefly upon the exposition of the classical passage (Rom. v. 12-21) on which this doctrine cf imputation chiefly rests. The reader is requested to place the Greek of the following verses before his eye :
158 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAX, SIN.
"12. Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned : 13. (For until the law sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. 15. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one «ian, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. 16. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 17. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. ) 18. Therefore as by the offence of one jiidgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came ui^on all men unto justification of life. 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. "
Now, as to the general scheme of exposition for this passage, Dr. Landis charges that Dr. Hodge, folio-wing the Socinian ex- positions of such writers as Curcellaeus, Whitby, and Dr. Taylor of Norwich, insists on making the parallel exact between the two imputations in thing and in mode. But the current of the Re- formed divines, from Calvin down to our day, as represented by Alford, Wordsworth, Schaff and Shedd, hold as does Dr. Landis, that the apostle compares the two cases, the fall and redemption, as two processes analogous in their sources and causes, but dif- ferent in details of mode. In each case there is a great company of souls represented in its respective federal head, an imputation, a justification, and a condemnation of the individuals of the two companies through their federal heads' respective actions. So that men all sin and are condemned in Adam as truly as they are renewed and justified in Christ. But in the details diversities appear, some of which the apostle himself specifies : — as that the corruption passes from Adam to the race by natural particijja- tion (and along with it the imputed guilt), but the restoration is wTought through Christ's righteousness, gratuitously imputed; that the transaction in Adam was one of strict justice, that in Christ of free grace, that in the one case a single criminality was the source of death to a whole race, in the other a single righteousness was the source of life to all the elect. Still other differences (see Calvin's commentary on verse 12) exist, which the apostle does not specify, because it does not suit his purpose, as : " The first is, that in Adam's sin we are not condemned through imputation alone, as though the penalty of another man's sin were
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exacted of us ; but we tlius sustain its punishment, oecause we are also guilty of fault (culjjo) so far, to- wit, as our nature, vitiated in him, is involved in guilt before God. But through the right- eousness of Christ we are restored to salvation in another mode." ..." The other difference is, that the benefit of Christ does not reach to all men, as Adam involved his whole race in condemnation," etc. So that the great cuiTent of the Reformed have held the fact that the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the beheving sin- ner is gratuitous was not meant bj Paid to show that the impu- tation of Adam's sin was, in exactly the counterpart sense, gra- tuitous.
When we come to details of exposition, Dr. Landis claims that Dr. Hodge has followed the current of the rationalists in the following points, which he rejects, in company witli the current of the Calvinists. In verse 12, " For that all sinned," (i^' cJ TTapze^ noidml'/.,) Dr. Hodge, with the opponents of Calvinism, makes the sinning not an actual, but merely a putative and forensic accounting as guilty, Avith the guilt of Sipeccatum alienum. While he admits that the usage of the verb makes against this construction, yet, as it gives the only rational sense, it must be adopted, and the exposition of the remaining verses squared to it. But the Reformed expositors, with Calvin, say that S-fmrndveiu cannot bear that sense, that it is against all usage, and that the subjects of the verb must be held to have sinned in some actual sense. And the least we can get out of the proposition is, that death passed on all from the first sin, hecause all in that sin in- curred subjective depravity of nature. Calvin actually enters into a specific argument to prove that the verb " to sin " may, accord- ing to Scripture usage, mean "to be subjectively a sinner ;" which accords with the Reformed theology, by which subjective de- pra\T.ty is regarded as veritable sin, and, while not the result of previous volitions, yet personal and voluntary in the sense of being spontaneous.
On verse 14 the Socinian divines would have us understand that death's passing over on them " who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," means the forensic and formal denouncing of death on human beings personally sinless, mei'ely for AAaxais peccatum alienum. But the Reformed think generally that this means rnfants, who suffer and die, thus show- ing that they are condemned persons , while the difference be-
IGO THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL Sm.
tween their persona,! siruiiug and Adam's is this: that his sin was overt as well as in hahltu, while they have only a sinful dis- position in hahitu, being at the time the condemnation comes on them not capable of overt sin.
On the 18th verse, Dr. Hodge reads, oc kvu:: -arja-roj/jazo^ , " by the sin of one man," making Ivoc masculine, and thus get- ting an impHed support fqr his doctrine of the gratuitous impu- tation of Adam's personal sin. Dr. Landis, with the best Reformed, regards Ivoc as neuter, and reads, "by one transgres- sion"— that is, by that one race sin, common by participation to Adam and his seed. And he claims the exegetical force of the iu kuc 7iaf)a7TTd)[mzc in the exactly parallel expression of verse 17, whish cannot justly bear the translation, "by one man's offence," given it in the received version.
Once more, when the apostle says, in summing up his com- parison, verse 19, " By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous^'' Dr. Hodge still limits the result here stated by Paul to the putative and forensic estimation. He thinks dixacot ■/.aTaaradrjnovzat is equivalent to "shall be declared righteous." Dr. Landis, with Wordsworth and Schaff, thinks the words mean far more, constituting Christ's redeemed both forensically and actually righteous. Thus the concluding declaration is made to correspond with that of the same apostle in 1 Cor. xv. 22 : " As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall aU be made alive.''' Then the counterpart result of the first member of verse 10; "As by one man's disobedience tnany were inad'3 sinners,'' includes not only their putative, but their actual fall.
The fact to which Dr. Landis calls our attention is certainly worthy of note: that the traits which mark Dr. Hodge's cher- ished exposition of the passage, so far as they differ from the old current view of the Reformed, are the very ones which the Socinians advanced and the Reformed divines contested so stren- uously.
ITI. The third position laboriously defended against Dr. Hodge is, that his doctrine is unchurchly • that it is an innova- tion upon the traditionary Reformed doctrine as taught by the great divines of the Presbyterian churches and by their Confes- sions of Faith. Here Dr. Landis's assertion is, not only that there is a discrepancy in the way of stating the doctrine, but that the peculiar features which Dr. Hodge claims to be essential to
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the consistency of our Calvinism are expressly stated, and stated to he rejected by the great Calvinists. The tenor of his citations might receive, as a summary and homely paraphrase, the follow- ing statement : " This view of a gratuitous antecedent imputation of Adam's sin as peccatuin aliemun we find advanced by So- cinians and Socinianizers, or we hear cast up to us as an absur- dity ; but we declare that it is not our view of the doctrine of original sin, nor that of our churches. We wash our hands of it." Dr. Landis, moreover, complains that his opponent aston- ishingly misleads his readers by asserting that such and such of the great Reformed divines are expressly with him, when in fact they are as expressly against him. This part of his work is, of course, chiefly a compilation of extracts. It is marked by profuse and laborious scholarship, and in most respects by fair- ness and discernment. He delights especially to quote against Dr. Hodge the highest Calvinists, as Beza, those who carried the federal theory to the greatest lengths, as De Moor, and those who especially entered the lists against Plac?eus and his theory of mediate consequential imputation. The reader has already seen instances of the first class in the citations made fi'om Gomarus and Beza. This may be added, from John Owen's "Display of Arminianism" (Chap. 8): "Sin imputed by itself, without an inherent guilt, was never punished in any one but Christ." And again: "Now, be the punishment what it will, never so small, yet if we have no demerit of our own, nor interest in Adam's sin, it is such an act of injustice as we must reject from the Most Holy with a God forbid !"
Under the second class, De Moor, although carrying the federal system to its greatest height, says (De Moor's Marckii Medulla), on the twelfth question of the Heidelberg Catechism: "Adam was considered as the representative head of the whole human kind, and we all, adorned in him with the gift of right- eousness, sinned in him, so that those gifts were taken away jiidicially, and in the way of penalty, from us, on account of the guilt contracted in Adam, not less than from the first parent, inas- much as we ourselves spontaneously dilapidated these gifts when sinning in Adam." As to its being Adam's particular sin, he re- plies: "The crime, nevertheless, is common."
As specimens of the third class, we may recall the declarations of Andrew Rivet, the leading opponent of Placseus. And we add
Vol. I.— 11.
162 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIX.
declarations from Des Marets, who is writing witli especial re- ference to the Sjnod of Charenton and Placieus : "For divine imputation, seeing it is an act of justice, neither principally nor instrumentally produces native corruption, inhering in each one from his mother's womb." . . . . " But it only subjects them to guilt and obligation to punishment on account of the sin of the first man, lohich all cormnitted in him.'''' And from Wallneus, the colleague of Kivet, who endorsed his work as excellent: "The guilt of the first sin to condemnation (Rom. v. 16) cannot be im- puted to posterity, unless that vitiosity of inherent sin intervene, seeing that the justice of God will not permit that the first sin should be imputed for condemnation to a posterity having no sin in themsejves."
Sundry of the points of theology involved with the nature of imputation have been already indicated. Our author dwells es- pecially upon two, among others. If Dr. Hodge's view of impu- tation is adopted, it must seriously modify our views of the divine justice and sovereignty. Instead of ascribing to him a full sovereignty, regulated by infinite reason and holiness, we must believe that an absolute physical sovereignty regulates his justice. We ought, in consistency, to lean to the supralapsarian dogma, that actions are simply right because God ple.ases to wdll them, instead of his willing them always because they are right. That God's mere will, in a word, is the sole source of right and T\a'ong. Certainly the answer which Dr. Hodge recommends to the anxious objection, How can, it he right for God to punish an innocent creature for the sin of another, to which he had not consented? savors of this harshness. God says he does so, therefore it is our business to beheve it just.
The relations of reason and faith are also involved in this debate, and Dr. Landis charges that Dr. Hodge's extreme view concerning imputation has occasioned his falling into a danger- ous inconsistency on this vital point. When dealing mth Eation- alists and Socinians, Dr. Hodge is usually firm and sound, repu- diating their dogma, that comprehensibility by our reason is the test of revealed truth, and powerfully refuting it. But Dr. Lan- dis complains that when he advances the great doctrine of our actual participation in Adam's sin — a truth he regards as being as essential to our anthropology as the Trinity is to oui- the- ology— Dr. Hodge rejects it as "unthinkable" and " nonsensi-
THE DOCTRINE OF OEIGINAL SIN. 1C3
cal." And lie justifies himself bj saying tliat since the rational intuitions of the mind are as truly God's handiwork as revelation itself, no proposition of Scripture can contradict those intuitions. And this he claims for sound Protestant doctrine. But Dr. Lan- dis replies that the human mind is now a fallen mind, belonging to persons who are " defiled in all the pai-ts and faculties of the soul and body;" whence it is apparent they may err even in operations deemed intuitive. The history of opinion shows that such errors have often occui-red, in fact. And when we concede, as Dr. Hodge seems to claim in this case, that the fallible man is to exercise the perogative of deciding whether the pet opinion of his, which happens to clash with some proposition of the word, really is intuitive and necessary, we have nothing short of full fledged rationalism.
So stands the debate. Dr. Hodge has obviously been incau- tious. The reader ^vdll note, however, that Dr. Landis claims a right of judging some dogmas rationally impossible, similar to Dr. Hodge's claim. For while the latter pronounces the proposi- tion of our actual participation in Adam's sin to be "unthink- able," the former pronounces, though with a less imperious dog- matism, that the gratuitous antecedent imputation of one person's guilt to another person wholly innocent conflicts with man's moral intuitions. Dr. Hodge's friends have doubtless said that his critic does the very thing which he condemns.
In fact, right reason has its proper prerogative, even in the presence of revelation. Did we not grant this, we should not be Protestants, but should be bowing -svitli an implicit faith to the impossible absurdities of popish transubstantiation. Were it infallibly certain that a given judgment of the human intellect was intuitive and rationally necessary, then we should have a right to hold it, yea, be obliged to hold it, against all witnesses. Even when the clashing witness professed to be revelation, we should be obliged to say no. It could not be the true meaning of revelation, because the judgment held was the immediate and necessary prompting of laws of thought jiist as really established by God as the Bible itself. But the critical question remains : is this human judgment really the immediate and necessary result of man's constitutive laws of thought ? Or is it merely a fallible opinion fondly cherished and unjustly elevated to the rank of an intuition by the pride and prejudice of the mind? The question
164 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
of the rights of reason all turns on that hinge. And, as Dr. Landis urges, we cannot grant to the individual fallible mind the right of deciding that question. To whom then shall we reserve that right of decision ? If we say, to the document claim- ing inspiration, we seem to require, for the initial acceptance of that document, the mere blind, implicit faith of the Papist. Shall we refer the question, wdth Vincentius of Lerins, to the general C07isenmis of Christians, and hold such judgments to be necessary and valid truths, quce uljvjue, quce semjjer, quce ab om7iihus credita f This famous platform, which so long satisfied the mind of the church, has in it an unquestionable element of truth. Could we define the omnes as the living elect, the real members of the invisible church, "who shall be all taught of God," we should be ready to accept it as a practical rule. But the invisible church is — well, invisible. It is not any 7ncms prerogative to separate the " tares from the wheat," and to distinguish the minds really taught of the Holy Spirit from those who plausibly profess to be so taught. Tried by the rule of Yincentius, Dr. Landis is more nearly right than Dr. Hodge ; for the former evidently has the consensus of the major part of the Eeformers. There is no safer or better settlement of the rights of reason than that pro- posed by Turrettin : that the reason has its prerogative, even con- cerning the things of faith, when it is not a carnal and inimical but a humbled and sanctified reason, and when its judgments are necessitated by the soul's constitutive Liavs of thought. Now, the individual believer may know, by the fruits of the Spirit and the witness of the Spirit, for himself whether he is truly hum- bled, sanctified, and truth-lo\dng, and may thus know in himself that he is entitled to his conclusions as necessitated l)y the reason. But should he attempt to dictate his thought on only rational grounds to others, they would be entitled to reply: "Hast thou faith? Then liave it to thyself heioxe God."
Dr. Landis also proceeds to discuss the theory in its ethical relations, and argues that Dr. Hodge furnishes the basis for the following inferences : that a portion of the race was created in order to be damned; that the theory of restorationism is justi- fied; that we should be mlling to be damned for the glory of God ; that God has introduced sin into the universe as a means for accomplishing the gi'eatest good; that it obscures God's love towards his creatures and our true Christian conception of
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN. 165
his woiiliiness of our worship ; that it subverts our view of God's justice and of human accountability, and thus undermines the obligation to repentance for sin. These consequences the friends of Dr. Hodge would of course deny with heat. No one supposes that he deliberately intended or approved them. It will be the business of tl>e reader to judge whether his positions are really responsible for them.
"We have tlms attempted to put the reader in possessijon of the main thread of Dr. Landis's work, rather than to advance our OA\Ti judgment of his doctrine.
We only say, in this direction, that he has left an able, acute, and learned work. He has sho^vn himself in all these respects fully equal to the contest "vxith his great opponent. The book should be in the hand of every Presbyterian minister. It is a succedaneiirti for many of the works of the Beformers on this cardinal subject, which are not generally attainable. Dr. Lan- dis's learning and thoroughness were, in one respect, his snare. His discussion is in some degree repetitious, and consequently lacking in lucid order. AH his reasonings, and even all his quotations, could have been compressed, by means of a closer method, into a smaller bulk.
In one particular he has, unintentionally no doubt, done scant justice to Dr. Hodge, in that he denies him any countenance for his extreme doctrine of imputation in the -^vTitings of the church divines. This does not appear to us true. Dr. Hodge could have quoted a number of them who seem to countenance him in his assertion of an antecedent, immediate, and even gratuitous imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin, and in the dogma that the very first initial subjective depravity of the infant human soul comes upon it as penalty of that imputed guilt of the j'j>ecc«?^ww?. alienum. So De Moor. Nearly aU Dr. Hodge's positions may be found in the ninth chapter of Turrettin's Locus on Original Sin. The true verdict on this history of opinion seems to us this : that a few of the more acute and forward of the Calvinistic divines were tempted, by their love of system and symmetry of statement and over-confidence in their own logic, to excogitate the iii-starred distinction of the antecedent and gratuitous imputa- tion. Their error here was exactly hke that of the supralapsarians, who thought they could throw light and symmetry on the doc- trine of the decree by assigning what they thought was the logi-
166 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
cal order of sequence to its parts. But they became " wise above that which was -wTfitteu." They added no light to the mystery of the decree, but they misrepresented the moral attrilmtes of God, and provoked a crowd of naturrd ca\ils and objections. The distinction of supralapsarians and infralapsarians ought never to hr.ve been heard of. EnHghtencd Presbyterians now rejoice that it is practically obsolete. So scy we, this distinction of the an- tecedent imputation ought; never to have been drawn. The emi- nent men who drew it, constrained liy good sense, piety, and force of Scripture, usually contradicted it in substance by teach- ing along with the church that the original corruption and the imputation were coeval and inseparable, and by agreeing that a just and good God would not gratuitously impute the guilt of a yeccatmn aliemim upon an agent personally innocent. And such was doubtless the conclusion cf the great body of the Eeformed and of their Confessions, They usually concurred in the state- ment of Stapfer, refusing to distinguish the mediate from the immediate imputation. But the difference with Dr. Hodge seems to have been this : his love of systematizing enticed him to adopt the extreme points of his great teacher, Turrettin. But after they were adoj^ted, the boldness and dogmatism of his temper and the confidence of his logic led him to follow them out hardily to their repulsive consequences. He scorns those ami- able inconsistencies by which the others avoided the harsh con- sequences. The result was the extreme and exaggerated doctrine which has provoked several able protests, and last, this posthu- mous one of Dr. Landis.
"With one more point this criticism will end, and this is a point by which it is humbly conceived the difficulty Dr. Hodge pro- fessed to find in the doctrine of our participation in Adam's sin may be reheved in some degree. Dr. Landis has asserted several times that not only do sinners of subsequent generations ]3artako in Adam's sin, but partook in it when lie sinned. He also claims that this is the teaching of the Eeformers. If we imderstand him, his one authority for thus dating the epoch of our partici- pation is the phrase in Bom. v. 12, k(p w -jivxtz -rip-acnov. He urges that this is aorist, and must mark a finished act completed in one definite past time. Hence, all the race actuaUy sinned when Adam sinned, although none of the race except him then had any personal existence. Now, does he not herein unnecessarily
THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIX. 167
complicate and damage his doctrine ? Does the apostle say that the common participation in sinning which he here teaches occurred as to the children of the nineteenth century, for in- stance, on the day Adam ate the forbidden fruit ? No evidence appears of it. We surmise the apostle would be hugely sur- prised to hear that he had said so. The aorist does, indeed, describe definite past action. But when the agents are more than one, it does not describe the definite past actions as all oc- curring at one time. In the fifth chapter of Matthew, for insta-nce, we have, again and again, an aorist to express actions done at various jxist times hy successive agents. See verses 21st, 27th, 31st, 33d, Ipprfi'ri toIq doyaio:-. If we translated these places, "Your ancients were wont to say," etc., it might be objected that we confounded with the aorist the more proper sense of the im- perfect. But W9 must translate it virtually thus: "Your an- cients" (succeeding each other in their generations) "said" (successively). So let us read in Kom. v. 12 : "For that aU suc- cessively sinned." "When? As soon as tJiey hejan to exist uml act. Each human soul became an actual sinner when it began to exist. Then the apostle's reasoning will be, that the one man's sin (Adam's eating of the forbidden tree) brought death upon mankind, and so death passed upon all, not solely because the fir.st man sinned, but also because all subsequent men like him sinned too. How much more simple is this reasoning? How much more accordant with fact and experience? We have no call to insist u^oon the "unthinkable" assertion that the soul born in the nineteenth century actually and literally shared the forbidden fruit by eating it while in Adam's loins sixty centuries before that soul had any personal existence at all. What the apostle says is : that the first man introduced death into the race by sinning in Paradise, and that this penalty judicially passed upon all men for this reason, among others, because all these men, like Adam, personally sinned also. Thus they adopted and endorsed their first father's rebellion. Thus their personal attitude exactly and invariably conformed itself to their federal attitude, and that freely. Thus it becomes just in God to asso- ciate them in the common associated guilt of their father. If the question be asked. How it came about that they all began exist- ence A^th sinful -wills and Hves ? the answer of t.ie Scriptures and of the Reformed theology is, because it pleased a holy, wise,,
168 THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN.
just, and benevolent God, in creating a race existing by the tie of generation, to so make its first liead the natural and federal head of all the members of the race as to let his action under probation equally determine for them the same legal state and the same moral state as for himself, and both in inseparable con- junction and with coordinate originality. Adam sinned, was condemned, and died. His natural seed are born equally dead in sin and condemned ^^-ith him. So God ordained. This is our fall in Adam — a fall both judicial and moral; both moral and judicial.
THEOLOGi' OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREX.^
ATTENTHTE observers have not failed to note, that for the h^st twenty years a modified phase of the " Doctrines of Grace " has been presented in the Cah-inistic churclies of Great Britain and America ; and this movement is easily traced to the sect (if that may be called a sect which has no recognized bond) named at the head of this article. The reader will readily grant that no great uniformity or consistency is to be expected in a company of Christians whose fundamental principles repudiate the divine authority for any catholic risible church, the existence of a regular order of ordained ministers, and the use of all au- thoritative creeds. Their common traits can amount to no more than a species of prevalent complexion. Nobody among them is responsible for anything, unless he has been found doing or say- ing it himself. Hence there arises an unavoidable difiiculty in dealing with their system; and description or conviction can only approximate a correct application to individuals. There is also a large number of rehgious teachers in the other evangeHcal churches, who, without actual separation, have adoj)ted the chief doctrinal views of the Plymouth Brethren, and are in sympathy mth their spirit. Still, the featui'es of the common family re- semblance can be drawTi with general accuracy.
To return to the sect itself, it is said "to have 'originated with the eccentric movements of the Rev. John Darby, an excellent minister of the Anglican Church, about forty years ago. This
' Appeared in The Soutfiem Presbyterian Review of January, 1872, being a re^ view of — 1. God's Way of Peace. By the Rev. H. Bonar. Eichmond : Presbyte- rian Committee of Publication. 1870. 2. Mi'dler's Life of Trust. Edited by "Way- land. Boston: 1870. Z. Kotes on Genesis. By C. H. 51. , of Dublin. New York: Inglis & CoUes. 4. Scripture Testimony. Edited by Charles Campbell. New York: James Inglis & Co. 5. A Word to Young Believers. ByW. DeR. B. Dub- lin Tract Society. 6. The Return of the Lord Jesus. By J. G. Bellet. Dublin Tract Society. 7. Way marks in the Wilderness. Newl^'ork: Inglis & CoUes. 8 vols., 12mo. 8, T%e Witness. New York: James Inglis &, Co. 9. Wlio are the Plymouth Brethren? Mrs. H. Grattan Guinness. Philadelphia. 1861. 169
170 THEOLOGY 01 THE PLYMOUTH BKLTHEEN.
zealous mau having been constrained to repudiate the prelatic figment of an apostohc succession, went to the extreme of dis- carding all regular ordination and visible church order. For- saking the EngHsh Establishment, he began to preach as a mis- sionary in England, and in time, with the converts and evangelists whom he gathered around him, spread his opinions from (that country to Ireland, France, S's^'itzerland, and America. The name given by the outside world to the sect is derived from Plymouth, England, where their strongest and one of their ear- Hest meetings existed. If they can be said to have any form of church government, it can only be termed a rudimental inde- pendency ; for Darby and his brethren supposed that the Scriptures recognized no such government, no regular power of ordination in any human hand, and no authority in any chiu'ch court. But it is proper that behevers meet for worship only, in congi'egations, to prepare for Christ's second advent, which they supposed to be near at hand. Their usual characteristics are the preaching of the doctrines of grace mth what they claim to be unusual faithfulness and freeness, adult baptism, absolutely unrestricted lay preaching, and lay administration cf sacraments, weekly communions in the Lord's Supper, the denial of all human creeds, and a passionate attachment to the doctrine of Christ's premillennial advent. The sagacious reader will hardly need to be told that these principles have, as was to be anticipated, produced a fraitful harve'^t of di^asions and schisms among the brethren themselves. The Eev. Mr. Darby himself has ostra- cised and been ostracised by the larger pai-t of his followers in England, who could not endure the stringent, autocratic rule of this reformer, who denied all ecclesiastical rule ; and he has some time ago shaken off the dust from his feet against his rebeUious native land, and confined his labors chiefly to the Continent. The Bethesda congregation of Bristol, famous for the presidency of the pious George MuUer, has separated itself both from Darby and his adversary-brother, Ne'v\'ton. The Kev. James Inglis, of New York, their "^.hief doctrinal representative in the United States, who was, we beheve, first a CaMnistic Immersionist, and then a Plymouth Brother, seems to have been discarded by a pai"t of the brotherhood. The sect has been, perhaps, most favorably represented in this country b}^ the amiable and pious lay-preacher, H. Grattan Guinness, Esq., whose accomplished
THEOLOGY OP THE PLYMOUTH BKETHKEX. 171
wife has given to the American woiid a friendly xie^w of the brotherhood. But the periodicals and books by which their opinions are most known are those which proceed from the press of Inglis ct Co., of Xew York. These have obtained such cur- rency that they are frequently spoken of as " The Inghs Litera- tin-e," and the ^-iews of doctrine as "the Inglis Theology."
The better pari of this sect, among whom we wiUingly include the names mentioned above, may be said to be characterized by many admirable and by some mischievous qualities. To the former vre wish to do full justice. They profess to hold forth the doctrines of grace ^rith peculiar simpHcity, scripturalness, and freeness ; and in many cases we can gladly accord that praise to them, and thank them for the clear light in which they set the sufficiency of Christ, the simplicity of faith, and the pri^s-i- leges of the believer's adoption, and for the fidelity ■u'ith which they ex]3ose the covert self-righteousness of a half-gospel. Many of them also desen'e all praise for the strength of their faith, the holiness of their lives, their alms-gi^-ings, and the disinterested- ness of their missionary^ zeal. But, as we shall aim to evince, these excellent virtues are maiTed by a denunciatory spirit towards those who do not utter their "shibboleth," and hj a one-sidedness and exaggeration of doctrinal statement, which has resulted in not a few positive errors. Not seldom are they found condemn- ing the Reformed denominations for forsaking the tnie doctrines of faith and justification, when they themselves give us, in their l>etter moments, the ver;) same views of these tniths which we hold and preach. In many cases they contradict themselves and the Scriptures by the extravagance with which a favorite point is pushed. But we especially desire to caution the reader against their tendencies in the following directions : Their -UTest- ing of the doctrine of faith and assuj.'ance, and entire deprecia- tion of aU subjective marks of a state of grace; their denial of the imputation of Christ's active obedience; their disavowal fin some places) of progi-essive sanctification, confusion of justifica- tion and sanctification, and assertion of a dual nature in the regenerate, suggesting to the incautious the worst results of anti- nomianism; their partial adoption of a fanatical theory of the wan'ant for prayer ; and their ultraism upon the pre-advent theory, resulting in a depreciation of the being, duties, and hopes of the risible church, and of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.
172 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
In the discussion of these charges, the traits of exaggeration and inconsistency which have been imputed to them -^ill be abundantly evinced.
As disconnected specimens, the reader may, by anticipation, take the following : Notes on Genesis, page 39, pervei*t the words that Adam and Eve knew good and e-sil after they tians- gressed, as teaching that then only they acquired a conscience ! The argument is, that they could not have had a judgment of the moral distinction until they had exjyerhnce of both kinds of acts. How, then, can God have a conscience ? Or, if it be said he is omniscient, have the elect angels a conscience ? Again, the Scripture tells us that " God made man upright, and he sought out many inventions." A curious uprightness this, without a conscience !
On pages 69 and 74, we seem to be taught that Christians ought not to improve or amehorate the state of this earth, which God has been pleased to put under his cui'se. Such lives as those of Jethro Tull, Sir John Sinclair, Jesse Buel of Albany, etc., are then unchristian !
On page 271, Jacob is greatly condemned, because, having prayed for deliverance from his angiy brother, he used prudent precautions to protect his family. The author thinks "prayer and planning" very inconsistent. Bible Christians expect God to answer through means. Their maxim is: "Trust in provi- dence, and keep your powder dry."
On page 153, the author denies all vicarious Avorth to all Christ's sufferings and works, save his pangs on the cross. His aim seems to be to show a vaHd reason why the sufferings of believers, in imitation of their Head, are not propitiatory. To us this seems a very bungUng way of reaching that conclusion at the expense of contradicting the Scrij^tures, when reasons so much more vahd might have been presented, in the fact that a beHever's nature and person lack all those properties Avhicli fitted Christ to be a substitute and sacrifice.
I. In the Waymcirks in the Wilderness, Vol. Till., pp. 1-26, is a narrative of the labors of Dr. Cresar Malan, of Geneva, founded on his biography by his son. The peculiarities of that excellent man are defended throughout, and his son is rebuked for not defending them all. The well known tracts, in which Malan's peculiar "sdews of the nature of saving faith were taught.
THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BEETHBEN. 173
are commended without reserve. Indeed, we believe that these treatises, and especially the one entitled Little Foxes, have always been favorites with those who sympathize with the doc- trines of the Plymouth Brethren. The source of this error is no doubt that doctrine concerning faith which the first Reformers, as Luther and Calvin, were led to adopt from their opposition to the hateful and tjTannical teachings of Eome. This mother of abominations denies to Christians all true assurance of hope, teaching that it is neither edifying nor attainable. Her purpose is clear : the soul justified by free grace, and assured of its union to Christ, would no longer be a practicable subject for priest- craft and spiritual despotism. These noble Reformers, seeing the bondage and misery imposed by this teaching upon sincere souls, flew to the opposite extreme, and (to use the language of theology) asserted that the assurance of hope is of the essence of saving faith. Thus says Calvin in his Commentary on Romans : " My faith is a divine and spiritual belief that God has pardoned and accepted vie'' According to these divines, it is not enough for a penitent soul to embrace with all its powers the gracious truth, " Whosoever beheveth shall be saved," while yet its con- sciousness of exercising a full faith is confused, and remaining anxieties about its own salvation mar its peace. Such an act of soul is not admitted by them to be even a true yet weak faith ; they hold that until the believer is assured that Christ has saved HIM, there is no exercise of saving faith at all. This old error is evidently the source of Dr. Malan's view of faith, which, as visitors to Geneva twenty years ago remember, he was so sure to obtrude upon all comers. Now our Plymouth Brethren and their sympathizers have a contempt and mistrust for great eccle- siastical names and chiirch authorities, which prevents their em- ploying the recognized nomenclature of historical theology on this and many other subjects. Hence they prefer to express their peculiarities in terms of their own, less discriminating than the old. We do not find them indeed deciding that " the assur- ance of hope is of the essence of a true saving faith ;" but we find them in substance reviving this extravagance of the first Reformers, and pressing its corollaries. Thus, if such is the nature of the assurance of hope, it is grounded in no rational inference, but it must be a primitive act of consciousness. Again, if this assurance is of the essence of faith in its first and its every
174 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
acting, then all means emplovecl by the believer on himself for its increment, all self-examination to discover whether " Christ is in US, or whether we be reprobates," all subjective marks of a true work of grace in us, are woi-thless, and indeed absurd. We accordingl}' find Dr. Malan applauded ( Waymarks in the Wilder- ness, Vol. VIII., p. 3) when he asked Dr. Ostentag, "Are you one of the elect?" "and pressed him not to rest his assurance of sal- vation on the sandy foundation of his own feelings and senti- ments, or 071 anything in himself y Although the Rev. H. Bonar is a Scotch Presbj-terian, yet his ardent sympathy wdth these religionists in the matter of pre-adventism, leads even him in his little work, GcxTs Way of Peace, to some most one-sided and ill-judged statements. Thus, pp. 23, 24: "The peace or confi- dence which comes from summing up the good points of our character, and thinking of our good feelings and doings, or about our faith, love and repentance, must be made up of pride." . . . " It does not mend tlie matter to saj- that we look at these good feelings in us as the Spirit's work, not our own." "Peace does not arise from thinking about the change "s\TOught in us, but un- consciously and inimluntar'dy from the change itself." On p. 34, the inquirer is rebuked for thinking "that unbelief is some evil principle requiring to be uprooted before the gospel will be of any use to him." We then have these most inadequate and mis- leading definitions of unbelief and faith ; that the former is "a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God;" and the latter vice versa, a bad opinion of self, and a good opinion of God. On p. 39, the object of the Spirit's work is . , . "not to produce in us certain feelings, the consciousness of which will make us think better of ourselves, and give us confidence to- wards God." Here we have first a denial of the truth, and then a caricature of it. In Waymarks, etc., Vol. III., pp. 245-263, is found a treatise on "Assurance of Faith " (by which the writer means assurance of hope). In this article, Jonathan Edwards' " Treatise on the Religious Afifections " is scouted as not only useless, 1 )ut mischievous ; and the drift of the writer is to ignore all self-examination and cultivation of spiritual discernment as means of strengthening faith and hope. On p. 258, we find the following astonishing travesty of the truth : " The ohject and cause of faith is the testimony of God and demonstration of the Spirit ; but if we appropriate the mercy of God in Christ upon evidences
THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BEETHREN. 175
in ourselves, faith and the testimony of God on which it rests are made void. For the marks so used must be such as, we ap- prehend, are peculiar to the favorites of God, and such as hypo- crites and self-deceivers cannot possess, other^dse they will not serve for evidences ; and if I apprehend that I have such certain evidences that I am a favorite of God, what has faith to do in the matter?" On p. 262, Dr. Bonar is approvingly quoted as saying: "The consciousness of moving accompanies motion, the consciousness of seeing accompanies looking, the consciousness of loving accompanies love; so the consciousness of believing accompanies the act of believing. If not, there is no certainty in anything." And again: "If I am liable to be mistaken as to my simple act of believing, I am much more Hable to be mistaken as to my complex act of examination into my own feelings, mo- tives and principles." These extracts sufficiently display the exaggeration and error of the school.
"We place in opposition to them the sober and scriptural state- ments of our Confession, Chap. XVIII., not in the hope that either the Westminster divines, or our Assemlilies, will carry much weight with them, but for the caution of consistent Presby- terians :
Sec. II. "This certainty " (that they are in a state of grace) "is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion, grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infal- lible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salva- tion, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing wdth our spirits that we are the chil- dren of God; which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption
Sec. III. ' ' This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it ; yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of every one to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, " etc.
Now, in objecting to the ultraism and error of the statements concerning faith and assurance before us, far be it from us to depreciate the service which these authors do to truth. When they intimate that self-righteousness may, and perhaps often does, cloak itself under the attempt to find in ourselves the marks ot a gracious state, we freely assent and admit the value of the caution. AYhen they object to the intricacy and impractical character of much of Edwards' analysis, for the unlearned Chris-
176 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
tian, we assent again, remembering the sagacious remark of old Dr. Alexander, that the work of Edwards is "too anatomical." And the same master in Israel remarked, that the influence of self-examination upon the assurance of hojoe, in a tnily humble and grttcious mind, is rather indirect in actual experience than direct; for the search into one's own motives, affections and conduct, always reveals to the enhghtened soul so much defect that the first result is rather to humble than to encoui*age. But thus the soul is led more thoroughly to renew its acts of faith and repentance, out of the conscious exercise of which hope and peace arise by a nearer reflex action. And what is this but the doctrine of TuiTetin, who makes this assurance of hope consist of the reflex consciousness of an acted faith, and the comfort thence arising? (See his Locus XV., Qu. 17.) Neither do we intend to deny that many an anxious and sincere weak behever has abused the means ol self-examination, or even been abused by his pastor, in cultivating the acts of introspection too much ; and that the proper remedy for them is to look out of sinful self to a gracious and complete Saviour. All that is scriptural and valuable in these protests of the " Wi/jicss Theology," Ave thank- fully accept.
But just here begins our quarrel Tvdth it; first, in that these writers misrepresent the pastors of our Eeformed churches, as though we hid these wholesome truths and they alone held them foi-th. There is in the books under re^dew much <»f this unjust denunciation. It would be easy to find several instances in vrhich they shai^^ly charge the churches with hiding the truth ; saying in effect : ** Ye unfaithful watchmen, Avhy do ye not, Hke us, hold forth the doctrine of adoption, of pardon, ol the new birth, of perseverance, thus and so ? " And then they proceed to tell us how tJiey preach them. And lo! their own statements (in their better moods) are the same "^dth those usually heard in our Reformed pulpits, and set do\\Ti in our symbols, save that theirs have not the symmetry and scriptui*al accuracy of state- ments which our chui'ch teachers have given to our statements ; and save that this " Witness Theology" is continually contradict- ing itself and the Scriptures by its exaggerations and perversions. We are told that the ministers who have imbibed these opinions are much in the habit of sapng that the gospel has not been preached in its purity in our time, except l)y them ; and that it
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is another gospel which is usually heard in our pulpits. This is a type of modesty which church history teaches us is a pretty sure sign of doctrinal defection. Another characteristic of the W-^tness theology is to disparage all church teachers and church authorities who have reputation or influence, and to represent their human learning, pious writings, and fame, as simply a cor- rupting bane. These ^^Titers take great pleasure in admonish- ing us of this fact, and cautioning us, that if we would get at the real truth, we must roundly discard and contemn all the writers whom the church has revered (except their set!), and go direct to the Bible. Now, all this species of talk is set in a suf- ficiently ridiculous light by one word. "What are thei/ aspiring to be, when they print these books, save to become human church teachers, to acquire influence over believers' minds, to have authority with them ? Do they go to all this trouble, designing to have everybody neglect or reject their "witness"? We trow not. Or will they say they write only to teach believers the true meaning of the Bible? Well, no Reformed divine ever professed anything else. And by what patent of sincerity shall these late writers claim that they alone are honest in such pro- fessions? The fact is, that no uninspired church teacher is infallible ; but yet they have their use ; which use, in the case of these "ua'iters, and the ^viser fathers of the Reformation who have preceded them, is proportioned to their honesty, modesty learning, and correspondence vnth the infallible word. But there is another fact, that the tone of censoriousness we note is a symptom of an unhealthy mind; and that sensible people will not be very forward to adopt the writers who betray it as their special guides.
As we wish wholly to avoid the exaggerations which we lament in the "Plymouth theology," we begin our exposition of the true doctrine of faith and assurance by repeating the admission already made. The overweening attempt to ground our hope on introspection may involve self-righteous illusions ; and if it does not, to the truly humble it is likely to bring little comfort. " The view to be urged upon the weak and doubting believer is, that he has the same grounds as the strong assured Christian for all his glorious hopes, if he only exercised that believer's faith. He does not groimd liis assurance primarily upon his gifts, his sanctity, his zeal, his abundant labors for Christ. He does not.
Vol. I.— 12.
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trust in himself, but in the simj^le word of his Saviour ; and he has fuller comfort than this weak Christian, not because he claims the credit of more works and gi'aces, but simply because he exercises a stronger faith. Paul usually makes the abundance of his labors for Christ not the cause, but the resxdt, of the assurance of hoj^e. Perhaps some one may object that this is virtually to urge an Antinomian dependence ; for he who does not find the fiTiits of holy li^-ing in himself has no right to an assurance of his interest in Christ. True. To conclude that you have hitherto been in Christ, while lacking the fraits of hoHness w^hich result from union to him, is Antinomianism. But to make this past absence of fi'uits a reason for jjrojecting your mistrust into the future, this is legaUsm and unbeUef. You weak Chris- tian would say to an uubehever, paralyzed by his mistrust from taking Christ's yoke, that his lack of comfoi-t and other regene- rate experi.ences might be very good proof that he had heen hitherto an unrenewed sinner ; but that it was sheer unbeUef and sin to make his miserable past experience a ground for doubt- ing and rejecting Christ's full and free salvation offered to faith. You, our weak brother, would require him to beheve hi order to experience the Christian graces. Y'ou did not indeed encoui-age him to beheve that he was aheady reconciletl while disobedient ; but you told him that he might assuredly be reconciled and obe- dient in behering. So we reply to your discouragements, *be not afraid, only believe,' and your joys and graces shall as- suredly, in God's good time, follow as the fniits, and not as the roots of faith." The above we read from a practical sermon of one of our ordinary Presbyterian pastors, penned by him before he ever read a line of the Plymouth theology
But now, on the other hand, it is sheer exaggeration to say, as we have seen Dr. Bonar and the WaymarJcs write, that as- surance of hope cannot derive any of its comfort fi*om the dis- covery of gracious principles and acts in ourselves, ■vsithout for- saking faith and building on self -righteousness. Let the reader review our citations above. Tfiey contradict Scripture^ experi- ence, and precepts. And we take great pleasure in staking our issue on this test, because these -uTiters cry so loudly, "To the Bible alone ! " Thus, then, we find the apostle expressly com- rnanding Christians to seek their assui-ance of being in Christ, partly in that very way which these 'UTiters condemn as legal-
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ism and the yery antitliesis of faitli. 1 Cor. xi. 28: "But let a man examine himself, and so let liim eat of that bread, and drink of that cnp." ^lij? Because "he that eateth and drinketh nnwoiihilj, [the very point to be settled by the examination,] eateth and drinketh judgment to himself." 2 Cor. siii. 5: "Ex- amine yourselves, whether ye he in the faith ; prove your ovm. selves. Know ye not your o"«ti selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?" 2 Peter i. 10: "Give diU- gence to assure yourselves of your calling and election." E-om. V. 4 : " Tribulation worketh patience ; and patience, experience ; and experience, hope ; and hope maketh not ashamed." Again we find the Bible saints testing the nature of their faith, and their title to a union with Christ, by their subjective affection:^; and principles. Ps. cxix. 6: "Then shaU I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all thy commandments." 1 John iii. 14 : " "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." 1 John v. 2 : " By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his com- mandments." 1 John iii. 19: "And hereby" (viz., by the fact that we love in deed and in truth — i. e., by our works!) "we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him." So, 1 John ii. 3; and, chiefly, 1 John iii. 22: "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his com- mandments," etc. Once more, we find the Scriptures full of marks or tests of a gracious state ; such as that of our Saviour in John xv. 14 : " Ye are my fi-iends, if ye do whatsoever I com- mand you ; " or of James ii. 20 : " Faith mthout works is dead." The laying down of these marks evidently implies that behevers are to apply them to themselves ; and by that means, rationally, scripturally and spiritually ascertain the spuriousness or gen- uineness of their union to Christ.
Now, does it not seem strange that readers of the Bible should impinge so rashly upon scriptures so familiar and plain as these? The explanation is to be found in one-sidedness of temper ; the overweening desire to push a pet idea (the imme- diate peace emerging out of the vigorous acting of simple faith) has made them bhnd to the fact that they had pushed it out of "the proportion of the faith," and the limits of tnith. The truth is, that not onlj faith, but love, filial obedience, true re- pentance, Christian patience, forgiveness, (see Galatians v. 22,
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23,) etc., are fruits, and so marks, of God's sovereign new birth in the soul. The only difflerence as to the mattej in hand is, that faith is related to the rest as a seminal grace. The truth is, that the same God who has told us that true faith saves us has also told us that these subjective graces are signs of a saved state. Here appears strongly the extravagance of the assertion that the Christian has forsaken faith when he tries to ascertain by such criteria that he is a favorite of God. ( Waymarhs, Yol. III., p. 258.) How on earth can a modest believer be justly charged with forsaking the testimony of God, hecause he 'believes God testifying that such or such a mark is a sure sign of spir- itual life? It is as much a part of the divine testimony as this, " that the life is in his Son." But the Waymarks object : unless the criteria are infalhble, the whole process is vicious. We reply, very true. But to the belie\dng soul whom God endows (by his union to Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost) with spiritual discernment, the scriptural criteria are infallible. And it is a most inconsistent thing in writers who profess to exalt the doctrines of grace, thus to ignore the grace of spiritual discernment, as though it had no place in the regen- erate soul, unless possibly as to the single grace of faith. It is objected: self-deceivers self -righteously fancy that they find in themselves these subjective marks in their frames and works. "We reply, so they do ; and so most notoriously do they often fancy that they taste the iminediate peace of helieving. Where is the genuine believer's safeguard ? The Scriptures reply : in that grace of spiritual discernment which the Holy Ghost gra- ciously gives to them, enabling them to distinguish their faith and all their other graces and works from the counterfeits. Dr. Bonar would have the whole matter decided by simple conscious- ness. "When we move, we are conscious of moving. So when we believe, we must be conscious of believing." And so, accept- ing the testimony of God, that he that believeth is safe, that, according to him, is the end of the matter, and the whole of it. This short view is solved by a very simple remark. There is a spurious as well as a genuine faith. Every man, when he thinks he .helieves, is conscious of exercising what he thinks is faith. Such is the correct statement of these facts of consciousness. Now suppose the faith, of which the man is conscious, turns out a spurious faith, must not his be a spurious consciousness ? And
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he, being without the illumination of the Spirit, will be in the dark as to its hollowness. But if Dr. Bonar's ideas are to be judged by his other declarations on the same subject, it is vain for us to hope that any rational light of scriptural truth applied by the Holy Ghost can avail here to save anybody from the cheat .. for he tells us that the peace " does not arise from the change \^Tought in us, but -unconsciously and invohmtarily from the change itself?'' In fact, these writers, after warning us very properly against muing human philosophy with the theology of redemption, turn around and give us a philosophy of their own, to which plain Scriptures must be wrested. The only difference between them and other philosophic theologians is, that theirs is a false psychology, unscriptural, and so unphilosophical ; for the psychology of common sense always agrees with the Scrip- ture. Dr, Bonar evidently regards consciousness as a supra- rational (if not a non-rational) faculty. The truth is, that con- sciousness, just as much as the logical understanding, is a rational faculty. The only difference is that its acts are pri- mary acts of the reason ; while the logical deduction is a second- ary or derived act of the reason. These writers will have the Christian's peace built, in no degree, upon any derived or deduc- tive rational act of soul from subjective criteria, however scrip- tural. They cannot away with it. Why? Their psychology virtuall}^ replies: Because the peace comes directly from the consciousness of faith going out of self to Christ ; and conscious- ness (like "the animal sense of departed pain and present ease," Dr. Bonar's own most vicious and false analogy,) is supra-rational. Digest their philosophy of the matter, and it comes to this. How short and plain is this refutation, in which both common sense and Scripture concur, viz. : Our whole salvation is instrumentally by the truth. But truth only acts on man by acting on his rationality. Hence, the whole process of salvation, however spiritual, must also be truly rational. The quickest conscious- ness which the soul has of its own faith (or other gracious acts) is yet truly rational, only it is an immediate primary act of rea- son. Hence there is no absurdity whatever, but the most perfect consistency, in the Scriptures representing such consciousness as cohering with, and strengthened by, the deductions of the reason, as guided by the Spirit's illumination from subjective marks and scriptural premises.
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But let US return to the other branch of the objection : that to draw anj confidence of hope from graces which we perceive wrought in us, is self-confidence, in other words, self-righteous- ness. Now to a plain mind it does seem a most astonishing and perverse argument, when the whole encouragement of hope which the believer infers hence is inferred from this premise, viz., that he could never work those graces in himself; but, if thej are in him, they were wrought by sovereign and gratuitous power. The question to be rationally, scripturally, and spiritu- ally argued is this : Is Christ my friend ? The sober believer reasons thus: "Yes, Christ is my friend," (conclusion,) "because I find in myself changes which he alone can work," (premise,) " and changes which only his unbought love prompted him to work." How this is self-confidence, or self-righteousness, or how it leads to boasting, passes the comprehension of a plain man. But, as Dr. Malan insinuates, to place any of our confi- dence of hope thus, is building it on a sandy foundation. Why ? The Papist would answer (very logically for him), " Because these subjective graces are all mutable, as well as imperfect." "We ask, Do the Witness theologians believe in the perseverance of the saints ? They loudly declare, yes ! Then these subjective marks, if truly distinguished by the be'liever's spiritual discern- ment, through the witnessing of the Holy Ghost, are not a "foundation of sand," but of rOck ; for they are GocTs peculiar work, and the believer is arguing precisely as Paul does (Phil. i. 6), "confident of this very thing, that he which hat'i begun a good work in us will perform it ^ntil the day of Jesus Christ."
The sum of this matter, then, is this : That we cannot oliject to the believer's " examining himself whether he is in the faith " by his subjective marks, on the pretext that many have abused the process to self-righteousness or despair ; for God has com- manded it and laid down the marks. And it is by this seK-ex- amination, coupled with contrition, confessing and forsaking of the defects detected, renewed acts of faith (thus strengthening itself by exercise) and watchfulness and holy living, that the true, though weak, faith of the beginner grows to the assured hope of the mature Christian. Yet faith also is a characteristic Christian grace ; it is thus itself a mark of a gracious state ; it is a grace of prime importance, bearing a seminal relation to all the others, so that if it be present f"hey cannot be wholly absent. Hence we
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are glad to recognise this further truth, that the weakest babe in Christ, not yet conscious of any decisive action of the other graces, does derive, through his o-wtq consciousness of faith, some peace and hope, preserving him from absohite despair even in his most anxious moments. (See Confession of Faith, Ch. XVIII., § 4.) But we do not describe this first reflex act of faith as Bonar's inconsistent monster, an " unconscious " consciousness, or a non-rational action of soul upon revealed truth — truth, the supreme object of sanctified reason. And once more : we fully admit that, just so far as self-examination awakens the believer's anxiety concerning his own state by reveahng to his repentance his indwelling defects, the proper remedy is to repeat our simple acts of faith, going out of sinful self to embrace a perfect Saviour and find rest in him. And this is doubtless one of the results which our Father designs in commanding self-examination. But, finally, the Bible also teaches us that in the maturer experience of God's saints they do find comfort of hope by recognizing in. themselves the sure marks of God's work of grace, which com- foi*t is neither unbelieving nor legal, but gracious and believing, and a true fruit of faith and holiness, yielding glory to God and excluding boasting.
It is very obvious to the attentive reader that these views of faith and assm'ance which we have examined ground themselves in the faulty definitions of saving faith which we received from the first Keformers. They, as we saw, defined saving faith as a belief that " Christ has saved r/ie," making the assurance of hope of its necessary essence. Now, the later Reformers, and those learned, holy and modest teachers of the Eefojmed Churches, whose influence the Plymouth Brethren regard as so unhealthy for true religion, have subjected this view to searching examina- tion, and rejected it (as does the Westminster Assembly) on scriptural grounds. We merely recite the commonplaces of the- ology in arraying their unanswerable objections. First, God's word gives us, as the real object of our faith in its first or direct acting, only this proposition : " Whosoever beheveth shall be saved." But this overweening faith would substitute a different proposition, and one not iu the Bible, as the object of faith, viz., " Christ has saved me, A. B." Second, inasmuch as the name of A. B. is not in the Bible and the only proposition there of- fered him is the general one, " Whosoever believeth shall be
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saved," he can only come to tlie proposition, " I, A. B., am saved," indirectly througli the general one, by means of this minor premise, " I am a beUever, therefore I am saved." On the \ievf of Calvin and Luther, faith, as a rational act of soul, is impossible ; for the soul would be reqmred to accept the propo- sition, " I am saved," in order to become saved. This is not only a logical contradiction, but is contrary to Scripture and experi- ence ; for every sinner comes to Christ by faith, as a person lost, and not saved. Such a faith is as unreasonable as requiring that a person shall bring himself into existence in order to exist ; whereas he mu.st be in existence beforehand in order to bring anything or effect any act. Cahdn would doubtless attempt to answer this fatal objection by saying that true faith is not a rational, but a gracious, spiritual, and supernatural act of soul. The latter we grant, but not the former. It is a supernatural, spiritual, a7id rational act of soul — all the more truly rational because it is spiritual. The Bible tells us that God quickens the soul by his word. The word is the proper object of the rectified reason ; the renewed actings of the soul are all the more rational because it is now begotten again to a nobler life by the Spirit of truth and through the truth. Hence we return to the charge, and urge that unless there is a special, immediate revelation to A. B. of God's purpose to save him, by name, there cannot be a rational behef that God has saved him, save as inferential fi'om the gos- pel proposition that God cei-tainly saves whosoever beUeves. Third, the experience of God's people in the Bible ages and since refute the scheme. See Ps.lxxiii. 13 ; xxxi 22; Ixxvii. 2; ix. 10. Fourth, were assm-ance of hope of the essence of a mere saving faith, God would not have commanded lelievers (addressed as such) to perfect their faith by going on to assurance, nor would he have assigned them the further means for doing so. Last, it does not appear how God could justly punish the non-elect (as he willj for refusing to beheve. For they would be still punished for not belie^'ing that God had saved them, when their dire experience in hell was proving that, had they adopted that proposition, they would have adopted a glaring falsehood. The direct act of sav- ing faith, then, is the embracing of the general gospel proposi- tion, " "Wliosoever believeth shall be saved," and the moment the soul performs that act truly it is justified. The comforting hope. " I am in a state of safety," is the reflex consequence of this sav-
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lug act, mediated by the rational self-consciousness as enlight- ened by the Holy Ghost through the word. But, as experience shows, all our acts of soul are not accompanied at the time by an intelligent and remembered act of consciousness. Kapidity of the mental acts, or confusion and excitement of mind, may prevent it. And, more important sti^'l, if the soul knows that there is a counterfeit faith as weU as a true one, and if any un- certainty of view prevails in it as to what distinguishes them, its consciousness of its own actings cannot be mora discriminating than those actings are. Hence the direct act of faith may have been really performed, and the soul may be by it in a saved state, and yet a clear consciousness of the act and fuU certainty of its result may be wanting. This is just the analysis of the state of the true but weak believer. The maturing of his faith up to a full assurance must be the work of self-examination, time and experience, especially in repeated direct actings of faith it- self.
In dismissing this part of our discussion, we wish to utter a caution. We meet with many attempts in these books at novel and simpler definitions of faith. Let us assure the authors that there is no uninspired definition so safe and discriminating as that of the Shorter Catechism, Quest. 86 : " Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is ofi'ered to us in the gospel." Many of these novelties of definition and illustration run a great risk of suggesting fatal error. Thus, Dr. Bonar says, " Unbelief is sim- ply our having a good opinion of ourselves and a bad opinion of God ;" and faith is the reversed state of opinion. He seems, in another place cited, to make the assurance of hope as merely a natural consequence of faith, as consciousness of motion is of moving, or consciousness of seeing is of looking. Now, we sup- pose that none will be more prompt to assert the spiritual and gracious source of both faith and hope, as consequent on the almighty quickening of the soul and the illumination of the mind, than he is. We forewarn him that he may very probably find some of his admirers adopting these novelties of explanation as authority for that false and soul-destroying Pelagian view of faith advanced by the followers of Alexander Campbell. He de- scribes faith and unbeUef as two antithetic states of opinion ; it will be easy for his followers to misquote him as saying they are
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States of opinion merely. He seems to represent assurance as a merely natural and unavoidable result of consciousness, thus appearing to ignore tlie necessity for the gift of spiritual discern- ment, and making the behever's whole joy in Christ a mere mat- ter of natural knowledge. Again, we find the Wayraarks speaking currently of faith as a ^"^ means of regeneration!'" (Vol. III., p. 331 ; II., p. 73.) No^v, in the order of production, the means precede the result, so that this language suggests that faith begins before the sinner is born again. Then, it is a natu- ral exercise of the soul as carnal, and we reach the same Pelagian conclusion ; whereas the Scriptures teach us that in the order of production the new bii'th precedes faith, and that none but the quickened soul exercises this gracious act of beheving. Once more : we notice a most dangerous passage where the question is raised, what shall be said to the soid who anxiously desires to come to Christ for pardon, but is embarrassed by knowing that his desii'e for pardon is simply carnal and selfish ? The answer given is, in substance, that he shall be encouraged to come to Christ without analyzing his motive for coming, because the Redeemer is so kind that he will meet the sinner sincerely com- ing to him, no matter how prompted. And then the same false "s-iew is insinuated, that this coming will, through grace, become the "means of regeneration," and of the implantation of new evangelical motives. So that this alarmed transgressor, who came to Chidst at first (and was accepted !) only to gratify selfish fear, will remain to embrace him from filial gratitude and desire for holiness. All this is inexpressibl}" mischievous and uu- scriptural. Time, "Christ receiveth shmers." True, "God justifi- etli the v/)(j()(Uy who beheve in Jesus." It is practically true that no man is regenerated apart from Christ, and that God's word (not a dead soul's dead faith,) is "the means of regeneration." But it is not true that Christ has promised to bless a faith merely carnal and selfish. And the right answer to the convicted sinner whose case is supposed, would be, that the pure selfishness of his prayer and of his longing for pardon was the croT\'ning j)i"oof of his utter death in sin, helplessness, and lost estate — that it behooved him to embrace Christ indeed, and at once, as an almicchtv Sa^ioui", but to embrace him as much as a deliverer fi'om this selfish desire and fear as a deliverer from "WTath. There is a certain go-'^-j^et j^arac/o,/; here : that the sinner who is
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deadly bidden to come to Christ for life; aud yet the hfe which enables him to come must be from Christ. The true sohitiou is in the great truth of sovereign, quickening grace, "blowing where it listeth." Where God designs to save, he gives the precept, " Come," to the helpless soul, and also gives the secret inward strength to obey and to come, not carnally, but spiritually ; and the elect sinner is quickened, beUeving, justified, all at the same time, yet all out of sovereign grace ; and yet justified because he savingly believes, savingly belie\dng because he is quickened. Let not the teacher of anxious souls attempt to solve that para- dox by the expedients of Pelagian speciilation, but let him utter the appointed promise and precept, and then "stand still and see the salvation of God."
lu one particular the view of faith presented by this " Witness theology," while professing a high Calvinism, lapses distinctly into Ai'minianism. The Waijmarl's, Vol. VIII., pp. 272, 273, distinctly denies the imputation of Christ's active obedience to believers as the meritorious ground of their title to the adoption of life. "It may be necessary, however," says this writer, "here to advert to the distinction which har; been made between pardon and justification, in accordance "with the use of these words in earthly relations, and to the consequent division of the work of Christ into his active and passwe obedience; the one for our pardon, and the other for our jnstification." "We have ah'eady stated our objections to the notion of a vicarious keep- ing of the law, as well as to the distinction which it makes between pardon and justification, and the gi'ounds upon which either of them rests. The opponents of it may very well chal- lenge its advocates to give a scriptural statement of it, or to pro- duce a single passage which intimates that, while we have for- giveness in his blood, we have justification through his keeping the law perfectly in our stead," etc.
We can scarcely persuade ourselves that intelligent Presby- terians need a detailed discussion to enable them to repel this stale Arminian -view; or that they vnB. have any difficulty in answenng the above challenge by "giving a scriptural state- ment" of our view. Such passages as these are at hand and too familiar: Zech. iii. 4, 5; Acts xx\d. 18; Rom. v. 1, 2; v. 19; Gal. iv. 5; John i. 12; Matt. iii. 1.5; v. 17; Rom. \aii. 3, 4. Here we are taught that justification b,y faith was not only a
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stripping off of filthy garments, but the putting on of a fair mitre and clean linen ; that it is not only forgiA-eness of sin, but inheritance among all them that are sanctified ; that one of the results of faith is title to be sons of God ; "that Christ was made of a woman, made tinder the law (not under its penalty only, but under tlie lav:,) to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons ; " that when jiistified by faith, we have not only peace with God, but access to a state of hope, joy, and glory ; that Vve are made " righteous hy the oljedience of one," (Christ); that Christ does for us that which the law could not do in us, being weak through the flesh, namely, fulfil a com- plete obedience ; for surely the law is very adequate to exact of man, in spite of his carnality, the due penalty. The souls in hell find it so to their cost.
But the confusion of language in the above scrap of Armin- ianiziug is such as almost to compel us to believe that the author has no distinct knowledge of the doctrine which he imputes to Calvinists. He represents us as seeking justification one way, and pardon another way. Was ever a Cah-inist heard of who did not hold that pardon is an essential element of justification ? It would have been well for this writer to advert to the "West- minster Catechism : " Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for," etc. Justification includes both pardon and acceptance ; these are its two inseparable elements. "Without the latter element the sinner's salvation would be fragmentary ; for to remit penalty is not the same thing as enduing with the title to the positive blessedness promised to obedience. He who has sinned, and (vicariously) paid the penal debt therefor, does not stand on the same footing of justice A\dth him who, by not sinning, and, on the contrary, by actually keeping the law, has earned the franchise of reward. Unless the sinnc3r's Substitute does the latter for him, as well as the former, he is not saved. He certainly cannot do it for himself. This Arminian view of justification betrays a most inadequate conception of the relation between the covenants of works and grace, and the believer's connection with the first Adam, and the Second Adam. When the first Adam entered under the covenant of works, he was guiltless ; but not therefore justified. He Avas obnoxious as yet to no penalty ; but he had no title to the adoption of hfe. This
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he was to earn by ©bedieuce. The Second Adam promises to place his believing seed, not in the state from which the first Adam fell, but in that state to which he should have raised him- self and his seed had he fulfilled the covenant of works. To accomplish this, Christ both pays the penalty and completes the obedience due imder the covenant of works.
No intelligent believer, then, speaks of being jMnJoned by Christ's passive, and justified liy Christ's active obedience. Pardon is a part of justification. The whole, complete, insepar- able change, from condemnation to sonship, is made by the im- piTted merit of a whole imputed righteousness, which righteous- ness includes all Christ's acts in his estate of humiliation, by which he "fulfilled the law," penal and preceptive.
II. It is the aim of the "Plymouth theology" to foster a cer- tain type of rehgious experience, from which all doubt and anxiety are eliminated. To this end is pressed their pecuUar view of faith and assurance. Hence also is the anhnus which has betrayed them into the second group of errors, on which we are constrained to animadvert as more dangerous than the first. The Bible theology teaches that there is a dead and fruitless faith which neither justifies nor sanctifies, and whose uselessness is to be practically tested by its fruitlessness. The Bible distin- guishes justification, a purely forensic change of legal status, from sanctification, a subjective or personal change of moral state. As the former act passes in the foinun of heaven, a tri- bunal not now accessible to our view, it must be practically known, according to the Scriptures, by the fruitful or sanctifying quaHty of the faith which the believer professes. Others can test it only thus ; the man himself must test it chiefly thus. Hence, ob\Tously, his comfort of hope is connected with his progressive sanctification, through his faith working by love. Such is the scriptui'al system. But the new system condemns this as covert legalism and unbehef. It insists that hope must exist before " experience worketh " it. For the anxioiis babe in Christ to say, " I doubt my own faith," is, according to them, a criminal doubting of Christ. Faith must bear its fruit of assur- ance directly and immediately. Hence it is obvious some new ^^ew must be presented, modifying the old gospel "vdew of the relations of faith, acceptance, sanctification, and hope ; for if the old doctrine stands, the old inference from it is unavoidable.
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Such we are convinced is the motive of the startling innovations which the Plymouth theology proposes in the doctrine of pro- gressive sanctification. They shall state it in their o^^-a words. In " A Word to Young Behevers," by W. De E. B., p. 52, we read: "'Ye are complete,' is a di^ine testimony. To add to this, to add to completeness, is to make a deformity, and this is what many are seeking to do. Men seek to persuade us that there is ' a progressive holiness ' to fit us for glory," etc. P. 7-4 : " The walk of a beUever in relation to God, is in the same char- acter as that of a child to his father, whether it be good or bad. "Wliat I mean is, that it is independent of his standing. A son ill-behaved or well-behaved is equally a son. So a Christian walking right or walking wrong is a Christian still ; and that is the very reason it is of such consequence," etc. The deadly eiTor of these views is unfortunately plain, notwithstanding its barbarously bungling style, and the en-or is that of Antinomian- ism. It cannot be better unmasked than by exposing the false analogy of the author's illustration. In natural parentage, if a man has a son, he is equally his son, whether reprobate or docile. Very time; because in our fallen natm'e depravity descends hy hirth. But in the spiritual birth, the glorious characteristic is, that it is always a hirth unto holiness. What is it but simple im- piety to imply, as this illustration does, that the Holy Ghost begets seed .unto depravity ? If he has begotten any soul anew, he has begotten him to holiness. Hence, if any pretended son is unholy in his walk, it shows him a " bastard, and not a son." But take the following fi-om the N^otes on Genesis, p. 200: " Regeneration is not a change of the old nature, but the intro- duction of a new Nor does the introduction of this new
nature alter in the sHghtest degree the true, essential character of the old. Thia latter continues what it was, and is made in no respect better ; yea, rather, there is a fuU display of its evil char- acter in opposition of the new element," etc. It is not hard to see how terribly all this may be carried out to a God-defying, carnal security, as others have virtually done. The notion of progressive sanctification is false, and the work not to be ex- pected. The evil nature ip me is not at all weakened by grace, but rather inflamed. If I have faith, I have the "standing ;" and I am not to doubt my faith because of a supposed deficiency of fruits ; because to conclude it a tnie faith by any fi*ames in
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myself, or works of self, is sheer legalism. What more does any Antinomian negro desire to encourage him in his foulest hypoc- risy and most fanatical joys?
But see Waymarks, Vol. I., p. 70 : " The impression seems to be that, after his justification, the behever must undergo a process of sanctification, and that for this reason he is left for a time amidst the trials and conflicts of a hostile world." This im- pression is then argued against. Again, Yol. III., p. 75 : "It is remarkable that those who teach that sanctification is a great work to be accompUshed subsequent to justification — a second conversion — a perfection to be attained in the flesh — when they attempt to sustain themselv-es by Scripture, almost invariably lay hold upon some unhappy rendering or ambiguous expression in the Enghsh version of the Scriptures." On p. 332, the "UTiter complains against those behevers who " speak of regeneration a-s a change wi'ought in the old nature — a mighty change indeed, which can be effected only by the influence of the Spirit of God. Perhaj)s it would be more correct to say, that they regard regen- eration as the commencement of a change, the progress of which they style sanctification, by which the old nature is gradually transformed into a holy nature." Pp. 342, 3-13 : "We conclude at present with a comprehensive statement of the truth regarding regeneration itself, with which some of our readers are already familiar It is a new birth, the imparting of a new life, the im- plantation of a new nature, the formation of a new man. The old nature remains in all its distinctness, and the new nature is introduced in all its distinctness. This new nature has its own desires, its own habits, its own tendencies, its own affections. All these are spiritual, heavenly, di^dne. Its aspirations are all upward. It is ever breathing after the heavenly source fi'om Avhich it emanated. Kegeneration is to the soul what the birth of Isaac was to the household of Abraham. Ishmael remained the same Ishmael; but Isaac was introduced," etc. Let the reader note the last sentences. On p. 80 we find these danger- ous words: "Be warned that the old nature is unchanged. The hope of transforming that into holiness is vain as the dream of a philosopher's stone, which was to change the dross of earth into gold .... On the other hand, never be discouraged by any new proof that that which is born of the flesh is flesh. It is there ; but it is condemned and crucified with its affections and lusts.
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Beckon it so, and tliat therefore you are no longer to serve it. It is just as true that that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and remains iincontaminated by that with which it maintains a cease- less conflict." Similar assertions are made in ^YaytnarlxS, Vol. v., pp. 29, 37, etc., and 302. In the last of these we find these remarkable words : " Thus two men there are in the Christian : so hath he evil ; and so he hath not evil. If therefore he purge out the evil, it is his new man purging out his old man. Now these two men, within the control of the personality of the Chris- tian, are real men, having each his own will, his own energy, and his own enjoyment. No one can read the seventh chapter of Romans and not see that this is true," etc. One is strongly re- minded here of that which M. Bungener relates of Louis XIV., that this licentious and despotic king was wont to console him- self for Uving a life of open adultery and cruelty, while devoutly practising all the popish rites, by singing, mth great unction, a Bomish hymn beginning, '■^J'aideux Jiommes en riioi,'' etc. And one might ask, at least plausibly, if the Christian contains two men, and the evil one lives in full force until death, is he very sure that he will come off safely when God joroceeds to destroy the old man ? A story is told of an emperor of Germany who bitterly rebuked a gi'eat episcopal feudatory for his violences, so inconsistent ■^^ith his sacred character. The lord bishop an- swered, that he represented two men in one, being both clergy- man and baron, and that the military acts complained of were done in his secular character as a feudal baron. " Well, then," replied the emperor, "bethink thee how the clergyman -will fare when the devil is roasting the baron f(jr his rapine and murder." The aj)phcation is fair.
But, more seriously, we remark : 1st. That these professed literalists should at least have been brought to a stand by the fact that their favorite language concerning the nature of re- generation is nowhere found in the New Testament. This is especially just against them, because they boast so much in their consistent literalism, and taunt us -sWtli abusing the words of Scripture. Well, we challenge them to produce a text from the New Testament where it is said that regeneration is the im- plantation of a "new nature" beside the old ; or that the renewed man has two hostile ^^ natures" or any such language. Does Paul say, Bomans vii. 23: "But I see another laiirin. my mem-
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bers, warring against tlie law of my mind "? And in Gal. v. 17 : " For the fiesh lustetli against the Spirit, and the Sjnrit against the Jle^h " ? Very true. He teaches thait the renewed man (one man and one nature still) is imperfect, having two principles of volition mixed in the motives even of the same acts ; but he does not teach that he has become "two men," or has " two natures" in him. Paul's idea is, that man's one nature, originally wholly sinful, is by regeneration made imperfectly holy, but progres- sively so. And what is that Spirit which, in Gal. v. 17, lusteth against the flesh? Suppose we say it is the Holy Ghost. So interprets Calvin ; and so reads Paul's context, verses 16 and 18. Where now is the argument ? And it is a mischievous perver- sion to represent the apostle as holding forth the fruits of the Spirit and the works of the flesh (verses 19 to 23) as permanently combined during life in one Christian, when it is the very pur- pose of the apostle to point to these contrasted works and fruits- as tests to distinguish Christians from reprobates. See verse 24 for indisputable proof of this scope. And let us bring to the test of Scripture the doctrine Avhich the Plymouth theolo- gians intend by the proposition, " The old nature is unchanged " in regeneration and sanctification. For our part, we have to confess, in the simplicity of our minds, that if this is not what is changed, w^e know not what it can be. We, in all our reading of the Bible, thought that this was precisely what God intended to teach us; that the very object of these graces was to renew the old carnal nature. When we read, Col. i. 21, 22, "You, thafc were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled ... to present you holy," etc., it seems very plain to us that the nature that was alienated, etc., was the old nature. But this is what is made holy. So in Eph. iv. 23, in the midst of the very passage they pervert, " And be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind." See also Eph. ii. 1 or 5. What is it that is quickened ? That which was dead in sins. So in verses 10 and 11 : " TTd" (like the Gentiles in the flesh) " are created in Christ Jesus unto good works," etc. 1 Cor. vi. 11 : " Such were some of you ; but ye are washed, but ye are sancti- fied," etc. But why multiply texts so familiar? Will they re- turn to the charge with the plea that these texts say, indeed, the sinful man is renewed; but that they do not say the old nature is vrenewed ? Very true ; for the Bible language is always more
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accurate. But note : the Bible is still farther from saving that the renewed man has two " natures^ For then he would be two men, unless every conversion is a miracle of hypostatic union, like Christ's incarnation. But the Bible clearly teaches that the carnal man is renewed as to his inoixd nature, if the word may be used in the unbiblical sense of the Plymouth ■s\iiters. But of this more anon.
2. This theory flies flatly in the face of the Scriptures, both •when it denies the idea of progressive sanctification, and when it rebukes the beUever for finding comfort of hope in the e^ddences of such progress. On both points the Bible speaks exactly the opposite. We will not swell our pages by "UTiting out all these passages, but beg the reader to examine such familiar passages as Heb. vi. 1; Eph. iv. 11, 12, 13, 15, 16; 2 Peter i. 5-10; 1 Peter ii. 2 ; 2 Peter iii. 18 ; 2 Thess. i. 3 ; Phil. iii. 11 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18; vii. 1; 1 Thess. v. 23; Acts xx. 32, ("The word of his grace . . . able to htnld you up"); Eph. i. 13, 14; 2 Cor. i. 22; \. 5. Shall it be said that all these are misunderstood by us ordinary Christians, and that the seeming support of progressive sanctification is due only to a various reading or a mistrans- lation? Here may be added all those images of Scripture by which the saint is compared to living and growing things — as a vine, a fruit tree, a plant of corn, a living body, an infant. Is not the rhetoric of the Scripture just ? Then we must suppose that these images are selected as instructive, partly because of this very trait that growth is their attribute.
3. The best symbols of the Keformed churches expressly con- radict this Plymouth theology. Westrninster Confession, Chap. XIII. : " They who are efiectuaUy called are regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, are fartlier sanc- tified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ's res- urrection, by his word and Spirit dwelling in them ; the domin- ion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified, and they m.ore and vnore quickened and strengthened, in all saving graces," etc. Chap. Xyill. : Assurance is " founded upon . . . the invjard evi- dence of those graces unto which these promises are made," etc., etc. And this assurance, section 4, may be " shaken, diminished, B.nd intermitted, . . . hj falling into some special sin," eic
Thirty-nine Articles (Anglican Church), XII.: "Good works
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are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and livelj faitli ; insomuch that b j them a true and lively" (living) "faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by the fruit."
4. This feature of the Plymouth theology is founded on a false psychology, equally at v/ar v.'ith the Scriptures and common sense, and as dangerous as it is erroneous. It discards the idea of progressive sanctification, teaching that the "new nature," being the work of a perfect God, is as perfect from conversion as its author, only its action outv/ards is obscured by the counter action of the incurable old nature, somewhat as a lamp burning perfectly well might seem dim, because enclosed in a lantern of foul or besmeared glass. Now, on this we remark, that a new- born infant is the handiwork of a perfect Creator^ but for all that, its body is not that of a perfect man, but is constructed to gi'ow to perfection. Again, it is contrary to common sense to say that human holiness does not really grow ; because all quali- ties of man, the mutable creature, must grow. Depravity grows (2 Tim. iii. 13) in sinners. So we must expect holiness to grow in saints. (Prov. iv. 18.) The laws of human npture, as oi'dained by the same God who sanctifies us, explain and necessitate the fact. Habits grow by exercise. Faculties strengthen by use. Affections become more dominant by their ov.^n action. Even the pagan Horace understood this : " Crescentem sequHur cur a jjectmiam, majornmque failles^ Hence, if sanctification is not usually progressive, the man in a state of grace must have ceased to be a reasonable creature, with affections, understanding and will developing according to the law of habit in his rational nature.
But worse than this, the theory we combat is a vicious dual- ism, as full of danger as the gnosticism of the second century, from which indeed it Tiight very well have been bon-owed. We have read this " Witness ' theology, saying expressly, that "these two men ■within the control of the personahty of the Christian, are real men, having each liis orvn will, his ov;n energy, and hi^ oivn e7ijoyme7it." Did not this writer indulge too much contempt for the philosophy accepted among sound divines, to know the real drift of the language he was using, he wovdd at least be aware that they must understand him as giving to this old or fleshly " man '' in the Christian f uU personahty. He makes him a separate, individual agent. For how is distinct personality
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defined, if not by separate will and energy- ? But tins is too gross ; it contradicts the consciousness of every Christian, even the most unlearned ; for just so surely as he has one conscious- ness, he knows that he is one indivisible personality, and that he is one agent and has only one w'dly swayed indeed by mixed and diverse motives But even in its mildest form this doctrine is realistic, and gives actual entity (not to say personaHty) to the carnal and the renewed natures, as distinguished from each and every person whom these natures may qualify. Now what is this but the exploded philosophy of the schoolmen ? Thus we have these most righteous and zealous denouncers of philosophy reinventing a merely human philosophy, and the falsest of all for the purpose of bending Scripture to their theories. What is a " nature" f Common sense answers, with sound philosophy, it is that aggi'egate of permanent characteristic attributes (that essentia) -^ith which the man was natus. Now, in strictest speech, man's nature is never changed, either by the fall or by redemption; for if it were he would no longer be a man — he would become another animal, -udth a different essentia from that which made him a man But there is a popular use (not found in the Bible use of the word <^'''jm::) of the word "nature,'' and more fi-equently of the phrase "moral nature," which is neither a strict nor a philosophical use. But let that pass. Men mean by it the moral hahitus or disposition which permanently qualifies the active powers of the soul for good or e\'il. Now this hahitus is not a personahty, it is not a separate entity, as abstracted from each person whom it qualifies ; it is but an abstraction. Except it be a quality of a person, it is a mere idea. How far AVTong, then, are they who assert that in an imperfect and mixed charac- ter the "two natures are two real men"?
Further. While the power which regenerates and sanctifies must ever be partly incomprehensible to us, the comprehension of the effect is so far easy, that the new birth reverses the moral hahitus of the believer's will, prevalently, but not at first abso- lutely, and that the work of progressive sanctification carries on this change, thus omnipotently begun, towards that absolute completeness which we must possess on entering heaven. In the carnal state, the Jiahltus of the sinner's will is absolutely and exclusively godless. In the regenerate state it is prevalently but not completely godly. In the glorified state it is absolutely and
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exclusively godly. This statement implies that the believer's motives, in the mihtant state, are complex ; and that while the subjective motives usually dominant are godly, yet there is a mixture of carnal motives, no longer dominant, but not annihil- ated, -which carnal motives enter as pai-t cause even into the renewed soul's holy volitions. And this complex of subjective motives, of which one part may be morally diverse from another, may result in a single act of volition — the volition strictly one, while the motives prompting it are mingled. Thus it is that an act may be (as Calvinism and the Bible teach) formally right in shape and jjrevalently right in intention, and yet not perfectly holy before God. And here is the explanation of that strife between the "law of the mind and the law in our members," of which every Christian is conscious, and to which the apostle points in the 7th of Eomans. Now in this prevalently sanctified, Init imperfect character, there is a sense in which we may say the carnality and the godhness are complementary the one to the other. As sanctification eliminates the former, the latter extends. Or to speak more accurately, the extension of the principles of godliness is the corresponding exclusion of the principles of car- nahty, just as spreading light is the gradual removal of darkness, its opposite — a safe Bible similitude. (Acts xx^-i. IS.)
Hence the reader may see how false and dangerous, both practically and scriptm-ally, is the view given by this " Witness " theology of indwelling sin, and of the influence it ought to have on the Christian's hope and comfort. To us it seems clear that this new doctrine virtually represents matters thus : Neither re- generation nor sanctification changes or weakens the carnal " na- ture " at all. It cannot be modified or improved. The behever must make his account to have it act in him to the end with un- diminished force, or even to have it enhanced in activity by collision with the " new nature," Hence the presence, and even flagi-ancy, of indwelling sin, need suggest no doubts whatever whether his faith is a living one. TVTio can fail to see that there is terrible danger here of carnal secui'ity in sin? The darker danger, only less probable than this other, is, that the professed behever shall be taught to deny his responsibility wholly for the sins committed by this " old man," who is "« real 7)ian" vAih. a "separate •udll and energy" from the "new man." "We know nothing in the antinomianism of the " Fifth Monarchy Men "
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more alarming than this. The doctrine is positively false. The " old man " cannot continue unmodified in the presence of the "new man," because the one principle is the opposite and is ex- clusive of the other. To die unto sin is to live unto righteous- ness. The increment of light is the diminution of darkness. The ■waxing of the " new man " is the waning of the " old man " Hence (and this is the Bible ^•iew) if any professed believer has the " old man '' as strong and lively as ever, it is proof positive that the " new man " has never entered at all ; his faith is vain ; he is yet in his sins. (James ii. 22, etc.) And if any professed believer finds the old carnal principle revi\ang, it is proof positive that his spiritual life is propoi-tionally going backward at that time; just to the extent the recession goes has he scriptural ground to fear that his faith is, and always was, dead.
We find in the Way?narl-s this sophistical plea against the necessity of progressive sanctification, that some Christians, dying very soon after conversion, must, according to oiir o^ti showing, have gone to heaven without this gradual process of preparation. The fact we of course grant. God, by his distinguishing favor, perfects in an hour in their souls that pui'ification which in others he can-ies gi*adiially towards completion by the experiences, trials, and efforts of years. It is cei*tainly as true of those who die young as of any, " Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." But there is another reason why, for those who do not die im- mediately after conversion, progressive sanctification is still im- perative. The principle of holiness, if genuine, is incapable of tolerating indwelling sin in peace. The struggle is inevitable in a true Christian, and as "he that is Tvith us is more than he that is against us," gi-adual conquests, at least over indwelling sin, are the general imle of every genuine Christian life. Among the texts which seem to favor this dualistic view, none is claimed ydth. more confidence than Eph. iv. 22-24, which speaks of "putting off the old man, and "putting on the new man." "We note this as a specimen of the manner in which Scriptui-e is over- strained, and an example of the way in which it may be cleared of these extravagances. One can hardly deny that, in this weU- known passage, it is the most natural interpretation to regard the putting off of the old as in order to the putting on of the new ; then the two are not coexistent, but successive. But more de- cisively ; WTio is the old man, and who is the new ? The ob-
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vious parallel in 1 Cor. xv. 22, 45-49, shows that the " old man " is Adam, and the " new man " is Christ. The statement which we have to expound, then, is substantially this . that be- hevers have " put oft'" Adam in order to "put ou" Christ. That is, they have severed their connection with the first federal head, in order to enter into a connection mth the second federal head. True, the moral, rather than the forensic, efiects of the two cov- enants are here in view of the apostle's mind. We forsake Adam's " conversation, corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," and adopt Christ's conversation, who was " created after God in righteousness and true hoHness," thus sharing the same new crea- tion. But, says the apostle (1 Cor. xv. 46), " Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and after- ward that vjhicJi is spiritual.''^ How very far is all this from teaching us that depravity remains after the new birth a " real tnan," unchanged, coexistent with a new, holy nature superadded thereto, which is also a '' real man"!
"We may group under this head several errors and conceits touching the believer's practical life which require exposure. In the Notes on Genesis, p. 17, etc., a doctrine is taught against the authority of the Christian Sabbath which seems to be virtually the same ydih. that which has plagued and blighted the Lutheran and some of the Reformed communions of Europe. The anony- mous writer there asserts, on gi'ounds largely allegorical and fanciful, that the Sabbath is for ever abohshed by the new dis- pensation ; that the nature of this dispensation is such it is im- possible that a Sabbath could longer be binding on believers; that therefore the Lord's-day, the first day of the week, shoidd never be termed the Chiistian Sabbath, and that it should be observed as a Lord's-day, not rrom any preceptive obligation of the moral law, but on grounds of appropriateness and thankful- ness only, as the commemoration of the joyful resurrection. The suitable mode of observance of the Lord's-day, of course, is not sabbatical and not strict. Christians are only bound to cele- brate worship, and make it a day of praise and religious joy- We direct attention to this error, not for the purpose of opening up this extensive discussion, but of remarking the tendencies of this revived heresy. We see not how any Presbji;erian can coLintenance it, in the face of the twenty-first chapter, sections 7, 8, of his Confession, the first chapter of his Directory, and the
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one liiindred and sixteenth question of his Larger Catechism. In these places we are expressly taught that the sabbatical obliga- tion of the Decalogue is perpetual under all dispensations ; that the Lord's-day has become, by divine appointment, " the Chris- tian Sabbath," and that it is to be sanctified as such.
Another conceit of this system is, to teach us that believers ought not to pray for the Holy Ghost, because, if they are be- lievers, he dwells in them ah'eady ; and that they ought not to pray for the pardon of sins, because, if they are behevers, their sins are already pardoned. Thus, Waymarks^ Vol. YI., pp. 78, 79 : *' Prayers for a pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit may in- deed only be a mistaken and unhappy form of words into which men may have fallen from imitation, while they mean nothing so unscriptural as their words imply ; and the same may be said of other forms of expression which are painfully current. But making all allowance for this, it is not conceivable that a man should plead with God that he would send the Spirit, or entreat the Spirit to come, or that he should complain of the withdrawal of the Spirit, if he were consciously worshipping God in the SjDirit, if he were behevingly praying in the Spirit, and if in all service and testimony he were actually waiting upon the Spirit of God for guidance and powe^'." See also Tract, The AViding. Comfortei , J. Inglis & Co.
The firs^ suggestion which comes into the mind in reply to these astonishing sentences is, What will the writer do with those texts in which the Bible represents believers as praying for the Spirit and for forgiveness ? Psalm li. 11, 12 : *' Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Eoly Spirit from me ; restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit." In Eph. i. 17, Paid prays God to give the believing Ephesians " the Spirit of wisdom and revelation." 2 ■Cor. xiii. 11: "The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you aU." Psalm xxv. 11: "For thy name's sake pardon mine ini- quity, for it is great." Matt. vi. 12 : "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive pur debtors." But as to the sophism by which these ant/' -scriptural rules are supported we would ask: Did the TT7^- ness theologians never hear of that pv.nciple enunciated by the Saviour : " He that hath, to him shall be given, that he may have more abundantly ' ? And can they not understand that tlie new-bom soul is so actuated by grace as to I'espond In its breath-
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ings to this principle ? Surely they have forgotten that faith not only begins, but continues the new life, and that the practical union of the believer with his Head is maintained by continually reenacting those applications to Christ in which the life began. It is Christ himself -uho tells us to " do our first works." Nor do we find in the Scriptures that the assurance that God designed to bestow a gift repressed the spirit of praj-er — it rather stimu- lated it. Thus Daniel tells us (ix. 2, 3) that when he understood from Jeremiah's books that seventy yeai's were appointed to ac- compKsh the desolations of Jerusalem, " he set his face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications " the very resto- ration predicted. The petitions of God's people are not an attempt to get wha is contrary to his purpose ; they are the responses of faith leaping foi-th to meet that purpose in its gracious bestowals upon them.
In conclusion of this head, the reader may see a curious evi- dence of the extreme to which these teachers are willing to follow theu' crotchets in the Wayrroarks, Vol. Y., p. 37, etc. Such is their zeal to dissociate faith from its scriptural fruits, they there gravely argue that Simon Magus was a regenerate and saved man, because it is said he "believed" and "Avas baptized." What if he immediately betrayed the mercenary nature of his principles by endeavoring to make merchandise of the Holy Ghost ? What if the apostle Peter devoted him and his money to "perish " together? What if he declared Simon yet "in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity"? All this over- whelming evidence must be explained away, and Simon must be held a redeemed man, rather than accept the obvious explana- tions of the statement, " Simon also believed," which have satis- fied all sober students of the Bible, either that a temj^orary faith is imputed to him, or that the historian only intends to be understood as stating what he professed. What is the motive of such an exegetical freak ? We can imagine none but this : a desire to sustain their exaggerated and one-sided doctrine of assurance by a Bible instance of a true sa^dng faith without any fruits. But chis is the very thing which the apostle James condemns.
III. The theory of prayer advocated by the Rev. George Mai- ler, of Bristol, England, connects itself with the theories of the Plymouth Brethren by at least a few points. This German min-
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ister was, if Ave mistake not, once in full sympathy with them, and continues to hold most of their j^ecnliarities. In the Way- 'inarTcs, Vol, I., j)- 3; 35, etc., we find an unqualified commenda- tion of his work, and the theory upon which it is built ; and the only objection made against the American editions of his Life of Trust, which is hinted, is, that they suppress the ardent attachment to the Pre-adventist doctrine, which it is said was the chief stimulus of Muller's zeal in his orphan-work. And in. the Word to Yonng Believers, p. 67, the same overweening theory of trust seems to be expressly inculcated. The author is commenting on a special revelation which God made to Samuel, in the course of his peculiar prophetic privilege, by which he was made to recognize Saul as the intended king. And as though all Christians might aspire to be literal prophets, he concludes : "Beloved, if we walked in communion AAath God, waiting on him for guidance, we should always know when to act, and never would we make mistakes." But it should be said, in justice, that these waiters in other places dissent from a part of the objec- tionable theory of our warrant for trust; and especially would we mention in the Wayjnarks, etc.. Vol. I., p. 42, a paper en- titled "The Prayer which God is Pledged to Answer," which contains many things very praiseworthy.
There have long been Christians who, on the apparent abso- luteness of such promises as Matt. vii. 7 ; Mark xi. 24, found the folloANdng theory of prayer : That the only reason any prayer of a believer, actuated in the main by pious motives, is not spe- cifically and infallibly answered, is, that it is not offered in faith and that wherever such a one fully helieves that he mil receive what he asks, he shall literally receive it without fail. Such prayer it was the fashion to dignify with the title of " Prayer of Faith." Muller's Life of Trust discloses a theory which involves the seminal error of this. He tells us in his sui'prising narra- tive, that he resolved to form an orphan-house, among other enterprises of piety, which he subsequently enlarged, until it contains two thousand orphans, and has expended largely over a million of dollars. According to his express determination, it has never had a penny of endowment; nor has any human means been employed, according to him, for collecting donations to it. He has not even permitted the wants of the institution to be made known outside of its doors, when thev were mo:'-
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urgent. The sole means has been prayer ; lie has simply asked God in secret for the money which his projects required. He tells us that the result has been, that while the enterprise was often in sore straits, and reduced to its last shiUing, especially in its earher years, it never actually suffered for money. And the motive which he professes was, that the success of this great charity might be to all men an ocular evidence that " God is a living God," who does truly watch over his people and sustain them. He has also refused to employ any human means for providing a salary for himself as minister, and to lay by any pro- vision whatever for his own wants or his family's ; yet God has always sent him enough for subsistence. Many Christian read- ers evidently regard the remarkable success of Midler's enter- prises as demonstration of his theory of trust. They argue : He has used absolutely no agency, invoked no causation whatever to influence any creature or second cause ; whence it must follow that the whole work is God's direct answer to his prayers.
Now, in dissenting from this theory of trust, we wish to make cordially all the admissions which are his due. If the state- ments made of this wonderful charity are correct, (and we know of no testimony to refute them,) then no one can refuse his ad- miration to the founder's philanthropy, disinterestedness, and 'executive talent. Nor would we intimate that he is in his reh- gious character a mere fanatic. We have no doubt that he is a man of great Christian excellence, sincerity, faith, and devotion. We can go farther and say, that it would be a happy thing for the church, and for individual believers, if they had more of the simple trust in God's faithfulness which seems to inspire him. If, hke him, they were readier to "devise liberal things" from truly godly motives, they would more often find that " by liberal things they should stand." God would no doubt often honor such zeal and confidence, for his own glory, and in love to his children. Nor do we for a moment suppose that this entei-prise of Miiller has reached its present state without the permission, favor and superintendence of a particular providence.
But when it is argued that the result shows God's approval of the founder's theology in every particular, because no second cause has been employed by him, nothing but secret prayer to God for what the project required, we beg leave to demur. Mtiller did not employ the usual machinery of collecting agents,
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charity sermons, and newspaper appeals ; but he has employed a set of means most adroitly adapted to the temper of British Christians, and, whether with intentional cunning or not, better calculated to influence the natural jyrincijyles of such a people than all the machinery above mentioned. He tells us that he did not make knoA^-n to the pubhc his wants, and was so scrupu- lous that, even when without a shilling, he dechned to answer quesiiions as to the wants of the orphan cause. But he usually published an annual rejwrt, which was circulated over England, and even on the Continent, mentioning every donation in such a w^ay as to satisfy the interest of the anonymous donor at least ; detailing wdth great particularity what had been done, and his purposes for the future ; as well as pubhshing very carefully the remarkable and exciting features of his plan. Let the reader realize how he would be interested by the sight of such an insti- tution, and of a great company of tidy orphans thus provided for ; by the appearance of the strange, saintly founder, and the display of rare, of almost miraculous faith; and by the eager encomhiiiis of the admiring widows, who, as nurses and teachers, had profited by Mr. Miiller's success. "We may be sure, that if the reverend man refrains from uttering his own praises, these do not fail to trumpet them to the multitudes of good sight-seers, whom curiosity or philanthropy draws to the Asylum. When the appearance of self-abnegation and the romance of all this are considered, it is very plain that it has more worldly Avisdom, as a means for dramng money, in Muller's unique case, than all the drummers who could be hired. It must be remembered that Mr. Muller has this field to himself as yet. Let us suppose that it had become the ordinary plan of all the rehgious agencies in Great Britain, does any sensible person suppose that it would succeed thus with all? Oliviously, with the loss of its singu- larity, the larger part of the romance would be lost, and with it the most of its efficiency.
It is doubtless true also (to Mr. Miiller's credit), that his suc- cess may be, to a certain extent, accounted for by his own execu- tive talent and purity of character. He is evidently, "v\ith all his enthusiasm, a very shrewd and practical person, a capital econ- omist of time and money, a sharp judge of human nature, an indomitable worker, and endowed highly with the talent of com- mand. His enthusiasm is itself a power. And many a ten-pound
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note has been drawn fi-om the thrifty British Dissenters by the snng, commercial consideration, that Mr. Miiller was the man to make it go the farthest in the subsistence of an orphan. His success is, therefore, not wholly unaccountable on natural prin- ciples, however dependent on Providence.
We now proceed to analyze the overweening theory of the warrant for prayer above described, without imputing to Mr. Miiller, or to the Plymouth Brethren, all its errors. We do so because we shall thus see best how their peculiar error is con- nected -^dth the truth. We hold, then, that there is of course an implied limitation in the seemingly general promise of answer to prayer. This limitation is stated with perfect accuracy in 1 John V. 14 : " If we ask anjiihing according to his will, he heareth us." To the question, How we may determine w'hich are the things according to his -wall? we reply: It is knoiayi, if at all, hy the ScripUtres alone. We distinctly repudiate the theory that these things may also be certainly determined by our own frames in praying, or by any anticipative speculations on providences. (Events actually effected are of course revela- tions of God's providential will, so far as they themselves or their uniform and necessary effects go.) Now the Scriptures divide the objects for which a good man may pray into two great classes : temporal good things, ordinarily desirable, but not uni- versally declared to be for man's ultimate, highest good ; and the spiritual good things pertaining to redemption. To the former class belong such objects as health of body, restoration out of sickness, competent subsistence, fruitfTil seasons, prosperity, peace, etc. To the later class belong the pardon of sin, adop- tion, sanctification, strength for duty obHgatory on us, and such like. Now, of the latter class the Scriptures speak expressly, that it is according to God's will always to bestow them on be- lieving petitioners. Let the reader see, for instance, such decla- rations as John ^A. 37 ; 1 Thess. iv. 3 ; Luke xi. 13 ; Psalm Ixxxiv. 11 ; James i. 5. There may be what we suppose delay ; or the channels of the blessings may be unexpected; but with these exceptions, we believe that the soul which seeks this class of gifts in Christ is warranted to expect his answer ^vith all the lit- eral certainty claimed by the strongest advocate of the " prayer of faith." But as to the other class, we have no such guar- antee. God has not expressly informed us that it is " according
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to his will " to give them in each specific case ; nor does he in- tend that we shall, by any other sign, always know it. For while these secular objects are innocent in themselves, and naturally desirable, and therefore j^roperly asked and sought, God has not informed us when they may become, on the whole, practical e^dls to the soul. He reserves to his superior wisdom the power of refusing them in such ca,ses, even to the truest saint. Does the opponent reply: "Then there is a class of objects for which we are to pray in uncertainty? How can this consist v,'ith. faith, which is the soul of true prayer?" We reply: Exactly sO. In our view, the Scriptures are full of just such prayers. It is only to these extremists that there appears any solecism in praying in an uncertainty of a specific answer. For the sober believer knows that in any event he has this specific promise, that, whether the petition be granted or withheld, all shall " work together for his good." And this is enough for a submissive faith.
To proceed now to direct refutation, our first objection to the theory before us is, that it calls its unwarranted petitions "prayers of faith ;" but unless there is a warrant there is no basis for faith. Have we a warrant set doian in the Scri2?tures for demanding of God explicitly the raising up of a valued min- isterial comrade oft' a dying bed, as Luther is said to have done in the case of Melancthon ? — for expUcitly claiming of God that he shall make his people put their hands in their pockets and give us all the money for rescuing two thousand little negroes from the temporal and eternal ruin to which Yankee philan- thropy (?) has consigned them? — for curing us of the rheumatism or the fever? We trow not. But if we unwarrantably work ourselves into a persuasion that we have such a pledge, this is not faith ; it is 2)^'esnm2)tion ! It is in its nature not honorable to God, but dishonorable. It is not amiably and humbly pious, but wilful and arrogant. God is very forbearing ^vith his way- ward children. He may even answer such improper petitions, sometimes passing over their arrogance to bless their zeal and disinterestedness for the sake of his dear Son. But this is far from proving that he sanctions the theory.
2. The actual experience of the best believers in our day re- futes the theory, for they often and earnestly deprecate temporal e\dls, or seek innocent goods, which are not warded off or be- stowed according to their prayers. Shall all the Christian
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widows and parents who interceded in agony, yet in submission, beside tlie bedside of sick husbands and children be told that those prayers were graceless, because their loved ones died ? Away with the cruel arrogance !
3. We have a sure refutation in the actual experience of Bible saints whom we know to have prayed graciously. Of David (2 Samuel xii. 16-19), praying for the life of his infant, which did not live ; of Paul (2 Cor. xii. 8-10), praying for the removal of his thorn in the flesh, which was not removed ; and, above all, the venerable and hallowed instance of our Redeemer, who prayed, "being in an agony," "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me," and yet drank it to the dregs. Truly, it is " enough for the servant to be as his Lord."
4. The Bible doctrine of affliction refutes this theory. " God scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Surely he does not always do this by tearing away sinful objects claimed by the saints; it is not the characteristic of saints to demand sinful joys of their God. No ; he usually chastises by taking away legitimate joys. But unless the privation were felt by the victim it would not be chastisement. The rod which does not smart gives no correction to the child. But in the approach of this privation the Christian is an active free agent. The posses- sion being legitimate and dear, he will of course exercise his Christian privilege of interceding for it. Hence, were this theory true, God's hand holding the rod would be uniformly arrested ; the true believer could never meet chastisement.
5. We may know, a priori, that God would not commit him- self to any such theory of prayer, because the effect of it would be to deprive his children of the benefit of his own omniscience. Whenever a Christian came to him in a filial and trusting spirit, asking for a thing not positively illegitimate, God's hand would be tied. He would be compelled by his engagement to give it, though he saw it was on the whole injurious. For the reader must note, the possession of a filial, trusting spirit does not by any means make all good people infallible in judgment. Witness the vagaries of the good brethren under discussion ! Now, do prudent human parents make such rash promises to even ami- able children ? Still less will our heavenly Father.
But from this conclusive demonstration our brethren have an evasion. They refer us to such Scriptures as Romans viii. 26,
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27, teaching us that believing, pious, filial petitions are such as are suggested by the Holy Ghost. But this Holy Ghost has the same omniscience and covenant love with the Father and Son. So that the contingency supposed can never happen, namely, that of a desire, filial, believing, and pious, and yet mischievous. They argue, moreover, that the believer may know infallibly when he has an object before his heart w^hich the Holy Spirit prompts him to seek, by the character of his emotions. If, say they, the desire is very strong and abiding, returning after many postponements ; if the conscious motives are godly, when tried by a faithful search of the heart ; if the temper of the soul, while thus exercised, is amiable and filial towards God, it is supposed that by these signs the saint may know that ^he omniscient Spirit, whose ^dll is in absolute harmony with the Father's, has set him upon this petition, and so he is sure to get it.
Now, it is at this place that the theory of prayer prevalent with the Plymouth Brethren connects itself with the scheme under discussion. Just such are their speculations. "We shall not of course deny that accepted prayer is prompted by the in- fallible Spirit. Nor shall we deny that such experiences in praying as are above described give comfoi-table e^'idence of a gracious state. (This is just the theory of the grounds of assur- ance which we assert, and the Wit?iess theology impugns.) Nor that they even raise some probable grounds of hope as to the specific answer. But from these premises the desired result does not follow. First, because no Christian can certainly discrimi- nate in his consciousness, in advance of the event, those desires or affections which a nature general?''/ sanctified prompts of itself, and those which the Holy Spirit himself prompts. That this is so, every honest Christian must admit from his own experience. That it must be so, is certain from this law, that the Holy Spirit, as our Paraclete, does not act across, hwt icith, our normal facul- ties of right feeling and judgment. He does not supersede, but rectifies, enlightens, and employs the natural faculties of under- standing, vrill, and affection. Hence the most distinctly gracious action of soul must wear a perfect naturahiers to the saint's own consciousness, as to its normal rise and exercise, as his action. Only "by their fruits shall ye know them." For instance, this persistency of desire, which is advanced as proof that the Holy Ghost is suggesting the object, how is the good man to know in-
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fallibly that it is not the mere result of the natural trait, a deter- mined wiU which grace has not destroyed, but only curbed ? This conscious di sinter ededness of motive may not infallibly be fi-om the present, specific acting of the Spirit ; for carnal men have done disinterested things. This amiability of frame may be as much from human love as from divine. And tvhat degree of these indefinite measures of desire or feeling shall amount to proof ? But second, it does not follow from such gracious frames that God intends to give the specific gift, because in the Bible his Spirit has several times given the frames and withheld the gifts. Paul doubtless prayed for the removal of his " thorn " with just such frames; but it was not removed. We have a more sacred instance in the prayer of Gethsemane. Does one ask, how can God consistently communicate such frames to the petitioner when he does not intend to grant the petition ? We answer, it may very well be that he communicates them, to prepare his sai?its to profit hj the refusal. ( Vide 2 Cor. xii. 10.) And these are the grounds which sustain us in saying that, so far as the beHever can certainly know what petitions are "according to God's will," he learns it from the written Scriptures alone, and from no anticipative surmises about the " leadings of providence," or the frames of pious feeling observed in himself.
IV. But the Locus Pahnarius of the Plymouth thelogy is the pre- millennial advent of Christ. Pre-adventists, though claiming a literal scheme of interpretation for the unfulfilled prophecies, differ much among themselves. But the Plymouth theologians in America appear to agree in the doctrine of two resuiTections, separated by the millenjiium, the first of the elect dead, with the change of saints then living ; the second coming of Christ (as in Acts i. 2) at the former date ; the destruction at that date also of all unbelievers, save elect Israel, who mil be converted by the advent ; the personal reign of Christ in Jerusalem, with the risen saints in glorified bodies ; the resurrection of the non-elect and general judgment at the end of that reign ; and especially the belief that all the prophecies preliminary to Christ's return are now fulfilled, or nearly so, insomuch that every saint should ex- pect to see that advent in his day, rather than bodily death. This present expectation seems to be made by them the test of a vigorous faith and pious "love for the Lord's appearing."
We do not design, in the end of a discussion already too long,
Vol. I. —14.
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to go into a full refutation, or to establish an opposite sclieme of explanation for unfulfilled prophecy. Our remaining purpose is rather to leave a declaration and dissent in the form of a few statements.
In our vieAv, the Pre-adventist scheme of exposition is in reahty no more literal than ours, and it solves no difficulties in the understanding of unfulfilled prophecies, while it raises some insoluble ones. The effects claimed for it, as to edification and experimental faith, are wholly illusory ; and it involves some consequences inconsistent with Scripture, and injurious to God's cause. We claim that if the old scheme be completed by this proposition, viz., that this earth regenerated will be, after the final consummation, the everlasting home of the church and her Mes- siah (according to 2 Peter iii. 13 ; Rev. xxi. 1-3), then that plan wall have every advantage in reconciling the prophecies claimed for Pre-adventism, without its difficulties. But —
1. It reqmres us to do %iolence to many predictions of events yet to be fulfilled before Christ's return. And it cannot be neces- sary to the highest edification and " love of the Lord's appear- ing " for us, in our day, to expect the advent rather than our death, because Paul, Augustine, Calvin, could not have done so. Had they cherished that hope, time has now stubbornly proved that they would have erred. Was delusion, then, a desirable means of Christian edification?
2. It is unfavorable to a faithful performance of ecclesiastical duties, as wdtness the disorganizing tendencies of the Plymouth Brethren. If no \dsible church, however orthodox, is to be Christ's instrument for overthrowing Satan's kingdom here; if Christ is to sweep the best of them away as so much rubbish, along with all " world-powers," at his advent ; if it is our duty to expect and desire this catastrophe daily, who does not see that we shall feel very slight value for ecclesiastical ties and duties ? And should we differ unpleasantly from our church courts, we shall be tempted to feel that it is pious to spurn them. Are we not daily praying for an event which vnW. render them useless lumber ? See how the Waymarks almost argue this conclusion, and confess the lamentable influences upon the usefulness of such men as Malan and the Haldanes, (Vol. VIII., pp. 7, 8.) But has not Christ ordained a visible church with its officers and duties ? How else can it be constituted than bv denominations,
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misnamed "sects"? If all of ours are too bad to be retained, and reformed even, let the Plymouth Brethren organize a better one and stick to it, as Christ commands.
3. The Pre-advent scheme disparages the present, the dispen- sation of the Holy Ghost, and the means committed to the church for the conversion of sinners. It thus tends to discourage faith and missionary effort. See how, in the WaymarJcs, Vol. VI., pp. 252, 253, our hopes of further prosperity of the church are travestied, as though they were mere carnal expectations. Whereas Christ represents the presence of the Holy (Grhost, and this his dispensation, as so desirable, that it was expedient for him to go away, that the Paraclete might come. (John xvi. 7.) Pre-adventism represents it as so undesirable that every saint ought to pray for its immediate abrogation. IncreduHty as to the conversion of the world by the " means of grace " is hotly, and even scornfully, inferred from visible results and experiences, in a temjDer which we confess appears to us the same with that of unbelievers in 2 Peter iii. 4 : " "Where is the promise of his coming?" etc. They seem to us to "judge the Lord by feeble sense," instead of "trusting him for his grace." It is an essen- tial and cherished idea mth them that to the end the elect are to be a "little flock " among men. The only object they profess for missionary exertions is to gather out this elect seed from the mass, so as to clear the way for Christ's coming to destroy it. Such expectations are unfavorable to missionary spirit. No man can use the means of grace which he habitually disparages as means for the world's conversion as heartily as he should. In order to be as zealous where his best expectation is to be to his feUowmen "a savor of death unto death," the evangehst must be more or less than a man.
4. This scheme is unfavorable to the promise of Israel's in- gathering so clearly stated in prophecy. True, it teaches that Israel ^\'ill be saved after (immediately after), and by means of the advent, bvit most inconsistently. For first, Paul says, they are to come in "with the fulness of the Gentiles;" but Pre- adventism expects no such fulness. Second, he says they shall be regrafted into "their own olive tree," which is the visible church. But Pre-adventism holds that Christ's coming will abolish the visible church. Third, where shall unbelieving Is- rael be put during the terrors of the first resurrection and uni-
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versal fires whicli are to destroy all other unbelievers? Last, the scheme is unscriptural in expecting Jews, whom the truth of the word cannot impress, to be savingly impressed by outward catastrophes. " If they hear not Moses and the prophets, nei- ther vnll they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Christ's first advent could not convert Israel; why should his second ?
5. The Pre-advent theory tends to two errors, a sensuous or animal happiness in the millennial state, and a disparagement of the blessedness of Christian souls in their disembodied state. According to that scheme, the latter state is less desirable or blessed than the millennial; for Pre-adventists insist that we should hope and pray for an entrance into the millemiiHni far rather than into the disembodied state of the blessed dead. Again, they must admit that the millennial grade is lower than the heavenly state which follows the final judgment; for then the Bride enters into the marriage supper of the Lamb. The millennial state, then, is lower than the heavenly, and the disem- bodied state lower than the millennial. This last must then be quite low indeed. Thus is explained the tendency seen in many miUenarians, as Bickersteth, and the Wayjnarks, Vol. VIII., p. 152, etc., to depreciate the blessedness of the departed. Some tend to make it an unconscious, or at most, a semi-conscious state. Again, in the heavenly or higher state saints are " equal unto the angels, neither marrying nor giving in marriage." But the millennial is an inferior state to this. Therefore it may be surmised that, in it, the saints will marry! The reader should know that many British Pre-adventists, at least, boldly avow this and other sensuous features, to a degree worthy only of an ancient ChiUast.
6. Pre-adventists usually claim that their expectation of the Lord's coming is peculiarly promotive of spiritual-mindedness, strong faith, and close walking with God. A Christian who had not adopted their scheme is represented as exclaiming, when it was unfolded, "If I believed so, I must live near my Saviour indeed!" If he did, he exclaimed foolishly. For, first, did not God give one and the same system of sanctification to us and to primitive Christians? But these could not have cherished the expectation of seeing the "personal advent" before death; for stubborn facts have proved that it was not less than eighteen
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hundred years distant. Second, every Christian, even if he is a Pre-adventist, must know that it is far more probable his body will die before the "advent," than that he will live to see it. All admit that in a few years the body must die. Then the season of repentance will be done, the spiritual state of our souls de- cided forever, and our spirits reunited to a glorified Redeemer in a better world than this. Now, if there is faith, these certain- ties contain more wholesome stimulus for it than can possibly be presented in the surmises of any Pre-adventist theory. The only reason the latter is to any persons more exciting is the romance attaching to it ; the same reason which enabled the false prophet, Miller, to drive multitudes into wild alarm by the dream of approaching judgment, who were unmoved by the sober cer- tainty of approaching death. The hope of us common Chris- tians is to meet our glorified Lord very certainly and very soon (when our bodies die) in the other world. It passes our wits to see how a less certain hope of meeting him in this world (a worse one) can evince more "love for his appearing."
7. We close with the remark, that Pre-adventism is directly against our standards. So far as we can now remember, the word milleiinium does not occur in them ; and, on the question whether the whole race of man will be converted in the latter day, they observe a wise silence. But they distinctly teach one resurrection, and the only remaining advent of our Lord at the judgment-day. They utterly ignore the Pre-adventist's "per- sonal reign of Christ" on earth. See Shorter Catechism, Quest. 28 ; Confession, Chap. VIII., Sec. 4, (" shall return to judge men and angels at the end of the world.") Chap. XXXII., Sec. 2; Larger Catechism, Quest. 53, 56.
We would humbly submit, then, that the Presbyterian who desires to be a Pre-adventist, is bound in candor to move for a revision of our standards on these points.
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Key. and Dear Brother :
IN your issue of March 14tli, your correspondent, M. N., makes strictures upon my review of the Plymouth Theology, which are unjust to it and to the truth. It is only in the interests of the latter that I wish to coiTect some of them. His article is one among the increasing evidences that my review was timely, and that the unscriptural excesses of the writers I exposed needed correction and are doing mischief. The best corrective in my power, perhaps, would be to procure the insertion in your paper of the whole of this passage of my review. When read as a ■whole it would speak for itself.
First, M. N. is unjust in his citations, in this, among other things, that he attaches to some one, and perhaps least offen- sive, statement of the error I review, a strong expression of dis- approval from me; which virtually refers to a number of erroneous statements taken together. Had M. N. arrayed before your readers all the dangerous propositions which my review arrayed before him, as quoted from these writers (not to say all that passed under my eye), no sober Bible reader would have thought my warning too strong. Second, M. N. misrepresented me, as though I taught that no new-born soul ever has at first a faith so -vigorous as to entitle him to an assurance of hope ; that the strongest, as well as the weakest, must wait for it, and come gradually to it, through self-examination and experience. I only assert this of "a true, though weak faith." Will M. N. deny that there is " a true, though weak faith," which maybe and long remains without this assurance of hope ? Hardly ; if he does, let him read the Confession of Faith, Chap. XVIII. Sec. 3. Agaiyi, he misrepresents me, as teaching that self-consciousness, when guided by the word and Spirit, cannot testify to the presence
' This letter was in reply to certain strictures on the foregoing article, and was published in the South- Western Presbyterian, addressed to the editor.
THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BEETHEEN. 215
of faith in ns ; but only to tlie presence of other, kindred graces, which are signs of faith. In the- review, I teach the exact op- posite. Once more, M. N. says I have failed to make or use the distinction between "the assurance of faith," and "the assur- ance of hope." In another part of the review the distinction is expressly named by me, and my whole discussion is framed in accordance with it, as will appear in the sequel. Nor was it necessary to quote Calvin, to prove against me that the only object of faith is revealed gospel truth ; that it is not only a set of theoretic propositions, but a gracious Person, on which true faith relies, etc. All this I of course hold, and shall show that it all bears for me, and against Calvin, and against M. N. But to proceed to more important points, I assert :
1. That Calvin and Dr. Malan, and the Plymouth Brethren, hold a definition of the nature or essence of saving faith which is, in one respect, contrary to the Westminster Confession and to the Scriptvu^es, as well as to the great body of the confessions of the Presbyterian Churches, and of their divines since Calvin's day. I said, by way of apology for the earliest Keformers, and most notably, Luther and Calvin, that they were betrayed iuta this partial error by a praiseworthy zeal against the opposite and mischievous error of Kome, who seeks to hold believers always in doubt of their salvation. This explanation is true (to Calvin's credit). In his Commentary, on Eomans, as on viii. 16 ; and on 1 Cor. ii. 12 ; 2 Cor. xiii. 5, he places his peculiar definition over against the popish dogma, that the Christian can have only a, " conjectura moralis " of his safety ; and this he does elsewhere, with a pertinacity that becomes amusing. Dr. Wm. Cunning- ham of the Free Church gives the same account of the occasion of this error in his work, The Reformers and Theology of the He- formation, p. 119, etc. So does Dr. Hodge, Commentary, on 2 Corinthians, xiii. 5. So does the great Owen, Justification, p. 98, etc. Now I give this explanation of Calvin's partial error to save his credit. M. N. will not have it so ; then he will needs have his admired leader discredited, for as sure as truth is in history, Luther and Cahdn did fall into this error, which the Eeformed churches, led by the Westminster Confession, have since cor- rected.
But, not to be misunderstood again, let me define. The assur- ance of faith is a full practical certainty, that the gospel promise
216 THEOLOGY OP THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
in Christ is true and trustworthy. This the Reformed churches hold, as do I, to be necessary to the being or essence of a living faith ; and it is the work, through the word, of the quickening Spirit. The assurance of hojye is the full, practical certainty that I am myself a true believer, and so renewed, and an heir of heaven. This latter form of assurance is not necessary to the being or essence of a living faith ; but is a reflex consequence, which faith yields when strengthened to its higher grades. Our Confession (Chap. XIV. Sec. 2), in its formal definition of what necessarily belongs to the essence of a saving faith, expressly omits it ; and in Chap. XVIII. Sec. 3, it says expressly, that it " doth not so ielong to the essence of faith, hut that a true heliever may wait long" etc. The assurance here spoken of is termed in the title of the diaper, "The Assurance of Grace and Salvation," is defined as men's being "certainly assured that they are in a state of grace," and is called ^^luhich hope."" This is just as I have dis- tinguished the "assurance of hope."
Now, I assert that Calvin, while not employing, so far as I know, this pair of phrases, was incautious enough to fall into the erroneous statement, that no faith w^as a living faith which did not include essentially botli the assurance of faith and the assurance of hope. He is not satisfied that even the weak, new believer shall say, " I believe, wdth head and heart both, that Christ saves all v)ho truly come to hira, and I accordingly try to trust him alone for my salvation, and so far as I have any hope, rest it on him alone." He requires every one to say, in sub- stance, I believe fully that Christ has saved me. Amidst all Cal- vin's verbal variations, this is always his meaning; for he is consistent in his error. What else is the meaning of that defini- tion which M. N. himself quotes from the Institutes: "Our steady and certain knowledge of the divine benevolence toioard us." But I will show, beyond all dispute, that the theological "Homer nodded," not once, but all the time, on this point. See then Institutes, Book III., Chap. II., Sec. 16. " In short, no man is truly a believer, unless he be firmly persuaded that God is a propitious and benevolent father to him, .... and feel an un- doubted expectation of salvation." Conmnentary, on Kom. viii. 16 : "The opinion consequently stands, that no one can be called a son of God v>ho does not know himself to he such." On Bomans viii. 3-4 : " Because our faith is naught -unless we cer-
THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH 15KETHREN. 217
tahily persuade ourselves that Christ is ours, and tliat the Father is proj)itious to us in him." On 1 Cor. ii. 12 : " Let us know, therefore, that this is the nature of faith, that the conscience has from the Holy Spirit a certain testimony of the divine benevo- lence towards itself." On 2 Cor. xiii. 5: "Paul here testifies, that whoever douht whether they possess Christ, are reprobated Is M. N. satisfied ? Heidelberg Catechism (not written by Calvin,
but by two of his pupils): "What is faith?" (Qu. 21)
" A certain trust," "by which I acquiesce in God, certainly con- cluding that remission of sins, and- eternal righteousness and life, have been bestowed, not on others only, but on 'hie also,'' etc. Gen- evan Catechism (wTitten by Calvin himself) : It is " a certain and stable knowledge of God's paternal benevolence towards tisy
When I represented Calvin's view of faith, as substantially set forth in his Cornmentary on Romans, as amounting to this : " My faith is a divine and spiritual belief that God has pardoned and accepted me," M. N. said that if it were so (which he disputes), "Homer must have been nodding when it slipped in." Have I not showed that it is there, and everywhere in Calvin, and that it did not " slip in," but is his dehberate opinion ? M. N. has confessed that it is untenable. Why then should there be any more difi^erence between us, except that while I cherish a great, I do not feel an indiscriminate admiration for this Reformer ?
I will complete this part of my proof as to Luther also, who shared Calvin's error. The ^-1 ugsburg Confession, written by Mel- ancthon, but under Luther's eye, says. Art. IV., the Lutherans also teach that men are "justified gratuitously on account of Christ by faith, when they believe theviselves to be received into grace, and their sins to be pardoned on account of Christ."
This then, in substance, was the one error of these first Re- formers about faith, that they required an assurance of hope as essential to the being of a living faith ; whereas the Scriptures teach that it is not so, but is the happy reflex consequence of a more vigorous faith. And the former, in substance, is the view asserted by Dr. Malan and the Plymouth brethren and their admirers, as their boasted characteristic. True, these modern teachers are not usually wise enough to state it in the recognized theological formulary, most probably because they cherish so much disfavor for the current teachers of the great Calvinistic theology. But that it is their characteristic is plain to any
218 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHEEN.
one who will examine my review with candor, and will be yet clearer to one who will examine their books. They also de- duce from this, their pet dogma, certain corollaries, very nat- urally following, but far more mischievous ; and which Calviu, whose sagacity seldom failed him, would have been very sure to repudiate with earnestness. Some of these connected conse- quences I endeavored to expose in the subsequent parts of my review.
2. I shall now prove that this peculiar Calvinian view of faith was soon reviewed by the great body of the orthodox Reformed, was found self-contradictory, unscriptural and mischievous, and was dropped. And first, as to the history of opinion. In Cal- vin's own day, all the Reformed theologians did not go with him, but some saw and refused the erroneous element in his definition of faith. Among these I will now mention Musculus and Peter Martyr. But the first Reformers had to see the lineaments of truth amidst the heat and dust of the great battle for existence. "When we come to the seventeenth century, when time had elapsed for accurate comparison, we find the view which I hold was almost universally adopted by the Reformed. Andrew Rivet is the only really influential name I now remember, who still stickled for Calvin's peculiarity in this point. That I may not be suspected again of misrepresentation or confusion, I will borrow the state- ment of Witsius (De. (Ec. Fed.) one of the soundest and most re- vered of Calvinistic writers. (Bk. III., Ch. IV., Sec. 14.) Hav- ing defined that which is essential to faith, expressly omitting the assurance of hope, he adds, " After the believing soul has thus received Christ, and given himself up to him, he may and ought thence to conclude that Christ and all his saving benefits are his, and that he shall certainly be blessed by him, according to this infallible syllogism, or reasoning of faith: Christ offers himself as a full and complete Saviour to all who are weary, hungry, thirsty, to all who receive him, and are ready to give themselves to him. But I am weary, hungry, etc., therefore Christ has offered himself to me, is now become mine, and I his, nor shall anything ever separate me from his love. This is the eighth, and the reflex act of faith, arising from consciousness or reflection." He had attempted to enumerate seven elements in the "precedent and essential actings." See also Sec. 27.
Or if you choose, take the great Turretin, Locus, xv., Qu. 8,
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Sec. 4 : " First, there comes a two-fold act of faith, to be distin- guished ; the one direct, the other reflex. The direct is exercised about the object itself which is offered to it, but the reflex is occupied about the direct action. By the direct act a man be- lieves on the promises of the gospel ; but by the reflex, a man, viewing his own faith, knows that he believes," etc. Then hav- ing analyzed the direct act (with its precedents) into five elements, (Sec. 10), " The sixth is the refiex act arising out of the sense of faith, by which the soul which thus receives Christ, being turned back ^^pon itself, and seeing its direct act of persuasion of the gospel truth refuge, and embracing, in its own heart, con- cludes that it believes ; and because it brieves that Christ cer- tainly died for'^lt, and, with all its benefits belongs to it, and that through him it is certainly going to be blessed," etc. Then, (Sec. 12), "And this last act does not propedy enter into the essence of faith, and constitute, as it were, its form." Such, not in all the same words, but in substantial meaning, is the doctrine of Peter Martyr and Musculus, among the first Reformers, of the celebrated Englishman, William Anies, professor in Franeker ; of Zanchius, of Wittichius, professor in Leyden ; of the English divine, Perkins ; of the French Eeformed, Peter Molinaeus, father and son, Peter Jurieu, Louis Le Blanc, Sieur de Beaulieu, pro- fessor at Sedan ; the famous pastor and divine, Mestrezal, Joshua Placfieus, and Charnier ; of Bishop Davenant, and all the Anglican commissioners to the Synod of Dort ; of Robert Baronius, the Scottish professor in Aberdeen ; of Gill, the great Baptist theo- logian and expositor {Pnictlcal Divinity , Bk. I., Ch. VI., Sees. 6 and 7) ; of John Owen, qulcunqae indt, (see Treatise on Justifica- tion, Chap. I., p. 97) ; of Dr. Thomas Scott and Ne"«i;on, Wither- spoon, Chalmers, Dick, Dr. Wm. Cunningham ; of Edwards, Dr. Charles Hodge, Dr. A. A, Hodge. Must I cite chapter and verse of this great " cloud of -udtnesses " ? If necessary, it can be done, provided, Mr. Editor, your columns Y*ill hold them.
I may add as further evidence, that the great popish divine, Bossuet, in his Variations of Protestantism, charged this change of definition upon the Reformed, and endeavored to twit them with it, as one of the instances of instability in their teachings ; that the first Reformers made assurance of hope of the essence of faith, and that the later did not.
But the best evidence of the state of the doctrine is that of the
220 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
Confessions of the Keformecl Churches. As we have seen, the Augsburg Confession 8iU(\.ih.e Genevan and Heidelberg CatecJiisms embody Cahdn's error. But fi'om the Gallican Confession, the BeJgic Confession, the Declaration of Thorn (of the Keformed in Pohmd), the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church, and TJie Articles of Dort, Cahdn's pecuHar -sdew is carefully omitted or ehminated, and by the 'Westminister Confession it is expressly repudiated. So, the Larnhetli Articles modify all that is objec- tionable in the definition.
3. But none of the theologians or assembhes were infallible. Let us then try the truth by the Scriptiu'es. I shall show that Calvin's second chaptA of Book III., if a mighty sword, has a flaw in it. The intrusion of his ultra and unscriptural view has introduced confusion and contradiction into his discussion, just as it has into the teachings of the Plymouth Brethren and their admirers, and into the criticisms of M. N. First. The latter gives this as his and Calvin's view, that " it is God in Christ shoic- ing himself gracious, and maliing ns jyromises, that is the ohjtct of saving faith.'' Agreed. "Faith has a perpetual relation to the word." "Take away the word, then, and there will be no faith left." Agreed. And for that very reason the assumption "that I am a true believer^'' however properly taken up, cannot be the object proper of saving faith ; for it is not a pai-t of the word. How can any fair mind fail to see that the doctrine of Calvin changes the object of faith before the behcAing sinner's mind; from the promise of the word, to a subjective consciousness of his own ? Hence, it introduces confusion and inconsistency. M. N. is obviously involved in similar confusion. He urges that the assiu-ance of faith, which is essential to the being of the grace, has as its object this proposition. That God in Christ "is propi- tious to us." One question is the touchstone. Who are the "us " ? Whom do the Scriptui-es entitle to beheve assuredly " God is f)ro- pitious to -i/s"? Such believers as Simon Magus and the stony- groimd hearers? All who erroneously flatter themselves, but confidently, that they have faith ? Notoriously there are such people. It is impossible for M. N. to give any except a negative answer ; and then, if he is consistent, he cannot help defining the " us''' as we do, and as Cah-in in his fortunate inconsistency does : those who show their faith by their works.
Second. The Scriptures ascribe living faith to persons who do
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not come xvp to Calvin's definition : the Psalmist, Ixxiii. 13, " Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain" ; the believer of Isaiah 1. 10, " That feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that vxdketh in darJcness, and hath no light" ; the afflicted father of Mark ix. 24, who could only " cry ont -udth tears. Lord, I be- lieve, help thou mine unbelief." Can these cases be fairly brought within Cahdn's postidate, "Paul testifies that ivhoever doubt whether they possess Christ are reprobate " ? Hence this author,* when reminded of such Bible saints, has to resoii; (Sec. 18) to as sorrowful a piece of evasion and special pleading as any to be heard from a good man. His unscrijotui-al dogma has involved him in an inconsistency. Not only the Bible, but every man's pas- toral experience, presents cases which cannot be brought vnih.- in the demands of Cah-in's definition ; humble, distressed saints, harassed "with doubts, yea, at times wdth despair of their own ac- ceptance in Christ, which all their brethren see to be needless. Does M. N. tell such saints that they '^ are reprohate'''"^ "We know not who he is, but we feel sure that he is too good a man and jDastor to be guilty of such cruelty. This, then, is another insuperable objection, that it is cruel to a multitude of good, but weak or tempted believers whom God loves. But there is another objection on the other side; the extreme of this defini- tion is equally hazardous of fostering presumption in "stony ground hearers." M. N. and Dr. Bonar, and all their sympa- thizers, may be assured that the popular construction which such hearers put on the definition is just this : " If you can bring your- self really to fancy you are saved, you are saved" We see, and do know, that where such \-iews of faith are preached, they fill the church with crowds of persons who live, and it is to be feared die, with " a lie in their right hands." Now, very j^roba- bly,M. N. will profess astonishment again at the above arguments, and say " that of course he admits all that." Of coiu'se he does ; unless he were blind he could not help it. But this is my point, that having admitted it he cannot fairly reconcile it with CaMn's definition of faith. The explanation cannot be made satisfactory. Third. If the necessary nature of living faith is such that "whoever doubts whether he possesses Christ is reprobate," then it is entirely inconsistent for the Scriptures to propose, for the use of persons addressed as probably or possibly not repro- bates, other criteria^ and processes of self examination. For if
222 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN.
Calvin is right, the presence of the doubt, or at least its persistent presence, settles the case. The fact that there was a need for inquiry about it would settle it by itself. The fact that the doubt stuck long enough to make it necessary for the man to go about applying other criteria deliberately, would of itseK prove that he need not trouble himself to aj^ply them ; the case decided itself, that he had no faith. But the Scriptures are full of such criteria for the use of believers, and they command us expressly, " Ex- amine youi'selves," and that upon the very point, " whether ye be in the faith," whether ye have "knowledge to discern the Lord's body." Now some of the sympathizers with the Plymouth move- ment are hardy enough in theii* consistency to fly in the face of the Scripture, and to teach and intimate that all inquiry on that point by such criteria, other than the consciousness of faith itself, is carnal unbelief, pride, and seK-righteousness. But Cahdn was not so rash, and hence another happy inconsistency; as when he says (Sec. 11), "In the meantime the faithful are taught to examine themselves icith solicitude and hunulity, lest carnal secur- ity intrude itself instead of the assurance of faith." Excellent doctrine! But it contradicts his other doctrine, in which he teaches that a " solicitude " on the question whether one's sup- posed faith may not be carnal seciu'ity, is incompatible with true faith.
JFoiirth. M N. thinks the statements of my review about the nature and action of consciousness "the most astonishing thing in the article." To prepare the way for removing that astonish- ment, let us resume the line of remark in which that subject entered. I was criticizing the postulate of Dr. Bonar, that where- ever faith acts upon the gospel promise, the nature and genuine- ness of its acting is, in every case, infallibly and immediately revealed to the believer himself by an act of self-consiousness, which he described as not only necessary and immediate, but suprarational, or rather in'ational, and instinctive. I showed that he not only likened this self-consciousness to that which accompanies muscular motion and coiiDoreal sensation, but de- clared it to be "unconscious and involuntary," and was even absurd enough to say that it is " like the animal sense of departed pain and present ease." (Review, pp. 7, 15.) I objected to these statements as dangerous and incon-ect. Admitting that the reflex self-consciousness of one's own faith might, in case the faith were
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clear and strong in its acting, rationally and scripturally at once assure a believer tliat he was saved, ^vitliont waiting for other criteria (as in cases of faitli less clear and strong, but genuine), the self-consciousness of other graces, which are also discrimi- nating marks of spiritual life, may be blessed by means of the gift of spiritual discernment, to build up that weaker faith to an assurance of hope. I demurred from Dr. Bonar's extreme \'iew for several sound reasons. One of these is: (see Ee-siew), "Experience shows all our acts of soul are not accompanied at the time hy an intelligent and rememhered act of consciousness r This, we are to infer, made M. N. " gape and stare," for he says it would make " all the philosophers" do so — they being, we sup- pose, not well-mannered people. He says, "co-existing -^ith every act of mind there is always a self-consciousness." To this, he says, agree the teachings of McCosh, Sir "Wm. Hamilton, " and indeed of every philosopher since the days of Des Cartes." On this I have two or three remarks. May it not be that when the current of psychologists say an act of self-consciousness attends each of our mental modifications, they only mean to be under- stood of the general rule, and of mental modifications, which possess ordiuar}' deliberation and clearness ? Every man's com- mon sense would answer, -^dthout examining their pages, surely this must be what the psychologists mean, because the excep- tions are so manifest. Everybody knows, who reflects on what passes in his own mind, that there were mental modifications undoubtedly experienced by him, the consciousness of which, if he had any, was not distinct nor remembered. These exceptions occui', notably, when the mental state is mingled Tvith others to a degree of great complexity; or when the mental states succeed each other Mith great rajndity; or when the mind is in intense agitation. Has not everybody heard of soldiers in the heat of battle, un- consciously, as we say, putting two or three cartridges into their muskets, so that afterwards they were wholly surprised to find them there? The pianist, reading off a piece of new music rapidly, is not conscious, as we say popularly, of his visual per- ception of a certain note on the scale. Yet he must have had that perception, for what else guided the volition to put his finger on the corresponding key of the piano, which he did ? Does not M. K., in the "torrent, tempest, and as I may say whirlwind of his passion," use most expressive gestures and tones, without
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having a clistiuct and lememberecl consciousness of selecting them? Now then, if all the philosophers in the world contra- dicted my statement, I should believe it in spite of them all, and so would M. N.
But none of them contradict me, "While they assert the gen- eral power of consciousness, as stated by M. N., they also note the very exception which I claim. See Dr. Thomas Brown, Lec- ture 31 ; Hamilton's edition of Dugald Stuart on Attention, ■svith his notes; Hamilton's Lectvres on Metcqjliysics, Lecture 14. "I stated that attention is consciousness applied to an act of will or desire, under a particular law." .... " This law is ... . that the intension of our knowledge is in the inverse ratio of its exten- sion; in other words, that the fewer objects we consider at once, the clearer and more distinct will be our knowledge of them." Dr. Wayland maintains " that consciousness does not necessarily invariably accompany all mental action," and gives such in- stances as I cited above. So President Mahan. Haven admits the facts, and explains them {2fental Philos. p. 41) thus: "The men- tal activity exerted in such cases, if there be any, is so very slight as to escape attention, and we are unconscious of it, simply because there was little or nothing to be conscious of." But I especially commend to M. N. the following testimony from one whom he seems to believe in (Sir Wm. Hamilton, JVote on Ham- ilton's Iieid, Edin. Ed., p. 551) : " Stuart has not studied the Leibnitzian doctrine of (what has not been well denominated) ohscure perceptions or ideas ', that is, acts and affections of mind which, manifesting their existence by their effects, cn^e themselves out of consciousness or apperception. The fact of such latent mental modifications is noio estahlishedheyond all rational douht." This asserts more than is needed for my defence. I, not wishing to encumber my reasoning by raising either of the abstruse ques- tions which are in debate among philosophers as this, whether these mental modifications above mentioned by Hamilton are really not attended by an act of self-consciousness, or whether only the act is too obscure to be rememl^ered, intentionally Hmited myself to asserting that some of our acts of soul " are not accompanied by an intelligent and rememhered act of consciousness." This is all that was needed for my purpose ; and I am borne out in it by universal experience, and more than borne out by Hamilton and Leibnitz. M. N. also seems greatly surprised at my asserting
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that our self-consciousness of our rational states is, while a primi- tive, a rational act. Does not he himself adopt the language of McCosh, calling consciousness in general, without this limitation, " intuitive " ? Surely intuitions are rational. What are they but the jyr/wi«/'?/j??/c7^wi6';?fe of reason; the logical sources of all the rest ? And does M. N. know that it is a pet doctrine of his fav- orite Hamilton that consciousness is not a distinct faculty at all, but is identical with the cognitive powers themselves ? — a ques- tion with which I do not wish to encumber my theology at this time. If that is true, then it is inevitable that every conscious- ness of a rational mental state, such as faith, must be a rational • act.
Having now, I trust, consoled M. N.'s " astonishment," let me endeavor to explain and strengthen n?y objections to Dr. Bonar's position as detailed above. One objection is, that the mind may be greatly hurried, or vehemently agitated, or confused by com- plexity of thoughts and emotions, at the time it exercises an act of faith on Christ. And then it may well be that its conscious- ness of its act will be too indistinct and too quickly lost from memory to be the foundation for a safe state of assurance of hope. Isn't that clear? A second objection is : Consciousness reveals to me precisely my own subjective mental states, if it is clear in its revelations. Is not that correct ? But the question I have to settle, in order to entitle myself to the assurance of hope, is this, viz.: Whether this my subjective mental state is the faith which saves; for notoriously there is a temporary faith simulating the real. That act of self-consciousness does not de- cide this question ; it only presents the thing to he compared, namely, my subjective state. The standard of comparison is the Word. When I think I believe, I am but conscious of exercis- ing trjiat I think is faith. That is all which this immediate act of self-consciousness contains. Whether I think right, in think- ing that to be true faith of which I am conscious, is a question of comparison to he settled hy the Word, which describes the true exercise.
M. N. has virtually admitted this, saying : " My feeling to- wards God, and belief as to Jesus Christ, are known to me immediately by my consciousness. What the significance of
these are in the eyes of Godj I learn from the teachings
of his word, and can know in no other vxiy.'" This is excellent
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doctrine, oeing precisely that of my review. But add now tlie simple truth, that God is the being who accepts or rejects us ; and M. N. is brought precisely to my conclusion. There is a true and a spurious faith in the w'orld. My consciousness tells me that I have an exercise, which / tidnk is true faith. Whether' God thinks so too must be settled by comparing my conscious- ness with God's word. But this is what Dr. Bonar dislikes.
Let me add as a third reason against Dr. Bonar's position one which is borrowed from Chalmers' Institutes of Theolofjy, Yol. 2, Chap. VII., where it is so admirably expounded. The presence before the mind of the ohjeet of an affection is the essential con- dition for the prevalence of that affection in the mind. Hence, as soon as I begin to inspect my consciousness of my mental affection, I withdraw my mind from the object thereof, and thereby unavoidably terminate the present exercise of the affec- tion inspected. The necessary object of faith is a gracious Saviour ; while my soul looks at him, faith may be in exercise. I wdsh to inspect my consciousness of the faith exercise. Then the affection of which I was conscious becomes the oliject; the gracious Sa-\dour ceases to be, for the time, the object of atten- tion, and the affection, as the present exercise, vanishes under the inspection. How- clear is it, hence, that the thing whose nature I really judge is the remembrance of my consciousness? If then the consciousness was to any degree indistinct or its re- membrance dim, trustworthy inspectioa cannot take place. But I proved in the pre^dous paragraph the necessity of this inspec- tion or self-acquaintance in order to the assurance of hope. What follows ? I infer, wdth Chalmers, that imperfect but gen- uine believers may often have actings of faith of such kind that their self-consciousness of them does not gi'ound an assurance of hope ; and thence that it is useful and important for their peace to compare with scripture their remembered consciousness of other gracious actings, which, the word tells them, are also marks of a saved state. "In the mouth of two or three witnesses" they gain the solid advantage of concurrent evidences.
Fifth. After M. N. charged me with falling into grave error as to the distinction between assurance of faith and assurance of liope, he should have laid cIoami that distinction himself, and then observed it. But he does neither. He c^uotes texts to prove that there is an assurance of faith and an assui-ance of hope, but
THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHREN. 227
he does uot tell us what they are. Nor does he separate them consistently. First he sajs that " we set out "with the assurance of faith," but we work up to the assurance of hope. Eight! He says the latter process is " sloio, lahorious, ^xtinful, toiling in the work and labor of love toward the name of God," etc. Here he goes farther in opposition to the Plymouth theology than I de- sire ; he " out-Herods " this wicked Herod, the reviewer. For I believe God has blessed manj' of his children by carrying them rapidly and hai^pily through the assurance of faith to the assur- ance of hope. But when I teach his ot\ti doctrine in my poor waj-, he cannot away with it. When I write that " the true, though weak faith, of the beginner" — describing the admitted case of the beginner who is weak — not that of the beginner who is strong, of whom, blessed be God, there are at least some, "grows to the assured faith of the matured Christian," meaning, obviously, the faith crowned with assured hope, "by self-examination, coupled ^\-ith contrition, confessing and forsaking the defects detected, re- newed acts of faith and watchfulness and holy living," he exclaims that it wearies him even to think of it. But he is not wearied to think of his own w^ay, "slow, laborious, painful"'
The question is launched at us, " AYliat is to attest my faith, bright-eyed, far-seeing, swift-winged, world-conquering, heaven- scaHng, heaven-born," etc? "Well, if it is all that, it needs no- thing to attest it. But lohether it is all that must be attested hy the loord and Spirit of God. This is M. N.'s own answer in a pre\'ious paragraph. As to the supposed alternative attestation, that of " our loathed works and ragged righteousnesses," I re- mark first : since the works which are the fi'uits of true faith are precisely as "heaven-born" as the faith, both are the work of the Spirit. I do not cjuite understand how the work should be " loathsome," and the faith so admirable. The works done in faith are indeed imperfect; but being the fruits of the Holy Spii'it, it appears to me, the Christian, instead of loathing them, should humbly rejoice in the grace which wrought them. I remark second: that no scriptural behever relies on his works " to attest " his faith ; but, on the contrary, he relies on the infalli- ble word and Spirit to attest his works and faith both.
It is asked again : " Was this the way, viz., that described by me above, in which Old Testament and New Testament saints reached assurance of hope ? I answer, yes. So those saints say
228 THEOLOGY OF THE PLYMOUTH BRETHEEN.
themselves. Owen is quoted as the prince of theologians in M. N.'s eyes, saying: "Assurance is based, not on the work of the Spirit in us, but on the communication of the Spirit to us, etc." If Owen means what M. N. understands the Bible saints, then in other places he contradicts himself, as here. These say (Psalm cxix. 6), "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments." Psalm Ixxxvi. 2 : " Preserve my soul, for I am holy." 1 John iii. 21, 22: "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments." James ii. 18: "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works." Jesus Christ, in John xv. 14 : " Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." 2 Peter i. 5-10: "Give dihgence to assure yourselves [Greek] of your calling and election." How? By "giving all dihgence to add to your faith, virtue," etc. 1 John iii. 14: "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." See also 1 John ii. 3. See Review.
This oldest wine is best J
Eeviewer.
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THE0L0G17
WE have here this long-expected work at length completed, in three portly volumes, royal octavo. They are hand- somely printed on firm, white paper of excellent body ; but they are bound in flimsy muslin, in the flimsiest style of that despicable binding. Why will our modern publishers give the most weighty and enduring works to the public in a dress appropiate only to some worthless fiction, to be quickly, almost as quickly as it de- serves, worn out and thrown away ? This outrage upon the rights and the tastes of readers is aggravated by the fact, that the pub- lishers have doubled the prices of their books upon us mthiu the last ten years. Is double pay, for shabbier work, to be one of the signs of modern progress ? So it seems.
Our general verdict upon the work of Dr. Hodge may be ex- pressed very fairly by saying, that it is such a book as the Pres- byterian public expected of him ; for that pubHc has been long accustomed to recognize, and, whenever writing upon a subject in his own proper department, to value very highly Dr. Hodge's characteristics. We find the work, then, learned, perspicuous, nervous, dogmatic and orthodox. The doctrine which it asserts is distinctly Calvinistic, without being ultra-Calvinism. One of the most noticeable characteristics of the work is the fulness of its refutations of the materiaUstic and atheistic infidelity on the one hand, and of the pantheistic speculations on the other, which are the banes of the recent movements in science. It seems apparent that the book has been enlarged, and the range of dis- cussion widened, for the special purpose of deahng with these forms of skepticism. Among the other characteristics of this treatise which present themselves to a cursive examination may be noted the following :
1. Dr. Hodge asserts that our knowledge of God is "intuitive," and then argues for the proposition that there is a God. This
'This article appeared in tlie Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1873, reviewing Systematic Theokxjy, by Charles Hodge, D. D. Charles Scribner & Co. 3 vols. 8vo.
229
230 hodge's systematic theology.
argument, ignoring the usual theistic method in a manner rather marked, relies chiefly upon the ethica' phenomena of the soul, from which it reasons wdth unusual fulness and force.
2. Those who have had the privilege of Dr. Hodge's conver- sation are aware that the denunciation of the claims oi philosophy to be a time science has been rather a favorite topic with him ; and this opinion is not obscurely indicated in his theology. Yet we know of no standard Keformed treatise which makes so much use of philosophy, or contains so large a proportion of philoso- phical speculation.
3. The author, under many heads of divinity, displays the mul- tifarious forms of eiTor with more fulness than his oavu ^dews of what is true.
4. If we might judge by the author's citations in what direc- tions his theological reading chiefly lay, we should conolude that German heresy, in its different forms, had received more of his attention than any other department, orthodox or heterodox. Ne^it would come the works of the continental Protestants, Lutheran and Reformed. The teachers and leaders of Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbji;erianism are very scantily noticed ; and, so far as we now remember, there is not a single reference to the theology of the Anglican Church, or its gi'eat masters, to inti- mate that the author had ever heard of them. So American theology appears chiefly in the names of its heresiarchs, and for purposes of refutation.
5. Another marked peculiarity of the system is, the authority which it gives to the evangehcal consensus of the children of God of all denominations, as presented in theu' hymnology, prayers, and devotional writings, rather than their technical and contro- versial. The author seems to elevate this almost into an author- itative, Protestant tradition. Discarding the folly of an infalhble tradition in the bishops, through an apostolic succession, he claims that true beUevers — not in virtue of any rituahsm or sacra- mentflrian superstition, but in virtue of their effectual calling — are aU infaUibly taught of God. Hence, so far as we can dis- criminate the true from the spurious beUevers, and ehminate the modifications induced on their spiritual consciousness by accidents of training and prejudice, we have in the consciousness common to them all a correct representation of revealed truth. This source of authority, obriously, should be appealed to with
hodge's systematic theology. 231
great caution. That it cannot be made a " rule of faitli," coordi- nate -vntli tke sacred Scriptures, is very plain from this fact, that the parties to any debate would never agree as to the extent to which the qualifications which are stated above should be ap- plied.
Since we have commended the general orthodoxy of this work, the points must of course be very few upon which we should feel constrained to dissent from the author's conclusions. We propose, ■u'ith this cursory view of the merits of his work, to confine our remaining remarks to but two points of doctrine. The first, considered by us in a single aspect, is a point, to our apprehension, both intricate and important, and we venture to dissent from Dr. Hodge with diffidence; the more, liecause his ■^dews are supported by not a few of the great Reformed divinas. And indeed his statement and arguments on the point we design to bring into debate are, in some respects, safer and more mod- erate than theirs.
In Vol. II., pp. 254, 255, the specific seat of original sin in man is discussed. First, the erroneous doctrines are discarded which TDlace it primarily in the body, or in our senses and animal appetites. The author then proceeds : "A third doctrine is, that the heart, considered as the seat of the affections, as distinguished from the understanding, is the seat of natural depravity. This doctrine is connected with the idea that all sin and holiness are forms of feeling or states of the affections. And it is made the ground on which the nature of regeneration and conversion, tho relation between repentance and faith, and other points of practical theolog}-, are explained. Everything is made to depend on the state of the feelings. Instead of the affections following the understanding, the understanding, it is said, follows the affec- tions. A man understands and receives the truth only when he loves it. Regeneration is simply a change in the skite of the affections, and the only inability under which sinners labor, as to the things of God, is disinclination. In opposition to all these doctrines, Augustinianism, as held by the Lutheran and Re- formed Churches, teaches that the whole man, soul and body, the higher as well as the lower, the intellectual as well as the emo- tional faculties of the soul, is affected by the corruption of our nature derived from our first parents."
This extract not only presents the point we wish to debate,
232 hodge's systematic theology.
but gives us also a very characteristic specimen of Dr. Hodge's method as a debater. Under an appearance of simple Saxon straightforwardness, he most adroitly modifies, and by modify- ing, disparages the view he designs to assault, and gains credit for his own by associating it with unquestioned truth, and claim- ing for it, with a quiet dogmatism, the uniform adhesion of the orthodox learned. He seems to suggest that his answer to the question, "Wliere is the specific seat of depravity? is that of Au- gustiniauism, that it is the soul; whereas, the view which he Teally argues is, that the ultimate seat and source of depravity is in the intellect, as distinguished from the will. This is clear from the tenor of his arguments, as will appear. It is clear from his subsequent teaching on regeneration. Manifestly, wherever we place the ultimate seat or source of depravity, there also we must place the primary, quickening touch of regene- ration. Now, in Yol. III., p. 17, while we find Dr. Hodge saying, "It is the soul which is spiritually dead; and it is to the soul that a new principle of life, controlHng all its exercises, whether of the intellect, the sensibility, the conscience, or the will, is imparted, " we see him add these words : " In the order of nature, knowledge or spiritual discernment Is antecedent and causatively related to all holy exercises of the feelings and afiectious." These words disclose his real theory; and this is the theory which he really holds and argues in the place first cited; there coolh' assuming that it is the theory of the Re- formed Confessions and divines. These do indeed teach that "the whole man" is depraved, and that the soul, more specifi- cally, is the seat of depravity ; but "^ve are yet to learn that they unanimously, or even generally, countenance this peculiar theory of Drs. Hodge, Alexander and Dick, which makes the intellect, as distinguished from the will, the ultimate source of depravity in man. Take, by the way, this from a doctrinal declaration of the Reformed Church of France, at the National Synod of Alen- 9on : "Nor doth he only powerfully illuminate the understand- ing by the Holy Ghost. But by the effectual power of the same spirit of regeneration, lie pierceth even into the inward recesses of their souls, openeth the heart, and infuseth new qualities into their xoill^ This plainly teaches that the evil hahitus of the sinner's will is not only distinct from the blindness of his under- standing, but is a more interior evil. So the familiar words of
hodge's systematic theology. 233
our own Confession, on effectual calling, tell us that God not only "enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ," but also "renews our wills." The latter work, surely, is not a mere natural consequence of the former ?
So when Dr. Hodge would describe the doctrine he seeks to overthrow, he suggests that its advocates believe the soul is depraved or regenerated, not as a monad, but by parts or facul- ties. They hold no such thing ; they only dissent from his order of causation between the soul's respective faculties in their de- praved or their sanctified actings. He represents them as reducing all sin and holiness to " forms of feeling or states of the affections." What they really teach is, that sin or holiness, in its last analysis, is a wrong or a right haJntas (not consuetudo merely) of the will; which habitus is the rudimental cavise, or regulative principle of all the "forms of feeling." He charges upon them that the " only inability" they can consistently hold is " disinclination " to the things of God. They hold that the root of inability is in this hostile hahitus of the will, out of which as a source all "disinclinations" to duty arise; and that blindness of mind is also a consequent part of the sinner's inability, so real as to require divine grace to remove it. Is not this the analysis of the best and greatest of the Keformed divines, as Turretin?
But we beg leave to re-state our view in our own way, instead of Dr. Hodge's. The soul is a unit, a monad, not constituted, as material things are, of parts or members, but endowed with faculties which are distinct modes of its indivisihle activity. These, according to the psychology of the Bible and of common sense, fall into the three divisions of intelligence, will and sensibility — the latter class being passive powers. By the word "will," in this discussion, we mean, not the specific power of volition, but that which the Keformed divines and our Confession mean by it, the whole active powers of man's spontaneity; what Sir William Hamilton terms "the conative powers"; i. e., the whole faculty of active desire and purpose. While the soul is simply passive only in its sensibilities, and its functions of intelligence are its own self-directed functions, yet it is by its will, or cona- tive powers, that it is an agent, or puts forth its spontaneity. Now, the soul is depraved as a soul, and is regenerated as a soul ; not hy patches or parts, seeing it has no parts. But we
234 hodge's systematic theology.
conceive that this obvious fact is entirely consistent with the proposition, that sin (or hoHness) aflfects the soul as to one of its faculties more primarily than the others. And let us remark here once for all, that it is entirely inconsistent in Dr. Hodge, to object the simplicity of the soul to those who think, with us, that sin affects the soul rudimentally in the faculty of will, and con- sequentially in those of understanding and sensibility, when he himself teaches, vice versa, that sin aifects it rudimentally in the faculty of intelligence, and consequentially in those of will and sensibility. For, if the fact that the soul is a unit refutes us, it equally refutes him. Both opinions would in that case be out of the question equally, and the debate impossible. Again : Dr. Hodge, and those who think with him, dwell much on the com- plexity of the soul's acts, as invohang at once two or more of its faculties or modes of function. They tell us that an act of un- derstanding accompanies every act of desire or choice. True. But they themselves go on to assert a relation of causation between the intellective element and the conative element, as to the production or rise of the concrete act of soul. Why, then, may not we assign a causative relation to the one or the other of these two elements, as to the moral quality of that concrete act of sold ? We shall find the divines we indicate (as Chalmers, A. Alexander and Hodge), wdien hardly bestead to sustain their peculiar \dews on this point, resorting very freely to the state- ments, that the soid is a unit ; that it is depraved or regenerated as a unit ; that it acts As a unit ; that it performs one concrete function often through two or more faculties, which act, not sepa- rately as members, but only distiuguishably as modes of func- tion. We repeat, all this is granted ; but it is irrelevant. For it would, if it proved anything in the case, as much preclude the one causative order as the other. It would be as unreasonable to say "the understanding guides the wdll," as to say "the will sways the understanding." Let this be remembered.
We have thus disencumbered the issue wdiich we wish to examine. It is this : In defining depravity, are we to place the rudimentary element of the sinfid nature in the blinded under- standing misleading the spontaneity, and thus qualifying the soul as a whole morally evil? Such is the view of the divines named. Or, are we to find it rudimentally in the perverted habitus of the will, causatively corrupting and blinding the
hodge's systematic theology. 235
understanding, and thus qualifying the soul as a whole morally evil ? Such is our understanding of the Scriptures and of the Reformed theology. The question is, as we shall see, not a mere psychological curiosity, but has important consequences. If the opinion of Dr. Hodge is correct, then regeneration is primarily illumination, and secondarily and consequentially, revolution of will. If our opinion is right, then regeneration is rudimentally and causatively revolution of will, and consequentially illumina- tion. And, moreover, if Dr. Hodge's opinion is the true one, it would be more consistent for him to teach with Dr. A. Alex- ander {TJioughts on Religious Experience, Chap. VI.), and with Dr. Dick (Lecture 66), or even with Claude Pajon of the French Church, that the Holy Ghost operates only mediately, through the truth, in revolutionizing the will. If our opinion is the true one, then it is consistent to teach, with the French Reformed, and the whole current of the great Reformed divines, that the Holy Ghost operates not only mediately, but also immediately and supernaturally, in revolutionizing the will. On this point Dr, Hodge is in one place (Vol. III., p. 17), consistently erron- eous, as it appears to us; but in Vol. II., under the head of '' Efficacious Grace," he emphatically and largely teaches what is inconsistently correct. For he there asserts a regeneration by immediate grace in the strongest and most satisfactory form, and even declares himself almost ready to say with Owen, against Dr, Alexander and the Reformed European divines, that it is a "johysical'^ effect of supernatural grace.
But that we may do no injustice, let us distinguish. Among those who explain depravity and regeneration by the theory that the understanding universally leads the will, there appear to be four grades of opinion. The lowest is that of the Pelagian, who denies all eyil habitus of will, regards regeneration as a mere self- determination to a new purpose of living, and holds that it is wrought simply by the moral suasion of the truth. This vir- tually leaves out the Holy Ghost. The second is that of the semi-Pelagian, who holds that the -will is not indeed dead in sin, but that it is greatly corrupted by evil desires, cares of this world, bad example, and evil habits, \_consuetudines, not habitus']. Hence gospel truth never engages the soul's attention strongly enough to exert an efficacious moral suasion, until the Holy Ghost calms and fixes the mind upon it by his gracious, suasive
236 hodge's systematic theology.
influence. The truth, thus gaining access to the soul, regene- rates it. The third class, disclaiming all semi-Pelagianismj hold that the truth ought to, and would control the will, if clearly and fully seen; but that, in \drtue of the natural bUndness of the understanding, which they regard as the source of depravity, the truth cannot be thus seen until the mind is di-sinely illumi- nated; and this illumination, a true, gracious, spiritual and efficacious work, is regeneration. As soon as that is done, the truth spiritually seen reyolutionizes the wiW by its natural power ; for the ^\"ill must always follow the prevalent dictate of the understanding. Such was most i^robably the scheme of Claude Pajon. The fourth class is that of Dr. Alexander, Dr. Dick, and we presume, of Dr. Hodge. Holding that the rudiments of our depravity are in the blinded understanding primarily, and in the perverted wiR derivatively, they also hold that illumination is regeneration ; but they add that, in order for this illumination, a supernatural operation on the mind itself is necessary. And that operation is the causative' source of conversion. This dis- tinguishes their scheme from that of Pajon. This also saves their orthodoxy ; yet, we repeat, it seems to us an inconsistent orthodoxy in one particular. We ask them : Is that immediate operation of the Holy Ghost — that prerequisite of illumination — the sovereign and immediate revolution in the hahltus of the will? And they answer. No; for that would imply the \dew which we hold, and they disclaim it, as to the radical source of moral quality in the soul. What then is the operation ? They reply : We do not know ; it is inscrutable, being back of con- sciousness. But to us it appears, that ir illumination of the un- derstanding is the whole direct efficiency of the Holy Ghost in regeneration, it is more natural and consistent to stop where Pajon stops, with a mediate conversion through the truth.
The second doctrinal application must be to determine the nature of faith. If intellectual blindness is the ultimate trait of depravity, and supernatural illumination is the essential work of regeneration, then faith, which is the charactei'istic action of the soul as regenerated and instrumental organ of its redemp- tion, must be a simple belief of the truth. But if our view is held, then regeneration is primarily a sovereign, immediate revolution of the will (having illumination as its divine attendant), and faith is a receiving and resting upon Christ for salvation. Dr.
hodge's systematic theology. 237
Alexander is thoroughly consistent. He says boldly : Yes, sav- ing faith, separated from its adjuncts, is simple behef of truth. It differs fi'om historical faith, saith he, not in the nature of the function of mind, but in the degree of strength with which the mind of the renewed man grasps the gospel truth. The man of dead faith accepts intellectually the same truths which sanc- tify and save the believer, but "uath too unsteady a grasp. When he is reminded that man "beUeveth toitJi the heart unto right- eousness," and that the gospel's essential proposal is rather of spiritual good to the choice than of speculative truth to the assent, he resorts again to his plea that the soul is a monad. Intelligence and choice, he argues, are but two modes of func- tion of this unit soul. May not the two functions be differen- tiated only objectively? There is no moral appetency or choice without intelligence. May not all the difference between the soul seeing and the soul choosing be the objective difference? May not the function of inteUigence be as essentially a moral one, as that of appetency and choice ; be, in fact, the same function ? This strikes us as exceedingly subtile and ingenious. Indeed, he stands, to our apprehension, unrivalled in such acu- men. But it is erroneous. The soul is one ; yet its modes of function are truly more than one ; and they are differentiated subjectively, as well as objectively ; truly, as well as seemingly. An apparatiis to measure caloric is a thermometer. An appa- ratus to measure moisture is a hygrometer. The latter could not become a thermometer merely by being applied to the mea- surement of caloric. The difference of the two objects is great enough to require an essential difference of mode in measiu'ing the two. So it is obvious to common sense and to conscious- ness, that while moral desire and choice are intelligent, choice and desu'G are not intellection, and intellection is not choice. The evasion is vain ; and Dr. Alexander's definition of faith as simply behef of truth, while consistent with his and Dr. Hodge's premises, is defective and unscriptural. Here we might appeal to the arguments usually advanced by theological text-books, to show that, according to the Scriptures, faith is an act of the soul performed both by the ^vill and the intelligence ; but to the well-informed reader it would be supei^fluous
Dr. Hodge, on this point, departs from the teaching of his venerable predecessor with a fortunate inconsistency. In defin-
238 hodge's systematic theology.
ing faith, he tells us, first, that the rudimental idea of the word, in both the sacred languages, is trust; secondly, that rehgious faith, in its generic aspect, is con"vdction of the tmth on divine testimony ; and, thirdly, that sa-sdng faith is, specifically, both assenting to and embracing the gospel promise on the authority of that testimony. We give, not his precise words, but his ab- bre%'iated thouciht.
The third point of doctrine involved in this debate is the relation of faith and repentance. If the rudimental element of depravity is blindness of mind, and regeneration is primarily illumination, then faith should be defined as assent to gospel truth simply, and repentance should be defined as the conse- quence of sa^dng faith, and invariably subsequent to it. To this last point Dr. Hodge would assent. But if our scheme is the true one, that depra\'ity is rudimentally a perverted Jiahitus of will accompanied by a consequent blinding of the mind, and regeneration is primarily an almighty revolution of the -wdll resulting in illumination, then faith is a " recei\dng and resting upon Christ for salvation," ("with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,") and /isTcv^oia, or a turning of the heart from sin to God, is implicitly involved in the specific act of saving faith. And this we beheve to be the teaching of the Scriptures. Let us not be misunderstood ; we know that every moral emotion implies, as its condition, a corresponding act of intelligence ; so that there can be no godly son'ow in the heart where there is no light in the head. We suppose that what Dr. Hodge calls "generic faith," conviction of timth on divine testimony, is im- plied as a priori in evangeUcal repentance. But, on the other hand, some affection of godly sorrow is implied in the specific action of saving faith embracing Christ for salvation. For sav- ing faith receives his salvation, not as a speculative truth to be assented to, but a spiritual good to be embraced. Will the soul embrace it, except as it values and desires it? Surely not. Hence this appetency of the wiU for salvation prompts the faith. And what is this appetency but fizravota ? For, as om* Confes- sion hath it, faith embraceth Christ "as he is offered to us in the gospel." But he is offered to us as a Saviour from sin. He who embraces him must do it, therefore, because, feeling sin to be an exilper se, he desires deliverance fi-om it, and not from its penalty merely. But that feeling, we repeat, is fiszdi^oca, at least
hodge's systematic theology. 239
iu rudiment. It thus appears that the essential difference be- tween saving faith on the one hand, and historical or tempo- rary faith on the other, is, that the first has repentance implicit in it as its a 2'>'rwri condition. When we say this, we do not at all deny that faith also reciprocally stimiilates repentance. Nor do we deny that from the moment faith begins to work, hope, gratitude and love, in view of the cross, become new and power- ful incentives to repentance, and thenceforward characterize it with new tenderness. Such seems to us to be the representation of the Scriptures. See those numerous places in the Old Tes- tament, where "to turn" (^1^) is the instrumental condition of salvation (as "believe" is in the New Testament), as Ezek. xviii. 32 ; Jer. xxsi. 19. See also those like Acts ii. 38, where the apostles seem to be as wilhng to answer the question, What must be done in order to be saved? A\dtli "Repent," as wath " Believe." How are these answers to be explained? Are there two different ways for sinners to be saved? Surely not. Then, repentance and faith must be much nearer the same thing than those represent them who make repentance an emotion, and faith a mental conviction. We can only explain them by say- ing, that both involve a function of the regenerate -nill, and that repentance is implicit of faith. Again, is it not significant that, in so many places where the two are mentioned, repentance is named first? Mark i. 15; Acts ii. 38 ("baptism for remission" expressing faith); Acts v. 31; xx. 21. Lastly-: The Scriptures expressly speak of faith as prompted by repentance, or as con- ditioned on it. Matt. xxi. 32 : "And j-e, when ye had seen it, re- 2)ente(l not afterivard, that ye raigJit helieve him" So iu 2 Tim. ii. 25 : " In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if per- adventure God will give them repentance to the achioid edging of the truth." So, again, God traces the unbelief, which is the oppo- site of faith, to the hatred of the good as its cause. 2 Thes. ii. 10- 12 ; and Rom. i. 28. That hatred is the opposite of repentance. AVe may be reminded that it is a peculiarity of the Arminian theology, that they make repentance precede faith in the order of production. This is true; but they make both repentance and faith precede regeneration ; and therein is the dangerous feature. Let us say, with the Scriptures, that repentance and faith are both the exercises of a regenerate soul, and of none other ; this danger will then be gone.
240 hodge's systematic theology.
Having thus shown the theological results of the question under debate, we return to it in order to present the more imme- diate arguments, logical and scriptural, for our view of that question. The sketch which we ha?e presented, of its bearings upon the four doctrines of original sin, regeneration, faith and repentance, contained, unavoidably, several anticipations of these arguments. The careful reader will be able to make the appli- cation of them for himself ; and we "unll avoid repetition of them as far as is practicable.
When we distribute the powers of the soul under their three heads of intellect, wdll and sensibility, it seems obvious to mature reflection, that depra^dty and hoUness have their primary seat in the will, as related to the intellect and sensibiUty, rather than in the intellect as related to the w^ill. It is the soul, and not a faculty separate from the soul, Avhich is depraved or sanctified ; yet this diseased or healthy state of soul qualifies it as to its function of spontaneity primarily, and of intellect and sensi- bihty consequentially. In support of this, we advance this simple argument: by its function of intelligence the ^ovXsees; by its will it acts. Some philosophers have disputed the justice of our making the conative powers the active powers of the soul ; and they say that the soul as truly acts in conceiving, or judg- ing, as in desiring or choosing. This is ambiguous. True, the soul, in conceiving and judging, is 2^6^ forming a function of it» oicn ; but it is not therein intrinsically exerting its spontaneity. The sophism is here: When the soul conceives or judges, there is an exercise of its spontaneity, oftentimes, in directing its atten- tion hy loill to a particular object of conception or judgment. But that directing of the attention is not strictly cognition ; it is a function of the conative powers accompanying cognition. Set aside this, and it "u-ill be e^-ident to any man who examines his own consciousness, that cognition is not an act of tho soul intho sense in which the conative functions are ; and that is the senso of this argument. Now, does not common sense teach us, that moral responsibility attaches to those acts and states of soul Avhicli it puts forth from itself, by its spontaneity, moro primarily than to those with which it is affected by causes out of itself ?
Dr. Hodge, in ono place, attempts to show that moral respon- sibility does not primarily qualify' our acts of spontaneity, but rather our acts oi intelligence, by this view : Brutes and maniacs
hodge's systematic theology. 241
have spontaneity, but tliev liave no moral quality. Why ? Be- cause their spontaneity is irrational. It is only when you have intelligence guiding spontaneity that you find moral quality. We reply : the fact is as alleged. The presence of intelligence is a condition requisite to moral action. But that this is short of proving the intelligence to be the primary seat of the moral quality appears very simply thus: The presence of conative power is also a condition requisite to moral action. Dr. Hodge would doubtless admit that a mere power of concei\Ting notions, without dispositions, preference or choice, could not be a person at all, nor have character. Yet Dr. Hodge would not admit that the conative function was the seat of the moral character. Now, we ask : AVhat is it that completes our idea of personality ? It is ^viU. Cognition, merely as such, abstracted from acts of voluntary attention — which may, or may not attend it — is an involuntary function. Witness the fact that multitudes of per- cepts and concepts affect oiu* minds without any movement of desire or volition whatever, the former from objective sources, the latter from the instinctive law of suggestion. Tills is the decisive feature which, according to common sense, forbids our regarding the cognitive acts of the soul as those by which it is primarily qualified "udth moral character.
This naturally introduces to our notice another attempt which our author makes to argue his A-iew, from the fact that men are morally responsible for their opinions and beliefs. He says, that to make the will the primary seat of moral character in- volves the \icious conclusion, that intellectual belief is irrespon- sible—a proposition contrary to all Scripture and sound ethics. This instance, when examined, will be found against him. The truth is, that some of our opinions and beliefs are morally indif- ferent ; for many of them we are strictly responsible. And these last are precisely the opinions vjhich involve a moral element. No man becomes more virtuous by ascertaining that the two angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal. But a man does become more vicio^is by persuading himself that trust, obedience and gratitude towards Christ are not his duty. Now, when the skeptic comes and argues that he is not responsible for any opinion heartily adopted, because intellectual conviction is the involuntary consequence of evidence seen, how do we refute him? By showing that no morally erroneous conviction
242 hodge's systematic theologi.
could he Tieart'dy established, toithout an immoral, volurdary cause. This is the true, analytic answer to his licentious infer- ence! So that these very cases confirm our view, — that the moral character of our intellectual convictions, of which many do have such character, has its source in the voluntary states and acts of the soul.
The view we contest, on the other hand, seems to endanger the destruction of our responsibility, by making sin an involun- tary result of intellectual conditions. For such are man's moral intuitions, that if he is taught that a ceiiain action was the regular, certain and involuntary result of a mental view with which neither disposition nor choice could have anything to do, in such a sense that, the mental view being what it was, the action must still have inevitably been what it was, no matter how right the feelings, disposition and choice may have been, he will certainly answer, "Then the agent cannot be blamable."
Dr. Alexander criticizes those who argue our conclusion from the assertion that the action of the will is moral, and that of the intellect is not, and who call the "svill the "moral faculty" in man. He remarks very correctly, that this is erroneous, that neither intellect nor mil is the "moral faculty" in man; for not one in a hundred of the acts of either have properly any moral character. The ratio is probably stated too strongly. He then adds that there is a third faculty, which alone deserves to be called " the moral faculty ; " and that is conscience. We con- ceive that Dr. Alexander might have increased the plausibility of this part of his argument very much, by j)roceeding to argue, as he does in his Moved Science, that conscience, so far as it is a judging faculty, and distinguished from its emotional element, which is secondary, is itself a function of the intelligence — a rational function. He might then have put his conclusion thus : " Conscience is the true and only moral facult}^ in man. But the judgments of conscience — the rudimental part of its function — are rational ; therefore the reason is the true seat of sin or holi- ness." This would have been consistent. Yet it would have laid him open to this refutation, which is also implicitly in his own statement : that therefore the moral goodness of a good man is primarily in this, that he has a true conscience ; and the moral badness of a bad man primarily in this, that he has di false conscience. That is : it would follow from Dr. Alexander's \iew,
hodge's systematic theology. 243
that the opposite moral states of the two men were primarily in their opposite moral judgments. But now, it is not true that good and bad men always, or even generally, have opposite moral judgments. Tlie two men probably have the same judgments of conscience in the main ; and the difference mainly is, that the good man obeys, and the bad man disobeys those common judg- ments. It is true that conscience is the faculty which is our moral guide ; but then our moral quality as persons is in our conformity or enmity to that guidance. What is it, in us, that is conformed or opposed to that guidance ? Primarily, the vyill. And this brings our debate, it appears to us, up to that scrip- tural test which is the decisive one. It so happens that the Holy Ghost has given us an exact definition of the idea of sin. '^H b-fxapzia iaziv -q dvoiiia^ (1 John iii. 4), which our catechism imitates. The vbixoz, the standard, is, first, the law of our moral nature written on our hearts by our Creator; and, secondly, his revealed precepts taught to our intellects. The sin consists, according to John, in lack of conformity to that standard. We repeat the question : What is it in sinful man which is not conformed to that standard? Every sinner's consciousness answers: partially the reason, but cMefiy and 2y^'i'^'>^(-ii'ily the roill, and thence consequentially, the animal appetites and bodily mem- bers. The soul has three classes of 230wers : the intellectual, the conative and the passive sensibilities. These last are pas- sive powers — susceptibilities, rather than faculties; hence the root of sin cannot be primarily in them ; for they are acted on, rather than act. The first, the intellectual powers, by their moral judgments, fiirnish us the standard of reference; and our rational intuitions are, that so far as conscience, the rational faculty applied to moral objects, accompanied with its peculiar sentiment of approbation and disapprobation, is correctly in- formed by God's precepts, and is not misinformed by the will, this conscience is the correct and the imperative standard of right and wrong. There remains, then, the second class of powers, the conative, the will; in which must be found the spring of personal, moral character; of good character, if the will is conformed, of bad character, if it is opposed to the rational standard. This scriptural view is confirmed by one remark: Let any one collect as many as he can of those acts of men to which the Scriptiu'es and theologians appeal as a posteriori
244 hodge's systematic theology.
proofs of natiye clepravitT, and lie 'U'ill find tliat tliey all fall under this common predication, that in them the vri\l opposes itself obstinately to the soul's own moral judgments. This, in fine, is the anah'tic statement of that universal fact in which the moral disorder and ruin of man's soul manifests itself.
The reasonings which we have attempted to answer seem to us to involve this illusion : that because man is a reasonable agent, his spontaneity is but a modification of his reason. But is this so ? Is not this sufficiently refuted by the fact which Dr. Hodge cites against us, that other creatures have a spontaneity which have no reason? In truth, spontaneity is an ultimate fact of human consciousness, and an ultimate power of the soul, as much so as reason. It is coordinate in primariness and sim- plicity with the power of reason. It has its own original luihitus, its " disposition," which re-acts on the reason as truly as it is acted on. Against this view some may cry out: "Then the action of a man's spontaneity might be no more a rational action than the pulsation of his heart ! " We reply : The instance is unfair, because the will is not a separate member, like that mus- cle caUed " heart " in the body ; but it is a mode of function of the soul, a spiritual unit. And that soul which ^^dUs is a rational unit ; so that all action of T^*ill is the action of a rational agent. But we concede that spontaneity is sometimes unconsciously irra- tional ; and that is lunacy. Oftentimes it is contra-rational ; and that is sill fulness. Sometimes, by God's grace, vve find it truly conformed to reason ; and that is holiness.
But the favorite plea of the fathers who differ from us is, that it is the recognized doctrine of all sound philosophers, that the will follows the prevalent judgment of the intellect. They say : "Man feels as his mind sees; the view of the mind therefore must direct or govern the feehng ; and the prevalent last judg- ment must decide the will." It is from this statement Dr. Hodge infers that depravity and holiness must be ultimately traced to the intellect ; Dr. Dick infers that the revolution of the veill, in effectual calling, is the natui-al effect of true illumination; and Dr. Alexander infers that a faith which is simply fuU con- •N-iction of the truth is all we need to make the soul embrace sal- vation and duty. This psychological law we fuUy admit : it is what defines man as a reasonable agent. That is, granted that the prevalent judgment of the intellect be of a given nature on
hodge's systematic theology. 245
a specific subject, then tlie feeling and choice of the soul on that subject vn.]l of course correspond. But the analysis stops one step too short. Whence the kind of \iew and judgment which the intellect is found to have on that given subject ? Is it always of a purely intellectual origin? This is tacitly assumed, but erroneously. Let the suljject be one of a moral nature, involv- ing an object of choice or desire, and it will be found that ihe7'e the heai-t has taught the head ; the opinion is the echo of the disposition ; the power of spontaneity, coordinate ^ith that of intelligence, has announced its o^^ti original Jmhitas. Let us explain : A child tastes experimentally, candies, SAveetmeats, honey, sugar. In each case his palate is gratified. On this similarity of power to gratify the palate his mind constructs a generahzation, forms the class of "sweet things," and concludes the general judgment : "Sweet things are good." Now, this gen- eral judgment may be as truly and pui'ely accounted an intellect- ual process as the arithmetical one that a larger subtrahend must make a smaller remainder. And it may be said that in every subsequent desire and purpose to seek the "sweet things," the child's \riSS. follows this intellectual judgment. Very true. And yet it is none the less true, that the judgment is itself a generalization of a series of acts of appetency — the mere echo of the instinctive verdict of an animal appetite. So that in its last analysis, the causation of the choice is traced up, through the intellect, to a law of the spontaneity.
We shall be reminded that the instance we have chosen gives us only an animal appetite, a phenomenon of animal spontaneity ; whereas the thing in debate is moral emotion and choice, which is always rational emotion and choice. This we full}' admit, and we advance the instance only for an illustration. Perhaps it is a clumsy one. But has not the "udll as real, and as original, appetencies as the palate ? "\\Tien we call the former rational, moral desires, what do we mean? That disposition is nothing but a modification of thought ? We apprehend that our meaning is this : the intellect is the faculty hy which we conceive the object of the moral appetency ; as in the case of the animal appetite, the nerves of sensation are the inedhim by which we perceive the sweet object. Yet in the moral phenomenon there is an original disposition of will, which is as truly a spiritual appetency as the bodily appetite is an animal appetency. If we are correct
246 hodge's systematic theology.
in this, we shall find that the judgments generahzed in the mind, as to the desirableness of moral good or e\Tl, however purely intellectual, when abstracted from their source, are yet but the echoes of the original, or regenerated appetencies of the will. Let us now apply this anah'sis to the sinner's conversion. Why does the renewed sinner embrace Christ as a Saviour from sin, by his faith ; and new obedience instead of sin, by his repent- ance? Because his understanding, illuminated by grace, now judges clearly that salvation and new obedience are not only the obligatory, but the preferable good. Such is our breth- ren's answer ; and we fully assent. . Were it not so, the new choice would not be rational, and so not spiritual. But now, one question more : How came this illuminated intellect to judge the salvation from sin, and the new obedience, the preferable good, when the original, native disposition of the vnM was to prefer the sin and dislike the obedience ? It was only because the Holy Ghost sovereignly revolutionized the disposition of will. S7iis was the primary cause ; illumination the immediate consequence ; and faith and repentance the practical result. Thus the profound Pascal, [Peiisees, Ire Partie., Sec. III.) : " God alone can put di"\ane tniths into the soul, and by the mode which pleases him. I know he hath willed them to enter from the heart into the mind, and not from the mind into the heart, in order to humble the proud power of reasoning, which pre- sumes to be judge of the things the will chooses, and in order to heal this infii*m %\'ill, which has wholly corrupted itself by its unworthy attachments. And hence it results, that while, in speaking of human affairs, men say : One must know in order to love, which hath passed into a proverb ; the saints on the con- trary say, in speaking of divine things : One must love in order to know."
But the decisive appeal should be, not to philosophy, but to the Scriptures. These would seem to sustain our \aew in a mul- titude of places, where sin and depra"vaty are traced to an " e^dl heart," a "hardened heart"; and holiness to a "pure heart"; or where regeneration is a cleansing of the heart, a giving of a fleshly heart. But we are reminded that the Hebrews, and after them the New Testament writers, used the word "heart" in a comprehensive sense, equivalent to that of " soul," or " inner man." We are pointed to the munerous places in which the functions
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 247
of intellect are referred to the " heart," as in the phrases, " an understanding heart " ; " blindness of heart " ; "thoughts of the heart" ; "laying up (scil., a remembrance) in the heart." Thus it is sought to prove that all the declarations of the Scriptures about "a good or an evil heart," may mean no more than a good or an evil mind, or soul. Now, upon this cl^ss of passages we remark, that the word "heart" is used with great frequency in the Scriptures. Its first literal meaning is, the corporeal organ ; and its first tropical or immaterial meaning is, the feel- ings, desires, and volitions of the soul. Thence it means, secondly, the " inner man," regarded from the point of view of that which is invisible, enclosed within, as the bodily organ is. Thus, in 1 Peter iii. 4 : " Let the adorning [of the Christian woman] be the hidden man of the heart." Thirdly, "heart" hence comes to mean soul, the spirit which feels ; and it has this meaning often when the soul's cognitive function is the thing predicated. But it should be noted, that this occurs usucdly loheii the suljject of thought is vioral; as in the classical text, God saw that "every imagination of the thought of man's heart was eviir Now, the extensive use of the word "heart" for "soul," the agent which feels and thinks, must certainly be explained by admitting an intimate relation between these two faculties; and a relation especially intimate when the objects of thought and feeling are moral. But does this fact authorize our brethren to say that the Scriptures intend to assign right thought as the source of right feeling, instead of the reverse? Hardly. "Were we to seize upon this phrase, " a feeling mind," in their writings, to prove that they meant to teach that feeling is the source of intel- lect, they would demur. Then, the counterpart phrase, " a think- ing heart," does not imply that thought is the source of feehng. It only implies an intimate relation of the powers of thought and feeling.
But there are Scriptures which not only do this, but do also assign an order; and mth reference to moral objects, the order of relation \s,frorin the heart to the head. Here we claim all the texts already cited touching the relation of repentance to faith. We claim also Mark iii. 5, where Jesus disapproved the Phari- sees' theory of sabbath observance; and this because he was "gi-ieved at the hardness of their heart." So, in Eph. iv. 18: Gentiles "have the understanding {oc6.i>oca) darkened, being
248 HODGE'r? SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
alienated from the life of God througli the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness (or hardness, 7:o'j[jojacz) of their heart." Here the apostle distinctly traces sinful ignorance to the heart for its source. Nor can this be evaded by saying that heai*t here means "soul," "mind"; for this would be flagrantly viclent exegesis. When the apostle has designedly introduced a distinct reference to the state of the cognitive faculty by his own most discriminative word, ocdvoca, and then evidently designs to refer to the conative faculties of the soul by the recognized word for them, xapoia, -wdll any one say he shall not teach what he aims to teach? Had he still meant "understanding," we presume he would have still said " dcfv^o'.a' in the last member of the verse. Permit such interpretation, and next loe shall meet this fate, viz. : that when we are trving our best to say that, in spiritual things, " the heart leads the head," we shall be told : "Xo, you do not mean that ; you use the word ' heart ' in the comprehensive sense of ' soul '; you mean that the head leads the head!"
We are also referred to many passages where, as our brethren understand them, regeneration is described as illumination, and depravity as blindness. "To turn them from darkness to light." "God," says Paul, "was pleased to reveal his Son in me." " The eyes of the understanding being enhghtened." " Sanctify them through thy truth." "Renewed in knowledge after the image," etc. " God hath shined in our heai-ts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." We reply that regeneration doubtless includes illumi- nation, as an essential and glorious part thereof. But it is a different thing to say that regeneration is only illumination. Should we force these Scriptures to assert the latter, we should only make the Bible contradict itself, when it describes a quick- ening or revolutionizing work of divine grace, which is in order to illumination, and therefore prior in causation.
We are thus led back to that application of our theory which is at once its best illustration and most important use; its bear- ing upon the doctrine that the Hoh' Ghost in regeneration oper- ates, not only mediately through the Word, but also immedi- ately and supernaturally. This Drs. Hodge and Alexander stoutly and sincerely asseii;, along with all sound Calvinists. What we claim is, that we can assert it more consistently than they, \di]i their pecuhar theory of sin and holiness. For, to re-
HODGES SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 249
peat, if sin lias its ruclimental seat in the intellect, then the quickening which begins the conversion from sin must operate in the same place. If blindness of mind is the radical source of moral error, light is the proper remedy ; and that light is revealed truth. That blindness too is spiritual blindness, for the sinner is not a lunatic ; he is in possession of his natural faculties, and can perceive secular and scientific, and even some moral truths. From this point of view, it appears to us, the theory of Claude Pajon that the Holy Ghost needs to operate only through the truth, in producing spiritual vision, is more consistent than the orthodox one of Drs. Alexander and Hodge. Dr. Alexander, re- ferring to Ps. cxix. 18 : " Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thj law," justly remarks, that two things are needed to effectuate actual vision in a blinded eye : first, the surgeon's agency restoring the faculty of -sdsion ; and, secondly, the presence of light, the proper medium. Now this is a just thing for us to say, but not for him ; because he cannot explain what it is that the spii'itual sui'gery needs to remove from the intellect in order to the admission of the light. For he does not hold to a corruption of wdll as cause of the darkening of the mind.
The theory of Pajon, and its rejection by the Reformed divines, are so instructive in this connection that we beg leave to state it more fully. Chaufepie [Historical and Critical Dictionary) gives full and authentic explanations, often in the words of that dis- tinguished divine. Pajon repudiated the phrase, " mediate operation," which his adversaries applied to his doctrine, and preferred to state it thus: "Regeneration is one sole and the same act, which should be referred to the Holy Ghost as princi- pal cause, and to the Word, and other means of grace, as organs, of which he serves himself to act on us." In a private confer- ence with the distinguished J. Claude, Messrs. Lenfant and de La Bastide, in Paris, Pajon explained himself in the foUo^dng propositions : 1. Men are born sinners. 2. This original sin is strengthened by all actual transgressions, until God converts them. 3. This corruption is too deep for any sinner to be con- verted, v/ithout efficacious grace working in him to will and to do. 4. The efficacy of this grace is not dependent on the self- determination of the man, but is in the grace itself, and is invin- cible, 5. This grace is not merely an exterior, but an interior
250 HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
liglit, j)enetratirig tlie understanding, necessarily filling it with knowledge of tlie true good, which knowledge necessarily leads the toillfrorn the world to God. 6. Althougli this grace is invincible, yet the conversion which it works is a movement of the man's free-will ; because the mil is dra-svn or necessitated to follow the gospel precepts only hy this gracious knowledge of our true good. So that it is possible the man might resist it if he chose ; but it is impossible that when this grace is apphed he shall choose to resist. 7. In giving us this knowledge of our true good, which necessarily works our conversion, the Holy Ghost usually em- ploys the ministry of the word ; which is for that reason called the "seed of our regeneration" and "ministration of the Holy Ghost." 8. Besides the word, God also employs providential means (as e. g., good examples, chastisements, removals of temp- tation, etc.), all of which, along with the word, God so dispenses as to make them efficacious organs, in each given case, of con- version.
' It was this statement of Pajon from which M. Claude and his friends, after mature reflection, dissented, as virtually involving the Pelagian errors of moral suasion, mediate foreknowledge, and universal call ; and as contrary to those Scriptures which, like Acts x^d. 14; Ps. cxix. 18; Eph. i. 17, 18, teach that God per- forms on the heart an immediate sovereign work, which is i7i order to the entrance of saving truth. Two or three Provincial S^mods, the government not allo-udng any National Synod to meet, joined in this condemnation. We add to this point, so justly taken, these other testimonies : Jer. xxxi. 33 ; Ezek. xxx\d. 26, 27 ; Luke xxiv. 45.
We argue, secondly, against this conception of depravity and regeneration, and in favor of the immediate agency of the Holy Ghost, that wxre the former scheme true, even as set forth by Dr. Dick, faith would be in order to the regeneration of the will. However he might eliminate any sequence of time, if " this gra- cious knowledge necessarily leads the will from the world to God," it remains clear, that faith as cause must precede this fii'st renewal of the will. But the Scriptures make faith the fruit of renewal.
Thirdly. The analytical exposure of the absurdity of the Pelagian scheme, regeneration by moral suasion, results ulti- mately in this, namely : that the state of disposition determines
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a priori whether auj given object presented to the soul shall be of the natiu'e of objective inducement or not. Moral suasion is that influence over the will which objects of natural or moral excellence, presented from without, are supposed to have as inducements to right feehng and choice. Now, any object what-^ soever is not inducement to any being whatsoever. One cannot attract a hungry horse with bacon, nor a hungiy man with hay.j Whether the object shall be ind\icement depends upon its relation to the existing appetency of the being to be influenced. And that state of appetency is obviously related, as cause, to the influence of the inducement as occasion. Hence, if the sinner's Avill is naturally indisposed and disabled to all spiritual good, that good cannot exert moral suasion over that avlQ, for the sim- ple reason that the effect cannot reverse its ovn\ cause. Such is the argument, and it is exhaustive. But now, who does noti see that this anal}' sis proceeds upon our theory: that the wiU has its own disposition, original, characteristic ? If the Jiahitus of the mil is nothing else than a modification of the intelligence, and the sinner's intellect is adequate to the mere intellectual ap- prehension of moral truth, as it is, we see no reason why moral suasion might not be expected to " lead the will necessarily from the world to God."
Fourthly. Dr. Hodge expoimds, with peculiar force and fid- ness, the solemn fact that there is a "common grace" of the Holy Ghost (which is not " common sufficient grace") convincing men of sin and misery up to a certain grade, but not renewing them. Now this partial, spiritual Hght in unrenewed minds must be correct hght as far as it goes, for it is the Spirit's. Yet it does not even partially subdue the enmity of those minds to God and duty. The usual effect is to inflame it. See Eom. vii. 8, 9. It appears, then, that light, without immediate grace revolutionizing the wiU, does not effect the work. Nor is the evasion just, that this conviction of duty inflames the carnal enmity, only because depravity has made it a distorted and erroneous view of duij. We assert that convicted but imrenewed souls fight against God and duty, not because he is misconceived, but because he begins to be rightly conceived. There is of course distortion of men- tal Aiew concerning him as long as sin reigns ; but he is now feared and hated, not only because of that error of view ; rather is he the more feared and hated because the sinful soul now
252 hodge's systematic theology.
begins to see him "vnth less eiTor, as a sovereign, holy, just, piu'e Being.
Fifthly. We infer the same view of sin and new birth from the regeneration of infants. They cannot be renewed by illumi- nation, because theii' intellects are undeveloped. Yet they are renewed. Now we grant that there is a wide difference in the circumstances and means of their redemption and that of adults. Yet are they delivered from a state of original sin generically the same with ours, and deHvered by the same Redeemer and Sanctifier. Must not the method of the renewing power be the same intrinsically?
Lastly. This view gives us a consistent rationale of that impo- tency of the natural man to receive the things of the Spirit of •God, which are foolishness unto him, described in 1 Cor. ii. li, and elsewhere. This impotency too plainly exists. Dr. Dick cannot define wherein it consists. See his sixty-sixth Lecture. Does it consist in the absence of any substantive revelation which the behever gains? No; this would be perilous fanati- cism. Does it consist in the hiding of any esoteric sense of the Word, to which the behever has the key ? No ; this would be Origenism. Does it consist in the loss of a cognitive faculty by the fall ? No ; that would suspend his responsibihty. Whence this impotency ? They have no answer.
But we have one. The will has its own Jutbitus, regulative of all its fundamental acts, which is not a mere modification of the intelligence, but its own coordinate, original character ; a simple, ultimate fact of the moral constitution. Hence an inter-action of will and intellect. On moral and spiritual subjects the prac- tical generalizations of the intellect are founded on the dictates of the disposition of the will. But now, these practical judg- ments of the sinner's understanding, prompted by the carnal disposition, contradict certain propositions which are premises to the most important gospel conclusions and precepts. No wonder, then, that such a mind cannot apprehend them as reasonable. For example: The sinner's real opinion, taught by a carnal heai-t, is, that sin in itself, apart from its penalty, which self-love apprehends as an e^dl, would be the prefeiTed good. A gospel is now explained to him, proposing deliverance from this sin, through the instrumentahty of faith. But the plan postulates the behef that the sin is jjer se so gi-eat an e^il that deliverance
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fi'om it is a good greatly to be desired ! No wonder, then, that as this postulate breaks upon the understanding of the sinner, he is obfuscated, stumbled, dumb-founded ! He is required to act on a belief which his carnal heart will not let him believe. His action, to be reasonable, must assume sin to be hateful. But he loves it. He feels that he naturally loves it, and only hates its consequences. "He cannot know the truth, for it is spiritu- ally discerned." Were a sprightly child allured to approach the reader by the promise of " something good," and told that he should have it upon holding out his hand for it ; and were he to perceiv just then, that the thing you held out was a naus- eous medicine, of whose utiHty to himself he was ignorant, he would be struck with a similar "inability." There would be a sense in which he would become unable to hold out his hand even ; he would not know how to do it. He would stand con- fused. Now this child is not becoming idiotic, but his native ap- petencies repel that which you propose as an attraction; and hence his obstinate apprehension of the unreasonablenes of your proposal.
Thus, as it appears to us, the simple psychology which is as- sumed in the Bible is found to be the truest philosophy, and throws a flood of hght upon the doctrines held in common by us, and by the respected fathers whom we review.
The only other point we discuss is at least as intricate as the one just attempted, and even more abstract, technical, and limited. But for other principles which have been connected with its discussion, chiefly through exaggerations and confusions of thought, it would indeed lie within very narrow bounds, both of extent and importance, in so far as it is debated among Cal- vinists. It is Dr. Hodge's doctrine of immediate imputation of Adam's sin to us. (Vol. II., Chapter YIII.) The questions drawn into the discussion are the relations of the divine sove- reignty and righteousness ; the rudimental idea of sin and crim- inality, imputation, justification, our union to Christ, God's providence in visiting the sins of parents upon posterity, and the rights of man's reason in problems where the divine right- eousness is a party. Dr. Hodge strongly advocates the theory adopted by Turretin. It is, that in the order of causation, the imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin on men precedes, transferring that guilt upon them conceived as at first other■v^ise
254 hodge's systematic theology.
innocent and guiltless ; wherebj a pri\ ative moral corruption of soul is by God visited on Adam's children as tlie penalty of that imputed guilt, and, in the first instance, of it alone. From this view we to a certain extent dissent. The reader of Dr. Hodge's present work ^ill find it stated more moderately than in his pre- vious ones. There is a pleasing absence of that imperious dog- matism which characterized his earlier polemics on this favorite point, such as his re^'iew of Dr. Baii'd's Eloldm Revealed. But his theory is the same.
"We are, of course, not oblivious of the difficulty of getting a considerate hearing against a speculation adopted by Turretin and Hodge, and sustained — though, as we shall show, to a very limited extent — by Dr. Thomwell. The last is himself "VNitness, (See Review of Breckinridge), that our Confession of Faith does not speak in favor of that speculation. Nor has it any direct Scripture support, being but a human inference from a peculiar interpretation of a much-contested passage in Bomans v. "We shall therefore presume that an humble minister in the Presby- terian Chiu'ch, who recognizes no infallible standard but the Bible, and has bound himself by no doctrinal covenant but our Confession, may credit his brethren with enough independence not to permit TuiTetin or Hodge to do their thinking for them. We shall certainly claim this liberty, especially when Ave recall some specimens of eiToneous thinking v,-hicli they have given us : as Turretin's labored opposition to the Copernican system, and his adoption of the latent Pantheism of the Dominican theory touching God's pro-sddential concursus ; or Dr. Hodge's views of popish baptism, the "Idea of the Church," and subscription to our creed, which were such as to compel the dissent of almost all his ovro. denomination.
As in the previous discussion, so here we shall find the history of the question instinctive. The French National Synod of 1645, at Charenton, found it necessary to adopt the following enactment against Joshua De La Place, or Placoeus, a theologi- cal professor in Saumui". Quick's Synodicum:
' ' There was a report made in the Synod of a certain writing, both printed and manuscript, holding forth this doctrine : That the whole nature of original sin consisteth only in that corruption which is hereditary to all Adam's posterity, and resides originally in all men ; and denying the imputation of his first sin. This Synod condemneth the said doctrine, so far as it restraineth the nature of original sin to the sole hereditary corruption of Adam's posterity, to the excluding of the im-
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 255
putation of that first sin by which he fell. And it interdicteth, on pain of all church censures, all pastors, professors, and others, who shall treat of this question, to depart from the common, received opinion of the Protestant Churches, who (over and besides that corruption) have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam's first sin to his posterity, " etc.
Placseus, to evade the implied condemnation of this decree, afterwards said, that he only disputed " an antecedent and im- mediate imputation" of Adam's guilt; but admitted "a mediate and subsequent imputation," through the criminality of each man's o-svti inherent corruption. This many of the Reformed conceiyed as a ^drtual denial of that imputation, inasmuch as they supposed Placseus to mean, that men are A'irtually made obnoxious to penalty only on account of their own corruption. But on this history several very instructive remarks are to bo made. One is, that no National SjTiod of the French Chiu'ch pursued Placoeus, either with discipline or any further legislation. This would seem to imply that his explanation was held suffi- cient by the supreme church coui^t, though very unsatisfactory to his antagonists, and especially to Andrew Rivet, their leader.
The second remark is, that this ill-starred distinction, and this pair of ambiguous terms for expressing it, were the invention of Placceas ; they were no part of the theology of the Reformers. So far as we know, they were never heard of before. So says the Princeton Review, (October, 1839). The distinction was e\d- dently a ruse, adopted by him to shelter himself and entrap his accusers. Had they been discreet they would not have been misled by controversial heat to step into the trap thus prepared for them by one whom they themselves charged with tnala fides. They should have refused the ensnaring distinction in both its branches, and should have asserted, "with the Synod of Charen- ton and all the previous Confessions, neither an "antecedent immediate" nor "mediate consequent" imputation, but simply a true and proper imputation of Adam's sin. The distinction is like that of supralapsarian and iufralapsarian, an attempted over-refinement, which should never have been made, which really explained nothing in the decree, and which only led to corollaries dishonorable to God. We state briefly the grounds of this assertion, as a foreshado"\Adng of our train of discu.ssion.
The alternative adopted by Placaeus is incorrect, because, Hke the Arminian scheme, it offers the fact that God should have extended the law, " Like begets like," to man's moral natui'e and
256 hodge's systematic theology.
■will, ns an explanatiou of the fact. Xatural laws are of Gocl's institutiou and sustentatiou ; what they enact, he ordains. The question therefore recurs : On what judicial has'is did this ordi- nation, to propagate hereditary depravity in men, rest ? Secondly : Placfeus's scheme is false to the facts of the case, in that it repre- sents God as though he conceived of Adam's posterity as having an antecedent depraved existence, at least for a moment, before they passed under condemnation ; whereas the Scriptures tell us they are horn condemned. See Eph. ii. 3. The opposite al- ternative is untenable, not only because it encumbers the doc- trine of original sin M'ith unnecessary difficulties, when the un- avoidable ones are in all conscience, serious enough, but because it connects itself with erroneous views of justification, and the mystical union to the second Adam, and esiDecially that it also is false to the facts of the case. It reprresents man as having a separate, undepraved, personal existence, for an instant at least, until, ywrn. innocent, it is turned into depraved by God's act, as a i^enal consequence of Adam's guilt imputed ; whereas, in fact, man now never has any personal existence at all, save a depraved existence. As he enters being condemned, so he enters it de- praved. This over-refinement therefore leads to an inaccuracy, which is the counterpart of that resulting fi'om the opposite scheme. Now, when both of the alternatives in this attempted distinction lead thus to error, the argument is as strong as can well be conceived to show that the distinction should never have been made.
WiU the stringency of this argument drive any advocate of immediate imputation, so called, to deny that this scheme in- volves the conception of Adam's posterity as penally made depraved from undepraved, on the exclusive ground of imputed guilt ? If that denial could be substantiated, we should have, so far, no ground of difference with him. But it cannot. If his "immediate precedaneous imputation" only meant a true and proper imputation, we should be agreed, so far. But it does not. This is obvious from the logical order of thought. In that order, though perhaps not always in the order of a temporal succession appreciable by our senses, every cause goes before its effect. If imputed guilt is the sole cause, and dej)ravation the penal effect, then, in that sense, the recipient must have tlio imputation before the depravity. What else does " immediate
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 257
precedaneoiis" mean ? Again. The friends of immediate impu- tation went along ■^'itli us very sociably in charging the exact counterpart as a result of Plac?eus's theory, that it would follow, the soul must be first personally depraved in order to become guilty. Impartiality must make the same objection against Dr. Hodge's theory. Thirdly : Turretin fully asserts, and Dr. Hodge favors, " Creationism." Now, if God creates the soul, it must be created innocent ; for a holy God cannot create deprav- ity. Hence, there must he a conceivable instant, as this soul passes from its Maker's pure hand into the putatively guilty human person, in which instant it undergoes the penal transition from innocent to depraved. And lastly : The advocates of the scheme consistently make an express admission of what we charge. Chalmers's Theological Institutes, Vol. I., page 485 : " "We have been all dealt with as sinners, and tJiis anterior to any personal or actual sin of ours." "We have heen made corruiA" (he means, turned into corrupt persons), " because we had sinned in Adam, and so are held guilty as he was, and treated accord- ingly." (Page 486.) So on page 497: "Or rather, if we speak according to the order of cause and effect, or the natural prece- dency of guilt to punishment, we have been held so anterior to infancy r So Thorn well. Vol. I., page 346 : " Hence, in the order of thought, his sin must always be conceived as imputed before they can be conceived as depraved." Page 347 : "Hence the Scriptures teach explicitly, that we are first charged with the guilt of Adam's sin, and then, as the legal consequence, are born with natures totally corrupt." Page 349 : They " are still jjer- sonally innocent, while putatively guilty^ Hodge on Eom. v. 13 : " It " (the penalty) " comes on men before the transgi-ession of the law of nature, or even the existence of inherent dejyravity" Theology, Yol. II., page 210 : "The guilt, in the order of nature and fact, precedes the sp>iritual death, which is its penal conse- quent." Page 203 : " Penal e^'ils .... come upon all mankind prior to anything in their state or conduct to merit such infliction." Can an}i;hing be plainer? Shall we be told that these "^Titers also say, and imply, that putative guilt and corrujDtion are simul- taneous in first action, as the Scriptures say? Very likely. That is to say, they contradict themselves ; a very natural result, when good men are betrayed into a position contrary to Scripture. Let us repeat, that it is only against the peculiarity of Dr.
"258 hodge's systematic theology.
Hodge's doctrine as thus evolved that we have any debate. And it is in this sense that we firmly assert it is not the peculiarity of the Reformed theology, but an exaggeration into which a few of its distinguished names have been betrayed. Any impartial mind examining Eivet's Coiiseyisus sees that, as supports for the pecuharity above depicted, his array is a failure. The Reformed Confessions all assert an imputation of Adam's guilt ; as does the decree of Charentou ; but as to the point to which we except, not one speaks in favor of Dr Hodge's position. A few theolo- gians, Hke the supralapsarian Beza, sustain him explicitly ; the great current, Hke Calvin, stop short of or even repudiate his pectiharity. Passing to more recent times, we find Stapfer, the great Edwards, and Breckinridge, against Dr. Hodge. The two fii'st of these may show how mucli more of assertion than of re- search we meet upon this subject. Dr. Hodge has said that Stapfer and Edwards adopt the A'icious theory of Placseus ; and many others, echoing Dr. Hodge, say the same, but all errone- neously ! Let us hear the men themselves, Stapfer's Polemic Theology, Vol. IV., Chapter XVTI., §78, Note: "The whole of the controversy they" (the adversaries of the doctrine of original sin) " have "vs'ith us about this matter evidently arises from this, that they suppose the 'mediate and the irninediate imputation are distinguished one from the other, not only in the manner of conception, but in reahty. And so indeed they consider imputa- tion only as ininiediate, and abstractedly from the mediate ; when yet ow divines suppose that neither ought to he considered sepa- rately from the other. Therefore I choose not to use any such DISTINCTION, or to suppose any such thing, in what I have said on the subject ; but have only endeavored to explain the thing itself and to reconcile it T\ith the divine attributes. And therefore / have everywhere conjoined hoth these conceptions concerning the im- putation of the first sin, as inseparahle, and judged that one ought never to be considered ^^dthout the other. While I have been wi'iting this note, / have consulted all the systems of divinity which I have by me, that I might see what was the true and igenuine opinion of our cliief di^dnes in this afi'air ; and I found they were of the same mind with me," etc. Edwards, Part IV., Chapter III., Original Sin, says: These things "said by Stap- ferus are in several respects to the present purpose."
Another weighty protest against the exaggeration of Dr. Hodge
hodge's systematic theology. 259
appears iu a large body of Calvinists, represented by Dr. Samuel J. Baird, Dr. W. G. T. Shedd, and the venerable father, Augus- tine, to whom Dr. Thorn well finally gave in his virtual adhesion, whose views Dr. Hodge repudiates as reahsm. These hold, as we do, a true and proper imputation ; but they are so un"v\T.lling to accept the pecuharit}' of the theory of Rivet, Turretin, and Hodge, that to avoid it they resort to the theory of "generic identity." The race sinned in Adam, because the whole nature was in him when he sinned ; and we each have that same nature, and. so each one truly and Hterally sinned in that first sin. The nature they define as an entity, but not a suhstance, being, namely, the aggregate of all the moral and intellectual forces transmitted by generation, and qualifying each person of the race as a moral agent. "We have no mission to defend this theory, not holding its peculiar feature. But it cannot be called realism. It ex- pressly says that the nature, as separated from each indi\'idual, is neither substance nor person, yet not a mere abstraction. It may be unintelligible, but it is not realism ; for the corner stone of that theory was, that generic ideas are 7'es. We are only in- terested in the scheme of generic identity as a protest against Dr. Hodge's peculiarity.
As another witness to the true complexion of the doctrine in the Protestant theology, we quote D. G. Sohn, Professor in Heidelberg, 1590, commended by Dr. Archibald Alexander, as a representative of orthodoxy. Commenting on Rom. v. 12 : "B}' one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin," he says : The apostle " does not mean merely that Adam had be- come a sinner, but that it had come upon all his descendants, that is, upon all the men in the world ; for he does not say in this place that guilt had entered, but that sin had entered into the world. And this is not left to be inferred, but is expressly asserted in the same verse, ' in whom all have sinned,' or, ' for that all,' etc. Moreover, when he declares that all are subject to death and condemnation by the sin of one, it is a just inference that they are all partakers of his sin, and are born in a state of moral pollution. In the 19th verse it is said : ' By the disobe- dience of one many are constituted sinners.' Now to be consti- tuted sinners includes the idea, not only of being made subject to the penalty, but partaking of the nature of sin ; for they who are entirely free from the stain of sin cannot with proprifety be
260 HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
called sinners Infants are depraved, ' cliildren of wratli/
and guilty on account of tlieir own personal depravity."
Vogelsang, quoted by De Moor, Cominentarias, Vol. III., i^age 275, says : " Certe neminem sempiterna subire supplicia, propter inobedientiam protoplasti, nisi mediante cognafca perversitate."
Marckius, in De Moor, says : If Placfeus meant nothing more by mediate imputation tlian tliat, ''hominum natorum actualem punitionem ulteriorem non fieri nudo intuitu Adamicre transgres- sionis, absque interveniente etiam propria corruptione, et fluen- tibus liinc sceleribus variis, neminem orthodoxorum possent habere obloquentem." But that is just what Calvin, Stapfer, and their company, do mean, and nothing more.
Let us add a testimony from among the Westminster divines. Samuel Rutherford, in his Trial and TriuvipJi of Faith, says : " And truly it is bad divinity for Dr. Crispe to say, 'As we are real, actual sinners in Adam, so here, God passeth really sin over on Christ ; for we sinned intrinsically in Adam, as parts, as mem- bers, as being in his loins ; and we are thence ' hy nature chil- dren of lurath .'' (Eph. ii. 3.) But it is blasphemy to say that our blessed Saviour sinned intrinsically in us, or that he is a Son of God's wi'ath, for sin intrinsically inherent in him as it is in us," the latter being Rutherford's conception of our sinning in Adam,
But our most explicit witness is the greatest — ^John Calvin. Dr. Thornwell first gives him up, and then, on grounds of infer- ence, claims him. We indulge in no inferences as to what is meant, but cite his express words. Dr. Hodge apologizes that some of the Papists pushed the putative element of original sin so exclusively that the Reformers of Calvin's day were con- strained to exaggerate the hereditary element to restore the bal- ance ; and that thorough discussion and analysis had not then taught them the bearings of the question between mediate and immediate imputation. Je me moque de toat cela ! Calvin did not exactly know what he was about, quoth 'a ! Let us see whether he does not look the matter fully in the face, and give an intentional and intelligent decision. In his Commentary , on Romans v. 12, ^^ Sin entered into the world," we read: "Observe what order he places here ; for he says that sin preceded, death followed from it. For there are persons who contend that we are ruined by Adam's sin in such a way as though we perished by no fault of our own ; thus, as though he only had sinned m
hodge's systematic theology. 261
US. But Paul affirms distinctly that sin is propagated in all wlio pay its penalty. And lie tlien urges tliat more closely, when, a little after, he assigns the reason why all Adam's posterity is sub- ject to death's empire. To wit, saith he, because we all have sinned. That 'peccare,' moreover, signifies to be corrupted and vitiated. For that natural depravity whioh we bring from our mother's womb, although it yield not its fruit so quickly, is nevei-theless siu before the Lord, and deserves his vengeance. And this is what is called original sin. For as Adam at his first creation received the endowments of divine favor as well for him- self as for his posterity ; thus, upon apostatizing from the Lord, he corrupted our nature in himself, defiled, depraved, ruined it ; for when fallen from God's likeness, he could only beget a seed similar to himself. We therefore all sinned, in that we are all imbued with natural corruption, and so unrighteouii and perverse."
So, on verse 15, Calvin says : " What the apostle dehvers, ' perished through the offence of one,' understand thus : that cor- ruption is transfused from him into us. For neither do we thus perish by his fault as though we were ourselves without fault ; but because his sin is the cause of our sin, Paul ascribes our death to him. Our sin I call what is inborn in us," etc. On verse 17, "For if by the offence of one," he says : "Moreover, it is important to note here two differences between Adam and Christ, which the apostle did not thus omit because he deemed they should be neglected, but because it did not at all concern the present argument to enumerate them. The first is, that in Adam's sin Ave are not condemned through imputation alone, as though the penalty of another man's sin were exacted of us ; but we thus sustain its punishment, because we are also guilty of fault, so far, to wit, as our nature vitiated in him is involved in guilt before God. But, through the righteousness of Christ, we are restored to salvation in another mode. For it [Christ's righteousness] is not thus held to be accepted by us, as though it were within us, but because we possess Christ himself, be- stowed upon us by the Father's generosity, with all his benefits. Accordingly, the 'gift of righteousness' signifies not a quahty with which God imbues us, as some erroneously interpret, but a gratuitous imputation of righteousness ; for the apostle is ex- pounding what he understood by the word grace. The other dif-
262 HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
ference is, that the benefit of Christ does not reach to all men, as Adam involved his whole race in condemnation. And the reason is at hand ; for since that curse which we draw from Adam is derived into us by nature, it is not surprising that it embraces the whole mass. But in order to come to a participation of the grace of Christ, we must needs be inserted into him bv faith." Calvin repeats the same view under verse 19.
The grounds upon which Dr. Hodge rests his peculiar theory, against Calvin and the cuiTent of the Keformed di^'ines, may be included in two. He assumes, first, that the imputation of Adam's sin to us must be not only a true imputation, which we fully admit, but that it must be exactly identical, in all its circumstances, with the imputation of our sins to Christ, and of his righteousness to us. He assumes, secondly, that the correct interj)retation of Rom. V. 12-21, demands his peculiar xiew, the exact identity of the two imputations granted. And he argues his interpretation chiefly from the premise of that identity ; thus reasoning in a circle. Now, as to this much belabored passage, we are free to say that Calvin's exposition seems, on the whole, founded on the truest insight into the apostle's scope, and the fairest and most scholarly. But we have no theoretic motive to reject Dr. Hodge's exposition ; for his exegetical conclusions contain no- thing inconsistent with oiu' doctrine. But we shall show that the doctrinal use which is attempted to be made of the passage is not only unnecessary to the analogy of the faith, but untenable and self-contradictory.
Dr. Hodge would ask. Whether the covenants of works and of grace are not both grounded in the principle of imputation? We reply, I'^es. And whether we can deny it in the one without overthro^-ing the other? Again we answer, JVo. But stay; we do not concede his postulate above. It is a principle funda- mentally involved in both covenants, that under the government of a sovereign and righteous God, guilt may be justly transfer- able from one moral agent to another under certain conditions ; but not therefore under any conditions whatsoever. We have never seen a system which denied the latter. Dr. Hodge con- cedes it. (Vol. II., page 196. Turreiin, Loc. IX., Ques. 9.) Let us suppose that when Satan fell, Gabriel had been far dis- tant, in the holy and perfect performance of the mission of love • entrusted to him by his di^dne Master, and that when he re-
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, 263
tiirned lie had been told that he must be cast into hell for the sin of Satan, because it was imputed to him, while there was no tie of race nor dependency between them, and he was not con- senting to, or even cognizant of the sin. Does any one hold that the righteousness or benevolence of our God could justify this dispensation? We can only say, that were we to meet with a man who held thus, we should certainly not attempt to reason with him. That is a case in which the conditions of a just impu- tation are certainly lacking..
Let us suppose again, that Achan's children had been person- ally as holy in nature and conduct as Adam was before he fell ; does any rational man suppose that they would have perished under the law of Exodus xx. 5 ? These instances, ordinary and extraordinary, where God visits the iniquity of fathers upon the children, are cited by Dr. Hodge as though they implied this, and were identical wdth the case of Adam and his posterity. And yet Dr. Hodge knows that all Calvinistic doctors teach that the two cases present only an analogy, and not a perfect par- allel. A parent now is not a federal head under a covenant of works. Our relation to our fathers is not identical with our relation to Adam; the guilt of their sins is not imputed to us precisely as Adam's first sin is. Yea, we are taught that the guilt of none, even of Adam's sins after the first, is thus imputed to us. In this visiting of parents' sins on posterity, we have a different case, of just imputation, yet requiring different con- ditions. The children must be already sinners — already person- ally obnoxious, at least for inherent depravity, to God's holiness. Moses tells us, Exod. x.x. 5, Deut. v, 9, that this visiting of parents' sins is upon the third and fourth generations of them that hate God. Our Saviour (Matt, xxiii. 32-35), teaches the same; telling the Pharisees that their "filling up the measure of their fathers " was the condition of their inheriting the jDenalty of all the righteous l)lood shed from Abel to Zacharias. The prohibition in Deut. xxiv. 16 proves the same thing; human magistrates might not put the children to death for the fathers* sins. Is it said that God still did it, as in the case of Achan's and Saul's posterity? True, and the explanation exactly con- firms our argument. A magistrate may not slay a criminal's children, because, to him, in the limited sphere of his jurisdic- tion, they are not offenders. But God may, because in his
264 hodge's systematic theology.
wider sphere of judgment they are sinners. God never does injustice "that good may come;" but when the righteous ends of his providential rule dictate it, he justl}' makes sinful children suffer with sinful progenitors. While the penal infliction is occasioned by the progenitors' crimes, yet a community of sinful character between the children and them is the condition requi- site for a righteous im]Dutation in these cases. The latter point Turretin reluctantly teaches, against the interests of his own erroneous logic. (Loc. IX. Ques. 9.) Thus we find in this exten- sive class of providences cases of what Dr. Hodge deems, and con-ectly deems, true imputation ; but the conditions are not identical with the imputation of Adam's sin to us.
We approach the issue more nearly in our third case, that of the imputation of our guilt to Christ. This Dr. Hodge would make his strong point, urging that if we do not admit his exag- gerated view of immediate imputation, we cannot admit the imputation of our guilt to Christ. And, since there is no other W'ay of justification for sinners, he intimates that the man who will not go all lengths ^nth him, cuts himself off from all hope of heaven ! Does not this appear to be the very wantonness of dogmatism, when we remember that the Scriptures expressly make two cardinrd differences between the conditions of the im- putation in Christ's case and Adam's? In the case of the impu- tation of our sins to Christ, Dr. Hodge lU'ges that the guilt of that which was purely and ^c^fti\ jpeccatam alienum is transferred to Christ on the ground of a community of nature, without his hav- ing a paiiicle of personal depra-sdty or sin common between him and the sinful race. True ; but the Scriptures teU us the pro- priety of it was grounded in two other conditions also, totally peculiar. Christ volunteered to assume the lyenalty ; he having, what no creature could have, autocracy of his own being and powers, authorizing him to make the voluntary offer. Will any one be rash enough to say that a community of nature alone would have ever prompted the sovereign holiness and justice of the Father to lay the load of imputed guilt on the God-man, his co-equal Son, if lie had dissented f rom the sacrifice? Again we say, that -w-ith such a man we should not dream of reasoning. Every system of theology we ever read treats Christ's voluntary- consent as an essential condition. He says so himself in John x. 18. Dr. Thomwell, in his admirable missionary sermon on that
hodge's systematic theology. 265
text, says : " It [Christ's coYenaut of redemptionj binds, not by virtue of a riglit to command, but by virtue of a consent to obey." See also Butler's Analogy, Part II., Chap. Y., Sec. 7: "Nay, if there were any force at all in the objection [that vicarious suffer- ings cannot be just], it would be stronger in one respect against natural providence than against Christianity ; because under the former we are in many cases commanded, and even necessitated, whether we will or not, to suffer for the faults of others, whereas the sufferings of Christ were voluntary. The world being under the righteous goA'ernment of God does indeed imply that finally and upon the whole every one shall receive according to his personal deserts ; and the general doctrine of the whole Scripture is, that this shall be the completion of the di"v^ne government." So con- cludes Chalmers — honest man ! — against the interests of his own false logic. See Institutes of Theology, Vol. I., p. 498: "For there is an element in the latter [Christ's] which does not belong to the former imputation. Christ was willing^'' etc. See also Owen on Justljicatlun, p. 194: "And this voluntary sponsion was, one gi'ound of the imputation of our sin to Christ. He took on him the person of the whole church that had sinned, to answer for what they had done against God and the law. Hence that imputation was funcUmentaliter ex compacto, ex voluntaria, spon- sione; it had its foundation in his voluntary undertaking," etc.
The other essential difference between the two cases of impu- tation is that pointed out by the apostle in Rom. v., 16-19, and Rom. vi. 23. The one was a transaction of strict judicial righteousness; the other of glorious free grace. '■^^\x& judgment was by one to condemnation ; but the free gift is of many offences unto justification." God displayed liberahty in pro- posing to lift Adam and his race from the condition of servants to that of sons forever, on the easy terms of a temporary obedi- ence. So the covenant of grace involves a vicarious obedience and sacrifice, by which the law is satisfied, while its captives are ransomed. But the Scriptm-es stiU correctly say, that the first covenant was a transaction of law, the second of grace. " For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law : that the man which doeth those things shall live by them." (Eom. x. 5.) "And if by grace, then it is no more of works ; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace." (Eom. xi. 6.) Now can any righteous judge be imagined
266 HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.
who would allow himself equal latitude in his judicial convic- tions with that he allows himself in his acts of beneficence? Would not every such judge answer, that in condemning he felt himself bound by justice within the strict merits of each case ; but that, in his benefactions, he was accustomed to give way to the generous impulses of his heart, provided no principle of righteousness inhibited him, and to bestow more than the recipi- ents could claim of right ? It may be praiseworthy to dispense blessings above the deserts of the beneficiaries; it cannot be other than injustice to dispense penalties beyond the deserts of the culprits. Here then is a second essential difference between the two Adams in the two covenants. While there is a true and proper imputation in each case, this prepares us to expect a dif- ference in the circumstances conditioning them.
There is still another difference in the two cases not mentioned by Calvin. In the case of the first Adam, the representative's action as federal head preceded the sin. In the case of the second Adam, the sin preceded not only the action of Christ as substitute, but preceded even the constitution of his person. We may find that this circumstance will have to be regarded in our adjustment. Lastly, there is the difference pointed out by Calvin: The impvitation of Adam's guilt goes A\dth the blood; all who are naturally descended from him share it. The federal connection with Christ does not go with the blood ; it is limited to believers, and its benefits applied through faith, which is an intel- ligent, voluntary act of the beneficiaries' souls We may find that this circumstance will have to be regarded in our adjustment.
To Dr. Hodge's second line of argument, then, for immediate imputation in his peculiar sense of it, we have several answers. The argument is : That we must make an exact parallel in all particulars between Adam and Christ ; that if we do not repre- sent God as -s-isiting the penalty of corruption on Adam's j)os- terity solely at first for his imputed guilt, they being conceived as otherwise initially guiltless and sinless, we must be consistent, and represent justification as first, in order of thought, an infu- sion of inherent sanctification, and thereupon, secondarily, an imputation of the righteousness of Christ's satisfaction. But this i% precisely the popish theory of j astification. Now, the first answer is, that the apostle did not mean to institute an exact parallel in every circumstance between Adam and Christ. Both
hodge's systematic theology. 267
are federal heads. From both, there is au iiupiitation, and a proper one. But the imputations are inevitably differentiated, in some conditions, by the differences of the two cases. Of these the apostle mentions some. Calvin suggests others. And among these he expressly asserts that very difference which Dr. Hodge denies, between imputation of sin and imputation of righteousness, and expressly repudiates that popish theory on the latter point, which. Dr. Hodge says, any one in Calvin's position is bound to accept. We differ from the Princeton divine in remarkably good company,
But oiir second answer is that an assertion of the exact par- allel which Dr. Hodge wishes to establish will inevitably lead to erroneous results, which he and every other Reformed divine must anxiously repudiate. If this is the order of thought in immediate imputation: that we, conceived as other\vise person- ally sinless and guiltless initially, receive Adam's guilt by impu- tation, and then inherent depravity as the penalt}^ at first, of that alone, then the theory of justification which must result from a rigid parallelism must be this: That we are personally depraved and dead in trespasses and sins at the epoch of our justification, and afterwards, in the order of causation, we receive quickening grace, as the first fruit and effect of justifying right- eousness imputed. But as justification is instrumentally by faith, faith must be in order to justification, and of course in order to qidckenmg ! That is, the sinner has true faith first, and is regenerated afterwards ! Every one who has a modicutn of theological knowledge knows that this is precisely Arminianism. A moment's reflection shows that it is inevitable synergism. Every Calvinist distinguishes between inherent and legal right- eousness ; as does Dr. Hodge excellently well. Vol. II., page 195. As to the merit of a personal inherent righteousness worthy to l^rocxire our acceptance he/ore God. we have none at all at the time of our justification, nor ever after. But as to subjective condi- dition, the believer is not spiritually dead at the instant of justi- fication. All the Reformed divines, so far as we know,^ with Dr. Hodge, fix the following order of sequence. 1. Quickening
^Crdvin's Institutes, Book III., Chap. XL, § 10. Owen on JustiJlcatioH, Chap. IX., pages 236-'7. Boston's Fourfold State, pages 195-'6. Turretin, Loc. XV., Ques. 15, §4. Ridgeley, Vol. III., pages io, i7. Confession of Faith, Chap. X. ; Chap. XL, first sentence; Chap. XIV., § 1; Larger Catecliism, Ques. G6, 67, 69.
268 hodge's systematic theology.
of the dead soul, or regeneration iu its strict sense, Ijt which Christ's spiritual life and holiness are initially implanted. 2. Saving faith is exercised. 3. The union to Christ is thereby constituted, which di^ades into legal union and spiritual union. As we are legally united to him, we are justified; as we are spmtually united, we " convert" (Isaiah vi. 10), and the work of sanctification proceeds in us. We thus see that Dr. Hodge must relinquish the theory of an exact parallelism, or he finds himself in a dilemma, whose two horns are Arminianism and the scheme of Placffius, both abhorred by him and by us. "We ad%*ise liim to retreat from his exaggeration, and find the safe position along- side of John Calvin and the great current of Reformed divines, with his humble reviewer. It is too late for him to escape the dilemma, by pleading that the only thing discussed in Rom. v. 12, etc., is the legal relation of the two Adams to tlieu' federated bodies, and that the spiritual relations should be left out of the debate. Leave them, out then, and nothing can be proved from this passage, against our view or for Dr. Hodge's. We repeat: if the spiritual and subjective relations of the represented to the representatives are out of the debate, this whole argument is as irrelevant for Dr. Hodge as for us. But he will not leave those relations out : he cannot ; thev must come into the arcjument, and then it is in our favor.
For, thirdly, if there is in every particular an exact parallelism between the two cases of imputation, then it must hold in this : that hoth are conditioned on a j^'f^fallel union between the repre- sented and the representatives. In this particular we claim the parallel. Dr. Hodge cannot demur ; because he says there must be a parallel in every particular. Here then, for once, shall we travel together sociably? Let us see. Dr. Hodge says. Vol. II., page 196 : "The ground of the imputation of Adani's sin, or the reason why the penalty of his sin has come upon all his pos- terity, according to the doctrine above stated, is the union be- tween us and Adam." Also on page 211 : "These consequences come on his posterity in the same order," (as on Adam) : " first, the loss, or rather destitution, of original righteousness ; and sec- ondly, corruption of nature; and thirdly, exposure to eternal death." So also Thornwell, Vol. I., page 316: "If there were not a real unity between Adam and the race, the covenant of works could not, by an arbitrary constitution, treat them as one."
hodge's systematic theology. 269
One application which we make of this excellent doctrine is to explain the valuable and instructive remark of Jonathan Ed- wards : that we should so conceive of our sin and fall in our federal head, according to our close natural and federal union ■\\dth him, as to place the two elements of inherent depravity and guilt in the same relation, in ourselves and in him. This Dr. Hodge expressly admits, as we have thus seen. Now common sense tells us, that when a holy creature committed his first sin, the depravation of his heart and the falling under guilt were, temporally speaking, synchronous; but that, causatively speak- ing, the depravation, or subjective corruption, must precede, and the guilt follow. The reason is plain : It is sinful acts which incur guilt. But the character of acts is decided by their inten- tion, to speak popularly ; decided by their subjective motive, to speak philosophically. The thing which qualified Adam's act in plucking the forbidden fruit as evil, Avas the evil emotion that prompted it. But in the order of causation, motive precedes volition. This is but to say that a holy being cannot perform an unholy act ; he must begin to become unholy in order to do so. Any other view is simply absurd. It is very true that, after Adam became a customary sinner, the series of sinful acts fos- tered the sinful disposition ; yea, that his very first wi'ong act gave an impulse to the wrong affection which prompted it. But the other truth remains : that a sinful act must imply a sinful motive as a priori to it in the orde;" of production. We can scarcely imagine that any one wdll be so thoughtless as to object that this would represent God as bringing the penal evil of suli- jective corruption on Adam before he found Adam guilty. The answer is too plain : That it was not God who did it ; biTt Adam brought it on himself. That is to say, God did not coiTupt Adam ; he cornipted himself. Having found this order of relation between Adam's first corruption and his first guilt, we have the authority of both the rival parties to this discussion for saying we should find the same order in the case of his posterity. That is, we should describe them as temporally guilty when cornipt- ed, and corrupted when guilty; and causatively, in the initial determination of matters, guilty because corrupted, rather than corrupted because guilty.
We proceed now to apply the 'concession of a union between Adam and his posterity in another point of view. All are agreed
270 hodge's systematic theology.
that the imputation of Adaiir's giiilt is conditioned on oiu" natural as well as our federal union with Adam. Now we raise the very simple question: In what nature are we united to Adam? — his holy or his fallen nature ? Will any one say, In both ? Then, we must have had a literal preexistence for six thousand years ! For, let the reader notice, the question is about our natural union -odth Adam, not our federal. IFg are naturally united only to Adam fallen; for he had already fallen before he had jdos- terity. All divines agree that, if Adam is redeemed, his regen- erated holiness does not federally concern us; that is not his natural, but his supernatural quality. There is, then, no moral nature of the first Adam to which we can be naturally united, save his fallen nature. To this emphatically agree the Scrip- tures. Gen. V. 3 : " And Adam .... begat a son in his own Kkeness, after his image, and called his name Seth." 1 Cor. xv. 48, 49 : "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy. . . And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." " Put oft' . . . the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, .... and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and time hohness." (Eph, iv. 22-24.) These words, in requiring conversion, allude to the two unions ; the first, coiTupt ; the sec- ond, holy. (Compare Col. iii. 9, 10.) Our oj)]3onents have ex- pressly conceded — not bethinking themselves what they were conceding — that the imputation of Adam's guilt to us is condi- tioned on a natural and a federal union. Now it turns out that the one of these conditions is a union in a depraved nature. It is too late for them to recoil. We forewarned them that there was a difference of fact between the first Adam's covenant and the second Adam's ; that the first representative was before the sin ; but that the sin was before the second representative. We now see that a difterence of adjustment, in this particular, is in- e-sdtable from that fact.
It is vain for Dr. Thornwell to seek escape from this conclu- sion, by sajdng that each indi\ddual sinner of us has had a fed- eral existence before we were conceived; that we bore a cov- enanted or legal relation before we existed. If this lanscuage means an}i;hing more than a reference to the di^dne foreordi- nation and foreknowledge about us, it is incorrect. Common sense mil decide mth us, that nothinoj can be trulv related im-
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til it exists ; a nonentity cannot be party to a leiacion. Before we individually began to exist, each of ns was nonentity, save in the f oreordination of God viewing us as im posse ; and before we began to exist, the only true relation connecting each of us individually with Adam, or with anything else, was the one sub- sisting in God's prescience and purpose. Let the clear, con- vincing language of the Confession of Faith, touching the coun- terpart subject of justification, illustrate this statement. Chap. XI., Sec. 4: " God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect ; and Christ did, iu the fulness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification ; nevertheless they are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth, iu due time, actually apply Christ unto them." By parity of reasoning, we hold that God did, from all eternitj^ decree to condemn all men descended from Adam by ordinary generation ; and that Adam did, some time after his creation in holiness, sin and fall for them, as well as for himself; nevertheless, individual fallen men are not con- demned in him until such time as their existence doth actually unite them to Adam. And then it is a corrupted Adam to whom they are united.
Can any escape from this be gained by saying that the whole covenant of works ceased and was revoked as soon as Adam broke it once ; and that the legal union of subsequent men must therefore have been before that date ? The premise is expressly untrue, tried by Scripture or common sense. The statement is precisely as preposterous as this : " A given murderer broke the statute of murder at a given time ; and consequently that statute was thenceforward abrogated and wholly revoked as to him, as a legal covenant." We presume that when hanging-day came, the murderer would be very much mystified to know under what law he was to be hung on that theory. How could that statute hang him, if it was abrogated as to him? No; the simple tnith is, it has not been abrogated by his breach of it ; but abides in full force over him in its condemning power, only, it has ceased to be a possible rule of justification for him. See Bom. iii. 20. So the broken covenant of works is still in force over Adam's race as a rule of condemnation. It is for that reason that " v:)e are all by nature children of wrath, even as others." God's elect are born under the force of that covenant as a rule of condemna- tion, "even as others." It passes human ^\it to see how, if the
272 HODaE's SYSTEMATIC! THEOLOGY.
covenant of works were wholly revoked as soon as broken by Adam, sin is still imputed under it in "this year of grace" 1873 ; how in the "year of grace" 1, our Lord Christ was placed under both its preceptive and penal terms as a surety ; and how, in thirty-three years thereafter, he so repaired and fulfilled it as thereby to purchase for the elect the very " adoption of sons" which that covenant had first proposed to Adam. See Gal. iv. 5 : "These be the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is^ and is hi hondage with her children.^'' Does not every Reformed ex- positor explain that the Sinai covenant, as perverted, broken, 9nd misapplied by legalists, reverts into the covenant of works? We never heard of any other way of explaining the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians. They uniformly represent that +here are two covenants, and only two : of works, of grace ; that all men are born under the first, and horn condemned^ hecause they are horn under it, its breach in Adam having rendered it a ministry of condemnation; that we all live under it, until, by union to the second Adam, we pass under the other, the cove- nant of grace. The epoch of transition is when we are effectu- ally called and believe. Rom. vii. 6 : " But now we are delivered from the law," etc. When? When we are "married" to Christ. The truth remains, then, that our natural union to Adam is- a union to a corrupted nature; and it is confessed on all hands that such union is one of the essential grounds of the imputation of his giiilt to us. We return, then, to that view of this imputa- tion presented by Calvin in the citations given above, as the con- sistent one.
But Dr. Hodge, following Turretin, urges, that unless we ac- cept their strained view of immediate imputation, we really get no imputation at all. The whole residuum is, that men are pun- ished in no sense for Adam's sin, but exclusively for their own concurrence of will and conduct in that sin. Now we rej^ly to this : First, it is strange that so large a number of the greatest, clearest, and most orthodox minds, like Calvin's, Yitringa's, Stapfer's, Rutherford's, Edwards', should have deceived them- selves mth so sheer a cheat, and should have supposed that they had a true imputation, when there was none. They teach that a community of evil nature is the concurrent condition of
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. 273
this imputation. Dr. Hodge's charge is, that it excludes all real imputation. Let us see. We reply, secondly : All the Reformed divines agree that the mystical union with Christ, establishing a, community of spiritual life with him, is the essential concurrent condition for the imputation of his righteousness. Here is tho parallel case. Do they, does Dr. Hodge, therefore concede that there is therefore no proper imputation of Christ's merits ; and that believers are justified after all on account of the infused spiritual life? Not one of them In the other case, the imputa- tion of our sins to Christ, it is conditioned on his natural unioa with the race, and his optionary assent. But no theologian ever argued thence, that the real transference of guilt was obscured or lost, and that Christ was really punished on account of his act in consenting to assume humanity. The view of the Re- formed churches is plain enough as to original sin ; it makes the elements one coetaneous complex. The Shorter Catechism says : " The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adarn's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature," etc. The word guilt here must be intended by the Westminster Assembly in the sense of "potential guilt," including the idea of criminality; for it is a part of a '^sinful estate^ Actual guilt alone, mere obligation to pen- alty for " peccaUini alienum^'' is no "sinfulness of estate."
The doctrine of original sin is acknowledged by all divines to be difficult, mysterious and awful. It is liable to cavils which are hard to explode, at least with such a full solution as will satisfy the unrenewed mind. The objections to the righteous- ness of such a dispensation, as we suppose, may virtually be resolved into two : one aimed against the justice of God's provi- dentially placing us in our subjective condition ; the other, against the justice of his imputing to us Adam's guilt. Under the first head, it is argued that it cannot be just to hold us guilty for a state which is natural, nor for any actions necessarily flowing therefrom, seeing it was not selected for us at first by our own choice, but imposed from a source above or before our wills. To this cavil we shall not now advert further than to approve the positions of Turretin and Hodge : That this corrupt estate, while not the result of an act of personal choice by us, is yet voluntary in us, in the sense of boing spontaneous ; and that this being so, our reason always holds a moral agent meritorious for what ha
Vol. I.— 18.
274: hodge's systematic theology.
spontaneously is, without asking how he came to be such ; as "Nvitness our judgments touching God, eternally and necessarily holy ; angels created holy ; and Satan fallen, we know not how. Under the second head, it is argued that it is intrinsically anjust to punish one creature, ^"itlioiit his consent freely given, for another's act. And this is the great ca^'il, hurled pei'petually at our doctrine by rationalists, Socinians, Pelagians, modern papists, now usually semi-Pelagian ; and, in a word, by every unbelie"ving mind. Here are specimens of the way they put the cavil : " Suppose a murder done by a man over whom you could have no control, in your absence, without your approval; sup- pose that the magistrate was about to hang you along with the murderer, on this fiction of imputed guilt and against your ear- nest protest ! Could any sophistical refinement make you regard it as anvthing else than a monstrous iniquity? Such appears the orthodox theory of original sin." We give the cavil, not as our own, but as the unbeUever's.
Now, the last objection we urge against Dr. Hodge's presen- tation of immediate imputation is, that it is uyivnse causelessly to exasperate a difficulty, even seemingly besetting the truth. We have shown that this exaggeration of the angles of the doctrine •2.9 causeless. The logical and exegetical necessities by which Dr. Hodge supposed himself constrained are imaginary. The fifth of Romans does not demand it. The imputation of our sins to Christ and his righteousness to us, the gi"eat comer stone of our salvation, does not require it. Then why increase the ground of ca^dl causelessly ?
We remark that all the "svTiters who incline to the extreme theory of imputation betray a profound sense of the difficulty involved, by their anxious resort to expedients to evade it. But their expedients, if they satisfy themselves, do not satisfy each other. That adopted by Turretin, (Loc. IX., Ques. 9, § 14) and by Dr. Hodge, Vol. II., page 211, is as follows :
"The punishment which Adam's sin brought on us is either privative or positive. The former is the lack and privation of original righteousness ; the latter is death, both temporal and eternal, and in general all the evils which are sent upon sin- ners. Although the second, from the nature of the thing, always follows the first, except the mercy of God intervene, nevertheless it should not be confounded with it. As to the first, we say that Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately for the privative punishment, because it is the cause of the privation of original right- eousness, and so ought to precede the corruption, at least in the order of nature ;
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but, as to the latter, it may be said to be imputed mediately irith reference to the positive penalty, because to that penalty we are not obnoxious, except after we are born and corrupted."
Dr. Thomwell shall answer this evasion for us. Worhs, Vol. I., page 333: "This theory .... takes it for gi-anted that there is no contradiction to God's holiness in treating a being as a sinner who has never sinned, bnt there is a contradiction to his holiness in making him a sinner. But where is the differ- ence ? Suppose the being as coming fi'om the hands of God is in fact spotless, how can he be treated as a sinner? If not treated as a sinner, then there is no guilt ; and if no guilt, then no need of withholding original righteousness."
"In the next place, to be destitute of original righteousness is sin. That a moral, rational and accountable being should exist ■without a disposition to love God and to reverence his holy law is itself to be in a positively unholy state. Want of conformity "with the moral law is as truly sin as open and flagi-ant trans- gression. Wlien these very men are arguing against the doc- trine of the papists, they insist upon the impossibihty of an intermediate condition bet\vixt sin and holiness; and yet when they wdsh to explain the mode of the propagation of sin, they distinguish between simple nature and the moral quahties which jDerfect and adorn it. I do not see, therefore, that this theory obviates any difficulty at all." So far, Dr. ThomweU.
This is unanswerable. It shows that Turretiu, under the stress of the difficulty which his exaggeration had raised for him, resorted to one of those very Pelagian principles which he him- self explodes so completely. In addition, we object, that if, " from the nature of the thing," the positive depravation " always follows" the privative or negative, then in immediately visiting the latter on the exclusive ground of peccatum alienuin, God has A-irtually visited the latter also. If, " from the nature of the thing," the man who is pushed over the edge of a precij^ice always goes to the bottom, then it seems to us that he who pushed him over also broke his bones.
The expedient adopted by Dr. Baird in his Elohhn Revealed, is that which Dr. Hodge classes, mth others, as substantially real- istic. As stated by Dr. Thorn well (Vol. I., page 561), it is," that we had a being in our substance, but not in our persons, which has determined the attitude of that substance." Of this he re-
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marks, " tliat it remoyes the difficulty, but it substitutes a greater one."
Of "himself, Dr. Thomwell says, page 334 : " I confess that to me the whole difficulty lies in what to these di\-iues presents no difficulty at all — in the imputation of guilt." It is after he looks this doctrine steadily in the face that he feels himself constrained to seek a solution of this difficulty, in substantially the same theory which a few years before he had condemned in Dr. Baird. On pages 3-i9, 350 we find these words : " On these groimds I am free to confess that I cannot escape from the doc- trine, however mysterious, of a generic unity in man as the true basis of the representative economy in the covenant of works. The human race is not an aggi'egate of independent atoms, but constitutes an organic whole, vrith a common life springing from
a common ground." " There is in man what we may call
a common nature. That common nature is not a mere general- ization of logic, but a suljstautive reaUty." .... "As, then, de- scent from Adam is the exponent of a potential existence in him, as it is a revelation of a fact in relation to the nature which is individualized in a given case, it constitutes lawful and just ground for federal representation." Here, after all, the stress of the difficulty on Dr. Thomwell is so great that he adopts a theory even more realistic than the one he had refuted. Dr. Baird never said that human nature was '' a substantive reality." He said that it was an entity, but not a substance, and defined it as the aggregate of all the constitutive moral forces of man's essentia^ which are transmitted by generation from our first parent. Thus, in this case. Dr. Thornwell answers Dr. Thorn- well. He convinced us, in his earHer publication, that the notion of a substantive, generic unity is deceptive ; and we have the misfortrme- to remain convinced. True, Adam was "the root of all mankind." There is between us and him an all-important community of race and nature, which is one of the essential con- ditions of imputation, as our Confession states. But that the nature, apart from each person who has it, is a moral entity, we see not ; still less that it is a personal entity ; and does not re- sponsibility for guilt require personaHty in its subject? If this generic unity is so substantive, it connects us equally with Christ ; and why do we not obey and atone in him as essentially
HODGE'S SYSTEMATIC THEOL'OGY. 277
as we siunecl and fell in Adam ? And why is not tlie imputation of Clirist's righteousness also as universal as the nature ?
The rational difficulty presented by our adversaries recurs, then. We are compelled to consider the question, Whether such an imputation, without our comphcity or consent, is not inevitably unjust. It has been Dr. Hodge's wont to override that question. Is this right ? Is it wise ? The answer is : " God does it, therefore it must be right." To this "short method" there are two objections: 1. It is not so certain that God does it, seeing that Dr. Hodge can quote no express Scripture, nor even any human creed, to prove it, but only his own inferences. 2. If a thing is impossible to he right, then any man's saying that God did it would be a demonstration that that man misrep- resented God. Let us state a few of those propositions in which aU the Reformed divines agree. Eevelation is to be accepted, though it teach mysteries entirely above reason. But it could not be accepted, if it taught ine^-itable contradictions, which are against reason. For no man could believe, were he to try, against those intuitive laws of thought which constitute him a thinking and belie\dng creature. But in applying this criterion to revelation these caveats must be observed : The Scripture proposition which is accused of outraging reason must exist in express terms ; if it is only a human inference, it may be that the faUible expositor, and not the Scripture itself, is responsible for the outrage. Secondly, the rational conviction outraged must be a primitive, necessary, and universal judgment of the reason ; because, if it is only an inferential conclusion, the source of col- lision may be in the fallible reason, and not in the infallible book. Thirdly, the mind which presumes to charge such inevi- table contradiction on the Bible should be a sanctified mind, not arrogant and hostile to God and his truth, but holy, humble, and enlightened by God's Spirit. The carnal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit : they are foolishness unto him. But we re- peat : provided these conditions are observed, the occurrence, not of a mystery above reason, but of an inevitable self-contra- diction against reason, necessarily releases the mind from the obligation to believe. (See Turretin, Loe. I., Ques. 10.) One would suppose that a moderate tincture of theological knowledge would secure the admission of these familiar rudiments of the science ; but we cite authority, lest some may suppose us to
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litter, even in this alphabet of admitted principles, some danger- ous novelty.
Now the advocates of the greatest theological absurdities never, in fact, assail these principles. Their plea is that their favorite propositions are only mysteries, and not contradictions. Thus the Papist seeks to excuse trausubstantiation, the old-school Lutheran consubstantiation, the Mercersburg school, the spirit- ual, yet literal communion in Christ's corporeal body, which yet is not ubiquitous. Along this Hne, whether the dogma is only a mystery above reason or a contradiction outraging reason, have been fought all the battles of superstition. The discrimination should always be made \vdth caution and deliberation.
But may not that which it would be ^\Tong for man the crea- ture to do be right in God the infinite Sovereign ? The equally plain answer of the alphabet of theology is : Sometimes, but not always. God's infinite wisdom, proprietorship and sovereignty often render it right and holy for him to exercise a breadth of discretion in applying righteous principles of action which we could not presume on without crime. But his 0"mi glorious per- fections ensure that, however sovereign, he will never act on a principle intrinsically wrong. And while we admit a wide, al- most an infinite difference arising out of God's perfections and sovereignty, between the boundaries of his righteous discretion and ours in details ; yet we must hold that the righteousness en- joined on us in his precepts, and \vi'itten by his creative hand in our consciences, is identical in its intrinsic principles with his righteousness. This is manifest, because otherwise God and we could never understand each other as ruler and subject ; because man was made in his rational and moral image, and is restored towards it by sanctifying gi'ace ; and because he tells us that our holiness is to he in imitating him. Let us, then, suppose a case where a given action would be intrinsically %vi-ong in principle, MO matter how the details of its circumstances might vary, where such was the unavoidable, intuitive primary judgment of the un- biassed human conscience ; then, in that case, we pronounce that God's perfections make it as impossible that he should do that act, however sovereign, as that it should be right for us to do it. And that is so plain that it is almost a truism. If any man, pro- fessing to be a doctor or a prophet, told us that it was our duty to believe God had done that act and made it rio-ht for himself to
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do it, our consistent answer would be : " Then you, Mr. Prophet, have rendered me absolutely incompetent to have intelligent knowledge of moral perfections in God, and of moral obligations on me ; you have derationalized me ; I am now on your basis just as suitable a subject of religious relations as the horse I ride." For what can be plainer than this, that if the very ground principles which are the constitutive norms of our moral judg- ments are contradicted, an intelligent, moral judgment becomes for us impossible ?
Now the unbelieving rationalist says, that if Dr. Hodge's theory of imputation were true, we should unquestionably have just such a case. He claims that the injustice would be as inevitable as though a peaceable, righteous citizen of a commonwealth were hung under its laws for the putative guilt of another man, over whom he had no control, of whom he had even no knowledge, who had murdered a person without any consent or complicity whatsoever on his part. The rationalist claims accordingly, that it is impossible God should have made such an imputation. The reader may ask whether on this point we hold with the ration- alist ? We reply explicitly that we do not. That is to say, while we regard it as unnecessary, rash and incorrect to dogmatize with Dr. Hodge upon it, we regard it more rash and incorrect to dogmatize with the rationalists upon it. But such appears to be the jealousy of some of the advocates of the exaggeration which they call immediate imputation, that they will hardly ven- ture to admit an intrinsic uurighteousniess in the case of secular imputation which the rationalist cites above, lest they should compromise their favorite speculation. And yet God does not hesitate to denounce the intrinsic unrighteouness of such an act of secular government. (See Deut. xxiv. 16.) So far we have good countenance.
Xow, to return, while we will not dogmatize ^vith the rashness of the unbelieving caviller u^Don this point, we cannot but be- lieve that his difficulty is needlessly and rashly enhanced by the dogma which we criticize. The gi-eat advantage of Calvin's view of the matter — in other words, of the scriptural view — is this, that it takes the imputation of Adam's sin manifestly out of that category in which the rationalist's illustration puts it, and in which, if it really helonged there, its unrighteousness would be inevitably self-evident. Calvin's view shows that the
280 hodge's systematic theology.
Illustration does not contain a true parallel, and is therefore in- conclusive. Calvin's view lifts the case of imputation of x4.dam's sin into a category where it stands by itself, and is wholly unique ; where it has no illustration whatever among the usages of secu- lar governments, whether just or unjust. Surely that is a soUd advantage. For while this view leaves original sin enveloped in a mystery, which, as Dr. Thornwell declares, no man will ever solve in this world, it places the doctrine in a status where no man can convict it of intrinsic, self-evident injustice. And tJieti conies in the legitimate apphcation of the devout principle, ac- quiescing in our unavoidable ignorance, and saying, " Even so. Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight." This advantage attending Calvin's \dew appears in two ways: First, man rea- sons chiefly by parallel instances. His reasoning is comparison. Consequently, where there is no parallel, while he may not com- prehend, he cannot oon\dct. The case is above his grasp ; he lias no scales in which to weigh it. Secondly, the case of origi- nal sin, as stated by Calvin, diflers as to the essential trait wherein the caviller finds, in the case of his pretended parallel, the self-e\ddent injustice ; and Dr. Hodge's view seems to con- cede the presence of that trait and the correctness of the parallel. Suppose the peaceful citizen charged, under human laws, with a putative guilt of a murder to which he had not consented. Every thoughtful mind sees the line of argument on which wise counsel would defend him. The argument would be : " May it please the court, our statute of murder, under which my client has lived and is now tried, has its alternative sanctions : To him who mur- ders, it threatens death ; to him who respects the life of his fel- lowmen, it promises immunity. That statute is of the nature of a covenant with the citizens. Now here, may it i:)lease your honor, is our impregnable ground : My client has personally KEPT THAT COVENANT. He hcis thereby earned and is in j?ossession erf an existing title to immunity, with which he was invested, by virtue of his innocency, hefore this murder was oornmitted, and therefore he can only be divested o.f it by his own personal, criminal act or his own consent." Now this is impregnable. But let us represent the imputation of Adam's guilt as the Scrip- tures do, and the sinner condemned in Adam has no such argu- ment to use. He does not approach the judicial issue clothed with the existing, personal title to immunity, derived from a
hodge's systematic theology, 281
previous innocency of personal existence under the covenant of works. For, previous to his condemnation in Adam, he has no innocent existence personally, not for one moment, not even in the metaphysical order of thought, for he has no actual existence at all. He enters existence corrupted, as he enters it guilty. He enters it guilty, as he enters it corrupted. This is the charac- ter of the federal union between him and Adam : that Adam's conduct should determine for his posterity precisely this result, namely, that their personal existence should absolutely hegln in that moral estate and under that legal relation which Adam j^ro- cured for himself ; that the two elements of this result should be mutually involved and coetaneous, as they were personally in Adam. This statement is strictly correspondent to the revealed facts. And now, this is its advantage, that it leaves the sinner fallen and condemned in Adam no pretext to complain that he has been stripped of a personal title to immunity by thus bring- ing him under putative guilt and inherited depravity ; for he had no such personal title to be stripped of, seeing he has had no per- sonal existence prior to the depravity and guilt. This dispensa- tion of God then remains unique, without any exact parallel in human events, solemn, mysterious ; but it is placed where it is impossible to convict it of any injustice. Why God should ordain such a federal union in his righteous sovereignty, which he foresaw would result in the determination of a depraved and condemned indi\4dual existence for a whole race of creatures, none should presume to speculate. We see that he has done so. We can only perceive this ground of propriety for it in the Hght of natural reason : tlia-t it appears to be the most natural consti- tution for a company of creatures united to a first parent by that tie of race and propagation which is so fundamental a feature of humanity, and, comparing us with God's other rational creatures, so peculiar a feature of our existence.
GOD'S INBISCRIinATE PROPOSALS OF MERCY,
AS KELATED TO HIS POWER, WISDOM, AND SINCERITY.
IF God makes proposals of mercy to men, who he foresees will certainly reject them and perish, and whom he immutably purposes to leave without effectual calhng, how can his power and -wisdom be cleared, save at the expense of his sincerity? or his sincerity at the expense of his wisdom or power? This is obviously the point in the Keformed or Augustinian theology most difficult of adjustment. The excogitation of the scheme of the " Hypothetic Universalists " among a part of the French Reformed, and the intricate discussions between them and the Genevans, evince the fact. It is also disclosed in the proposal of this problem by Sir Eobert Boyle to John Howe, as a proper subject for the exercise of his sanctified acumen. The result was his famous treatise, The Reconcileableness of God's Pre- science of the Sins of Men with the Wisdom, and Sincerity of his Counsels, etc. It is against this point that the most persistent attacks of Arminians are still made. " It is at this point," says Dr. A. A. Hodge's Atonement, "very wisely, as we think, the Arminian erects his main citadel. We freely admit that just here the advocates of that system are able to j^resent a greater number and variety of texts which appear to favor the distin- guishing principles of their system than they are able to gather in vindication of any other of their main positions." ..." Then gathering together their scriptural evidence for the general and indefinite design of the atonement, they proceed with great ap- pearance of force to argue inferentially against the outflanked Calrinistic positions of unconditional election and efficacious grace. In this manner Eichard Watson, in effect, puts the strain of his entire argument upon this one position."
The occasion for calling in question either God's sincerity, or his wisdom, or power, upon the supposition of an uncon-
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 283
ditioned decree, arises from three classes of scriptures. One is the indiscriminate offer of salvation. Another is the ascription of Christ's sacrifice to love for "the world" as its motive, and the calling of him the "Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," "giveth himself for the world," etc. The third is composed of those which represent God as pitying all sinners, and even those who are never saved. Every reader's mind will suggest texts of each class. Now, it is notorious that these fur- nish the armory fi-om which the Ai'miniaus equip their most per- tinacious attacks on Calvinism; that it is on these texts the Calvinistic exegesis labors most and displays the most uncer- tainty ; and that the usual Calvinistic solutions of them are scornfully denounced by their opponents as inadequate. These facts, of course, do not prove that the Arminians are right ; but they evince the occasion for, and utility of, more satisfactory discussion.
The attempt of the "Hypothetic Universahsts " was to re- concile all the scriptures by ascribing to God two acts of will concerning human salvation — one general and conditional voli- tion to send Christ to provide expiation for all men, and to re- ceive them all to heaven, provided they would believe on him ; the other, a special and unconditioned volition to call the elect effectually, and thus insure that they should beUeve and be saved. Then they supposed that all the texts in question could be explained as expressions of the general and conditioned voli- tion. But TuiTetin's refutation (for instance, Loc. IV., Qu. 17) is fatal. He urges that the only merciful vohtion of God in Scrip- tiu'e is that towards the elect; and "the rest he hardeneth;" that it is inevitably delusive to represent an omniscient and om- nipotent Agent as having any kind of volition towards a result, when, foreseeing that the sinner will certainly not present the essential condition thereof — faith— he himself distinctly pur- poses not to bestow it ; that the hearing of the gospel (Eom. x. 14) is as means equally essential, and God providentially leaves all the heathen without this ; and that it is derogatory to God's power and sovereignty to represent any volition of his, that is a volition, as failing in a multitude of cases. It is significant that the Reformed di\dnes of TuiTetin's school seem usually to con- duct this debate on the assumption, sometimes tacit, some- times expressed, that as God had no volition towards the salva-
284 god's indiscriminate proposals op mercy.
tion of tlie non-elect, so he could not liave any propension or affection at all towards it.
The perspicacious eye of Howe saw this assumption, and he made a tentative effort to expose it. To him also belongs the honor of rejecting and exploding that dogma of God's prevenient, efl&cient concursus in sinful actions, which the great Protestant scholastics had borrowed from the Dominican school and de- fended with a zeal so perverse. And now Ave find a Thornwell and a Hodge discarding this dogma as an unhappy excrescence on the Bible doctrines of the decree and providence. Howe (§ xxii.) is answering a supposed objector, who, like Turretin, urges the inconsistency of "an ineffectual and imperfect will" (in the Almighty) "which doth not bring to pass the thing wdlled." His answer is, "That imperfection were with no pre- tence imputable to the di-vdne will, merely for its not effecting every thing whereto it may have a real propension^ He then proceeds to describe this propension towards an end which is short of an effective volition as a "mere velleity," and declares that he is more ready to assert of God " a will not effective of the thing willed," than fly in the face of the many Scriptures which ascribe to God a pitifulness towards the lost. He tlien endeavors to vindicate God from this seeming paradox by say- ing that, while the salvation of all men i^,per se, an object pro- portionable to a proper propension of God's will "by only simple complacency," other "more valuable reasons" may w^eigh with God not to purpose the salvation of all, ""with the higher com- placency of a determinative will." "Since the public declara- tions of his good-"wilI towards all men import no more than the former," his sincerity is thus reconciled with his immutable pre- science.
The candid mind feels that there should be a truth somewhere in that direction in which the "Hypothetic Universalist " was vainly gi'oping. Has not Howe here caught a glimpse of that truth? And why have the eyes of Reformed theologians been so often "holden" from seeing it distinctly? These questions deserve inquiry.
The direction in which the answers are conceived to Ke may be best indicated by an analjogical instance. A human ruler may have full power and authority over the punishment of a culprit, may declare consistently his sincere compassion for him,
god's indiscriminate peoposals of :iekcy. 28&
and may yet freely elect to destroy him. A concrete case will make the point more distinct. Chief-Justice Marshall, in his Life of Washington (Vol. IV., Chap, vi.), says with reference to the death-warrant of the rash and unfortunate Major Andre: " Perhaps on no occasion of his life did the commander-in-chief obey with more reluctance the stern mandates of duty and of policy." In this historical instance we have these facts : Wash- ington had plenary power to kill or to save alive. His compas- sion for the criminal was real and profound. Yet he signed his death-warrant ^^ith spontaneous decision. The solution is not the least difficult either for philosophy or common sense. Every deliberate rational volition is regulated by the agent's dominant subjective disposition, and prompted by his own subjective mo- tive. But that motive is a complex, not a simple modification of spirit. The simplest motive of man's rational volition is a complex of two elements : a desire or propension of some sub- jective optative power, and a judgment of the intelligence as to the true and preferable. The motive of a single decision may be far more complex than this, involving many intellectual con- siderations of prudence, or righteous policy, and several distinct and even competing propensions of the optative powers. The resultant volition aris*s out of a deliberation, in which the pre- valent judgment and appetency counterpoise the inferior ones. To return to our instance : Washington's volition to sign the death-warrant of Andre did not arise from the fact that his com- passion was slight or feigned, but from the fact that it was ra- tionally counterpoised by a complex of superior judgments and propensions of wisdom, duty, patriotism, and moral indignation. Let us suppose that one of Andre's intercessors (and he had them even among the Americans) standing by, and hearing the commanding general say, as he took up the pen to sign the fatal paper, "I do this with the deepest reluctance and pity," should have retorted, " Since you are supreme in this matter, and have full bodily ability to throw do^vn that pen, we shall know by your signing this warrant that your pity is hypocritical." The petulance of this charge would have been equal to its folly. The pity was real, but was restrained by superior elements of motive. Washington had official and bodily power to discharge the crim- inal, but he had not the sanction of his own wisdom and justice.
286 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
Thus his pity was genuine, and yet his voHtion not to indulge it free and sovereign.
The attempt to illustrate the ways of God by such analogies is too ob"sdous to be novel. What, then, are the objections on which Calvinists have usually set them aside as unsatisfactory ? In approaching this question it is instructive to notice the man- ner in which the extreme parties deal with the parallel case in God's government. Says the strong Arminian : "Since God is sovereign, and also true and sincere, therefore I know that, when he declares his compassion for 'him that dietli,' he has exerted all the power that even omnipotence can properly exert on ' free-will' to tui'u that sinner to life." Thus this party sus- tain God's sincerity at the expense of his omnipotence. The party of the other extreme says : " Because God is sovereign and omnipotent, therefore we know that, were there any pity in him for ' the sinner that dieth,' that affection would inevitably have applied almighty grace, which would have turned him without fail to life ; so that we must explain the merciful declaration as meaning something else than it seems." They thus save God's omnipotence and sovereignty at the expense of his sincerity. The two pai-ties, while in extreme opposition, fall into the same error — the sophism of the imagined aocuser of Washington. Their common mistake would, in the case of a wise and good man, be exploded by explaining the nature of motive and free rational volition. The correct answer to the Arminian is to show him that the existence of a real and unfeigned pity in God for "him that dieth," does not imply that God has exhausted his divine power in vain to renew the creature's " free-will " in a way consistent with its nature, because the pity may have been truly in God, and yet countervailed by superior motives, so that he did not will to exert his omnipotence for that sinner's renewal. The other extreme receives the same reply ; the absence of an omnipotent, and inevitably efficient, volition to renew that soul does not prove the absence of a true compassion in God for him ; and for the same reason the propension may have been in God, but restrained from rising into a volition by superior rational motives.
Evidently, then, if this parallel could be used safely, it would relieve the difficulty of the problem, and conciliate extremes to the scriptural truth involved. The supposed obstacles seem to
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 287
class themselves under three heads. 1. The difference between a finite and an infinite almighty governor makes the parallel worthless. 2. Such a theory of motive and free agency may not be applied to the divine will, because of God's absolute simpli- city of being, and the unity of his attributes with his essence, the total lack of "passive powers" in his glorious nature, and the unity and eternity of his whole will as to all events. It is feared that the parallel would misrepresent God's activities of will by a vicious anthropomorphism. 3. No such balancing of sulijec- tive motives takes place without inward strivings, which would be inconsistent with God's immutabihty and blessedness.
None will deny that the discussion of God's nature and activi- ties should be approached with profound reverence and diffidence. One of the clearest declarations concerning him in the Scriptures is, that we may not expect to "find out the Almighty unto per- fection." Should a theologian assume, then, that his 7'atwnale of God's actings furnished an exhaustive or complete explanation of them all, this alone would convict him of error. It must be admitted, also, that no analogy can be perfect between the ac- tions of a finite and the infinite inteUigence and will. But anal- ogies may be instructive and valuable which are not perfect ; if they are just in part they may guide us In the particulars wherein there is a true correspondence. And the Scriptures, which do undertake to unfold " parts of his ways," will be safe guides to those who study them with humihty.
Turretin, entering into discussion with the " H3'pothetic Uni- versalists," remarks that the foundations of the faith remain safe, so long as it is firmly held on all hands, 1st, That the corruption of men's souls is universal, and every man's inability for deliver- ing himself from it universal and in\ancible without the effica- cious grace of God ; 2nd, That there is a sovereign and particular election of the saved, unconditioned on their foreseen graces, and a preterition of the rest of mankind , 3rd, That there is an effica- cious grace, the gift of this election, working saving faith, with- out which in action no one truly chooses godliness; 4th, That gospel revelation is the necessary and only sufficient means of working saving grace. These, saitli he, are the capital dogmas of the faith, on this subject, which all the Reformed defend amidst their minor diversities against all forms of Pelagianism an€l semi-Pelagianism.
"^88 god's INDISCRIMmATE PROrOSALS' OF MERCY,
1. It is objected against all use of the explanation snggestecl, that, wliile it applies to a Imman rnler, wlio is not omnipotent, it does not apply to God, wlio is almighty. Washington was re- strained from indulging his compassion towards Andr^ by re- membering the dangers and mischiefs which would result from the impunity of a spy. But if he had possessed an omnipotent control over all hearts and all events, by which he could with perfect facility obviate all those mischiefs, then his compassion must have gratified itself, if truly felt, in Andre's release. God, it is urged, has that omnipotence. If he feels any propension of mercy towards the sinner "that dietli," and bethinks himself of the dangers to his moral government which would arise from a sinner's impunity in guilt, he also knows that it is infinitely easy for him to obviate all such possible dangers by sanctifying the sinner himself, and also all others who might be tempted to sin by the example of his impunity, just as he actually does sanctify his justified elect.
Now, it is obvious that this reply proceeds on the following assumption : that if the obstacle of physical inability be removed in God, by his consciousness of .omnipotence, there cannot be any other rational ground, in the view of God's omniscience, that may properly counterpoise or hold back the propension of mercy. But the statement of this is its sufficient exposure. It must always be exceedingly probable that an all-^vise mind may see, among the multifarious concerns of his vast kingdom, good reasons for his action of which we cannot have the least concep- tion. Let us select a specific case, that, for instance, of Judas Iscariot. Would not he be a rash man who should assert that the infinite God could not see, in his own omniscience, any other ground for his volition not to attempt his effectual calling than one of these two, either an entire indifference to his misery, or a conscious inabihty to renovate his soul ? The logic of the ob- jector is, moreover, optimistic. It proceeds on the assumption that we are entitled to hold that God's ultimate end in the gov- ernment of the universe is the greatest aggregate well-being of creatures. But we are not entitled to hold thus. We know that his ultimate end is his own glory. But we do not know all the ways in which God may deem his glory is promoted. AH that we can say is, not that God must procure that state of the universe which is on the whole the 'best, i. e., the most benevolent,
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 289
but that he ^^all of course have that universe which most com- pletely satisfies the set of ends which have commended them- selves to his perfections as most proper for him to pursue. But we are not qualified to say what all those ends are. It may be tha-t it is j^roper they should not include the happiness of the largest possible number of sinners, but sometliing else still more worthy of God. When we have admitted this, we have virtually admitted that God may see, in his own omniscience, a rational ground other than inal)ility for restraining his actual propension of pity towards a given sinner. The first objection, then, how- ever plausible in appearance, is found to be empty. And it is especially to be noted that, while it professes a zeal for God's in- finitude, it really disparages it. Our position is, after all, the modest and reverential one.
Let us interpose here this definition to preclude misunder- standing : that the phrase " divine will," which we are about to use, is meant not in its narrow sense of the faculty of choice ; but in the mder sense of the active powers, or " conative " pow- ers, so well established among Calvinists.
2. The attempt to illustrate the action of the divine will from the rise of rational volition in man, has doubtless been prejudiced by the scholastic explanations of God's absolute simplicity. They would have us believe, not only that this excludes all composi- tion and aggregation of quantitative parts, but all true distinction of essence and attributes. They would have the idea of God as absolutely devoid of construction in thought as his substance is of construction in reality. We must in his case identify essence and attributes. God is actus purwi. Any attribute is God, and hence one attribute is differentiated from another only by our appre- hension of it. With him cognition and effectuation are identical. It does not satisfy them to say that God is an infinite monad, as the rational human soul is a finite monad ; and that his attributes, like man's essential powers of intelligence, sensibility, and "wall, are not limbs or parts attached to the Spirit, but essential modes of functions with which he is endued. They require us to iden- tify God's attributes "^dth his essence in a waj^ inconceivably closer than we do man's essential powers with his essence. Now, if this speculation be correct, the attempt to apprehend the action of the divine will by the human must be Avholly erroneous. There could be no such distinction, as is true of man, between
Vol. I.— 19.
290 god's IXDI8CRIMIXATE PROPOSALS OJ^ ?JERCY.
motive and volition, or between the optative powers and the power of choice. Nor could there be auv sense whatsoever in which God's subjective motive could be complex.
But we deny that the specrdation is correct, susceptible of jjroof, or possible to be valid to the human mind. Evidently the cognition of such a being is inaccessible to man's intelligence. The only way he has of knowing substance is through its attri- butes; and the only cognition we have of it is as the intuitive notion, which the reason necessarily supplies, of the sahjectum to which the attributes perceived must be referred. Hence, to require us to think substance as literally identical with each at- tribute rationally referred to it, is to forbid us to think it at all. Again, reason forbids us to think different attributes as identi- cal. We intuitively know that thought is not conation, and conation is not sensibility; it is as impossible to think these actually identical in God as in ourselves. Last, this speculation brings us too near the awful verge of pantheism. Were it ti'ue, then it would be the shortest and most natural of steps to con- clude that God has no other being than the series of activities of the several attributes with which they seek to identify the being. Thus Ave have the form of pantheism next to the gulf of nihilism. If the attributes are identical with the being of God and with each other, and if it be thus shown that God's thought makes the object thereof, then, since God is eternally, necessarily, and infinitely intelligent, these results must rigidly follow: that all objective being known to God must be also as eternal and necessary as God, and that it must be as infinite as he is. What more would Spinoza have desired to found his mathematical proof of pantheism ? The speculation is not true any more than it is scriptural. The Bible always speaks of God's attributes as distinct, and yet not dividing his unity; of his intelligence and will a3 different ; of his A\Tath, love, pity, wis- dom, as not the same activities of the Infinite Spirit. We are taught that each of these is inconceivably higher than the prin- ciple in man which bears the corresponding name ; but if the Scriptures do not mean to teach us that they are distinguishable in God, as truly as in man, and that this is as consistent with his being an infinite monad as with our souls being finite monads, then they are unmeaning.
In the rational creature, notwithstanding the simphcity of the
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 291
spirit, jiidgmerits of the preferable and conative propensions are not identical ^\itll the volition in which they result. In him sub- jective motive is complex, and a given element of motive may be truly present, and yet not separately expressed in the volition, because over-preponderating motives prompt the agent freely to restrain that element. Then, the absolute simplicity of God does not forbid our ascribing to him an inconceivably higher mode of action of will, which is yet truly analogous.
We may be reminded that the Confessioji declares God to be "without passions." So the theologians tell us that we must ascribe to him no "passive powers"; for then he would not be immutable. He acts on everything; but is acted on by none. He is the source, but not the recipient of effects. This is indis- putable. But we should not so overstrain the truth as to reject two other truths. One is, that while God has no passions, while he has no mere susceptibility such that his creature can cause an effect upon it irrespective to God's own will and freedom, yet he has active principles. These are not passions, in the sense of fluctuations or agitations, but none the less are they affections of his will, actively distinguished from the cognitions in his intelUgence. They are true optative functions of the divine Spirit. However anthropopathic may be the statements made concerning God's repentings, TVTath, pity, pleasui*e, love, jeal- ousy, hatred, in the Scriptures, we should do violence to them if we denied that he here meant to ascribe to himself active affections in some mode suitable to his nature. And it is im- possible for us to suppose an agent without active principles, as well as cognitive, as we could not beUeve that the compass could move the ship without any motive power. The other truth is, that objective beings and events are the real occa- sions, though not efficient causes, of the action both of the divine affections and ^^dll. Ai'e not many diAdnes so much afraid of ascribing to God any " passive powers," or any phase of dependence on the creatm-e, that they hesitate even to admit that scriptui-al fact ? But why should they recoil from the sim- ple statements of his Word on this point, unless they were con- fused or misled by the old sensualistic view, which regarded the objective impression as somehow the efficient, instead of the mere occasion, of the following activities of the percipient soul : "God is angry xoith the- loicked every day" (Ps. vii. 11); "But
292 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
tlie tiling that David liad done displeased the Lord ; " " My de- light is ill her" (Is. Ixii. -i) ; "■In these things I delight, saith the Lord" (Jer. ix. 2-4). Is all this so anthropopathic as not even to mean that God's active principles here have an objec- tive? Why not let the Scriptures mean what they so plainly strive to declare? But some seem so afraid of recognizing in God any susceptibility of a passive nature that they virtually set Scripture aside, and paint a God whose whole acti^dties of intelligence and will are so exclusively from himself that even the relation of objective occasion to him is made unreal, and no other is allowed than a species of coincidence or preestablished harmony. They are chary of conceding (what the Bible seems so plainly to say) that God is angry hecaxise men sin ; and would go no farther than to admit that somehow he is angry vjhen men sin, yet, because absolutely independent, angry only of himself.
Now, our rational nature compels us to think these active principles relevant only when they act towards their proper ob- jectives. If the wise and righteous reason does not perceive something that has, or is to have, actuality that is wicked, it does not have indignation ; the legitimate condition for the action of this affection is wholly absent. If it does not see some being approvable, it does not feel the love of moral complacency. Why should not this be most true of the perfect reason, all of whose activities are most absolutely true to the actual ? Nor is there any danger of sacrificing God's independence or immuta- bility, or of imputing to him "passive power," or of tarnishing his nature with the fluctuations and agitations of passion. For, first, since his will was eternally sovereign, there can be nothing holy or unholy, in all time, in the actual objective universe, which was not decreed freely by his effective or permissive wiU. Thus, while it is true that what God looks at objectively is the unfailing occasion in him of the appropriate subjective affec- tion ; it is also true that there cannot be any thing actual for him to look at save such things as he freely chooses to permit to occur or exist. Second, there is no truth in this point of the sensualistic creed, either for God or man ; the object is not effi- cient of the affection directed upon it, but the mere occasion. The affection is from the inward spontaneity. And, third, God's omniscience is declared in the Scriptures to be infinite and eter- nal; so that no amiable or repulsive object can be a novelty to
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 293
his mind. The treason of JncTas was as clearly seen and com- prehended, in all its hateful features, in God's infinite intelli- gence, before the foundation of the world as the moment it was perpetrated ; nor has there been one instant since in the divine consciousness when the mental comprehension of that crime has wavered, or been forgotten or displaced, or even obscured by other objects of thought. Thus, the object being stable in the divine inteUigence, the appropriate affection has been equally changeless in the divine will. The truth we must apprehend, then, ie this— we cannot comprehend it — -that God eternally has active principles directed towards some objective, which com- bine all the activity of rational affections with the passionless stabihty of his rational judgments, and which, while not emo- tions^ in the sense of change, or ebb or flow, are yet related to his volitions in a way analogous to that which obtains between the holy creature's optative powers and his volitions. Can we picture an adequate conception of them? No; "it is high; we cannot attain unto it." But this is the consistent understanding of revelation, and the only apprehension of God which does not both transcend and violate man's reason.
God's absolute unity and simplicity may be supposed by some to furnish another objection to the hypothesis that his propen- sions and his volition are distinguishable in his consciousness as truly as in a holy creature's. It may be urged that this would imply an actual sequence in the part§ of the di^dne will, and the acquisition by him of additional acts of will. Let this be considered. In a finite rational spirit there is unquestion- ably a partial par^dlel between volition and deduction, in this : that as this finite mind, in its logical process, advances from premises to conclusion, making a literal (though possibly rapid) sequence of mental acts ; so, in its acts of choice wjien rationally conscious, it proceeds from motive to volition, making a sequence of voluntary activities equally literal. Now, all are agreed that the infinite intelligence cannot have logical processes of the de- ductive order. Its whole cognition must be intuition. For else it would follow that omniscience was not complete at first, and receives subsequent accessions of deductive knowledge. (This is one fatal objection to the Moliuist scheme of scientia media.) So, it may be urged, the activity of the divine will must be abso- lute unity ; if we represent volition as arising out of motive, and
294 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
the divine consciousness as discriminating the one from tlie other, "v^-e shall have the eternal will acting in succession, which is untenable.
Tliis comparison of the intellectual and active powers will lead us to a solution. It must undoubtedly be admitted that all of God's cognition is immediate intuition, and that he can neither have nor need any deductive process by which to reach truth. But does it follow therefrom that he has no intuitions of relations ? Let the reader reflect that many of our surest in- tuitions are of truths of relation, as of the equaUty cf two mag- nitudes of which each is equal to a third and the same ; that a multitude of things which exist do exist in relation; and that it is the very glory and perfection of God's intelligence that it thinks every thing -^-ith an absolute faithfulness to the reahty kno^\^l by liim. He will not be rash enough to Cjuestion the fact that among God's infinite cognitions are a multitude of in- tuitions of truths in relation. Again, since all God's knowledge is absolutely true to the actual reahties known, wherever he knows one thing as destined to depend on another thing, there must be a case in which God th inks a sequence. Let the distinc- tion be clearly grasped. The things are known to God as in sequence; but his oami subjective act of thought concerning them is not a sequence. How can this be ? Our limited intel- Hgence cannot reahze it in thought; God can, because he is infinite. We niust, then, to avoid wronging God on the one hand or the other, in our apprehension of his omniscience, ac- quiesce in this statement: that while the infinite capacity of the divine mind enables it to see coL-taneously by one all-includ- ing intuition every particular truth of his omniscience, his abso- lute infaUibihty also insures the mental arrangement of them all in their logical and causal relations, as they are destined to be actualized in successive time. Q ^dd^o:: tz/.o'jzo-j xai aoeta:: xal y^coatu)- 6zd'j\ Thus all must admit, for instance, that in the rational order of thinking, we think cause as in order to effect. It is an intuition. Now, is this an infirmity or a correct trait in the finite mind? Surely it is a connect trait. Will God's infinite mental superiority, then, prevent his doing this correct thinking, concei'^'ing cause as in order to efi'ect? Surely not. Yet he sees both cause and effect by one coetaneous intuition, and does not need, like us, to learn the cause by inference from the effect, or
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the effect by inference from the cause. So the rational order of thought is, that the object is in order to the vohtion. The hunter must see the animal in order to aim his weapon. Does not the infaUible mind of God see the object, and act in the same rational order ? Doubtless ; but he has no need, like us, of a chronological succession. God's cognitions, then, while devoid of sequence in time, doubtless preserve the appropriate logical order.
Now the same considerations will lead us to the proper con- clusion touching the order of motive and volition in God's in- finite will. This is not irrational, because infinite. From our point of view, subjective motive is in order to volition ; they are related as cause and effect. We cannot think them otherwise. However rapidly we may conceive a spirit's spontaneity to act, we cannot help thinking that when it formed a rational volition it did so because a rational motive went before. There is no ascertainable sequence of time ; but none the less does our rea- son insist on putting the motive and volition in a causative se- quence. Again, I ask, is this an infirmity or a correct action of our reason? If our reason acts correctly in insisting on this causative order, does God's infallible reason signalize its infinite superiority by refusing to think the order aright ? Surelv not. Here, then, we are shut up to the same apprehension, that while the action of the divine mind in rational volition is not succes- sive, yet its infinite capacity preserves the proper causal subor- dination and distinction of rational motive and resultant vohtion. It thus appears that the unity and eternity of all the acts of the divine will do not preclude the proper discrimination and rela- tion in the divine conscioitsness of motive and volition, affection and action. We see that, if we insisted on that dogma, we should sacrifice the rationahty of the divine will in the needless attempt to preserve its unity.
The justice and value of this conclusion may be illustrated by the light which it throws on the supralapsarian scheme of pre- destination. Because a rational mind determines first the ulti- mate end, and then the intermediate means, and because that which is last in effectuation is first in thought, therefore these divines insist on this sequence in the parts of the decree ; 1st, God selects, out of men hi posse, a certain number in whose re- demption he will glorify himself; 2d, As a means to this ulti-
296 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
mate end lie determiues to create mankind; 3d, He determines to permit their fall ; 4tli, He decrees to send his Sou in human nature for the redemption of his elect. Sublapsarians, perceiv- ing the harshness aad unreasonableness of this, propose the op- posite order of sequence (but still a sequence). God decreed, 1st, to create man holy; 2d, to permit his fall; 3d, to elect out of fallen mankind his chosen people ; 4tli, to send his Son for their redemption. Supralapsarians retort that this scheme makes God's decree as truly conditioned on the creature's action as the Arminian, though on a different condition. So the debate pro- ceeds.
But he who apprehends the action of the infinite mind reason- ably and scriptui'ally at once, sees that, while the sublapsarian is right in his spirit and aim, both parties are wrong in their method, and the issue is one which should never have been raised. As God's thought and will do not exist in his conscious- ness in parts, so they involve no sequence, neither the one nor the other. The decree which determines so vast a multitude of parts is itself a unit. The whole all-comprehending thought is one coiitaneous intuition ; the whole decree one act of will. But in ^^rtue of the very consistency and accuracy of the divine plan, and infinity of the divine knowledge, facts destined to emerge out of one part of the plan, being present in thought to God, enter into logical relation to other parts of the same plan. As the plan is God's thought, no part precedes any other. But none the less those parts which are destined to be, in execution, prior and posterior, stand in their just causal relations in his thinkinsr. One result decreed is to depend on another result de- creed. But as the decree is God's consciousness, all is equally primary. Thus there will be neither supra nor infra-l3,psarian, and no room for their debate.
To this whole view of God's active principles, it may be re- plied by some that it is too anthropomorphic. We may be re- minded of the rebuke of the 50th Psalm : "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; liut I "s^ill reprove thee." It has been pungently said, that "whereas the Scriptures say man was made in fhe image of God, some would have a God made in the image of man." This should justly remind us of the need of much humility and care, lest we sheuld ascribe to him any \dcious anthropomorphism. Is there no safe gui le ?
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May it not be found in tnese rules : that we snan on no pretext ascribe to God any defect of the creature, or any self-contradic- tion ; and that we bow implicitly to the declaration he makes of himself in the word, as honestly interpreted by the " analogy of the faith"? And so much may be justly claimed for the views above defended, and whether speculative, or abstruse, or not, their whole apphcation is, not to wrest God's declarations of himself, but to restore them to a more natural and unforced ex- position ; to make them mean more simply what they seem to mean to the plain reader.
Now, there is a sense in which all our apprehensions of God, as well as of everything else, must be anthropomorphic. It must be that cognitions be according to the forms of man's reason. If we are forbidden to think after human norms, we cannot think at all. Again, the Scriptures assure us that our spirits were created after the rational, and moral, image of God. Man un- fallen was a correct miniature of the infinite Father. And so far as we can be certain that a specific law of thought or action is unperverted by the ruins of our fall, we have in that law a finite pattern of God's infinite law of thought or action. If Ave would not fall into the bottomless gulf of universal skepticism, we must hold that truth is eternal and uniform in heaven and earth. So far, then, as we are sure of a process of mind as lead- ing to pure truth, we are sure that in that process we are akin to all other minds, created and uncreated. It thus appears manifest that a certain degree of anthropomorphism, so far from being suspicious, is the necessary signature of true conceptions concerning all other rational beings. The mind must he con- scious in order to have cognitions about any thing. So it must construe its oivn consciousness in order to formulate its objective knowledge. Psychology must underlie logic. Sir William Ham- ilton has shown that it must at least implicitly underlie our na- tural theology.
Especially may it be urged that every intelhgent Calvinist, when stating and estabUshing the natui'e of the human will and free agency, has appealed to God's freedom for illustration. Is not this one of the main arguments we use against the Arminian dogma, "contingency of will essential to freedom"; that God's will never was contingent, but eternally determined to holiness, and yet is he the truest and noblest of all free agents? And
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what is effectual calling, wliicli restores tlie lost image, in its cen- tral work, save a rectification of man's free agency after the pat- tern of God's ? And does not every sound di-snne teach that just in degree as the activities of the human \nH are rational, in that degree they approach the pattern of the divine ? Let it be no- ticed, then, that in seeking the analogy by which to illustrate God's will in its actions touching the disputed cases, we selected the most rational and righteous human will ; and we found that the more completely it became such, the better it fulfilled our pui'pose of aiding us to apprehend God's will.
3. The remaining difficulty to be noticed is, that the conception presented of the divine affections and volitions would involve the idea of a strife in the divine bosom. Such is doubtless the re- sult of dehberation between competing motives in the human breast. The reaching of the final choice is attended with agita- tion and pain. And such strife must not be ascribed to God. But let it be considered whether this inward struggle arises from the fact that motives are complex, or from the fact that the af- fections which enter into our motives are passionate ? The latter is evidently the true statement. We cannot picture in our minds active principles which shall have, on the one hand, all the im- pulsive energy of affections, and on the other, all the immutable equanimity of deity ; yet we must ascribe just these principles to God. But we can conceive that, just in degree as a man's affec- tions approximate that steadiness and purity, the adjustment of them into the rational and righteous volition involves less in ward struggle. This is sustained by observation. We have seen how wisdom, justice, and patriotism in Washington's breast strove -udth and mastered the pity which pleaded for the life o£ the spy who had nearly ruined America. But the majestic calm- ness of that great man did not desert him. Had a weaker nature been called to perform the painful duty of signing that death- warrant — the gallant but frivolous Gates, for instance — he would have sho-uTi far more agitation ; he would perhaps have thro-uTi do-s^Ti the pen and snatched it again, and trembled and wept. But this would not have proved a deeper compassion than Wash- ington's. His shallow nature was not capable of such depths of sentiment in any ^ii-tuous direction as filled the profounder soul. The cause of the difference would have been in this, that Wash- ington's was a grander and wiser as well as a more feehng soul.^
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Dying saints have sometimes declared that their love for their families was never before so profound and tender ; and yet they were enabled by dying grace to bid them a final farewell with ' joyful calmness. If, then, the ennobling of the affections enables the will to adjust the balance between them ^vith less agitation, what will be the result when the wisdom is that of omniscience, the virtue is that of infinite holiness, and the self-command that of omnipotence ?
4. Another line of argument will lead us to the same conclu- sion, that the absence of a volition in God to save does not ne- cessarily imply the absence of compassion. This may be made perspicuous thus. When we teach that God's election to life is imconditioned, Arminians often leap to the conclusion that it must be therefore capricious and partial. When we point them to God (Rom. ix. 11) determining that the elder, Esau, should serve the younger, Jacob, "before the children were yet born, or had done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ;" and when we take this as teaching that God's selection of Jacob was not conditioned on his foreseen penitence or faith, Armin- ians reject our construction, and exclaim that this would be mere omnipotent caprice and injustice. But no intelhgent Calvinist admits this. He declares that by an unconditioned act of divine will he does not mean a motiveless act. To ascribe any motive- less volition to God would contradict the Scriptures, which de- clare that all his actions are done in wisdom ; and the Cate- chism, which teaches ns that his decree is a purpose " according tc the counsel of his wall." We donbt not but that God had his most wise, holy, and sufficient ground and reason for selecting sinful Jacob, rather than sinful Esau, to receive the inworking of faith and repentance. All we know about that reason is, that God did not find it in any foreseen piety that was to exist in Jacob, because the only piety there would ever be in Jacob to foresee was that which was to result from his election. Where God found his motive we know not ; there was room enough, unimaginable by us, in the view's of his infinite mind ranging over the affairs of his vast kingdom.
This truth should be familiar to the Calvinist, but it may not be amiss to make it clearer. A wise commander has his army in the presence of the invader. He has been regularly guarding
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liis approaches by keeping one regiment from each five out as pickets for twenty-four hours. The duty is full of hardship and danger. The morning has come for the fifth regiment of a par- ticular brigade to take its turn ; but there appears an unexplained order fi-om the commander to spare this regiment, and send back another, which has already had its turn. At once all is surprise and discontent among these men. They demand to know the reason of this injustice. Is it because the commander has a pique against them, and takes this way to jjunish them? The messenger assures them that this is not the commander's motive. Is it, then, because he confides in their vigilance and bravery so much more than in the fifth, so that the new order is a mark of confidence ? Again the messenger answers. No ; it is certain that the commander's motive is not connected in any way with the respective merits or faults of the men in the two regiments. "Then tell us," they exclaim, "his real ground." The messen- ger replies: "I am not able ; all I know is that I was told to de- liver this positive order ; it is yours to obey." The next morning the mystery is solved thus : at daybreak messengers fly from the commander to every brigade, ordering all to get under arms, and to prepare to deliver battle at sunrise. The general of this brigade is ordered to select the fifth regiment to cover the front of his other four as skirmishers, and receive the first shock of the onset, hecause they alone, in that hrigade, have rifles @f long range s^dtahle for the service. Now it is seen whether tha strange order of the previous morning was capricious ! After a day and night of sleepless watching, these men would have been unfit for their arduous and perilous duty on the all-important day. Yet this wise ground had nothing to do TN-ith the respective merits of the men ; all were good soldiers. Why, then, did not the com- mander publish his reason along AAdtli his order, when it would have saved so much angry surmise? It was not only his right, but his sacred duty to conceal the purpose out of which that reason grew, else its premature publication would have enabled the vilest deserter to advertise the invader, who would adopt measures which would cost the blood of hundreds of brave men. Such an instance is worthless for revealing to us the specific nature of the grounds on which he acts whose "glory it is to conceal;" but it may teach us how certainly he has adequate grounds for everv voUtion, and how it befits the honor of his
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vast government "to give no account of his matters to any man."
We are not to suppose, then, that because God's predestina- tion is unconditioned, it is motiveless, unreasoning, or capricious. Ketuming now to the case of Bom. ix. 11, and interj^retiug it scripturallj, we learn that God's rational ground for selecting Jacob was not the foresight of his piety, but some ground un- known to us Avhich commended itself properly to the Lord's wisdom and holiness. The question which we ^\dsh to press just here is this: Did not God feel, notwithstanding this properly overruling rational motive, the abhorrence for Jacob's foreseen original sin and actual meanness, suitable for an infinitely holy nature to feel, and naturally tending, had it not been counter- poised, to Jacob's righteous rejection? The fScriptures answer this question for us. (See Ezek. xvi. 5, 6; Neh. ix. 27; Jer. xxxii. 31, 37 ; 1 Peter iv. 17.) Indeed, neither our good sense nor the admitted principles of theology allow us to answer in the negative. For the former decides that moral principles must act impartially, raising similar sentiments when similar objects are presented ; and we cannot conceive how a rational and ethi- cal natm^e could be sensible to the demerit of A's act, and in- sensible to the very same demerit of B's act. The latter dis- tinguishes that while God acts all things freely, some of those free things he acts "necessarily," that is, by the moral necessity of his own perfections, while others he acts optionally. In neither class of activities can there be any " coaction," because he is always absolute sovereign and first cause. But to some acti\aties he is determined with eternal certainty by his own perfections, while to some he determines himself "arbitrarily" (by which is meant, of course, not tp-annically, but libertate merl arhitr'd). Thus, " God cannot lie," but God had the liberty merl arhitnl to make four moons to the planet Earth and one to Ju- piter, or four to Jupiter and one to Earth. Now, having grasped ■ this distinction, we must say that, while God has this liberty of mere option whether or not to execute his affection of pity or re- prehension towards any of his own creatm^es, he has not this hberiy of option about having the appropriate affections of his moral nature towards any of them. Is this because an exterior superior agent compels him to feel them ? By no means ; but because the regulative control of his own immutable perfections
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absolutely insures the cousistent action of liis own principles always.
God doubtless felt tlieu a similar moral reprehension for Jacob's foreseen supplanting falsehood to that which he felt for Esau's headj seK-will. Yet he elected Jacob and passed over Esau. How was that ? We are now prepared to answer. Be- cause that moral reprehension, whose natural propension in either case was to righteous rejection, was, in Jacob's case, over- ruled bj a good and sufficient motive; and because that motive, in Esau's case having no appHcation, left the moral reprehension to issue naturally and righteously in his rejection. An absolute but benevolent monarch has to pass on the fate of two murderers. A is a skillful physician; B is ignorant of that art. The law- abiding people are grievously scourged by pestilence, and suffer- ing sore dearth of medical aid. The king finds both A and B odiously and equally guilty ; 3^et he reprieves A that his medical skill may be used for the suffering sick. For what is B hanged ? For murder only. But was not A, who escapes, also equally guilty of murder, and does it not follow that B was really hanged for his ignorance of medicine ? A child can see the sophism, and can give the obvious solution : that B was hung for the guilt of his murder solely, and that the medical consideration, which weighed against A's equal guilt, had simply no applica- tion to B's case. Thus we resolve that supralapsarian perversion, which so much prejudiced the doctrine of predestination with so many moderate minds : " that Esau's guilt or evil desert could not have furnished the motive of God's pretei'ition of him, because, since all fallen men have evil desert, that motive, if operative, must have prompted the rejection of all." Now, the plain reader of his Bible naturally supposes that e^il desert is the very thing for which a holy God would be prompted to reject a sinner ; and we see that the plain reader is right. All fallen men have e^il desert. But the hinge of the doctrine is here : in the case of the elect, God has a secret rational motive, which has no appHcation to the non-elect, overweighing the motive to reject presented in their evil desert ; in the case of the non-elect, this latter motive, finding nothing to counterpoise it, prompts its natural and righteous voHtion, deserved rejection.
This being made clear, we reach oiu' next step by raising this question : Is not compassion for the miserves of his own lost
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creature as natural to a God of infinite beneVoleuce as moral in- dignation against all sin is to a God of infinite riorliteousness ? And ■when two guilty creatui-es are suffering similar miseries, equally deserved in both cases, can the di\'ine immutabilitj-, con- sistency and goodness be reconciled with the behef that the compassion which exists in the one case has not even the slight- est existence in the other case ? If this particular position be assumed, then the charge of unaccountable partiality, which the Arminian unjustly casts against predestination, -^dll have some fair application. Not that either sufferer has a personal right to either compassion or succor as against God. But the anomaly will be this : how comes it that an essential principle of God's nature should act normally towards one object, and refuse the similar exercise towards the precisely parallel object? This is God's absolute sovereignty, answers the supralapsarian. But a sound theology answers again, no ; while God is perfectly free in every exercise of his essential principles, yet he freely does some things necessarily, and other things optionally ; and God's optional liberty is not whether he shall haoe the propensions of his essential principles, but whether he shall execute them by his volitions. The counterpart truth, then, must be asserted of Jacob and Esau. As God had the natural and appropriate affection of disapprobation against Jacob's ill desert, and still elected him, which he had against Esau's ; so, doubtless, he had the same af- fection, appropriate to his infinite goodness, of compassion for Esau's misery, and yet rejected him, which he had for Jacob's deserved misery. If any compassion for Esau existed in the sovereign mind, why did it not effectuate itself in his salvation ? "VVe answer with a parallel question : why did not the righteous reprehension against Jacob's ill desert, if any of it existed in the sovereign mind, effectuate itself in his damnation ? All of us have agreed to the answer to this latter question ; Ave dare not say that God could distinctly foresee all Jacob's supplanting falsehood and feel no disapprobation whatever ; it would come near to blasphemy. We must reply : Because this disapproba- tion, while existing in the holy mind, was counterpoised by a wise, gracious, and sovereign motive unrevealed to us. Well, let the parallel answer be given to the parallel question: the di\Tjie compassion existing towards Esau's misery was counter- poised by some holy, wise, and sovereign motive unrevealed to
304 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy,
US ; so that righteous clisajjprobation for his siu remained the prevalent motive of righteous pretention.
When we say that God's prevalent rational motives in his pre- destinations are unrevealed, we mean it as to their specific or particular nature. One general fact is revealed as to all these, motives, that thev tend to God's ultimate hiphest glory.'
The truths which we have attempted to illustrate concerning the nature of the divine vn\\ may be recapitulated thus : man, ' when holy, was formed in God's rational and moral image.** Holy man's subjective motive for each rational volition is com- plex, because God's is also complex. This fact must follow from the very infinitude and constancy of God's attributes. The op- tative and intellectual elements of motive co-exist in God's unity in an ineffable maaner, to the comprehension of which our finite consciousness is not competent, but which his infinitude renders consistent for him. "Wliile God is absolutely free in all the ex- ercises of his essence, his optional freedom, or llhertas meri ar- hitrii, is concerned not iu his having, but in his executing any given element of his natural propension ; for it belongs to his essential perfection to have all of them, vdih. an immutable con- stancy and impartial uniformity, the appropriate objects thereot being before his omniscience. While the active elements of his subjective motive are absolutely passionless, yet are they related to his volitions in a di-v'iue and inefiable manner, as man's affec- tions are to his holy volitions. And we have sliOAvn that this does not clash with his absolute simplicity of essence, or his om- nipotence, or his blessedness and divine peace.
The best support to this ^dew is that Avhich the Scriptures themselves give, in that it furnishes an exposition of all the pas- sages declaring God's sentiments towards sinners which is con- sistent with their plain, obAaous meaning, and which relieves at a touch all the exegetical throes and writhings inflicted on those texts. For if God actually has a state of pity towards the sinner that dieth — although it does not rise to the executive grade of a volition to save him — why should he not say in his word that he has it? It is the exact expression of the state of the case. Washington had a sincere sentiment of compassion for Andre, which patriotism, msdom, justice, restrained from the release of the criminal. Wlw should he not express it ? Why should he not permit it to prompt him to send the condemned man com-
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 305
fortable food from his own table, and to protect liim from every needless indignity? He would be an impertinent caviller, in- deed, wlio slionld ask, Cxi hon-of or should argue that these manifestations of magnanimous tenderness were futile or decep- tive, because still they permitted the destruction of their object. Cuihono? Who does not percei^^e these good ends: that the virtue and philanthropy of him who was to be the great pattern of American manhood might have their appropriate manifesta- tion ; that the claims of the divine attribute of pity might be illustrated for us all in our provocations by the homage of a Washington ; that the unavoidable rigors of war might be miti- gated so far as justice allowed. Now, our God is as high above the noblest human ruler as the heavens above the earth. But we see not why this fact destroys the propriety of his glorifying his own infinite goodness in the parallel way. Being omniscient, he is able to hold all the multifarious ends of his vast kingdom, from its foundation to its everlasting futm-e, together in his mind. His government is, therefore, just so much the more a connected whole than that of any wise creature. Must it not follow that there is far more of inter-adjustment in his own views and aims ? Among all those countless subordinated aims, the honor of his own character, as infinitely holy, equitable, true, and benevolent, is properly the ultimate convergent end. Hence it is worthy of him, not only that he should so reveal himself as to secure the salvation of the particular objects of his mercy, but that he should so fulfil his legislative functions, irrespective of men's choosing to hear or to forbear, as to clear all his attributes of purity and goodness at once. Just as it is most right and worth v that he should tell men their duty correctly, whether he foresees their obedience or disobedience, so it is most worthy of his truth and benevolence that he shall acquit himself by exhorting men from their own self-destruction, whether they reject or accept his mercy.
But it may be that some still have the idea of futility haunt- ing this representation of God's providence. When we urge the question, Supposing God actually feels, according to his infinite benevolence, natural propensions of pity towards persons whom his wisdom restrains him from ever purposing to save, why may he not give tnithful expression thereto in either words or acts exactly expressive of the state of those propensions ? they recoil
306 god's I>fDISCRIMrNATE PliOPOSALS OF MERCY.
as thougli we ascribed to God iuefficacy. Let it be considered, then, tliat a given optative element of motive may, by an agent's own wisdom, be self-restrained from what would be its natural end but for that restraint, and yet find an end in another effec- tual volition not opposed to that wisdom. Washington was actu- ated by a real compassion for Andre. Had he been innocent, the natural outworking of that pity would have been his deliv- erance from destruction. But from this Washington was self- restrained by his justice and wisdom. Must pity remain, then, fruitless of any appropriate volition? No; there was another end, against which neither wisdom nor justice pleaded, which gave a true expression to pity, the mitigation of the criminal's fate. Propensions thus self-regulated, while actually felt, are then not futile ; and their direction to a subordinated end (when what would be their natural end, were there no superior restrain- ing motive, is not willed) displays neither vacillation, change, nor weakness, but the most consistent wisdom. And lest it should be again objected that this picture, however consistent for a ruler of limited powers, is inapplicable to one absolute and almighty, let it l)e remembered that God is not absolute from the regulative influence of his own attributes ; and that, however he may have absolute physical ability to indulge every propen- sion of his nature in execution, he may not have the license of his own wisdom and holiness. And that concurrences may arise in his vast commonwealth to prompt him freely to judge so, has such exceeding probability that it would be a rashness almosii insane to dispute it.
Let us now re-present to ourselves the large number of texts in which God entreats sinners to turn from the ways of destruc- tion. They are addressed by him to all men, without distinction of elect and non-elect. When, for instance, the Redeemer com- mands us to "preach the gosj3el to every creature," it is im- possible by any exegetical pressure to make the words mean, "every elect creature," because he adds in the next verse (Mark xvi. 16), "He that believeth not shall be damned." This possi- ble subject is among the " every-creature " body to whom the overtures of mercy are to be made. But no " elect creature " can be damned. Now, no straightforward mind can ever be satisfied that the utterance of entreaties to shun destruction is not the expression of compassion, if they come from a sincere
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 307
person. The explanations of the gospel calls to the non-elect which do not candidly recognize this truth must ever carry a fatal weight with the great body of Christians. The- Reformed confessions do indeed usually teach, with Dort, " Quotquot per Evangelium vocantur. serlo vocantury Some of the theologians, however neutralize that concession, by applying here the dis- tinction of God's will of ebapearia, and of eudoxca, in a manner which betrays a bondage to the scholasticism we have attempted to expose. That there is a just distinction between God's de- cretive and preceptive will no thoughtful person can deny. But let the question be stated thus : Do all the solemn and tender entreaties of God to sinners express no more, as to the non-elect, than a purpose in God, uncompassionate and merely rectoral, to acquit himself of his legislative function towards them? To speak after the manner of men, have all these apparently touch- ing appeals after all no heart in them ? We cannot but deem it an unfortunate logic which constrains a man to this view of them. How much more simple and satisfactory to take them for just what they express? — evidences of a true compassion, which yet is restrained, in the case of the unknown class, the non-elect, by consistent and holy reasons, from taking the form of a volition to regenerate.
There are, again, passages which are yet more express, repre- sented by Ezekiel xviii. 32; xxxiii. 11; Psalm Ixxxi. 13. Here God seems to express a yearning compassion for sinners whose contumacy and ruin under gospel-privileges are demonstrated by their actual experience. The Calvinist is the last man who can doubt whether the lost sinner of Ezekiel xviii. 32, or Psalm Ixxxi., 11, was non-elect at the time the divine lament was uttered; for our creed is, that election is invariably efficacious and immuta- ble. What mode of reconciliation remains, then, after the over- weening logic has been appHed that, since God is sovereign and almighty, had there been any compassion for this sinner, it must have eventuated in his redemption ? Can one resort to the plea that God willed that man's rescue with the will of ebapearca, but willed his damnation with the mil of eudoxia? The plain Chris- tian mind will ever stumble on this fatal question, how can a truthful and consistent God have two opposite wills about the same object? It is far more scriptural, and, as we trust has been shown, far more logical to say, that an immutable and sov-
308 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
ereign God never had but one will, one purpose, or volition, as to this lost man; as a faithful God would never publish any other volition than the one he entertained ; but that it was entirely consistent for God to compassionate where he never purposed nor promised to save, because this sincere compas- sion was restrained within the limits God announced by his own wisdom.
The yet more explicit passage in Luke xix. 41, 42, has given our extremists still more trouble. "We are there told that Christ wept over the very men whose doom of reprobation he then pronounced. Again, the question is raised by them. If Christ felt this tender compassion for them, why did he not exert his omnipotence for their effectual calling? And their best answer seems to be, that here it was not the divine nature in Jesus that wept, but the humanity only. Now, it will readily be con- ceded that the divine nature was incapable of the pain of sym- pathetic passion and of the agitation of grief; but we are loath to believe that this precious incident is no manifestation of the passionless, unchangeable, yet infinitely benevolent pity of the divine nature. For, first, it would impress the common Chris- tian mind "vvith a most painful feeling to be thus seemingly taught that holy humanity is more generous and tender than God. The humble and simple reader of the gospels had been taught by them that there was no excellence in the humanity which was not the effect and effluence of the corresponding ineffable perfection in the di^dnity. Second, when we hear our Lord speaking of gathering Jerusalem's children as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and then announcing the final doom of the rejected, we seem to hear the divine nature in him, at least as much as the human. And third, such interpretations, imphdng some degree of dissent between the two natures, are perilous, in that they obscure that vital truth, Christ the mani- festation to us of the divine nature. " He is the image of the in- visible God ; " " He is the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person;" "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father, and how sayest thou then. Shew us the Father? " (Col. i. 15; Heb. i. 3; John xiv. 9.) It is our happiness to believe that when we see Jesus weeping over lost Jerusalem, we "have seen the Father," we have received an insight into the divine benevolence and pity. And therefore this wondrous incident
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 309
lias been so clear to the hearts of God's people in all ages. The church has justly condemned Monothelism more than a thousand years ago. Yet, while we are none of us Monothelites, we can- not admib any defect of concert and symphony between the will of the perfect humanity and that of the divinity. It is, indeed, in this harmony of will that the hypostatic union most essentially effectuates itself, "yet ^vithout conversion, composition or con- fusion." For it is in the will of a rational essence that its unity consummates itself, as the combination and resultant of its pre- valent states of intelligence and of activity. The divine and human will was, so to speak, the very meeting-place at which the personal unity of the two complete natures was effected in the God-man.
Some better solution must be found, then, of this wondrous and blessed paradox, of omnipotent love lamenting those whom yet it did not save. Shall we resort to the Pelagian solution, and so exalt the prerogatives of a fancied "free-will" as to strip God of his omnipotence over sinful free agents ? That resort is absolutely shut; for knowing assuredly that man is originally depraved and in bondage to sin, we see that the adoption of that theory undermines the hope of every sinner in the world for redemption, and spreads a pall of uncertainty and fear over heaven itself. The plain and ol^vious meaning of the history gives us the best solution ; that God does have compassion for the repro- bate, but not express volition to save them, because his infinite wisdom regulates his whole will and guides and harmonizes (not suppresses) all its active principles.
This view of the divine nature also aids us in the many diffi- cult passages where the relation of Christ's design in his own sacrifice to the destiny of all men is taught or implied. At the outset we saw an eminent divine virtually confessing that this is "the crux of the Reformed theology. The persistent movements of the Hypothetic Uni\ ersalists among the French Keformed, the laborious tomes written on this subject, and the unceasing attacks of Arminians disclose that fact. He would be a rash man indeed who should flatter his readers that he was about to furnish an exhaustive explanation of this mystery of the divine will. But any man who can contribute his mite to a more satis- fying and consistent exposition of the Scriptures bearing on it is doing a good service to truth.
310 god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy.
Let us iDegin by laying down a simple basis, which all Calvin- ists will and must accept. The sacrifice of Christ vms designed hy the Trinity to effect precisely iiohat it does effect — all this, and no more. If God regulates all his works by his decree, and if sovereign and omnipotent in them all, then the historical unfold- ing of his providence must be the exact exposition of his pur- pose. What, then, are the results which Scripture shows to be effected by Christ's sacrifice? 1. The manifestation of God's supreme glory, and especially that of his love (Luke ii. 14 ; Eph. ii. 10, 11). 2. To ransom, effectually call, and glorify an elect people infallibly given to Christ (John xvii. 6-11). 3. To pro- cure for the whole race a temporal suspension of doom, with earthly mercies, so as to manifest the placability and infinite compassion of God towards all sinners, leave those who are finally impenitent iinder the gospel without excuse, and establish an everlasting concrete proof of the deadly malignity of sin in that it infallibly rejects not only duty and obligation, but the most tender and sincere mercy, wherever it is not conquered by effi- cacious grace (Rom. ii. 4; 2 Pet. iii. 15).
Again, the way must be prepared by pointing out another scriptural truth, by which many minds are confused from lack of due consideration : that it is God's prerogative to propose to himself two alternative results of the same set of means, leav- ing, in his permissive decree, a certain free agency to man, and to effectuate hoth the restdts in turn. The wise physician, for in- stance, gives his patient a medicine, designing, first, to make it only a palliative of pain ; or, second, to use it as a part of a treatment for radical cure, in a certain probable turn of the disease. Either end is benevolent. But this supposes a contin- gency in the physician's prescience whether the disease may take the other turn ? Yes ; he is a finite agent. But if his pre- science were perfect in this case, there might be a condition of things in which it would be reasonable for him to ordain so. The objector may exclaim here : but suppose him omnipotent in the case as well as omniscient! Must not whatever motive prompted action to palliate pain necessarily prompt a radical immediate cure ; so that he would pursue only the latter alter- native ? We reply, if we were certain that it was impossible this omniscient physician could have any kind of motive except phil- 'anthropy for this patient, yes. That is to say, to the thorough-
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 311
going optimist tJiis cavil would have xoe'igJd. But, as has been distinctly stated, Calvinists are not optimists. And as soon as the scriptural and reasonable statement is made, that God will direct his whole manifold providence to that set of ends which, as a total, commends itself to his perfections, of the parts of which we know but little, and which certainly includes much else besides the creatures' selfish well-being, we see that it is infin- itely possible the Divine Physician may see a sufficient reason for mitigating a pain he does not radically cure, other than conscious inability ; and to deny this would be, for a creature, an almost insane rashness. It cannot be denied that God does effectuate both, in turn, of two alternative results, and this without implj^- ing in his prescience any contingency or in his power any limit, because he virtually does so whenever he " brings good out of evil." This a moment's consideration will show. Does he not glorify his justice by punishing the evil, after he has overruled it for good? It is, then, but the application of this method when God makes the sincere offer of mercy through Christ to a Judas first glorify his infinite love and placability, and then, when it is slighted, as was permissively decreed, illustrate the stubbornness of Judas's sin as a deadly voluntary evil, and also God's clear jiistice in destroying him. This is just what God says he does, under the gospel (John iii. 17-19). But does not God's effectuating the second of the alternative results imply that he could not be sincere in the first ? This is the shape in which this obstinate cavil will return on us. Now here the the- ory of the divine will which we have unfolded gives the answer. No ; it does not. It is not necessary to repeat the explanation. It enables us not indeed to comprehend, but to apprehend, how God may be sincere in the first alternative, and, omniscient of its result, may permissively ordain to let Judas reject the mercy, and also be righteous in the latter alternative. Thus, we can take all the gospel declarations concerning Christ's sacrifice to mean just what they express, and we are relieved from the neces- sity of all tortuous exegesis.
It has been a favorite argument with extremists to urge that, because the greater includes the less, therefore a compassion for Judas, which was strong enough to make the sacrifice of Cal- vary for him, could not possibly stop short of the easier gifts of effectual calling and preservation. Therefore, since God did not
312 god's indisceiminate peoposals of meecy.
actually bestow tlie latter, he never felt any of the compassion for Judas ; and when he seems to say so, his words must be ex- plained away. We reply, the greater does include the less; and therefore the loving volition to satisfy for Judas's guilt must, a fortio7'i, have included the volition to the easier work of his calling and preservation. When this argument is nsed to prove the perseverance of the saints, from the love of the sacrifice, it is perfectly conclusive. But if the divine nature, like a holy creature, has in some ineffable way propensions of benevolence which are not beneficent volitions, and yet are sincere, then, as to them, the argument is invalid.
We may best exemplify the manner in which the correct view applies by that most important and decisive passage, John iii. 16-19. Here is the most plausible exposition of it which can be presented on the supralapsarian side. When "God so loved tJie world that he gave his only begotten Son," "the world" must mean only the "body of the elect": 1, Because there is no greater gift that could evince any greater love to the elect; 2, Because this chief gift must include all the rest, according to Hom. Adii. 32; 3; Because "the world" of the whole jjassage is that which God sent his Sou (verse 17) not to condemn, but to save ; 4, The foreseen preterition of maiiy to whom the gospel is offered expresses nothing but divine hatred, such as is incom- patible with any love at all.
But now, ^67' contra, if "the world" in verse 16 means "the body of the elect," then, 1, We have a clear implication that some of that body may fail to believe and perish; 2, We are required to carry the same sense throughout the passage, for the phrase, "the world," which is correct; but in verse 19, "the world," into which the light has come, working with some the alternative result of deeper condemnation, must be taken in the wdder sense ; 3, A fair logical connection between verse 17 and verse 18 shows that "the world" of verse 17 is inclusive of "him that believeth " and " him that believeth not " of verse 18 ; 4, It is hard to see how, if the tender of Christ's sacrifice is in no sense a true manifestation of divine benevolence to that part of "the world" which "believeth not," their choosing to slight it is the just ground of a deeper condemnation, as is expressly stated in verse 19. Ai'e gospel-rejecters finally condemned for this, that they were so unfortunately perspicacious as not to be af-
god's indiscriminate proposals of mercy. 313
fected bj a fictitious or unreal manifestation ? It is noticeable that Calvin is too sagacioiis an expositor to commit himself to the extreme exegesis.
How shall we escape from this d'devD/ui f Looking at the iirst and second points of the stricter exposition, we see that, if it were a question of that efficient degree of salvation from which every logical mind is compelled to draw the doctrine of particu- lar redemption, the argument would be impregnable. Yet it "would make the Saviour contradict liis own exposition of his statement. The solution, then, must be in this direction, that the words, " so loved the world," were not designed to mean the gracious decree of election, though other scriptures abundantly teach there is such a decree, but a propension of benevolence not matured into the volition to redeem, of which Christ's mis- sion is a sincere manifestation to all sinners. But our Saviour adverts to the implication which is contained even in the very statement of this delightful truth, that those who will not be- lieve will perish notwithstanding. He foresees the cavil : " if so, this mission will be as much a curse as a blessing ; how is it, then, a manifestation of infinite pity?" And the remaining verses give the solution of that cavil. It is not the tendency or primary design of that mission to curse, but to bless; not to condemn, but to save. When it becomes the occasion, not cause, of deeper condemnation to some, it is only because these (verse 19) voluntarily pervert, against themselves, and acting (verse 20) from a wicked motive, the beneficent provision. God has a permissive decree to allow some thus to wrest the gospel provision. But inasmuch as this result is of their own free and wicked choice, it does not contravene the blessed truth that Christ's mission is in its own nature only beneficent, and a true disclosure of God's benevolence to every sinner on earth to whom it is published.
In conclusion, the reader is entreated to take note again, that this theory of the nature of God's active powers is advanced in the interests of the integrity of Scripture ; and that its result is not to complicate, but to relieve the exposition, and to enable the Christian to hold the Bible declarations concerning God's provi- dence towards our sinful race in their most natural sense.
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL:
AN EXAMINATION OF ITS LEADING POINTS.'
MR. CAMPBELL proposed, as his main enterprise, to re- move the evils of " sects," by gathering a Christian com- munion without any creed of human construction, "with no other bonds save faith on Jesus Ciirist as Saviour, and obedience to his laws; that is, every one must be admitted, were this basis laid down consistently, not only as a member, but teacher, who says that he believes and obeys the Scriptures. Mr. Campbell, misapplying the words of John xvii. 20, 21, says that only two conditions are necessary for the conversion of the world — Truth and Union. He deeras that the reason why truth has not done its work is to be found in the divisions of professed Christians. Of these he regards human creeds as causes, instead of results. He strictly requires us to show a divine command or authority for their composition, and for the exaction of subscription to them ; and he charges that, failing in this, if we exact such sub- scription, we are guilty of most criminal usurpation and will-wor- ship. He urges that, to add a human creed to God's word, as a test of correct doctrinal opinion, is virtually to make the impu- dent assertion that the uninspired creed-makers can be more perspicuous than the Holy Ghost. But on the contrary, since men uninspired are all fallible, their creeds will inevitably differ from each other, in differing from the truth ; and in these diflter- ences, factiously supported by their several partisans, is the grand source of the divisions which have so weakened Christianity. Moreover, these human compositions being the work of men and parties, are fondled by their authors with the selfish pride of paternity, and they become the shibboleths of religious factions and bones of contention. The simple remedy for this brood of mischiefs, he deems, would be a retiirn to what he supposes was
' This article appeared in tte Southern Presbyterian Retiew for July, 1880. 3H
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 315
the apostolic basis, union and communion upon the word of God alone, without human creed, and the requirement of nothing but the fundamental points of beHef on Christ as Saviour and obedi- ence to his commands. The mission of Campbellism, then, is to absorb all sects into this one apostolic communion, and thus to -prepare the way for the imllenmum. The usual charges are also freely made by him and his followers, that subscription is an infringement of spiritual liberty, a remnant of popery, etc.
The most obvious method will be to define, first, the proper use of human creeds ; for thus the most of these views will be obvi- ated, and the objections will fall away of themselves. It is true that the Roman and Greek churches always, and some Protestant churches sometimes, have used creeds in connection with religi- ous tyranny and persecution. To all such uses we are as strongly opposed as Mi% Campbell. We accept and are responsible for only the follomng \^ew of their use. As man's mind is noto- riously faUilile, and professed Christians who claim to hold the Scriptiu'es, as they understand them, differ from each other no- toriously, some platform for union and cooperation must b© adopted, by which those who believe they are truly agreed may stand and work together. It is the only possible expedient, in the absence of an inspired living umpire, such as the pope claims falsely to be, by which fidelity to truth can be reconciled with cooperation. A creed, then, is such a means for enabling Chris- tians to understand each other. It is a human exposition of what is supposed to be the exact meaning of the Scriptures ; and differs from those usually delivered from the pulpit only in being more carefully and accurately made by the assistance of many minds. Its setting forth is an exercise of the church's ordinary didactic function. It must advance nothing which its compilers do not honestly suppose to be fully sustained by the Scriptures • and no authority is claimed for it, in any respect, save that which they believe is communicated by the word of God. It is set forth, not as Mr. Campbell rashly asserts, to anathematize dissen- tients, a thing which our church never does, but to give a rally- ing point for those who are in accord, without which they could neither efficiently cooperate in spreading the gospel nor enjoy profitable Christian communion. And further, as the apostle has commanded us to receive into the school of Christ "those who are weak in ths faith," for pxirposes of instruction, even this
316 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
modest application of tlie creed is made only to tlie rulers and teaebers of the cliurcli, except as to those fundamentals which Mr. Campbell himself would exact.
1. We argue, then, in the first place, that the Presbvteri.'in Church now offers to the whole world precisely that basis of union which Mr. Campliell professes to desiro. We ask of lay members no profession save of faith on Christ and obedience to his laws. That more should be asked of those who aspire to the responsibihty of teachers and rulers among us, we shall show. In truth, we carry out Mr. Campbell's plan more sincerely than he does himself. For it is notorious that, whatever profession one might make of agreement in faith and obedience, if he only asked to receive baptism by affusion, he should be strictly re- fused. If, after submitting to immersion, he should ask the same sacrament for his infant children, he should be expelled.
Mr. Camjibell would reply to the first point, that according to the Scriptures afl'asion was not baptism, and its performance in that way was not "obedience to Christ." He would say that one's baptizing his infant children was not Christianity, because they cannot beUeve that Christ is the Savioiu- of the world. But one may believe that affusion is, according to ScrijDtiu'e, baptism ; and that the j^arent's faitli, according to Scripture, entitles the infants to baptism ; and he may claim that he has examined the Scriptures as honestly as Mr. Campbell. Now, Mr. Campbell cannot maintain on his own principles that he is entitled to con- strue the Bible and another man is not. This would be popery. Yet his construction of the Bible, which is nothing but a human creed, is applied as a test of church communion to exclude an- other, notwithstanding his profession that he accepts the terms of salvation requii'ed by Mr. Campbell, as he honestly under- stands them. Here, then, Mr. Campbell does the very thing which he condemns. According to liis own confession he does it in the most objectionable form, for he has admitted that an unwritten creed, iised for creed purposes, would be worse than a wiitten one. And this is obvious, for the written one is more fair, stable, and intelligible than the unAviitten. The latter gives room for endless misunderstandings, wi'anghngs and inequal- ities.
The appHcation of this simple touchstone, then, shows that the Campbellite is utterly inconsistent; that he as truly has a
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 317
htiman creed as we. And this inconsistency is indeed inevit- able. Christian union in the same denomination is impossible between men divided by certain differences. Such differences are inevitable while human reason remains fallibk. Protestants admit no pope, no infallible human umpu*e. The only conceiv- able alternative is the distribution of Christians who are agreed into denominations upon the basis of human creeds. Campbell's self-contradiction was, then, fated.
2. Mr. Campbell himself remarks in his Christian System, page 103, that if the result of his reform should be only to add another to the number of the sects, it would be every way to be deplored. This was the predestined result, and it has notoii- ously been accomplished. The body he has formed possesses every sectarian feature in its most exasperated form. The Camp- bellite is usually known as an ecclesiastical Ishmaelite. Their leader was more divisive, more denunciatory, more exclusive, than any of the sects he reviled. Hie excluded more Christians from Christ's church than are excluded by all the avowed creed- holding churches in America, — Christians who, according to their professions, were already upon his platform of faith, baptism and obedience. And the societies founded by him, while indepen- dent in church government, hardened at once into a reUgioris denomination of rigid bigotry.
That Mr. Campbell's is virtually a creed-holding church, is confirmed by several e\ddences. For instance, he himself, in the very introduction to his Christian System (page 10), says that, " admonished from the extremes into which some of our friends and brethren have carried some points, I undertake this work vdih. a deep sense of its necessity, and with much anticipation of its utility in exliibiting a concentrated view of the whole gi'ound we occupy," etc. Here we have the very purposes of a creed avowed. He then tells us that his work will be divided into three parts, of which the second is, " The principles on ichich all Christians may form one communion^ What is the statement of these but a human creed ? For, of coiirse, these "principles" are simply those on which Mr. Camphell supposes " all Christians may form one communion." It is equally obvious that in putting forth his Christian System he designed and expected it to have more force than an expression of his personal opinion ; he hoped it would be a doctrinal basis of agreement to his sect for the
318 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
heterogeneous complexion of wliicli lie felt so mucli concern. He designed it, in other words, for a creed.
Another incident exhibits the same fact, that his societies are, after all, based upon a creed. A Dr. Thomas, an Englishman, a professed member and preacher of his sect, began to teach materiahsm, the sleep of believers' souls until the resm-rection, and the annihilation of infants and unbeUevers. Mr. Campbell very properly travelled all the way to Amelia county, Virginia, called him to account, exacted of him a written agreement to preach these doctrines no longer ; and, on his breaking over this, published to the world his exclusion from Mr. Campbell's com- munion. These measures naturally and necessarily resulted in the formation of a separate sect of " Thomasites," or " Disciples," who not only hold a distinct communion, but actually re-immerse Campbellites ! Now Thomas and his party all the while pro- fessed the platform which Mr. Campbell exacts of men, held be- lievers' immersion with all the strictness he could desire, and declared that they believed just what was in the Bible. Yet Mr. Campbell had some standard of measurement other than that declaration by which he extruded them. What was it ? Evi- dently nothing else than his nuncupative creed : a thing which he himself confessed is worse than a written one. These in- stances show, in the most conclusive manner, how impossible it is, practically, for a Christian communion to be really formed on the no-creed basis. The inevitable force of necessity has at once driven from it the very ** comprehension " which was to make it its chief glory.
3. But let us now resume the facts noted : that all nominal Christians are ready to declare, "We beheve what the Bible teaches ;" that yet they differ so much that it is preposterous for them to cooperate in the same communion ; and that each man, in ascertaining the concord or disagreement of others with him- self, resorts to Ms construction of what the Scriptures mean. This construction is obviously Ms Miman creed. Mr, Campbell makes a weak attempt {CTirlstian 8y stein, pages 18, 109,) to escape this, by saying that the testimony of the apostles gives us, as fun- damentals, only a set of " facts" [facta, things done). " But all these modes of faith and worship are based upon a mistake of the true character of revelation, which it has long been our effort to correct. With us, revelation has nothing to do with opinions
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMrBELL. 319
ot abstract reasonings; for it is founded wholly and entirely upon, jfacls. There is not one abstract opinion, not one specula- tive yiew, asserted or communicated in Old Testament or New." Mr. Campbell immediately refutes this preposterous statement himself ; for, after making a similar one on page 18, he adds : " These facts reveal God and man, and contain within them the reasons of all piety and righteousness." .... " The meaning of the Bible facts is the true biblical doctrine." Now what are those "reasons of piety anri righteousness contained in the facts?" this "meaning" of them, which is the true- biblical doctrine ? They are precisely those principles which he had just before stigma- tized as " abstract opinions," or " speculative views." To pass from the facts to them requires that very work of construction whose inevitable result is a " human creed," ^. e., human in terms of expression, though still scriptural and divine in substance, if we construe faithfully. So, on page 111, " The power of any
fact is the meaning All moral facts have a moral meaning,"
etc. Then, to make men experience the power, we must construe the meaning to tliem. So that we are again led to the same de- spised " speculative " truths. But it is not true that the Scrip- tures state only " facts." What is 1 John iii. 4, for instance, but a general abstract definition of sin ? What shall we make of the doctrinal epistles, or of the sermons of Christ and the apostles, with their numerous principles, logical processes, and definitions ? We conclude, then, that, were it true the Scriptures contained only facts, Mr. Campbell's inference against doctrinal systems would, by his OAvn confession and practice, be false ; but, sec- ondly, tliat the assumption is glaringly untrue.
4. To all our pleas for the utility of creeds, for bearing our testimony to truth, as we conscientiously understand it, or for ascertaining our harmony Avith those with whom we propose to coopeiate in the gospel, or for guiding the instruction of gospel pupils in sound doctrine, Mr. Campbell's cavil is, that these pleas arrogantly assume that our creed-makers are able to be more perspicuous or correct than inspiration ; which is profane as well as false. If, argues he, we revered the Scriptures as we should, as the work of the Holy Ghost, we should wish for nothing more ; these would be to us the ne plus ultra of correctness, perspicnity and certainty.
One answer to this is, that it proves too much. By the same
320 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
reason, Mr. Campbell should never have found occasion to draw up his Christian System; he should never have composed any exposition of the sacred Scriptures or a sermon ; his whole testi- mony and work as a chiu'ch teacher should have been in citing men to the words of sacred Scripture and simply reading it to them. We might retort the same cavil, with the same bitterness : " Mr. Campbell, why do you presume to expound Paul or the Saviour ? It implies the arrogant assumption that jovl can be more perspicuous or correct than they!" A second answer is this: Mr. Campbell says his belief is precisely what the Bible teaches. We declare that our belief is precisely what the Bible teaches. Yet he and we are notoriously disagreeing ! We now present a second statement of our doctrinal beliefs, which is, to US, an equivalent one : " We believe just what the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches." Thereupon Mr. Campbell parts company with us. He knows so well, and everybody else knows so well, that he does not beHeve with our catechism, that he does not pretend it. His resort is, on the contrary, to fight it. Our catechism has, therefore, demonstrably some fitness to detect and unmask the doctrinal differences between these two pro- fessed Bible behevers which the Bible has not. And one reason of this fitness is, that our catechism is human. Did Mr. Camp- bell recognize it as inspired, he would mask his real disagreement from it, as he does his real disagreements from God's word, under his expositions ; he would say of the catechism, as he does of the Bible : " Oh, I believe just what it teaches, provided it be ex- pounded aright ;" ^. e., expounded as he Avishes it to mean. But now that our catechism claims to be only a human and fallible work, he is bold to reject it ; and thus his disagreement with the truth, as we understand it, is disclosed.
This evident fitness of the creed for this work does not at all imply a superior skill or perspicuity of its authors over the sacred writers. Scripture was designed by God for a different end — to be the ground of all creeds, and the rule of faith for all ages. It is no derogation to the supreme excellence of Scripture to say, that something else better answers a particular end for which Scripture was, in its very nature, not designed nor adapted. If it were, then no preacher or teacher could ever consistently give his exposition of Scripture ; he should rather read to the people the words of Scripture themselves, as being better adapted than
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 321
liis words. Another illustration may be found in that ascertain- tnent of the coustriiction of statutes which is made by the adjudi- cations of courts. All civilized people vahie such judicial expo- sitions of the statute, and attach some authority to them. This is not because judges are better masters of law language than legislators, but because in all language general enough for a, statute of general application, a possibility of ambiguity is inevi- table. But when an issue is raised, in a concrete case, as to the meaning of the statute, and settled by some agreed umpire, that ambiguity is excluded. In a word, erroneous interpretation, or competing interpretations, having actually 'presented themselves, any intelligent person can then select terms and frame a state- ment which shall settle the point raised. Further ; lapse of time and flux of current usage cause a need of new definition for words of older date or of a dead language. This definition con- temporary words can give. Thus, "atonement," in the Englisli of Sir Thomas More and Henry VIII., was at-one-ment. Among modern Calvinists it has come to mean " penal satisfaction for guilt." This ability to define by more recent terms arises not from their superior intrinsic accuracy, but fi'om the circum- stance that their meaning is at the time technically settled. These remarks explain the utility of human expositions and com- ments, and they equally justify human creeds. Thus, Mr. Camp- bell believes "immerse" is more unambiguous than "baptize." Hence he gives us his human (Latin) word for the inspired one. That is, he gives us here his human creed as a substitute for the word of Scripture. In a word, a creed is a concerted erpos'dion of Scripture upon its more important points, made for certain purposes of edification. Now, if those purposes are lawful, as we have shown, this species of exposition is also lawful, unless it can be proved that all exposition by man is unlawful.
5. This leads us to notice the plea, on which Mr. Campbell lays so much stress, that Christ has not authorized the rulers of the church, by any revealed precept, to make human creeds and demand subscription of them. But God has expressly enjoined church rulers to guard the doctrinal purity of the church, and especially of its teachers. (Gal. i. 8, 9 ; 1 John iv. 1 ; Eev. ii. 2 ; Titus i. 9-11 ; 2 Tim. ii. 1 ; i. 13 ; Heb. xiii. 9; 2 John 10.) If it be practically found that this cannot be done without drawing up a human declaration of what is the piu'e doctrine — as was the
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case with Ai'ius — then the obligation involves the right to employ this expedient. So, the church is commanded to teach. If ex- perience shows that this involves the building of houses to teach in, then the church rulers properly apply a part of the people's oblation of their substance to brick and moi-tar. The charge of usurpation of power to the detriment of the spiritual rights of Christ's people is further completely dissolved, when we observe that the proper use of creeds, for which alone we contend, does not authorize us to persecute any who differ from our creed, how- ever extensively, nor even to unchurch any who differ from it in things not fundamental. Of all these latter, Methodists, Lu- therans, Immersionists, Episcopalians, etc., we only determine, by the application of our creed, that they are not of our denomi- nation in the church. We cordially recognize their places in Christ's church catholic ; we recognize their ordinances and dis- ciphne ; we join them in every act of Christian fellowship and love consistent -^dtli the testimony which our consciences con- strain us to bear. We neither desire nor attempt to estop their liberty in serving God after their preferred way. And against even those who, like Pelagians and Unitarians, deny the vitals of the faith, we hurl no anathema ; we aim no persecutions ; we only bear our testimony, and leave them to their Master in heaven. Thus, the employment of this human expedient does not assail or infringe any man's Uberty, but only protects our own.
Here, again, Mr. Camp cell is fated to illustrate the falsehood of his own cavil in the most crushing way. He will scarcely assume that the Bible, written by the Holy Ghost in Greek, con- tains any precept to translate the word haptize by the Latin word ini7ne7'se, and to exact of all Christians an agreement in this defi- nition as the strict term of their admission to the church of Christ. But this is precisely what Mr. Campbell does, with a ruthless severity and tyranny unknown outside of Rome. For he not only repels the Christian who demurs fi-om this appHca- tion of his human creed from his CampbeUite communion, but ex- communicates him from the church of Christ !
6. Mr. Campbell's chief objection against creeds is that they are divisive. His favorite weapon is an exposition of our Sa- viour's prayer, John xvii. 20 : " That they also may be one in us ; that the world may believe," etc. He says that we are here
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taught, 1, That ^^the testimony of the apostles is the only and all- sufficient means of uniting all Christians ;^^ and, 2, That "Me union of Christiaiis ivith the apostles' testimony is all-sufficient and alone sufficient to the convei'sion of the world'''
Such is his formal creed on this point. It is unscriptural and false in both its members. Christ expressly defines the union or oneness ■which was desii'ed as conducive to the world's believins as a spiritual oneness. Mr. Campbell blindly degi'ades it into an ecclesiastical and formal union. Christ does not say that the "apostles' word^'' was to be "the only and all-sufficient means of uniting all Christians " in any sense ; least of all in Mr. CamjD- bell's sense. He prays for the spiritual oneness of all who were to believe through the apostles' word, by his very prayer she"wdng that the oneness viould r-equire something else than their "^wr^Z" to constitute and preserve it. Moreover, when Christ refers to their word as a means of their believing, has he authorized Mr„ Campbell to say that it can only be such means when not pre- sented in the form of one species of exposition called by Mr. Campbell "hu7)ian creed"? We trow not. Had Christ been speaking of organic union at all, he would never have said that the apostles' testimony was all-sufficient for it, so long as human creeds were kept away. For the apostles' testimony did not finite all professed lyelievers in their own day f Nor in the two hundred years following, when Mr. CampbeU is very certain Christendom was innocent of creeds. Again, it is false that a universal union, conjoined with the New Testament, is sufficient for the world's conversion. One proof is, that multitudes have lived in such lands as Scotland, where the population was homo- geneous, so that while they had the New Testament teachings they were utterly unconscious of any adverse influences arising from denominational divisions, because they were conversant with none. Yet those people were not converted ! Mr. Campbell would exclaim that one of his conditions was lacking : the New Testament was i^ot faithfully taught them. Ah, sure enough, it was put into their hands unaccompanied with Mr. Campbell's "human creed" of "immerse." Again, there are neighborhoods in this country, where Mr. Campbell's teachings are so triumph- ant that "the sects" are as thoroughly exploded and contemned as though they were annihilated. Does everybody get convert- ed there "^ This absurd proposition is Pelagian. It ignores the
324 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
deacluess of sinner's souls, and tlie necessity of sovereign grace above all means, however good.
In proceeding -witli the question whether creeds are divisive and retard the world's conversion, let iis expressly concede that all persecutions and uncharitableness, all unchristian dogmatism and bigotry, all angry abuse, all arrogant exclusiveness and ■unchurching of those whom God receives, have this tendency. This is not because they imply denominational distinctions, but because they belie the Christian spirit, and so dishonor Christ and grieve the Holy Ghost. And we know of no one man who has done as much of this mischief in our day as A. Campbell. He has displayed more arrogant dogmatism, more uncharitable- ness towards dissentients, more raihng and harsh judgments towards sincere followers of Christ; he has divided more con- gregations, peaceful before his incursions ; he has aimed totally to unchurch larger multitudes of creditable Christians, only for dissenting from his human shibboleth of immersion, than any one this side of Eome. Here, again, he gives himself the most pungent refutation. He is the "no-creed" reformer; and he has created more division in American Christianity than any man on the continent !
But that the orthodox creeds of Christendom have not pro- duced the divisions is demonstrated by this fact: there were divisions before there were creeds. Mr. Campbell says the Nicene w^as the first. Epiphanius, in the fourth century, enu- merated eighty heresies, the most of them before Arius. Mr. Campbell evidently mistakes an effect for a cause. Human creeds are the results, in some form the inevitable results, of re- ligious differences. The causes of those differences miist be sought far deeper in the infirmities and blindness of man's head and heart. And the remedy for these differences must accord- ingly be found in a deeper cause than the mere removal of creeds. As long as the carnal mind is enmity against God, his method of redemption will be misunderstood and differently understood. The prompting to formulate these competing views in creeds is the result, not the cause, of the mental disease. Men differ in a similar manner about an}i;hing which concerns their passions and interests. It is, for instance, notoriously thus about j)olitics. Mr. Campbell should hold, that instead of parties making plat- forms, platforms make parties ; and that the only and all-suffi-
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 325
cient means of secviriiig civil concord and power is for all politi- cal principles to be sunk, and for virtuous citizens to vote pro- miscuously for any and every candidate of safe or of mischievous opinions, wlio says that he reveres the constitution.
Mr. Campbell argues, with some show of plausibility, that creeds stimulate the spirit of dogmatism and faction, in that they give points around which pride of opinion crystallizes itself. The creed-makers are touchy and sensitive about their work, because of the pride of paternity. The adherents acquire a factious spirit by associating their symbol mth the selfish feelings of party. We reply, that the infirmities of human nature have doubtless abused a lawful expedient here, as they abuse more or less every- thing which man employs. No ordinary mortal can draw up an exposition of sacred Scriptures without feeling the same pride of paternity and jealousy. No man can be a vigorous and success- ful leader in the church without having Ms j^erson become such a rallying point of faction, far more than any abstract creed. Cer- tainly Mr. Campbell has not done so. The substitution of a creed in place of a personal leader is the wisest expedient known to man for attaining the wholesome and righteous position of "principles, not men," which is the very watchword of enlight- ened hberty. Since Mr. Campbell's no-creed part}' has exhibited the very results of division, dogmatism, faction and strife, in the most deplorable degree, we think that the most feasible way to lessen them is to have a carefully prepared creed, and present that as our view of the Scripture meaning, instead of a personal party leader.
7. We object, in order to take the aggressive, that a commu- nion of Christians collected on the "no-creed" j^rinciple must be what is popularly known as a "broad church." This Mr. Camp- bell both confesses and boasts as to his communion. He de- plores in one place that in his connection " almost all kinds of doctrine are preached by all sorts of men." Not very consist- ently he often justifies and glories in the fact that his is a "lib- eral" church in tolerating great diversity of opinion under a union in a few fundamentals. Barton W. Stone, one of his most power- ful coadjutors in Kentucky, was an Arian, if not Sociuiau, to his end. Others of his preachers were Pelagians. A few were pro- fessed Unitarians and Universalists. A few were and are evan- gehcal and orthodox. Thus every legitimate objection against
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the broad-church theory is applicable here : (1), It is impossible for a broad or no-creed church to be a faithful "^dtnessing body for the truth. But this is a prime function of the church. (Ps. Ixxviii. 5, 6 ; Is. lix. 21 ; 1 Tim. iii. 15 ; Eev. xii. 17 ; and espe- cially John xviii. 37.) The church is a " candlestick " (Rev. i. 20). If any further evidence is needed, it is found in a very short deduction. "What is the church for? The end of its corporate existence is " the gathering and perfecting of the elect." This is efifected through the instrumentality of the truth. It would seem, then, as clear as any deduction that the church should bear a corporate testimony for the truth. Hence, as the minis- try and rulers of the church are her only corporate agency, the official testimony of each minister is a part of that corporate testimony, and each one is officially responsible for the tolerated official testimony of the others. Now, if the church or an officer thereof performs the witnessing duty merely by saying, ""We testify whatever the Bible means," it is naught. For notoriously all errorists save infidels, all Papists, Socinians, Universahsts, and Campbellites, concur in saying so. It amounts to absolutely nothing. To give any edge to our testimony, we must be pro- vided vdth an answer to the question, " ^Tiat do you regard the Bible as meaning?" What can that answer be but a virtual creed ? Mr. Campbell might admit the necessity of meeting the question, and attempt still to say, "Let the answer be each min- ister's faithful exposition of Scripture." This will not do. So the broad-churchman says, " Let each minister have liberty, in the same tolerant community, to utter his o^\-n full and honest tes- timony to what he deems the truth. So truth will have as fuU opportunity to correct error as though they were separated into hostile camps." We reply, this scheme is impracticable and self-destructive. For, on this plan, where is the corjwrate testi- moyiy of the church as a whole ? On this plan one's official re- sponsibility for the official testimony of the comrade whom he helped to clothe with this office-power, is preposterously and wickedly betrayed. On this plan the collisions of truth and er- ror would assuredly become more bitter, provided there were any sincerity of conviction, when occurring in the bosom of the same communion. The only condition which would make the real ap- plication of a broad-church theory possible is a faithless indiffer- entism. And in fact there is no communion on earth consistently
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broad. Certainly not Mr. Campbell's. He could tolerate Arian- ism, Pelagianism, Universalism, and conld thus betray the very foundations of God's honor; yet he was not "Inroad" enough to tolerate baptism by affusion. Thus the pretended broad-church- ism only results in betraying fundamental truths to stickle for some formalistic error and in expelling for some unimportant point those whom God accepts, while embracing those whom God abhors for their denial of essential truth.
(2). It is impossible for a broad church to be "a pillar and ground of the truth," which is the church's function, because of the logical interdependence of the Christian system. The ene- mies of orthodoxy suppose tliat they are uttering a sneer when they say that it is " remorselessly logical." This quality, if taken in its true sense, is its glory. Any system which is true must have its parts interdependent. Hence, when one truth is sur- rendered, however minor, some risk is incurred of the undermin- ing of all the others. The dropping out of one stone fi'om the abutment may loosen the key-stone of the arch itself. While we heartily admit the distinction between essential and non-essential truths, we can only concede, as to the non-essential error which impiigns the latter, that, though it does not, like fundamental error, subject its victim to the necessity of destruction, it cer- tainly creates some Uability to pass on to the fundamental error, and so to perdition. Hence, no sound Christian can be -willing to give it ecclesiastical rights, as broad-churchism does.
In conclusion, the "no-creed" position of Mr. Campbell preju- dices most mischievously the investigation of truth. By stigma- tizing the orthodox propositions as "human creeds" he has steeled the minds of his followers against the scriptural arguments on which the truth rests. This outcry, with most of his people, has been sufficient to condemn in advance all that is distinctive of PresbyteTianism.
II. liie Rule of Faith.
Campbellism, like all other types of Anabaptism, betrays its dishonest interest in denying the existence of a gospel and church in the old dispensation. This denial is unavoidable to rid themselves of infant inemhership in the church. The Campbellite is bolder and more consistent in his error than the evangelical immersionist. The former admits the inspiration of the Old Testament, and yet roundly denies that it is a rule of
328 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
faith for us. Their authors use such languagce as this: "The former Testament is abrogated." "The authority of the Old Testament has ceased." "It is no book of authority to teach us what to do." "The gospel is not found in it except in type and promise — precisely the forms in which it cannot have authority." The purposes of God in inspiring the Old Testament A\Titers are represented as these : as the development of tlie true religion was necessarily gradual, the Old Testament was designed to give a delineation of the imperfect or partial religion given to earlier ages. It contains historical preliminaries which assist us in un- derstanding the completed religion, the gospel, now that it has come. It presents a record of God's moral government of the race. It contains types and promises of the coming salvation, designed for the instruction oi the New Testament asre. It re- veals permanent and useful moral principles.
The arguments by which this error is sustained are such as these : that the two Testaments contain not two dispensations of the same religion, but two different religions ; for thus they un- derstand the two oca&r^xa'., misquoting such passages as Heb. viii. 13 ; that a new testament supersedes the old ; that a "will is not of force until after the death of the testator ;" that when the three disciples, on the mount of transliguration, proposed to set up three tabernacles, one for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus, the divine voice answered, " This is my beloved Son, hear him," meaning thereby to prohibit their attending to the teach- ings of the law and the j^rophets, represented in Moses and EHjah, and to recall them exclusively to Christ.
These positions, when coupled with the fact that the ancients were sinful and guilty in the same sense as we, obviously con- sign them all to perdition, if consistently urged. And here is a sufficient and damning evidence of their falsehood. For we know that there are Old Testament saints redeemed (see, for instance, Heb. xi.) by divine testimony more certainly than we know New Testament saints are. The motive of these representations is, not only to get rid of infant membership, but of all distinction between the visible and invisible church, of salvation A^ithout immersion, of all recognition of Old Testament sacraments, in order to escape those decisive condemnations of the ojyus opera^ turn in baptism, which are contained in such passages as Rom. ii. 26-29 ; 1 Cor. x. 1-5.
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In refutation of this heresy let us present briefly a few plain points. First, The same God would not have two religions for sinners of the same race. The depravity and guilt to be pro- vided for are the same. The obstacles are the same. The di- vine perfections to be reconciled are the same. Hence we con- clude, a jyriori, that there is but one religion for sinners published to this world. To this agree the Scriptures. (Acts iv. 12; Gal. iii. 7, 8 ; Rom. iv. 5, 6 and 11 ; iii. 30.) The faith of the ancients (Heb. xi.) is the model of our gospel faith, etc. Now, then, what- ever is said of the "two covenants," o'jo dca^ry/.o.:, etc., must be understood of two dispensations of one promise. For the adop- tion of the phrase, "two covenants," "new covenant," and "old covenant," the Campbellite has no authority above an uninspired version; and it is perfectly manifest that our translators used the word in the sense of two phases of the one covenant.
Secondly, The notable argument from the idea of a "testa- ment " or "v\-ill is exploded in the same way. It is the same word, o'.(jMf/:r^ ; and there is no good critical authority for translating it, in the places where it is written, "new testament." The single passage (Gal. iii. 17) is by itself abundantly sufficient to explode this notion, where the apostle argues precisely the contrary, that the dia&rf/:rj which was first confirmed "svith Abraham could not be disannulled by a subsequent one. Again, suppose a sidjse- quent testament repeats the larger ^jart of the provisions of the previous one, how then ?
Thirdly, The asseveration that the Old Testament contained the gospel only in type and promise is false, and the inference that in those forms it could not have authority is silly. Is the precept, "Kiss the Sou," only a type or a promise? Or this of Isa. xlv. 22, "Look unto me, and be ye saved"? And a promise, we assert, is precisely the form in which the gospel does have authority. Al)raham's faith, the model of the gospel faith by which we are saved, exhibits its virtue precisely in this, that " he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief." Pro- mises are precisely the things which the New Testament holds forth to our faith now. Types, explained by such promises as we quoted from the Old Testament, are admirably adapted to authorize and confirm faith.
Lastly, Our Saviour and his apostles sufficiently refute this wretched error by commanding us to search the Old Testament
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for our salvation. (John v. 39 ; Acts x\di. 11 ; 2 Tim. iii. 16 ; 1 Pet. ii. 6, etc.) They must be hardly bestead, indeed, to shun the hated tnitlis of infant membership, etc., when thus driven to fly into the face of God's "word. Then* evasion is to say that the Old Testament is useful for the historical illustration of the gos- pel, when once that gospel is revealed in the Kew. Mr. Campl)eH, who is less rash and candid than his followers, says, " The old was so full of the doctrine of the new institution " that the apos- tles "apply everything they quote from the law, the prophets, and the Psalms, to the Messiah, etc. . . . Every one, then, who would accurately understand the Christian institution miist ap- proach it through the Mosaic," etc. Now siu'ely, common sense would say that illustrations so full of the gospel as these must teach the gospel ! For whom did these Old Testament institu- tions and promises first illustrate the gospel? The CampbeUite would answer, with the Eemonstrant of the seventeenth century, only for the readers of the New Testament age. But this is ex- pressly contradicted by God. His word declares that by means of those Old Testament teachings the fathers exercised the same faith and grasped the same salvation as ours.
.The New Testament is admitted to be more valuable than the Old, in that it gives a history of the fulfilment of a part of that which the Old had promised, and in that it goes into more per- spicuous details. For this we should be thankful ; but we must by no means make it a pretext for thro-^dng away any part of the revealed nile of faith.
III. 77/6' Cainjjhell'de doctrine of the Trinity.
Mr. Campbell, while illustrating his contempt for the learning and opinions of the church, by the repudiation of the terms " consubstantial," "eternal generation," "procession," and even in one place {Christian System, pages 124-'5) of the word "Trin- ity," yet proposes to be orthodox as to the proper divinity of the thi'ee persons. He signahzes the insincerity of his professions, as to the distrust of human speculation, by making a lame revi- val of the scholastic rationale of the personal relations, saying that the Word is in God as speech is involved in thought, and that the Holy Ghost is related to God as man's spirit or soul is to his person. And he seems to speak many honorable things of the Holy Ghost as the "immediate author and agent of the new creation and of the holiness of Christians." The characteristic
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of Ills trinitariau theory is that, while he admits an eternal per- sonal relation between the Father and the Sou, he denies that it is one of eternal generation. The second Person, according to him, is Son only as incarnate. His previous name should be only that of "Word." "Before the Christian system, before the relation of Father, Son and Holy Ghost began to be, his rank in the di^due nature was that of the Word of God."
In refutation of this en-or it is sufficient to refer here to the general argument for the eternal generation of the Son in the simple fact that Scriptiu'e should have chosen this pair- of words, the Father and tlie Son, to express the relation between two per- sons of the adorable Trinity. There must have been a reason for the choice of these terms — there must be something corre- sponding to the well known meaning of this pair of names, else eternal truth had not employed them. Of course that meaning must be compatible with God's immateriality and eternity. It must be stripped of all elements arising out of man's corporeal finite nature and temporal existence. In the baptismal formula, in the apostolic benediction, and in all such passages as Matt. xi. 27 ; Luke x. 22 ; John v. 22 ; x. 33-37 ; Kom. viii. 32, the name Son is so used in immediate connection "^ath the name Father as that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the one is re- ciprocal to the other. The Son is evidently Son in a sense an- swerable to that in which the Father is Father. The two first passages enumerate the three Divine Persons as making up the Godhead in its most distinctively divine attitude of recei\ang the highest acts of our worship. The other passages bring to view acts wherein the Father and the Son mutuaEy share honors which are esse-ntially di\'ine. If 'Chq ixdermty is something char- acteristic and permanent, so is the filiation. If the Father is eternally Father, the Son must be eternally Son.
lY, TJte Carnphellite theory of the '■'■ Ajyplication of Bedernjp- tionr
This is so stated as to disparage the forms and nomencla- ture of theology as much as possible. This di'ess of the new theoiy is due, perhaps, partly to ignorance and partly to the ■ desire of contemning the existing learning of the church. It may be stated, in brief, that the result ol aU is a combination ot Pelagianism with an o^^us operatutn theory of baptismal redemp- tion It is virtuallj contained in the following propositions :
332 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
1. All the terms bj which other Christians suppose the appli- cation of redemption to be denoted, Mr. Campbell declares, mean a "change of state," or a "change of relation," and not a change of character or moral quality. This, he holds, is as true of the terms, neio hirth, regeneration, adoption, sanctification, redemj)- tioji, as it is of the term justification or remission. And, like other Pelagians, he hmits justification to remission. The grounds on which he holds this definition seem to be these : (1), That all these terms are predicated interchangeably of the saved ; whence he seems to infer, -^-ith e^^dent sophism, that they are synony- mous ; and as justification and adoption are indicative of a change of relation, so must be the rest ; (2), That the word regeneration {7iah'fjtvzal(i) occurs but twice in the sacred Scriptures — Matt, xix. 28 ; Titus, iii. 5 ; in the former place meaning " a cliange of state," or dispensation of the church, and in the latter, being de- fined by baptism; (3), That personal regeneration is described by "new birth"; but birth does not change the nature of the foetus which existed before as a human embryo (not equine, canine, etc.), and is at birth only introduced into a new state. Of the second ground, we remark, that this is a mere verbal quibble, grounded in the fact that modern Christians have hap- pened to adopt the English word " regeneration " as the equiv- alent, not of TiaXiYYEvzaia, but of what sacred Scripture calls yEMi'O.adat dvcodev. How obvious this is, appears when we re- mind Mr. Campbell that the Westminster Confession, which he so hates, does not use the Enghsh word with this ambiguity, but calls the spiritual change " effectual calling." Where, now, is his argument? But in Titus iii. 5, the regeneration, or TraXcyjevsa'ta, is the spiritual change. For the " washing of regeneration," or, as Mr. Campbell ^-iU have it, hath [Xooroov), is explained by the "renewal of the Holy Ghost" {(vjojiahtoa:z), which is unquestion- ably a spiritual change. As to the last gi'ouud, that also is a wretched quibble ; for, unfortunately for Mr. Campbell, the word in the Greek is -fv^^yuaftac, which expresses begetting rather than parturition, the origination of existence, and not a change of state.
]Mi*. Campbell argues, speculatively, that all these terms must express change of state merely, because a change of character or moral quahty must be the result of the motives which the change of state presents. That is, the privileges and blessings of the
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 333
Christian state are tlie efficients of the affections of tlie Christian character. The well-informed student wall see at a glance the affinities of this view with Arminianism. It is essenti-ally a Pelagian theory of regeneration by the power of motive pri- marily.
No well-informed student needs to look far for the proofs of the utter unscripturalness of all this definition. Nothing is more clearly settled by the Word than that, while justification changes the legal relation, quickening and sanctification revolutionize the character, or introduce and propagate a new moral character. Man's ruin includes two main parts, depravity and guilt ; his remedy in the gospel includes the two corresponding pai*ts, justi- fication and moral renovation. Again, the latter is also described as a quickening of souls dead in sin, afti illumination, a "begetting from above," a "new creation unto good works." The result in which it everywhere issues is holy character. But we feel that we almost insult the reader by seeming to judge argument need- ful.against this absurdity. Such texts as these may be advanced against it M-itli pecuHar force: Ezek. xxxvi. 26; Deut. xxx. 6; Ps. H. 10; Eph. V. 26; Matt. v. 8; Eph. iv. 24; Col. iii. 10; Eom. vi. 5, 6 ; 1 Thess. v. 23.
2. All Campbellites teach that this change of state, by which the man is brought into the saved state — call it forgiveness, re- pentance, conversion, or what you please — must be instituted in order to the reception of the Holy Ghost. Thus Eichardson, Princijjles of the Reformation, pages 74, 75 : " The notion that the Spirit may be received before faith is vague and un- scriptural. It is not until the heart is purified by faith that the Holy Spirit may enter to dwell therein." "Peter taught, 'Re- form and be baptized {Christian System, page 64] for the remis- sion of sins, and you shall (then) receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.' " Their main reliance is upon the words of John xiv. 17 — ''whom the loorld cannot receive'''' — which they understand to teach that a man must be converted from the world before he can be subjected to spiritual influence. Says Richardson, with astonishing effrontery, "It is nowhere stated that the Holy Ghost was given to any one to make him a believer or a child of God." The reader will be reminded at once of such passages as Eph. i. 19 (to us-ward who believe) ; ii. 8-10 ; John vi. 63, 44, and 45 ; xvi. 8 ; 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5 ; Rom. viii. 7, 8, 14, 2 ; 2 Cor. iii.
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17; 2 Thess. ii. 13; 1 Cor. ii. 14; Heb. x. 29; 1 John v. 1; and most expressly, 1 Cor. xii. 3, 9 ; ii. 12,
But, if the Holy Ghost is not the agent who first in works faith, who or what is ? Their answer is, the gospel. Here they mis- apply all such passages as the parable of the sower ; 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; 1 Peter i. 23. That is, saving faith is, according to them, the effect of gospel inducement alone, operating upon the will ; and thus all their seeming concessions that the Holy Spirit is the agent of the new creation are reduced to this miserable evasion, that he inspired the apostles and evangeUsts, who thus give us an authentic gospel offer, to be the sufficient and sole cause of faith.
But, before we pursue this branch of their error, let us look further into the absurd idea, that the sinner must be converted without the agency of the Holy Ghost, in order that he may be sanctified by that agency. The whole scheme is a crude mass of self-contradictions. The heart must be made pure by conversion, in order, forsooth, that this pure Agent may come to dwell in it. Bvit a little before we were taught that conversion was only a change of state, and not of character or quality! Again, con- version and sanctification are generically the same kind of work, related as are germination and growth. Conversion, in the sense of regeneration, introduces the spiritual life, sanctification nour- ishes it. Now, if a divine agent is needed to nourish and enlarge it, a fortiori is he needed to introduce it. (See, here, Campbell's follies.) My instrumentalities, e. g., can do a great deal to nur- ture a plant which has life ; tl>ey can do nothing at all to origi- nate that life where it was not. Again, these authors recognize the fact that God "purifies the heart by faith." Now, if faith is a function of spiritual vitality, how comes it in a dead soul -without an adequate external agent f Again, according to this wonder- ful invention, the agency of the Holy Ghost, which in conver- sion is only indirect and instrumental, like that of the preacher, should in sanctification become immediate. But they do not, in fact, believe in any immediate agency of the Holy Ghost any- where ; and the only spiritual influence which their system recog- nizes is moral suasio7i. Common sense will pronounce on the preposterousness of this whole scheme by raising a simple ques- tion : If a converted man needs the Holy Ghost to grovj in grace^ how much more must an unconverted man, dead in trespasses and sins, need him to get into grace ?
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 335
3. The next proposition settles the nature and genesis of faith as the simple and natural result of the moral suasion of the gos- pel. Here, again, their teachings are a jumble of contradictions ; but the practical result is Pelagian. Campbell begins by distin- guishing between JeZ/e/and trud, and teaching very correctly that saving faith includes the latter. But he ends by flouting the dis- tinction between historical and heart-faith, though he himself had illustrated {Christian System, pages 62, 53) that diflerence cor- rectly. Richardson says that faith must embrace Christ for sal- vation, and that in his threefold offices of Prophet, Priest, and King (page 31). He thus teaches a truth utterly destructive of his own scheme. For, to embrace a Saviour from sin to holiness must imply a true appetency of will for holiness and against sin. But in order for this, the native appetency for sin, which is the regular law of the sinful will, must have been revolutionized. These writers usually claim great credit for teaching that, ac- cording to them, "the object of faith is not a doctrine, but a person;" and they falsely charge us with the contrary. But when they come to expound what is involved in this trust on the person of Christ, they necessarily introduce the doctrines con- cerning him, which characterize him as a saving person, just as far as we do, only not correctly.
Mr. Campbell deems authentic testhnony the sole efficient of faith. Let us remark, in passing, his inconsistency in exalting the value of what he calls " fact " over truth, and direct testimony over doctrinal deduction, with his own Pelagian and rationalistic scheme. If testimony is the sole efficient of faith, by virtue of its rational inducement, as he teaches, then why might not doc- trinal deduction also produce it? But it is Mr. Camjjbell's de- light to flout doctrinal truth as worthless in comparison of testi- fied "fact." Now deduction may, when logical, establish as firm an intellectual conviction as testimony can. If Mr. Campbell supposes that testimony produces conviction by a non-logical process, he is ignorant of its nature. Thus, Mohammed testifies, as positively as Jesus, that he will give heaven on certain terms. Why does Mr. Campbell believe Jesus and discredit Mohammed ? Thia question is the touchstone. The answer is, in order to give credit to testimony the creclibility of the witness has to be w^eighed. And that is a logical process. The ascertainment of Christ's credibility is a doctrine, a tr'iith reached by logical process, and
336 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
it -/6" in order to all mfluence of the facts testified. Thus, if testi- mony can generate faith, so can doctrinal dogma; so can logical speculation, if it is correct speculation ; for it may present i/i' ducement as conrincingly as testimony. Now, Mr. Campbell ui'ges very correctly, that doctrine does not prove adequate to generate saving faith. This proves that neither testimony no.' doctrinal deduction is the efficient of faith ; the cognition of them, a rational process in both cases, is only the condition by which the Holy Ghost generates faith.
Mr. Campbell's philosophy about faith, then, is the following . He beheves that in every case of sense-perception the ohject per- ceived is the efficient of the affections of soul evoked, instead of the mere occasion. {Christian System, j)age 114.) The same law, he proceeds to teach (p. 115), " holds universally in all the sensitive, intellectual, and moral powers of man." "All our pleasm-es and pains, all our joys and sorrows, are the effects of the ohjects of sensation, reflection, faith, etc., apprehended or re- ceived, and not of the nature of the exercise of any poiver or ca- -pacity with which ive are efidonjed." This astounding piece of psychology is the comer-stone of his whole theology ! He pro- ceeds to illustrate his false principle thiis : When the eye looks on a pleasing or repulsive scene ; when the ear listens to melody or discord ; when the nostrils smell a rose or carrion ; when the palate tastes the sweet or bitter ; when the fingers touch ice or fire ; the pleasure or pain of sense is due exclusively to the nature of the o7jJect, and not to the manner or nature of the sensational perception, which in each pau' of objects was the same. So, says he, when we pass to the inner man, it is not the nature of of the recollection, reflection, belief, but the ohject represented, which is the exclusive efficient of mental action. A father hears (credibly) that a lost sheep is found, that a lost son is restored. The assent to the testimony is of the same kind. Why does the latter news produce more emotion ? The cause is solely " in the natm-e of the facts believed." He asserts that the same law is universally true of the will — that the objects on which the affec- tions exercise themselves are the sole causes inducing us to action. The consistent conclusion of all is, that objective in- ducement presented in the gospel is the sole, the sufficient, in- deed, t/ie 0)7 /y possible effcient of faith and spiritual affections !
Thus Mr. Campbell, after making it the business and malig-
THE SYSTEM OF .ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 33T
nant pleasure of liis life to libel and reddle tlie clnircli as found- ing its faith on liuman speculation instead of God's testimony, as lie charged, returns and founds his whole system of religion upon a miserable, exploded, and stupid speculation of a purely human and anti- Christian psychology! To this "UTetched philosophy, falsely so called, and which he does not even presume to sustain by a single proof-text, he must then proceed to wrest and force the sacred Scriptures by such license and dishonest violence of exposition as we have seen.
Every scholar sees here, at a glance, the psychology of the sensualistic schools. The occasional cause is mistaken for the efficient. Object and effect so exclusively occupy his attention that the subject is wholly omitted. It should have given Mr. Campbell some pause, in this absurd analysis, that one result of it is utterly to overthrow, not only that self-determination of will to which he holds, but free-agency itself. The deduction is very shoi't. For, if the objective is the whole efficient of desire and volition, then, supposing the object presented, the voHtion is mechanically necessitated. Appetency and vohtion are the physical results of the perception of the object, just as pain is of a blow. Mr. Campbell has shown himself ignorant of the cardinal distinction between subjective Tuotlve and inducement. "When Mr. Campbell's instances are inspected, we see that, where contrasted objects are presented to any sense, as the beautiful and ugly, etc., etc., the ohjects are the occasions of the pleasure or pain ; but a suhjective sensibility is the true cause or efficient. The beautiful landscape pleases the man of taste, it is viewed •^atli indifference by another. Why? As Mr. Campbell asserts, there is no difference in the method or perfectness of the visual peiception in the two men. Why do not like causes produce like effects here ? The perception is not the cause but the occa- sion of the festhetic pleasure. The true cause is in a subjective sensibility possessed by the man of taste. So, when the father hears of a restored son and a recovered sheep, the cause of the greater joy at the former is 2)<^'^'>"^ntal affection — the news is the occasion. And, in like manner, when the gospel was preached by inspired men, " and as many as were ordained to eternal life beheved," while others did not, it was because the former had a subjective appetency, inwrought by the Holy Ghost, which caused their wills to embrace Christ. When Mr. Campbell says Me
Vol. I.— 22.
338 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
trace tlie effect to " tlie manner or nature of the faith," he states the issue falsely. We trace it to the a prion subjective charac- ter of the heart or moral appetency. And as these we know are by nature for sin and against holiness, it is morally cei"tain that the soul uuquickened by the Holy Ghost will not believe with the heart. The well-informed reader will scarcely need a demon- stration of the falsehood of this whole philosophy. But, we re- peat, such a proof is seen in the fact that the scheme is incon- sistent with the maxim that " like causes produce like effects." "Were the objective the true ejficient of the mental state, the same objects should always produce the same states. But note that this is not true, either in the case of senses or aesthetic or moral affections. The same objects educe different effects, or none, from different men, according as their characters vary. This shows that the true efficient is the character, and not the object.
It is obvious that, upon the Campbellite scheme, saving faith can be conceived of as no other than temporary faith. Take notice, it arises, say they, in advance of any work of the Holy Spirit. It is the effect purely of gospel inducement, as acting upon the aatural heart. No better description of temporary faith ^•auld be given. It is equally obvious that no consistent Camp- belhte is a believer in the doctrine of total depravity or inabihty of will in the natural man to spiritual good. For surely faith, by which a man " passes from death unto life," is a spiritual ex- ercise and a choice of spiritual good. The argument is conclu- sive, that if faith is an embracing of Christ for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel, and if the carnal mind is enmity against God, faith can only be put forth by that heai-t in which the Holy Spirit has wrought his rene^^dng work. Accordingly, "we find Mr. Campbell saying many seemingly scriptural things about the fall and universal sinfulness ; but he does not beheve that man's will is totally ahenated from God. And many of his comrades preach on this point the most unblushing Pelagianism.
Another result of this view of faith is to make man decide his owTi rehgious destiny solely by his own self-determination. Sov- ereign grace is exploded. Man believes solely from the efficiency of gospel inducement, without any work of the Holy Ghost. So the " obedience of faith," which is immersion, is the choice of the natural man. To this remission is pledged, and the Chi'istian state with all its privileges is now fully inaugurated. There is
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 339
no election, save the general purpose to bestow reconciliation and grace on the immersed believer.
4. The fourth and last proposition defines Mr. Campbell's idea of the nature of the Holy Spirit's operation in grace. The reader will recall the deceptive and inconsistent statement, that the Holy Ghost is given only after conversion. It will appear that Campbellism really holds to a spiritual work as little after as be- fore. The statement sometimes made by its exponents is the semi-Pelagian one. Sometimes they speak in terms which might have been used by Claude Pajon and his school ; but in other places they speak out more candidly as simple Pelagians. Thus Mr. Campbell {Christianity Restored, pages 350, 351) : "As the spirit of man puts forth all its moral power in the words which it fills with its ideas, so the Spirit of God puts forth all its con- verting and sanctifying power in the words which it fills with its ideas." Again : " When we think of the power of the Spirit of God exerted upon minds or human spirits, it is impossible for us to imagine that that power can consist in anything but words and arguments." There is no uncertainty here. That this is the real view of Campbellism, is shown by its thorough consist- ency with their doctrine of faith and rei^entance. It is precisely the scheme of Pelagius and Socinus. In technical language it is the theory of conversion hy moral suasion alone. Mr. Campbell, in his debate with Dr. Rice, defends it, 1st, By the shallow phil- osophy already exposed, inferring hence that ohjective inducement is the only moral jpov^er which can operate consistently with man's rational constitution. 2d, By the fact that no converting or sanctifying power is ever seen apart from Bible truth. 3d, By the fact that all the exercises and views of converted people re- produce the conceptions of gospel and spiritual things found in the Scriptures, and no others. 4th, That as every case of spirit- ual life is generically the same, whatever is essential to one ease is essential to all. From this very just premise Mr. Campbell at- tempts to draw the illogical conclusion that, if God regenerates one case, say an infant, without the understanding of the truth, he must renew all cases loithout it ! He infers hence that on any other scheme than his of mere moral suasion, all ministrations of the word are wholly useless. 5tli, By the fact that God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and the apostles, always ply men's souls "with gospel inducement ; and by the numerous passages in which truth
3-10 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
is spoken of as tlie instrument, like this : " Sanctify tliem through thy truth," etc.
The reader will see at a glance that all this is a very good aroTiment to prove that the trath is the ordinary histrurnent, and ordinarily an essential instrument of conversion ; but as an argu- ment to prove that moral suasion is the only form of sprritual poicer in the case, the real issue, it is naught. The refutation of the whole is in one word of the Holy Scriptures (Ps. cxix. 18). To produce actual vision in a blind eye there must be first the curative agency and then the light. So to produce spiritual vision, the 'soul must be supplied with truth, the intelligible me- dium ; but access must also be made for it to the Kinded soul by direct spiritual power.
It may be profitable also to note the points made by Dr. Rice in his reply. He argues first and fundamentally from total de- pravity, proving the fact irrefi'agably, and showing that an al- mighty operation, other than moral suasion, is needed in such a heart to open it to such suasion. He then shows that this direct operation, though mysterious, is possille, first, By the fact that God at first created maji xipright; second, That God influences the minds of men in other and secular actions by his secret pro- vidence, as in Ex. xxxiv. 24; Prov. xx. 1, etc. Dr. Eice's third aro-ument is that, if conversion is only by moral suasion, then aU infants and idiots must be damned. By this point Mr. Camp- bell felt himself much pressed. He at length resorts to the sup- position that, as he gloried in asserting the salvation of all in- fants dying in infancy, while his theory of moral suasion alone compelled him to admit they left this world unrenewed, they must, therefore, be purified by some immediate operation in the next world. This he calls their "physical regeneration after death"; and he says it is effected by divine power, as the " change " will be wrought on those who are ahve at the resur- rection. Dr. Rice should have pressed Mr. Campbell here T\ath this obvious surrender of his fundamental ground, that any other moral power than suasion is hnposs'djle, consistently -R-ith the rational constitution of mind. "What difference does it make, in theory, whether this almighty change, over and above moral sua- sion, is in this world or the next ? This is enhanced by remark- ing that as " grace is glory begun, so glory is but gi'ace perfected." The system of grace in the mihtant and triumphant church differs
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 341
only in degree. Our advocate did press liim so that lie was driven to assume the ground that infant depravity is only corpo- real ! and is removed by the bodily resurrection !
Dr. Rice argues, in the foui*th place, that if regeneration were by moral suasion alone, there would be no such thing in gospel lands as intelHgent and wilful rejection of the gospel ; but all un- behef would be accounted for by ignorance or misconception.
In the fifth place, he refers to that class of passages which teach a gracious operation in order to the saving apprehension of the gospel ; such as Jer. xxxii. 39 ; Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27 ; Ps. cxix. 18; Luke xxiv. 45; Acts xvi. 14. In the next place, he argues from the fact that repentance and faith are GocVs gifts (1 John V. 1 ; 1 Cor. iii. 6 ; Acts v. 31 ; 2 Tim. ii. 25).
Mr. Rice's seventh point was that, on the theory of moral suasion, it is unreasonable to pray for new birth, either our own or another's. God has no power save that deposited in the gos- pel ; and the only rational thing to do is to ply the soul with its inducements. This point is sustained by two facts : that it actu- ally presents itself in the teachings and corollaries of some of Mr. Campbell's followers; and that many of them do, in fact, pretermit all such prayers.
Dr. Rice's eighth argument is from the jylienomena of genuine revivals, where we see the gospel, known before, but inoperative, suddenly assume an unwonted efficiency, as means, to revive Christians and quicken sinners. This new effect imphes a new power. He then closes his argument by claiming that at least nine-tenths of the reverent and thou2;htful readers of the Bible, in all ages, have beheved that it teaches the doctrine of a special divine influence above moral suasion.
V. TJie CainphdlHe doctrine toxiclihuj the effect ofhapthm.
With Campbell's theory of the application of redemption is closely connected his doctrine touching the effect of baptism. None need to be told that, as to the mode of baptism, he is an immersionist of the straitest sect; and as to the subjects, he de- nies infant baptism with violence. But there is nothing in his treatment of these points not already famihar in our controversy "v\dth other immersionists. We therefore simply refer now to the usual discussions, except upon one particular. Mr. Campbell pays an unwitting tribute to the force of our argument for infant membership fi'om the Abrahamic covenant He does this by his
342 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
endeavor to evade it ; whicli is, by teaching tliat God made two compacts witli liim — one secnlar, tlie otlier spiritual {Christian System, p. 134). Mr. Campbell labors to separate these paiis of the Abrahamic covenant. To the one he refers temporal and pohtical blessings, and to the other religions blessings. He then intimates that circumcision was the badge of the secular cove- nant only. It is easy to retort this piece of dishonesty to the overthrow of his own cause; for if there were two covenants with Abraham, then circumcision was undoubtedly the sign and seal of the spiritual. See Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Rom. iv. 11, 12; Gal. iii. 7. And that it was not a sign expressive of or coinci- dent with God's secular favor and the possession of the land of Canaan, see Deut. xx^dii. 64; Rom. ix. 6, 7.
As to the design and effect of Imptism, the Campbellite theory is substantially the ojy^'s ojMraturii one. It cannot be said to be "baptismal regeneration," because -^dth them the new birth is not a change of spiritual character, but only of state ; a passing fi'om condemnation to pardon. This is effected, according to them, in baptism. They say that the immersion of an unbehever would, indeed, procure no remission, but that sins 2c^q, imrdoned through faith and haptism. A favorite formula with them is : " Sins are remitted to believers in the act of baptism." Errett, page 73: "It is the appointed means through which the assur- ance of pardon is actually bestowed." Campbell, in his debate with Dr. Rice, was allowed to state his proposition, " Baptism is for the remission of sins," ambiguously. He uses the preposi- tion "for" in the sense of "^^^. order to." His true doctrine may be defined from his Christian Bajptist, pages 416, 417: "At the very instant oiu" bodies are put under the water, our former or old sins are all washed away, pro\dded only that we are true be- lievers."
CampbeUite writers usually illustrate their doctrine thus: a man may be elected or appointed to an office of authority and trust, but he does not exercise its functions or enjoy its emolu- ments until the oath of inaugiu'ation is taken. Up to that mo- ment official acts by him would be illegal. After that moment they are legal Again : the sentiments of an immigrant may be thoroughly attracted to the United States, and his residence fixed there for life ; but until he takes the oath of naturalization he does not possess any right of citizenship. Two people may
THE SYSTEM OP ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 343
be thoroughly united by affection ; but until the man-iage cere- mony is j^erformed, their cohabitation would be illicit. Thus, says Campbell, this side of baptism, the believer is in one state, that of condemnation; on the other, he is pardoned, adopted and saved. It may be perceived at a glance that these instances present a false analogy. "Were they only applied to explain why and how the outward or formal privileges of the visil)le church connection are suspended on bapti^a they would be relevant ; but when the thing in question is our spiritual state, and that before an omniscient God, where all is of grace, and the gospel term is an inward principle, faith, the case is very different. Such loose analogies are worthless against the express promises of God. It should, however, be said, in justice, that Hke the Komanists, they make baptism only the formal cause of remis- sion, and teach that the meritorious cause is Christ's sacrifice.
They claim, with much clamor, that the Eeformed divines and symliols, and especially the Westminster and the Thirty-Nina Ai'ticles, teach their doctrine ; and that we have really forsaken our own standards on these points. Their supposed proof is that the Confessions say baptism is not only a sign, but a seal of the remission of sins, our engrafting into Christ, etc. It seems hard to make them see that they have leaped from one idea to another wholly different, in thus confounding the attestation by a sacrament, of a hlessing already conferred on terms entirely non-formal and spiritual, with making the sacrament the essen- tial term for confen-ing the blessing. To our minds the differ- ence is clearly enough expressed in the words of Paul : circum- cision was to Abraham a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet hehig tcnc'ircuincised. Every one sees that the sphragistic nature of the sacrament is destroyed by assigning it an opus ojyeratam power. For visibly to effect a work is one thing, to attest its performance by an invisible agent is a dif- ferent thing. As fruition excludes hope, so the former super- sedes the latter.
The Campbellite writers also speak great things of the superi- ority of their system, as giving to the convert a palpable and ex- press assurance of his forgiveness, conditioned on a definite act, instead of a mystical state of feeling called " supernatui'al faith." Thus Errett: "The sects, upon this subject, believe neither the Scriptures nor their own creeds. -This seems to be owing chiefly
344 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
to the fact that a particular theory of spiritual operations, which has gracTuallj almost monoiDolized the minds of the Protestant community, makes the assurance of pardon to rest on certain feelings, or upon what are thought to be supernatural visions, or special spiritual communications. The attempt is thus made to transfer the office ofhapthm, as the reinitting ordinance, to vague emotional or mental impressions ; and to effect this purpose the connection of baptism with remission of sins is totally denied." The reader sees how unscrupulous is this misrepresentation, stigmatizing the scriptural faith to which forgiveness is promised by God, the simplest of acts of soul, the most carefully defined in the sacred Scriptures and distinguished in the case of the true believer by definite fruits and the witness of an infallible Spirit, as "vague emotional impressions." But, farther, these men admit fully that the immersion of an unbeliever would not effect the remission of his sins . Faith, then, as well as immersion, is the essential term of pardon. And without the faith the immer- sion would be naught ' So that they, as much as we, must " make the assurance of pardon rest on certain feelings." Thus, Simon Magus "believed and was baptized," yet, according to Peter, he was "in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity." To settle that matter, everything turned upon the nature of Simon's pre- tended faith. So absurd is this pretence in their mouths. We should like to kuow whether it is not more comfortaljie to infer our assurance of pardon from a scriptural faith, wrought by the Spirit and answering in nature and fruits to his revealed marks, than from the shadowy dividing line between a temporary faith wrought by moral suasion on the natural mind, and the miserable sham called believing with which so many thousands have gone through Campbellite immersion to return immediately like the sow to her mire.
Mr. Campbell argues that his ritual scheme of forgiveness is in strict conformity to the Protestant belief, that no faith justifies save the faith that works. (James ii. 22, etc.) The act of sub- mitting to immersion, says he, is that test icork in which, w^hen faith culminates, it actually justifies. This act of dipping is that " obedience of faith " (Rom. xvi. 26) made known to all nations by the gospel. Those expositors are most probably correct who make the faith a genitive appositive, so that faith itself is the obedience. But let us adopt tlie other construction; and the
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 345
sacred Scriptures everywhere else will teacli us that the obedi- ence which proceeds from faith is that whole career of holy liv- ing which flows from a "faith working by love." When Mr. Campbell would substitute for this life-long fruit, in the meaning of such passages as that of James ii., one easy, cheap, ritual act, he most wretchedly degrades the plan of salvation and the sanc- tifying energy of true faith.
His scriptural argument for his water justification consists in part in an attempt to identify immersion and conversion, and the new birth, as different terms for the same thing in the New Tes- tament. This absurd license of interpretation he supposes will enable him to press into service all the texts where conversion and regeneration are connected with remission. Its refutation is easily effected by showdng that the ideas of conversion and new birth are as well known in the Old Testament, where, ac- cording to Mr. Campbell, there is no Christian baptism, as in the New Testament; that in both they are notoriously spiritual works (Matt. xiii. 15) as opposed to ritual; that Christ rebukes Nicodemus because, being an Old Testament scribe, he was not familiar with the idea of the new birth ; but he could not be ex- pected to know anything of water baptism as a gospel sacrament , that in Acts iii. 19, conversion is the sequel and fruit of fitxdvota and that according to the Apostle John (1 John v. 1), all inho helieve are already born of God, while Mr. Campbell himself makes believing the necessary prerequisite of baptism ; whence it follows that the new birth precedes baptism — is not identical with it.
Mr. Campbell has, of course, his proof-texts. They are such as John iii. 5 ; Acts ii. 38 ; xxii. 16 ; Mark xvi. 16 , Gal. iii. 27 ; 1 Peter iii. 20; Titus iii. 5; Luke iii. 7; Acts x. 14; Eph. v. 25, 26. These are the texts which he regards as strongest. He uses them precisely after the same perverse fashion in which Romanists and ritualisms employ them to prove the opus operatutn. The solution is oasj-. The sacramental union between the ele- ment and the grace naturally leads to the employment of the name of the syml)ol to describe the grace symbolized. Take, for instance, John iii. 5, 6 ; the context proves that Christ was not intending the sacrament of haptisvi by the words, " born of water and the Spirit," because that sacrament was not yet appointed, and Nicodemus could not have been rebuked for not understand-
346 THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CA:MPBELL.
ing it. Tlie force of the words is, "Born of that which the wa- ter of purification represents, the Holj Spirit." So, when Peter speaks of "repenting and being baptized in the name, etc., for the remission of sins," he cannot mean to make baptism as im- portant as repentance, for he mentions it no more in any subse- quent address. But had it been so essential, he could not have honestly omitted it, Mr. Campbell tacitly assumes that "for" means here "in order to," whereas this preposition of most ex- tensive use (sic) may mean " for commemoration of." When Paul says, "TVe are saved by the washing," or, if you please, "bath," as Mr. Campbell says, Xouzf>6v, of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, he does not mean that water baptism is that regeneration, but on the contrary, in strict accordance with the sacramental language of the Bil)le, we cu^e saved hy that spirit- iial cleanshig which washing with water represents. "When the Apostle Peter says " baptism saves us," he immediately guards himself against Mr. Campbell's idea by disclaiming it : " Not the putting off of the filth of the flesh, but the l-zpajzY^iia of a good conscience towards God." But it is unnecessary for us to go farther in detail.
Tlie con-ect statement of the Scripture ^aew of baptism is of itself a reply to much of the above pretended argument. It is a positive ordinance enjoined by God for his glory in the church's edification. One of those edifpng uses is to be a badge of pro- fession, separating the visible church from the world of the un- godly. Here the illustrations of the marriage ceremony and naturahzation oath are germane. To the oaitward, formal privi- leges of the visible church baptism doos immediately introduce us. Secondly, it is a didactic ordinance, teaching several cen- tral truths of the gospel by admirably expressive symbol, in the most pungent and impressive manner, as our separation from the world and engagement to be the Lord's, the cleansing of our guilt by Christ's blood and of our corruption by his Spirit. Thirdly, it is a sphragistic ordinance, not only seaHng our vow to God, but, if our hearts are faithful, seahng his gracious promises to us; and thus, through the Holy Ghost, gi'eatly strengthening both our devotion and our faith and assurance. In this way baptism is very useful and necessary to the church and edifying to the person. It is a plainly enjoined and important duty. Therefore its wilful neglect must be a sin. This sin, if unrepented, will be.
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 347
just like any other -wilful sin, a sure index and occasion of the soul's ruin. But we deny tliat water baptism is the essential term of salvation in any such sense as is faith. In the words of Tiu'retin, " Nonprivatlo, sed contemjytus damnaty
As the Campbellite doctrine is not identical with the Bomish opus operatum theory, but has its own phase, we submit an out- line of an argument, partly new, in refutation of it.
1. Mr. Campbell is inconsistent in not extending the opus operatum dogma to both sacraments. He makes the supper merely a commemoration. But his own principles of exposi- tion, applied to the sixth chapter of John, for instance, would prove sacramental grace far more clearly of the supper than of baptism.
2. That God should have made saving grace essentially depen- dent on a "positive" form, or indeed on any act for which the soul is dependent on a fellow-creature, in the case of those who are already spiritually docile, belie\ing and penitent, is incredibly contrary to the tone and spirit of both Testaments. Mr. Camp- bell endeavors to evade this by saying : " Why are not Pagan souls dependent on either preachers or Bibles for salvation ? And in the latter case dependent, in a true sense, on the use of paper or parchment (of rags or skins) and coloring matter ? What means more thoroughly external or formal?" The answers are two: 1, These materials are simply ministerial to a didactic use. Is Mr. Campbell willing to make baptism such? 2, These souls are contumacious, unbelieving, and corrupt as to the truth ; and God's pro^idence merely ordains that their privation of these material means shall be the occasion of their condemnation already de- served. The soul who desires to embrace Christ and duty, never ^ under either Testament, depends for redemption essentially upon any act where another creature must intervene between him and his God. He who cometh unto God through Christ shall in no wise be cast out. Again, a place in the favor of God always de- pends instrumentally on the spiritual state, and on nothing else. See, for example, 1 Sam. xv. 22 ; Ps. xxiv. 4 ; Matt. xii. 7 ; Ps. Ixri. 18. This leads—
3. To the irrefragable argument that the Scriptures every- where say, he that lelif.v.: is justified. See Bomans iv. 11; John iii. 10; i. 12; iii. 30; v. 24; Pvom. v. 1, et passim. Now if remission is given only in baptism, during any interval of time
348 THE SYSTEM OP ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.
between tlie believing and the baptism the believing soul is still in an unjustified state. This is contrary to the sacred Scriptures. Mr. Campbell makes an impotent endeavor to evade by distin- guishing between title and possession, between an inheritance in prospect and in actual enjoyment. Thus saith he : The father of the prodigal says to his home-staying son, " Son, all that I have is thine.' Yet that sou had not a kid to make merry with his friends. Christ during his humiliation could say, " All that the Father hath is mine," yet he was in the other sense so poor that *'he had not where to lay his head." Does Mr. Campbell mean to say that true faith, before baptism, only secures a title in pros- pect, like that of the expectant heir? Why, that the elect sin- ner has, in God's apprehension, even before he repents ! How can this idea square with the declaration, "he that believeth hath," "is passed from death unto life"? See also Eom. v. 1.
4. ■ Many souls have obtained remission without baptism or any corresponding sacrament. As Abraham ; Cornelius, Acts x. 4, 34, 35, 44; xi. 17; the dying thief, etc. Mr. Campbell en- deavors vainly to escape the proof that Cornelius was a recon- ciled sinner before he was baptized, by pointing to cli. xi. 14 : " Shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house s/iall he saved." It is perfectly evident that the word "saved" here must mean, not the application, but the consummation of redemption, as in Matt. x. 22.
5. The harshness and uncharitableness of this doctrine, if car- ried out consistently, must condemn it in every fair mind. It would at least throw the destiny of the sincere penitent who died after his regeneration and before baptism into great doubt. But ■what of the myriads of intelligent, consistent Paedobaptists who live and die vdthout immersion ? They present every mark and every fruit of true piety except immersion, and yet are damned? Incred'idus odi. Mr. Campbell has great difficulty in meeting this charge, and vacillates much. Sometimes he seems to sug- gest that such nnimmersed persons maybe accepted on the ground of their misconception of their duty. Sometimes he is more ex- clusive ; but he can never be made exactly to meet the issue.
6. A scriptural argument may be framed from the numerous passages which teach that every believer is born (ysuur/dsc;) of God, as 1 John v. 1. But obviousl}' the begotten of God are the children of God. See the clear implication of this in the
THE SYSTEM OF ALEXANDER CAMPBELL. 349
same i:)lace, verse 2. But the children are AeZ/vv. How prepos- terous does it sound to represent the soul which is begotten of God, adopted, and co-heir with Christ, as still under condemna- tion for his sins ? To avoid this, Mr. Campbell weakly attempts to reduce the new birth to a change of state, instead of change of moral character, and to identify it with immersion. How un- scriptural this is has been alread}^ shown. See in addition such passages as 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; Jas. i. 18.
In conclusior of this point, we may say of this doctrine as of all forms of sacramental grace, it is the prompting of that ten- dency to formalism and to a sensuous religion which exhibits itself in popery and paganism. To secure a grace pertaining to salvation by human manipvilation, instead of embracing it by a sanctifying faith — this suits at once the pride and the obtuseness of the carnal mind. But it is " another gospel." It is a concep- tion utterly heterogeneous with the nature of the Bible system. It converts the work of God's Spirit through the truth into a system of religious jugglery.
The other striking peculiarities of Campbellism are the per- mission of lay-baptism and lay-administration of the supper; the thorough independent church government ; and the weekly repetition of the supper. They insist much on these. But they are not the germinant points of the system, and we pass them over.
Our church has committed itself definitely to a policy of non- recognition as to the Campbellite societies. Our grounds may be found stated in the Minutes of the General Assembly, 1871.
THE DOCTHrXAL VARIOUS READINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.^
THE magnificent work whose name stands last in this list may be said to complete a marked stage in the progress, or at least in the rotation, of the art of biblical criticism. It very properly suggests, not only some inquiry into the value and au- thority of the Sinai manuscript introduced to the learned world by Dr. Constantine Tischendorf, but a review and comparison of the present and fashionable opinions of biblical critics. Ve call these the opinions now fashionable; for those who watch the course of this art are aware that there is as truly a fashion in it, infecting its votaries, as in ladies' bonnets, medicines or cravats.
"We will premise by stating a few conclusions, in which all schools of learned critics may be said to agree with the enlight- ened friends of the Bible. First : No one claims for the Textus .Recephis, or common Greek text of the New Testament, any sacred right, as though it represented the ipsissima verba, writ- ten by the inspired men in every case. It is admitted on all hands that it is but a reprint, substantially, of Erasmus's Fifth Basle Edition of the New Testament, which that eminent scholar edited from a few manuscripts, for none of which an eminent antiquity was claimed, and belonging, in the main, to the Kocvij ^Exdoat<;^ or Constantinopolitan family; and that it is just as it has been transmitted from his day, through the presses of Eobert
' This article appeared in the Southern PresbyUrian Review for April, 1871, re- viewing : 1. Novum Testarnentu,m Ormce et Latine. Carolus Lachmannus. Berlin : 1832, 1842. 2. Tregelles on the Printed Text of the Greek Neio Testament. Lon- don: Bagster. 1854. 3. Novum Testamentum Grmce. Edited by Constantine Tischendorf. Leipsic: 1862. 4. Authorized English Version of the New Testa- ment, with Introduction and Various Readings from the three most celebrated Manu- scripts of the Original Greek Text. By C. Tischendorf. Tauchnitz Edition. Leip- sic: 1869. 5. Bibliortim Codex Sinait. Petropolitanus, Fac Simile. By Con- stantine Tischendorf. (Imperial Edition, Folio. ) St. Petersburg. A, D. 1862. 35°
DOCTRIN.iL READINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 351
Stephens in Paris and the Elzevirs of Holland. It is therefore not asserted to be above emendation. But, second : This re- ceived text contains undoubtedly all the essential facts and doc- trines intended to be set down by the inspired writers ; for if it were corrected with the severest hand, by the light of the most divergent various readings found in any ancient MS. or version, not a single doctrine of Christianity, nor a single cardinal fact, •would be thereby expunged. Third : As more numerous colla- tions of ancient documents are made the number of various readings is, of course, greatly increased; but yet the effect of these comparisons is, on the whole, to confirm the substantial correctness of the received text more and more. This is because these various readings, which are now counted by the hundred thousand, are nearly all exceedingly minute and trivial; and chiefly because, while they diverge, on the one side and the other, from the received text, the divergence is always within these minute bounds; which proves that text to be always within a very sHght distance, if at all removed, from the infallible auto- graphs. It is as though an engineer were attempting to fix the exact line of some ancient road. The common tradition points to an existing road as being the same. Some attempts to verifj- its site, by the data given by ancient mathematicians and geo- graphers, show that the ancient track probably varied a foot or two here and there. This discovery greatly excites the engi- neer's curiosity; he ransacks the ancient writers, and finds a great many other data. These, upon the severest apphcation, show a multitude of other points where the modern road proba- bly varied a minute space from the original. But they all concur iy greatly increasing the evidence that the ancient track was, with these minute exceptions, just where it now is ; and even if aU the variations of site were introduced, the road would stiU he upon the same bed substantially. The wayfarer may then be fully reassured; and leaving the antiquaries to fatigue themselves with their squabbles, whether at this valley or that rivulet the ancient thoroughfare lay a foot more to the right or a foot to the left, he would joyfully proceed, confident that the existing one was stiU the "King's ancient highway of holiness," and that it would lead him to the city of the apostles and martyi's. Such is the resultant total of this criticism, with all its varia- tions; and this is gladly admitted by all right-minded critics,
352 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS HEADINGS
from the pious Bengel to this day. Fourth. Tlie admitted re- sult of more extensive and thorough collations cf the received text with ancient documents is jO retrieve its credit, even as to the sUght degree in which earher cri!;icism seemod to impugn it. Xo respectable critic would now t.aza:d his credit by proposing as many emendations as Griesbach ; and it is said that Tischen- dorf, in his latest edition, restores a numcer of the received read- ings which he had himself criticized :.n his earher ones.
It may also be premised, that since critical investigations have reached the results admitted above, and since the most laborious research seems to give so small a promise of a definite end of debate on the remaining and unessential variations, one is not sui'prised to find that this branch of study has lost its interest with the more practical and ^dgorous judgments. Such men feel that they have something better to do with their time and ener- gies. The minds for which criticism retains its fascination are usually of that peculiar and "crotchety" type found among anti- quarians. The intelligent reader is, therefore, not surprised to find, along wdth much labor and learning, a " plentiful lack " of sober and convincing common sense.
In confirmation of this, let us review the different codes of judicial canons which the critics of the text have constructed. We shall find them continually varying, each one obnoxious to gi'ave objections, and the question still unsettled. We find, then, that Bentley, the great Enghsh critic, proposed to discard the use of " conjecture," and to reform the text by the supposed agreement of :he oldest Greek and the oldest Latin MS. The celebrated Bengel proposed to consider the recensions or fami- lies of extant MSS,, as di"sdded into the Egyptian and tjie Asiatic ; and to give to the former, as represented by the Alex- andrine MS., the decided preference. His critical canon for deciding between competing readings was: " I^roclivi scriptioni prcBstat ai'clua'' — the difl&cult reading has the preference over the easy one. The learned Arminian, Wetstein, in his critica!^ edition of the New Testament, discarded all distribution of the ancient MSS. into famihes or recensions. He differed diametri- cally from Bentley, in using "conjecture" freely to determine the true reading, and in condemning the oldest Greek codices, Avhich showed the nearest resemblance to the oldest MS. of Jerome's Latin version, the ones which both Bentley and Bengel
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 353
chiefly valued, as having been interpolated from the Latin, and so of little authority. He determined the weight of competing codices as witnesses for or against a given reading chiefly by their number. The majority ruled with him. The celebrated Griesbach, who may be said to have first constructed a critical text of the New Testament, departed again from these doctrines of Wetstein, He distributed the ancient codices into three fami- lies or recensions, (not absolutely, but generally distinguished by the character of their variations) : a western family, originally used by the churches of West Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul; an Alexandrine recension, and a Byzantine. The first he con- sidered the oldest; the last the most recent and mixed, and therefore of least authority. This family he found nearest to the received text, and the individual MSS. in it strictly re- sembling each other. Such was also substantially the view of Michaelis. Griesbach's fundamental canon was, that each of these families or recensions constituted an independent witness for or against a reading. That reading was entitled usually to stand w^hich was supported by two out of the three families. He made use of "conjecture," but did not claim for it the right to introduce a reading, unless it was supported also by some ancient evidence, either of MS. or patristic citation. When it seemed doubtful for which of two readings the ancient witnesses bore strongest testimony, he gave the preference to that which was unusual, over that which was usual; to the shorter over the longer ; to the unintelligible one over the clear ; and to the harsh over the smooth.
The next critic was Hug, who overthrew Griesbach's system of recensions utterly. He distributes the ancient codices into threo recensions : that of Origen, in Palestine ; of Hesychius, in Alexandria ; and of Luciau, in Antioch and Byzantium. The acute and learned Irish divine, Nolan, in his Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Y^tdgate, a work which defends the received text with matchless ingenuity and j)rofound learning, also de- molished Griesbach's system. Nolan's object is to prove the Byzantine family of codices, which approaches most nearly to the commonly received text, the oldest and purest. This recension he considers to be represented in the Moscow MS., whose au- thority had been so ably advocated by Matthire, on grounds sim- ilar to Dr. Nolan's. He also shows that Griesbach's preference
354 THE DOCTRINAL VAEIOUS READINGS
for the Alexandrine codices^ and for Origen their supposed editor, was utterly \\Tong, there being no evidence that Origen's autho- rity ever affected the text of the codices used in Alexandria, and that father being moreover utterly untrustworthy as a witness to the state of the text. Dr. Nolan substantiates his valuation of the three recensions, which he recognizes, chiefly by a compari- son with the Latin version. He regards Jerome's version as representative of the codices current in Palestine in the fourth century ; and the old Italic as representing that text originally current in Asia Minor and Byzantium. To this fact his chief witness is the splendid Brescia MS. of the Latin version, which he beheves to be unquestionably the uncorrupted old ItaHc, and which corresponds remarkably with the Moscow and other By- zantine codices.
The system afterwards adopted (1836) in Scholz' New Testa- ment was substantially similar. He found two prevalent recen- sions or families of manuscripts, the Alexandrine and the Byzan- tine. The latter contains many MSS., the former few. He gives many strong arguments to show, from the- scenes of the apostles' and evangelists' labors, from the ascendency of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and from the early conquest of Palestine and Egypt by the Saracens, that the most numerous and the most correct MSS. would be preserved in the Constantinopolitan churches and monasteries. He also argues from internal marks, that the few codices of the Alexandrine family were not copied for the purposes of church use, and did not, at the early date when they were transcribed, represent the xorA^ ixooai^. Dr. Scholtz devoted the best years of his hfe exclusively to travels, collation of MSS., and similar critical labors, in the course of which he examined and compared six hundi-ed and thirty MSS The result of this immense labor was to reinstate the credit of the received text in a multitude of places where Griesbach had assailed it, and to show that it presents the most trustworthy text extant.
We now reach what may be called the recent school of bibhcal critics, represented by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford. Their common traits may be said to be an almost con- temptuous dismissal of the received text, as unworthy not only of confidence, but almost of notice ; the rejection of the great mass of the codices of the xocy/j exdoae^ as recent and devoid of
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GKEEK. 355
nearly all authority ; and the settlement of the text by the testi- mony of a very few MSS. for which they claim a superior an- tiquity, with the support of a few fathers and versions, whom they are pleased to regard as judicious and trustworthy.
Lachmann, whose critical edition of the Greek New Testa- ment was published in Berlin in 1832 and 1850, professes to reject conjecture utterly, as a basis for the introduction of a reading, and boasts that there is not an emendation in his whole edition which rests on that foundation. His system of judicial canons may be said to be summed up in this maxim: that those are the true readings of the inspired writers which are supported by the testet vetiistismni et longinqui. That is, if he finds a given reading sustained by very old MSS., versions, and fathers, from very remote quarters of Christendom, this is the reading which was originally written. And there are, in his eyes, very few of either which are safe witnesses. Among the fathers, he relies chiefly upon the quotations of Irenoeus, Origen, and Cy- prian; among the versions, upon the pure codices (as he sup- poses them) of Jerome, and among the Greek MSS., upon the Vatican, Alexandrine, Codex Epliremi, and a few others. The Latin Brescia Codex, which Nolan regarded as so evidently a precious and iincorrupted exemplar of the Old Italic, he deems worthless, as being interpolated from the Greek of the xocvrj ixdoacq.
The system of Tischendorf is very simple, consisting in the adoption of what he supposes to be the oldest Greek codices as his guides, the Sinaitic, discovered and edited by himself, the Vatican, the Alexandrine; with the assistance of a few of the more ancient fragments, and of the Latin, Syriac, and Sahidic versions.
Tregelles proposes, as an unfailing means for discriminating the authoritative codices from the incorrect, the following, which he vaunts as his canon of " comparative criticism." Select a father of the second or third century who is trustworthy, and who appears to quote verbatim. If he quotes such readings, in a number of cases, as are characteristic of a given codex or ver- sion now existing, we are authorized to conclude that this codex or version is, in general, a correct example of the actual Bible which that father used; that is, of the recognized text of the second or third century. Tregelles especially lauds Lachmann,
356 THE DOCTEINAL VARIOUS READINGS
because he first introduced tlie fashion distinctively of ignoring the Greek vulgate or received text as simply naught, and of constructing his supposed original text wholly from other testi- monies. This method, substantially adopted by Tischendorf and by Alford, no longer retains the received text as a common basis for emendation, or standard of comparison, or even as a mere cord upon which to string the proposed corrections, but proceeds to construct a text just as though it never existed.
It is this objectionable and mischievous feature of the later criticism which, as we beheve, especially demands the notice of bibHcal scholars at this time. Its natural result will be, that the church of God will finally have no New Testament at all. It should be remembered that the received text is that which is now actually in the hands of the laity, in the popular versions of King James, of Luther, the Douay, the Genevan Diodati's, and those of the other European languages. Does any one suppose that the labors of any learned critic will persuade any of these nations to surrender its version for a new one ? It is very clear that, practically, the people must either trust the Bibles they have, or believe in none. For there is no practicable substitute. This appears from the fact that no two of the critics are agreed ; no one of them is willing to adopt the text as settled by any other ; their art has not found, and probably never will find, an authoritative umpire, to end their differences. Tregelles has published a vast list, covering ninety-four octavo pages, of the de- partures of the four leading editors whom he admires, Griesbach, Scholz, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, from the received text. Their number is more than nine thousand. That is, there are so many places in which one or more of these critics differs from the received text. But the same tables evince that the critics differ among each other in inore than nine thousand places ! A notable proof this, that the work of any one of them is still further from being supported by the common consent than the much-abused received text. Hence it appears manifestly, that if the latter is expelled from the use and confidence of the church, the latter will practically be left with no New Testament.
But it may be asked, if the received text was confessedly printed from a few MSS. and versions, of inferior authority and age ; if it is confessedly erroneous in some places, and probably so in many ; if the absurd ground is relinquished on which its
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 357
advocates once presumed to sanctify its very errors : why sliall it claim tlie retention of its place? We replj^ hejatise it is the received text. Some possible rival text may be better entitled to that place, hut it does not hold it, awl cannot win it. There cannot be in Christendom any common tribunal of criticism by Avhich the most meritorious text can now be installed in that place. Lat it be that the received text has usurped the position by accident, or been assigned to it by providence, the all-impor- tant fact is, that it holds it. It is far better for the interests of truth, that Christendom should recognize, as a commonly received Bible, a less accurate text, than that it should recognize none. Are then the fruits of biblical criticism to remain unemployed, and admitted errors in the received text uncorrected? We reply, not at all. Let all real emendations be made, but in the more modest method of our fathers. The received text should still be retained by all, not as a standard of absolute accuracy, but as a common standard of reference ; and the proposed changes of the reading should be appended, and left each to stand upon its own evidences. The received text would then be expounded to the church according to the convictions of the teachers in each instance. Such only would be the result upon the more audacious plan of our recent critics ; for of course each teacher will exercise the same liberty and discretion in amending or re- trenching their emendations which they have exercised uj)on the received text. The practical difference, then, which would result from the method which we resist, would be only this, that the church would no longer have a JSihle in common ; and would have nothing whatever to compensate for this immense loss. And inasmuch as the most dissatisfied of these critics confesses that the received text still presents every fact and doctrine of the Christian system uncorrupted, we cannot but regard it as a most unwarrantable exaggeration of their own results, to aim, for the sake of them, at the suppression of our common edition.
We proceed next to substantiate the assertion that the judicial canons by which these critics attempt to discriminate the true readings are not only still unsettled, and in part contradictory, but obnoxious to grave objections. The brief summary which we have given above of the statement of those supposed princi- ples by different critics is sufficient proof of the first part. Let us now bring those canons in which the recent school are most
358 THE DOCTKINAL VARIOUS READINGS
nearly agreed to the test of reason. In attempting tlais, we as- sume that, although altogether inferior to these professional ex- perts in the knowledge of details and antiquarian facts, we are entitled to employ our humble common sense upon th^se deduc- tions from their details, which they themselves offer to the com- mon sense of Christians. Their labor with musty old parchments, and their familiarity with them, we do not propose to contest. In these particulars we are to them, of course, as children to Anakim. But they propound to us, in their owti way, the data which they say are collected from these their eminent researches. They invite us to consider the reasonableness of the conclusions they wish to draw therefrom. Then, say we, those conclusions must be considered by us in the light of our own reason. We presume that the antiquaries have no such monopoly of common sense as that which we have conceded them of their critical lore. We shall therefore venture to apply that common sense to their own showing of their data and facts, not having before our eyes any terror of the odious charge of intrusion into things too high for us.
Let us, as a preliminary task, test the soundnes^i of that boast which the recent critics usually echo from Lachmann ; that they discard conjecture as a guide to correct readings, and rely in pre- ference upon the testimoyiy of competent ancient witnesses. Do they really discard conjectiire ? And is it proper to do so ? By a conjectural reading they mean one which is supported chiefly by its internal evidences. Now the earlier German critics used inferences from internal evidences with such preposterous license, and with such results, as might well give pause to any cautious or fair mind. But to discard internal evidence from criticism is the other extreme, and it may be equally reckless. Who would dispute that an undeniable anachronism, for instance, in a work to which infaUibility was conceded, must be the result of a spu- rious reading? But the ground of the conclusion is internal evidence; ^. e., conjecture, a laying together of contradictories, demonstrating the inferential, but indisputable, truth, that the pen of the infallible writer did not write that statement, impos- sible to be true, which we now read in the distant copy of his book. The obvious rule on this point, then, is that internal evidence is to be used, but with caution. Again, Lachmann plumes himself that there is not a single reading in his critical
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 359
edition which rests on conjecture ; all are supported by the testi- mony of the testes vetastissimi et longlnqu'i. But when we come to his selection of the witnesses, he gives us nothing but " con- jecture." No particular reading rests upon conjecture; but the grand foundation of the whole is a bundle of conjectures ; that is, upon Lachmann's inferences from internal marks about the writings which he selects as ancient and competent. Why does he choose to believe that among the fathers of the third century, Origen cites (and cites literally) the codices of the New Testa- ment of best authority in that age ; while Julius Africanus and Dionysius the Great may not be trusted as doing so ? "Why does he rely on Cyprian rather than Minutius Felix or Arnobius? Why does he- conclude that the Vatican, the Alexandrine, the Cambridge, the Codex Ejjhreiii'}, are ancient MSS., while none of the Byzantine are ? Why, that the splendid and venerable Latin codex of Brescia vf?i^ interpolated from the (worthless) Byzantine Greek, while the codex of Yercelli is more trusworthy ? None of these codices have a continuous, authentic, known history. He proceeds only upon internal evidence. It is not now to our pur- pose to inquire whether Lachmann conjectures right or wrong; his ground of selection is but conjecture. This charge is emi- nently true concerning the age which they are pleased to assign to those Greek MSS. which they recommend to us as most venerable : the Vatican, the Alexandrine, and now the Sinai. It is expressly admitted that neither of these has an extant history. No documentary external evidence exists as to the names of the copjasts who transcribed them, the date, or the place of their writing. Nobody knows whence the Vatican MS. came to the pope's library, or how long it has been there. Nobody ventures to affirm whether Cja'il Lucaris brought the so-called Alexan- drine MS. to London from Alexandria, or from the monasteries of Mt. Athos. Tischendorf himself was unable to trace the pre- sence of his favorite codex, in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Horeb, by external witnesses higher than the twelfth cen- tur}'. Their early date is confessedly assigned them by conjec- ture [conjectura : a casting together) of internal marks. It may be rightly assigned, yet by conjecture. Why, then, may not the antiquity of some single readings be correctly assigned by simi- lar evidence?
We shall next attempt to show that several of the critical
360 THE DOCTKINAL VARIOUS READINGS
canons retained by our recent editors are, in their appKcation, of a conjectural nature, and unsafe conjecture at that. Let the reader take first that rule which is in full force from Bengel to Tischendorf : ^^ Script'/ oiii jyi^od't ci jprcestat ardua." Is not the "difficulty" or "facility" of the reading an internal mark? But we demur to the justice of the rule as a general one. It is grounded on the supposition that a copyist is far more likely to take the liberty of changing a phrase, in order to make it easier, or more intelligible, or more euphonious, or more credible, than to change it into something more difficult, or harsh, or unpopu- lar. But we reply: Is it at all certain that the majority of copyists were competent to judge what reading would be more grammatical, more easy, more credible? Is it certain that, if they did exercise a license of changing the readings for the pur- pose of gaining these advantages, their standard of taste and judgment was identical with that of these European gentlemen of the nineteenth century ? We have but to remember who and what were the probable copyists of our oldest codices ; that the most of them were drowsy and ignoran-t monks, or the merest mechanical drudges ; just as in classic MSS. we know the most of this work was done by slaves; that the process of transcrip- tion was, while intended to be servilely faithful, most unintelli- gent and humdrum ; that a copyist, who supposed himself more intelligent, and more capable of useful emendation, was very likely to choose precisely that reading as most consonant to his ideas of propriety which seems to our modern notions most a solecism ; and we must admit that it is extremely likely, the very readings which our critics prefer, because they think them too difficult to be introduced as emendations, were thus introduced because they were supposed to be easier; and that the very readings which they suppose to be easy, and therefore suspicious, would have struck those coppsts, from their point of view, as very great solecisms. For, the least acquaintance with the loose grammar, the superstitious exegesis, the strange prescrif)tive no- tions of the Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries, now ex- ploded, will convince a fair mind how much more probable our hypothesis is than the other. Doubtless, where our modern critics find a reading so difficult or ungrammatical that they conclude it never could have gotten into the text had not the original author put it there, the more natural solution is this : if the codices show
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 361
any ground to suspect a various reading, it was the difficult one which arose from the mere mechanical inattention of the copyist, or from his ignorance of the idiom of his own language, or from the prompting of some queer theory of his day, which is now exploded and forgotten. Surely a mere hypothesis, when so fairly counterpoised by another, cannot be accepted as a general rule of internal evidence.
A second critical canon much employed is this : Where any ground exists for suspecting a various reading in any passage which has a parallel in another gospel, that reading shall be condemned as spurious which would harmonize the two parallel places most; and that reading shall be held the original one Avhich most tends to make them contradict each other. The argument for this astonishing canon is that, since the change was made by somebody, in one way or the other, it is presum- able it was made by the over-zeal of the copyists, in order to hide the supposed evidence of contradiction between two inspired men. Again we ask: How much evidence have we that these copyists were either over-zealous or knavish ? Do we know that the pair of sleepy monks who were droning over a given place in Mark, knew anything, or remembered anything, or cared any- thing, at the time, for the parallel place in Matthew ? But the chief objection to this canon is that, like some others which evangelical critics have adopted from the mint of infidel ration- alism, its sole probability is grounded in the assumption that the evangelists and apostles were not guided by inspiration. Let us adopt the Christian hypothesis, that the scenes of our Saviour's life were enacted, and his words spoken, in a given way, and that the several evangelists were inspired of God to record them in- fallibly ; and the most harmonizing readings will obviously ap- pear to us the most probable readings.
We next consider that method of "comparative criticism" stated on our 355th page, in which Tregelles confides so much. A given MS. is characterized, in the main, by a given school of variations from the received text. We consult an ancient father, who, we have reason to believe, quotes his Greek or Latin Tes- tament literally — say Irenieus. We find that, in perhaps a score of places or more, his quotations from Scripture are verhathn, according to the varioiis readings in the old MS. in hand. Ting authorizes him, Tregelles thinks, to conclude that this MS. cor-
362 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
responded verhathn tlirougliout with the very Testament which lay on the study-table of old Irenreus, at the beginning of the third century ; that we have in it an exact representation of the text which that father used as the authentic one. Now, a mo- ment's reflection will convince the reader that, unless we believe that the existing MSS. at that date were very strictly conformed to some distinct " recensions,'' or families, the inference is worth- less. For else, it is not safe to conclude on the old premise of '^ex pede Herculevx ;''' it is not safe to assume that the occurrence of a few of the same readings in Irenseus's Testament proves that it contained the whole list of the thousands of pecuHar readings contained in the old MS. before us. Let us explain by a sup- posed case : Let it be supposed that, among editions of Shaks- peare printed in the nineteenth centuiy, there were clearly ob- servable two schools of typographical errors, counting some thousands ; that the literary quidnuncs had ascertained that this curious fact arose thus, viz., that in the seventeenth century there existed two (and only two current) printed editions of Shakspeare, and these two sets of typographical errors existed in the two old editions, respectively, distinguishing them from each other; and that all the very numerous recent editions, whether printed by a Murray, a Harper, or a Putnam, Avere but faithful reprints of the one or the other of»the two old editions. All that is very intelligible. Now let us suppose further, that in turning over the poet Waller, we found, in some twenty or fifty cases, that his citations from Shakspeare regularly contained the typographical errors — if errors they were — found at the places cited, in the one school of our printed editions. Then we might very safely conclude, that the copy of Shakspeare wdiich Waller used was of that old edition of which this schooMs the progeny. This seems to be precisely Tregelles's inference. And one might possibly go further, and assume that possibly the poet Waller believed the copy of Shakspeare he used the more authentic of the two editions current in his day. But now, to illustrate the fatal vice of Tregelles's argument, let us suppose that he himself denied the whole explanation of the two schools of modern edi- tions ; that he disbeheved the whole theory of a family relation- ship between the two schools, and two current old editions dis- tinguished from each other in the seventeenth century; it is exceedingly plain that he has uprooted the basis of his own
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 363
argument. Now tliis is just what Tregelles and his friends do : they discard the whole theory of distinct ancient ^' 7'ece)islons,'^ whether distributed into two or three; they recognize no dis- tinguishing character by which the MSS. and versions are classed in families, save the old and the new. The old they beheve to be correct, and the new incorrect. If this is true, then obviously their " comparative criticism " is baseless. It may be correctly inferred that the Greek Testament which lay on Iren^eus's study- table corresponded in its readings with the various readings of the old MS. we are examining, in twenty or fifty cases ; and yet it may be just as likely as not, that these were all the pecuhar readings that corresponded, and that this amount of correspond- ence was accidental.
Let us now look a little more closely at the fundamental maxim of our recent critics — that the oldest are most trustworthy, and the more recent comparatively worthless. In their eyes the testimony of one MS. of the fourth century is worth more than that of a whole family of agreeing MSS. of the ninth centmy, though counted by the hundred. The reason assigned for this maxim is popular and plausible : that the older must of course be more accurate, because separated by fewest transcriptions from the original autographs of the inspired men. Let us search and see whether this is so clear. First, It might very well be that a copy transcribed in the ninth century might be separated by fewer transcriptions from the original inspired autographs than another copy written in the fourth century. How ? Thus : that this copyist of the ninth century may have copied direct from an old copy of the second century, separated by only two removes from the autograph left by John at Ephesus ; whereas the fouiih century copyist may have borrowed for transcription the MS. of a friend written a few months before from a MS. of the latter part of the third century, which, in turn, was copied from a MS. of the middle of that century, which, in turn, was copied from one of the beginning of that centurj-, Avhich again was separated by three or four transcriptions from the old sec- ond century MS. so nearly related to John's. Dr. Tischendorf claims that he has effected the exact parallel of what we have supposed. He has published in A. D. 1862 a fac simile edition of the Sinai codex. Let it be supposed that we have in our li- brary a copy of Kobeii Stephens's great edition of the (despised)
364 THE DOCTKINAL VARIOUS READINGS
xoivTj ixdocnz, of the year 1550 A. D. "We, proceeding ii-^on the argument of Tischendorf and the recent critics, that the oldest are nearest the autographs, claim that the folio of Stephens is as much more correct than the Imperial Folio of Tischendorf, as A. D. 1550 is earher than A. D. 1862. From this Dr. Tischen- dorf would demur energetically. But on what grounds ? He would claim that, although his edition is three hundred years later, it is separated from the apostles by far fewer transcriptions. He would affirm that his St. Petersburg folio is a fac simile of the Sinai MS. ; that this is of the fourth century ; that it is most probably one of the veritable fifty of Eusebius Coesariensis, tran- scribed b}^ order of the Emperor Constantine ; that the copy which was immediate parent to that was most probably of Origen's editing ; and that this was separated by very few transcriptions from the apostles. Whereas he objects, Stephens's folio, though printed in. 1550, was copied from the Erasmian and Aldine edi- tions, but a little older than itself ; they in turn fi'om recent MSS. ; and these separated by many transcriptions from the apostles. Just so, we reply, the date is XDortJi hut little to determine the number of removes at which a given copy is related to the apos- tolic autographs.
Second, If the maxim were true that the most ancient codices are the most trustworthy, then the most ancient ought to differ least intei' se. As we approach so nearly to the common foun- tain-head, the streams ought to approach more and more to unity. Is this so ? Now, according to the showing of the critics them- selves, the case seems to be thus : that the three oldest codices^ the Sinaitic, Vatican and Alexandrine, have what we shall find to be a very significant, not to say suspicious, resemblance, in theii' common omission of a few readings, to which a peculiar interest attaches. But in other respects they do not seem to ajoproxi- mate identitj-. Tischendorf has himself given us a very striking proof of this in his Tauchnitz edition of the authorized English version. He has given us there, at the bottom of the page, a great many various readings, as between his three favorites, and not merely as between them on the one side and the received text on the other. It is only necessary to run the eye over these foot-notes to see that, while the variations from the received text are \qx\ numerous, the instances in which the Sinaitic, Vati- can, and Alexandrine MSS. agree among themselves are com-
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 365
paratively rare. Tlie disagreements of the three, among them- selves, which are of sufficient magnitude to be represented in the Enghsh language, are, upon an approximate estimate, not fewer than five thousand ; and this, of course, excludes the minu- ter variations of spelling and arrangement, which disappear in translation. This is a larger number of various readings than Au- gustus Halm has collected, as worthy of notice, from all the criti- cal labors of Griesbach's, Knapp's, Scholz's, and Lachmann's New- Testaments. Thus it appears that the plan of our critics, wdien executed by their own hands, seems to yield very poor results. The three "faithful witnesses" harmonize less with each other than the digests made from the diversified testimony of the de- spised !
Third, The oldest existing MS. is not claimed to possess an antiquity earlier than the fourth century. The interval between that date and the apostles is abundantly -wide to make corrup- tions of the text in that oldest MS., both by accident and design, both possible and probable ; that is to say, no MS. is ancient enough to lead us above the first source of the stream of errors. Now, then, what is the state of the facts ? On one side there are a very few MSS. for which very great age is claimed ; on the other side (the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan) there is a nu- merous family of MSS., of which nearly seven hundred have been collated in whole or in part, which have a great uniformity in their readings, but they are admitted to be, mostly, subsequent to the ninth century. The few for which extreme antiquity is claimed do not, in fact, agree closely, but they do agree in a small number of very significant differences, chiefly omissions, by which they are veiy distinctly characterized as against the Constantinopolitan school ot MSS. Now, shall these few, which are claimed to be old, discredit the many more recent? We re- ply, No. And in addition to the reasons disclosed already we urge this: this Constantinopolitan family must have had a pa- rentage from some MS. older than themselves. Although this their ancient parent is now lost, yet their existence proves that it once existed, and had the features which they now possess in common. So that the actual (former) existence and character of that original is as perfectly demonstrated to the reason as the existence and character of the Sinaitic MS. is to the senses. Now, whence that original? From authentic or from corrupt
366 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
sourees? It is no reasoning to say, on grounds of conjecture, tliat it was from a corruj)t source ; for it is equally possible to conjecture tliat tlie Sinai or tlie Vatican MS. arose out of corrupt sources. Has it not been shown tliat the fourtli century is not early enough to ascend above the sources of possible corruptions ? If, then, we and our rivals proceed to reasons, in order to sub- stantiate our conjectures, we urge that one codex is much more liable to corruption than a whole family. One dishonest hand is enough to do the former ; there must be a concert of many to do the latter. The one was a codex made and preserved for private uses, the others were for public church uses. There were therefore a thousand jealous guardians, bishops, clergy, intelli- gent laymen, to watch against the corruption of the many ; but there was only one mind, or at most a few, interested in the purity of the single codex.
Fourth^ This leads us to consider the critical value of Scrip- ture MSS. made for liturgical purposes, as compared with those made for scholastic private use. The Constantino23olitan fam- ily of existing MSS. evidently belong to the former sort, be- cause this appears from their general conformity with existing lectionaries, from their so often containing the calendar of the .Greek Church, and from their careful and ornamental execution. But the few old MSS. of the greatest supposed antiquity were not made for liturgical use, but for scholastic and private preser- vation. Now, our modern critics admit, yea, claim, both these facts, and assert that the liturgical MSS. are least to be relied upon. We ask, why? Is not this conclusion exactly against common sense? Are not our pulpit Bibles now most carefully printed of all? Does not church history teach us that both the pride and the principle of the bishops and other clergy led them to use great care in the accuracy of their church MSS., and especially under the patriarchate of Constantinople? But, say our opponents, the liturgical use of a MS. would compel it to be conformed, at all hazards, to the xoturi exooac::, because the ear of the people accustomed to this would require such agi'eement. We reply: very well; and was not that very necessity wholly favorable to the perpetuation of accuracy? To deny it, is to assume that the xocvrj ixooat^ vjcis at first inaccurate. Such indeed is the vicious circle in which the argument of these critics moves. The amount of it is : the Constantinopolitan family of existing
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 367
MSS. must be very corrupt, because they agree with the xotvrj ixuoai^ ; and the xoivtj exouac; must be very faulty, because it agrees with them ! But now grant — what is not an assumption, but history — that the church teachers were at first very scrupu- lous, especially in that part of Christendom, to give their churches a correct Bible, and that thus there was at first a received text which was correct; then the necessity of conforming the new liturgical copies to the estabhshed habitudes of the people was a safeguard for accuracy, not a source of corruption. In this connection let us notice the reproach, that no old MS. of the Constantinopohtan family survives to warrant the fidelity of its progeny. The probable reason is, that those codices were worn out by the popular use for which they were designed ; or, being iu weekly use in the churches, fell victims to the persecuting fury of Diocletian and his successors more easily than the scho- lastic copies hidden away in the monasteries and hermitages.
Fifth, Everything in the historical position of those churches, which afterwards formed the patriarchate of* Constantinople, marks them as the most likely places in which to look for cor- rect copies of the New Testament. There was the native home of the Greek language, with the truest Grecian culture. To them nearly aU the New Testament was at first addressed. There were the churches for whose use Luke, with Paul's guidance, and Mark, with Peter's guidance, and John the beloved apostle, prepared three out of the four Gospels. It was at EpJiesus that the Apostle John, in his last days, recognized and codified the four Gospels, including Matthew's. There chiefly labored nearly all the apostles who have wielded the pen of inspiration. To those churches, or among them, nearly all the Epistles were written; the Romans, and John 1st, 2d and 3d, among them,' the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Philemon, Timothy, and Titus, to them. There was the canon closed, by the Apocalypse of John, first published in the home of his old age, Ephesus. In a word, the soil of the Greek Church is the native birthplace of the New Testament canon. Facts are also much obscured by representing Alexan- dria as the metropohs of Greek learning after the Christian era, and directing us to look thither for the most intelligent and earliest sources of Christian Greek. Alexandria was, in those ages, a large, an assuming, a busthng, a heterogeneous commer-
368 THE DOCTRINAL VAEIOUS READINGS
cial city. But it is very erroneous to rej^resent it as the acknow- ledged queen of the Greek civilization. Antioch was still it3 equal. Iconium was for Asia Minor a far more influential centre. Ephesus was still the queen of the JEgean. Above all, the old ascendency of Athens, with her younger rival, Corinth, was still supreme, even down to the days of Constantine; and, be- side her acknowledged classic culture, the pretensions of Alex- andria were but semi-barbaric. It is not a historical fact that Greek Christianity drew its knowledge prevalently from Alex- andria.
The last great persecution seems to have raged equally over the whole eastern empire ; and, if we may credit the Christian ^vriters, was everywhere attended with a great destruction of the sacred books. But those writers tell us also of the many pious expedients by which the faithful preserved a part of them. It is reasonable to think that as large a portion of them were saved by the numerous churches of Asia Minor, and Greece, as else- where; and that, when the days of peace returned, these were again multiplied, with the pristine care and accuracy, for the supply of the churches. But in the seventh and eighth centuries, a great historic change occurred, which established a grand differ- ence in favor of the Constantinopolitan churches — the Saracen conquests. Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Africa, were then utterly subdued by the Moslems ; and in these coun- tries Christianity was everywhere suppressed, and almost exter- minated. But, until the middle of the fifteenth century, Constan- tinople still stood, sorely pressed indeed by the Moslems, but yet independent; a Christian Greek kingdom, retaining the ecclesi- astical literature, the language, and the church usages of the third and fourth centuries, with a singular and stereotyped tenacity. Then came the final overthrow and dispersion of 1453. The Greek scholars and ecclesiastics, who then filled Europe with the news of their calamity, became the channels for transmitting to all the west the precious remains of early Christianity ; and prov- idence prepared the church with the new art of printing to pre- serve and diffuse them. It was thus that the Constantinopolitan MSS., the representatives of the xoc'urj exoom^ of former ages, be- came the parents of our received text.
"We have hitherto seemed to admit the full claims of the Sinaitic, Vatican, and Alexandrine MSS. to a great antiquity. But let
OF THE NEW TESTAIIENT GREEK. 369
lis now advert to the grounds on which the experts rest those claims ; we shall find them, according to their own showing, far from conclusive. As we remarked, none of these codices have an authentic external history ; their antiquity is inferred wholly from internal marks. Those marks are so nearly common to them all, that we may, with sufficient correctness, take that state- ment of them made by Tischendorf for his Sinai MSS. in his Prolegomena to the imperial edition, as an example of all.
The monastery of St. Catharine, on Mt. Horeb, is supposed to have been founded by the Emperor Justinian, A. D. 530 ; and Tischendorf would fain persuade himself that this venerable MS. was a part of the endowment originally bestowed upon it by its royal founder ; and that it was one of the fifty MSS. provided by Eusebius of Cresarea for the Emperor Constantine. There is no external mark of its age save that it was there, and was handled by some of the monks in the twelfth century. Its inter- nal marks of age are the following : It is written, not only in uncial Greek characters, but in that species of uncials found in the Vatican MS., and in some classical MSS. on papyrus found in Herculaneum. It has scarcely any marks of punctuation. It has four columns on each page (the largest folios, next to it, hav- ing but three,) and Tischendorf thinks, with Hyig, that this marks such MSS. as belonging to the age when the old rolled parch- ments were just going out of fashion; because it is supposed the copyists who were adopting the new fashion would seek to propitiate the reader's eye, by making as many columns as possible present themselves ad aperturain on the two faces of the two contiguous leaves. It resembles the oldest biblical MSS. in their antiquated spelling, inflection of words, and order of several books. It has the Ammonian clia])tejL'S, and the Euse- bian canons ; yet it is conceded they may have been added by another hand than the copyist's. It contains the Epistle of Barnabas (so-called), and the Pastor Ilennce, from which it is inferred that the copyist regarded these two spurious pieces as belonging to the canon of Scripture. Now it is supposed that their claim to that place was exploded before the end of the fourth century, because the Council of Laodicea in A. D. 364, and of Carthage in 397, condemned them as spurious. Yet Euse- bius, says Tischendorf, expressly places these pieces, with the " Acts of Paul," among the di/vchyofxtva : a sufficiently clear proof,
Vol. I.— 24. j
370 THE DOCTBINAL VARIOUS READINGS
one wovild think, that this copy was not one of his fifty. Tisch- encTorf thinks that, inasmuch as the two pieces were not univer- sally rejected, the pohtic Eusebius w^ould be more Hkely to retain them, than to make the general suspicion of them a ground for their exchision. Another sign of antiquity for the Sinai MS. is, that the numerous marginal corrections, which are supposed to be later than the writing itself, are also in uncials. Last, its omissions (such as those in Mark xvi. 8 to end ; Matt. xiii. 35,) are such as to associate it with the Vatican, and the very oldest fragments. Such is the editor's argument.
These marks we cannot but regard as very far short of a de- monstration that the MS. was the work of either the fourth or fifth century. We have no disposition to contest its possession of an equal antiquity to that of the Vatican and Alexandrine MSS. But one obvious remark is, that several of these argu- ments depend whoUy upon the assumed antiquity of the latter ; whereas the evidences of their age are not different from these. Such arguing amounts to no more than this, that the Sinaitic MS. is as old as the Vatican ; and how old is the Vatican ? "Why, as old as the Sinaitic. Second; all the internal marks of great antiquity, as the character in which it is written, the spelling, the inflections, the arrangement, are made invalid by this considera- tion: that so many reasons existed to prompt the copyist to retain those pecuHarities from the older copy before him. A temper of monkish conservatism, superstitious veneration for the forms of the past, the wish to perpetuate a pious fraud, or in- competency to change the antiquated features intelligently, may have caused, and doubtless often did cause, copyist after copy- ist still to reproduce these pecuHarities, even ages after they had become generally antiquated. Let it be remembered, on the last point, that multitudes of codices were transcribed in the monasteries by men whose grammatical knowledge was wholly insufficient to construe what they were ^\Titing. They employed the hours of a superfluous leisure, which had no value, in imitat- ing mechanically, letter by letter, the copy before them, much as a Chinaman paints the name of his EngHsh customer on a sign-board, while he knows not a letter of the English alphabet. It is obvious that such transcribers could not venture to change anything intentionally, however liable to change many things un- consciously j they could not change uncials into ciu'sive letters,
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 371
or old inflections into contemporary ones ; tliej must imitate pre- cisely what was before tliem, or else not copy at all.
Moreover, in the third place, it is exceedingly erroneous to suppose that the uncial and the cursive writing succeeded each other at a given date; they were contemporary for centuries. The cursives ar-e known to have been in use as early as Trajan, and the uncials are known to have remained in use until the eighth century. The one set of characters were used for certain species of writing ; the other for more serious kinds. A maker of grave-stones in our day carves the inscription on his marble in uncials, and then goes to his ledger and enters his bill in cur- sives, for- the cost of the carving. It would be very unsafe rea- soning, which should afterwards conclude that the marble must have been inscribed many ages before the ledger. To the prac- tical mind it will appear very obvious, however provoking to the romantic temper of the antiquary, that the transcription of copies in large unicals may be accounted for by the very prosaic fact, that spectacles were not yet invented. The only expedient for as- sisting the failing eyesight of the aged was to enlarge the size of the letters.
Fourth ; the presence of the iwo apocryphal pieces is very far from a demonstration that the whole Avriting was older than the councils of Laodicea and Carthage. When the piety of the monkish ages inscribed works of human, but revered, origin on the same parchment with the Bible, this was very far from show- ing that it assigned it a formal place in the canon. How obvious is this, when we remember that the Anglican Church, in imita- tion of the patristic ages, is doing the very thing now! She prints and binds up into the same volume the Apocrypha and the Scriptures, while she declares that the former are not canonical. Again, Tischendorf places the Alexandrine MS. only in the fifth century ; but it contains the Epistle of Clement. Again, Euse- bius places the Acts of Paul, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Pastor of Hermas, not among the d.vziliybp.z\jat^ as Tischendorf supposes, but among the Noda:. (See his Ecclesiastical History, B. III., Ch. 25.) Let the reader accept this as one among sev- eral proofs that the affectation of superior accuracy of research over those grand and honest old English scholars, whose critical opinions they would supersede, has but little ground. Once more : Athanasius gave (A. D. 315) a list of the New Testament
372 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
books esteemed genuine, whicli agrees exactly with ours in omit- ting these spurious pieces. And the earlier fathers, up to Iren- seus and Tertullian, while not gi"vang, like Eusebius, professed lists of the canon, yet quote just the same books as genuine as now compose our New Testament. We have, then, the hsts of Caius the Presb}i;er, A. D. 200, and of Origen, as preserved in the Ecclesiastical JJistory of Eusebius, B. YI., Ch. 25. These also exclude the two pieces fi-om among the genuine. Now then, if Tischendorf's inference were valid, the presence of this spurious Epistle of Barnabas, and of the Pastor of Hermas, in his Sinai MS. must elevate its antiquity, not to the fourth century, but to the second century. The argument is therefore worthless. This feature of his MS., on the contrary, in the eyes of every sober critic, must depreciate its value, and make it probable that it was the work of monkish superstition, rather than of sound biblical scholarship, and the production of a place and an age which give but a feeble guarantee of honesty or accin-acy.
This inquiry into the credit of these so-called oldest codices is preliminary to another, which is of more practical interest to the Christian. While the various readings are, as we have seen, al- most numberless, there are but a few which implicate in any de- gree any fact, usage or doctrine of our religion. The singular thing is, that the modern critics claim the three codices on almost every one of these important variations as against the received text. The following list of them is not presented as complete, but as containing the most notable of these points.
As affecting facts and usages, the Sinai and the Vatican MSS. concur in omitting, in Matt. vi. 13, the closing doxology of our Lord's prayer. In John viii. 1-11, they and the Alexandrine omit the whole narrative of Christ's interview with the woman taken in adultery and her accusers. The first two also omit the whole of Mark x\d., from the ninth verse to the end. Acts ^aii. 37, in which Philip is represented as propounding to the eunuch faith as the quahfication for baptism, is omitted by all three.
As affecting doctrine, the only omissions of practical impor- tance are the folloT\dng, in which there is also a general agree- ment between the (supposed) old codices. In Acts ix. 5, 6, the received text reads, that Paul, when struck to the earth by the light from heaven, said, "Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest ; it is hard for thee to
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 373
kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? And the Lord said unto him, Arise," etc. Now the Sinai, Vatican and Alexandrine MSS. all concur in making such omissions as to leave the pas- sage thus : "I am Jesus [of Naz., Alexandrine]^ whom thou per- secutest ; biit arise, and go into," etc.
In Acts XX. 28, the received text makes Paul saj to the Ephe- sine elders : " To feed the church of God, which he hath pur- chased with his own blood." The Alexandrine codex here makes him sav, "To feed the church of the Lord, which he hath pur- chased with his own blood ;" and so read the Codices Ejphrmai and Bezm.
In 1 Tim. iii. 16, the received text represents Paul as sajing : " Great is the mystery of godliness ; God Avas manifest in the flesh," etc. The Vatican here supports the received text ; but the Sinai, Codex Ephremi, and probably the Alexandrine, read : "Great is the mystery of godliness, who Avas manifest in the flesh," etc. It is true that the editors say the reading of the Alexandrine MS. is here uncertain. Certain pen-marks have been either changed or revmtten (it cannot be ascertained which) by a later hand, which, if genuine, would make it read, with the received text, 0£oc, instead of 6^.
In 1 John V. 7, the received text represents John as saying : " There are three that bear record in heaven : the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; and these three are one. All the old MSS. concur in omitting the heavenly witnesses, so that it shall read, " For there are three that bear record : the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one."
In Jude 4, the received text represents the heresiarchs whom Jude rebukes as " denying the only Master, the God and Lord of us, Jesus Christ." {xal rou jibvov dzOTtorrji) debu xai K'jocov ■f^jpLcov ''Ir^ao'bv Xpcazbv apuou/uevoi. The authorized English version mistranslates.) The MSS. omit debu.
In Eev. i. 11, the received text represents the glorified Mes- siah as declaring to John in Patmos, " Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and what thou seest write in a book," etc. All the three MSS. under remark concur in omit- ting the Messiah's eternal titles, so as to read thus: "heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet, saying, What thou seest write," etc.
374 THE doctkinajl vabious readings
If now the reader ^vdll glance back upon this latter list of vari- ations, he will find that in every case, the doctrinal effect of the .departure from, the received text is to obscure or suppress some testimony for the divinity of the "Saviour. In the first (Acts ix. .5, 6) the received text teaches us that Saul's resistance to the cause of Jesus was an impracticable resistance to divine moni- tions. This the so-called older MSS. suppress. In Acts xx. 28, if the church which is bought with blood, is GocTs, and bought with "A25 own hloocl" then Christ, who confessedly bought it, is very God. This striking proof is adroitly sup- pressed by the suppression or change of a word. In 1 Tim. iii. 16, the only God ever manifest in the flesh is obviously our Lord Jesus Christ. If, then, the received text stands, he is categori- cally called God Here, again, the adroit change of a letter, and a dash of the pen, expunges the testimony, ty reading ' 0^ for 0c ; "who" for "God." In 1 John v. 7, 8, the received text presents us two sets, or triads, of -wdtnesses, one in heaven, the other on eai-th, and asserts the unity of the first triad in one. All this is omitted, and thus all reference to a trinity is obhterated. In Jude, verse 4, a correct rendering of the received text calls our Lord Jesus Christ the only Master and God, thus asserting his proper divinity in exclusive terms. The MSS., by leaving out the word God, greatly weaken, though, even then, they do not destroy this testimony for Christ's di^anity. And last, in Kev. i. 11, they all concur in omitting those assertions of di"\dne eternity which the received text ascribes to the Messiah, which in the 8th verse are ascribed to "the Almighty."
Now it should be remarked that, were all these readings of the received text expunged as spurious, many other clear testi- monies for Christ's di\'inity would remain unquestioned by any critical authority, and abundantly sufficient to establish the doc- trine on an impregnable basis. But the significant fact to which we wish especially to call attention is this : that all the variations proposed on the faith of these MSS. which have any doctrinal importance, should attack the one doctrine of the Trinity; nay, we may say even more specifically, the one dcctrine of Christ s deity. The various readings taken from the \arious MSS. and versions are counted by the hundred thousands; but the vast majority of them are utterly insignificant; and among the few which remain, after deducting these, all which bear on doctrine
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 375
bear on one doctrine; and that, a doctrine whicli was keenly- debated jnst before the times when, it is claimed, these three old codices were copied. Their admirers claim for them an origin in the fourth or fifth centnry. The Sabellian and Arian con- troversies raged in the third and fourth. Is there no coincidence here ? Things do not happen again and again regularly without a cause. Why is it that some other doctrines of Christianity do not happen to be assailed by these variations, if indeed their oc- currence is fortuitous ? The curious coincidence, we repeat, that only one vital doctrine should be touched in any of its supposed testimonies, by all the mp-iads of variations, almost irresistibly impels the mind to the conclusion, that not the chance errors of transcribers, but some deliberate hand, has been at work in these instances. And when we remember the date of the great Trini- tarian contest, and compare it with the supposed date of these exemplars ®f the sacred text, the ground of suspicion becomes violent. Now, did the party of Athanasius introduce spurious testimonies into the sacred text in support of the hfxoouaiov ; or did the party of Arius expunge authentic testimonies from the sacred text in order to obscure that doctrine? The question seems to lie most probably between these limits. It may never admit of sohition ; but a moment's reflection will convince the reader that the credit and value of these so-called oldest codices are complicated with that question. This stands out as one of their most prominent characteristics, viz., that they agree with each other in omitting these striking testimonies to the di^dnity of Christ ; and that they also agree, in the main, in all the other ex- tensive omissions, implicating matters of gospel fact and practice. Now, without deciding whether the Athanasians or the Arians were in fact the corrupters, we must decide that the three ancient codices represent the views of persons who regarded the Athana^ sians as in these passages the corrupters. If this latter charge can be proved, then the credit of the three old codices is thereby greatly strengthened ; if the opposite charge can be estabhshed, that the Arian party sought fi-audulently to expiuige these valu- able testimonies against them, then the credit of the three old codices, as against the rival xoivri Ixooatz, is weakened.
Can any evidence be found in our day substantiating the one charge and refuting the other? It appears to an impartial view that such evidence must be, if it exists at all, of the following
376 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
kinds : Fii'st, tlie MSS. and internal evidence for or against tlie genuineness of tlie first class of passages omitted, namely, the historical, such as Mark x^-i. 9 to end; John viii. 1-11. It is true that the Arian strife is not implicated in these places, but their extent and historical importance is so marked that if their genuineness be demonstrated, then their absence from the three old codices characterizes them very strongly as mutilated copies. For it is no slight thing for copies ob%'iously professing so much completeness to omit -whole blocks of ten or twelve verses, con- taining substantive and important incidents in our Saviour's Hfe and teachings. But if the character of mutilated copies is fixed on them, then the reader is prepared, by probable e\-idence, to suspect them of error in the other, the very marked doctrinal omissions. Second, the evidence in the case must consist of the MSS. and internal evidences against or for the readings which sustain the divinity of Christ. If these readings can be sustained on critical grounds purely, to that extent the three old crxlices are convicted of complicity with Ai'ian mutilations of the genuine text. And, third, the ciuestion may be decided in part by exter- nal testimony and inference as to the existence and the justice of such charges against the Athanasians of interpolating, or against the Aiians of expunging, readings favorable or adverse to their distinctive dogmas. For, in fine, we return to the proposition with which we set out, that the existing variations in these doc- trinal readings raise a violent probability of the fact that sorae- hocly's Jiands have been at work on the ancient text, ■^'ith malice prepense, to do the one or the other thing.
Under the first head it is not our purpose to oppress our read- ers with a long detail of the sufi'rages of MSS. versions and edi- tors, for or against the first, class of passages. "We shall satisfy ourselves vnih. presenting the probability which appears fi'om the conclusions of the modern critics, including the "votaries" of the " old codices." All of them, then, are against the genuine- ness of the doxology in Matt. vi. 13. All of them except Lach- mann are in favor of the genuineness of Mark xvi. 9 to end. Even that most unsparing amputator of the receivted text, Tre- gelles, dares not insert his knife here. "\\^heu we come to John viii. 1-11, we find Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles against its genuineness, but all the others admit it, as does Bishoj) Elli- cot, substantially. Against the genuineness of Acts viii. 37 they
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 377
all concur. We thus see tliat these critics are compelled them- selves to admit the genuineness of a large part of these omissions against the authority of the old codices. Whatever of proba- bility this carries is therefore rather against their credit than in favor of it.
When we come to the second class of e^'idences, that from the MSS. and internal proofs for or against the doctrinal various readings, we find a very similar showing of the critics, save as to the most expHcit one of all, (1 John v. 7.) This all concur in condemning. As to the rest, they differ more or less, while the maj'ority of them admit such a show of ancient and of internal authority for them as would satisfy most minds, even from their point of \aew, that they have a fair claim to stand as authentic. Dismissing them with this remark, we proceed to consider 1 John V. 7 a little more in detail. This reading Tregelles considers so ob^dously spurious that he disdains to discuss it. All the critics vote against it. But let us see whether the case is as clear as they would have it. When we raise this inquiry, let it be under- stood that we do not undertake the hopeless task of satisfying the bibhcal critics of its certain genuineness. Neither do we absolutely assert its genuineness, but we present the arguments in favor of its claim for the purpose of showing that they do carry a good degree of probability, and that even in this extreme case, the recent critics are not so infallible as they pretend to be. Our object is to keep it an open question, and to preserve that amount of probability which appears fairly to attach to the common reading. The reader ^\dll then, by a plain a fortiori argument, conclude as to the other doctrinal readings, which these scholars attack with so much less confidence, that the probabilities are altogether in their favor. The often-contested text in 1 John v. 7 also furnishes us a good instance of the value of that internal evidence which the recent critics profess to dis- card.
The critics all agree in exscinding from the common reading the words which we include within parenthesis. " dzt TjJtl^ dacv (>'. aaoT'joo'ji'Te^ [iv zai ohnavoi^ b Uazr^o, 6 Aoj-o^, xai zb ayiou Hi^z'jaa • xal oliza ol zfJzT^ eu tcac. Kac Tfjs7^ ectriv ot fiaftzopoibuzt:; iv zfi y/j.^ zo ITiyz~jua, xac zb vocon, xal zb uliia' xal of zptl:; erV '6 ev ecar^. The internal evidence against this excision, then, is in the following strong points: Firat^ if it be made, the masculino
378 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
article, numeral, and j^articiple, ol Tf>s7^ fxapvopooi^zt:;, are made to agree directly -oitli three neuters — an insuperable and very bald grammatical difficulty. But if the disputed "u'ords are al- lowed to stand, they agi'ee directly \ni\\ two masculines and one neuter noun, 6 Ua-r^rt, b Aoyoc, xai zb dycou ITi^s~jua; where, ac- cording to a well known rale of syntax, the masculines among the gi'oup control the gender over a neuter connected "udth them. Then the occurrence of the masculines TptT:: /larjTopouuTs:: in the eighth verse agreeing •u'ith the neuters, TTvvjua, 'Joojo and al/jay may be accounted for by the power of attraction, so well known in Greek syntax, and by the fact that the Ui^toua, the leading noun of this second group, and next to the adjectives, has just had a species of masculineness superinduced upon it by its pre- ^a-ous position in the masculine group. Second^ if the excision is made, the eighth verse coming next to the sixth, gives us a very bald and awkward, and apparently meaningless, repetition of the Spirit's -^^-itness t^N'ice in immediate succession. Third, if the excision is made, then the proposition at the end of the eighth verse, xai o\ tfttic eiz rb iu ecacv, contains an unintelligible refer- ence. The insuperable awkwardness of this chasm in the mean- ing is obscured in the authorized English version, " and these three agree in one." Let a version be given which shall do fair jiTstice to the force of the definite article here, as established by the Greek idiom and of the whole construction, thus : " and these three agree to that (aforesaid) One," the argument appears. TThat is that aforesaid unity to which these three agree ? If the seventh verse is exscinded, there is none : the to iv so clearly designated by the definite article, as an object to which the reader has already been introduced, has no antecedent presence in the passage. Let the seventh verse stand, and all is clear: the three earthly -sWtnesses testif}- to that aforementioned unity which the Father, Word, and Spirit constitute.
But, fourtJi, the internal e^-idence from the apostle's scope is, if possible, still more conclusive. He had just asserted (verses 1 to 6) the essential importance of faith as the instrumental bond of our spmtual Kfe and the only victory over the •world. To exert such energy, faith must have a solid warrant. And the thing of which faith must be assured is the true sonship and proper divinity of Christ. See emphatically verse 5 with verses 11, 12, 20. The only faith that quickens the soul and overcomes
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 379
the world is the belief (verse 5) that Jesus is God's Son, that God has appointed him our Life (compare John's Gospel, v. 21, 26), and that this Life is true or veritahle God. Now, then, the apostle's scope is to answer this question : On what icarvant shall our faith accept these wondrous propositions about Jesus ? The ninth verse gives us the key-note of his answer : On GocTs tear- rant. This divine warrant (nothing less would answer) comes to ue,Ji/'si (y^rse 6), in the words of the Holy Ghost speaking by his inspired men. (See John's Gospel, xvi. 8, etc.^ It comes to us, second (verse 7), in the words of the Father, the "Word, and the Spirit, asserting and confirming by miracles the sonship and unity of Jesus Christ -svith the Father (as in Matt. iii. 16, 17 ; John V. 37 ; Matt. xii. 28 ; John viii. 18 ; xv. 26 ; and such like places). It comes to us, third (verse 8), in the work of the Holy Ghost applying the blood and water from Christ's pierced side for our cleansing, in accordance with ancient types and modern sac- raments, which concur in the doctrine of Christ's divinity. It comes to uii, fourth (verse 10), in the spiritual consciousness of the believer himself, certifying to him that he feels wdthin a divine change. How consistent, how accordant with John's modes of teaching, how harmonious is all this, if we accept the seventh verse as genuine ? But, if we exscind it, the very key- stone of the arch of evidence is wanting ; the crowning proof that the vxirrant of our faith is divine (verse 9) is struck out.
The probability in favor of the reading which thus arises is confirmed when we remember the circumstances in view of which the apostle John undoubtedly wrote this passage. AiTthentic tradition teaches us that John spent his latest years at and near Ephesus. Internal marks evince what that tradition testifies, that this epistle was written in those latter years, and for his own spiritual children in those regions. He tells them that the purpose of his ^vTiting was to warn them against seducers (ii. 26), whose heresy, long predicted, was now developed, and was characterized by a denial of the proper sonship (ii. 26) and in- carnation (iv. 2) of Jesus Christ. Now we know that these heretics were Ebionites, and chiefly Cerinthians and Nicolai- tanes. Irenreus, Epiphanius, and other fathers, tell us that they all vitiated the doctrine of the Trinity. Cerinthus taught that Jesus was not miractdously born of a virgin, and that the " Word " Christ was not truly and eternally divine, but a sort of angelic
380 THE DOCTRINAL VAEIOUS READINGS
Aiofi, associated witli the natural man Jesus up to his crucifixion. The sect of Nicolaitanes is most probably identified with the Gnostic DocetfB, who denied that the Aion Christ had a real body, ascribing to him only a seeming or phantasmal body and blood. It can scarcely be doubted that these are the errors against which John is here fortifying the faith of his "children." Then, the very point of the seventh verse in the disputed passage was obtruded upon the apostle's attention when he was writing it. Is it not hard to believe that he should, under the circum- stances, wTite anything but what the received text ascribes to him ? If we let the seventh verse stand, then the whole passage is framed, with apostolic wisdom, to exclude at once both heresies. In verse seventh he refutes the Cerinthian, declaring the unity of the Father, Word, and Spirit, and with the strictest accuracy, employing the 7ieute?\ ev elacv, to fix the very point which Cerin- thus denied, the unity of the three persons in one common sub- stance. He then refutes the Nicolaitanes, declaring the proper humanity of Jesus, and the actual shedding and application by the Spirit of that water and blood of whose effusion he was him- self eye-witness, and to which he testifies in his gospel so em- phatically, in chapter xix. 34, 35. We agree here with Calvin, in regarding " the water and the blood " as not a direct reference to the sacraments of baptism and the supper, but to that blood and water which came from the Redeemer's side, of which our two sacraments are emblems. The shedding of that water and blood, witnessed by the apostle himself, evinced that Jesus was the true antitype to the Hebrew laver and altar, and to all the ritual of both in all ages ; that water and blood, applied by the Holy Ghost, cleansing believers from depravity and guilt, mark Christ as the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," the pro- mised Jehovah-Christ, Immanuel, of both dispensations. Now, when we hear the apostle tell his " children," in the chapter above cited from his own Epistle, that the two heresies against whose se- ductions he designed by this wnriting to guard them were these, the denial of Christ's sonship to God and the denial of his incarna- tion, and when we see him in his closing testimony exclude pre- cisely these two errors, there is a coherency in the whole which presents a very strong internal evidence for the genuineness of the received text. It is, moreover, very interesting to notice the common cu'cumstances connecting this with the two other great
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GEEEK. 381
Trinitarian readings which the old MSS. (so-called) concur iu excluding, Acts xx. 28 ; 1 Tim. iii. 16. Paul uttered the dis- course of Acts XX. to the elders of this same Ephesian church, in which John almost certainly wrote this epistle. The former there forewarns the elders of the coming Cerinthians and Nicolai- tanes under the name of "grievous wolves." Paul wrote the First Epistle to Timothy when he placed him as evangeUst in this same Ephesian church, and he advertises him in it of the pre- sence of this " Gnosis^ We are thus led to see how Paul and John make common cause against these hated errors. We see with what object they shaped their declarations, so as to leave the most distinct testimony on the disputed points. Paul takes occasion to say that the church was ransomed with divine blood, and to tell Timothy that the very God was manifest in the flesh. John testifies that the Father, the Word, and the Spirit are one, and that the humanity was as real as the divinity.
But it is clearly admitted that, for the genuineness of the seventh verse, there is very little authority from Greek MSS It has, thus far, been found in only two of the many hundreds which have been collated — the Montfort MS. in the University Library of Dublin, which is supposed by some to be of little authority, because suspected of having been conformed to the Latin ; and in the Codex Wizanbiirgensis, which Lachmann reckons of the eighth century. But a more faithful examination of the Mont- fort MS. shows that the suspicion of its being a modern forgery is certainly unfounded ; and that, on the contrary, this codex, so much spoken against has several peculiar marks of antiquity and interest besides this disputed verse. The chief MS. authority which can be cited for it is that of the Latin versions. It is found in all the codices of these, with a few exceptions ; and not only in those representing the Latin Vulgate, but those which preserve to us ^QYetus Itala. So, likewise, the patristic au- thority for this reading is confined to Latin fathers ; but among these, it is cited as genuine scripture by several, among whom may be mentioned Tertullian and Cyprian, as both early and well- informed, and the Council of Carthage, and a multitude of others in the later ages. In a word, it seems that this reading, omitted almost unanimously by the Greek MSS*., is asserted as genuine scripture with almost equal unanimity by Latin Christendom; and that from the earliest ages. In favor of this testimony of
382 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
the West are tliese considerations : that the Yetus ItaJa was con- fessedly translated from the Greek Scriptures at a very early age, certainly within a centxiry from the death of the apostles ; that in the great persecutions, the Western, and especially the African churches, in which we find the earliest citations of the passage, did not lose their sacred books to so great an extent as the Greek churches; that the ancient Latin churches were comparatively untainted ^\dth Arianism, the suspected source of corruptions; and that in the contest with the Arians, the Council of Carthage, as well as many other fathers, appeal with unquestioning confi- dence to this very verse as a decisive testimony against them.
This, then, seems to be the sum of the matter. As to 1 John V. 7, the Latin Church stands opposed to the Greek. As to the other various readings afi'ecting the doctrine of Christ's di- vinity, the body of the Greek MSS., representing the xocvj ixooai^, stands, in the main, opposed to the three so-called oldest codices. These variations are too numerous, and too significant in their effect upon the one doctrine, to be ascribed to chance. We seem, then, to be reduced, by a strong probability, to the adoption of one of these conclusions : either that the received readings are corrupt interpolations of the Trinitarians, or that the omissions of them were dishonest mutilations of the Arians, and other Anti- trinitarians. Which of these conclusions shall we adopt ? The answer seems to be in substance this : the date is so remote, and so many of the records of that age have perished, that no decisive settlement of the question is now possible ; yet the probabilities strongly tend to fix the blame upon the Anti-trini- tarians.
In support of this conclusion^ we remark, first, that there are strong probable grounds to conclude, that the text of the Scrip- tures current in the East received a mischievous modification at the hands of the famous Origen, which has not been usually appreciated. The learned reader needs only to be reminded of his transcendent reputation and influence as a critic and exposi- tor, especially over Pamphilus, Evisebius Pamphili, and the monkish theologians of the fourth and fifth centuries. The chief critical labor of Origen, which is usually mentioned, is his JTe.ra- ■pla of the Old Testament Scriptures. But it is known that he was an indefatigable collector of New Testament MSS., and a voluminous expositor; and that while no edition of the New
or THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 383
Testament Scriptures is traced directly to his editorial labors, like the Ilexapla, the readings which he adopted in his scholia and commentaries were, unquestionably, much followed by his admirers iu transcribing the New Testament. In a word, Origan was, during the times of the Sabellian and Arian controversies, the Magnus Aj^ollo of oriental biblical scholars, and his criti- cal opinions were regarded by them as almost infaUible. Now, what manner of man was Origen ? He is described by Mosheim (in his Com. de Rehus Christ, Vol. II., p. 144) as " a compound of contraries, wise and unwise, acute and stupid, judicious and in- judicious ; the enemy of superstition, and its patron ; a strenuous defender of Christianity, and its corrupter ; energetic and irreso- lute ; one to whom the Bible owes much, and from whom it has suffered mtich." While he gained, amidst the superstitious con- temporaries who then gave character to Eastern Christianity, a splendid reputation for sanctity, as well as learning, his char- acter was evidently dishonest and tricky, and his judgment most erratic. The disgraceful story that his condemnation by his bishop, Demetrius, and his flight from Alexandria, were caused by his apostasy to Paganism under the impulse of fear, is not only detailed by Epiphanius, the great enemy of Origenism, but by Cedremus and Suidas. As a controversialist, he was wholly unscrupulous. His reputation as the great introducer of mys- ticism, allegory, and Neo-Platonism into the Christian church, is too well known to need recital. Those who are best acquainted with the history of Christian opinion know best, that Origen was the great corrupter, and the source, or at least earliest channel, of nearly all the speculative errors which plagued the chiirch in after ages. This general character, coupled with his influence as autocrat among the biblical critics, is enough to excite well- grounded suspicion.
But these suspicions are confirmed when we examine the par- ticular traits of his system. He was strictly a nationalist. No wonder that modern Bationalistic critics should manifest an instinctive sympathy with him, which gives weight to his critical testimony ! He disbelieved the fuU inspiration and infaUibihty of the Scriptures, holding that the inspired men apprehended and stated many things obscurely. His philosophy was that of Ammonius, who asserted a common religion in all the schemes of philosophy, includimj the Bible, which only needed the ex-
384 THE DOCTRINAL VARIOUS READINGS
cision of the excrescences and misconceptions added by poets and priests, to make their universal harmony appear ; and the key-note of all Origen's labors was the effort to reconcile Chris- tianity and this eclectic Pagan philosophy into a substantial unity. He held, as his theory of exposition, that there are three senses of Scripture — the grammatical or literal, the spiritual, and the anagogical; that the- first sense does not exist at all in many places, but only the second or third ; that the attempt to impose a literal grammatical sense on those places would lead us to ab- solute falsehood and nonsense ; and that the mere words are, accordingly, of no importance. His opinions on the Trinity veered between Sabellianism and Arianism. He expressly de- nied the consubstantial unity of the Persons and the proper incarnation of the Godhead — the very propositions most clearly asserted in the doctrinal various readings we have under review. His theory was, that the objections of the philosophers, and of the Marcionites and Valentinians, to many supposed facts and dogmas which seem to be' contained in the grammatical sense of the Bible, would be unanswerable if that sense is asserted ; and that the only solution was to discard that sense, and advance allegorical meanings instead. Nolan charges that his method of citing the Scriptures is inconsistent and vacillating; that he often cites from heretical codices and readings; that he often proposes to correct the text of the New Testament by the sup- posed indications of the Septuagint, and even of heretical com- ments, upon the most reckless and licentious critical principles. "As he had labored to supersede the authorized version of the Old Testament, he contributed to weaken the authority of the received text of the New. In the course of his commentaries he cited the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, on the former part of the canon ; he appealed to the authority of Valentinus and Heracleon on the latter. While he thus raised the credit of these revisals which had been made by the heretics, he detracted from the authority of that text which had been received by the orthodox. Some difficulties which he found himself unable to solve in the evangelists he undertook to re- move, by expressing his doubts of the integrity of the text. In some instances he ventured to impeach the reading of the New Testament on the testimony of the Old, and to convict the copies of one Gospel on the evidence of another." {Nolan, pp. 432,
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 385
433.) Sucli are the charges which this learned writer founds on a laborious review of Origen's critical efforts. This acute critic also charges that a number of the most characteristic discre- pancies between the Greek Vulgate or Constantinopolitan text, and the texts current from Origen's day in Palestine and Egypt, are distinctly traceahle to a Marcionite or Yalentinlan source; and that Origei^s was demonstrahly the mediating hand for introducing those corruptions into the lacter texts. See his work, pp. 470 to 509, where he traces the readings from the Apocryphal Gospels of those Gnostics, through Origen's comments. We especially commend to the admirers of the Oriental and Egyptian codices these concluding words of Nolan: "Through various channels those readings might have crept into the edition of Eusebius. The Scripture text of Tatian, which most probably conformed in many respects to the Gospel and Apostolicum of Marcion, the text of Hesychius," (the Alexandrian,) " which was compiled from various apocryphal works, and the commentaries of Origen, which abounded in quotations drawTi from heretical revisals of Scripture, opened a prolific source, whence they directly passed into the Palestine edition. The facilities of correcting this text from Origen's writings, and the blind reverence in which that ancient father was held in the school of Csesarea, seem to have rendered the corruption of this text unavoidable ; short annota- tions, or scholia, had been inserted by Origen in the margin of his copies of Scripture; and the number of these had been con- siderably augmented by Eusebius, most probably by extracts taken from Origen's commentaries. A comparison between the text and comment constantly pointed out variations in the read- ing ; and Origen's authority being definitive on subjects of sacred criticism, the inspired text was amended by the comments. Had we no other proof of this assertion than the feasibility of the matter, and the internal evidence of the Greek MSS., we might thence assume the truth of the fact, vsdthout much danger of erring. But this point is placed beyond conjecture by the most unquestionable documents. In some MSS. containing the Pales- tine text, it is recorded that they were transcribed from copies the originals of which had been 'corrected by Eusebius.' In the celebrated Codex Marchalianus the whole process observed in correcting the text is openly avowed. The reviser there can- didly states that, 'havings procured the explanatory tomes of
Vol. I.— 26.
386 TEE DOCTRINAL VAEIOUS READINGS
Origen, he accurately investigated the sense in which he ex- phiiued every word, as far as was possible, and corrected every- thing ambiguous according to his notion.' After this exphcit acknowledgment, it seems unnecessary further to prolong this discussion."
Thus far Nolans Inquiry. Now it is worthy of notice that these Trinitarian proof-texts, which appear in the Greek and Latin Vidgate, but are wanting in the old codices of the Palestine and Egyptian, were aimed by the apostles who wrote them pre- cisely against Ebionite and Gnostic heresies. How natural that when, through the ill-starred manipulation of Origen, the text was infected from those heretical sources, these very readings should disappear? There appears a strong probabihty, then, that "the learned Origen" is least of all entitled to that autho- rity which the recent critics claim for him as a witness to the state of the genuine readings ; but that, if the whole truth could be recovered, he would be found the original corrupter of the text. We would particularly invoke the reader's attention to these admitted facts. This overweening confidence in the lit- erary autocrat of Cffisarea did not much extend to the Latin churches or to Byzantium and Greece. It chiefly affected the East. The "Western churches were never infected with the Origenist controversies, which convulsed the churches of the East during the fourth and fifth centuries. Again : the admi- ration of Origen's learning and opinions was chiefly hmited to the monasteries. The fanatical monks generally swore by him almost as their God, because his self-emasculation, asceticism, mysticism, self-righteousness, and superstition, exactly favored monkery. The secular clergy usually condemned his senti- ments and influence ; and it was by a Byzantine council of such clergy that his name was finally fixed (where it belongs) in the list of heretics. Couple now with this the fact asserted by our recent critics in favor of their preferred codices, that they were obviously copied for monastic libraries, and not for liturgical use in churches. We conclude that there is so much the more pro- bability they embody the Origenist corruptions. And the judg- ment which depreciates the liturgical codices as compared with the monastic will be reversed : we shall conclude that the church MSS. were originally the truest. Once more. We shall be pre- pared to believe that the Western early version, where Origen-
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 387
ism had then no currency, reflects the original purity of the test, even more tnily than the Greek MSS. prevalent after Origen's day in Palestine and Egjnpt. The testimony of the old Italic in favor of 1 John v. 7 is therefore more weighty than at first ap- peared.
Let us descend now to the epoch of the Arian heresy, and we shall find in Eusebius of Caesarea another probable source of mutilation of the original text. His also was a clarum et vener- abile nomen^ with the corrupt and fantastical religionism of the day. He was a bhnd admirer of Origen, and constantly made tacit pretensions of being, through Pamphilus, the lineal successor to his fame and influence. He was in theology a semi- Arian ; in church politics, tricky and time-serving ; to the pretentious tyrant, Constantino the Great, a truckling sycophant. "Whatever proof exists that Origen and his school deteriorated the correctness of the text, it is to the same extent clear that Eusebius accepted and perpetuated that injury. His employment by the Emperor Constantine to edit fifty complete codices of the Scriptures, as detailed in his life of that prince, may be received as being as authentic as any part of the history. Theodoret [Eccles. Hist., Bk. I., Ch. 16) professes to give the very words of this command. The emperor does not assign the destruction of the sacred books in the last persecution, or any resulting scarcity, as the cause of the want, but only the prosperity and rapid advancement of Christianity, requiring more ample appliances. This transaction, therefore, gives no support to the statement which some have in- sinuated, that the original exooac<; current in the Greek regions had been obliterated by persecution. And it is certain that the recension which finally prevailed in the patriarchate of Consti- nople (the xocv-rj Ixooacz) is very far from being this Eusebian edi- tion. Yet the reputation of the editor and the force of royal favor must have given it some currency and some influence over the received text. Tischendorf, as we have seen, surmises that the Sinaitic Codex is one of these veritable Eusebian MSS. pre- sented to the monastery of St. Catharine by Justinian, the suc- cessor of Constantine. Now we are not left whoUy in the dark as to the character of this edition. The Eusebian Canons, as they are called, a species of table by which the parallel passages might be found in the four gospels, have come down to us ; and they disclose the fact that this father excluded Mark xvi. 9 to
388 THE DOCTKINAL VARIOUS READINGS
end, and John vii. 53 to viii. 11, from the text. For the canons contain a complete enumeration of all the chapters and sections, or (TTcj^oi, which he recognized, not only arranging those which he considered as parallel against each other, but those places which he considered as unique, but genuine, by themselves. These canons for finding the parallel passages seem to have had a wide currency after Eusebius's day, as they are attached to many Greek MSS., and even to some MSS. of versions. Now, the amount of the evidence from them is the following : If it is proved that the two important passages omitted were genuine parts of the gospels before his day, then it is clear that he en- deavored to exscind them, and their absence from so many MSS. and versions is very naturally accounted for by his dishonest ex- ample. But the evidences of their claim to a place in the Gos- pels are conclusive, especially the internal. Nor are Eusebius's works lacking in intimations, at least as to the history of the woman taken in adultery, that he was disposed to exscind it upon the ground of a misunderstanding of its true scope. So, the sup- posed contradiction between Mark's account of our Saviour's acts after his resurrection and that of the other evangelists was, as we know, regarded as a great difficulty in the way of its ad- mission. But if there is any case where Bengel's rule, that the harder reading is to be preferred over the easier, is applicable, it is here, where the apparent collision lies so on the surface, that it must almost necessarily have deterred the copyists of that day from interpolating it had it not been already a part of the text. We conclude, then, on the whole, that the connection of Eusebius with the text is suspicious, and that there is a strong probability it suffered again from his hands.
To estimate the probability that the Arian party also -injured the integrity of the Trinitarian readings in some places, we must remember their temporary triumph in the East under Constan- tine's successors ;- their reckless and unprincipled persecuting spirit; the villainous means to which they are known to have resorted to gain their ends, fraud, lying, subornation (as in the case of the venerable Bishop Athanasius and Eustathius of An- tioch), and violence, and the charges of mutilating the sacred books made against them by the orthodox. Athanasius, for in- stance, in his first Encychcal Letter against the Arians to the bishops of Egypt and Lybia, charges it upon them, as one of
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 389
their customary tricks to deceive the unwary, that they advanced deceitful readings of the Scriptures. (Yol. I., p. 287, A.) The fact which Nolan cites is also full of significance, that the Con- stantinopolitan exooac^ is found to contain all the readings which we know from their extant writings the Arians were wont to urge against the proper divinity of Christ. It appears also that there is no evidence the Arians ever had to complain of their orthodox opponents for tampering with the integrity of the text in order to refute them. Here, then, were the facts. The Arians were notoriously unscrupulous. They were openly charged w^th corrupting the text for polemical purposes. They could not bring any such charge against the orthodox. The codices which their orthodox adversaries used honestly retained all the read- ings which the Arians supposed damaging to orthodoxy. But here is a class of codices which present a very singular and sus- picious resemblance in omitting certain readings particularly damaging to Arianism. This dogma is, as it happens, the only important one involved in the various readings. The coinci- dences are too regular to be accounted for by fortuitous influ- ences— somebody has played the knave with the text, either the so-called orthodox by corruptly interpolating, or some Anti-trini- tarians by dishonestly mutilating. The alternative is between the two hypotheses. Let the candid reader choose between them in the hght of these facts. We think that he will conclude with us that the w^eight of probability is greatly in favor of this theory, viz., that the Anti-triniiarians, finding certain codices in which these doctrinal readings had heen already lost through the licentious criticism of Origen and his school, industriously diffused them, while they also did' what they dared to add to the omissions of similar readings.
Let us, then, briefly sum up the results attempted in this dis- cussion. If all the debated readings were surrendered by us, no fact or doctrine of Christianity would thereby be invalidated, and least of all would the doctrine of Christ's proper divinity be de- prived of adequate scriptural support. Hence the interests of orthodoxy are entirely secure from and above the reach of aU movements of modern criticism of the text, whether made in a correct or incorrect method, and all such discussions in future are to the church of subordinate importance. Yet they have their interest, and should receive the inteUigent watch of the
390 DOCTRINAL READINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
teachers of the church. Absolute historical certainty of results is not to be expected, since so many of the documents of the primitive church are gone forever ; but probable conclusions are all which are to be expected. But, after all, the weight of that probability brings back the critical conclusions to the theory of Nolan and Scholz, restoring the claims of the Kotvrj ^ Exdoaa;, or received text, to be a faithful one, and invalidating the claims of exclusive accuracy made by our recent critics in favor of the bo- called oldest codices.
THE REYISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT/
ON the 20tli of May last, the curiosity of the English-speak- ing people as to the final result of the revision of the New Testament, raised to a high tension by delay, received its grati- fication. Thomas Nelson & Sons, on behalf of the Enghsh Uni- versity presses, began at one o'clock a. m. the promised sale. In four days, amidst scenes of unwonted excitement, sale was made of four hundred thousand copies. The ocean telegraph states that one milHon copies were sold in London in about the same time. This enormous sale, with the universal discussion of the revision in the newspaper press, is referred to as a splendid evi- dence of the vitality of the Christian religion in our day, and of the power of the Bible. Of course the revision of no other book could excite such attention. But the popular furor is rather an evidence of that Athenian trait, fostered by the prurient civihza- tion of Britain and America, the craving " either to tell or to hear some new thing." It remains to be seen whether, after curiosity is sated, the Scriptures will be more read or more obeyed than before. To make this result permanent, something more is re- quired than a literary enterprise — the power of the Holy Ghost.
Seemliness requires us to take note of it as a literary event. Our purpose is not detailed criticism ; of this even village week- lies give specimens. We only aim to signalize some facts con- cerning the revision for the guidance of intelligent readers.
1. The work originated eleven years ago, in an action of the " Convocation of Canterbury" (the Episcopal Convention of that Province of the Anghcan Church.) This raised an Old Testa- ment and a New Testament committee of revision. The latter is the one with which alone we now have to do. It contained twenty-five members, with EUicott, Bishop of Gloucester, as chairman, of whom nineteen were Episcopal dignitaries and six
' This article appeared in tlie Southern Presbyterian Review for July, 1881, re- viewing the Revised Version of the New Testament. New York : Thomas Nelson & Sons.
391
392 THE REVISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
"Dissenters." Afterwards it was judged proper to secure Amer- ican cooperation. To tliis end, Dr. Pliilip Schaff, of tlie Union (Presbyterian) Seminary in New York city, was invited to Lon- don ; and, on conference with the British committee, was autho- rized to select an American committee to examine the work of the British, and report and exchange criticism. Dr. Schaff se- lected some nineteen or twenty divines in his corner of the country, representing the Congregational, Northern Methodist, Immersionist, Northern Presbj^terian, Episcopal, Unitarian, and Quaker sects. These continued the species of cooperation al- lowed them until the completion of the work.
It is obvious from this statement that, effectively, the revision is not an American, but exclusively a. British work. Only a part of the American churches, and a very small section of the coun- try, were represented in the work, even in this nominal manner. Second, these local representatives seem to have been selected by Dr. Schaff doubtless on conference with other gentlemen, but by no ecclesiastical authority, and by ho standard but that of convenience and his estimate of their scholarship. And third, these so-called American revisers were not allowed coordinate authority with the British committee. I': appears that they were allowed to suggest criticisms, which- the British committee re- jected or adopted as to them seemed good, while the American committee had no power to reject the British decisions. Con- sequently, a large part — perhaps the most, if secrets w^ere di- vulged— of the suggestions of the Americans appear only in the form of an appendix.
2. A revision naturally falls into two parts : the more correct ascertainment of the text to be translated, and an amendment of the translation itself. The committees have taken in hand the fkst of these tasks with vigor. They give us a text which boldly departs from the textus recej^tus. The salient trait of their work here is, that, as to nearly all the important and contested " va- rious readings," whose genuineness has been and is subject of debate among competent biblical critics, the committees have arrogated to themselves the prerogative of deciding, and deciding on the side of innovation. Two of these contested passages have, indeed, been allowed to stand : the history of the woman taken in adultery, John viii. 2-11 ; and the closing words of Mark's Gos- pel, xvi. 9-20. But of the other readings which the scholar re-
THE EEVISED VERSION OP THE NEW TESTAMENT. 393
cognizes as classical and -undecided topics of debate among critics, the most ai-e decided for the innovators : the omission of the doxology from the Lord's Prayer, Matt. vi. 13 ; the excision of Philip's answer to the Ethiopian, Acts viii. 37 ; the suppres- sion of the word "God," Acts xx. 28, where the received text teaches us that the church was purchased with divine blood ; the suppression of "God," in 1 Tim. iii. 16, "God manifested in the flesh ; " the excision of the three witnesses in heaven, 1 John v. 7 ; the suppression of the angel's agency at the pool of Bethesda. John V. 4, etc.
This journal, foreseeing the danger of too rash an innovation in our received text, foreshadowed by the spirit of the revisers, endeavored to sound a note of caution in its number for April, 1871, in a discussion of Tlschendorf s Sinai Codex. It was there shown that the canons of excision, on which the school of critics now in fashion proceed with unquestioning confidence, are neither demonstrated nor safe ; that the ages assigned to the leading un- cial manuscripts were rather surmises than proofs ; that the gen- eral maxim, an uncial is more ancient than a cursive, was not cer- tain ; that the rule for valuing the internal evidence in favor of or against a reading, "the difficult reading has the preference," is unfounded and deceptive ; that the clear internal marks of sectarian tamperings, in the case of the important doctrinal various readings, were not duly pondered. The fears there ex- pressed have been verified. Decisions have been made against the received text, in cases where the critical debate is still unde- cided ; and that, in cases of cardinal importance. Nor are the grounds of these innovations always stated with candor in their justificatory publications. For instance, in 1 Tim. iii. 16, the 0^6^ is changed iuio" 0^, thus suppressing the name of God in the text, " Great is the mystery of godliness, God inanifest in the Jlesh,^^ etc., and making it "mystery of godliness w^ho Avas manifest in the flesh," etc. But our revisers, after changing the Greek, do not translate as we have just written, as their own change should have required; they paraphrase, " mystery of godliness: he who was manifest," etc. This is but an expedient, unwarranted by their own preferred text, to cover from the readers' eyes the insu- perable internal evidence against reading the relative oq instead of 6-6' ; that for the relative there is no antecedent in the pas- sage. So they intrude an antecedent ! Yet this does not give
394 THE REVISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
them, still, a tenable sense; for Christ is never called by Paul the mystery, or blessed secret, of godliness. It is the doctrine about Christ which he always so calls. Nor are the defenders of this innovation even candid in their statement as to the testi- mony of the MSS., when they say, no old uncial has ^eoc. The Alexandrine indisputably has it now. True, the bar in the circle, which differentiates the theta from the oinicroh, is said to have the appearance of fresher ink ; yet it is confessedly an open ques- tion, at least, whether the fresher ink may not be the mere re- placement of the original ink of the bar, which was found to have scaled oflf (a thing which is known to happen to old parchment MSS). This is every way most probable; so that the prima facie evidence of the Alexandrine MS. is for Qtbz.
From this specimen the reader may judge on the principle, ex pede HerculeTYh^ how the text is handled. But there is a graver general objection against the authority arrogated to decide what is the true text, against that hitherto accepted by the church ; it is an authority concerning the correctness or incorrectness of whose exercise the Revised Testament provides no data for the reader's judgment. But the biblical critics who guided the re- visers to make these innovations in the text are not popes. The rest of us Bible readers have not lost the right of private judg- ment as to this or any other point. If the Greek Testament, which the church has seen fit to use, is to be changed, we are entitled to have the supposed (critical) grounds for that change spread before us for our judgment. The Revised Testament condescends to give no such gi'ounds. Is it said, such critical matter would be a wholly unsuitable annex to a popular Bible ? Just so ; and there- fore the power arrogated in this matter is wholly unsuitable for the revisers. There is an essential difference between this exer- cise of power and that of amending a translation ; that, in the latter case, the data of comparison and judgment go along with the amendment, at least to every educated man in the church who has in his hand a received Greek text. That text is the um- pire, and the reader can compare with it the old translation and the new, and judge for himself which is the more faithful. But upon the plan piu'sued by these revisers the church will have no textus receptus of the Greek ; i. e., unless she be willing to accept it on the ipse dixit of the revisers. This is in substance the ob- jection made by the most learned and conservative critics of our
THE BEVISED VEESION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 395
Southern Church against the plan of Lachmanris text, a plan thoroughly revolutionary in its tendency, however executed in his particular hands, a plan of which these revisers seem especi- ally enamored.
Once more : This over-innovating spirit as to the textus recep- tus is manifested by the unduly depreciating strain in which the revisers now represent its merits. The members of the last As- sembly will recall a notable instance of this tone in the remarks made before it in commendation of the revisers' work. We were told that the textus i^eceptus was virtually the text settled in Eras- mus's latest edition, and that it was now known that he had col- lated but five or six cursive MSS. of no antiquity and of small authority. Such was the whole showing made for it ! And every member of the Assembly can bear witness that the popular impression made and apparently designed was, that our received text had all along been almost worthless as authority, and only right, as it were, by chance ! Now here we charge a s^qjjjresslo veri. First, it was not stated that the subsequent editors, as Stephens, who matured the textus receptus, had the advantage of collating the great Compluterisian Polyglot, edited at royal ex- pense, under the auspices of the first scholar of his age. Cardinal Ximenes, from the collation of Spanish and Vatican MSS., and therefore checking or confirming the Erasmian text by indepen- dent witnesses from a different part of Christendom. Next, there was a suppression of this all-important fact, that since the devel- opment of the vast critical apparatus of our century, the textus receptus, whether by good fortune or by the critical sagacity of Erasmus or by the superintendence of a good providence, has heea found to stand the ordeal amazhigly loell, has been accredited instead of discredited by the critical texts. So sHght were the modifications in its readings clearly determined by the vast col- lations made by the critics of the immediately preceding genera- tion (collations embracing every one of the boasted uncials, except the Sinai MS.), that of all the important various readings only one (1 John V. 7,) has been given up to excision by a unanimous con- sent of competent critics. Now, the state of facts is this : the question is, of the correctness of the textus receptus. The stan- dard of comparison is the result of the most prudent and exten- sive collations. The evidence of correctness is simply in the agreement of that result with the received text. If there is that
396 THE REVISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
general ^gi-eement, as there is, the question of time, wlietlier the text was printed before the result of the collation, does not touch the evidence. Now, our charge is, that this history of the re- sults of the critical work of the age is suppressed in order to dis- parage the received text. It is well known that after Griesbach. a critic of a revolutionary temper, had issued his text, departing widely from the received one. the steady tendency of later critics, as Halin, Scholz, etc., guided by wider collations and better crit- ical evidence, has been to return towards the textus recephis on many of the readings where Griesbach had departed from it. And now it is credibly stated that Tischendorf's latest edition, as compared Avith his earliest, exhibits the same tendency. His first impidse, while excited by his discovery of the Sinai MS., was adverse ; but the leaning of his riper experience was more favor- able. He also found "the old wine was better."
We have left ourselves little time or space for the second branch of the revision — improvements in the translation itself. That a number of the changes are improvements, is undisputed. Under all the heads promised by the re\asers, removal of obsolete archaisms, observance of uniformity in rendering the same words and locutions whenever they occur in the same way, conforming Hebrew names to the Old Testament spelling, correcting positive errors, and supplying omissions of King James's Yersion, and re- moving ambiguities therein, praiseworthy improvements have been made. Two only "vvill be mentioned : Acts xx. 28, i-ia/.o-o'jz, indisputably identified with ~()trTo>jTepoo^, is translated "bish- ops," instead of " overseers." In John viii. 34 ; Luke x\ai. 7 (margin); Titus i. 1 (margin), etc., the word "servant," which had become ambiguous, meaning in modern English no more than employe, i^ re^\ai,ced. by "bond-servant." This brings out the true logic of the passages.
But there are other places where greater accuracy or clearness is needed, in which the errors of the old version are perpetuated. Thus : Luke and the apostles always use the two words o2xo^ and olxla in precise conformity with their classical meanings. Liter- ally and materially, or/.o^ is the particular dwelling or apartment occupied by the head of the family and his wife and children ; tropically, it is the family proper, the parents and their own offspring. Literally, the olxia is the whole curtilage or premises of the proprietor ; tropically, it is the whole household, including
THE KEVISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 397
slaves and dependents. See this accurate distinction beautifully followed in both senses (Acts xvi. 31-34). But in Acts x\'i. 15 (Lydia's case), Acts s-vi. 32, this distinction is wholly lost in the new version. In 1 Cor i. 16, and 1 Cor. xvi. 15, the new version exactly reverses the tnie meaning, making the apostle do pre- cisely what he says he did not do. What Paul says is, that he baptized the olxo^ — house — family proper, of Stephanas; and that his ocxta household, slaves and dependents, " addicted them- selves to the ministry of the saints."
In Acts xx-sn. 28, 29, the old version : " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," is emasculated by a paraphrase which is not really a translation : " With but little persuasion thou wouldst fain make me a Christian." If this has any meaning, it repre- i3ents Agrippa as either ironically or resentfully charging on Paul the insolence of desiring and attempting to make him, the king, a follow^er of the Nazarene, by sHght and trivial persuasions. Now, we submit that this is not the idiomatic force of iy d?Jyaj ; that there is not in the tense or construction of the verb, TTsc&ti::, trace or hint of a conditional proposition, and that the meaning is absolutely out of joint with the following verse.
In Matt. xvi. 26, the famous text on the woiiih of the soul is spoiled by reading, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his ow^n hfe?" The advocates of this change admit that </"->-)(^^ often unquestionably means "soul." But they appeal to that canon of interpretation that two mean- ings must never be ascribed to the same word in one context ; and then they appeal to the twenty-fifth verse, where </>o'/ij is (in the old version as weU as the new) rendered, necessarily, "life." "Whosoever will save his life shaU lose it." etc. But "we reply : the canon is not of universal force, as witness 1 Cor. iii. 17, where f&eiptc is rendered both "defile" and "de- stroy" in the same verse. True, the new version, even here, endeavors to carry out its rule : "If any man destroy the temple of God, him shall God destroy ;" but it is done by out- raging the context and sacrificing the apostle's true meaning. We reply again, that the rendering of ^y/57' by " hfe," in Matt. x\'i. 25, is not necessary. Calvin renders it by soul all through the passage. This is entirely tenable, and indeed gives a finer shade of meaning to our Saviour's words. And last, the render- ing of (p'r/^ by "life," in the twenty-sixth verse, does not express
398 THE EEYISED VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAIVIENT.
our Sa^-ioiir's meaning. Since the full woiidlj prosperitv, which is contrasted vnih. redemption, implies continued life, he would not have represented the man who lost Jiis life as having "gained the whole world."
But perhaps the most lamentable change is that of 2 Tim. iii. 16. There the old version correctly renders Ilaaa ypacfrj d^eoTZ- VBUoToc:, xal coifihfJLO^ Tzpb^ ocoaaxal'iav: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable," etc. The enemies of the Bible have long sought to defraud us of this e"sddence of full in- spiration by making it read : "Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable," etc. The poisonous suggestion intended is that, among the parts of the " scripture " some are inspired and some are not. Our Bible contains fallible parts ! the very doc- trine of the Socinian and Rationalist. This treacherous ver- sion the revisers have gratuitously sanctioned ! They have done so against the recorded testimony of their chairman, Bishop Ellicott {Commentary on 2 Tim.). They have done so against the clear force of the context and the Greek idiom. For there is no doubt, with the careful reader, that the -aoa ypo-i^r^ are meant by Paul to be the Uf)0. joamxaza of verse fifteen, which unquestionably mean the whole Old Testament Scriptures. Se- cond, Paul leaves us, confessedly, to supply the copula. But it must be supplied between Tpo.(fi^ and d^torzi^euazo::. " Every scrip- ture ?5 inspired of God," and not between ^to-t^vjozoz and oupihixo'; ; for this latter construction would make the first adjective quahfy the subject, "every scripture;" and the second adjective would be the predicate of the proposition. Now, it is at least more natural, that the conjunction y.(u should connect adjectives in a similar construction. Put the copula, as our old version does, after "scripture," and both the adjectives are predicates, and thus suitably conjoined by the conjunction. Here, again, "the old is better."
In conclusion, the revisers have evidently yielded too much to the desire for change. There is a multitude of needless emen- dations, of which the least that can be said is, that they are no improvements. The changes have been calculated to average two for each verse of the Gospels and Acts, and three for each verse of the Epistles and Apocalypse. Is this a re^^sion or a new version ?
KEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.^
rOUE years ago the author, an Assembly's professor in the Free Church Theological College at Aberdeen, startled us by contributing to the Encyclopcedia Britannica an article on " The Bible," which attacked the yalidity of the Old Testament canon, as held by the standards of his own church. DiscipHne was attempted, but legal quibbles delayed it for three years, un- til, in May, 1880, the charges against him came to be issued by his General Assembly, through reference from his Presbytery and Synod. Instead of trying the charges judicially, the Assem- bly, in its forbearance, patched up a compromise with him and his numerous supporters, in which it condoned his past offience, continuing him in his professorship over its candidates for the ministry and in its honors and emoluments ; and he accepted a public admonition, and gave a pledge not again to disturb the faith and peace of the church by such speculations. It is true that his pledge was given in very diplomatic terms, and was meant in a very "Pickwickian" sense. But it was accepted. The members of the Assembly had, however, hardly reached their homes when another volume of the EncydojKeclia appeared with a critical article from Prof. Smith worse than the first. It had been in the printer's hands at the very time he was giving his pledge of good behavior and receiving the generous forgive- ness of his judges. Yet his conscience permitted his suppressing all allusion to it at that juncture ! The best excuse stated was, that he bethought himself that it would then be too late to recall the article vidthout inconvenience to the pubHsher. Of course this new assault roused the mind of the fi'iends of truth "with amazement, grief, and just indignation. The Assembly's com-
' This article appeared in the Southern Presbyterian Review for Janiaary, 1882, reviewing The Old Testament in tlie Jewish Church. Twelve Lectures on Biblical Criticism. By W. Robertson Smith, M. A. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 Vol., l2mo, pp. 300. 399
400 KEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
mission was called together, the spontaneous attendance of mem- bers making it almost as numerous as the body itself, and after an- other session in the autumn, Prof. Smith was deprived of his right to teach the Assembly's students, on a new charge framed against him. It is not our purpose to discuss or defend the regularity of the Assembly's process against him. It should be noted, however, that it did not attempt to usurp his Presbytery's pow- ers of original jurisdiction, by passing any sentence of suspen- sion from the ministry ; it only claimed the power to control his teaching functions in its own theological school, which functions he had derived immediately from the Assembly.
Far more gravity is to be attached to the following which he gained from numerous ministers of the Free Church and more numerous divinity students than to the case itself. These favorers sustained his errors with heat, and during the discus- sions of the Assembly, by methods which we should regard as flagrant and indecent outrages on parliamentry order. They chose to adopt Mr. Smith's assumption, that the sacred cause of free thought, scholarship, and free conscience was assailed in his person. It is the currency of this unsavory delusion which is most ominous. The distinction between the sacred cause of freedom of mind and the impudent claim to hold a given associa- tion's pay and appointment, while attacking the very doctrines that association was formed to uphold, is so broad that only a very deep and inflamed hatred of sound doctrine would seem adequate to blind Presbyterians to so clear a thought. But the charges were hotly hmied at those who were simply unwilling that Mr. Smith should use the Assembly's own place and money to pull down the Assembly's own principles, that they were mid- dle age reactionists, enemies of scholarly progress, repressers of fi-ee thought, persecutors. Now, to the honest, plain mind, all this appears as though, when Mr. Jefferson Davis was indicted for treason and Mr. Charles O'Connor had voluntarily assumed the place of his counsel, the latter should have chosen to adopt the newly-found heresy of the victor's sycophants making his cHent a traitor, in the teeth of the constitutional and historical doctrine which justified him, and which Mr. O'Conner perfectly knew he Avas engaged to defend, he still holding fast to Mr. Da\ds's promised fees and the name and place of his counsel. And it is as though, when Mr. Davis and his friends demnrred,
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 401
the lawj-er had charged him as a persecutor and as the enemy of the progress of legal science. *Now, in the fictitious case sup- posed, any mind above idiocy would be competent to answer that, if Mr. O'Connor supposed it due to his liberty of thought and to the advancement of legal science to support the heresy newly invented by the courtiers of the triumphant brute-force, his plain course would be first to surrender his place and his fee as Mr. Da\d8's defender. Our parable is just. No fair man doubts but that the Confession of the Free CJmrch, Chap. I., § 2, means to assert what Mr. Smith distinctly impugned touching the Old Testament canon. It is no new thing, indeed, in church history, to find the advocates of latitudinarian views raising this false issue. None the less is it an ominous symptom that Free Church Presbyterians in such numbers should adopt a strategy so perverse in logic and so marked by moral obliquity.
The author tells us that, after his removal from his chair, " six hundred prominent Free Churchmen " in Edinburgh and Glasgow requested him to defend his views. This he did in the twelve lectures, delivered in both cities, to audiences averaging, he says, eighteen hundred hearers. These lectures, afterwards prepared for printing, with notes, compose the present volume. It is now repiibUshed in this country for popular circulation by at least two publishers, and its adroit poisons are dished up for " con- sumption by the million," in a " Seaside Library " edition, at the price of twenty cents.
The object of the Lectures is to disparage as much as possible the genuineness, antiquity, and authority of extensive parts of our Old Testament. To do this, the loose and rash methods of the most skeptical school of criticism are freely employed. But a worse trait is, that the sounder criticism is usually disregarded and treated as non-existent. In the language of Mr. Smith, to oppose his perverse and groundless methods is to condemn "biblical science" and biblical criticism. Reluctance to follow the rash leadership of his virtually infidel guides is either indo- lence or ignorance. As a specimen of this arrogance, let the reader take his last paragraph : " To the indolent theologian, the necessity of distinguishing .... is unwelcome." The failure to adopt Mr. Smith's groundless distinctions condemns as "indo- lent" a Calvin, a Bengel, a Michaelis, a Lowth, a J. A. Alexander. Well! All the mental activity and scholarship are tacitly as-
Vol. I.— 26.
402 KEFUTATION OF PROF. W. liOBERTSON SMITH.
snmed to be ou liis side ; on the side of those who dissent are only stolid and lazy reliance on 'prescription, and obstinate pre- judice. The reader will find this quiet but intensified insolence pervading the whole. Of course every scholar knows that this saucy strain is not the trait of true learning. Nor is the mode of tactics ingenuous. Unless Mr. Smith is a very shallow young man indeed, he knows that there is more than one school of criticism, and that those schools which disallow his critical con- clusions on the most thorough and learned grounds have able and well-informed supporters. He knows that the divines in his own church who condemn him are not opposed to " biblical science" or to the "historical study" of the canon, and do not hold its authority on mere tradition. He knows that they fully hold that man is not bound to accept a book as a rule of faith with the papist's implicit faith ; that the valid claims of the canonical books are to be established by an honest critical process ; that they employ and value this criticism. Only they will not foUow his criticism, because it is uncritical. His trick of attack is no more respectable than that of the quack who declaims against sensible people declining to poison their families with his nos- trums, that they oppose the science of medicine. They oppose liis empiricism because it is not science.
A second general criticism which we urge is, that Mr. Smith, turning his back on a sounder and more learned school of critics, gives his almost exclusive allegiance to that European school whose foundation maxim is, that the true critic must admit neither the possibility of the supernatural nor of inspiration — taken in the church's sense. The names ofteuest in his mouth are of such men as Graf, and- Wellhausen, of Germany, and Kuenen, of Holland, these recent and extreme advocates of this infidel theory. But any one can see that if God has indeed given his church a true inspiration and supernatural helps, and has meant his Bible to record such gifts, then the expositor who sets out to explain the Bible from the prime assumption that «uch gifts cannot possibily exist, must infallibly go amiss. Now if Mr. Smith will announce himself openly an unbeliever, he can consistently adopt the system of these unbelievers. But he tries to use their system while still professing to recognize inspiration and the supernatural. With such a method confusion and error are inevitable.
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 403
A third general objection to his work is, that the author utters at least an "uncertain sound" as to the nature of inspiration it- self. He sajs many handsome things about it. But in many places he seems to hold that conception of what inspiration is known in Scotland and America as " the Morell theory," that inspiration is only such views of truth as the soul attains by the exaltation of its religious consciovisness, so that the difference between the declarations of an Isaiah and a Whitefield is not generic, but only a difference of degree. It is true that in Lec- ture X., when speaking of the Hebrew prophets, he defines their inspiration correctly. But he then betrays the sound doctrine by saying that under the " new covenant the prophetic consecra- tion is extended to all Israel, and the function of the teacher ceases, because all Israel shall stand in the circle of Jehovah's in- timates." He had just described the prophets, as imder the old, constituting that " circle." That is to say, the reason why the church has no prophets or apostles now is that all regenerate people are inspired generically as Isaiah and Paul were. So, in Lecture I., near the end, the same extreme and vicious system of exposition is asserted, which we briefly showed, at the close of Article lY. of our April No., 1881, to be virtually exclusive of real inspiration. This theory claims, not only that the Holy Ghost, in moving holy men of old to speak, employed their human faculties and knowledge as instruments, not only that we should throw all the light archaeology can derive from the human use of language in their days on the exegesis of their words, but also that the inspired man's propositions ^are to be construed in ac- cordance with the uninspired code of opinions which, archaeology tells us, he presumably found in, and imbibed from, his contem- poraries. Says Mr. Smith : We are " always to keep our eye fixed on his historical position, realizing the fact that he wrote out of the experience of his own life and from the standpoint of his own time."
Now we object, first, that this travesty of the enlightened theory of archseologic exegesis is false to the facts. It is usually the grand characteristic of prophets and apostles that they did not teach divine truth " from the standpoint of their own times," but exactly opposite thereto. Paul was a Pharisee by rearing, and wrote among and for Pharisees. But his whole doctrine of the law and justification is precisely contra-Pharisaic. We ob-
404: EEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
ject, secondly, that this theory might, at any stage in the func- tion, make it impossible for the man to be the channel of divine truth. Only let the " standpoint " of him and his contemporaries be contradictory to that of the Holy Ghost, as all human " stand- points" have usually been, on vital subjects, then on this scheme he could not write the mind of the Spirit. It could not bo trans- mitted to his readers through such a medium without fatal dis- coloration. And lastly, a system of doctrines thus transmitted could never enable us to discriminate the fallible human coloring fi'om the infallible divine light — the very result which Mr. Smith's rationalistic friends are seeking.
This book may be justly described as thorouglily untrustworthy. Tlie careful reader can hardly trust the author in a single para- graph. Citations are warped, history misrepresented, other the^ ologians' views adroitly travestied, half truths advanced for whole ones. All is dogmatic assertion. In the construing of Scripture statements, the author, as if he were the critical pope, discards ex- positions which do not suit his purpose, however wgII supported by critical learning and the greatest names, without giving reasons for his decrees. His readers have not a hint that the soundest biblical learning has rejected his views, and that on conclusive grounds. Everything which does not please him is absolutely imcritical ; so much so as, in the majority of cases, to deserve no refutation, nor even mention. Must the well-informed reader ex- plain this as a disingenuous and wilful suppressio veri, or as ig- norance? It is more charitable to him to surmise that, with all his affectation of mastery of modern critical science, his know- ledge is really shallow and one-sided, and that he has fallen under the blinding influence of his leaders. The charitable reader may think this judgment severe. If he afflicts himself, as we have done, with a careful study of his book, he Avill con- clude that the verdict is just, and even forbearing. He will reach the same conclusion if he will ponder our specific criticisms.
The erroneous points made by the book are so multitudinous that, if all were thoroughly handled, a still larger book must be written. Our aim will be to give a general outline of the main theses advanced, so as to put our readers in possession of the drift of the work; and to test these theses in some of the points supporting them, so as to give fair specimens of the author's method.
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. -405
The positions taken seem to aim at three leading ends:
1. To disparage the antiquity and accuracy of that established text of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Masoretic Text, froni which all our Bibles are printed.
2. To throw as much uncertainty as possible over the author- ship of the Psalms, to assign a recent date to as many of them as possible, and to bring down their compilation below the ages of Old Testament inspiration.
3. To convict the Pentateitch of manifold and extensive inter- polations, many centuries after its professed date, and to deny the Mosaic authorship of nearly the whole law.
1. Mr. Smith concedes to the great Reformers a correct con- ception of the task of biblical criticism, taking good care to tra- vesty their view, in part, as he delineates it; but he thinks that their almost exclusive dependence, unavoidable in their case, on Rabbinical scholars for a Hebrew text, led them to confide en- tirely too much in the Masoretic recension. He does not believe that the valuable series of critics and editors, beginning with Ezra, called by the Rabbins the "Great Synagogue," ever had a particle of existence as such. Nor does he seem to be certain whether Ezra himself ever did anything important for the cor- rection and preservation of the Hebrew text. Noting the fact that the oldest known MSS. of the Masoretic text date several centuries after the Christian era, he regards the admirable and accurate correspondence of nearly all their readings as ground of suspicion. Dr. Kennicott, for instance, after many collations, found the variations very trifling and few. Mr. Smith wishes to know why they are not as numerous as between Greek MSS. of the New Testament. He concludes from this very sign of accu- racy that there has been foul play, that the Masorites, when making their recension and affixing their points (vowel and ac- cent), arbitrarily selected a codex from among many varying ones, which suited their own ritualistic views, published that, and burned up all the others ! And for this marvellous liypothesis he thinks he has historical evidence — that of the Septuagint translation — for it varies very much, in some places, from the Masoretic text. When he examines a number of these varia- tions, he is convinced that there are internal critical marks that the copy followed by the Seventy was the correct one. Their omissions, he thinks, make the narrative much more coherent.
406 REFUTATION OF PEOF. W. EOBERTSON SMITH.
Their transpositions, wliicli are in some places extensive, leave the contents of the prophet in a far more natural order. We •cite the instance which Mr. Smith seems to regard as most con- clusive, from 1 Samuel xvii. to xviii. 5. The reader is requested to place the passage before him. He will see that the narrative represents David as a favored resident of Saul's court, and his honorary armor-bearer; that still, when the war with Philistia comes on, David is not a soldier; that when he comes to the camp as a shepherd-youth, his eldier brother, Eliab, treats him with disdainful petulance, notwithstanding David's favorable standing at court ; that when he appears before Saul as Goliath's victor, neither Saul nor Abner recognize his parentage. This story, says Mr. Smith, " presents inextricable difficulties." " Every one has been puzzled by these apparent contradictions." But when we turn to the Septuagint, we find that it omits verses 12 to 31, and verses 55 to xviii. 5. This omission leaves the narra- tive clear of the difficulties. It is therefore the true original text ; and the Hebrew text is largely corrupted. So would Mr. Smith conchide.
Now, we begin our reply by saying, that " every one " has not been puzzled, or "found an inextricalile difficulty" in the narra- tive of the Hebrew text. Not to mention such sound old ex- positors as Gill, Henry, Scott, who see no contradiction whatever, the following, including learned Germans, concur: Chandler, Wordsworth, Houbigant, Keil, Hiivernick, Saurin, Toy, Broadus. And the great mass of intelligent readers doubtless have con- curred with them in thinking that the narrative is perfectly au- thentic, and all its parts consistent with the facts and with each other, whether they had the exact clue to their explanation or not. Next, the reader must be advertised that other old codices of tJie Septuagint do not omit the parts which Mr. Smith dislikes. The Vatican Codex does ; which, it seems, he chooses to follow. The Alexandrine Codex corresponds exactly with the Hebrew throughout the passage. The Tischendorf and the other uncial MSS. bear no witness in the case, because they lack the books of Samuel. The Complutensian edition, printed from Spanish MSS., also contains all that the Hebrew contains. So that Mr. Smith has the authority of only one MS. even of the Septuagint for omitting the verses. Is it not a little singular that he S2(_p- presses this material fact ? ^ Nor do all good critics concur with
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSOX SMITH. 407
him in preferring the Vatican MS. as the most accm-ate. Yos- sins condemned it as the worst of all; Prideaux, with manj others, preferred the Alexandrine MS. Thirdly, Mr. Smith, with his preferred "higher" critics, forgets a very ol^vious reflec- tion, that were there glaring discrepancies, the sacred writer would have been fully as able to see and appreciate them as the rationalists are. Hence, on the theory that the difficulties are there, the most reasonable supposition is that the writer, being strictly honest, felt constrained to tell his story as he has, not- withstanding the foresight of readers' difficulties about it, simply because such were the facts ; that the reason why he did not pare and trim liis narrative, as one codex of the Septuagint does, was that Saul and Abner really did express, or else feign, an igno- rance of David's parentage, whether we can explain why they did so, or cannot. Fourtldy^ Josephus, a Greek-speaking and Sep- tuagint-reading Jew, still gives the narrative as the Hebrew text does. Fifthly, The fact that David was not recognized by Saul, either when he presented himself — verses 32 to 39 — to ask leave to take up Goliath's challenge (where the narrative does not de- cide whether he was recognized), or when, verses 58, etc., he re- turned with the giant's head in his hand, would involve no seri- ous difficulty, when compared with xvi. 19, etc. For either one of several natural and reasonable hypotheses removes the diffi- culty. It may have been that Saul's ignorance of David was wholly affected; because the king's capricious and insanely jeal- ous temper makes it wholly probable that David's triumph had already roused the envy, of which we read a few hours later ; and that it took, at first, the disdainful form of this ironical affectation. " What obscure stripling is this, who presumes thus to outshine us all?" This irony, Abner, courtier-like, would be prone to imitate with a shrug equally disdainful. Or, it is easy to believe that Saul honestly did not recognize David. When he ministered at court, we may be sure that the proud mother had arrayed her darling in his best "Sunday-clothes"; now he appeared travel- soiled and unkempt, in his coarse shepherd's coat. His ministry had been very irregular and short at court ; and his enrolment among Saul's numerous honorary or titular armor-bearers im- plied by no means any intimate or long service ; for the relations of his forces to the king were those of a mere militia. It must be remembered that, for all the history teaches us, many months.
408 REFUTATION OF PROF. \V. ROBERTSON SMITH.
or even two or more years, may have elapsed between David's return from court and this war. When, in addition, we remem- ber that, during the time of David's residence with Saul, he was of unsound mind, there appears nothing difficult in the fact that Saul failed to recognize the young volunteer. Another hypothesis is tenable : that David was recognized, but that his parentage was forgotten. What more natural than that Saul, after he saw that he stood pledged to marry his daughter (verse 25) to the young victor, should desire to know all about his lineage ? But it must be noticed that Saul's language does not imply forgetfulness or ignorance of David, but only of his parentage : "Whose son is this youth ? "
Mr. Smith also deems that Eliab's irritable taunts of David are very inconsistent with his previous court-favor! What is this species of guessing-criticism worth? It may raise a difficulty.in any series of facts. What more natural and probable, than that the court-preference for David occasioned this very irritation in the stalwart elder brother, handsome, but vain and selfish ? Au- thentic histories present many surprising features, but this feel- ing of Eliab is not even surprising.
In fine, one is strongly impelled to ask Mr. Smith why it is that, supposing the narrative of the Hebrew text so difficult of reconciliation, as compared with that of his edition of the Sep- tuagint, he does not here apply the pet canon of the critics, '■' Praestat (irclua lectio f' "The more difficult reading is to be preferred." The surmise, that the Seventy, influenced by these imaginary difficulties, tampered with the original in order to smooth the narrative, is precisely such as Mr. Smith's school of critics is wont to apply for rejecting the easier reading, when it suits their purpose. This specimen case has been fully consid- ered, in order that the reader may have a fair sample of the way in which our author endeavors to exalt the Septuagint over its ori- ginal, by inventing imaginary objections, and advancing ground- less assertions.
But now let us address ourselves to the general merits of the assertion, that the Septuagint is to be preferred to the Masoretio text for giving us the original state of the autographs of the pro- phets. The author confesses, what Keil asserts correctly, that the Protestant critics have usually been against him. And here let the reader's attention be called to that way which Mr. Smith
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 409
practices, of intimating that only the recent criticism is " scien- tific." One would think, from the coolness with which he sets aside the established conclusions of earlier biblical scholars, that somehow, he and his party have found a whole world of new critical data, and that thej alone know how to use them scientifi- cally. But we beg their pardon. There are no neio arcJioeolog'ical data to be found in this particular field. The rationalistic school have, at this point, no other materials of which to construct a new theory than those possessed by scholars for the last hundred and fifty years. The only difference is, that while the old critics made a sober, honest, logical use of this common stock of data, the " de- structive" school shuffles them over and rearranges them capri- ciously, -VNalfully, illogically, to strain them into correspondence with a foregone, skeptical resolve that the Bible shall speak their philosophy. Let us take, for instance, the learning embodied in the Prolegomena of Bishop Walton's great Polyglot, of Prideaux, and of that illustrious school of biblical scholars in England. They surveyed the whole field of testimony as to the Septuagint. They reason from the facts gathered, in the spirit of the soundest criticism. To them, the theory that an original is to yield to a version, in the sense claimed by Mr. Smith, appeared, as it does to us, just as absurd as that the quality of a stream should de- termine that of its spring.
Our author, as we have seen, thinks the very accuracy with which all known codices of the Masoretic text agree is ground of the condemnation of all. He actually complains because they do not vary as much as our New Testament codices in Greek. Now, when a number of witnesses, testifying separately, concur with great exactness in the same story, one of two hypotheses is rea- sonably taken : either, they are truly well-informed and honest witnesses, and their testimony is valuable according to its har- mony ; or they are dishonest witnesses, whose too close harmony betrays previous collusion. But no fair mind adopts the harsher judgment without some gi'ound of confirmation. Now, we have this undisputed fact : that the Jewish copyists and critics of their text, since the Christian era, have a great reverence for the accu- racy of their holy Book; that they have adopted an exact system for insuring accuracy of transcription ; and that the faithful use of this system has actually given us, for the last thousand years, a set of codices almost without various readings. TF//?/ may not
410 REFUTATION OF PROF. W. EOBERTSON SMITH.
the same reverence, and the same method of copying, have pro^ duced the same happy result in the iwevio^is thousand years f History assures us that the same reverence for Scripture, and the same exact system of transcribing, prevailed before Christ. Sure- ly modern Jews are not more trustworthy than the Jews of the ages of Malachi, Judas Maccabee, and Simon the Just. Oh ! it is insinuated, the intense fondness of the scribes for their tradi- tionary Halacha must have tempted them to take liberties in transcribing, and to foist some of their traditions into the text. But the Eabbins of the post-Masoretic ages have been still fonder of their ritual and tradition, and yet they have not touched a let- ter of the text they received from the Masorites !
Again ; whether the Septuagint codices, taken together, present a more accurate view of the autographs of the inspired men than the Masoretic codices, the plain reader may judge from these in- disputable facts : that the Septuagint was the work of a series of Alexandrine Jews, some more than one hundred years before the others; that the origin of the versions is involved in a fog of ridiculous mj^hs ; that the versions of different books are of ex- ceedingly various quality, some, as that of the Pentateuch, the earliest made, being very good, and others wretchedly bad ; that the critics have clearly detected purposed corruptions of the text in some places : as Isaiah xix. 18, 19, was evidently twisted to support the enterprise of Onias (one hundred and forty-nine years befere Christ) in building his temple at Heliopolis in Egypt, which fixes the late date of the translation of this pro- phet ; that parts of the translations are so bad that such critics as Home have concluded that the translators were not acquainted with the Hebrew language ; and others, as Tyschen, that the codices used by the translators must have been the Hebrew Scriptures approximately spelled in Greek letters. The last two conclusions are not mentioned for the purpose of endorsing them, but to show how sorry the credibility of this Septuagint version appears in the eyes of men skilled in critical investiga- tions. It is still more to the purpose to remind the reader that the state of the text of the Septuagint copies is itself too variant and corrupt, granting that the original version may have been perfect, to rely on any edition we now have for correcting the Hebrew text. A glaring example of the uncertainty of the Sep- tuagint text we now have the reader has seen oh^jv^. Every
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 411,
student of its liistory knows that tlie scrupulous care wliich tlie Hebrew scribes employed in their transcriptions was not em- ployed by the copyists of the Greek. Hence, by the end of the second century of our era, tlie state of the Septuagint text was so intolerably bad that Origen undertook to correct it by colla- tions. His amended text he published in his Ile.mpla. He was a learned but a fanciful and untrustworthy critic. None of his copy has been extant for one thousand two hundred years, ex- cept a few fragments copied by others. They tell us that Origen's copy was destroyed ; a Pamphylian, a Lucian, and a Hesychian edition were prepared by these three editors, with the aid of Origen's emendations. And our (very clashing) codices of the Septuagint may be the descendants of one or another of these recensions, or some of them may be the progeny of the worthless copies which Origen condemned. And this is the standard by which our new school of critics propose to carve and . expunge our Hebrew text. _
The critical licentiousness of this proposal appears from other facts. The Samaritan sect had their own Pentateuch, written in characters older than the Masoretic. Between this old text and ours there are few various readings, and almost the only impor- tant one is the substitution of Gerizim for Ebal in Deut. xxvii. 4 ; Josh. viii. 30. But the Samaritan Pentateuch dates probably from 2 Kings xvii. 28, and, at latest, from the times of Ezi-a. This witness to our Hebrew Pentateuch makes it probable that the rest of our Hebrew text is equally ancient and trustworthy. The text followed by the Peschito Syriac version is unquestionably the Masoretic, and not the Septuagint. But the Syriac, if not translated in the first century, as some foremost scholars judge, was unquestionably made early in the second. This was he/ore the Mdsorites had done that work of collation which is so sus- pected by Mr. Smith. The accuracy of the old Syriac version is impregnable; all who have examined it testify to it. It is also nearly literal, rendering the Hebrew word for word, which the close idiomatic likeness of the language, the "West Aramaic, enabled the writers to do, as the heterogeneous idiom of the Greek did not permit. Again, we have every reason to believe that the Yetus liala, the Latin version made before the Masor- etic revisal, followed our Hebrew text, and not the Septuagint, as does also Jerome's Latin version, the Yulgate. Once more : the
412 EEFUTATIOX OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
Tersion of Aquila, also made before the completion of the Mas- oretic re%'isal, is almost perfectly literal, and this also follows our Hebrew, as against the Septuagint text. The reader will find a characteristic specimen of the logic of the " higher criticism " in the modes by which Mr. Smith tries to break the fatal force of this witness. First, he assumes, ^yithout proof, that the literary demand among learned Jews of the second century for another Greek version than that of the Seventy arose, not out of the great corruptions of their Septuagint copies, its obvious cause, but that it arose out of a purpose to change and shape an Old Testament test to suit the new and growing Rabbinical traditions. Hence, he suggests, Aquila was put forth to publish his pretended Hteral version. Our answer is, to challenge Mr. Smith to adduce one single clear histance in which Aquila has changed a Septua- gint translation in the interests of Rabbinism. Apparently mis- trusting this plea, he then intimates another, which is, that the resemblance of the names Onhelos^ Aquilas, betrays that this pretended work of Aquila is but a pious fraud, being really a Greek presentation of the Targum of Onkelos so far as the Pen- tateuch goes. And yet the birth, history, work of Aquila of Pontus are expressly given in our most authentic church history. " The force of nature can no farther go."
Let this trait of the Septuagint be added, which Mr. Smith himself adduces (Lecture V.) for a sinister purpose : that it makes no distinction between the canonical and apocr^qihal books, mingling them together on its pages. But the Hebrew text always kept this distinction between the divine and the human as clear as a sunbeam. This difference may teach us how low and poor the authority of any Septuagint codex ought to be for deciding particular readings, as against our Hebrew text. One of Mr. Smith's particular cases, on which he attempts to ground a preference for the Seventy (1 Sam. xvii.), has been ex- amined, that the reader ex uno discat omnes. His other cases, when strictly tested, are equally invaUd.
The last point we make for the correctness of the Masoretic copies of the Pentateuch, is pecuHarly fatal to Mr. Smith and his critical comrades. He has vaunted the authority of the Septua- gint, as containing the most accurate extant representation of the Old Testament text. He -u-ishes us to correct the projDhets by it. But now, it turns out that this Septuagint /bZZoz^s our Hebrev
BEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 413
text in the Pentateuch, with peculiar, and almost entire, exactness. We pointedly ask, Why this Greek witness, so credible elsewhere, is not equally credible here ? Is the " new criticism " wilfully in- consistent with itself? And how came our learned critic to over- look this fact?
And now, after this review of the authentic facts of antiquity, which demonstrate the inferior value of the Septuagint, it may be seen what ground the new critics have for reversing the im- pregnable verdict of all the great Protestant scholars, from the Seformation to the nineteenth century.
2. The second topic of Mr. Smith's criticism which we men- tion is the Book of Ps;:ims. In his seventh lecture he crowds together the largest mass possible of assumptions and rash as- sertions touching the date and authorship of the Psalms, derived from the ^\'ilful, frivolous, and reckless speculations of his favorite teachei's, the rationalistic (which means infidel) scholars of Ger- many. There, as is well-known, is a class of scholars who, al- though holding the seats and dra-vving the salaries of theological professors, avowedly disbelieve all inspiration and all supernatu- ral agencies ; who regard all the Psalms as on the same level with a Vedic hymn or a saga ; who discuss them merely as antique literary curiosities ; who use them thus only to occupy their lit- erary leisure and whet their inventive ingenuity, ventilaang any plavisible guess about them which may be made a string to con- nect specimens of their learning, and probably laughing in their sleeves at the British and Americans who are simple enough to take them seriously ; or who only trouble themselves about the Scriptures because tJiey get their salaries by lecturing on them, and therefore must say something ; where otherwise they would concern themselves ^\ith these books no more than with Uncle Remus's fables. Such is the attitude of the guides whom our author selects, while teaching biblical criticism in the orthodox Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland; a church whose very corner-stone is belief in the genuineness and inspiration of these books ! Mr. Smith's object is to unsettle our behef in the author- ship of as many of the Psalms as possible, to make it appear an immethodical bundle of several earlier Temple-Psalm books, put together by nobody knows whom. Especially does he labor to show that several Psalms must have been written after the days of Malachi, and even as late as the Maccabees ; and that, therefore,
41-1 REFUTATION OF PEOF. W. ROBEKTSOX SMITH.
the compilation dates long after the ceasing of the Old Testa- ment inspiration. The obvious inference is not stated, but hinted, that the collection is therefore not of authority, and may contain much uninspired matter. First he recommends, and then amends, the fanciful division into^/?i'i3 collections, for which his pleas are three : that some are Jehovistic and some Elohistic ; that in the Hebrew text each book "has a separate heading not translated in our English Bible;" that each book ends with a significant doxology. The first ends with Ps. xli. ; the second with Ps. Ixxii. ; the third \^ith Ps. Ixxxix. ; the fourth with Ps. cvi. ; the fifth with Ps. cl. This imaginary partition Dr. J. A. Alexan- der, Commentary on the Psalms, rightly discards. How flimsy its first ground is may be seen from the fact, which Mr. Smith admits, that both the names Elohim and Jehovah appear in all the five parts, only the one is more frequent than the other in certain parts. Now, who can say what impulse of faith and piety may have moved a psalmist, at any given time, to address his God by the one title or the other? The inference is baseless. Of the second point, it is enough to say, that our closest search of the Hebrew text utterly fails to detect any "separate heading" not translated in our EngHsh Bible for the imaginary "five books." As to the grounding of a partition on the recvirrence of a dox- ology at the end of certain Psalms, how worthless this is appears from the fact that distinct doxologies occur in a large number of other Psalms, at their end, and in the body of them, as in Psalm xx^dii. 6, and xxxi. 21, and Ixvi. 8 and 20, and Ixviii. 19, and xcv. 2, etc., and ciii. 1, and cxxiv. 6, and cxxxv. 19, and cxliv. 1, and cxlv. 21 ; and Psalm cxvii. is nothing but a doxology. Why do not the critics make a "book" end with Psalm cxvii.? Why not with each of these doxologies, or at least with each ter- minal one? Tlie feebleness of this fancy is also betrayed by this : that Mr. Smith and his guides themselves say that the se- quence of the several Psalms in each "book" was not made sys- tematic by the unknown collectors, but is immethodical. Then the Psalms -svdth the terminal doxologies might just as likely have fallen elsewhere ; and their place, being accidental, gives no basis for any partition. Epiphanius and Jerome mention that in their days some Jews maintained this fancy about five books. Their object was to make the Psalms resemble the Pentateuch in its
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 415
partitions; this craving for aritlimetical symmetry is a motive just suitable for a cabalistic rabbi.
Now, of course, every Bible reader knows that all the Psalms were not written by David, nor in David's age ; that several, es- pecially of the Asaph-Psalms, were written during the seventy years' captivity, as, for instance, the 137th. But the faith of the church has always embraced these two points : that all were com- posed by inspired poets ; that the authorized compilation was set- tled by inspired authority, and therefore not later than Malachi. There is no difficulty about the question of authorship ; for after Nathan and David, there were twenty-four prophets and prophet- esses at least ; and every prophet was a poet. As to the compil- ation, the church doctrine is : that this was attended to continu- ously by the authorized prophets, as piece after piece was given to the church by the Holy Ghost ; and that the whole compila- tion was verified, and the latest poems added, by Ezra and his inspired successors. So say the authentic uninspired Je-uish writers. (2 Mace. ii. 13 ; Josephus against Apion, I. 8 ; Philo, II. 475.) So teach the inspired writers of the later ages of the Old Testament. (2 Chron. xxix. 30 ; Zech. vii. 10 ; [quoting Ps. xxxvi. 4] 1 Chron. xvi. 7 to end [with Psalms cv., xcvi., evi.] ; Ezra. iii. 10.) But, especially, so teaches Christ in Luke xx. 42, and xxiv. 44, and Peter in Acts i. 20. In the first and last of these places the Lord and his apostle speak expressly of " the Book of Psalms," while quoting it as infallible scripture. There was, then, in the church of that day a book — one hook — received by all as " the hook^^ of lyrical worship. There are also thirty-one quotations from the Psalms in the New Testament, all treating them, either expressly or by clear implication, as God's word. And these quotations are from nearly all parts of the book of Psalms, from the 2nd to the 140th ; and eleven of them are from Psalms which have no author named, which shows that the in- spired apostles had just the same confidence in these as in the others. When we coviple the allusions from Chronicles and Ezra, the testimony of Josephus and Philo, the fact that the Sep- tuagint presented just the one book of one hundred and fifty pieces, that Heb. iv. 7 quotes the same book as David's ("say- ing in Da\dd "), yet ascribing it to God ; it is impossible to doubt the conclusion that our present Psalter, as one collection, v/as of
416 REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
divine 'Authority to the church from the days of Old Testament inspiration.
'We may add also, that oiir Saviour bears his testimony, in Luke xxiv. 44, with equal decisiveness to the whole Old Testa- ment canon. He cites it as an infallible rule of faith under the well-known divisions of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms — the very classification under which Josephus has been cited as including all the books in our Old Testament, and no others ; the very classification which we know, from the testimony of the Hebrew and Christian writers nearest our Saviour, was generally adopted by all. Mr. Smith does, indeed (Lecture VI.), with equal weakness and bad faith, attempt to break the force of this fatal testimony, by the sneer that it is but " rationalism " in us to take the terms in our Saviour's mouth in the historical sense. And in Lecture VI. he attempts to sustain this charge, against the whole current of Christian and Jewish learning of all ages, by intimating that Josephus' evidence is not near enough in time to our Saviour to define his meaning. Now, Josephus ended his career as a public man A. D. 70, soon after which he wrste his books. Several years before he had been wholly engrossed by the civil and Roman wars. Hence, as it is out of the question to suppose him pursuing any new biblical studies while in the very vortex of these convulsions, we must conclude that his state- ments touching the Old Testament canon reflect what he was taught in his earlier years. Bat the words cited from Christ above were uttered A. D. 33 or 34. Hence Josephus was vir- tually his contemporary, as a witness to this point of belief.
Mr. Smith's method is to support the modern assault upon the genuineness of the Hebrew superscriptions of the Psalms, by im- pugning as many of those which named David as their author as he can, and to date as many of them as possible after the cessa- tion of inspiration. A few average specimens must suffice to possess the reader with his spirit. Psalms xx. and xxi., ascribed to David, " are not spoken }>y a king, but addressed to the king by his people." Mr. Smith cannot believe "that David wrote for the people the words in which they should express their feel- ings for his throne," etc. But was not David a prophet ? and is it not the very husiness of a prophet to teach the people the sen- timents God wishes them to cherish ? It was as the defence of the church that the believers then prized David's throne. Again,
KEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 417
how does Mr. Smith know but that it was 2fessia7i's throne PavicI wished them to vahie and uphold ?
He pronounces, with disdainful levity, that the title of Psalm xsxiv. must be false, because it " speaks of Abimelech as king of Gath in the time of David. In reality, Abimelech was a contem- porary of Abraham, and the king in David's time was named Achish." Now, is it possible Mr. Smith does not know that every previous expositor has noted and explained this by the simple remark, that Achish was this ruler's imUvidual name, and Abi-melech (my father-king) his 7'egal title, as Pharaoh was of the Egyptian kings? So not only do all the wise, learned, and sober British expositors say (of whom our author seems to have no opinion at all), but also a plenty of learned Germans, as Gesenius, Lange, et al. But he treats this obvious and sufficient solution, supported by so many of the best scholars, as unworthy of mention to his readers or of refutation ! His papal word must STiffice.
Psalm xxvii., he thinks, cannot have been written by David, because it speaks of inquiring in " his temple" (viz., God's). But in David's time there was " not a temple, but a tent." "Will not the reader be shocked with the disingenuousness of this, when he turns to the Hebrew with us and finds that the word for " his
temple" is l/-'^n? This, Gesenius tells us, means, when, spoken in connection with God, simply his sanctuary, and is ap- plied to the sanctuary when it was a tent. Again, he argues that the tenth verse, " When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up," are quite inappropriate to David. Why ? He attempts to invent a reason by prefacing his cavils with the suggestion that the Psalm must have been written after all David's triumphs, because he would only speak of " Zion as God's holy mountain," and of the " house of God at Zion," " after he had brought the ark to Jerusalem." Again will the reader be shocked by the author's disingenuousness when he reads the Psalm and finds that there is neither word nor allusion in it ahout Zion, nor a single trait to prevent our dating the Psalm from the days when David was a young man, deprived for the first time of a father's counsels and a mother's love by Saul's persecutions,
" Psalm lii. is said to refer to Doeg." (See in the title the refer- ence to the slander of that Edomite herdsman of Saul against the
Vol. I.— 27.
418 EEFUTATION OF PROF. W. EOBERTSON SMITH.
priests who had succoured David at Nob.) " Now David had nvtldng to fear from Doeg." " The danger loas all for the priests at Nob. How could the Psalmist" ..." not express in a single word his , s^'mpathy with the unhappy priests who perished for the aid they gave liim?" Therefore, he concludes, David did not write it. But if the reader will examine 1 Samuel xxii. and xxiii., he will see for himself whether the lies of Doeg portended danger to David. The case meant just this: that Saul, wholly deluded by the vile delator, was now with Doeg pursuing David's life with all the fviry which was expressed in his ferocious murders at Nob. And we presume that no one except Prof. Smith ever failed to see in verses 1-5 the most ardent sympathetic indignation for the wrongs done the priests. Our author does not even believe that David wrote the 51st Psalm, or that it ever had any reference to his sin towards Bath- sheba and Uriah. On what argument does he rest? "The prayer (verse 18) that God will 'build the walls of Jerusalem' refer so manifestly to the period of the captivity." He assumes that at this prosperous stage of David's reign, Jerusalem needed no more wall-building. (Borrowed from the ultra-rationalist, De "Wette.) How wretched does this trifling appear, when we remember simply that David was winting 2>oetry, and hence, uses an appropriate and natural image ? The parallelism of the verse is enough to guide every reader: "Do good unto Zion." This shows that the figure of the defending walls up-built ex- presses the same thought — edification to the church, so exposed to reproach and attack by David's own crimes (see 2 Sam. xii. 14). David, as a military captain, had literally fortified his city with stone walls. But his shocking sins had now laid the church of God open and defenceless against the reproaches of infidels. God alone, by his grace, could repair this ruin. Hence David prays, "Do thou build up what my sin prostrated." This gives a perfectly logical connection with verse 19. For God's accept- ance of holocausts does result from such spiritual restoration of professed worshippers ; but no success in fortifying a town with literal ramparts has any relevancy whatever to making animal sacrifices more pleasing to a spiritual God.
One more of these far-fetched difficulties must suffice. Mr. Smith does not believe the title of the famous 139th Psalm, when it says .David wrote it, because he thinks he finds four Aramaic
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 419
words in it, wliicli proves it must have been written during or after the captivity in Chaldea. Now, there are but three words to debate: as one recurs twice, ^^ — thought, in verses 2 and 17;
Vy^ — ^y^^^^ doiV)i, in verse 3 ; and "H t? — energy, in verse 20. He thinks the classic Hebrew must have spelt them with the rougher y\, instead of t^. But it turns out that the softer forms in each case are derivable from appropriate Ayin-roots ; and that the spell- ing appears with the ^ in the earlier books of the Bible. So that the one is as much -old classic Hebrew as the other ! But how slender a basis would this matter of Aramaisms not be, on which to deny David's authorship, when we remember that Chaldea and Syria with their closely cognate dialects bounded his kingdom on the north and east, and had constant intercourse with it ?
When the attack on the genuineness of the titles is made on grounds as flimsy and uncandid as these, the sound biblical scholar can well aiford to rest in the old conclusion which ac- cepts them as valid, along with the modern Keil and the great body of the older critics. The titles are now, and so far as we can decide, always were, a part of the Hebrew text. There is no valid canon of textual criticism authorizing their excision that would not equally expunge any verse from the body of the Psalms. Even the Septuagint, Mr. Smith's great authority, re- cognizes all the titles of David's Psalms, except a very few.
One other point remains to be briefly mentioned aftecting the Psalms. This is Mr. Smith's attempt to bring the date of as many Psalms as possible down to a time subsequent to the ces- sation of Old Testament inspiration. The critic's motive is ob- vious. Malachi is beiieved to be the last of the inspired Old Testament prophets. If the Book of Psalms can be proved to contain pieces later than him, the point so dear to the skeptics is made out : that the Scriptures contain spurious materials.
But the groiinds presented for this late date of some Psalms are as wretchedly flimsy as the aim is mischievous. One argu- ment is, that the " musical titles are discontinued " (Lect. VII.) in the Psalms of the fourth and fifth " books." The proposed infer- ence is, that the prevalence of the Greek art, after the Macedon- ian conquests, had caused the ancient Hebrew melodies to be so forgotten by the people that the old musical terms were use- less and meaningless. Therefore many of these Psalms, after
420 EEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
Psalm xc, were written after tlie Macedonian era. But we object, first, the distribution of the Psalms into five "books" is imag- inary ; secondly, the musical titles are lacking in Psalms which are unquestionably David's, as in Ps. cviii. and ex. Hence their absence proves nothing as to date ; thirdly, if Mr. Smith's sur- mise were worth anything whatever, it would be better satisfied by supposing that it was the Babylonian captivity, and the total interruption of temple-worship for seventy years, which made the old temple-tunes to be forgotten ; not pagan Greek art, which never could have influenced Jews abhorring all pagan worship and speaking the Aramaic tongue. Hence, the argument, were it not wholly worthless, would only suggest a possibility that some of these Psalms were written after the captivity began. The other pretended argument is, that the " Pilgrimage-Psalms " ("Songs of Degrees") "are plainly, in part, later than the exile; for they speak of captivity and deliverance." Ps. cxxii. is later than Ezra and Nehemiah, for it speaks of "Jerusalem the re- built." Such is Mr. Smith's translation ; but it is not that of other Hebraists fully as good as he. Again : Jerusalem might just as well have been spoken of as "rebuilt," after David's storm and sack of Jebus (2 Sam. v. 9), and his restoration and enlarge- ment, as after Nehemiah's work ; and the tone of pride and con- fidence the spectator is made to express in view of the royal city and bulwarks, suits far better to the prosperous city of David than to the poor, half -populated, scrambling town as restored by Nehemiah. As to the allusions to captivity and deliverance in the " Songs of Degrees," these contain nothing more than was applicable to previous disasters before the Babylonish captivity. The proof is, that Hosea vi. 11, and Joel iii. 1, both celebrate a similar joy; and both are indisputably prior to the great carry- ing away. When these Psalms are examined, they clearly de- scribe national dangers which threatened, but did not destroy, the state and city ; as the invasion of Senna'cherib. Ps. cxxiv., " The Lord liatli not given us as a prey to their teeth." Ps. cxxv., " The rod of the wicked sJiall not rest upon the lot of the right- eous," etc. These Psalms point much more probably to the times from David to Hezekiah, and to the approaching dangers and deliverances of those reigns. Lastly, the utmost that could be inferred, granting the validity of the points made, would be, that sundry of these Psalms were composed by inspired men of
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH 421
the era of Ezra, Haggai, Zacliariah and Malaclii. That any of them were written during or after the Maccabeaa era, there is not a particle of proof. So much for the attack on the divine authority of the Psahns.
3. But Mr. Smith's main and final effort, pursued through five lectures, is to prove the larger parts of the Pentateuch for- geries. The position he has adopted, from his infidel teachers, Graf, Wellhausen, et at., is, that the Levitical details of sacrifice and ritual were never legislated until in or after the days of Ezekiel ; that throughout all the ages from his day up to Samuel and the Judges, these laws, now written in the Pentateuch, were never observed, and had never been heard of ; that especially was this true of the statute now found in Deut. xii. 11 to 14, enjoin- ing the maintenance of only one altar of sacrifice, at only one place, and prohibiting all others ; that the priestly caste at the end of the Babylonian captivity devised this restriction as a means to restrain the disastrous tendency of the people to idola- trous worship ; and to give more authority to their device, in- serted it in their new recensions of the Pentateuch, and claimed Mosaic authority for it; that Ezekiel's last chapters, xl., etc., gave the key-note for this new legislation, and indeed sufiicient divine authority for it ; whence he does not regard this ritual, after its late introduction, as lacking in inspired sanction, ac- cording to his low conception of inspiration. He thinks he knows just how much Moses actually legislated, viz. : Exod. xxi. to xxiii., inclusive, and Deut. i. to xi. Deut. xii. to xxxvi. forms a later code, ascribed indeed to Moses by the Jews, but in reality first enacted and published liy some prophet, or prophets, of the times of Josiah. The largest code is what he calls the Levitical. It embraces Exod. xxiv. to end, and most of the legislative parts of Leviticus and Numbers. This code, with its multiplied and exact details, was utterly unknown until the days of Ezekiel and Ezra, and was introduced by the priests subsequent to the for- mer, and probably upon the hints he gives in his picture of the new sanctuary (chaps, xl.-xlviii).
The pretended evidences for this division are numerous, em- bracing a multitude of points, all either frivolous or sophistical ; of hardy assertions having no other ground than wild dogmatism ; of ingenious wrestings of history ; of exaggerations of facts ; and of misinterpreted texts. The text most relied on is Jer. vii. 22,
422 REFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
23 : " For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, con- cerning burnt-oiferings or sacrifices. But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I Avill be your God," etc. On the evidence of these verses Mr. Smith roundly asserts, again and again, that Jeremiah knew nothing of a Levitical code of sacrifices, and that none such existed in his day. Similar pas- sages from Isaiah, Hosea, etc., are quoted, in which God rebukes the Jews for insincere offerings followed by impenitence ; and all these are wrested to teach that the Levitical offerings had never yet been enjoined. Especially is the argument pressed that the Levitical code could not have had existence during all the ages from Joshua to Zedekiah, because the history in Samuel and Kings does not exhibit Israel as living up to that code. And to exaggerate this argument the history is in many cases falsified to make the contradictions between the code and the conduct more salient. But the chief plea of all is, that whereas the " second or Deuteronomic code," chap. xii. 3-14, expressly en- joined that there must be but one altar for the twelve tribes, to which every bloody sacrifice must be brought, at a single place of divine selection, the historic Israel down to Josiah always had many altars of sacrifice and high places, which even an orthodox Asa or Hezekiah did not abolish, and, worse yet, inspired pro- phets, as Samuel and Elijah, ofiered on them. See, e. g., 1 Sam. xvi. 5 ; ix. 12, etc. ; 1 Kings xviii. 32, etc.
It would be unmerciful to the reader, as unnecessary, to detaia him for an exposure of the multitude of points sophistically made. A few of them will be mentioned and refuted, in order to sustain our assertion as to the uncandid spirit of the reasoning, and the worthlessness of the conclusion. This reprehensible temper is well instanced in the text cited from Jeremiah. The author, of course, knows perfectly well that the great current of learned ex- positors explain it as a rhetorical hyperbole. The prophet wishes to emphasize the truth that in Jehovah's eyes sincere heart re- ligion is far more important than ritual ; so much more essential that the precepts about the ritual are as nothing compared with the requirement of sincere obedience. He knows that all this class of passages receives the same obvious explanation. But all this he disdains either to mention, or look at, or reply to. For all he tells his readers, they would remain ignorant that anybody
KEFUTATION OP PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 423
attempted to explain the passages thus. Yet this explanation is clear and satisfactory, and these very prophets themselves shut us up to it by other clear declarations, which Mr. Smith takes especial pains not to mention. Says Lange, on Jer. vii. 22 : " But to find in this passage a proof that Jeremiah was ignorant of any legal enactment with respect to sacrifices at the time of the exodus, as Graf does, following Hitzig and others, is a pro- ceeding/?//• ivJucfb there is no grotmd, either in the historical books cr in the writings of the pre-exilic prophets generally." (See Amos iv. 5, compared with Levit. vii. 13 ; Hos. iv. 10, witli Levit. xxvi. 26 ; Amos v. 25 ; compare Hosea vi. 6 ; 1 Sam. xv.
22 ; Ps. li. 16.) These passages make unquestionable allusions to the Levitical code which Mr. Smith would have nou-extanfc when these prophets wrote. " So also," adds Lange, " in this passage the negation has a rhetorical, not a logical significance." So, in substance. Gill and Calvin. One fact is fatal to Mr. Smith's exposition of Jeremiah. The exodus from Egypt was indisputably attended by the divine appointment of the Pass- over. But 'ikx.Qi^ascJial lamh was a sacrifice. Mr. Smith's version as to this is puerile and uncandid. It is therefore impossible that Jeremiah could have meant that the exodus was literally unat- tended by any ordinance of sacrifice. But let the reader consult the folloAving places in the pre-exilic prophets, and especially in Jeremiah himself, and he will feel how amazing is the audacity which can assert (as Lecture X.) that these prophets " say Je- hovah has not enjoined sacrifice;" and "it is simple matter of fact that the prophets do not refer to a ^vl•itten Torah as the basis of their teaching," . . . and "absolutely deny the existence of a binding ritual law": Jer. ii. 8; vi. 19, 20; xvii. 26; xviii. 15; xix. 4; xxxiii. 11, 18; Isaiah viii. 20; xxxiv. 16; xliii. 22,
23 ; Ivi. 3, 7 ; Ixvi. 3 ; Ps. xix. 8 ; xxvi. 6 ; xliii. 4 ; 1. 8 ; li. 19 ; Ixvi. 13 ; Hosea viii. 12 ; ix. 4 ; Ezek. xx. 28 ; 2 Kings xxii. 8, etc.
The coolness with which the book of Joshua is excluded from witnessing to these facts is as refi'eshing as our author's hardi- hood of assertion is astounding. Lecture VIII. says : "I ex- clude the book of Joshua because it in all its parts hangs closely together with the Pentateuch." The logic of this exclusion is the following : We assitmo without proof that A is a false wit- ness. Then, since B agrees with him, he must be a false witness. And hence, again, sinc(3 A agrees vdih. B, he must be a false wit-
424 EEFUTATIOX OF TEOF. W. EOBERTSON SMITH.
ness. A pretty circle, truly! But the real reason why Joshua is not permitted to testify will appear in the following fatal pas- sages : chap, xviii. 1 : "And the whole congregation of the chil- dren of Israel assembled at Sliiloh, and set up the tabernacle oi the congregation there ;" thus explicitedly carrying out the law of Deuteronomy xii., which Mr. Smith saj's Avas never heard of until Josiah's days. Chap. xx. 2 : " Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses." Deut. xix. 3. But this part of Deuteronohiy, says Mr. Smith, w^as never pubhshed until Josiah's day ! Chap. xxi. 2, the Le- vites at Shiloh say : " The Lord commanded by the hand of Moses " (see Num. xxxv. 2) " to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs," etc. ' But the most significant place of all- is the twenty-second chapter. The two-and-a-half tribes, whose can- tons Avere east of Jordan, in returning to their homes after the war of conquest, build an altar at the river. They meant it not for an altar of sacrifice, but of witness, designed merely to attest their and their children's rights in the national altar at Shiloh. But the remaining Hebrews, supposing that these are preparing to break the law of Dueteronomy xii. against a plurality of altars of sacrifice, are so determined to enforce that Mosaic statute that they prepare for war against their own brethren. Yet Mr. Smith says no such statute existed until Josiali ! See verses 10, 16, 22-29. The high priest decides, verses 32, 33, that such an altar of witness is no breach of that statute. Now, the genuine- ness of this book is indispiitable for every souiid critic. Not only does every codex and every version, including Mr. Smith's special favorite, the Septuagint, sustain its integrity, but the in- ternal evidences of it are peculiarly clear. The lines of the can- tons, and the references to topography alone, when tested by the subsequent Hebrew history and by modern explorations, prove the perfect accuracy of Joshua.
So, in the book of Judges, while we have frequent relapses from the laws, and while we see the roots of all the subsequent abuses planted, yet the worship at Shiloh goes on with an ap- proximate regularity in the better days, which constitutes a constant reference to the existence of the whole Le\dtical law.
Before proceeding to the remaining arguments let us notice, as specimens of the bad faith with which the criticism is con- ducted, some of the attempts to exaggerate differences, and to
liEFUTATION OF PliOF. W. EOBEKTSON SMITH. 425
make imaginary ones between the historical Hebrew usage and the Levitical law. Mr. Smith says (Lecture VIII.) that the stat- ute about the daily sacrifice found, for one place, in Numbers xxviii. 3-5, is of later date than the return from Babylon. His proof is, that whereas that statute required two lambs, one for the evening as well as one for the morning, the usage was only to present a "meat-o£fering" in the evening, without any living victim, because in several places, as 1 Kings xviii. 36, it is called the nnjtr. But this noun, while we admit that it came fre- quently to mean the unbloody " meat-olfering," is also the generic name for any offering, as its root signifies. It may mean a liv- ing offering. Thus say the best lexicons. Buxtorf defines it as meaning generically a sacrifice, specifically an oblation. Gese- nius says it means, 1, A gift (its etymologic primary sense); 2, Tribute ; 3, An offering to God, a sacrifice, spoken especially of one unbloody. Furst renders it, Domiin, munus, sacrifichim, Tcpoacfoiid ip'jaia. In Gen. iv. 4, it is used especially for a bloody offering : The Lord had respect unto Abel and his (Hn^p. Thus the argument is exploded.
Mr. Smith says (Lecture VIII.), that the Levitical ritual always represents itself as "the necessary forms in which alone the inner side of religion, love to God and man, can find acceptable expres- sion." Again: "Accordingly, sacrifice, atonement, and forgive- ness of sin, are absolutely dependent on the hierarchy and its ser- vice." "Its aim is io provide everything that man requires to live acceptably with God," etc. The argument he suggests is : that as we see in the history of the Hebrews a good deal of reli- gion which was not hierarchical, this proves the Levitical code was invented after the exile. But his assertion is simply false. Israel had its moral, sabbatical, domestic, and social worship, in- herited from of old, which quietly held its way alongside of the sacrificial worship of the tabernacle. This was so exactly pro- vided for at the one chosen place as the standing type of Christ's expiation. That the moral worship should go on in every town and family, as it always had done, is taken for granted as a mat- ter of course. The main object of the Levitical code is to pro- vide for the typical observances, which were largely new. Hence, had the Levitical books said not one word about the general moral worship, Mr. Smith's assertions would remain groundless. But those books expressly contradict him. In Deut. vi. 7, etc..
426 REFUTATION OF PROF, W. ROBERTSON SMITH.
the daily duty of religious instruction in tlie family is enjoined. The Hebrew's religion was connected with every event of his daily life (verses 9 and 13). So in chap. xi. 18, 19. No priest intervenes here. Israel is repeatedly urged to love and serve his God in the heart, and not in the form only, and to regulate his daily Ufe by this principle of piety. (Lev. xis. 18 ; Deut. xiii. 4 ; XXX. 16.) Solomon, in the very act of reiistablishing this ritual in his temple, in his dedicatory prayer again and again refutes Mr. Smith's assertion, by expressly prapng that God would open communion between himself and his beheving people, not only through the priest and at the altar, but wdthout any priest and away from the altar, in their homes, in foreign lands, in captivity, in drought, in pestilence and in tlio sick-room, in the battlefield, on the journey. Even the foreigner turning to God is to enjoy like communion. This daily access to God from every heart and from every place is grounded on God's omnipresence, which no temple can hmit. See 1 Kings viii. 27-52. The Psalms, which describe the very same state of religion depicted in the Levitical code, represent the godly man as meditating in God's law day and night ; as prapng to God when far away from priest and temple ; as performing his individual devotions thrice or seven times daily. Psalm i. 2; iv. 4; v. 3; xxxiv. 1; liv. 1; Ivi. 1 ; Ivii. 1; Iv. 17; cxix. 164. See also Zech. xii. 12. Thus do the Scriptures themselves utterly deny that view of the Levitical re- ligion which is reasserted through pages of this Lecture VIIL with a wearisome monotony of false assertion.
In the same Lecture it is roundly asserted that the Levitical code, Lev. xvii., makes it "a perpetual statute that no animal can be slain for food unless it be. presented as a peace-offering before the central sanctuary and its blood sprinkled on the altar." Again, he makes Hosea teach that " all animal food not presented at the altar is unclean." His object, of course, is to argue hence that, in so large a country as Palestine, containing so many peo- ple, many altars must have been made essential by this law; and that hence the restriction to one altar could not have been en- acted or known. The least examination of Lev. xvii. 3-6, shows that to call this a "perpetual statute" is false. It had only a temporary force so long as the people w^ere gathered conveni- ently around the tabernacle in one encampment. The thing which was made a perpetual statute was, that when flesh was
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eaten the blood must not be eaten with it, but must be poured out and covered with dust. Even while the encampment con- tinued, the Hebrews Avere allowed to dispose thus of the blood of the clean beast taken in hunting (vs. 13) without bringing it to the altar. And in Deut. xii. 15, 16, in immediate connection with the absolute restriction of all sacrifice to one altar, express permission is given to butcher any clean animal for food any- where at any man's home, provided only the blood is not eaten. This shows that the restriction of Lev. xvii. was meant to be temporary, and was now removed, in view of the approaching separation of the people to their homes in Palestine.
Tt is argued that in the days of Eli and Samuel the supposed law for keeping the ark in a holy tahernacle was not observed, (and therefore had not been yet heard of,) because (1 Sam. iii. 15) the sanctuary at Shiloh had doors to it, and therefore must have been a timber or stone house, and not a tent. This beauti- ful point is imluckily ruined by observing that the word HlH /"I suggests by its very etymology a curtain-door, for it means, says Gesenius, something " hanging and swinging," and that in David's time (2 Sam. vii. 2) the ark of God still "dwelt within curtains."
Mr. Smith argues that the Levitical code was not observed by good Eli, and therefore had never been heard of as yet, because he let the child Samuel, who was not of the Aaronic family, sleep in the holy of holies, a place which the high priest himself only entered once a year, according to that code, and then " not with- out blood." The shocking dishonesty of this statement is ex- posed when we note that all the passage says is, that Samuel lay down to sleep in the 7ir'''n. This word, says Gesenius, ^^ never stands for the holy of holies."
Mr. Smith says that both David and Solomon "officiated in person " before the altar, the latter frequently. Hence he would infer that the Levitical code restricting this privilege exclusively to the sons of Aaron had never yet been legislated. But his only proof that David and Solomon ever intruded into the priest's office is the places where it is said that they " offered" so many or such sacrifices. The same soi*t of argument would prove that David built with his own hands all his palace and bulwarks at Jerusalem, and that the temple was all erected by Solomon's personal labor. "Who does not see that, as they builded by the
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liands of the professional meclianics, so they sacrificed through the agency of the appointed priests? Let the reader compare 2 Chron. xx^-i. 16-18.
He asserts that the Jewish kings habitually carried their pagan body-guards with them Into the sanctuary, which shows that the Levitical code forbidding all but Hebrews to enter even its couii had not yet been enacted. He finds these pagan retainers in the Cherethites and Pelethites of David, and the " guards," ''*]!D of Jehoiada's day, who guarded the child-king, Jehoash, in the temple. These, he is certain, were Cretans, Philistines, and Carians ! Now, in the first place, if the orthodox kings had any such retainers of pagan blood, we may be very sure they had be- come Jews by proselytism and circumcision, as the history shows so many of David's had, before they ever entered the sanctuary. But, in the second place, Mr. Smith ought to know that the best Hebraists regard the terms, not as names of nationality at all, but as names of calling. The Cherethites were armed guards and executioners, so called from H'^^ — to cut. The Pelethites were couriers, from a root signifying to run swiftly. The ^^3 of Jehoiada were executioners, " cutters," and were unquestion- ably the armed Levites mentioned in 2 Chron. xxiii. 2, 7. How preposterous the dream that Jehoiada, hitherto a purely rehgious officer, holding his place by sufferance under the pagan Athaliah, in the little dwarfed inland kingdom of Judea, either could or would get pagan Cretans and Carians into his temple guard ! Such dreams are the chief staples of our critic's arguments. But the reader will cry, Ohe .' ja/n satis ; the recital of these points has become wearisome. Let these, then, and their exposure suffice as specimens of the multitude of such quibbles, industri- ously heaped together to travest}- the actual state of the Hebrew religion under the orthodox judges and kings.
But while we object to these unjust exaggerations of the de- partures of Israel from the Levitical code, we expressly admit that there were, during a large part of his chequered history, wide departures. Barely, after Joshua, did even the best judges and Idngs return exactly to the perfect pattern of the law. Let us see now how far we should, in candor, carry this admission. JFtrst, The history of the "altar of Ed," under Joshua's rule, while it perfectly demonstrates the existence and currency at that day of the very law of a single altar of sacrifice, which Mr. Smith
REFUTATION OP PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 429
SO strives to date after the exile, also proves that memorial struc- tiu'es simply, in the form of altar or pillar, for the exclusive pur- pose of witness, were not against that statute. The prohibitions of them were designed to prevent their building under circum- stances which tended to corrupt worship and idolatry. Secondly^ It is expressly admitted that other altars for sacrifice were from time to time erected and used by inspired prophets, besides the one at the sanctuary. Samuel sacrificed once and again at Ea- mah, and at Bethlehem once. Da\dd, while the sanctuary and altar were still at Gibeon, sacrificed on the threshing-floor of Oman once, and statedly on an altar before the temporary tent on Mt. Zion, where he had ensconced the recovered ark. Elijah built an altar and sacrificed on Mt. Carmel, in 1 Kings xviii., and there can be no question of God's allowance of this act at least, for he sanctioned it by miracle. On this class of facts Mr. Smith glories over us exceedingly. He would conclude from them that the statute of the single altar could not have been iu existence in all these ages, because here it is not a fickle backsHding populace that breaks it, but apparently inspired men directed by God.
The obvious reply is, that Mr. Smith wholly misconceives the statute. It must be construed in the spirit of its design. This design w^as to secure accuracy of typical teaching and pmity of worship, by keeping the sacrificial ritual under the immediate eye and control of the responsible officers. The only ground for not having a plurality of altars of sacrifice was that it would open the door for religious schism, for departures from the au-; thorized ritual, and for will-worship, and thus ultimately for idolatry. "Where the church was sufficiently guarded against such abuse by the presence of an infallible, because inspired, officer, these grounds ceased to exist. Hence, it is ob^•ious that the force of the statutes was to inhibit the erection and use of a second altar hy mere liuraan authority. God never designed to intimate that he, by this command, inhibited himself from gi^ang his people several altars. lie might and would do it on suitable occasion ; they must never presume to do so. When Joshua and Phinehas supposed the eastern tribes had raised an altar for sacrifice on their own motion, they correctly adjudged it a breach of the well kno-\ATii statute. On learning that it was only a me- morial monument, these orthodox rulers approved it as entirely
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consistent with the law. When Micah (Judges xvii. 18) set up a local worship, and the corrupted Danites removed it to Laish, and all by mere human authority ; when Jeroboam set up altars of separation at Bethel and Dan for a mere political motive, these were breaches of the statute, and they were clearly denounced as such by the inspired teachers. So was the erection of every "high place," if made by human authority. But when Samuel, David, or Elijah, acting by inspired warrant, reared an altar for sacrifice, the explanation is, that they were as truly prophets as Moses. Their act was as much God's act as the passing of Moses' statute was. How thoroughly thoughtless is this criti- cism which mistakes a rule God imposed on his creatures as though he had thereby forever tied his own hands ! It is to be noted also, that at each season when this additional altar of sac- rifice was authorized by God, there was a special reason for its utility, and even necessity. In all Samuel's day the arrange- ments at Shiloli were disorganized by the loss of the ark and its stay at Kirjath-jearim. Many districts were also in Philistine hands, and many Israelites could not safely make journeys to Shiloh across those districts occupied by the enemy. "When David made the additional altar, the ark was still out of place, Shiloh was in ruins, the tabernacle and brazen altar were at Gibeon; and the project to which David was, by divine direc- tion, bending his energies, was the transfer of all to Jerusalem, and their rearrangement there under strict Levitical law, which Solomon completed. David's day was one of transition. Once more: when Elijah built his altar on Carmel for a special pur- pose, Jerusalem was practically inaccessible to most of Ahab's subjects. Hence, rather than let pious people worship at the unlawful altars of Jeroboam, God authorized Elijah, and perhaps several other inspired men, to rear an altar for temporary use, under safe, orthodox, and inspired regulations, at another point than Jerusalem.
But again, we admit that during most of the ages between Joshua and Ezra there was a large difference between the Leviti- cal code and the usages actually prevailing in Israel. Mr. Smith urges that the difference is so wide as to imply that the stricter points of that code must have been all unknown during all these ages, and must have been introduced into the Pentateuch after the captivity. This inference we deny. Our grounds of denial
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are the following: First, The history itself recognizes this de- parture from the code in all its breadth and excess. The inspired writers of Israel also predict it and its calamitous consequences. (See Deut. xxviii.) Joshua, even in the act of calling Israel to strict observance of the code, tells them that he knows they will violate it. (Chap. xxiv. 19.) In chapter xxiv. 31, the era of ob- servance is expressly limited to the life of Joshua and his con- temporaries. (See also Judges ii. 7, 10.) So, chapter ii. 11-19 gives us, as a prevalent picture of the state of Israel from age to age, this alternation: a wide apostasy from the Mosaic code, uniformly followed by the threatened calamities, and the pity of God excited by their sufferings, raising up some reformer ; then a deliverance through the efforts of this reformer, with a partial, but only a partial (chap. v. 17), return to conformity, and another speedy relapse into almost total departure, with another catastro- phe. Such is the actual j)icture of the sinful cycle around which Israel moved during the whole prophetic era. Whereas Mr. Smith thinks it incredible that the actual historical departures from a known Lvitical code could have been so wide, the history itself tells us that the departure was just such, always partial at the best epochs, usually great and lamentable. And such is the account of the history given by the prophets near or at its close, that Is- rael liad leen capable of disregarding all the points of the code given them at the beginning. (See Ps. xiv. 3 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16; Jer. v. 5; Ezek. xx. 13; Amos ii. 4; Nehemiah ix. 29; 2 Kings xvii. 8, 16.) "And they left axl the coimnandments of the Lord their God," etc.
Secondly, It is not at all incredible that a church should pos- sess a revealed code from its foundation and yet live in habitual violation of its plainest rules, because we see precisely the same thing before our eyes in the case of the papacy. This body has had both Old and New Testaments from the beginning, and yet has been for hundreds of years living in most flagrant violation of their plainest precepts. The papist's professed rule of faith, the Bible, expressly forbids the worship of any but God ; Eome worships God, men, women, angels, bones, jaictures, statues, and a piece of bread. The Bible forbids persecution ; Rome perse- cuted every dissentient, no matter how holy. The Bible knows no priest but Christ in the new dispensation ; Rome is full of human priests. The Bible says none can forgive sin but God
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Gill}' ; the Romish priest undertakes every week to forgive sins. The Bible says marriage is honorable in all ; Rome f orliids her priests to marry. AVith this picture before onr eyes, it is but silly to say that it is incredible the Hebrew church could have departed so widely from a known Levitical code. And especially is the parallel instructive, because in both cases the departures have been occasioned by the intrusion of the same human the- ories into the church, that of "tradition" and that of ritual righteousness. It was these errors, working, of course, upon and with human depravity, which made Israel's revolt against a revealed code he professed to hold, a possible thing. It is the same in Rome. Hence, were all Mr. Smith's claims of fact granted, his laborious conclusion from the discrepancies of the code and the practice would bo worthless. It is contradicted by what we see every day.
Thtrdly, While Mr. Smith supposes that this Levitical code was first introduced after the captivity by Ezekiel and the pro- phets succeeding him, the fact is, that these prophets themselves refer to the code in many particulars as already binding. Jere- miah, a little before the captivity (chap, xxxiv, 8), while citing the laAV of release for Hebrew servants, first given in Ex. xxi. 2, also makes an unmistakable reference to Lev. xxv. 10, 39-46, borromng its very words. In Nehemiah v. 1-12, there is an unquestionable reference to the release of debtors and lauds, en- acted in Lev. xxv. 9-13. But, according to Mr. Smith, this part of the Pentateuch was not* written -until after the captivity ! Both 2 Kings XV. 5, and 2 Chron. xxvi. 20, 21, in relating Uzziah'a leprosy, make obvious reference to the law of leprosy in Lev. xiii. 46 and in Num. v. 2. But these books, Mr. Smith says, are, except their thread of history, not a pai't of Moses' Penta- teuch. The same history (chap. v. 18) makes equally obvious reference to the law forbidding any but a son of Aaron to offer incense, contained in Ex. xxx. 7, 8, and Num. xvi. 40, and xviii. 7. But these also, Mr. Smith thinks, did not belong to the law at that date. Nehemiah ix. 14 speaks of detailed "precepts, statutes; and laws," given from God by the hand of Moses, in ^ terms plainly allusive to the Levitical particulars. Joshua, as the very first thing he did on his return from the captivity, re- sumed the offering of the " daily burnt-offerings by number, and the new moon continual burnt-offering, and of all the set feasts,
KEFUTATION OF PROF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. 433
according to the custom." These details are all contained in the Levitical code, and that code is here obviously referred to as having ordained them long before, not as now first invented.
The very places in the historical books which teach Mr. Smith that the law of a single place of sacrifice was so habitually broken, also imply that it was in existence and known. For example, 1 Kings xii. 29 to end, tells us how Jeroboam extended this unlaw- ful usage ; but it also plainly implies that the law of a single altar, and the law against worshipping Jehovah through images, and the law confining priestly functions to the sons of Aaron, and the law fixing the annual atonement on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, were all enacted, and known before Jeroboam. So of Rehoboam's sins (1 Kings siv. 23). So, in recording that Asa (1 Kings XV. 14), Jehoash (2 Kings xii. 3), Amaziah (2 Kings xiv. 3, 4), while in the main reformers, left the altars still in use, the historian clearly intimates that in doing so they came short of the existing law. They did right : " but not as David their father did." "With Hezekiah it was otherwise (2 Kings xviii. 3, 4). Mr. Smith does not dispute but that good Josiah made an end of all "high places." Well, the narrative of his reform nofc only plainly implies that the recovered "book of the law," which guided him in doing so, was the Pentateuch itself; but every woi'd and act of Josiah shows that he considered the abuses he removed as every one violations of old law, which Israel was bound to know. He apprehended great wrath for its neglect. Did he suppose that God would punish Judah so fearfully ybr 7ioi heepiiig a law hefore it xoas enacted ? Mr. Smith's hypothesis as to Ezra's first introduction of the Levitical code is most un- lucky. In his history (chapter ii. 63, and iii. 1 to 6), we find Joshua and Zerubbabel enforcing all the distinctive ritual of that code. Does the reader note how long this was before the appearance of Ezra as a teacher in Judea ? According to Pri- deaux's chronology, which scholars now follow usually, about ninety years !
But especially is Ezekiel's testimony unfortunate for Mr. Smith. His theory is that the ritualistic descriptions of Ezek. xl. to end gave the first impulse to the introduction of this Levitical code. Biit the prophecies of Ezekiel teem with references or allusions to that very code as preexistent and old. The emblematic tem- ple which he describes in his last chapters certainly was not a
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model for tlie second temple or its ritual. It liad the Shekinali, ■which the second temple never claimed. The land-allotments to the priests do not correspond to actual usage. There was nothing to correspond to the river of life, which Ezekiel de- scribes as flowing from his east gate. In his \Tision the " whole limit " of the top of the moimtain is " most holv." In the second temple the com't of the Gentiles was admitted within that circuit. "Worse jet, this very vision refers unmistakably to the "law" and a "covenant," as preexisting, which Mr. Smith would have first to be suggested by it. We read in chapter xliii. 8, "shaU no more defile " the house. This implies that they had defiled it before, which they could not have done had there been no ceremonial law. So chapter xliv. 7 speaks of a ceremonial cove- nant as already broken, but to be now renewed.
The most marvellous thing about Mr. Smith's critical conclu- sion is, that this foisting in of the Levitical code into the Penta- teuch, nearly a thousand years after it claimed to be wi'itten, does not seem to him at all to impair its divine authority. He thinks that such a j)ious fraud is, for all j)ractical pui'poses, just as good scripture as though it had been all written by inspired Moses. " That the law was a divine institution, that it formed an actual part in the gracious scheme of guidance which pre- served the religion of Jehovah as a living power in Israel until shadow became substance in the manifestation of Christ, is no theory, but an historical fact, which no criticism as to the origin of the books of Moses can in the least degree invalidate." " If it could be proved that Moses wrote the law, what would that add to the proof that its origin is from God?" (Lecture XI.) The answer patent to the plain mind is, this is what would be added : a source for the Levitical code in Moses' inspiration, in- stead of in a literary forgery perpetrated a thousand years after Moses by unknown authors. One fact Mr. Smith either conceals or else in one place feebly evades, that as the Levitical code now stands in the parts of the Pentateuch which Mr. Smith dates after the captivity, the text claims Moses^ authorship for it all. All through the suspected passages, from Exod. xxiv. to the end of Numbers, and from Dent. xii. onward, the matter is continu- ally ascribed to Moses at the introduction of each new section or topic. '"And he said unto Moses." "And Moses ■wTote all the words of the Lord." "And the Lord spake unto Moses,
EEFUTATION OF PEOF. W. ROBERTSON SMITH. -±35
saying, And thou slialt make," etc. These introductions, and such like ones, containing a distinct assertion of Moses' author- ship or utterance of the code, recur not less than one hundred and thirty-five times, interspersed all through the matter which he says Moses did not ■UT^'ite ! Mr. Smith susjDects many parts of the Pentateuch, because Moses speaks of himself in them in the third person. Well, in Deut. xii., etc., and a number of subse- quent chapters, Moses speaks continually in the first person. But this does not please him any better ; he rejects these chap- ters also!
Now the "higher criticism" may be able to believe that men who forged the name of one who had been dead a thousand years, one hundred and thirty-five times in seventy-six chapters, and then usurped his personaHty all through some twenty more chap- ters, were not onh^ honest and truthful, but inspired of God. But Mr. Smith ma}^ he assured that all men of common sense will obstinately demur. To teach them that these chapters were WTitten after the captivity is to convince them that they are spu- rious. There "udll be no help for it. And they will also conclude that this profession of respect for such impudent forgeries as of divine authority still, is a very thin mask. Such criticism cannot save itself from infidelity.
Our last objection is against the manner in which the book dis- counts the testimon}^ of our Saviour and his apostles to the vaHd- ity of the Old Testament canon, and of the passages impugned. The critic claims to be a thoroughly reverent Christian ; but he \drtually arrays himself against Christ's veracity, and he leaves his readers in ignorance of this irreverent and fatal feature of his reasonings. Let the reader, then, notice the following, in which the New Testament not only refers to this Levitical code as ap- pointed of God, but names Jfoses as the inspired legislator of it. In Matt. viii. 4, Christ says to the healed leper, " Offer the gift that Moses commanded." This is in Levit. xiv. 3, etc., a part of the Pentateuch which Mr. Smith refers to Ezra's day or later I In Matt. xix. 7, " Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement ?" This law is in Deut. xxiv. 1, one of the pas- sages Mr. Smith says was never known until Josiah's day. So in Mark x. 3, "What did Moses command you?" (on this same sub- ject). In Matt, xxiii. 2, " The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid you, that observe and do."
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This plainly implies that all the observances for which they quote'd Scrip tiu'e were quoted fi'om Moses. In Mark xii. 19, "2foses xcrote" (the law of Levirate marriage). This is in Deut XXV. 5 again. So says Luke xx. 28. Luke x-vi. 29, " They have JIbses and the prophets," etc. In John i. 17, " The law was given by Jfoses.'' In John iii. 14, " Jfoses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness." (Num. xxi. 9.) In John vii. 14, "Did not Jfoses give you the law ?" Now, according to Mr. Smith's own theory, the " law " which the scribes of that day ascribed to Moses cer- tainly included the whole Le^dtical code. In Acts iii. 22, " Moses truly said unto the fathers, a prophet Hke unto me," etc. This is said in Deut. xviii. 15. So in Acts vii. 37, and Rom. x. 5, "Jfoses describeth the righteousness of the law." (See Levit. viii. 5.) In 2 Cor. iii. 15, "When Jfoses is read," meaning un- questionably when the Pentateuch, as we now have it, is read. In Heb. ix. 19, "When Jfjses had spoken every precept." This was in Exod. xxiv. 5, at the earliest, if not in Levit. xiv. Mr. Smith thinks Moses spoke very few Levitical precepts. Kow, in view of these inspired assertions, can it be that all these men, when they called the Levitical law ^^Jfoses" law," only meant that it was a law whicli for four hundred years had gone by Moses' name, though really invented a thousand years after him ? Again, Paul says expressly (Gal. iii. 17) that "the law," meaning unquestionably this Levitical code, was added "four huudi'ed and thirty years after " Abraham. Mr. Smith thinks the larger part was added fourteen hundred years after Abraham. And Luke ii. 23, 24, refers to the law of the first-born male and the mother's cleansing as the "law of the Lord," but a part of it is found in Exod. xxxiv. 19, and Num. iii. 13.
The intelligent reader of the Epistle to the Hebrews "will espe- cially remember how fatal its testimony is as to Mr. Smith's the- ory. The inspired author is beyond doubt (see chapter ix. 1-7) describing a tabernacle made at the time of the covenant of the Exodus. In this he places (chapters viii. and ix.) nearly every feature of what Mr. Smith calls the Ezdrine ritual. And then he ascribes the whole to Moses (chapter ix. 19-22) with an un- mistakable reference to Exod. xxiv. 5. If the Epistle to the He- brews is inspired, Mr. Smith must be wrong. .
No better place than this offers to direct the reader's attention also to the theological tendencies of his criticism. He says that
EEFUTATION OF PROF. AY. ROBERTSON SMITH 437
before the exile the prophets enjoined on Israel 710 sacrificial ritual; that their teachings constantly depreciate the value of such a ritual, and point the people, as Micah ^ri. 8, to acts of jus- tice and mercy, as what God requires of behevers. But he ad- mits that, after the exile, a sacriticial ritual was enjoined by divine authority. But the old dispensation was tj'pical of the new, and foreshadowed the way of salvation. God, therefore, has taught hoo opposite loays of salvation. First, for a thousand years the Socinian theology, which discards the necessity of ex- piation ; and then, from Ezra's day to ours, the Cahdnistic the- ology. Is the Christian reader ready for this conclusion ?
Another class of attestations is found in the mode of the cita- tion of the Old Testament as "the Scriptures," rj Yf^af^, or nl yoaifal^ the "oracles of God," the "sacred Scriptures/' "the law and the prophets," and in one case (Luke xxiv. M) "the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms." Now the force of this attestation is contained in these facts: First^ These "Scrip- tures " are usually quoted by Christ and his anostles as authentic and infaUible, as a standard of unquestionable appeal, as givevi from the Spirit of God. Secondly^ The text and canon referved to were certainly those we now have, as is j^roved bv particular citations fi'om nearly every book, and by the testimony of the Septuagint, from which the quotations are usually madf, not to say by the Hebrew codices extant, and represented in our copies. Hence, thirdly^ the words "scripture" and "law, prophets, psalms," were certainly used by our Saviour and his apostles as distinctive of that canon of the inspu-ed Old Testament which we now have. This conclusion is resisted, indefid, and the at- tempt is made to persuade us that our Saviour did not mean to state the threefold division of the Old Testament in the sense of the customary Jemsh division, and that tl\e word joaipai may mean, not only the inspired, but any other rehgious writings of, the ante-Christian times cmrent among; the Jews, as for instance, the apocryp)lia. We have seen the vdsingenuous attempt to rob us of Josephus' mtness, and thfl.t of the Targum of Onkelos as to what a Jew of the Chri*5/cian era meant by "law of Moses." That attempt is futile. It is unquestionable that in Christ's day the terms lav ., prophets, 2)S(''l'>^s, tad a perfectly definite meaning as tbe three grand divisions of our present Hebrew canon. Hence, it is the plainest rule of hermeneutics that he shall be held to
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use the terms in their recognized sense, inasmuch as he gives us no caveat against it. Josephus, in his testimony, shows clearly that a broad separating line existed in every Hebrew mind be- tween the books of the canon, and all others, however pious and popular.
That neither Christ nor the Jews of his day ever confounded these inspired books with any midrash or halctcJia appears again thus : in every place where authority is claimed for a rabbinical hiw, its inferiority to the inspired law is admitted on both sides. See, for instance. Matt. xv. 2, 9. The scribes do not dare to call their rule of handwashing more than a "tradition of the elders," even when they claim obedience to it. Christ contrasts it -udth GocVs doffxaza, as a " commandment of men." So Mark vii. 3, 8. 9.
Lastly, The words " scripture," " scriptures," and " sacred writings," are together used fifty-two times in the New Testa- ment, and in every case the context makes it plain that the mean- ing attached iB that which we give them — inspired writings. " The scripture cannot be broken." " The scripture must be fulfilled." "No scripture is of private interpretation, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." "Ail scripture is given by inspiration of God." "What saith the scripture?" (evidently appealing to it as an infallible arbi- ter). Such is the tone of this New Testament usage. Since the intensest Rabbinist did not dare to claim that his "tradition" was " scripture," and since Christ so clearly distinguishes them, it is beyoncJ debate that the words designated only the inspired canon. But since the very parts of Leviticus and Numbers which Mr. Smith suspects are quoted as " law of the Lord," as " scriptiu'e," as " God's teaching by Moses," his suspicions are contradicted by Christ and his apostles.
In concluding this .review, we can add very little as a summing up. "We can safely ap^peal to the attentive reader to decide whether our exceptions to Mr. Smith's conclusions are not de- cisive. We can equally leave it to him to decide, after the exposure of his uncandid method.?, whether our disapprobation of his work, though plainly expressed, is not just and deserved. Our word of condemnation was not too hard, anrd the safety of the church and the truth requires from faithful defenders X£0 less. Finally, while we do not presume to question the personal sin-
REFUTATION OF PROF. W. EGBERTSON SMITH. 439
cerity of Mr. Smith's protestations of his own confidence in the substance of the Bible as containing a divine religion, we warn him that feAV who adopt his principles of criticism will think that they can consistently stop where he stops. The Germans whom he follows do not think so. Their first principle is, that the supernatural is incredible. The very aim of their policy in adopting a method so rash is, to be able thereby to eliminate this supernatural out of the Scriptures. And such will be the tendency wherever such methods are used. The result towards which they incline is virtual infidelity.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNHTOSITY SYSTEM ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.^
IN the great Protestant Universities of Germany are to be found wonderful advantages for learned research, a mighty spirit of research, and many and great merits. The Germans, compared with the Hollanders, the British, and even the French, are a poor nation, and both munificent salaries and large in- comes are rare among them ; so that the endowments and emol- uments of their professorships are munificent when viewed in relation to the habits of the people, although very moderate when measured by a British standard. The organization of their universities is wise and liberal, the professorships amazingly numerous, and the division of labor accordingly minute. This partition of branches of instruction, with the cheapness of liv- ing and of books, and the scale of the libraries, enables scholars to pursue the different departments of literature to their extreme ramifications with a nicety unknown in any other country. Hence, in German universities are found men devoting their whole lives to examining and teaching departments which, in other countries, are either not touched or treated as a brief ap- pendage to some other branch. Studious eftbrt is, moreover, honored, and literary success valued by the whole people and the governments. The appointing power is, no doubt, usually employed with great impartiality and wisdom to elevate men of real diligence and learning to distinguished chairs.
The genius of the German Protestant people also contributes in a splendid way to the fruitfulness of this vast literary hus- bandry. Intensely devoted to freedom of sj)eculative thought, thorough, laborious, patient in temperament, they are perhaps the more independent and adventurous in literary inquiry be- cau.se they have been allowed so little liberty of political action. This part of Germany is still the Protestant nation, proud of the
' From The Southern Presbyterian Review of April, 1881. 440
THE GEEMAN UNIVERSITIES AND THEOLOGICAL LITEKATUEE. 441
light of free inquiiy, and zealous to exercise it everywhere they are allowed. In no country of Christendom is the higher edu- cation so prominent and so honored, and nowhere is the trade of scholarshij) so completely organized or so persistently plied.
Hence it would be both incorrect and ungrateful to deny the indebtedness of the civilized world to German scholarship. In no department of human learning have the Germans been lag- gards ; in some they have laid scholars under peculiar obliga- tions. In philology, the editing of the classics and the patristic writings, the illustration of the Scripture text, the compilation of accurate lexicons and critical grammars of all the tongues which are taught in civilized countries, they have long taken the lead. And they are now coming to the forefront in the more realistic sciences of law, medicine, chemistry, which men used to consider as the prerogative of the more practical Briton and Gaul.
But in no department have the Germans attracted so much attention as in theology. Men speak of " German theology," sometimes with fear, sometimes with admiration, but often as though it were something single and unique, and separated from all other schools of theology by uniform traits. Whereas there are as many German theologies, at least, as there are British or American, differing as widely from each other in merit and in opinions. There is, indeed, so much of a pretext for speaking of "German theology" as a single system by itself, that the most of the writers of that nation, of all the various schools, have a few common traits. One of these is the use of a peculiar philosophic nomenclature, made prevalent among them by the long ascendency of one or another phase of idealism. Another may be said to be a certain boldness of criticism in dealing with inspired declarations, which, to the orthodox apprehension of the reformed, savors of a degree of license. But German the- ology is yet as many-sided as that of Britain or America, and there are as wide differences between the good and the bad. Of some of their expositors and dogmatic theologians it is hard to utter praise too high.
But in settling the weight to be attached by English-speaking Christians to the theological emissions of the German press there are some very plain facts which must be considered.
1. In German Protestantism, Lutheranism is now virtually
442 INFLUENCE OP THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
dominant. One sufficient cause of this result is the ascendency of Prussia and her persistent pohcy of unifying her state church. The University of Marburg, a small one, is now the only dis- tinctively Reformed or Presbyterian institution left in Germany. It is not asserted that all Reformed divines are excluded from all the rest. But the general rule is, that the Lutherans are pre- ferred, and are in the ascendant. Now, as students well know, Lutheran theology is no longer that of Martin Luther, as to the distinctive points of Calvinism. On these doctrines the most evangelical and orthodox teaching one hears in Germany is as hostile and as condemnatory as that we are wont to hear at home from Wesleyans and Arminians. But this fact is almost trivial when compared with another, viz., that the present Lutheranism, when not rationalistic, is sacramentarian. The most devout, the staunchest assertors of inspiration, like Luthardt of Leipzig, teach a phase of baptismal regeneration, and the real, corporeal presence in the supper. The fruits of this teaching there, as everywhere else, are evil.
2. The Protestant churches of Germany are state establish- ments, and such are their universities, with their theological de- partments. The theory of this relation to the state is rigorously Erastian. It is well known in history that at the Reformation the German princes usurped the power of dictating to their sub- jects a religion, with a tyranny at least equal to that of the popes. The motto of treaties and laws was : " Cujus regio, ejus religioy The ruler of the land ruled the religion of the land. The people of an unfortunate state had to change their faith and Avorship backwards and forwards, from the Reformed to the Lutheran, and from either to the popish, as the sword, or the interests, or the lusts of the prince dictated. Nor is the church in Germany less helpless under an imperious Erastianism to-day. Of spirit- ual church government there is simply none. The church courts are either absolute ciphers, or they are bvit names for what are, really, htireaux of state administration, as little reflecting a spirit- ual power as a bureau of police or street-paving. The prostra- tion of church power under the secular received notable illus- tration as late as 1875-'76, when the foul state of the marriage and divorce laws of Prussia (which Bunsen has cited as the one of two grand blots on the Protestant world,') provoked a protest
' Hippolytus, Vol, II.
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATUEE. 443
from the Lutheran pastors. Tlie answer was an imperious edict from Bismarck, suppressing their protest, commanding them to solemnize the adulterous unions, and ordering them to expurgate the church liturgy so as utterly to suppress its implied disap- probation of the antichristian law and usage. ^ In England, where a nominally Protestant but Erastian church is established by law, the healthy vitality of the national conscience is expressed in Dissent. The Dissenting churches embody nearly or quite half the population, and give a place of refuge to honest and manly Christians. In Germany, Dissent is so insignificant as to be practically niJiil. The pressure exists in full force; there is not enough vitality to evoke this form of remonstrance.
Hence, with this state subjugation of the church, and doc- trine of baptismal regeneration, every German Protestant child is baptized in infancy, and is confirmed at the approach of puberty, before it is betrothed or conscripted. All are full mem- bers of the church ; all have been to their first communion ; there is no chiu'ch discipline in the hand of any spiritual court to deprive any of membership, however he may become infidel, atheist, adulterer, or drunkard. Every meml^er of the church is, so far as ecclesiastical title goes, eligible to a theological pro- fessorship. The appointing power to theological chairs is vir- tually the state. There is no need whatever that a man be ordained to the ministry, that he have a saving, personal know- ledge of the gospel, or make any profession of it. Rather is it necessary that he attain the proper academic degree, defend his Thesis theologica in a Latin disputation, get himself much talked of as a diligent linguist and student, and an adventurous, slash- ing critic ; and that he be acceptable to the government. The class of theological students, from whom the appointments to theological professorships most naturally are taken, does not pretend to be in any way more spiritually-minded than the body of University students. To require a credible profession of re- generation and spiritual life, as a prerequisite for joining a theo- logical school — or for receiving ordination and a parish, even — would excite in Germany nothing but astonishment : it would be hard to tell whether the feeling of absurdity, or of resentment, v/ould most predominate in the German mind at this demand.
' Edinburgn Eevieto, Oct., 1880, p. 270.
4:4:4: INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
It is not meant that none of this class of students are devout, praying men : there are doubtless cases of true pietj. But no such profession or quality is ever demanded. Certainly there exists, between the mass of the students of di^•inity and the others, no marked distinction of manners, morals, church attend- ance, or habits of devotion. Church historians know that the theory of Spener and Francke was denounced by the general mind of Lutheran Germany, and dubbed by the nick-name of "Pietism." But that theory was, in the main, embraced by evangelical Christians in America as almost a self-evident truth. It is, at least, an accepted axiom, that the pastor, and especially the teacher of pastors, must be a man who has spir- itual experience of the truth.
Hence, the American evangelical Christian must be reminded of the large abatement to be made in estimating the weight to be attached to much of the German theology. To tell our peo- ple that an author is a theological pivfessor, is virtually to say that he is not only a living, experimental Christian, but that he is supposed to be an eminent one. His opinions are the object almost of rehgious reverence. At least, he has credit for the most thorough earnestness and sincerity in his teachings. It is sup- posed, as of course, that his declarations are made with all the solemn intent proper to one who beheves himself dealing with the interests of immoi-tal souls. It is hard for our people prac- tically to feel that a man so trusted in the holiest things may be deaUng with the sacred text in precisely the same spirit as that in which he would criticize a Saga, or an Anacreontic ode. To appreciate the matter aright, they should represent to themselves a Bancroft or an Emerson, Avith aims perhaps very genteel and scholarly, but wholly non-rehgious and unspiritual, criticizing the authorship of Ossian or of Junius' Letters.
Now, the Apostle Paul has passed his verdict on such men. "Christ crucified ... to the Greeks foolishness." "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." " But the natiu'al man re- ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ; for they are foohsh- ness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spmtually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things." They "have the understanding darkened by reason of the hard- ening of their heart." "But the anointing which ye (believers)
ON THEOLOGICAL LITEEATUEE. 445 '
have received of liim abitletli in aou," savs the Apostle John, " and je need not that any man teach ^-ou ; but as the same an- ointing teaeheth yon all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." "He that believeth hath the witness in himself." Unless we are prepared to contradict God's Holy Spirit, we must ascribe to the unregen- erate critics, however learned, this consequence, that their carnal state must cause them to dislike and misconceive true godliness and salvation by gi-ace. Such a judgment they will, of course, disclaim and resent ; they will flout the pretensions of spiritual discernment, which the children of grace derive with sanctifica- tion fi'oni the Holy Ghost, as Boeotian, or as fanatical, or as a cheap and vidgar mode of asserting one's intellectual and literary aristocracy, without paying for it the price of that diligent learn- ing which they arrogate. If Paul and John speak truth, it is, of course, unavoidable that these men should answer the charge thus. The same "blindness of heart" which makes them uncon- scious of the spiritual beauty of the gospel "s^ill, of course, make them unconscious of their prejudice. They are perfectly sincere in thinking themselves dispassionate. They are in a state ana- logous to that of the freezing man, who, becmcse lie is so chilled as no longer to feel the cold, does not feel that he is fi'ost-bitten. It is thus with the man who is so utterly possessed by a blinding prejudice against his neighbor, that it is, for the time, simply impossible for him to take an equitable \ie^v of that neighbor's acts. This is the very time he protests that he is entirely dis- passionate, and is calmly condemning his neighljor from the simple force of truth and justice ! It is obvious that if the apos- tles' verdict be true, these worldly men will be unconscious of its truth ; and they cannot but resent the charge as unhandsome. But none the less, the Christian who does not wish to fly in the face of inspiration must make the charge. He makes it, not be- cause he is glad to insult anybody, especially any learned men, but because he dares not insult God by contradicting him. We will, while making it in this case, give these scholars all the credit we can for every excellence they can claim, courteous manners, coiTect morals, (shaming, of course, all mere pretenders to spii*ituaUty,) dihgence, minute learning, and even a commend- able intellectual honesty wherever the siDiritual truth, which is the object of their unconscious prejudice, does not present itself.
446 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNI"\'ERSITY SYSTEM
"V\^en it comes to the liandling of tlie themes of redemption, there must be, then, a certain incompetency, in spite of their learning; and if the apostles have not slandered the "natural man," we must hold ourselves prepared to discount a large part of their conclusions.
3. The spiritual atmosphere which these scholars inhabit, moreover, must be judged by us extremely unfavorable to evan- gelical investigation, or several of our most firmly established convictions must be discarded by us. We have held it beyond a doubt, that the influence of the doctrine of baptismal regene- ration must be deadening and unwholesome. But the Lutheran divines now usually hold this with a tenacity proportioned to their professed orthodoxy. We have been taught to regard the sanctification of the Lord's day as ordained by a jus divinurriy and to beheve that God has thus enjoined it, because its right observance is essential to the healthy culture of the soul. Well, Lutheranism believes that all sacred days of divine authority are as utterly abrogated as the new-moon sacrifices; that " to sab- batize is to Judaize;" and Lutheranism very diligently "shows its faith by its works." Take this sample from Luther's Table Talk : " If anywhere the day is made holy for the mere day's sake, if anywhere anyone sets up its observance on a Jewish foundation, then I order you to work on it, to ride on it, to dance on it, to feast on it, to do anything that shall remove this en- croachment on Christian liberty." When their hohest man can so insolently reject God's ordinance, the common sense of the reader will suggest how much improvement is like to be made of the Lord's day by average Lutherans.
The evangelical Christian accordingly recognizes the spiritual atmosphere of these great centres of learning as fearfully cold. One index of this is, that American students of divinity around them, although sufficiently masters of the language to attend German lectures, feel themselves instinctively drawn to set up separate preaching. Devotional meetings are rare. Sunday is, to most, merely a holiday. The average university student is heard to boast, not seldom, that he has not entered a church for a 3'ear, and hopes not to do so until his marriage, when he will have to enter it once more. But he is none the less a baptized and confirmed member of the Lutheran Church. The state of chui'ch attendance tells the whole story as to the spiritual atmos-
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 447
pliere. Berlin now lias more than one million one liundred thousand people. It has about thirtj-two Protestant places of worship, of which many are ver}^ small, and scarcely any have a full attendance. Gottingen is a little city of twenty thousand. Its university has about seventy professors and one thousand students. In the whole town and university are four places of Protestant worship, two of which are small. The " University Church" has one sermon a fortnight during the sessions. On a good day one may see there from fifteen to twenty-five young men, who may pass for students (or may be, in part, genteel merchants' clerks). The theological department counts from eighty to a hundred students ! Where are these on Sunday morning ? " In the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg an inquiry was made in 1854 into the condition of the Lutheran Church, and it was found that no service had been held in the head churches for two hundred and twenty-eight times, because there had been no congregations." ^ No one has drawn this picture in darker colors than the evangehcal divine, Christlieb, of Bonn. He says : " There are large parishes in Berlin and Hamburg where, according to recent statistics, only from one to two per cent, of the population are regular church-goers. Elsewhere it is somewhat better. But speaking of Germany in general, we may say that in the larger towns the proportion seldom exceeds nine or ten per cent., and in the majority of cases it is far lower." '^ In fact, the general aspect of Protestant Germany, on the Lord's day, is prevalently that of a civilized pagan country like China. The bulk of the population does not enter God's house, but does go to places of amusement. The only marked rehgious activity in the larger part of Germany (there are happy oases of spiritual fruitfulness, like Elberfeld), is among the papists. Their churches are thronged ; and during the hours of mass the worshippers re- mind one of a busy swarm of bees about their hive. The con- trast is, to the Protestant, most mortifying.
The inferences which the practical mind must draw from this picture are two : the spiritual atmosphere is not one in which we should expect evangelical views to flourish, and the fruits of German theological criticism in its own country are not such as to encourage its dominancy here. While German scholarship has been busy with its labors, it has suffered almost a whole
^Edlnl. Review, Oct., 1880, p. 274. ^ Mod. Doubt, and Chr. Belief, p. 27.
■L-iS INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
nation to lapse into a semi-heatliemsli condition It lias liad poperv -within the reach of its arm ever since the end of the "thii-t}' years' war" (Peace of Westphalia, 1648), and has won nothing against it. Tried by its works, German divinity is fouiid wanting.
4. The writings of the rationalistic schools betray this spirit- ual blight in a defect which the living believer mnst ever regard as a cardinal one. This is the failure to appreciate and to weigh at all that class of internal evidences for the gospel and for the doctrines of grace which is presented in the correspondence be- tween them and the experiences and convictions of the gracious soul. This is, indeed, the vital, the invaluable evidence. The class of criticisms alluded to know nothing of it. They dissect the evangelists, epistles and prophets, just as they do Homer or the Yedas. They have never felt that declaration of our Saviour : "The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." The response which is made by the profoundest intu- itions of the human heart and conscience, quickened by the Spirit, to these lively oracles, immediately avouching them as the words of the Creator of the human soul, is unnoticed by these critics. They propose to settle the authenticity or falsehood of the records by antiquarian processes only, similar to those by which Niebuhr proposed to test the legends of early Rome, or Wolf the genuineness of the Homeric epics.
5. The sober and practical mind finds the best argument of the real value of this species of discussion in its history. Let us glance over a small part of it. The time was when Eosenmiil- ler and Kuinol were ranked as marvels of critical acumen and learning. Now, the mention of their special conclusions excites a smile, and their works are obsolete. In the latter part of the last century, Semler led off in what was then the new school of rationalism, explaining away everything in the sacred records which transcended human conception. To-day, while there are plenty in Germany who hold to his skeptical results, none follow or believe in his criticism. He was first professor of theology in, and at last head of, the divinity school of Halle. Eichhorn was a famous ^Drofessor of Oriental languages and literature at Got- tingen up to 1827. He also is a disbeliever in all the super- natural, and explains all the miracles of the Bible as natural events. The book of Isaiah he regarded as entirely unauthen-
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 449^
tic — the product of a plurality of writers put together at randora. De Wette was theological professor in the University of Basle. He is usually regarded as the founder of the historico-critical school in Germany, which was, though less extreme than the Tubingen school, tinctured largely with rationalism. He does not believe that the Chronicles are scripture, or that the apostle Paul wrote Ephesians or First Timothy. The latter he rejects l^ecause it has un-Pauhne phrases, and because it portrays a too advanced state of the gnostic heresy for Paul's day, and a church government too mature. In these points he has been utterly refuted by Bunsen's Ilippolytus.
Paulus, professor of theology at Heidelberg, 1811, was a thorough rationalist, who " sat down to examine the Bible with the profound conviction that everything in it represented as super- natural was only natural or fabulous, and that time criticism con- sisted iu endeavoring to prove this."
Baur (Ferd. Chr.) was professor of Protestant theology at Tubingen from 1826 to 1860. He is usually regarded as the founder of the " Tubingen school," which arrogates to itself the name of " the critical." He has been both represented and con- tradicted by his pupils and successors, Volkmar, Keim, Hilgen- feld, et al. lis principles may be said to be two : that nothing supernatural can ever have really occurred, and that the Chris- tianity of the first age was from the first divid ;d by two hostile and contradictory schools, the Petrine and the Pauline. For this notable hj^Dothesis the only tangible pretext is the narrative of Gal. ii. 11-16. The advocates of the two doctrines had, he thinks, each their gospels, compiled to suit their views, and the later gospels, especially John's, were forged to smooth over this fatal breach and hush up the squabble, long after the deaths of the men whose names they bear. Hence, the source of the ma- terials used for these pious frauds must be guessed. The guess of Baur and Volkmar is, that at first there was a brief wi'iting of somebody, possibly the evangelist Matthew, strictly Petrine, or Judaizing, in tenor. Somebody on the Pauline or Liberal side got up a life of Christ in Luke's name. Of this the Liike now in our Bibles is a later rehash and expansion. Then, somebod}^ to make weight against this fuller Luke, about A. D. 134, wrote the book which now passes by the name of Matthew. And after this somebody forged the gospel of Mark, as it now stands, in
450 INFLUENCE OF THE GEEMAN UNIV^ERSITY SYSTEM
order to smooth over this ugly Petrine and Pauhne difference, and give homogeneity to the Christian scheme. Then, finally, about 170 A. T>., still another forger "v\Tote a gospel, with the object of completing this amalgamation^ and affixed the apostle John's name to it. But Baur's pnpil, Hilgeufeld, supposes Mat- thew was completed first, then Mark, and then Luke. KostHn thinks there was first a Mark, then Matthew, then another Mark, then Luke, Ewald, once at Tubingen, but later at Gottingen, teaches that there was (1), a gospel of PhiHp ; (2), some Log'ui or sj^eeches of Jesus of unknown authorship; (3), a short bio- graphy ascribed to Mark ; (4), an .anonymous gospel ; (5), the Matthew now in our Bibles ; (6, 7, 8), three short writings of un- known authors, detailing incidents of Christ's early years, of which there are no extant remains or proof, but of which Ewald speaks as confidently as though he had them in his hand.
But an anonymous critic of this Tubingen school cuts the matter short. The " Anonymous Saxon " concludes that the fourth gosj)el was the work of John, but that it is whoUy unre- liable and false. His theory is, compared with the learned Ewald's, refreshing for its simplicity. It is that John did his o\\Ti lying.
Would the reader see a specimen of the " criticism " on which the date of John's gospel is settled by this school ? Hilgenfeld argues that John omits the circumstance that Simon the Cyrenian was impressed to bear the cross for the fainting Sa-\dour. The synoptic gospels narrate it. But Basilides (second century) made a pretext of that nan'ative to support his gnostic crotchet, that the person cmcified was an ordinary Jew, and not tlie Messiah. Therefore John's gospel was ^\Titten after Basilides ! If this is argument, one might as easily prove that the Declaration of In- dependence was written after the fourteenth amendment.
But the admirable harmony of this criticism displays itself in the date the school assign for the forgery of John. Baur is cer- tain it could not have been earlier than A. D. 160. Bunsen fatally refuted him in his HipimlytiLH. Zeller places it at 150. Hilgenfeld 130 to 140. Keim in A. D. 130. More recent ex- aminations b}' Luthardt, of Leipzig, of the orthodox school, re- fute the whole of them, and demonstrate the genuineness of the gospel as the work of the apostle John in the first century. Bun- sen even carries it up to as early a date as A. D. 60-65.
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 451
Schenkel, in bis sketch of tlie life of Jesus, undertakes to con- struct a biography of the Saviour, wholly omitting the super- natural powers, by the violent supposition that the gospels were later works, embodying a number of superstitious legends of the early Christians. But David Friedrich Strauss cro-woied this work by his Life of Jesn^s, fashioned on the mythical hypothesis. This learned professor of divinity studied for a time at Titbiugen. He was elected divinity professor at Zurich, Switzerland, but by a popular emeute was prevented from taking his chair, though he continued for the rest of his Hfe to draw a part of his salary. He married an actress, from whom he was afterwards divorced. The use he made of the leisure, subsidized by this Christian an- nuity, was to publish a second Life of Jesus more anti-christian than the first ; and at last to carry his anti-supematural position to its consistent extent — atheism. His last work adopts the evo- lutionism of Huxley and Hseckel, denies the existence of the soul and God, and makes man a helpless subject of mechanical fate. The English reader may see a full, moderate, and intelligent ac- count of these speculations in Lectures VI., VII., and VIII. of Christlieb's Modem Lotibt aud Christian Belief.
Now, the purpose of this bird's-eye-view is not to attempt a refutation in this place of any of these conclusions. The reader is only requested to note the follo"udng facts: Each of these mutually destructive speculations has been advanced by theo- logians. Each has had in Germany a large follo^^-ing, and has claimed to be the final resvilt of sound investigation. Each has been superseded in its turn, and while a wtually infidel result is still reached, the old methods are discarded for some newer hy- pothesis. None of them has been able to do what the old oi-tho- dox doctrine of inspiration has always done, retain the hearty and permanent confidence of a mass of Christians great in num- bers, respectable in learning, and venerable for character.
Another trait of this part of the German theology is its sub- mission to the sway of successive schools of philosophy. One century has witnessed the triumph of Kant's, of Schelling's, of Fichte's, of Hegel's system, and the death of all of them. To- day one must look out of Germany for learned Hegelians, the last of the schools mentioned, and the unorthodox philosophy of Germany to-day sways towards the opposite extreme fi'om ideal- ism, that of materialism. But it has been the weakness of the
452 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
popular German tlieologians to mould their creeds into the forms of these unsubstantial and fleeting philosophies. A Feuerbach, folloTvang Hegel, as he supposes, reduces God to the mere ob- jectified reflex of his own consciousness. . A pioiis and eloquent Schleiermacher imbues his whole system with idealistic pan- theism.
The unhealthiness of the theological atmosphere is revealed also in a way still more painful and significant by the foibles of the so-called orthodox. What name is more venerated by Americans than that of the sainted Tholuck, the beloved theolo- gian of Halle ? But even he charges the apostle Paul with making "a false construction." He seems to confess that, on Rom. ix. 17, he intimated that the apostle had misrepresented Exod. ix. 16 (Septuagint), "because he believed he could in that way better refute the Calvinistic view. {Ilaldane on Iionians, pp. 741, 742, Edition of 1870.) Tholock's semi-Pelagianism, and his utter unconsciousness of man's natural state of ungodli- ness and enmity to God, seemed to have perverted his view of the Epistle to the Bomans. Again, the pious Neander seems to give the weight of his assent to that deficient theory of inspira- tion which makes it only an elevation of the prophet's oaati rational consciousness. A Bunsen {Hippolytus, Tol. I., p. 10,) declares "snth passion that the cloven tongues of fire at Pentecost were only lightning flashes from a thunder cloud, and flouts the idea that the twelve really spoke in unknown tongues. Meyer, the so-called conservative, the vaunted bulwark on the orthodox side, began his career an Arian. He seems to have gotten no further than Homoiousiauism, admitting that Christ has a nature like his Father''s. But he admits that his divinity would be proved by 1 Tim. iii. 16, -ii-ere the ejj'istle only genuine. He teaches that man has two souls, the il"JXJ and the -vsD/^a. He holds the gnostic doctrine, that sin resides in the " corporeo-psychical " part of man's constitution, and that the --^vjixa is only trammel- led by it Uke an unwilling but chained captive. His theology is distinctly semi-Pelagian. He declares that Paul boiTOwed the allegory of Hagar from the Kabbins, and holds that he was sin- cere, but erroneous, in thus arguing. " If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
6. Why is it that men of undoubted learning and diligence thus pursue speculations so convicted, by the result, of evanes-
ON THEOLOGICAL LITEKATUKE. 453
cence and futility ? The more profound solution has doubtless been given in our picture of the State Church and its results. Another solution is to be sought in the defects of the German system of university education. These are so gi'eat that, after conceding all the praise these universities deserve, we cannot but ascribe the main credit of German scholarship to the Gym- nasia. In the universities there is no regimen exacting diligence in study. There is no roll-caU, and a student need not even present his body with any punctuahty in any lecture-room. But if his body is there, absolutely no means are used to secure the exertion of his mind. The university professor never asks questions, never holds any recitation. With the most of his students he most probably never speaks one word on the subject he teaches, and many remain utterly ignorant whether the man before him is an idiot or is mentally rejecting every item of in- struction he offers him. Unless the student is a candidate for a degree, he is not even examined at the end of the session or the course. The excuse for this fatal neglect is, that the student has had enough of this species of drill in the gymnasium, so that now it is sufficient for him to have the lecturer's example and guidance in the work of study. But this plea is wholly inade- quate. The mere lecturer maintains only a one-sided relation to his pupils' minds. If they listen, they may learn his mind ; but he never learns theirs. Every mind has its own idiosyncrasy, out of which arise its o"^ti peculiar weaknesses, wants, and mis- apprehensions. The experience of the writer as a teacher of bachelors of arts, in studies properly post-graduate and of a uni- versity grade, who may be presumed to bring to their work at least as much mental discipHne as the lads from a German gym.- nasium, confirms this view. This experience proves that lec- tures without recitations would leave his students only half taught. All but a few would carry away the queerest possible half-"\aews and misconceptions of the doctrines enounced to them. The recitation, the personal dealing, the detection of the individual's pecuharit}", the testing and correcting of his appre- hension of the ideas dehvered to him, are worth more than the lecture. Consequently, the one-sided instruction must result in a one-sided culture. Is not this the solution of that feature of the German mind that, while the memory is stored with such a
454 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
multitude of facts, the logical power remains so inaccurate, and tlie mind is so often the -sdctim of its o^vti hobbies ?
There is another feature which presents an instance of the law that human imperfection permits no good to exist without its evil, even as there can be no tree without its shadow. The great division of labor in the German universities has been spoken of, with its grand advantage of enabling scholars to pur- sue the ininutloi of scholarship at their leisure. But hence re- sult the known evils of specialism. Judicious medical men have recognized it. The specialist, who devotes all his mind to the study and medical treatment of a particular set of nerves, ac- quires, of course, an amount of knowledge and dexterity about them beyond the attainment of the finest general practitioner. But unless this specialist is a very wise and self-restrained man he gains this at the expense of one-sidedness of mind ; he be- comes overweening in his thinking ; he makes his set of nerves his pet crotchet; he exaggerates their influence, until his judg- ment in pathology becomes weak and even absurd. Doubtless there is too much speciaUsm in German erudition, and hence, while the pursuit of particular branches is thorough beyond that of any other scholars, the views of truth are not well coordinated, and the scientific judgment is infirm.
There is reason also to beheve that the overweening applause so long given to German scholarship has borne its natural fruit, undue inflation of the applauded. It is not asserted that there are no men in their learned circles who pursue a cosmopolitan learning, but certainly the general result is that their scholars consider Germany sufficient unto herself. Their boast is, that Germany is "the schoolmistress of the world." The}' feel that they can give to all, but have need to borrow of none. The best recent efforts of learning and study in other countries re- main usually unnoticed by them, and discounted from their ap- preciation. A German theologian, for instance, when told that the American students are waiting with eagerness for the final work of Dr. Philip Doruer, complacently accepts it as perfectly natural and proper, as much so as that one should "go to New- castle for coals." But when one mentions the final work of the American Dorner, Dr. Charles Hodge, the exceedingly learned man, who has read the Vedas, and is deep in the latest Sanscrit and the most recondite German discussions of Egj-ptology, knows
ON THEOLOGICAL LITEEATUliE. 455
nothing of Hodge. He feels that for him to read any other than German scholarship would be more like " caiTyiug coals to New- castle." An exception to this contemptuous discounting of all the rest of the world exists in favor of a few British and Ameri- can authors. These are men who studied in Germany, who have continued their correspondence with the German scholars, and who make a boast of retaining in those foreign lands the German methods. A few such scholars, Professor Max Miiller, Professor Eobei-tson Smith, for instance, receive some recogni- tion, because in smiling on them Germany is still, in a sense, ex- alting herself.
If the late Dr. J. Addison Alexander may be believed, there was still another exception to be noted in his day. In the last conversation the writer had ^vith him (June, 1856,) the character of the English scholarship of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies was mentioned, as at once thoroughly modest and honest. The works of Prideaux were mentioned as fine specimens of his- torical research, exhaustive in their learning, and yet plain, per- spicuous, and modest in their method. Dr. Alexander replied about in these words : "I am extremely glad to hear you say so, because such is just my estimate of those scholars. And I will tell you what you, who are so miich yoimger than I am, and who have not been in Germany as I have been, are not in a position to know so well as I do. That is, that these Germans, with all their affectation of ignoring British learning, sometimes make a quiet use, nevertheless, of these old scholars, as convenient quar- ries to dig ready material out of, which they use without acknow- ledging. You have mentioned Prideaux. Now, it is singular that there is a late German work, very pretentious, on a part of the ancient church history, which has almost made its fortune out of plagiarisms from Prideaux." This is given on the author- ity of Dr. Alexander solely.
7. But the worst hterary influence remains to be explained. As the German university is actually administered by its teach- ers, its "final clause" is not to communicate knowledge to pupils, but to manufa^'ture professors. The professor does not lecture so much for th3 purpose of teaching the ascertained and recog- nized body of his science — the student is presumed to have got- ten that ah'eady, in the Gyiiinasinm , or by his own reading — the prelection is rather designed to set him a pattern of the me-
456 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
tliods of new researcli in the outworks of tlie science. The as- pirant is per[3etuallj taught that to get into the hne of promotion he must " do new work," which means that he must make some addition, not kno^\Ti before, to the science which he has adopted as his specialty. The test of abihty is not the man's capacity to acquu'e an intelhgent, perspicuous knowledge of the science, how- ever thorough and extensive. Nor is it to be able to make useful applications of the principles of the science, already established, for the benefit of mankind. Nor is it to be able to teach the whole known science effectively to other minds. All this is not enough. The aspirant must "do new work." He must also e\dnce independent powers of research or invention by extend- ing his science in some quarter not explored before, however minute, or merely curious and trivial. Hence, " Do new work " is a sort of shibholeth with them. The " dissertation," which in- troduces the candidate to the privilege of an examination for an honorary degree, must profess to "do new work." When the young aspirant has become a "jyriw^i docent^^ his main hopes of promotion and a salary repose on his getting the name of having "done new work." "WTlien he becomes at last a "professor ex- traordinary," his prospect of elevation to the rank of a full j^ro- fessor depends still on his "doing new work." One peculiarity of the German university is, that this '' profesaor ausserordentlk-h,'' or assistant professor, is not really the assistant of his senior, but his rival. He may have a miserable pittance of salary, but he has the privilege of lecturing on any part of the course he pleases ; on the very same parts his senior is lecturing on, at the same time; and instead of following, he may move abreast of, or in advance of him. It is supposed that this license stimulates both senior and assistant, and keeps them both diligent and pushing. It certainly stimulates the assistant ; for he is grasping up after his "bread and butter." Hence, it is not unknown that the su- perior shall lecture to six or seven students, and his assistant to forty or sixty. And the case is probably found to be this : that the old superior professor is still delivering the same course ■which, twenty years before, made him Magnus Apollo in the ■university, and deUvering it with all the increased efficiency de- rived from experience in teaching and successive reiixplorations of his ground, while his assistant is "doing new work." The senior has done his " new work " a few years ago. Probably it
ON THEOLOGICAL LITEEATUEE. 457
■was really important work, constituting really grand extensions in the domains of liis science ; possibly it was work so valuable that it really left little except the gleanings of trifles in that sphere of science for those who come after him ; but, alas for this senior ! it is no longer "new work" to-day. And so his students pro- nounce that he is no longer "fresh." They forsake him for his young aspiring assistant who is "doing new work;" the new work, namely, of whittling and polishing some little angle of the science which his senior has left "in the rough," and which is never going to be anything more than a curious trivialty after it is polished. And the enthusiastic young gentlemen fancy that they are mastering the body of the science, because they are as- sisting so zealously in this polishing of the useless angle, when, in fact, what they need is to be studying the old work, which is not fresh, so as to ground themselves in the rudiments of their science.
The consequences of this system are in part admirable. It begets in a numerous body of young aspirants a restless, if an innovating, activity in research. A multitude of minds are push- ing the outer boundaries of knowledge in every direction. In the physical sciences, which partake of the almost boundless variety of their subject-nature, and in antiquarian researches, where the documents are so numerous, this plan may work well. The young man who would teach mineralogy, or chemistry, or botany, or electricity, cannot indeed hope to add a whole pro- vince to the domain of his science, like a Davy, a Franklin, or a Linna?us. But he may hope to construct some acid or neutral salt never combined before, and give it a learned name ; or to detect, analyze, and classify a few weeds or mosses which the books had not before recorded. Nor should these minute indus- tries in the scientific field be wholly despised ; for it may be, that in some future induction, which really leads to important truth, the little facts may bear a useful paii}. No one can pre- dict.
But obviously, the results of this system are far from healthy in the spheres of philosophy and especially revealed theology. The facts and data with which the philosox^her can properly deal are limited; they can properly include only those contents of consciousness Avhich are common to sane men. That is all. Hence, when this imperious injunction is still imported into phil-
458 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
osopliy, that tlie aspirant in this branch of study must " do new work," or else remain an underling, witli no professorship, no honor, no fame, and very little " bread and butter," he is i:)laced under violently unhealthy influences. What can he do? He can onlv innovate ; he can only attack existing doctrines ; and if it happens that the existing doctrines are abeady settled aright, he must unsettle them to get them wi-ong. Let us suppose, for example, that the venerable Dr. Archibald Alexander, while teaching in Princeton that beautiful course of elementary ethics, which is left to us in his little volume of Moral Science, was condemned, according to the German system, to have under him this "professor ausserordenthch," vdth the privilege, not of as- sisting, but of rivalling his senior, with a starveling salary of $250 per annum, and a nice young lady in some New Jersey church, betrothed to him some five or seven years ago, with no chance of man-iage under present circumstances. This young gentleman is told that his getting a full post and salary in some younger western seminary, (as the Allegheny or Chicago,) de- pends on his " doing new work " in his department. It will not be enough for him, adopting the system of his venerable senior, to add some more resources of diligence in illustrating it and successful perspicuity in teaching it. This is not really " doing new work." It does not e-^ance original, creative, philosophic talent. Let us suppose again, that the ethical philosophy of Dr. Alexander is the true one. "We now have precisely the German conditions. Unless the assistant professor is almost miraculously a saint, of course he gets a "bee in his bonnet." He can only rise by differing substantively from his senior's philosophy. But that is the right philosophy. Then he must rise by inventing a false one, and by exerting his learning and ingenuity to make the false one look like the truth.
But it is when this law is rirtuaUy applied to the student of theology that it works the most deadly mischief. Here, as we beheve, is a divine science. Its whole data are given to us in revelation, and are therefore limited and definite in number, and immutable, because infallible in character. There can be but one right system. All others, so far as they vary from this, are wi'oug. There is, indeed, much scope for exegetical dihgence. But this continued exegetical labor can never introduce substan- tial modification into a single essential member or relation of the
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 459
system; it can oulj add the lesser, and as the industry pro- ceeds, increasingly minute, confirmations to the main results ac- cepted from the first by true believers. Here is a yital distinc- tion ■uhieh is more and more overlooked in days of pretended "progress." And the proof of its justice is this: that the re- vealed code, containing all these data of the science of redemp- tion, was avowedly and expressly given by God to the common people, with the pledge that it was sufficient to give them the in- falhble knowledge of salvation; and the qualifications required for its right apprehension were not any antiquarian learnings and sciences of criticism to be acquired in the future develop- ment of civilization, but an obedient heart and spiritual discern- ment given in answer to belie^^'ing prayer. (John vii. 17 ; xvi. 13 and 23 ; James i. 5 ; 1st Epistle of John ii. 27, etc., etc.) In short, that revealed theology cannot he a progressive science, is proved by this short argument. It was equally given by its Author to save sinners of the first century of the Christian era, and of the last. He declares that it saves by its truth, and by the reception of its truth alone. If, then, the system by which we are to be saved in the last age is the result of a progression in science, it could not have been a system to save the sinners of the first age.
Hence, when the injunction to "do new work" is thrust upon the theologian, it is almost a direct incentive to heretical innova- tion. The animus which this trait of the German erudition has imported into theological study, is poisonous to orthodoxy. It begets an endless and ever restless spirit of innovation. To the current inquiring mind, the doctrines which are accepted and established are presumptively obnoxious because they are ac- cepted. The Protestant principle is that nothing is to command our faith merely because supported b}' human prescription. Ed- ucated Germany is prone to push the triith to this extreme : that because a proposition happens to be supported by the prescrip- tion of the day, therefore it is not to be believed.
When the influence of this usage is properly appreciated, the American Christian becomes aware that he has been under a species of hallucination in attaching any serioiis significance to this species of critical and theological speculations. Devout and evangelical men among us are, of course, "in dead earnest" in handling the topics of redemption. They beheve that it is by
460 INFLUENCE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
these topics immoi'tal souls are to live or perish forever. Through these topics the hoHest attributes of God, and the most sacred compassions of the incarnate Sa^dour, receive their manifestation. "We remember that there is an ever-present responsibility resting on all who touch them, for the manner in which they handle them. Hence, it is hard for us to apprehend the footing which doctrines, and facts concerning the sacred writings, hold in these minds as merely interesting antiquarian subjects for an intel- lectual sword play. The Eationalists are, of coiu^se, not obhvi- ous of the ephemeral Hfe of the previous speculations of their comrades. They know that the usual term of their hfe is not more than a generation^, and as all the previous ones have had their day and died, there is a tacit understanding that the ones they are studpng "will have the same fate. To the resident in Germany there is, as men say, a "feeUng in the air," that no one regards these critical theories as final. This admission betrays itself in a hundred hints. One inquires, for instance, whether a given great man is a.leading power in his department of htera- tiu'e. The answer is: "Oh, not now: he has been before the German public too long. Blank is now the coming man " (men- tioning a younger celebrity). Does one ask why, if the -^litiugs of the first were true and just, they should not continue to lead the mind of the country, inasmuch as truth is never old ? The answer is a shrug, and the remark, " Why, his last great work has been out twenty years!" The new contribution is recog- nized ^ith favor, not as destined to estabUsh final conclusions, but as furnishing a new scholarly theme, as creditable to German erudition, and as placing a literary comrade in the way of pro- motion.
In a word, much of this writing is the literary "student's duel." The young German of fashion is the model of mihtary courtesy, and member of a fashionable university C07y8, He fights two or three duels per session with gentlemen of other corps, with whom he has not the shadow of a c[uarrel, and with whom he will be thoroughly warm and cordial at the next "kneiper." He seeks to slash him "udth his sword, and shed Ms blood — in a mild way. Now should this antagonist take his dic:= comfitmre an grand serieux, and pursue his quarrel, aftei: iiic fashion of the British or American duehst, with real deadly in- tent, the men of fashion would view this as clear proof of lack
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 461
of breeding, almost of lack of civilization. So when German literati learn that we take their attacks on the Scriptures and the doctrines of grace in this solemn way, they are affected with a somewhat similar sentiment. It is a combination of amusement and disgust; our making a life-and-death affair of them is an index of '"deficient culture," indeed of a state of very imperfect civilization. It proves that we have not experienced the liberal- izing influences of letters which educate a man out of intolerance. Had we the full German culture, we should be too courteous and tolerant to " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints;" we should not allow a consideration so prosaic as that " there is only one name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved " to obstruct the freedom of learned inquiry.
8. Our indictment against the spirit of this theology, then, is, that it. tends to unsettle everything, and settle nothing. It has mistaken license of mind for libei-ty of mind. It claims the privilege of pursuing the Protestant freedom, "to prove all things and hold fast that which is good ;" but it perverts that right to a questioning of good things w^hich results in the holding fast to nothing. It is said that the truly philosophic method is to ques- tion every position in our beliefs, and that this is a duty which one man cannot do for another more than he can eat and breathe for him, so that even the most fundamental and settled dictates of belief shall be held subject to debate by each new comer. It is sueeringly asked. Would you have the pastors of the church especially hold their creeds on ignorant prescription? Shall they preach dogmas as Bible truths only because a Synod, con- fessedly not inspired, said three hundred years ago, that the Bible taught them ?
"We reply, of course not. But let it be supposed that possibly that Synod was right; that the canonical Scriptures are God's Word ; and that the creed formulated by the Synod from them is the meaning of God in them. If, on the one hand, the " say so" of this naughty thing, a SjTiod, does not prove this true, neither does it prove it untrue. Suppose, now, for argument's sake, the Synod true. How then will this universal right and duty of free inquiry combine with that fact in the results ? This question reveals at a touch the shallow and impertinent sophism. Does this right of free inquiry take the form of a right to reject
462 INFLUENCE OF THE GEKMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
tlie trntli, and that on tlie gronnd that some good man, before us, in the legitimate exercise of this same right, ascertained that truth for us? Hardly! In the case supposed, then, the in- dividual right of free inquiry resolves itself simjoly into this : the right (and duty) of embracing heartily and intelligently the truths given to us. That is all. The sophistical assumption in this innovating criticism is, that this individual right can only be fully exercised by differing from all previous uninspired re- sults. But this would be true only on the supposition that all previous results must be erroneous, because uninspired. If this were true, then all the exertions of these last (uninspired) critics are thereby shown to be thoroughly impertinent. How baseless the theory is appears from a simple dUemma. Either this me- thod of criticism and free speculation is not a method for the ascertainment of truth, or it is. If it is not, it is %^;orthless, and the sooner we have done with it the lietter. If it is, then it leads to the permanent establishment of truths. Therefore the Pro- testants who come after these critics can no longer exercise their freedom of inquiry without claiming a license to criticize and re- ject truth f Any other science of ascertained truth may offer us good and sufficient instances. The teacher of geometry does not inhibit fi'ee thought. He does not teach the conclusions of his science by dictation, but he knows that the right exercise of free thought by his pupils will inevitably lead to their readop- tion of the same old theorems taught ever since Euclid. How is this? Because they are clearly true. Ah! but this is an exact science ; a science of absolute truth, says one. Let another in- stance be taken, then. The German antiquary teaches his pupils that Dionysius, Paul's convert in Athens, did not ivrite the Celestls Hierarchia. He by no means teaches this by mere dictation. He invites his pupils to the fullest freedom of inquiry. But he expects them inevitably to readopt his conclusion.
But it is pleaded that the human mind is an imj^erfect instru- ment of cognition, and this imperfection cleaves, in some degree, to its most fundamental exercises. Hence, it is argued, the onlj' way to secure accurate knowledge is to hold all conclusions, even the foundation ones of the science studied, subject to reexamina- tion and possible modification by every student. This concep- tion implies, that the only way to build the temple of triith securely is for each builder to relay for himself all the stones.
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 463
including tlie foundation stones. Another proposition is far more certain : that if everybody is to be continually moving the bottom stones, no temple of truth can be built at all for anybody. Each builder should, indeed, acquaint himself intelligently with those foundation stones, as with all above them in the wall, but not for the purpose of moving them. He acquaints himself with them for the purpose of approving their position, and satisfying himself they are in the right place. This overweening critical spirit overlooks an all-important truth, that the attainments of sound, healthy research are cumulative. The results of the men- tal labor of previous generations should count for something. Some things should get settled by the progress of knowledge. Truths ascertained in one way reflect their light of evidence on other truths ; so that these latter become perfectly clear in their certainty, and are most thoroughly settled for the most enlight- ened and just-minded men. There is no theory which is really more dishonoring to the rights of the human intellect than this innovating criticism, for its tendency is to mark all the efforts of men continually with practical futihty. It seems to say, that man's intelligence is never to attain conclusive results. If this were indeed so, we see not how such a faculty is worthy of rights to any prerogative or any freedom.
When we see the rationalistic theology and criticism, then, perpetually announcing new results, we ask : Have any new and important data been discovered, such as justify the laying anew of the foundations ? Have any more primitive documents been discovered ? What are they ? The Moabite stone, the Eosetta stone, with the readings of Egyptian monuments deduced there- from. The cuneiform remains in Mesopotamia. The Sinai MS. of the Scriptures, found by Tischendorf, the lost work of Hippolytus of Portus (if we may trust Bunsen). But every one of these is favorable, and only favorable, to the old conclu- sions as to the canon and text of Scripture, so far as they touch the subject at all. Have any new lights of importance been tlirown upon dates or the genuineness of patristic writings since the era of Cave, Bentley, and the other great critics who settled the estimation of this literature ? Have any testimonies as to the canon been unearthed more authoritative than those of Caius and Eusebius? None. T'le materials remain substantially as they were, when the renewed and exhaustive research of a Hug,
464 INFLUEXCE or THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
an Alexander, and a Sampson, made a final settlement for fair minds of tlie canon. Bnt the new criticism goes on, shuffling its pack of cards over and over, without any ground, making its new deals of pretended conclusions, which have nearly as much for- tuity, and as little authority, as the deals of the fortune-teller's cards.
But it is claimed that, though the materials remain substan- tiall}" the same, the advance of philology has given a new appa- ratus of exposition, and the methods of the new criticism place the data in new lights.
No one can be readier than the wTiter to recognize every col- lateral ray of light thrown on exegesis by philology with grati- tude. But the recent beams are, compared -^nth the great flood thrown by the Reformed exegetes of the previous ages, slender side lights, and they are in the main confirmatory of the old or- thodox methods and conclusions. To say that modern philology has furnished any grounds for revolutionizing exegesis, is simply a boastful misrepresentation. Let Winer be taken as the most illustrious example. His rationalism was probably so entire as to create for him the conditions of a complete grammatical equit}' and impartiality, by means of his very indifference to the doc- trines extracted from the text. It made no difference to his pre- judices or feelings whether the Scriptures were so interpreted as to teach Calvinism or Semi-Pelagianism, since to him they were no inspired authority for anything. Hence, he could investigate their grammatical laws with the same equanimity as those of Tyrtieus or Pindar. What has been the result ? That the prin- cijDles of his grammatical constructions give the same conclusions in exegesis usually reached in Calvin's. In the minuter details and accomplishments of exegesis, he completes Calvin's exegeti- cal results, in a few cases he differs from him, usually not for the better.
As for the methods of the new internal criticism, we meet the claim by a direct denial of theii' correctness. " By their fraits ye shall know them." Their most pungent condemnation is fi'om their clashing results in the hands of their own advocates. On such critical premises an ingenious man might prove almost anything about any authentic writing. A much more plausible argument could be made to prove that the history of the first Napoleon is mythical (as Ai'chbishop Whately showed), than
ON THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 465
that the gospels nf .Jesn.'^ are mythicah One maxim of the com- mon-sense of mankind contains a refutation of the most of these criticisms : " Triitli is often stranger than fiction."
Only one of these so-called critical principles, one now exceed- ingly fashionable, will be mentioned in conclusion.
Protestant expositors have alwaj^s admitted the utility of learn- ing all that is possible of the personality of the human penman, of the inspired document, of his times, education, opinions^ modes of thought, idiosj'ncrasy of language, and laationality. Why? Because it is possible that any of these, when authenti- cally knoAvn, may throw a side light, usually a dim one, on tho interpretation of his words. But now, this obvious old admission is travestied and reappears in this form : that the Inimau author's ascertained doctrinal "standpoint" is to dictate our construction of his inspired writing. And this, sometimes, when the doctri- nal standpoint is the one he held before his conversion to tho gospel ! Clearly, this principle begs the whole qu&stion of that writer's inspiration. On the orthodox theory of inspiration, that the Holy Spirit, using the man as his amanuensis, did not sup- press the human element of thought and style, but directed it infallibly to the giving of the form of expression designed by God for the composition, the penman's personal traits would naturally appear in the verbal medhirn of the divine thought. But, even then, they would not be allowed to vitiate the perfect truth of that thought. But to say that the propositions them- selves were the results of the human writer's education and opinions, is simply to say that he had no inspiration. If the sacred writers claimed inspiration, and sufficiently attested the truth of the claim, then this theory of exposition is naught.
YIXDICATORY JUSTICE ESSEXTL41 TO GOD/
"Who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them -who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glorj' and honor and immortality, eternal life : but unto them that ars contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteous- ness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, npou every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : for there is no respect of persons ■«-ith God." — Eomaxs ii. 6-11.
IX the first revelation wliicli God ever made to man, tliat of Paradise, justice vi'as declared as clearly as grace. Was tlie garden adorned for man's occupancy by the laA'ish hand of divine Ijenevolence, and was eternal and assured blessedness offered 1dm on the easy terms of refraining fi'om the fruit of one tree ? Tet justice added the threat : " In the day that thou eatest iherof, thou shalt surely die." As soon as innocent man fell, and it became necessary to reveal a religion for sinners, the fore- most point of this creed was the necessity that sin must be pun- ished for the satisfaction of the di^-ine perfections. The chief aim of God, in every institution of Old Testament religion, was obviously to make this piime truth stand out to the apprehension of sinners. "What was the prominent addition made to the wor- ship of Paradise ? Blood}- sacrifice, and that undoubtedly or- dained by God, since Abel's faith in offering it must have had «uch a warrant. And this remained the grand characteristic of the religion for sinners until the Lamb of God came, who taketh away the sin of the world. AATierever the patriarchs approached the throne of grace, there the altar must be reared : before the gates of the lost Eden ; on the steaming soil of the earth, just yielded up by the avenging waters ; on the plains of 3Iamre ; at Horeb, and through all the centuries of the sanctu- ary, the orisons of faith and penitence must be accompanied wdth the streaming blood of a victim and the avenging fire of the altar. They could only rise to heaven when attended by the
smoke of sacrifice. God was thus teaching all ages this founda-
* — — ^ — — - — ■ — •
' This article appeared in the SouViern Pulpit, April, 1881. 466
VINDICATOEY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 467
tion tnitli of tlie theology of redemption, that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission." The guilt of sin must be avenged by the just penalty, for the satisfaction of God's perfections, before the sinner can be forgiven.
But this principle, which God so ob^dously places in the fore- fi"ont of his gospel, is one to which the carnal mind is most ob- tuse. This strange and obstinate forgetfulness is manifested at once by the ci-ude notions of the people, and the speculations of the scholar. Investigate the alarmed conscience, not yet taught of the Spirit, and you vnR usually find an utter unconsciousness of the necessity for satisfaction for guilt, and of the true object of Christ's sacrificial sufferings. Ask the distressed sinner how he hopes to be forgiven. He will tell you, "For the sake of my repentance ;" or " of my prayers ;" or " of my new obedience ;" or "of my penances." Anj^hing rather than the one Bible answer, " For the merit of the penal sufferings and death of my divine substitute." And when you have swept away those refuges of Ues, and even left the cowering soul desperate of all other resort, you may hold up this, the only source of pardon, to his despairing eyes, and he will turn away unsatisfied and stolid. The cross is "unto him foolishness," unless he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness shine into his mind to teach him its glory.
So the speculations of carnal science betray a similar incom- petency of the fallen mind of sinners for this fundamental truth. Let philosophy, falsely so called, set itself to de\dse a theory ac- counting for the infliction of punishment on sin, or for the neces- sity of Christ's sacrifice, and you shall hear any inconsequent scheme whatsoever, rather than the true one. One dreamer will tell us that punishment is not the decree of God's special provi- dence at all, but the regular and unavoidable effect of the system of nature, as though that system were aught else than the ex- pression of God's almighty -v^dll. Another will teach that God's vindicatory justice is nothing but " benevolence guided by wis- dom ;" that love is the only essential attribute of God's moral nature; that the true end of punishment is the reformation of the oft'euder, or, at most, the politic and benevolent expedient to deter men, free agents, from sin, and thus save them from its unavoidable miseries. When they come to explain the sacrifice of Calvary, they are, accordingly, ready to give any other than the tnie account of it. " It was designed to attest the divine
468 TINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD
beBevolence offered us in the promises." " It was to instruct us by a splendid example of disinterestedness." "ItAvas to melt our hearts by the spectacle of dying love." " It was to exhibit a dramatic spectacle of the evil of sin." Truly, saith the sacred Scrij^tures, it was incidentally all this ; but because it was chiefly and primarily intended to satisfy God's holy perfections by pay- ing the penalty of sin.
In order, then, to lay a foundation for your understanding of this way of salvation, I ask you to consider the scriptu- ral account of God's punitive justice. I have chosen, for this j)urpose, one of the fullest and most solemn declarations of the whole Bible : " But, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God ; who will render to every man according to his deeds : to them who by patient con- tinuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life : but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and A\Tath, trib- ulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil ; of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : for there is no respect of persons with God." The passage is too clear to require critical exjDOsition. It de- clares that God, at the revelation of his righteous judgment, will render to every man according to his deeds. This is the inspired definition of distributive justice. That justice has two correla- tive branches, the one as inevitable as the other; the one requires the reward of eternal life for righteousness ; the other requires the penalty of eternal anguish for evil doing. In the imi3artial dis- tribution of these sanctions no boast of name, or race, or profes- sion, or privilege, will avail an}i;hing ; the guilty Jew ■will meet the same doom with the equally guilty Gentile ;> and the righteous Gentile will reap the same reward with the righteous Jew; "for there is no respect of persons with God." It is the divine equity and impartiality which cause these awards. Here we have, then, the simple account of God's distributive justice, in his ovm words. He rewards and punishes, not mainly to reform the offender for his good, nor mainly out of a benevolent expediency, but mainly because his rectitude requires it. Sin is punished because of its desert of punishment in the estimate of the divine equity. God's
VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 469
fundamental motive to pnnisli is the lionor of liis own principles, && a holy sovereign and impartial rnler. I have thus repeated the proposition of the text in several equivalent forms, that no one may mistake its intent. All that I assert is summed up in this : that God's punishments are primarily designed to satisfy his own rectitude by giving sin its desert.
In exposing the erroneous theories, which will be m}' first at- tempt^ I w^ould admonish you against the delusion, which has deceived many minds, from likening God's penalties to those of secular government. Thus, the jurist Grotius, seeing that the penal legislation of the commonwealth is, properly, designed in large degree as an expedient to repress crime, imputed no higher purpose to God's justice. He forgot that God has reserved to himself the supreme function of vengeance (Rom. xii. 19), and assigned to the magistrate the lower and temporary piu-poses of law. He forgot, also, that if the penalties of the magistrate ever lose sight of their true ground, in the evil desert of the crimes punished, they at once sink from the rank of a benevolent and righteous expediency to the grade of odious iniquities. I pray you, beware of this mistake.
But to proceed: It may be quickly decided whether God's penalties on sin can be explained as means designed for the benefit of the sinner. Many of his most notable punishments summarily destroyed the culprits ; the flood ; the doom of Sodom ; the extermination of the Amoiites, when their " iniquities were full"; the final and eadless punishments of hell. At the simple mention of these instances this part of the false theory dissolves like a thin cloud.
But it may be argued, the amendment of these sinners had become hopeless and their continued existence incompatible with the Avelfare of the more numerous and more righteous fellow- creatures. Let love, say they, be God's sole and consummate moral attribute. Let all virtue be defined as benevolence. Then the moral ground for inflicting the misery of penalties on sinners will be found solely in this fact, that such sufferings are the ne- cessary expedients of wise benevolence to curb the evils of sin within the naiTowest possible limits. God punishes the incor- rigible sinner only because by this means he secures " the greater good of the greater number." "His seeming vengeance is but love." Thus, these theorists, placing a fragment of the truth in
470 VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
place of tlie whole trutli, turn upon us and arrogantly contrast wliat tliey claim to be the mildness and sweetness of their creed, with the vengeful severity of ours. Our God, say they, is the God of love. Yours is the brutal theology of ancient barbarians, who sanctified their malicious revenge under the name of vindi- catory justice, and represented to themselves a God, like them- selves, pleased with the fumes of his enemies' blood. It is "the theology of the shambles." Our God has no emotion towards any of his creatures but benevolence ; he desires no retribution of the sinner for "its own sake!"
Let us see how this will stand the test of reason and sacred Scriptures. Does God love a good man any more than he loves a wicked one? You are compelled to say yes. Then, for what does God love the good man most? For his righteousness. Then God loves righteousness ? Yes. If he did not he would be himself unrighteous. But righteousness and sin are the op- posite poles of character ; to love the one is to hate the other, just as necessarily ao the attraction of the North Pole for one end of the magnet implies its repulsion of the other end.
This pretended resolution of punitive justice into benevolent expediency is, in its result, impious towards God, and practically identical with the ethics of supreme selfishness. The sacred Scriptures teach that "man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." The humanitarian scheme proposes as our most virtuous end, not God's glory (this would be, say they, to make God the infinite egotist), but advantage to man. To man in general, not self. This, they claim, is true disinterestedness. But by what logic can it be denied that whatever is made our highest ultimate end is practically made our God ? It is nothing to the purpose that names and titles are decently exchanged, and man is still called the creature, and Jehovah the God. Virtu- ally, the aggregate of humanity is made our true divinity by being ma.de our moral end, and Jehovah is only retained, if re- tained at all, as a sort of omnipotent conveniency and servitor of this creature-God. Further : this result is also involved, that inasmuch as the benevolent man is himself a part of this aggre- gate humanity, which is his moral end, he is a part of his own God. He himself is, in part at least, his own supreme end! Here begins to crop oiit the tendency of this scheme of pretended benevolence towards supreme selfishness.
YINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 471
The completion of tlie process is easy and sliort. If the ad- vantage of aggregate humanity is my proper moral end, and I am one of the integers thereof, " by nature equal to any other,'* what so reasonable as that I should recognize the humanity em- bodied in myself as my own nearest and most attainable end? Does not nature herself seem to sanction this conclusion by the instinct of self-love? Man's powers are very narrow; hence, were he to direct the efforts of his benevolence equally to the whole aggregate, they would be wholly nugatory. He can only serve the mass by serving a few individuals in it. Nature has given me more direct means to benefit my own destiny than any other man's. Hence, obviously, the best mode for me to seek the advantage of aggregate humanity is to make my own advan- tage my supreme end! Such is the abominable conclusion o£ the process ; and the process is, from these principles, perfectly valid.
In proof of this, let me cite to you a few words from the "sys- tem " of Dr. Samuel Hopkins. This divine had embraced -with enthusiasm the speculation which resolves all morality into dis- interested benevolence. In unfolding it, he carries the principle out to its selfish result with an imconscious simplicity and can- dor, which strangely illustrate the force of the logic ; it led him,, against his will, and without his seeing it, to the opposite point from that he intended to reach. Hear him :
" And as ever}^ person is nearest to himself, and is most.in his own Adew ; has opportunity to be better acquainted with his own circumstances, and to know his own wants, his mercies and en- joyments, etc., and has a more particular care of his ovm. interest than of that of others, and is under greater advantage to promote his own happiness than others, his disinterested, universal be- nevolence ^vi\\ attend more to his own interest, and he will have more and stronger exercises of it, respecting his own circum- stances and happiness, than those of others, all other things being equal ; not because it is his own interest, bvit for the reason just given." That is to say, he may practice supreme selfishness, provided he is not selfish in doing so. Thus, this boasted ■ scheme of disinterestedness resolves itself into a most odious one of selfish expediency.
This conclusion suggests the following refutation : If punish- ment of sin is only a benevolent expedient to reform the trans-
472 VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
gressor and repress crime, then the expedient which is most effectual is most just. Let ns sujopose any case in which the criminal, and others who are disposed to imitate him, would be more deterred by the punishment of an innocent victim than by the chastisement of the offender himself, then it would be more just to take vengeance of the innocent in that case than of the guilty. Nor is it at all impossible that such instances may arise. Here is an outlaAV, hardened and desperate in crime, callous to shame, and weary even of his life, whom you propose to curb b}^ penal inflictions. But what cares he for your threats ? His name has been too long synonymous Avitli infamy to be black- ened any farther by your sentence. Your jail is rather a refuge, with all its hardships, when compared with the miseries of his vagrant life. That life has no value in his eyes. He defies your threats, and mocks your fiercest severities. Your penal expediency has lost its whole power with him. But now steps forward one of your police-agemts and informs you that there is one green spot in that seaTed and arid heart ; that this desp&rado has a child whom he loves, an only child, a tender daughter, whose purity has strangely exempted her from the contamination of her father's character. Punish her with stripes ; let him look on and see her tender flesh torn with the scourge, and hear her screams; and this rugged heart will relent, which else would look the cruelest death in the face and refuse to quail. The success of the result justifies its righteousness, does it not? "Punitive justice is but a benevolent and necessary expediency to repress crime." That is the doctrine! In this case, the scourging of tender innocence is most expedient — yea, the only expedient — and therefore the most aighteous. Can any human heart consent to this ? No ! You repel the monstrous iniquity Avith just abhorrence. Then you must reject the plausible, but hateful error, from which it flows as a necessary consequence. . But there is another difference between human authority and divine, which has been overlooked by this false theory. " Ex- pedients" are the resort only of the weak. Omnipotence has no need of expedients, for it can march straight to its desired ends, and command success in their attainment by Avhatever road it prefers. All Christians hold that God is omniscient in know- ledge and omnipotent in power; that his understanding is in- finite, and his power competent to every eftect. Now, if bene-
VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 473
volence is liis exclusive moral attribute, constituting liis whole moral nature, God must be infinitely benevolent. His omnipo- tenco makes it as easy for liim to prevent transgression by some other system, not involving penal sufferings, as by this expedient. Hence, his infinite benevolence must prompt him to prefer that other system, for thereby there would be a clear gain of the ag- gregate of happiness to creatures. And if benevolence consti- tutes God's whole moral nature, then that aggregate happiness, the largest possible, must be liis chief end as to them. Why did he not convert Judas, instead of punishing him ? " Had he not the residue of the Spirit?" Here is a father, whose heart is no- thing but kindness, as this theory represents. Many of his chil- dren are scourged by virulent idcers; and the pitying father amputates their limbs or burns out the sores with cauteries, lest they should terminate in the Avorse evil of death, and infect also the other children. But suppose it should appear that this father is able to cure these ulcers radically by a healing word, without more than a momentary pang. Then, if kindness is the only consideration, why did it not decide this father to adopt the latter means for arresting the misery among his children ? Why all this gratuitous resort to the knife and cautery? Truly, it Avould rather seem as though this parent, instead of ha\dng a nature made up exclusively of kindness, must be possessed by an unmitigated malignity, which took pleasure in inflicting agony for its own sake.
But especially is it impossible on this theory of expediency to account for everlasting punishments under the government of an almighty God. Here the plea that the penal pain is for the good of the sufferer, is utterly inapplicable, for he is to sin and suffer for ever, Avithout amendment or advantage. Nor will the other plea avail, that penalties are for the prevention of crime in others, for the Scriptures represent the awful infliction as continuing on and on through everlasting ages, after all the penitent shall have been perfected, and all the perfect securely enclosed in the pro- tecting walls of heaven. Why has God adopted this sj'stem of just rewards and punishments, resulting, as he must have fore- seen, in this measureless aggregate of woe, when his wisdom and power might have provided some other plan Avhicli did not in- clude this terrible incident ? To this utilitarian philosophy there is no answer. He who holds it consistently should either go
474: VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
consistently to universalism, and assert that there is no hell, or he must deny the omnipotence of God and contradict the sacred Scriptures, and insult its author by saying that he punishes a Judas because he is unable to convert him.
The scheme, my brethren, will not do. "God is love," and " God is also a consuming fire." He is infinitely benevolent in all ways consistent with his honor, and also infijiitely just. Sin is punished by him, not mainly out of a benevolent expediency, but because its ill desei-t requires punishment ; because the honor of God's impartial justice, as the infinite sovereign for whose glory all creatures exist, and as the Chief Magistrate of his vast republic, necessitates his dealing ^^■itll every moral act as it de- serves. (Text.)
The affirmative argument of this truth ^^ill, briefly, compose the second pai^t of tl>is discourse.
My first appeal is to yo-ur own consciences. Every man who believes in a God recognizes the justice of God, and that im- printed on the conscience of the creature, as the same in princi- ples or rudimental nature. For two reasons we must beheve this, because our soids were created in the spiritual image of God (of which conscience is the chief lineament which is not obliterated), and because government and governed must avouch and live by the same code of justice, in order that the govern- ment may be honored. Let any man, then, dispassionately ex- amine his own conscience, and ask himself why he approves of the punishment of sin. The simple answer of the mind is, be- cause sin deserves to be punLshed. The discrimination which the reason of man intuitively makes between the right and the •«Tong act, and the righteous and the ^^•icked agent, awakens ne- cessarily the feehng of approbation and disaj^prol^ation. We judge and feel that the righteous agent deserves well ; the wick- ed agent deserves ill. Desert or ill-desert is inseparable fi'om moral agency. Is not this so ? But desert of what ? When you said the one deserved well and the other ill you had ah'eady answered the question. The nglit agent deserves reward and the "kicked deserv^es penalty, and the one title is the counterpart of the other. The connection between transgression and punish- ment, by its ill-desert, is immediate, and morally necessary.
Let me remind you, in a few familiar instances, of the fact that
VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 475
this is tlie intuition by wliicli yoiu' own mind unavoidably judges in every moral problem.
Wby is there so much soitow and pain in this world of our heavenly Father ? Every thoughtful mind which cherishes any reverence for him answers : Because this world is so full of sin. It is the creature's sin which accounts for and justifies all this suffering under the providence of an Almighty Being. But this solution is made by assuming the ill-desert of sin making the guilty creature worthy of the suffering.
Again, why does every unpardoned soul, Christian or heathen, regard it as so "fearful a thing to fall into the hand of the living God?" Why is death formidable? Why does its approach usually awaken so powerfully the conscience of ill-deseii? When the solemnity of that hour has swept away the disturbing illusions of sense and worldliness, every rational soul returns from its chase of vanities to the thought of its sins and their dread punishment, as naturally as the needle reverts to the pole. Why is this association so inevitable ? It is because reason then speaks the fundamental truth that sin intrinsically deserves, and must receive its due penalty.
Let me take an instance from the more familiar transactions of Inaman justice. Whenever a secular crime has been commit- ted, flagrant enough to arrest your attention, you feel a certain desire that just punishment shall follow. And when, as too often happens through the arts of unscrupulous counsel, or the incompetency of juries, the criminal escapes his just deserts, you feel as though you had been wronged. You feel that you have a right to complain, and with a certain indignation you cry that " the gallows has been cheated." Let us suppose now that the discharged criminal turned upon you and asked, " Whj this grief in you at my good fortune ? Why this heat and sense of wTong ? Were you thirsting to gratify your malignity with my blood ? Would the sight of my death-agony and of the anguish of my bereaved and dishonored family have been so sweet to you that you coveted to gloat upon it, and begrudge this disap- pointment of your barbarity ?" You, my hearer, would have in- dignantly repelled such an interpretation of your feelings as an outrage against the truth and yourself. You woitld have warmly replied: "Xo, my sentiments were not those of cruelty, but of justice. The sufferings which you deserved would have been^
476 YINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
in tliemselves, no joy to me, Imt a pain. I complain only that jiTstice is robbed of her dues, and every righteous man is Avrouged along Anth her. My heat is not that of cruelty, but of generous justice." Thus your reason would teach you to distinguish in your own case between malice and justice, and you would in- stinctively feel that while the sentiment of cruelty and revenge is criminal and odious, that of justice is praiseworthy. Here, again, you find your reason proceeding mthout hesitation upon the intuitive judgment that punishment is what sin intrinsically deserves.
I remarked that when justice is robbed of her dues by the es- cape of the guilty, every righteous man properly feels that he has been ■v\Tonged along with her. But let us suppose the case of one who felt himself honestly entitled to reward by his right- eous conduct, and who was depi'ived of his just recompense. He wordd feel ^et more strongly that he was the victim of inex- cusable "vsTong. Now let us suppose that it were pointed out to him how some benevolent expediency required the Ruler to de- prive him of the recompense Avhich he had earned, in order to bestow it on one who had earned nothing. Let us suppose a glowing picture of the beneficent results, the politic advantages of that disposition of affairs, to be placed before him, in order to reconcile him to his loss. He is reminded that distributive jus- tice is but " benevolence guided by wisdom," and as, in this case, the benevolence had directed his well-earned recompense away from him to his fellow, he must acquiesce in the justice of the award. Would he be thus reconciled ? Nay, verily. His rea- son and heart would both rise up in irreconcilable resistance against such a conclusion. They would declare that his duly- earned reward was his by a bond too sacred to be ruptured by any plea of expediency or advantage. And never until reason was dethroned would that man cease to believe that he was the victim of an unmixed iniquity. We may not " do evil that good may come." " The damnation of those who teach thus is just." But now you are to be reminded that right and wrong are the two opposite poles of this one moral magnet, the conscience ; that the same intuitive principle of reason vrliich attracts us to the right, repels us from the wrong ; that the title of the transgressor to his penalty is the same title with that of the righteous man to his reward. Such is the doctrine of our text :
VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 477
" Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile ; but glorj^, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew f^^-st, and also to the Gentile ; for there is no respect of persons with God." (Eom. ii. 9-11.) "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomina- tion to the Lord." (Prov. xvii. 15.)
Thus it appears from this new point of ^'iew that God can no more fail to punish sin justly than to reward holiness faithfulh^ The divine impartiality, then, must prompt God with an ever- lasting certainty to render to every one according to his works.
There is one more thought which deserves to be added to this demonstration. The di-vdne Judge has made incomplete and un- equal inflictions upon men for their sins in this world. He has made a lieginning of this retributive work. Then he must complete it. He has chastised some of the less guilty more heavily than he has smitten some of the more guilty. It be- hooves him then — with awful reverence we say it — to go on until he has made his judicial work equal. Inferior rulers may de- fend the equity of their intentions amidst the imperfections and inequalities of their administration, by pleading the limitation of their powers. They may claim that they have done the best their circumstances and their nature permitted. But God's infinite perfections estop him from the use of this plea, as they remove both the occasion and the desire to use it. " With him all things are possible." Infinite wisdom and power, and absolute sover- eignty, leave no obstacles between his will and its effectuation. Therefore the actual results of his administration will be a re- flection perfectly exact of the preference of the divine mind. If there were imperfections in the result, it could only be because there was injustice in the almighty will. A perfect God must exhibit at last a perfect government. The final adjustment may be long suspended at the prompting of the divine compassion and wisdom, but when God finally declares his judicial work complete, its equity will be in all its multitudinous particulars as absolute as the perfection of the Judge. (Text, verse 11.)
The conclusion, then, is that under God's government the punishment of every sin is inevitable. " Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the
478 TINDICATOEY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the foui*tli generation." (Ex. xxxiv. 7.) "That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the Avicked : and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee ; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ?" (Gen. xviii. 25.) " Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous." (Ps. i. 5.) "The foolish shall not stand in thy sight ; thou hatest all workers of iniquity." (Ps. v. 5.) " For the wages of sin is death ; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Kom. vi. 23.)
The conclusion, then, is that under God's government the punishment of every sin is inevitable. Is then the punishment of every sin inevitable ? " Being justified fi'eely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to de- clare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness : that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Kom. iii. 24-26.) Here, then, is the fundamental design of Christ's obedience and sacrifice, to make satisfaction to the justice of God, so that he may be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly which believeth in Jesus. It is this for which chieflv Christ suft'ered, that the sin might be righteoush' punished (in our substitute) and the sinner forgiven. Do men tell us that Christ's sacrifice was designed to be an ex- ample to us ; that it was made to be an attestation of the divine pity ; that it is God's expedient to draw us to him by the con- straining love of the cross ? AU this is true. But if any of these objects is advanced as the prime design, the incidental is thrust into the place of the essential. All these statements are subor- dinately true, but they are true because, and only because, Christ's sacrifice has satisfied the di^ine perfection outraged by our sins, and thus enabled our God to instruct and melt and al- lure us by the example of Calvary without dishonoring his eternal justice.
So, men tell us, that executed penalty is God's expedient to repress the mischiefs of transgression, and that he is, therefore, benevolent even in punishing. This also is true as a subordinate truth. God's rectoral justice and the interests of his holy crea-
VIl^DICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 479
tiires who, under a covenant of works or of grace, have conficl- iugly entrusted themselves to his guardianship, are secondary motives for the regular administrations of these sanctions of his beneficent law. But God gives this expression of his benevo- lence even in his justice, only because his justice punishes for the intrinsic deserts of sin. To act on any other foundation Avould leave neither justice nor benevolence. " Justice and judg- ment are the habitation of thy throne : mercy and truth shall go before thy face." (Ps. Ixxxix. 14.)
Let me beseech every soul, then, who is conscious of sin, to pay this ti'iljute to the rights and honor of the divine justice, namel}', to accept Christ's vicarious, penal satisfaction as the necessarj- provision for the remission of the guilt which he con- fesses. To go to God for pardon ^^dth any other plea, to urge before him the atoning merit of your repentance, or reform, or alms, or works, to appeal to an indiscriminate pity without this propitiator}- satisfaction for your guilt in the fore-fi'ont of your petition is but an insult to God. It is as though the confessing and convicted felon should impudently require the judge to for- swear himself and drag his judicial ermine in the mire of in- iquity, in order to procure for him, him deserving only of exe- cration and doom, the impunity which his ruthless self-love craved. It is worse, as much worse as the honor, the holiness, the majesty of God are above all human dignities.
On like grounds, I assert that such a salvation as is imagined by this humanitarian theology would be as corrupting to men as dishonoring to God. It is easy to retort on the advocates of that scheme, with crushing effect, the charges which they fling upon the moral effects of our gospel. They flout the idea of an in- trinsic obligation to penalty in every sin. They say the pre- tended justice which demands it is but barbarian revenge cloaked under the veil of equity, and the creed which symbolized this necessity of just retribution by the perpetual stream of sacrificial blood, was but " a theology of the shambles." They declare substitution and imputation immoral. But I forewarn you, when you hear one of these advocates of " advanced thought " babbling this shallow creed, if he be not only babbling in the idleness of his conceit, you had best regard him as a man not to be trusted. He is shamelessly confessing his insensibility to moral obligation. The obligation of ill-desei"t to penalty is as
480 VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD.
original as the right of well-desert to its reward. He who boasts his indifference to the one will not be slow to betray his indif- ference to the other. He who is ready so flippantly to strip his God of his judicial rights will not stickle to plunder a fellowman of his rights. In this theory of sin, punishment and atonement, he has adopted the creed of expediency, as distinguished fi'om that of just principle. Will he not act on a similar one in his own affairs ? Worse than all, he has fashioned to himself a God of expediency. Nothing on earth can be so corrujDting to the soul as to have an imperfect or corrupt model exalted upon its throne as the object of its adoration, the standard of its imita- tion, the regulator of its principles and conduct. It is of the in- ventors of idols that the Psalmist says (cxv. 8), " They that make them are like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth in them." As the arrow is ever prone to sink somewdiat beneath the mark, so will human imitation degrade itself alwa^'S below the level of tho God whom it has proposed to itself ; men will ever allow them- selves more license than they impute to their divinities.
Nor can any preceptive stringency in the law of God repair this corrupting effect. God has, indeed, spoken plainly enough to us as to the code of ethics on which he requires us to act. He tells us that we are in no case to sacrifice principle to policy or simple justice to kindness. " Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in liis cause." (Ex. xxiii. 3.) " He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemncth the just, even tliey both are abomination to the Lord." (Prov. xvii. 15.)
If life icself comes into competition with truth or right, life must be sacrificed rather than they. Such is the high and holy standard he has enjoined upon us. But this God has also told us that our holiness is to consist in the imitation of him. Can he, then, adopt a standard of expediency for himself which he has so sternly prohibited to us ? But if he could, what effect could his prohibition have on us, save to make us mean and truckling eye-servants ? A father prohibits his sons, under the severest penalty, from ever postponing principle to policy, even under the enticement of the greatest advantage. But the sons see their father do the very thing as often as plausible occasion arises. Such, a family government as this may make them skulk- ing hypocrites ; it can never make them honest men. I repeat, then, that this "school of advanced thought," which is as old,
VINDICATORY JUSTICE ESSENTIAL TO GOD. 481
stale, and trite as Pelagianism, is only au advancement back- Avards, towards unprincipled morals, and is, therefore, dishonor- able to God. Let this, then, be the conclusion of the matter : that God stakes his own glory, which is the supreme ultimate end of all his action, upon rendering to every work according to its desert. Guilt, once incurred, is irremissible before him. God's attributes of impartial justice, of truth, of holiness ; yea, of benevolence also, O sinner ! with every right and interest of his vast commonwealth of holy creatures, rise up in adamantine array to forbid yOur escape from guilt until it is removed by the penal satisfaction of the cross. (Isaiah liii. 5.) But if you will honor God by pleading this satisfaction, then "He will turn again ; he will have compassion upon you ; he will subdue your iniquities ; he will cast all your sins into the depths of the sea." (Micah vii. 19.)
THE BELIEVER BOM OF ALMIGHTY GRACE/
"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to nsward who beUeve, ac- ^ cording to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he
raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right Land in the heavenly
places. " — Ephesians i. 19, 20. } ^ , .
THE saving belief of the gospel, my brethren, is the first and most uniform action of the new-born soul. Hence, when the Apostle Paul here speaks of himself and brethren as "us who believe," he refers directly to their new-birth or regenera- tion. "God's power to usward who believe" means his "power by which we are made believers," or in other words, are born again. And this is the power whose greatness he so exalts. Other wondrous displays of divine might were made in connec- tion with the mission of Christ and his ajDostles ; but of these P«ul is not speaking here. Let him explain his own meaning. Two verses below he resumes the comparison of the text and says (ii. 1), " You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." And in the fifth and sixth verses still more clearly, " Even when we were dead in sins he hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us to sit
' A sermon preached at Frederick's Hall, Va., in Hood's (ith) Texas Brigade, June 22, 1862, and xiublished in tract form at the request of Gen. "Stonewall" Jackson.
General Thomas J. Jackson, during Ms forced march from the Valley of Vir- ginia to the Chickahominy, halted his command, for the Sabbath, along the line of the Virginia Central Kailroad, from Gordonsville to Frederick's Hall, in the county of Louisa. He himself spent the sacred day at the latter place, in the hos- pitable home of N. Harris, Esq. I ascertained that the brigade of Hood, near us, had at that time no chaplain present, and offered to conduct public worship for them. This offer was coiirteously accepted by their General, and the afternoon of the bright Sabbath was chosen as the time, and a dilaiDidated country church, near the encampment, as the place.
These troops, having been attached to the command of General Jackson a few days before, were strangers to his person, and naturally anxious to see the far- famed soldier. This desire, with better motives on the part of some, brought the whole brigade to the ap;^ointed t)lace. The little wooden church was packed, the 482
THE BELIEVER BOEN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 483
togetlier in heavenly places in Christ Jesns." The thing which is compared to Christ's resurrection in the text is then beyond doubt the renewal of the souls of sinners.
This passage, therefore, exhausts the strongest expressions of human language, to assert the divinity and omnipotence of the power by which the sinful soul is changed. It is God's work, not man's. "They are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the Hesli, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i. 13.) It is effected by " the greatness of his power." Nay, more, it is " the
open gi-onuds beside it crowded, and the fences and the verj' trees loaded with human bodies. To provide for the multitude without, General Hood proposed that the speaker should be placed, not in the pulpit, but in a side door, Vt'here a table was arranged for him. A long bench next this door was intended for General Jackson. As party after party entered the house, and finding no vacant seats else- where, were about to occupy this bench. General Hood arose again and again, and remarked: "That seat is reserved for General Jackson and his staff." This re- peated caution seemed at length to beget in all minds the vision of a brilliant caval- cade, dashing up with the far-famed Stonewall Jackson at its head, and displaying any amount of militan;?' pomp and finerj'. After a few moments a "buggy" was seen creeping along, containing the General in a sunburned uniform, and a jaerson in black. The two dismounted, and proceeded with their o\\ti hands to detach the horse, and tie him to a "swinging limb." After, this, the General slipped quietly into the house and took his seat. Noticing, as he approached, one or two com- panies of Texans marching lap in regular ranks, though vmar.raed, he said : ' ' See there, that is what I like. " After the close of the service, he saluted the officers near him, returned to the vehicle, reattached the horse with no other assistance than that of his clerical companion, and returned to his quarters. The great mul- titudes around him behaved throughoiit with the stiactest decorum ; and not a man betrayed the slightest manifestation of unseemly curiosity.
As we were returning. General Jackson said to me : ' ' Your subject this evening was of great importance, and some of your views new to me. I wish all my men could read your sermon. I should be glad if you would reduce it to writing, when other duties permit — I know you cannot have time for this now, but hereafter, when operations in the field are less urgent — and let me have it. I will print it myself and supply my command. " To this request I could only promise com- pliance.
The i^ressure of duties in the field, then protracted sickness, then the death of my revered commander, with a train of subseql^ent disasters, have long delayed my fulfilment of the pledge. It is, in my eyes, only the more sacred, that he is no longer upon earth to remind me of it. Having at length found another medium (through the Publishing Committee of our church, which j)rints it simply for the sake of the great truths of redemption it contains), I now present the sermon to the survivors of those for whom General Jackson designed it. I beg them to re- ceive it as his message ; his adopted testimony to the necessity and nature of the new birth. It comes to them as a voice from beyond the grave, as well as an af- fecting mark of the zeal and love of the departed Christian soldier towards their souls. R. L. Dabney.
Union Theological Seminary, December 20, 1868.
484 THE BELIEVER BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE.
exceeding greatness of his power." And, as tliougli to exalt tliG work to the utmost, it is hkened to the most illustrious miracles which demonstrated the gospel, the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is " according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places."
We are all in substance agreed, that a miracle was such a manifest suspension of the laws of nature as only God can work. Miracles were usually rare in their times ; for had they become customary, their end would have been disappointed. Blessed be God, this di\T[ne work, the new birth, is frequent and custo- mary wherever his gospel is faithfully taught. It is not palpable to the senses save by its effects. But neither could you have seen the subtle essence of Lazarus' soul reenter his corpse had you been present at that tomb of Bethany ; you would only have kno"\vn its return by its effects, when you saw the dead man come forth. Let us consider, and we shall see that the change of a godless, self-willed, worldly soul into a sincere, believing, joyful Christian, is as tmly above the laws of his natural heart as the living again of a corpse is above the powers of matter. This text teaches us, then,
That the saving change of the soul is God's oicn almighty v^^orJc, and is, in that sense, svjyernatxiral.
What is this change? Some, from shallow observation, an- swer : It is only the sinner's change of 2>u7'pose concerning his duty to God. But the Scriptures answer, that it is a change of the dispositions of heart, which prompt and regulate man's pur- poses concerning this duty. Note, I pray you, my words, and apprehend the difference, for it is that between light and dark- ness. And this I promise to show before I am done, if you Anil give me your attention. That new birth, I repeat, which is ne- cessary to salvation, is some deeper thing than the mere making of a new resolution by the sinner. It is the fundamental revol- ution of the very dispositions of soul, out of which his purposes were all prompted. Hence, it is not the work merely of reason- ings and inducements presented to the mind, but of God's al- mighty power, through his Holy Ghost, quickening the soul to feel those reasonings and inducements.
Having explained my meaning, I present some probable proof
THE BELIEVER BORN OP ALMIGHTY GRACE. 485
of it from this fact : that liuman efforts have by themselves done so little to remedy the moral evils which cm-se the hearts of man- kind. . In the world of matter, men's exploits have been marvel- lous, especially when they have combined their industrj^ They have bridged mighty floods, traversed the x^athless oceans, pierced the entrails of the earth for her treasures, bent the winds and even the lightnings to serve them, and modified the face of con- tinents. But how fleeting and scanty are man's moral exploits, where God, in the gospel of his Son, has not wrought through him? Where are his drunkards reformed? Where his vices abolished? Where his races civilized and redeemed, without Christianity ?
Every instance of the permanent chasige of a hardened sinner to godliness bears, to the experienced eye, the appearance of a power above man's, because we see so few men make other'\\ise a radical change of habits and principles after these are fuUy formed. The wise observer of the world will tell you that few men, except under this peculiar power of Christianity, change their course after they pass the age of thirty years. Those who are then indolent do not become systematically industrious. Those who are then intemperate rarely become sober. The radicaMy dishonest never become trustworthy. It is also hap- pily true, that good principles and habits then well established usually prove XDcrmanent to the end of life. But, as it is easier for feeble man to degenerate than to improve, the few instances in which this rule does not hold are cases of changes fi'om the better to the worse. When, therefore, I see, under the gospel, a permanent change of a hardened sinner for the better, my ex- perience inclines me to beheve that he has felt some power above that of mere nature.
But third: when we consider what the change in the new birth is, and what the heart to be changed is, we plainly see that the work is above nature. The soul of man has its natviral laws as truly as the world of matter. In both worlds we learn these laws by the uniformity of our experience. Because all men have ever seen water run down hill, therefore we say that this is the law of its gravitation. And, therefore, when the waters of Jor- dan stood on a heap while the ark of God and Israel passed through its channel, men knew it was a miracle. The sun and the moon have always proceeded regularly from their rising to
486 THE BELIEYEE EOEN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE.
their setting. Hence, wlien tlieir motion ceased at the word of Joshua, it was plainly a miracle.
Now universal observation proves that ungodliness is the na- tural law of man's soul, as the holy Scriptures declare. Let me explain. By this bad word, ungodliness, I do not mean some series of sins peculiarly degrading in man's eyes, or some pecu- liar degree of enormous criminality. I mean that natural alien- ation from God, that olD^tinate reluctance to submit your wills to his righteous will, that native preference for the gopd things of this world over God and his service and favor, which you all feel in your breasts, and which, in the best of you, show them- selves in the fixed purpose to break, for the present, some com- mands of your Maker, and to neglect at least some known duties. There may be much diflerence in the sinfulness of different men here. Some of you have no leaning to certain sins, which others pursue with greediness ; social principles may make you despise them. But I know that I may make this charge against the most decent impenitent man here : you prefer the world to God ; he "is not in all your thoughts;" you are alienated from him; you are determined not at this time to surrender yoiu' will entirely to his holy will ; and 3'ou are resolved, vAih. full pui*pose o^ heart, not to do at this time the whole of what you know to be your duty to your God. I have read you aright, have I not ?
Well, this heart is, in different degi'ees and phases, universal among natiu-al men, in all races and ages, under all rehgions and forms of civihzation, whatever rehgious instincts men may have, and to whatever pious observances they may be driven by re- morse, or self-righteousness, or spiritual pride. We perceive that this disposition of soul begins to reveal itself in all children as early as any intelligent moral piu^DOse is disclosed. We ob- serve that while it is sometimes concealed, or turned into new directions by the force of circumstances, it is always latent, and is a universal and controlling principle of conduct towards God. We find that it holds its evil sway in spite of all light and rational conviction in men's own minds, and of inducements drawn from conscience and heaven and hell, which ought to be omnipotent. Such is every man's inward history, until grace reverses his career.
Now I claim that these facts of experience authorize me in re- garding this ungodly disposition in man as natural and funda-
THE BELIEVER BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 487
mental. How do we learn more certainly that any other native trait or affection belongs to the constitution of his soul ? It is plain that, since Adam's fall, ungodliness is as radically a native disposition of man's soul as the desire of happiness or the fear of pain. (John iii. 6.)
But here I remind you, that no man ever reverses or totally eradicates or revolutionizes any material or fundamental dispo- sition of soul by his own purpose or choice ; nor can any mere inducement persuade him to do so. Look and see. These principles may be bent, they may be concealed, they may be turned into new channels by self-interest, or by education, or by restraint. The same selfishness which in the season of heady youth prompted to prodigality, may in thrifty age inspire avarice, but it is never eradicated by natural means. Again I say, look and see. Hunger is a natural appetite. Should a physician tell you that he had a patient with a morbid appetite, but that by his eloquent pictures of the dangers of relapse and death from the imprudent indulgence in food, he had actually caused the man no longer to be hungry, you would tell him, " Sir, you de- ceived yourself; you have only persuaded him to curb his hun- ger; he feels it just as before." Suppose this physician told you that he had plied his patient's mind with such arguments for the utility of a certain nauseous drug that it had actually be- come sweet to his palate? Your good sense would answer, "No, sir ; it is in itself bitter to him as before ; you have only induced him by the fear of death — a more bitter thing — to swallow it in spite of its odiousness."
Try my assertion again by some of the instinctive propensities of the mind, instead of these animal appetites, and you will find it equally true. The distinction of nieuin and tunvi is universal in human minds, and the love of one's own possessions is in- stinctive in men's hearts. Can you then argue or persuade a man into a genuine and absolute indiff'erence to his own ? This was one of the things which monasticism professed to do : monks were required to take the three vows of " obedience, chastity and poverty." Many devout and superstitious persons upon enter- ing monasteries reduced themselves to absolute and perpetual poverty, by giving their goods to the church or the poor, and foreswore forever the pursuits by which money is acquired. But was the natural love of possession really eradicated ? The noto-
488 THE BELIEVER BORN OP ALMIGHTY GRACE.
rious answer was, No. Every one of these monks was as ready as any other man to contest tlie possession of his own cell, his OAvn pallet, his own gown and cowl, his own meagre food. And for the commonwealth of their monastery and order they uni- formly contended with a cunning and greediness which surpassed all others, until they engrossed to themselves half the wealth of Europe.
The love of applause is native to man. Can reasoning or per- suasion truly extinguish it? These may correct, direct, or con- ceal this passion ; they can do no more. The hermit professed to have extinguished it. He hid himself in deserts and mountains from the society of men, and pretended that he was dead to their praise and their attractions, dead to all but heaven. But he who sought out this hermit and conversed with him soon detected in him an arrogance and spiritual pride above those of all others ; and the chief reason why he was content to dwell in savage soli- tudes was that the voice of fancy brought to his soul across the wastes which sundered him from the haunts of men, their ap- plause for his sanctity, in strains sweeter to his pride than the blare of bugles and the shouts of the multitude.
I return, then, to my point. There is, there can be, no case in which mere inducements work in man a permanent purpose contrary to the natural dispositions of his soul. But ungodliness is a native, a universal, a radical propensity. Hence, when we see such a revolution in this as the gospel requires in the new birth, Ave must believe that it is above nature. This great change not only reforms particular vices ; it revolutionizes their origi- nal source, ungodliness. It not only causes the renewed sinner to submit to obedience, as the bitter, yet necessary medicine of an endangered soul ; it makes him prefer it for itself as his daily bread. It not only refrains from sin, which is still craved, as the dyspeptic refuses to himself the dainties for which he longs, lest his indulgence should be punished with the agonies of sickness ; it hates sin for its own sake. The holy and thorough submis- sion to God's will, which the convert before dreaded and re- sisted, he now loves and approves. Nothing less than this is a saving change ; for God's command is, " My son, give me thine heart." He requireth truth in the inward parts, and in the hid- den parts he shall make us to know wisdom. Saith the Saviour, " Either make the tree good and its fruits good, or else the tree
THE BELIEVER BOEN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 489
evil and its fruits evil." Sucli is the change which makes the real Christian. It is a spiritual resurrection; it is the working of that "mighty power of God which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead."
Indeed, a little plain reflection, of which any thinking man should be capable, Avill convince you that this conclusion of our experience could not be otherwise. It is unreasonable to expect any inducements you can offer from without to make a thorough change of the natural propensities of the heart of your hearer ; and this because the natural propensities are the causes which decide already whether any objects you may propose to his mind and heart shall be to him inducements or repulsions. Is it rea- sonable to expect nature to work against or above nature ? Surely not. Can a thing by its power determine or change that prior force which gives or deprives it of all the power that is in it "■* Can the effect change its own cause ? Can the quahty of the child determine what shall be the nature of the father who begat him ? Just so reasonable is it for you to hope that gospel truth and inducements will suffice by their natural influence to change the moral nature of a sinner radically, when that evil nature de- termines already that the gospel is to his heart no natural in- ducement at all, but, on the contrary, intrinsically hateful. You see an engaging child playing in some place of danger ; you ydsh. to draw it away ; and you crave to caress it and please yourself with its beauty and grace. Would you call to it, " Come hither, pretty child, and I will give you aloes and quinine to eat?" Will such an inducement fetch it to you? I trow not. Suppose, then, you exhibit the lure in more force ; increase its quantity • inten- sify its odor and bitterness ; cause the child to smell of it near at hand, and receive a more correct perception of its nature. Try whether by this means you can attract it to your arms. Do you not know that the more you press the bitter drug the more the child wdll recoil ? And your good sense gives the explanation. You know that tlie child has beforehand a natural palate, whose laws determine that these drugs are intrinsically unpleasant and can only repel instead of attracting. If you had presented sweet- meats and ripe fruits, you might have succeeded in attracting. You see clearly enough here that it is preposterous to expect that the offer of bitter things will attract the palate to a change, because the nature of the palate has determined in advance that
490 THE BELIEVER BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE.
they shall be only nauseous and repulsive to it. If there is any su- perior medical agent which will revolutionize the very law of this child's palate, so that the bitter shall now be sweet, and the sweet bitter, then you may present your drugs where that agent works, and they Mill attract. So hohness and submission of the inward heaii to the sovereign will of God are now bitter to the taste of the sinner's soul ; the more they are displayed the more will he recoil fi'om salvation, until the same Divine Physician who healed the stroke of death in Jesus' body heals the perversity of his heart by his sovereign touch.
I argue, fourth, that the new birth is the exceeding greatness of God's power, because Of the different effects which accom- pany the preaching of the gospel to different men, and to the same men at different times. Were the power only the natural influence of the truth, these diverse effects could not be explained consistently "«ith the maxim that hke causes produce like effects. The same gospel inducements are offered to a congregation of sinners, and "some believe the things which are spoken and some believe not." It is not always the most docile, amiable or serious mind that yields; such unbelievers often remain callous to its ajDpeals, while some ignorant, stubborn and hardened sin- ner is subdued. How is this ? If the whole influence were in the tnith preached, should not the effects show some regular re- lation to the cause? Should not the trath prevail where the natural obstacles are least, if it prevailed at all? Why do we see cases in which it fails before the weaker and triumphs over the stronger resistance ? It is because, in one case, " the exceed- ing gi-eatness of God's power" is behind that truth, and in the other case, is absent.
But if you deny the sovereign agency of the Holy Ghost in the new birth, you have a more impracticable case to explain. It is the case of him who had resisted this gospel for twenty, thirty, or fifty years, and has yet been subdued by it at last. If the tiiith had natural power within itself to persuade this soul, why did it not effect it at first ? If it lacked that power, Low does it come to effect the work at last, after so many failures ? This mystery is enhanced for you by two great facts : the one is, that the futile presentation of this gospel-truth for so many years must, in ac- cordance with the well knoA^Ti law of habit, have blunted the .sensibilities of the soul, and rendered the stor\' of redemption
THE BELIEVER BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 491
trite and stale. If yon know anything of human nature, you cannot but admit this result. Kepetition must make any ne- glected story dull. That which at first somewhat excited the at- tention and sensibilities, m-ged so often in vain, must become as ' ' Irksome as a twice told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. "
Familiarity and inattention must blunt the feelings toward such a story. The mart who first approaches Niagara has his whole ear filled with that mighty, sullen roar of the waters, which shakes the very ground beneath his feet. The dwellers at the spot are so habituated to it by use that they forget to hear it at all! The ingenuous boy almost shudders at the first sight of blood, though it be only that of the bird he has brought down in his sport. See that person, when hardened by frequent scenes of carnage and death into the rugged soldier, insensible to the fall of his comrade b}^ his side, and planting his foot with a jest upon human corpses, as he mounts to the " imminent, deadly breach."
The other fact which you must take into the account is, that while this sinner is grooving more callous to sacred truth by its neglect, every active principle of ungodhness within him must be growing by its indulgence. Is any one ignorant of this law, that a propensity indulged is thereby strengthened ? Need I bring instances to prove or illustrate it? How else does any man grow from bad to worse ; how does the temperate drinker grow into a drunkard, the card-player into a gambler, save by the force of this law? It must be then that, while the sinner is neg- lecting the gospel, at the bidding of ungodliness, the love of the world, avarice, sensual lusts, self-will, pride, ambition, false shame, with every evil oiitward habit, are growing into giant strength.
This, then, is the case which you have to solve. Here is an influence, the natui'al force of sacred truth, which was fully pHed to overcome the unbelief of the young heart, "^dth every advan- tage of fresh interest. The tenderness of maternal love, the gentle and venerable authority of a father amidst the sweet sanc- tities of home, plied when the soul was still unformed, and in the plastic gristle of its childhood. But even in this tender heart the inborn power of ungodliness was too strong, the appli- cation utterly failed. But now, after this truth has been ex- hausted of its power by twenty, thirty, or it may be, fifty years
492 THE BELIEVER CORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE.
of useless presentation; and after this native ungodliness, too strong in its infancy, lias been hardened by as many years of sin into the rugged bone of manhood, lo! the powerless truth sud- denly becomes powerful ! The stubborn sinner listens, feels and submits. Natiiral agencies cannot account for this. The finger of God is there. Let me suppose a parallel case. Tears ago, suppose, when the trees which embower this forest sanctuary were lithe saphngs, and I in the vigor of my first prime, you saw me lay hold cf one of them with my hands, and attempt to tear it from its seat. But, though a sapling, it was too strong for me. Now years have rolled around, that tree has grown to a giant of the forest, and I return, no longer in the pride of youth, but a worn and tottering old man ; and you, the same spectators, are here again. You see me go to that very tree, and attempt to wrench it from its place. Tou laugh scornfully ; you say, " Does the old fool think he can pull up that stvirdy oak? He was un- able to do it before, when it was a sapling, and he was strong." Yes, but suppose the tree came up in his feeble hand? You would not laugh then. You would stand awe-struck, and say, "Something greater than nature is here."
And so say I, when I see the sturdy old sinner, hardened by half a century of sins and struggles against the truth, bow before that same old gospel story, which he had so often spumed. "^Mien I see the soul which was by nature dead in trespasses and sins, and which has been stiffening and groTvdng more chill, under all the appliances of human instruction and persuasion, at the last, when the zeal and hope and strength of man are almost spent, suddenly quickened under our hands, I know that it is "the exceeding gi-eatness of God's power (not ours) according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ w^hen he raised him from the dead." •
Does any one attempt to escape this cornclusion by saying that the new eflficacy of the truth may have been derived from the superior force or eloquence of the orator who preached it on this occasion, or from the advantage of some such circumstance ? I have two answers. One is, that there are no circumstances so auspicious, and no eloquence so persuasive as those which this soul has abeady resisted as an impenitent child. What elo- quence is equal to that of the Christian mother, as she draws her beloved son to her knee, and tells him the history of Jesus'
THE BELIEVER BOEN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 493
love in accents tremulous vnth unutterable tenderness? "Would that I could imitate it, while I beseech you to seek the new- heart! The other answer is, that the plain facts and persuasives of the gospel are, in themselves, too infinite to receive any ap- preciable weight from the trivial incidents of a perspicuous state- ment and an eloquent tongue. In the simple story of the cross, vnth. divine love there dying a shameful and bitter death for its guilty enemies, in the offer of a heaven of everlasting and un- speakable bhss, and the threat of an eternal and remediless heU, even if they be but intelligibly lisped in the feeble voice of a child, there should be a weight so immense that beside it all the enlargements of human rhetoric would be as naught. Ah, my brethren, man's skill of speech cannot weigh where Christ and eternity prove too light. It is as though that mighty mountain, whose ridges we scaled a few days ago, had been put in the bal- ance against the mightier strength of your ungodHness, but could not counterpoise it. And then I come, and with my j^uny hand cast one little stone at the mountain's base, and say, "There, I have added to its weight ; it will no longer j^rove too Hght." Such folly is it to expect that man can convert. Where the story of the cross has been resisted, naught can do it " save the ex- ceeding greatness of his power."
Once more I argue, in the fifth place, from the uniform repre- sentations of the Scriptures. The picture which they give of man's spiritual state by nature proves the text. Your souls, be- fore the new birth, are blind, "having the understanding dark- ened, because of the blindness of your heart " (Eph. iv. 18). They are "enmity to God" (Kom. ^-iii. 7). They are "stony" (Ezek. xxxvi. 26). They are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. ii. 1). Do you object that these are tropes? Yes; but I suppose that the Spirit of all truth does not select tropes such that the figura- tive resemblance to the truths contained under them would be false. Xow, then, can the bhnd eyes so admit the light as to open themselves thereby? Does obstinate enmity beget love out of itself? Does the stone imbue itself with softness? Does the dead corpse prepare its own resurrection?
Again : the images by which the Scriptures describe the great change are ob\dously chosen so as to teach that it is directly of God. It is a "new birth" of the Holy Ghost (John iii. 5). It is an " opening of blind eyes" (Psa. cxix. 18). It is a "new crea-
494 THE BELIEVEK BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE.
tion -unto good works" (Epli. ii. 10). It is a "quickening of tlio dead" (Epli. ii. 5). Again I ask, Does the infant generate itself? Does the wood shajDe itself for the artisan into the form of utility he desires? Does the corpse raise itself to life? Then must the infant work before it existed; the wood exercise intelligence and will, and the dead body perform the prime action of life before it is alive!
And to this agree the express testimonies of the Word in other forms: "I have planted, Apollos watered; hut God gave tlte in- crease'''' (1 Cor. iii. 6). Thej "that believe on his name are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (Johni. 13).
Every genuine conversion, then, reveals the quickening power of God's almighty Spirit ; it is a supernatural work. But if it is according to the working of God's mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, then it is as valid a proof that "the kingdom of God is come unto you" as though you witnessed a sensible miracle ; it carries the same high responsibility to believe and love and obey the word of that kingdom.
But I pass by this corollary, to urge upon you, in conclusion, this one solemn, thought : " Except ye be born again, ye cannot see the kingdom of God." You will never work this new birth of yourselves ; you are absolutely dependent on the sovereign in- working of that God against whom you sin hourly. XTnless he condescends to stoop and touch your stubborn heart, it will re- main ungodly, just as surely as the corpse remains dead. All the zeal of religious teachers, all your own self-righteous resolu- tions and vows, will be assuredly vain. But your wdiole life, your every act now tends to alienate that almighty hand, on whose touch your salvation depends. How complete is this de- pendence ! How mad your rebellion ! WiU you not now cease fighting against your only deliverer, and begin to cry, " Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and renew a right spirit within me ?" (Psa. n. 10.)
I know the cavil Avith which impenitence excuses itself, and I ■know its emptiness. Will you object that my exhortation is con- tradictory to my doctrine? Will you tell me that if you are de- pendent on sovereign grace, and will never change your own hearts, then the only consistent effect of the teaching must be to
THE BELIEVER BORN OF ALMIGHTY GRACE. 495
make you to fold your hands, and await in absolute apatliy the almighty touch?
"Fold 3'our hands," I repl}-, while you passively await God's help? Nay, your hand is stretched out every moment in active resistance to God's will and grace. Talk not to me of passivity, when the very nature of your soul is active, and that activity is ceaselessly directed by a rebellious will against God and duty. I would that you coald become passive from sinning. Nor is it true that the Bible doctrine herein chills or represses your ex- ertions after redemption; for, in truth, ^-ou do not believe in your real dependence. Would God that you did; would that you knew it as well as I do, for then we should see you, instead of coldly cavilling against facts and duty and grace, crying might- ily unto God for his aid. It is not according to reason or nature that your clear knowledge of your coming ruin, and of your ab- solute dependence on help fi'om above for deliverance, should paralyze effort or produce apathy. Here is aanan whose house is hopelessly involved in flames. He is within, in an upper chamber, busily collecting his treasures, and he supposes that he has the means of escape wholly at his own command, to re- sort to them whenever he deemed it imprudent to venture farther. This notion, as you well know, will tempt him to postpone his escape, to venture near the utmost moment, to listen to the at- tractions of his wealth which he would fain rescue.
And this is just your delusion now. But meantime the man casually looks at the stairway without, by which he expected to escape, and finds to his surprise that it is wrapped in flames. He sees that he has no means of egress at his own command; unless assistance comes from without he is lost. Now, what does nature or reason prompt this man to do? That moment there is an end of his rash delays. No longer does he tamper with the rescue ; his dearest treasures drop from his hands, and he runs to a window and shouts, "Help, help, or I am gone!"
So do you cry to God. It is the very thing, the only thing, which a helpless sinner, who is guilty for his very helplessness, should do. "Save, Lord, or I perish!"
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH:
ITS NATUEE, DESIGN AND PROPEE OBSEEVANCE.
IT must be confessed that tlie Cliristian workl now presents an anomalous condition touching the Sabbath. Strict Protes- tants usually profess in theory the views once peculiar to Pres- byterians, and admit that the proper observance of the Sabbath is a bulwark of practical Christianity. But their practice does not always correspond with their theory. In actual life there is, among good people, a great uncertainty, with a corresponding confusion of usages, from great laxity up to the sacred strictness of our pious forefathers. It is greatly to be feared that those in the church who tolerate this laxity are increasing in numbers and influence. The civil law, which guarantees the Sabbath rest to aU as a secular benefit and right, is enforced with more and more difficulty, especially in populous places; and this law is disregarded ^^-ith increasing boldness by powerful corporations and by those who offer amusements and sensual enjoyments to the pul)lic. Hence the wisest friends of truth and good have taken the alarm. The aim of this treatise is to give some hum- ble help in this good cause by proving the divine and perpetual authority of God's holy day.
It will appear singular to the thoughtful observer that the con- sciences of devout and sincere persons leave them room for such license in their Sabbath observance, while in aU other things they show themselves honest Cin'istians, sincerely governed by their con%dctions of truth and duty. The explanation is, that men's convictions touching the claims of the Sabbath are not clear. And this confusion of opinions is to be traced to a fact of which many, perhaps, who experience its injurious effects are not aware : that the Protestant communions founded after the great Reformation were widely and avowedly divided in their opinions on this duty. In our mixed population in America the descen- 496
THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH. 497
dants of these different communions live dispersed among each other, and oftentimes are found in the same churches. They liave lost sight of the opposing doctrines, the one asserting that the Lord's day is still God's Sabbath, and the other denying it — doc- trines once honestly held by their respective forefathers. But the usages, strict or loose," which consistently flowed from these convictions, scriptural or erroneous, cleave to the descendants. These lax customs, by example, influence multitudes of other Christians. Thus, many persons Aveakly lapse into breaches of the Sabbath law for which they have not even the partial excuse of an erroneous opinion honestly adopted ; and they violate their own professed doctrine, feebly and unintelligently held, with a looseness of conscience greater than that of the European Pro- testants whom we condemn for avowedly neglecting the Sabl^ath. Hence, a brief historical statement will be instructive, and will prepare the way for our appeal to God's word. It will not be necessary for the purpose in view to encumber this statement with names and authorities, or to detail the names of the churches and men who held the one or the other side.
It may be said, in general terms, that since the days of primi- tive Christianity there has existed a difference of opinion in the Christian world as to the authority upon which the Lord's day should be observed. The Reformation did not extinguish, but rather defined and fixed, that difference. The wrong side, as we conceive it, was held not only by papists, but by some of the great Reformers, and error was by them planted in some of the Protestant churches. According to that opinion, the sanctifica- tion of one day from every seven was a ceremonial, t}-[3ical and Levitical custom, and it was therefore abrogated when a better dispensation came, along with other shadows of spiritual blessings. These persons admit that the Lord's day deserves observance as a Christian festival, because it is a weekly memorial of the blessed resurrection, and because the example of the church and the en- actments of her synods support it, but not liecause it is now a commandment of God. Weekly rest from worldly labors is a so- cial and civil blessing, they say, very properly secured by the laws of the commonwealth, and so long as these laws are in force every good citizen must of course comply Avith them. Public and associated worship of God is also a scriptural duty of Christians.' But, in order that they may join iu these acts of v»-(jrship, they
498 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
must agree upon some stated day and place; and % hat day so suitable as this first day of the week, which is ah'eady made a day of leisure from secular cares by the law of the commonwealth, crowned wdtli pious associations and commemorative of the grand event of the gospel history, Christ's rising from the dead ? But this, they say, is all. To sanctify the whole day as a religious rest under the supposed authority of a divine command is Jn- daizing ; it is burdening our necks with the bondage of a merely positive and typical ceremony which belonged to a darker dis- pensation.
The second opinion is that embodied in the Westminster Con- fession ; and to the honor of the Presbyterian branches of the Protestant body it may be asserted that these have been, since the Eeformation, the most intelligent and decided supporters of it. These Christians believe that the sanctification of some stated portion of time, such as God may select, to his worship, is a duty of a perpetual obligation for all ages, dispensations and nations, as truly as the other unchangeable duties of morals and religion ; and that the Sabbath command has been to this extent always a "moral" one, as distinguished from a "positive,^ cere- monial" one. They believe that God selected one-seventh as his proper portion of time at the creation, at Sinai, and again at the incoming of the last dispensation. But when the ceremonial law was for a pai'ticular, temporary purpose added to the origi- nal, i^atriarchal dispensation, the seventh day became also for a time a Levitical holy day and a type. This temporary feature has of course passed away ^^dth the Jewish institutions. Upon the resurrection of Christ the original Sabbath obligation was by God fixed upon the first day of the week, because this day com- pleted a second work even more glorious and beneficent than the world's creation, by the rising of Christ from tlie tomb. Hence, from that date to the end of the world the Lord's day is, by
' Most of God's commands are simply expressions of the essential and un- changeable Tightness of the things commanded, as when we are enjoined to speak truth and love God. These precepts divines call "moral" or "permanent moral." The things are commanded because they are right in themselves. But some things God commands or forbids for wise reasons which, without his precept, would not be of themselves right or wrong. Such was the prohibition to the Jews to eat swine's flesh. These precepts the divines term "positive." The things are right or wrong only so long as, and only because, God enjoins and prohibits them. Many ceremonial commands, rules about ceremonies, are of this kind.
ITS NATUKE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 499
divine and apostoKc aiitliority, substantially what tlie Sabbatli day was originally to God's people. It is literally the " Chris- tian Sabbath," and is to be observed with the same sanctity as it was by the patriarchs.
The great synod which most truly in modern ages propounded this doctrine of the Lord's day was the Westminster Assembly. Its Confession of Faith is now the standard of the Scotch, the Irish and the American Presbjiierian Churches, as weU as of some independent bodies. It puts the truth so luminously that its words, though familiar to many readers, are repeated here as the best statement of what is to be proved in the subsequent dis- cussion ; ^
" As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so in his word, by a positive, moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him : which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week, and fi-om the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath.
"This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts and ordering of their com- mon affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his Avorship and in the duties of necessity and mercy."
The attempt wiU now be made to give a brief and plain state- ment of the grounds upon which this position rests. And,
I. The Sabbath law is contained in the Decalogue. None will dispute this proposition : That if this is " a positive moral and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages," the change from the Je^^-ish to the Christian dispensation has not re- moved its divine authority over us. Not being "positive and ceremonial," like the Jewish rules of meats, new moons and sac- rifices, it has not passed away along with the other Jewish shad- ows. Let us, then, test the truth of the former position, that 1 Westminster Conf essiou of Faith, XXI. , Sees. 7, 8.
500 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH '.
the Sabbatli command in the Decalogue was "moral and per- petvial."
The argument will pui'sue this plain and fair course : If this command was not for the first time introduced by the Levitical economy, but was in fiill force before, and if it was binding not on Jews only, but on all men, then the abrogation of that dis- pensation cannot have abrogated it, because it did not institute it.
We are but using logic parallel to that which the apostle Paul employs in a similar case. He is proving that the gospel pro- mise made to the Hebrews in Abraham could not have been re- tracted when the law was published on Sinai. His argument is (Gal. iii. 17) : "The covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thii-ty years after, cannot disannul." So reason we : if the Sabbath was instituted long before, it did not come ynth Judaism, and does not go -^dth it. It is insti-uctive to note that those Christian Fathers who gave countenance to the idea that the divine injunction of the Sabbath was abrogated also leaned to the opinion that the Sab- bath was of Mosaic origin. This indirectly confirms the sound- ness of oiu- inference, while it betrays their slender acquaintance with the Old Testament Scriptui'es. The anti-Sabbath opinion in the Christian church had its origin in eiTor and ignorance among the early, uninspired teachers.
It may be argued that the Sabbath is of moral and perpetual authority from these facts: There is a reason in the nature of things, making such an institution essential to man's religious welfare and duty ; and this necessity is substantially the same in all ages and nations. That it is man's duty to worship God none mth whom we now deal -s^dll dispute. Nor will it be denied that this worship should be in pai*t social, because man is a being of social affections and subject to social obligations, and because one of the great ends of worship is the display of the divine glory before our fellow-creatures. Social worship cannot be conducted ■s\dthout the appointment of a stated day ; and who can authori- tatively appoint that day except the God who is the object of the worship? For the cultivation of our individual devotion and piety a periodical season is absolutely necessary to creatures of habit and finite capacities like us. What is not regularly done will soon be omitted, for we are dependent on habit ; and of this, periodical recui'rence is the very foundation. We are by nature
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSEEVANCE. 501
carnal and sensuous beings ; we are prone to walk by sense in- stead of faith. The things which are seen, but temporal, are ever obscuring the things which are unseen, but eternal. If such creatures were left to themselves to appropriate to spiritual interests only such ii-regular seasons as they should select of their o^^Ti motion, it is very plain that the final issue would be the total neglect and omission of the interests of eternity. This con- clusion is fully confirmed by experience, for among nominal Christians, where the Sabbath is entirely neglected, the result is always a practical godlessness among the people; and it is be- lieved that even among Mohammedans and pagans the employ- ment of some stated holy days has been found essential to the existence of those religions. The tribes which have no holy day, the obligation of whose observance is believed by them to be from their gods, are those which, like the Bushmen of South Africa and the Australian blacks, are almost as devoid of religi- ous ideas and as degraded as the apes of their native wilds. It seems absolutely necessary that man's unstable religious senti- ments be fixed for him by having them attached by divine au- thority to a sacred day and an appointed worship.
But it is a well-known maxim in morals, that when a certain work is obligatory, the necessary means for its performance are equally obligatory. The question whether the Sabbath command is moral or positive seems, therefore, to admit of a very simple solution. Whether one day in six or one in eight might not have seemed to the divine wisdom admissible for its purpose, or which day of the seven, the first or the last, should be consecrated to it, or what ought to be the particular forms of its worship, — these things, we admit, are of merely positive institution, and may be changed by the divine Legislator. But that man shall have his stated period of worship enjoined upon him is as truly a dictate of the natural conscience and as immediate a resrdt of our rela- tion to God as that man shall worship his God at all. And no reason can be sho-wTi why this obligation was more or less strin- gent upon Israelites of the Mosaic period than on men before or since them.
Having found the observance of some stated and recurring sea- son essential to that worship of God which is naturally and per- petually incumbent on us, M^e ask, by whom shall the season be selected or enforced? — by man or by Godl If the great duty
502 THE CHRISTIAN S.U3BATH :
of Tvorship is essentially and morally binding, this necessarj- pro- vision for compliance is also essentially and morally binding. Whose is the reasonable and natural authority for proAading and enforcing it ? — the cj-eature's or the Lord's ? To ask this question is to answer it. Obyiousty , this provision ought to be fixed by the Lord, to whom the worship is due. It is his right to settle it. He alone has the authority to enforce it. The purposes of social and concerted worship require umforraity in the season. Now, the Jew says that each seventh day, the Christian says that each first day, is the proper season. If this is left to mere human au- thority, the Christian has no more light to dictate his preference to the Jew than the Jew to force his on the Christian. Xo uni- formity can be had. Clearly, the selecting and enforcing of the proper day does not belong to Jew or Christian, but to the divine Lord.
We argue further, that the enactment of the Sabbath law does not date from Moses, but was coeval with the human race. It is one of the first two institutions of Paradise. The sanctifica- tion of the day took place fi'om the very end of the week of crea- tion. For whose observance was the day, then, consecrated or set apart, if not for man's? Not for God's observance, because the glorious paradox is forever true of him that his blessed quiet is as everlasting as his ceaseless activity. Not for the angels', surely. But for Adam's. Doubtless, Eden witnessed the sacred rest of him and his consort from
"the toil Of their sweet gardening labor, which sufficed To recommend cool zephjT, and made ease More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite More grateful."
And from that time downward we have indications, brief indeed, but as numerous as we can expect in the compendious record of Genesis, and sufficient to show us that the Sabbath continued to be an institution of the patriarchal religion. A slight probable evidence of this may be seen in the fact that seven has ever been a sacred and symbohcal number among ancient patriarchs, Is- raelites and pagans. In Genesis we read of the "seven clean beasts," the "seven well-favored" and "seven lean kine," the " seven ears of corn, rank and good." Now, there is no natural sign in the heavens or earth to suggest the number, for no heav-
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERT.YNCE. 503
enly body or natural element revolves in precisely seven months, days or hours, nor do any of man's external memliers number seven. Whence, then, the peculiar idea attached so early to the number, if not from the institutioji of the week for our first parents ?
But to proceed to more solid facts. The " end of days " or " return of days" (Gen. iv. 3), rendered in our version "process of time," at which Cain and Abel offered their sacrifices, was most likely the end of the week, the Sabbath day. In Gen. -sii. 10 we find God himself obser^^ng the weekly interval in the preparations for the flood. We find another clear hint of the observance of this weekly division of time by Xoah and his family in theii floating prison. In Gen. "sdii. 10-12 the patriarch twice waited a period of seven days to send out his dove. From Gen. xxix. 27 we learn that it was customary among the patriarchs of Mesopota- mia in the days of Laban to continue a wedding-festival a week ; and the very term of service rendered by Jacob for his two wives shows the use made of the number seven as the customary dura- tion of a contract for domestic service. Gen. 1. 10 shows us that at the time of Jacob's death a week was also the length of the most honorable funeral exercises. In Exod. xii. 3-20 we find the first institution of the passover, when as 3'et there were no Levitical institutions. This feast was also appointed to last a week. In Exod. xvi. 22-30, where we read the first account of jhe manna, we find the Sabbath observance already in full force ; and no candid mind will say that this is the history of its first enactment. It is spoken of as a rest with which the peoj)lo ought to have been familiar. But the people had not yet come to Sinai, and none of its institutions had been given. Here, then, we have the Sabbath rest enforced on Israel before the ceremonial law was set up, and two weekly variations wrought in the standing miracle of the manna in order to facilitate its observance.
This fact is so fatal to the doctrine that the Sabbath was only a Levitical ordinance that opponents have attempted to deny the force of it. They say that Moses now, for the first time, antici- pating the law of Sinai by a few days, gave the Hebrews the Sabbath on the occasion of the manna's beginning to fall. They would have us believe that the people had never heard of the Sabbath before. This construction they force on the twenty-
504 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
third verse : " And lie said tinto tliem, This is that v.hich the Lord hath said : To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord," etc. But we answer : Moses does not say or imply that this M'as the first time the Lord said the seventh day was holy. On the contrary, the drift of the whole narative shows that the Lord was now, by Moses, referring the people to their former knowledge of the sanctity of the Sabbath as an explana- tion of their finding no manna on that day. No fail- reader can compare the words with Gen. ii. 3 without seeing this. But es- pecially does the twenty-second verse of chap. xvi. prove our ^dew and refute the other. The people had, on the sixth day, already begTin to make preparations for the rest of the seventh by gather- ing two portions of manna, before Moses or the elders had said one word to them about it i Their doing so was what prompted the elders to make the inquiry of Moses. Thus it appears beyond c[uestion that the Hebrews did know of God's command to hallow the Sabbath, and were in the general (not universal) haliit of honoring it, before ever the manna had fallen or Moses had said a word about the duty.
But let us proceed to Sinai. When the Sabbath command is there repeated it is stated in terms which clearly imply that it was known before and that its obligation was only reaffirmed. The fourth command begins: " Reniemljer the Sabbath day to keejD it holy." It is not accurate to call on people to remember what they had never heard before. None of the other commands begin thus. But others, if not all of them, were old commands, known to God's people before. Yet the fourth alone 1 »egins with the call to remember. This makes the language more expres- sive, and it indicates plainly this thought : that in the fourth commandment God considered himself as only requiring the same duty taught to Adam.
It is argued further, that the very fact that this precept has its place in the awful "ten words" is itself evidence enough that it is no mere positive and ceremonial command, but one moral and perpetual.
Confessedly, there is nothing else ceremonial here. An emi- nent distinction was given to these ten commands by the mode in which God dehvered them. They were given first of aL the laws enacted at Horeb. They were spoken in the hearing of all the people by God's own voice of thunder, which formed its
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 505
tremendous sounds into syllables so loud that tlie whole multitude around the base of the mount heard them break articulate from the cloud upon its peak. " These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount, out of the midst of the lire, of the cloud and of the thick darkness, with a great voice ; and lie added no more''' (Deut. v. 22). No other words shared the same distinction. Then they were engraved, by God's omti agency, on two stone tables, whose durability was to represent the perpetual obliga- tion of all that was ^\Titten upon them. How can it be believed that one ceremonial precept was thrust in here where all else is of obligation as old and as universal and as lasting as the race ? There is no ceremonial rule on the two tables. This conclusion is confirmed h^^ another fact : the two tables were made " tables of the testimony," and for holding them the sacred ark Avas made, called the "ark of the testimony," covered ^dth the mercy-seat and crowned by the Shekinah, the bright symbol of God's pres- ence. This fact showed that this law "uoritten on the stones was the permanent bond of God's covenant with his church — the very law which the great, divine High Priest came to honor, and whose breaches are covered only by the blood of Calvary.
We find, again, that the ground assigned in the commandment is the same as in Genesis, and is in no sense Jewish or local or temporary. God's work of creation in six days and his rest upon the seventh have just as much relation to one tribe of Adam's descendants as to another. To appreciate the force of this we must notice, on the other hand, that when ceremonial commands are given which are peculiar to the Jews, such as the passover, a Jewish event is assigned as its gi'ound, as the deliverance from Egypt.
The early traditions of the pagans are, of course, of no divine authority to us, yet they give an interesting support to the lesson taught us in Genesis and Exodus, sho-v\-ing that even these idol- aters once knew that the Sabbath was a primeval institution or- dained for all nations. No one wdll imagine that Homer and Hesiod, for instance, borrowed from the Old Testament sabbati- cal allusions which would have been unintelhgible to their pagan readers. These poets evidently refer to the popular traditions which these Greek descendants of Japheth carried to the "Isles of Chittim." A few of the early allusions to a Sabbath will be borrowed from the writings of Clement of Alexandria, a learned
506 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
Cliristian of the second century, inasmuch as he has made them ready to our hands. He remarks : "That the seventh day is sa- cred, not the Hebrews only, but the Gentiles also acknowledge, according to which the whole universe of living and vegetable things revolve. Hesiod, for instance {Dierum, 6), says of it, ' The first and the fourth and the seventh also is a sacred day.' And again he exclaims : ' The seventh day once more, the splendid dawn of the sun.' And Homer sings, ' The seventh then arrived, the sacred day.' Again, 'The seventh was sacred.' Once more, ' The seventh dawn was at hand, and with this all this series is completed.' " Clement also quotes the poet CaUimachus as say- ing, "It was now the sabbath day, and with this all was accom- plished." "The seventh da}' is among the foi-tunate; yea, the seventh is the parent day." "The seventh day is the first, and the seventh is the complement." "This day the elegies of Solon also proclaim as more sacred, in a wonderful mode." Thus far Clement Praparatio Evang.
The ancient Jewish historian, Josephus, in his last book against Apion, affirms "that there could be found no city, either of the Grecians or barbarians, who owned not a seventh day's rest from labor." The learned Jew, Philo, called it the "festival of aR nations."
The most emphatic uninspired testimony is also the most val- uable because of its antiquity. The late Mr. George Smith, famous for his Ass}Tian researches, says: "In the year 1869, I discovered, among other things, a curious religious calendar of the Ass3rrians, in which every month is divided into four weeks, and the seventh days, or ' sabbaths,' are marked out as days on which no work should be ujidertaken" {Assyrian Discoveries, p. 12). H. Fox Talbot, in his translation of these creation-tablets, renders two lines thus :
" Ou the seventh da,y he appointed a holy day, And to cease from all business he commanded. "
He also says : " This fifth tablet is very important, because it affirms clearly, in my opinion, that the origin of the Sabbath was coeval with the creation." So the Rev. A. H. Sayce [Trans. Soc. BUM. Arch., Yol. v., pp. 427, 428). Mr. Sayce has translated the rules for each da}' of the mouth. Those for the seventh day (which is called "sabbath" and "day of completion") forbid the
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PKOPEE OBSERVANCE. 507
prince on that day to eat cooked fruits aud birds, to chauge his garments, to legislate or appoint office-holders, to take medicine ; and requires him to make his sacrifice to God on that day.
There is another con\'incing proof that the Sabbath never was a merely Le^dtical institntion, which is found in the fact that in the very law of the Decalogue God commands its observance equally by Jews and Gentiles : " In it thou shall not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is vnthin thy gatesT This stranger was the foreigner residing in the land of Israel. To see the convincing force of this fact the reader must contrast the jealous care with which the " stranger," the pagan for- eigner sojourning in Jewry, was excluded from all share in the Levitical worship. No foreigner could partake of the passover ; it was sacrilege. It was at the peril of his life that he presumed to enter the inner courtyard of the temple, where the bloody sac- rifice was ofiered. Now, when this foreigner is required to keep the Sabbath along with the families of Israel, does not this prove that rest to be no ceremonial, no type hke the passover and the altar, but a universal moral institution designed for all nations and times ?
Once more . That the Sabbath of the Decalogue was not a ceremonial command is proved by the fact that its violation was made a capital offence. (See Exod. xxxi. 1-i.) No ceremonial command was thus enforced. Even circumcision, fundamental as it was to the whole economy, was not thus fenced up. Its neglect, of course, excluded a man from the church, but it in- curred no capital penalty.
Care has been taken to establish this assertion on an immova- ole basis, because the inference from it is so direct. If the Sab- bath command was in full force before Moses, the passing away of Moses' law did not revoke it. If it always was binding, on grounds as general as the human race, over all tribes of mankind, the dissolution of God's special covenant with the family of Jacob did not repeal it. If the nature of the Sabbath is moral and practical, then the substitution of the substance for the tjq^es did not supplant it. The ceremonial laws were temporary, because the need for them was temporary. They were removed because the church no longer required them. But the practical need of a Sabbath is the same in all ages. When we are made to see
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that the sanctification of this cTav is the bulwark of practical re- lifion in the world ; that it goes hand-in-hand everywhere ^-ith piety and the true knowledge of God; that where there is no Sabbath there is at last no Christianity, it becomes incredible to us that God would make the institution temporary. The ne- cessity for a Sabbath has not ceased ; therefore the command has not been revoked It is a perpetual moral command, and moral commands are as incapable of repeal as the nature of God, on which they are founded, is of change. Hence we conclude that the command, "Eemember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," stands just as binding upon us now as any other of the ten. The New Testament -^Titers and our Lord Jesus always speak of the other nine commands, and comment upon them, as perma- nent and unalterable : " It is easier for heaven and earth to -puss than one tittle of the law to fail." The Sabbath command stands as one among the precepts of this permanent law, resting on grounds equally moral and universal.
But it is objected that the seventh-day Sabbath is declared to have been to the Hebrews a pecuhar institution, and even a sign or t}^e, having the ground of its injunctions in their own special history aiid enjoin ell only as a badge of their own special theocratic covenan'b ""^ith God. Thus, in Dent v. 15 the dehver- ance from Egypt is mentioned as the gi'ound of the command: " And remember that thou v^ast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence, through a mighty liand and by a stretchod-out arm ; therefore .the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." It is sought to push this text to mean that to the rest of God's people, who did not share the exodus from Egypt, there is no ground for observing any Sabbath.
That this is utterly foreign from Moses' intent appears thus : The exodus from Egypt is the express preface to the first com- mand (and so to the whole Decalogue), both here in Deut. v. 6 and in Exod. xx. 2. This notable argument would prove, then, were it worth an}-thing, that because we did not share the exodus fi'om Egypt we are not liound by the great command against idolatry, nor indeed by any of the Decalogue! It is worth- less.
Again : In Exod. xx. 11 a worldwide and permanent ground for the Sabbath command is assigned : " For in six davs the Lord
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 509
made heaven and earth," etc, while nothing is said about the ex- odus. The explanation is clear. The Hebrews had all the rea- sons to keep the Sabbath which the whole human race has — God's sanctifying it at the creation of the race and commanding it to aU the race. But they had this additional reason : that God had now blessed them above all other tribes. Hence they were bound by gratitude also to keep the Sabbath.
Again : It is objected that God made the Sabbath ' a sign " be- tween him and the Hebrews (Exod. xxxi. 13-17 ; Ezek. xx. 12, 20). The attempt is made to infer hence that the Sabbath was a mere type to the Hebrews, and thus has passed away like all the other types, since the antitype, Christ, came. Again I reply: If its being " a sign " between God and Israel proves it a type, then the same argument proves that the great first law of love itself was a type, and has been abrogated ; for in Deut. vi. 6, Israel is commanded to make this " a sign." Such is the absurdity of this argument. Moreover : the Decalogue itself is called again and again the " testimony," and the very chest in which the two tablets of stone, written with the commandments, were kept, is called "the ark of the testimony" (Exod. xxv. 16, 21; xxxi. 18; xxxii. 15 ;• xxxiv. 29 ; Ps. Ixxviii. 5). If the reader would see how near this word "testimony" is to the other word "sign," let him read Josh. xxii. 26-34. (The word is the same in the main.) Let him compare also Euth iv. 7, where the shoe "was a testi- mony in Israel." The idea of the "sign" between God and Israel, and of the witness between them, is there nearly the same. Hence I argue again: if the Sabbath being "a sign" proves it a mere type, the Ten Commandments being a "testi- mony" or "witness" proves them a mere type.
To understand this "sign" we must remember that all the world except the Hebrews had gone off into idolatry, neglecting all God's laws and also the proper observance of his Sabbath. The covenant which Israel made wdth him was, to be separate from all the pagans and to obey his law, so neglected by them. Xow, the pubhc observance of the Sabbath gave the most obvi- ous, general, visible sign to the world and the church of this covenant, and of the difference between God's people and pagans. Hence it was eminently suitable as a sign of that covenant. The human race is still divided between the world and the church ; and holy Sabbath observance ought to be precisely such a "sign" of the
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cliurch's relation to lier God now. This simple view relieves tlie whole question. The general apostasy of the nations made this duty of yisil)le Sabbath-keeping, which God enjoins on all men of all ages, a badge and mark of those who still fear him.
It should be noted also that the phrase " sabbaths," as used in the Pentateuch, means the other Je'snsh festivals as well as the seventh day. Thus in Lev. xxv. 2, 4, "sabbath" means the sab- batical year. In Lev. xix. 3, 30 it probably includes all the annual festivals of rehgion. In Lev. xvi. 31 it means the gi'eat day of atonement, which, coming on the tenth day of the seventh month each year, might be any other day as weU as the seventh. In Lev. xxiii. 24 it means the day of the new moon, which might be on any day of the week.
Finally, the subsequent parts of the Old Testament teach us that Sabbath obseiwance was, to the beheving Hebrew, a spirit- ual and not a ceremonial duty. The ninety-second Psalm is entitled, by inspiration, " A psalm or song for the Sabbath day." Every sentiment there is evangelical, and the behever's chief joy in the day is in the foretaste it gives of the everlasting rest.
In Isa. Ivi. 4-8 we have the following words : " For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant ; even unto them will I give in mine house, and mthin my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters : I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Also the sons of the stranger that join themselves to the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant ; even them ^dll I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt-offer- ings and sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar : for mine house shall be called a house of prayer for all people. The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith : Yet ^dll I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him."
Let it be noted that here Sabbath observance receives a bless- ing for Gentiles as well as Jews, and that this blessing is asso- ciated -v^-ith that full ingathering of Gentile behevers which was predicted to attend the Messianic dispensation, when Zion should be a house of prayer for all nations. How could words more strongly indicate that the Sabbath belongs to both dispensations ?
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 511
But the langiiage of Isa. hdii. 13, 14 is still stronger: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy clay ; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine ovm pleasure, nor speaking thine o\m words ; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord ; and I wiU cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
Let the reader observe here that the main scope of this fifty- eighth chapter of Isaiah is to dissuade the Jews from a ceremo- nial righteousness by sho^^ing its worthlessness when unaccom- panied by spiritual holiness. They are ardently urged to ofier God, instead of ritual service, the duties of inward righteousness, and especially of charity. To these the blessing is promised. Now, it is in this connection that the prophet also urges a spiritual Sabbath observance, and to it he repeats the same promises. He also connects this right kind of Sabbath observ- ance immediately with the glorious Messianic triumphs of Zion, which, as we know from all the subsequent history, occur only tmder the new dispensation. Nowhere does Isaiah better deserve than here the title of "the evangelical prophet." It is simply impossible for the candid reader to take in the anti-ceremonial aim of the whole passage, and to believe that Isaiah here thought of Sabbath observance as only a typical duty.
11. But it is said that the New Testament does repeal the ob- ligation of the Sabbath, and that in the face of this new teaching of Christ and his apostles the plainest seeming inferences must give way. Let us, then, consider these passages carefully and candidly. Let us weigh them honestly, listen fairly to all that the learned enemies of the Sabbath have to argue from them, and grapple manfully with their real teachings. We wiU refer the reader to every verse in the New Testament which has been supposed to bear on the question.
The first we notice are those contained, ^ith some slight vari- ations, in the parallel places of Matt. xii. 1-8 ; Mark ii. 23-28 ; Luke vi. 1-5. Matthew's narrative is, on the whole, the fullest : "At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn [wheat or barley] ; and his disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the
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Pharisees saw it, tliey said unto liim, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungered, and they that were with him ; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, Avhich was not I'awful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests ? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless ? But I say unto you that in this place is One greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day."
Now, it is claimed that these words of our Saviour modify, and, to a certain extent, repeal the Sabbath law with a view to the new dispensation. The attempt is made to sustain this by p)ointing to the fact that Jesus here illustrates his point by re- ferring to two other merely ceremonial or positive instances, by which they think he intimates that the Sabbath was as much a positive ceremony as the shew-bread, and thus as reasonably liable to repeal.
The reader, upon suppl^dug from the second and third evan- gelists what is omitted in the first, will find that our Lord ad- vances five distinct ideas.
His hungry disciples, passing along the footpath through the fields of ripe grain, had availed themselves of the permission of Deut. xxiii. 25, to pluck, rub out and eat some grains of wheat or barley as a slight refreshment. The Pharisees, eager to find fault, cavilled that Christ had thus permitted his followers to break the Sabbath law l)y preparing food in sacred time, making this ado about the plucking, rubbing and winnowing of a few heads of grain with their hands as they walked. In defence of them and himself our Saviour says, in the first place, that their hunger was a necessity which justified their departure from the letter of the law in this case, as did David's necessit}?^ when, flee- ing for his life, he innocently used the shew-bread to appease his hunger. Second, that the example of the priests, who per- formed necessary manual labor about the temple, such as skin- ning and dressing the sacrifices, cleaning the altar and such like, on the Sabbath, and were blameless, justified what his disciples
ITS NATUIIE, DESICxN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 5l3
had done. Third, that God prefers compHance with the spirit of his h\w, calling for humanit}', love and mercy, to mere obser- vance of its outer form. For, fourth, God's design in instituting the Sabbath had been a humane one, seeing he designed it not, as the Pharisees regarded their observances, as a galling ascet- icism, burdensome to the Avorshipper, and ministering only to his self-righteousness, but as a means of promoting the true welfare of his servants. And lastly, that he himself, as the Messiah, was the supreme and present authority in maintaining the Sabbath law, as well as all others of his laws ; so that it Avaj enough that he acquitted his disciples of sin ; and this pretended zeal for God in the presence of the Supreme Lawgiver, God in- carnate, was officious and impertinent. Had his disciples really committed an infraction of his SabViath law, he could have seen to his own rights and honor without the Pharisees' deceitful help. The consistency of this simple vieAV with itself, and the perfectness of its logic in rebuking the cavillers, are a sufficient proof of its faithfulness to the Saviour's meaning.
Now, the modern opponents of our doctrine would have us believe that our Saviour here exerts his Messianic authority to introduce, for the first time, the freer and more lenient law of the Sabbath for the ne\v dispensation, and to repeal the Mosaic. It will appear that this is a sheer blunder, a bald misconception of the whole case, and the short and simple proof is, that the Sahhath, as it ought to he ohserved hy Jeios under the Mosaic laivs, is what our Saviour is here expounding. The new dispensation had not yet come, and was not to begin until Pentecost. After all this discussion Jesus Christ scrupulously observed every point of the Mosaic law up to his death. He was engaged in the cele- bration of a Mosaic ordinance, the passover, at the very hour his murderers were an-anging for his destruction ; it was the last free act of his life. The whole Scriptures concur in teaching us that the change of dispensation resulted only from his death and resurrection. Until those acts were completed the types were unfulfilled, and the grounds of the old dispensation all remained. At the time of this discussion Christ was living as a member of the Jewish church, for oui* sakes " fulfilling all its righteousness." If, then, anything were here relaxed, it would be the Mosaic Sabbath, as Jews should keep it, which is the subject of altera- tion. But there is no repeal of anything : only an explanation.
Vol. I.— 33.
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To represent the passage as a change of au Old Testament law for Old Testament members would not help the cause of our op- ponents a particle ; and, moreover, it is a thing which could not happen, as the Old Testament laws were all perfectly permanent until the time came for the change of dispensation.
The careful reader will see that our Saviour does not plead for any relaxation of the Sabbath law in favor of his disciples ; he only asks a correct exposition. The whole drift of his argument is to prove that when it is correctly understood how God in- tended Jews to keep his Sabbath law, it will appear that his disciples have not, by this act, broken it at all. They need no lowering of its claims in order to escape condemnation.
Bearing this important fact in mind, let us proceed to the sec- ond erroneous inference. This is, that our Saviour, by illus- trating the Sabbath law from two ceremonial instances, intimates that the Sabbath also was but a Jewish ceremony. But when one observes how the Jewish Scriptures commingle what we call " moral " and " positive " precepts, and how uniformly the He- brew mind seems to ignore the distinction, this inference will be seen to be utterly worthless. The Jew, in his practical views of duty, never paiised to separate the two classes of precepts. Thus, Moses in Exodus connects solemn prohibitions against idolatry with injunctions not to hew the stones for an altar, against eating flesh torn of beasts in the field and bearing false witness. Ezekiel (ch. xviii.) conjoins eating upon the mountains and taking interest upon a loan with idolatry and oppression, in his charges against the Jews of his daj-. Yea, we see the apos- tles themselves (Acts xv.), warning the Gentile believers in the same breath against fornication and eating a strangled fowl. "We do not argue from these facts against the existence of our distinction of " moral " from " positive " ; we only show how ut- terly) unwarrantable it is to argue that both of two precepts must be positive only because the sacred writers connect the one with another which is such.
It is inferred again, from Christ's third remark, that the Sab- bath command must be ceremonial, because he teaches that the obligation for its observance should give place to that of mercy. This, they suppose, must be on the principle that positive or ceremonial commands give place to those which are moral and perpetual. One reply is, that so do moral duties of a lower
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 515
grade give j^lace to those of a liiglier iu some cases. Thus there is a natural, moral and perpetual obhgation to worship God, yet any and every form of God's worship would be righteously sus- pended for a time to save a man perishing in the water. This duty of humanity would take precedence of the other duty of religious worship for the time, because of its greater urgency ; an hour later God might still be worshipped acceptably, but the man would be drowned. Prov. xxi. 3 expresses precisely this truth in these words : " To do justice and judgment is more ac- ceptable to the Lord than sacrifice." Both in this place and in our Saviour's citation from the prophet Samuel, whose words he quotes, "sacrifice" stands for religious worship in general. This, surely, is not a duty merely ceremonial and positive, yet it is righteously postponed to mercy. Then, our Saviour's post- poning a given point of Sabbath observance to mercy does not j^rove that this is merely ceremonial and positive.
A second answer is, that circumstances may greatly modify the details of duties of the most permanent character. Does any one dispute that the obligation to honor one's parents is a moral and permanent one of very high order? If parents are aged and dependent, this honor doubtless includes maintenance. Thus it might be a most urgent and binding duty of a son in England to fvirnish his aged parents with fuel, while no such ob- ligation would rest on the son of such parents in India, because in that warm climate nobody needs or uses fires in the sitting- rooms. How simple is this ! Then it is equally plain that no one is entitled to infer that the Sabbath command is only cere- monial because circumstances alter the times and details of ob- servance.
But the force of the inference is entirely destroyed by the fact that it was not a failm'e of Sabbath observance which Christ was excusing. He declares that there had been no dehnquency. The accused disciples were "guiltless." He explains their act as an incidental labor of necessity, strictly consistent with pro- per Sabbath observance. There was no overriding of one obli- gation by another more imperious to be explained.
The perverted gloss of the fourth point, " The Sabbath was made for man," is almost too shallow to need exposure. These writers seem to think that our Sa-\dour meant that God did not design to cramp any man by the Sabbath law, but to allow it to
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yield in every way to the creature's convenience and gratifica- tion. But what Christ here says is that the design of the Sab- bath is a hnmane one; that is, man's true welfare. Then it must be settled what that true welfare is, and how it may be best promoted, before we may conclude that God allows us to do what we please with his holy day. If it turns out that man's true welfare imperatively demands a Sabbath day, fenced -svith divine authority and faithfully observed, then the humanity of God's motive in appointing it will argue anything else than this license inferred from it. It may be added that a moment's thought of the Pharisees' religious system will show us what ideas our Saviour was exploding by the statement that "the Sabbath was made for man." The religion of that austere and proud sect was intensely self-righteous and formal, and, to a certain degree, ascetic. It was a religion, not of love and holi- ness, but of fear and slavish forms. Their idea of a religious observance was not that of a blessed means of grace, but of an ascetic burden, by bearing which a man might imagine he was making merit, and that a merit proportioned to the irksomeness and difficulty of the form he forced himself to go through with. Now, such people as these would very naturally think that the more burdensome they made their Sabbaths to themselves by heaping on particulars of man's invention the more merit they would get. Hence they blamed the disciples for their little act of labor. Our Saviour evidently designs by these words to teach them that they wholly misunderstood the purpose of the Mosaic Sabbath. God did not require the Hebrews, nor any one else, to keep it as a means of ascetic self-punishment, like the papist's hair shirt, but he required them to keep it intelligently and from the heart, as an appointed and blessed means of grace. The pangs of hunger may be a very fit self -punishment if the purpose is that of the self-righteous monk, to make a fancied merit by torturing himself for nothing. But as there is no true religion in bodily hunger, and as it ordinarily interfferes ^Adth Bible study and devotion, of course God's idea in giving the Hebrews a Sab- bath to sanctify imphed that a proper part of that sanctification was for them to eat when they really needed to eat.
But we turn our Saviour's declaration, that " the Sabbath was made for man" directly against its adversaries. The word "man" is used in its generic sense — the race. Here, then, we
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 517
are divinely tanglit that the Sabbath was made uot for the Jews, but for the race, which is precisely our doctrine.
The concluding words of our Saviour in Matthew have sug- gested an argument Avhich is a little more plausible. We even find one of the great Reformers paraphrasing those words thus : " The Son of man, agreeably to his authority, is able to relax the Sabbath day just as the other legal ceremonies." And again : " Here he saith that power is given to him to release his people from the necessity of observing the Sal^bath." The inference he would draw is, that then the Sabbath must be a ceremonial insti- tution, for we have ourselves argued that moral and permanent laws are founded on the unchangeable nature of God, and vdll never be changed, because he cannot change. But we deny the exposition. It gives an utterly mistaken and perverted view of our Saviour's real meaning. Our Saviour's own words are: "For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sablxithy Now, the conjunction "for" was undoubtedly our Lord's own word, and he makes it emphatic. But these expositors strangely and crimi- nally neglect its force altogether. We see how an erroneous notion of the meaning blinded them. All careful students of the Bible know that this conjunction "for" is usually placed by a sacred writer to introduce the words which state the ground or reason of that which he had just asserted : " Watch, therefore, /(//■ ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of man com- eth." The fact that we do not know the day is given as the reason why we are told to watch. It is always safest criticism to give its usual force if the sense of the passage will bear it. Let us do so here. Then the meaning is, that the Messiah's being Lord of the Sabbath day is the 7'eason why these disciples are innocent.
The Saviour's reasoning is in substance this : " These men, blamed by you Pharisees, are innocent. I saw them pluck and eat the grain. It is enough that I do not forbid them ; for I am the Lord of this Sabbath day. This law is my law. I was the person who pul)lished it from the top of Mount Sinai, as the divine Angel of the covenant. It is my authority which :aistains it. Hence, if I am satisfied with this act of these men, that is proof enough of their innocence."
Such reasoning is clear ; and it is conclusive and unanswerable, as the arguments of the Saviour always are when properly un- derstood. Does not this show that we explain him aright?
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But if the reader will attend we will show that the sense placed on our Saviour's words by these expositors cannot be right. They maJce Tiim contradict himself. He says, first, that the dis- ciples were innocent, that they needed no excuse ; and then they make him say that " he will excuse them by altering the law, m. their favor, as he has a right to do so." The oue gi'ound con- tradicts the other. This explanation would represent the Saviour as stultifving himself by his own words, as we sometimes hear fooHsh and false children and servants do, when, being charged with an offence, they first deny it and then make an excuse for it. Were such an explanation wilfully urged for Christ's words, it would be profane.
Another proof that they do not represent Christ's words aright is in the fact that Christ did not at that time use his Messianic authority to repeal any Mosaic institution whatever. The rej^eal never hegan until after Ms resurrection. It is well known that, on the contrary, he taught his followers to give an exemplar}- com- pliance wdth the Levitical laws in every respect until he had "caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease" by "bringing in everlasting righteousness."
Every gloss w^hich has any bearing against the morahty and perpetuity of the Sabbath command has been thus removed fi'om these passages in the Gospels. The statement of our Saviour's argument, which we gave at the beginning of the explanation, is seen to be consistent and scriptui-al. This is one of the best tests of its truth. But the reader is entreated to remember that, let the explanation of our Saviour's reasons be what it may, we are bound to hold that it was the true natm-e of the Mosaic Sab- bath which he was unfolding. It was the Sahhcdh as Tyinding on Jews under the old disj)eusation which he was explaining. So that, let them prove what they may, they have proved nothing whatever as to the manner in which Christians under the new dispensation are required to keep the Sabbath, whether more strictly or more loosely. If they succeed by their erroneous criticism in persuading themselves that Christ here relaxed the Sabbath law, the only consequence is the unfortunate one of making Christ appear to contradict his 0"s\ti inspired prophets.
This may be a convenient place to notice a supposed difiiculty attending onr argument. It is said, "If you deny that Christ gives any relaxation of the stringency of the Levitical Sabbath
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 519
as of a ceremonial A'oke, then in consistency you must exact of Christians now as punctilious an observance in every respect as was required of the Jcavs. You must allow people to make no fire in their dwellings on the Sabbath. You will seek to re-enact the terrible law of Num. xvi., which punished a A\Tetch -vN-ith death for gathering a few sticks on the Sablnith day."
This is only skilful sophistr3^ No one has asserted that all the details «of the Sabbath law in all the l^ooks of Moses are of perpetual authority. It has not been denied that at the epoch of Sinai the Sabbath, a holy day for all mankind already, became in addition a sign and a day of typical worship to the "peculiar people." The two instances mentioned are the only plausible ones which can be advanced against us ; and it must be noticed that they are not taken from the Decalogue, hut from srihsequeiit revelations which contain many ceremonials and jpecidiar political 'rules sidted to Hebreivs only. No one argiies, for instance, as to the second commandment, which all admit to be of pei-petual and moral authority, that it perpetuates all the rites of the altar for ever. The Westminster Catechism declares that the purpose of the second commandment is to require the "keeping pure and entire all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word." After the twentieth chapter of Exodus there follow in the same book many ordinances enjoining bloody sacrifices, incense and shew-ljread. No one has been so heed- less as to think these ritual details were intended by God to be explicative of the pei*petii?J ol)Kgation of " keeping pure and en- tire" his appointed divine worship. AVhy should they commit the similar folly in the fourth commandment ? We repeat : the moral and pei'petual obligation is what was spoken b}^ the Mes- siah's own voice from the top of Sinai in the "ten Avords," and what was carved by his own fingers on the imperishable stone. What follows in the Levitical books may be only explicative of ritual details appropriate to the Jews, like the incense and shew- bread. Whether a given detail is such, or is expHcative of the permanent part of the obligation, this must be fouiid out, not by rashly "jumping to a conclusion," but by the careful and faithful comparison of scripture with scripture.
Now, in the Sabbath command that which is of perpetual moral obligation is what is founded on the rights of God and the nature of man ; and tiiis is the true sanctification to his public and private
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worsliip of sucli stated times as he claims. This he tells us is one clay out of seven. Other details that follow may or may not be ritual.
There are several scriptural facts which give us a safe guid- ance as to these details.
First. The Salibath became to the Jew at the Mosaic epoch not only what it had always been to all men, a sacred day of worship, but a sign and a day of sacrifices. It ranked with his new-moon days. This must attach to its observance, for a Jew, features of exactness and mechanical regularity above what its moral observance required.
Second. The government was a theocracy; no line whatever separated the secular and sacred statutes. The God who was the religious object of the Hebrews' worsliip was also the politi- cal king of the commonw^ealth. He was setting up a very strict ritiial for the purpose of making a rigid separation between the Hebrews and the pagans around them. Hence, -vs-ilful breaches of ordinances bore the character of treason against the divine King of the nation, and might be naturally and properly pun- ished as capital crimes. Idolatry and j)ersuading another to idolatry were capital crimes in the theocracy, and properly so. But it would not be proper for the State of California to punish the Chinese there with death for their idolatry, because that State is not a theocracy, and church and state are properly separate. So the State of Virginia ought not to punish Sabbath-breaking in its worst form with death. Of course, it will not punish capi- tally the gathering of sticks to make a fire on the Sabbath. The Christian church has no power of corporal punishment for any crime.
Third. Hebrew houses had no hearths or chimneys except for cooking, because in that mild climate the people made no use of fire in their sitting-rooms. Hence the injunction to make no fijre in their dwellings on the Sabl^atli day amounted preciseh' to an injunction not to cook food on that day. There is a wide and necessary difference in the species of food on which civilized man subsists in our latitude and the national food of ancient Is- rael. This, with the necessary use of fuel in winter among us, may make some shght difference of detail in the application of the Jewish rule against cooking food on the Sabbath, especially for the sick and infirm. But as to the spirit of the prohibition,
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 521
It ought undoubtedly to be held among us, as among the Jews, that with these exceptions no cnlinaiy laljors should have place on the Sabbath. To allow ourselves further license in this is to palter with the essential substance of the pei'petual command, the sanctification of one whole day out of seven fi'om all secular labors, except those of necessity and mercy, to God's religious service. These culinary labors, as pursued in so many families in America, and Britain even, are a robbery of servants, depriv- ing them of their Sabbath, and a transgression of God's ■will, for the mere indulgence of luxur}- in eating. This sin doubtless ci-ies to God fearfully, even fi'om these Protestant lands.
The only other places in the New Testament which can be used against our theory of Sabbath obhgation aTe from the Epistles. They also form a group, and may be viewed together.
Rom. xiv. 5, 6 : " One man esteeaneth one day above aiiother : another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully per- suaded in his o^^Ti mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth not the dc.y, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks ; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." Gal. iv. 9-11 : " But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage ? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed on you labor in vain." Col. ii. 16, 17 : "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy da}', or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days : which are a shadow of things to come ; but the body is of Christ."
Those who oppose the divine obligation of the Christian Sab- bath make the folloAving use of these passages • They say that they find in them the same two arguments seen in the passages from the evangehsts : first, that the apostle calls the Sabbath a shadow or type, and we know that the types are abolished ; sec- ond, that the apostle here discusses Sabbath observance on the same footing with the distinctions of clean and unclean meats, which shows that he thought of the Sabbath only as a positive and ceremonial command. They also claim that the apostle here, by his inspired authority, abohshes all distinctions of days whatsoever from that time onward, and absolutely makes all
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days alike for Christians. Their account of this amazing revol- ution is the following : The old dispensation, they say, was dark, iinsj^iritual, sla^dsh, adapted to the church in its infancy, and hence burdened with many grievous rites which were in themselves of no real spiritual use to souls ; but they served to keep the stupid and childish minds of the Old Testament wor- shippers reminded of the curse of a broken law under which they lay and anxious for the gospel deliverance. "When that de- liverance came, say they, all these liurdensome shadows were lifted off ; they had fulfilled their purpose ; and among them was removed all obHgation to keep any one day as more sacred than another day. This, say they, follows fi"om the truth that gospel love and gratitude in a pardoned and sanctified believer's heart consecrates every day. He " does all for the glory of God." His ploughing and building and buying and selling are all done in a devout spirit ; they are all a worship of God. Every day is to him "virtually a Sabbath day, and thus there is no room for a distinction of days under the new dispensation. Hence they charge that he who transfers the divine obligation of the seventh day to the first, and regards the Lord's day as a divine. Chris- tian Sabbath, is but Judaizing. He is still in bondage ; he has not come out into the hberty and love of the gospel, and he does not even understand it.
But we ask them whether the apostle in these very passages (Rom. xiv. 5, 6,) does not allow the keeping of days, and admit that he that does it " keepeth them to the Lord " ? And do not these- very divines hold that the church does right to make the Lord's day a day of leisure and of public worship ? And do they not also keep Easter and AVhitsuntide, two days of mere human appointment ? They have an answer ready. They say, Yes ; the leisure is a benefit and respite to domestic servants and work animals. Some day must be agreed on by human ecclesi- astical authority for concerted public worship. And, chiefly, the apostle sets them the example of allowing a distinction of days to weaker Christians who have not attained to that higher ex perience which can make every day a Sabbath, which is the proper standard of the new dispensation. The apostle remarks that while some Christians — those, namely, of higher attain- ments— "regard every day alike," others — the weaker and fool- isher — "esteem one day above another." The wiser must make
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allowances for the -weaker, and permit, or even encourage, them to employ these Jewish crutches for their weakness until they can get upon better grounds of religious experience.
Such is the view of the three passages taken by this class of writers.
The first remark we make upon it is that, whether we can ad- vance a better one or not, theirs cannot stand. For, first, it un- dertakes expressly to repeal one command and expunge it from the Decalogue. It arrays Paul against Christ. Christ put that command in the "ten words" which contained nothing but the perpetual moral law ; he carved them in stone, a symbol of their perpetuity ; they came from the immediate mouth of God, who " spake no more," spake no mere ceremonial matter in this way ; he imposed this command on foreigners, who were neither re- quired nor permitted to observe the ceremonial commands while Gentiles. But this scheme represents Paul as putting the Sab- bath command among mere ceremonials. Now, it is not to be believed that two inspired by the same God contradicted each other, or that a part of that law has been abolished of which our Saviour declared, "Heaven and earth shall pass before one jot or tittle of it shall fail."
Second. The reason assigned by these Avriters for thinking the Sabbath of divine appointment imsuitable for the gospel dispen- sation is foolish. God thought that a Sabbath day suited our holy first parents in Paradise. Is the Christian experience of any poor, fallen sinner who has become a gospel believer higher and purer than that of Adam while he was "in the image and likeness of God " ? Do any of these more thoroughly consecrate their common labor, and make every working day a Sabbath day, more than Adam did? Yet God thought Adam needed a lit- eral Sabbath, one day in seven. Or we might show the foolish- ness of this view by comparing ourselves with Old Testament saints. Was the Psalmist, avIio wrote the one hundred and six- teenth Psalm; was holy Isaiah, such a stranger to grace, to gratitude, to gospel self -dedication, that he did not know how to consecrate his whole life to his Saviom^ ? Surely no sinner saved by gi-ace under the gospel ever had a soul more baptized with these blessed affections than David and Isaiah. In fact, when a believer now desires to pour out his love and gi^atitude to his God, he usually borrows the hymns of Old Testament
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devotion in which to do it. Yet nobody disputes that God re- quired David and Isaiah to keep a Sabbath day.
The truth is, that this feeble notion had its origin among a school of half-reformed divines who were heretical as to the gospel character of the old dispensation, and who even held that believers nnder it had no ceiiain gospel light or hope, and that the dispensation was not a spiritual one at all. We cannot thus contradict both Testaments; and to us, therefore, this dream that a regular holy day is unsuited to the more spiritual and thankful experience of the new^ dispensation can only be ab- surd.
Third, A just view of human nature and of religious experience p«-oves that believers of all ages do need a regular Sabbath day ; that it is useful, yea, necessary, for them, and a blessing to their souls. Man is a creature of habit ; he is a finite creature ; he cannot do two things at the same time. His soul needs just such an ordinance.
The reader must note tliat the Bible speaks of the Sabbath not as a ritual burden, laid on the neck of the church because it "was in its minority, biit as a privilege and a hlessing. '\^'e ai'e "to call the sabbath a delight, holy to the Lord, and honorable " (Isa. Iviii. IS^i ; " Blessed is the man . . . that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it" (Isa. Ivi. 2); "The sabbath was made for man" (Mark ii. 2T) ; "The Lord Uessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it " (Exod. xx. 11). The argument is this : Since the Sab- bath is a needed blessing, if God has abrogated the Jewish Sab- bath and given to us no Christian Sabbath in place of it, the new dispensation is less blessed than the old. But who can admit this? Did kings and prophets desire to see the less blessed day rather than their own ? The new disxaensation is always represented in the Bible as more blessed than the old, more crowned with privi- lege and better furnished with means of gi-ace.
Fourth. This ^Ae^\ represents the apostle, an inspired man, as setting up a standard of Christian experience which was found in practice unsuited to luiman nature. That Christians did ob- serve sacred dajs in the apostle's time these writers admit, and also that the usage was approved. But they say it was not founded on any divine authority; the apostle had just repealed all that. Then on whose authority? That of the uninspired church. Theii- view, then, is that the apostle, sweeping away
ITS NATURE, DESIGN .\ND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 525
all Sabliatlis and Lord's days, invites Christians to ascend to his lofty and devoted experience, which had no use for a set Sab- bath because all his days were consecrated. Bnt as it was found that this did not suit the actual Christian state of most Christians, human authorit}' was allowed, and even encoiu^aged, to appoint Sundays, Easters and Whitsuntides for them. The objections are : first, that this countenances " A\ill-Avorship," or the intru- sion of man's inventions into God's service ; second, it is an im- plied insult to Paul's inspiration, assuming that he made a prac- tical blunder, which the church synods, wiser than his inspiration, had to mend by a human expedient ; and third, we have here a practical confession that, after all, the average New Testament Christian does need a stated holy day, and therefore the ground of the Sabbath command is peirpetual and moral.
For these reasons it is impossible for us to agi-ee that the apostle Paul meant what tli^se men say. "What then, did he mean in the three passages ? A few historical facts will plainly tell us; and these facts are not disj)uted by those who differ from us.
After the new dispensation was set up, the Christians con- verted from ainong the Jews had generally combined the worship of Judaism with that of Christianity. They observed the Lord's day, baptism and the Lord's supper, but they also continued to keep the seventh day, circumcision and the passover. Kor was this wrong for them during the transition state. Acts (ch. xxi.) tells us that the apostle Paul did so himself. But at first it was proposed by them to enforce this double system on all Gen- tile Christians as a permanent one. Of this plan we have the full history in Acts xv., where it was rebuked by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. A certain part of the Jemsh Chris- tians, out of whieh ultimately grew the Ebionite sect, continued, however, to observe the forms of both dispensations, and restless spirits among the churches planted by Paul, which contained lioth Jemsh and Gentile members, continued to make trouble on this point. Some of them conjoined with this Ebionite view the graver heresy of justification by the merit of ritual and ascetic observances, as we see in the Epistles to the Galatians and Colos- sians. Thus at that day this spectacle was exhibited : In the mixed Christian churches some brethren went to the synagogue on Saturday and to the church on Sunday, keeping both days holy. Other brethren — Gentiles — paid no respect to Saturday,
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and kept only Sunday. Others again — Jews — felt bound to keep not only Saturday and Sunday, but all the Jewish sacred times — the new moons, the j)aschal, pentecostal and atonement feasts and the sabbatical years. Here was ground of difference and of mutual accusations. This was the mischief to which the apostle had to bring a remedy. "We may add that the question about clean and unclean meats was mingled -vNith that about Jewish days. Was it right now for any Jewish Christians to do as the Gentile Christians did — use bacon, lard, and the butclier's meat of animals which had been killed at pagan altars ?
Now, let us see the dirine truth and wisdom with which the apostle settles the disputes. One thing which he enjoins (at the end of Eom. xiv.) is, that whether any man's light is wholly cor- rect or not, he must act conscientiously. He must not do the things which honestly seemed to him -w-rong, for if he did there was sin, the sin of outraging his own conscience, even though his scrapie tui'ned out to be a mistake. Then, first of all, let everybody act conscientiously. He tells them, secondly (Eom. xiv. 3, 4), not to be censoiious, but to respect each other's con- scientious convictions, even when they seemed groundless. For there is no positive sin in itself in letting alone bacon, for in- stance, or stopping work on Saturday ; and if a brother's mind is under eiTor as to the duty of doing so, he deserves our re- spect at least for conscientiously denying himself in these things. But, thu'd, when the apostle saw some professed Christians teaching that a man should make self-righteous merit by contin- uing to burden himself 'uith the Jewish new-moons, sabbaths, fasts, annual p'assover feasts and sabbatical years, after the obh- gation of them in fact was repealed he confessed that this alarmed him (Gal. iv. 11), and made him feel as though all his trouble in preaching salvation by free grace to them was to go for nothing. For this idea of making merit by observing self- imposed ceremonies and troublesome rites was entirely a differ- ent matter fiom those other conscientious mistakes, and it in- volved the very poison of ^^'ill-worship and self-righteousness. Hence (Col. ii. 16 to end) he expressly and solemnly condemns it all. This never had been the gospel, either under the Old Testament or the New. To appoint the means of grace for his people, this was God's part. As long as any ordinance was commanded by him, our part was to make use of it, humbly and
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 527
faithfully, as a ineans of grace, in order to strengthen the faith and repentance "svhich bring us to the Saviour. But the moment any man undeiiook to build up his self-righteousness on will- worship he was under a soul-destrojing error, which must not be tolerated one moment. Hence the apostle commands that these Jewish holy days, feasts and fasts, are not to be enforced on anybody ; and he explains that they were no longer binding, because that new dispensation of Avhicli they were shadows or types had now come with its own divinely-appointed ordinances, and taken the place of others. He did not design to be under- stood as speaking at all of the Lord's day, which is one of these New Testament ordinances. He means only the Jewish holy days. Does not the consistency of this view mth itself and the Scriptures show that it is the true one ?
But some one may rejoin that he was speaking of the Lord's day also, because he says (Col. ii. 16), "Let no man, therefore, judge you in respect of a holy day, or of the new-moon, or of the scibJxdh days.'''' This objector is under a delusion. The word " Sabbath " is never applied by a Xew Testament writer or by one of the writers of the primitive church to the Lord's day or Christian Sabbath — never once. This all learned critics admit. All those early writers carefully reserve the word "Sabbath," which is a Hebrew word, to denote the holy days of the Old Testament ; and when they would speak of the holy day of the New Testament they call it " first day of the week " or " Lord's day " or " Sunday." The Westminster Assembly did indeed say of the Lord's day, " which is the Christian Sabbath." This was intended to teach an impoi-tant truth A\-liich had been denied h\ the objectors, that the Lord's day is to us by di^-ine appointment what the Sal)bath was to the Jews as to its main substance.
The word " Sabbath " was of wide significance among the Jews. It meant not only the hallowed seventh day, but also the " Aveek " or space of seven days. The Pharisee says : " I fast twice in the week" (Luke xviii. 12). In the Greek it is "tv>ice in the sabbath." The word was also a common name for all the Jewish festivals, including even the whole sabbatical year, with new-moons, passovers, and such like holy days. " I gave them m}- salibaths [my religious festivals] to be a sign be- tween them and me " (Ezek. xx. 12). " The land shall enjoy her sabbaths " (Lev. xxiii. 24 ; xxvi. 3-1 ; compare 2 Chron. xxxvi.
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21). Hence the apostle's mention of " sabbath days " does not certainly prove that he alluded to the seventh day particularly ; he may have used the word as a common name for Jewish holy days. Be this as it may, we know that he did not intend the Lord's day, because the early writers never apply that name to it.
This Christian holy day is not in question, then, in these texts, for about the observance of this we believe there was no dis- pute or diversity in the churches To the sanctification of that day Jewish and Gentile Christians alike consented. When Paul teaches that the observing or not observing of a day is, like the matter of meats, non-essential, the natural and fair construction is that he means those days which were in debate, and no others. When he implies that some innocently " regarded every day alike," we should understand every one of those days about which there was no diversity, not the Christian's Lord's day, about which there was no dispute. The passage in Colossians is upon the same subject with those in Romans and Galatians. Hence it is fair to regard the one as an explanation of the others. Thus the use of the phrase " sabbath days " in the first is an advantage to our cause, for it explains the " every day alike " of Romans as really meaning " every sabbatical day ; " that is to say, every .Jewish holy day, such being the precise meaning of " Sab- bath " in Paul's mouth.
One more objection to our view remains, which we wish to meet fairly. It is this : Grant that by the phrase " sabbath days" in Colossians the apostle did not mean to include the Lord's day. He says of all the Jewish sahhata, including the seventh days, "which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." It thus appears that the Sabbath day of the fourth commandment Avas a type, the substance of which was to be found in Christ, even as the passover was a type of him. AVhy, then, should not the Sabbath pass away with the passover and the other types ? There is no positive New Testament law re-enacting it. Thus our opponents.
The answer is : The Jewish Sabbath was a sign, and also some- thing else. Its Avitnessing use has passed away for Jews, so far as it Avas to them a sign of their exodus, their peculiar theocratic covenant and their title to the land of Canaan. But its other uses, as a means of grace and sign of heaven, remain for them and for
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 529
all. Moreover, the Christian Sabbath, which is the Lord's day, remains just as much a "sign" of onr Christian separation from the world and engagement to be the Lord's as the seventh day ever was to the Jew. And onr faithfulness in sanctifying the Lord's day ought to be as plain a mark distinguishing us from unbe- lievers as that which distinguished the Hebrews from the Am- orites. That it always was more than a mark we proved in the first division of this discussion. It is as old as the race ; it was given to all the race. The ground of the institution is as univer- sal as the race, the completion of creation. It is dictated by a universal necessity of man's nature, which has not at all changed in passing from one dispensation to another. It was in full force before the typical ceremonies of Moses. It was enjoined on Gentiles, who had no business with those ceremonies. It had its permanent, moral and spiritual use before Moses came. God then placed an additional significance on it for a particular purpose. When the typical dispensation passed away, then this tempor- ary use of the Sabbath fell off", and the original institution re- mains. God's day is now to us just what it was to Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham. How reasonable this is may be shown from the very comparison which the objector makes, that of the passover. The passover was a type, but it was something else — a commemoration of redemption. It foreshadowed "the Lamb of God which taketli away the sin of the world," but it commem- orated the redemption of the people from death in Egypt. Now, let us see what happened. The Lamb of God came, and was actually sacrificed on Calvary, "by one offering .taking away sin." Was the jxissover revoked! Not at all. Its typical part was re- voked ; the lamb was no more killed and roasted. But its com- memorative part remains to this day. The bread and wine are still consecrated by divine appointment for a sacrament, and the Lord's supper remains as tlie Christian passover. This is just what the apostle teaches in 1 Cor. v. 7, 8.
When Israel came to Sinai, God did select this Sabbath day, which had existed before as a commemoration of creation and a moral and spiritual ordinance for all people, to serve the addi- tional purpose of a "sign" between him and Israel. It was a pledge and emblem of their covenant as his people (Deut. v. 13 ; Exod. xxxi. 13; Ezek, xx. 12). It was for a time possibly an emblem of their peaceful home in Canaan (Heb. iv. 4-11). It
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is for lis, as for them, an emblem of our gracious rest in heaven (Hel). iv. 9). Thus, the observance of the Sabbath was, hke that of the new moon, marked by two additional sacrifices. These temporary uses passed awaj, of course, with the coming of the new dispensation. But the moral and perpetual uses of the or- dinance having been already transferred by Christ to the Lord's day, the seventh day remained at the time of Paul's Avriting as a mere shadow to the New Testament saint as a new moon. In this aspect the apostle might well argue that the stickling for it 1)etrayed Judaizing. Moreover, when the apostle says (Col. ii. 17) that the new moons and Sabbath days are a " shadow of things to come," his real meaning is, the sacrifices celebrated on those days were the shadow. Literally, the days themselves were not shadows, but only the typical services appointed on them.
III. We shall now attempt to show the ground on which the Salibath "from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which in Scripture is called the Lord's day, and is to be continued to the end of the world as th© Chris- tian Sabbath." This proof is chiefly historical, and divides it- self into two branches, the inspired and the uninspired. The first proceeds upon two plain principles. One is, that example may be as valid and instructive a guide to cluby as precept. Or, to state it in another form, the precedent set by Christ and his apostles may be as binding as their command. The other is, that whatever necessarily follows from Scripture "by good and necessary consequence " is as really authorized by it as " what is expressly set down."
Our first argument shows that every probability is in favor of the Sunday's being now God's day, in advance of particular tes- timony. We prove under the first main head that a Sabbath institution is universal and perpetual — that the command to keep it holy belongs to that law from which one jot or one tittle cannot 23ass till heaven and earth pass. But the apostle Paul (in Col. ii. 16, 17) clearly tells us that the seventh day is no longer the Sabbath. It has l^een changed. To what other day has it been ■changed? The law is not totally repealed; it cannot be. What day has taken the place of the seventh ? None is so likely to be the substitute as the Lord's day ; this must be the day.
The main direct argument is found in the fact that Christ and
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 531
his apostles did, from the very daj- of the resurrection, hallow the first day of the week as a religious day. To see the full force of this fact we must view it in the light of the first argument. We remember that the disciples, like all men of all ages, are bound b}^ the Decalogue to keep holy God's Sabbath. We see them remit the observance of the seventh day as no longer bind- ing, and we see them observing the first. Must we not conclude that these inspired men regarded the authority of God as now attaching to this Lord's day ?
We shall find, then, that the disciples commenced the obser- vance of the first day on the very day of Christ's resurrection, and thenceforward continued it. John xx. 19 tells us that the " same day, being the first day of the week," the disciples were assembled at evening with closed doors, and Christ came and stood in the midst. Can we doubt that they met for worship ? In the twenty-sixth verse we learn, " And after eight days again the disciples were within, and Thomas with them " (who had been absent before). "Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you." None will doubt that this was also a meeting for worship, and the lan- guage implies that it was their second meeting. Now, it is ad- mitted by all that the Jews, in counting time, always included in their count the days with which the period l^egan and ended. The best known instances of this rule is seen in the rising of Christ. He was to be " three days in the heart of the earth," but the three days were made out only by counting the day of his death and the day of his rising, although the latter event happened early in the morning of that day. By this mode of counting, the eighth day, or full week from the disciples' first meeting, brings us again to the first day of the week. Thus we learn that twice at least between the resurrection and Pentecost the first day was kept as the Lord's day.
But the decisive instance is that of Pentecost itself. The reader will see, by consulting Lev. xxiii. 15, 16, or Deut. xv. 9, that this day was fixed in the following manner : On the morrow after that Sabbath — seventh day — which was incl^^ded within the passover week, a sheaf of the earliest ripe corn was cut, brought fresh into the sanctuary, and presented as a thank-offering unto God. Thus the day of this ceremony must always be the first day of the week, corresponding to our Lord's day. From this
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day tliey Avere to count seven weeks complete, and the fiftieth day was to be Pentecost day, or tlie beginning of their " feast of ingathering." Remembering, now, that the Israelites always in- cluded in their reckoning the day from which and the day to which they counted, we see that the fiftieth day brings us again to the first day of the week. We are told expressly that Christ rose on the first day of the week.
We thus learn the important fact that the day selected by God for setting up the gospel dispensation and for the great Pentecostal outpouring was the Lord's day — a significant and splendid testimony to the sacred honor it was intended to have in the Christian ages.
This epoch was indeed the creation of a new world in tlie spiritual sense. The work was equal in glory and everlasting moment to that first creation which caused "the morning stars to sing together and all the sons of God to shout for joy." WeU miijht God substitute the first day for the seventh when the first day had now become the sign of two separate events, the rising of Christ and the founding of the new dispensation, either of which is as momentous and blessed to us as the world's founda- tion.
But we read in Acts i. 14, and ii. 1, that this seventh Lord's day was also employed by the apostles and disciples as a day for religious worship ; and it was while they were thus engaged that they received the divine sanction in their blessed baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost. Then the first public proclamation of the gospel under the new dispensation began, and the model was set up for the consecration of the new Christian Sabbath — not by the burning of additional lambs — by public preaching, the two sacraments of baptism and the supper, and the oblation of their worldly substance to God. At this all-important stage every step, every act, of the divine providence recorded by inspiration in the Acts was formative and fundamental. Hence we must believe that this event was meant by God as a forcible precedent, estab- lishing the Lord's day as our Christian Sabbath.
Let the reader carefully weigh this question : Have we any other kind of waiTant for the framework of the church? All Christians, for instance, believe that the deacon's office in the church is of perpetual divine appointment. Even Rome has it, though perverted. What is the basis of that belief ? The pre-
ITS XATUEE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 533
cedent set in the sixtli chapter of Acts. The apostles there say, It is not good " for us to leave the word of God and serve tables," etc. They do not say even as much about the universal perpe- tuity of this office as Paul says to Titus (ch. i. 15) about the elder's office : " Ordain elders in every city." But all sensible men see that the principle stated and the example set are enough, and that the Holy Spirit obviously taught the inspu'ed historians to relate this formative act of the new dispensation as a model for all churches. The warrant for making the Lord's day the Sabbath is of the same kind.
It is most evident, from the New Testament history, that the apostles and the churches they planted uniformly hallowed the Lord's day. The instances are not numerous, but they are dis- tinct.
The next clear instance is in Acts xx. 7. The apostle Paul was now returning fi'om his famous mission to Macedonia and Achaia in full prospect of captivity at Jerusalem. He stops at the favorite httle church of Troas, on the Asiatic coast, a httle south of the Hellespont, to spend a week with his converts there. " And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to de- part on the morrow ; and continued his speech until midnight." Here we have a double evidence of our point. First, Paul preached to the disciples on this da}-, while he had been, as the sixth verse shows, a whole week at Troas, including the Jewish Sabbath. Why did he wait a whole week ? Why did not the meeting, with the sermon and sacrament, take place on the Jew- ish Sabbath ? We learn from verse sixteen that Paul had very httle time to spare, because he had to make the whole journey from Phihppi to Jenisalem, with all his wayside visits, \\dthin the six weeks between the end of the paschal and beginning of the Pentecostal feast. He was obviously waiting for the church's sacred day in order to join them in their public worship, just as a missionary would wait now under similar circumstances. But, second. The words, " AVhen the disciples came together to break bread," show that the first day of the week was the one on which they met to celebrate the Lord's suj)per. So it ap- pears that this church at Troas, planted and trained by Paul, kept the first day of the week for pubhc worship and the sacra- ment, and the inspu*ed man puts himself to some inconvenience
534 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
to comply ^^'itll their usage. It lias indeed been objected tliat he selected this da}-, not because it was tlie Lord's day, but be- cause lie could not wait any longer. This is exploded by the fact that he had already waited six days, including the Jewish Sabbath ; he was evidently waiting for this day because it was the Lord's day.
The next clear instance is in 1 Cor. xvi. 1, 2 : "Now, concern- ing the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Gaiatia, even so do ye. L'pou the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store as God hath pros- pered him, that there be no gatherings when I come." "\Ve here learn two things: that the weekly oblation of almsgiving was fixed for the Lord's day, and that this rule was enacted not only for the church at Corinth, but for all the churches of Gaiatia. It seems a very clear inference that the apostle afterward made the rule uniform in other churches as he organized them. Again, we fincl the objectors arguing that, admitting what we claim, we have not proved that there was any regular j^ublic worship on the Lord's day, because it is said, " Lay by you in store ;" that is, at home. But the answers are two : The words, "Lay by him," etc., are, Hterally, "place to nimself," or "segregate" — "treas- uring according as the Lord hath prospered him." It is a mis- understanding of the apostle's meaning to take the word " treas- uring" as putting a piece of money on Sunday morning in a separate box or piu'se at home. Most frequently, as we know fi'om history, it was not money, but bread, meat, fruit, clothing, a pai-t of anything Ts-ith which providence had blessed them; and the undoubted usage, in the earliest age after the apostles was to carry this oblation with them to church every Lord's day morning and give it to the deacons, who put it into a com- mon stock for charitable uses. The words " treasuring it " refer, saj'S CaMn, to a wholly different idea — to that which our Sa\'iour expresses (Matt. vi. 20) : " Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven ; " to that idea which the charitable Christian expressed on his tombstone : " ^Tiat I kept, I lost ; what I gave away, I. have." It is the Lord's treasiuy which the apostle here has in view — the Lord's "store." So that the natural meaning of the precept is fairly presented in this paraphrase : " Let every one every Sunday morning set apai-t, according as the Lord hath prospered him, what he intends to carry to church with him to
ITS XATUEE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 535
put into the Lord's store." But, second. Even if we contradict the unanimous voice of history, testifying that the weekly obla- tion took place at the church-meeting and went at once into the deacon's hands, tlie truth remains that this oblation was an act of worship. (See Phil. iv. 18 ; 2 Cor. ix. 12, 13.) This weekly oblation was, then, a weekly act of worship, and it was appointed by inspired authority to be done on the Lord's day. That makes this day a sacred day of worship ; we care not whether this oblation was pubhc or private, so far as the argument is> concerned.^
The other instance of apostolic consecration of the first day is perhaps the most instructive of all. In Rev. i. 10, John, when about to describe how he came to have this revelation, says, "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." The venerable apostle was " in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus." We know from history exactly what this means. The pagan magistrates had banished him to this rocky, desolate islet in the ^Lgean Sea as a punishment for preaching the gospel and testiijing that Jesus is our risen Sa- viour. He was there "alone, separated from all his brethren. But he '• vvas in the Spirit on tlie Lord's day." What does this
' The next place to be cited is Heb. iv. 9. This verse (with its context, which, must be carefully read) teaches that, as there remains to believers under the Chris- tian dispensation a hope of an eternal rest, so there remains to us an earthly Sab- bath to foreshadow it. The i^oints to be noticed in the explanation of the chapter are: That God has an eternal spiritual rest; that he invited Old Testament be- lievers to share it ; that it is something higher than Israel's home in Canaan, because after Joshua had fully installed Israel in that rest, God's rest is still held up as something fixture. The seventh day (verse 4) was the memorial of God's, rest, and was thus connected with it. It was under the old dispensation, as under the new, a spiritual fiiiU which introduced into God's rest, and it was unbelief which excluded from it. But as God's rest was something higher than a home in. Canaan, and was still offered in the ninety-fifth Psalm long after Joshua settled Israel in that rest, it follows (verse 9) that there still remains a sabbatism, or Sab- bath-keeping, for God's people under the new dispensation; and hence (verse 11) ■we ought to seek to enter into that spiritual rest of God, which is by frith. Now, let it be noted that the word for God's "rest " throughout the passage is a diiferent one from "Sabbath." But the apostle's inference is that because God still offers us his "rest" under the new dispensation, there remaineth to us a SahhuVi-keeplny under this dinpenmtion. What does this mean ? Is the sabbatism identically our "rest" in faith? But the seventh day was not identically that rest; it was the memorial and emblem of it. So now sabbatism is the memorial and emblem of the rest. Because the rest is ours, therefore the Sabbath-keeping is still ours; heaven and its earthly type belong equally to both dispensations.
536 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
mean? It means that lie was doing what godly people now call " keeping Sunda}^" He was engaging in spiritual exercises. He was holding communion with the Holy Spirit. Here, then, is our first point: that although in solitude, cut off alike from Christian meetings and ordinary week-day occupations, by his banishment, the inspired apostle was " keeping Sunday." It is the strongest possible example. Our second point is, that God blessed him in his Sabbath-keeping with the greatest spiritual blessing which perhaps he had enjoyed since he sat at the feet of Jesus. His Saviour came down from glory to "keep Sunday" with him. Our third and strongest point is, that the inspired man here calls the day "the Lord's day." There is no doubt but that the " Lord " named is the glorified Eedeemer, whom he declares in his epistle to be "the true God and eternal life." There is but one consistent and scriptural sense to place on this name of the day. It is the day that belongs especially to the Lord. But as all our days belong in one sense to him, the only meaning is that the first daj^ of the week is now set apart and hallowed to Christ. In Isa. Iviii. 13 the Sabbath is called by God "my holy day;" in Ivi. 4, "my Sabbath." That was God's day; it belonged to God. This is Christ's day, and in the same sense belongs to Christ. It is consecrated to his worship as was the Sabbath; it is virtually "the Christian Sabbath,"
We now add the uninspired testimony of the early historia«is and Fathers, showing that from the apostles' days Christians un- derstood this matter as we do, and consecrated the first day of the week.
But let us explain in what sense we use this human testi- mony. In our view, all the uninspired church testimony in the world, however venerable, would never make it our religious duty to keep Sunday' as a Sabbath without God's own command- ment. We use these "Fathers" simply as historical witnesses. Their evidence derives its sole value from its relevancy to this j)oint, ivJiether the cq^ostles, vjho were insjnred, left the command and precedent in the churches of ohserving the Lord's day as the Saljhath of the fourth comiaandment. If they said, "We Fa- thers command you to observe Sunday," we should reject the authority as nothing worth. But when, as honest and well-in- formed witnesses, they testify that the apostles taught the
ITS NATUKEj DESIGN AND PKOPER OBSERVANCE. 537
churches to observe Sunday, we regard their testimony as of some vakie.
Our first witness, then, is a learned pagan, PHny the Younger, a high magistrate under the Emperor Trajan. He says, in a letter written a little after the death of the apostle John, that the Christians were accustomed to meet for worship on a " stated day." This was the Lord's day, as we see from other witnesses.
Ignatius, the celebrated martyr-bishop of Antioch, says, in his •Epistle to the Magnesians, written not more than twenty years after the death of John, that " this is the Lord's day, the day con- secrated to the resurrection, the chief and queen of all the days."
Justin Martyr, who died about A. d. 160, says that the Chris- tians "neither celebrated the Je"\vish festivals, nor observed their Sabbaths, nor practiced circumcision" [Dialogue tvith TryjjJio). In another place he saj's that they were "all accustomed tc; meet on the day which is denominated Sunday, for reading the Scriptures, prayer, exhortation and communion. The assem- blies met on Sunday, because this is the first day on which God, having changed the darkness and the elements, created the world, and because Jesus our Lord on this day arose from the dead," etc.
Tertullian, at the close of the second century, says : We Chris- tians "celebrate Sunday as a joyful day. On the Lord's day we think it wrong to fast or to kneel in prayer." It was a com- mon opinion of the earlier Christians that all public prayers on the Lord's day should be uttered standing, because kneeling is a more sorrowful attitude and inconsistent with the joy and bless- edness of Christ's day.
Clement of Alexandria, a very learned Christian contempor- ary with Tertullian, says: "A true Christian, according to the commands of the gospel, observes the Lord's day by casting out all bad thoughts and cherishing all goodness, honoring the resur- rection of the Lord, which took place on that day."
Perhaps the most valuable, because the most important and explicit, as well as the most learned, witness, is Eusebius of Cses- area, who w^as in his prime about a. d. 325. In a commentary on the ninety-second Psalm, wliich, the reader will remember, is entitled, "A psalm or song for the Sabbath day," he says: "The "Word" (Christ) "by the new covenant translated and transferred the feast of the Sablmth to the morning light, and gave us the symbol of the true rest, the saving Lord's day, the
538 THE CHEISTLVN SABBATH :
first of light, in wliicli the Saviour gained the victory over death. On this day, which is the first of the Light and the true Sun, we assemble after the interval of six days, and celebrate holy and spiritual Sabbath ; even all nations redeemed by him throughout the world assemble, and do those things according to the spirit- ual law which were decreed for the priests to do on the Sabliath. All thiugs which it was duty to do on the Sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord's day, as more appropriately belonging unto it, because it has the precedence, and is first in rank, and more honorable than the Jewish Sabbath. It hath been en- joined on us that we should meet together on this day, and it is evidence that we should do these things announced in this psalm."
These citations from the pastors of the early church might be continued to great length. Not only individuals, but church councils, added their sanctions to the sacred observance of the Lord's day. Thus the Council of Laodicea (A. D. 363) com- manded Christians to rest on the Lord's day from all secular labors excej)t those imposed by necessity. Many other councils diuing the fourth century ordain that public worship and the sacraments shall be observed on the same day. It may be asked. If this sanctification of the Lord's day was of divine appointment through the apostles, why do we not hear of earher councils en- acting its observance nearer the days of the apostles ? The an- swer is very simple : During the ages of persecution, which only ceased with the accession of Constantine, councils could meet rarely and -^ith great peril, and the persecutors busily destroyed their records.
Those who are famihar ^yit]l the controversy about the Lord's day are aware that quite a numljer of craters, especially those of prelatical views, are in the habit of roundly asserting that the " fathers " held the fourth commandment to be abrogated ; that they gi'ounded their observance of the Lord's day, not on God's authority, but on comity, convenience, and church authority, like the other feasts, and that no " father " bases the observance of the Lord's day on the foui-th commandment expressly. They are very fond of quoting the great Augustine, for instance, as teaching that the fourth commandment alone among the ten was " partly figurative," and so aboUshed with the other types. The arrogancy and dogmatism with which tli^se assertions are made by
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PEOPER OBSERVANCE. 539.
prelatic adversaries of God's law are offensive to every fair and reverent mind. Those who are best acquainted with these fathers will be least disposed to attach importance to their as- sertions, w^hether concurrent with or against God's truth. Had these prelatists, for instance, the honesty to quote all that their favorite Augustine says in that same exposition of the Decalogue^ the sensible reader would feel the contempt for his opinions on this subject which they deserve. We should see this great father expounding each of the ten commandments as typified in the "ten plagues of the Egyi^tians," and gravely runiiing a fancifid analogy be4:ween a given precept and a given plague ! The fact is, that even the more learned fathers (Augustine had little Greek and no Hebrew learning) were prevented by certain valid causes from taking a point of view whence they could properly appreciate the relations of the old dispensation and the new. The reasons were these : A good knowledge of Hebrew was rare. Judaism was only known to the Christians of those ages in its worst phase of Phariseeism, because all truly believing Jews, of the type of Simeon, Anna, Matthew, etc., had gladly acceded to Christianity and been absorbed into the Christian church. Hence it was a natural mistake to confound the true Old Testa- ment religion to a certain extent with the apostate Judaism they ■^dtnessed around them in these professed advocates of the Old Testament, and to misconceive the divinely-established worship of the old dispensation according to the spurious forms to which it was now perverted after its fulfilment in the new dispensation. It was easy for Christians, witnessing the typical worship only in these spurious anachronisms, to overlook the fact that there had been a time when it had been of divine appointment, spiritual and evangelical. Again, the Christians knew of Jews only as the mm-derers of the Lord, as stubborn and embittered opponents of his gospel, whether as revealed in their own Old Testament or in the New, as systematic slanderers of the church and as in- stigators of pagan persecutions. This odious attitude of all the professed advocates of the Old Testament could not but pre- judice the Christians' ap]irehension of their scriptures. To these causes must be added also the perverse, metaphorical and mys- tical plan of interpreting Scripture, and especially Old Testa- ment Scripture, which the fathers so soon imbibed, and which they saw carried to such extremes by the rabbinical scholars.
510 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
"When we consider these causes, we cease to wonder that the early Christian writers misconceived the proper relations of the Old Testament to the Kew, or that thej uttered on this subject many ambiguities and errors.
If, now, a father is found saying that the apostles "abol- ished the Sabbath," he is to be understood, 7iot as mean hi g tlat the aj)odles ahrogated the fourth cominandiaent — a statement which can be found in no respectable Christian writer — but he is 'thinking only of the rabbinical seventh day, wdth its senseless and unscriptural superstitions. This is the simple key to all these patristic citations.
Some of the prelatic enemies of our Christian Sabbath lay much stress on the assertion that none of the fathers expressly trace the Christian observance of the Lord's day to the fourth commandment. What if they do not? This is, after all, only negative testimony, which proves nothing positive, ^^e point, on the opposite hand, to the fact that none of the fathers deny the continued authority of the fourth commandment in its essen- tial substance. We hear the wisest of them asserting that the sanctification of one-seventh part of our time in the observance of the first day is of divine authority through the apostles. We hear Eusel)ius, the most learned of them all, say tluit Christ, hy the new covenant, translated and transferred' the feast of the Sab- hath to the first day, or Lord's day, and that all tlie Christians in the world accordingly have transferred the SaVbath duties to that day. Is not this virtually sayin-g the essential thing, that the sanctification of the Lord's day is the Christian's compliance with the fourth commandment?
A comprehensive view of these testimonies sufficiently shows what was the opinion and what the usage of the early Christians. As the Dark Ages approached, sound knowledge of the Hebrew literature became very rare ; few could read the Old Testament in the original language, and the embittered and sinful prejudices of the Christians against the Jews had their influence in making the former indifferent to the Hebrew Scriptures. Hence, great igno- rance of the old dispensation and of its relations to the new sprang up. It was natural that the grounds of Sabbath observance should then be misunderstood. Superstition was then rapidly increas- ing, and saints' days and holy days of human invention first rivaled and then surpassed God's own day in the veneration of
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PEOPER OBSERVANCE. 541
tlie people. When the great Eeformation came, many of the Reformers remained under the error which confounded the Lord's day vdth the church's superstitious holy days, and when they threw off the trammels of superstition, unfortunately they cast away the di-sdne obligation of the Sabbath with them.
"When we see some of the Protestant churches and divines of Europe deliberately defending worldly amusements (after piiblic worship) on the Lord's day, Ave should not do injustice to the piety and conscientiousness which many of them show in other things, nor should we condemn errors which they justify to themselves by arguments which they sincerely, though errone- ously, believe, as severely as the profane abuse of the Sabbath committed by some in our country against their own clear con- victions. Yet the deplorable fact remains, that these unscriptu- ral views about the divine authority of the Sabbath have been the bane of Protestantism. They cause and perpetuate much of the irreligion and skepticism which deform Protestant Europe in many of its parts. It is historically true that the vitality and holiness of the church are usually in proportion to its reverence for the Sabbath. The Sabbath-keeping churches and genera- tions have been the holy and zealous ones.
This recurring fact may remind us of another argument : that the necessity of a Sabbath day is written in man's very nature. The same God wdio laid the foundation for its observance in his unchangeable law for all nations and dispensations has also laid the foundation for it in the faculties of man's body and mind, and even in the nature of the brutes which work for man. This truth has received remarkable confirmation in this age, not only from Christian teachers, but from physicians, statesmen, histo- rians and business-men. Experience has taught us that neither man's body nor his soul, nor the beast which is his servant, was made by the Creator to work seven days in the week. The at- tempt to do so brings upon the body lassitude, nervous excita- bility, disease, premature old age, and often sudden death, and on the mind morbid excitement, impatience, rashness, blindness of judgment, and not seldom lunacy. The very beast of burden can do more laljor without injury in six days than by working all the seven. An army can be carried further upon a long march in six days than in seven. It is well known that the mershant who spends his Sabbaths in his counting-house or in worldly
542 THE CHEISTIAJSf SABBATH :
excitement is liable to become a bankrupt, because the privation of tliat recurring sacred calm which God enjoins in his word and in nature leaves his mind and heart unhinged. The profes- sional man who devotes his Sabbaths to his study ends not seldom in lunacy or in suicide.
Again : As a social and moral institution the weekly Sabbath is precious. It is a quiet domestic reunion for the bustling sons of toil. It brings around a period of neatness and decency, when the soil of weekly labor is laid aside and men meet each other amid the proprieties of the sanctuary and the sacred repose of home to renew their social affections. It enforces a vacation in those earthly and turbulent affections which would otherwise become morbid and excessive.
But, above all, the Sabbath is essential for man's spiritual welfare. God found it necessary in Paradise for his innocent creatures, necessarj- for holy patriarchs and prophets, and neces- sary for Christians. A creature subject to the law of habit, finite in his faculties, compelled by the conditions of his existence to divide his cares between earth and heaven, cannot accomplish his destiny without an authoritative distribution of his time be- tween two worlds. When Ave remember that men are now carnal and by nature ungodly, ever prone to avert their eyes from heaven to earth ; when we see so much of mundane affection, so much of the eager cra\dng and bustle of worldliness, enticing to an infringement of the claims of heaven, we see the absolute necessity of such a division. But, obviously, if such a sacred season is necessary, then it must be marked off by divine author- ity, and not by a sort of convention on man's part. Do we not see that even the divine sanction is insufficient among many who profess to admit it? If the Sabbath be grounded only in hu- man agreement, the license which men will allow themselves in infringing its claims will at last effectually abrogate the whole. Such is the lamentable result to which a Sunday of man's ap- pointment has actually come, in more than one land, both Pro- testant and Poman Catholic. The most striking confirmation of the whole argument may be seen at this time in a part of Pro- testant Germany, where, after God's Sabbath was repudiated, the Sunday of man's device has slijjped away also, leaving the popu- lace alike Avithout a Aveekly rest and Avithout Christianity. Ex-
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 543
perience proves tliat to neglect tlie Sabbath day is virtually to neglect religion.
"We have thus found the Sabbath law written by the same divine Hand on man's nature and on the pages of the Bible.
The chief attention in this discussion has been given to this point : That the duty of keeping holy the Lord's day is of per- petual and moral obligation on all men. It is by no means to be understood that this duty is hard to be seen by the plain Christian because many objections have been solved and many explanations made by us in reaching this conclusion. It is not any lack of clearness in the duty which has made us deem this j long discussion useful, but it is the pertinacity with which error has sought to obscure God's truth. We have weighed the objec- tions patiently, candidly, thoroughly, not because they really deserved weighing, but only because a sad experience shows their power of deceiving. "We wished to clear away the last shadow of doubt from God's command. Yet the fail- and obe- dient mind may reach the knowledge of it, if the caviller will only leave him unbiased, by a very short and simple process. There stands the command, " Eemember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," in the Decalogue. That law was never meant for change. Then the substance of it must bind me in this last dispensation just as it has bound all men from Adam. The matter is just as plain as "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
It was worth the time and toil for us to reach this settled con- viction of a continuing divine obligation for the Sabliath. Its proper observance can never be secured in any other way. It is a "thus saith the Lord," and this alone, which binds the con- science and spurs the heart of every true Christian. Let the intimate conviction of this divine warrant for the holy day be established in the minds of Christian people against all the doubts and quibbles which have infested parts of Christendom since the Dark Ages, and all men that really fear God will begin to sanctify his day. Hence we close this essay with the feeling that if this conviction is established, little more remains to be done except to invoke the aid of divine grace for assistance in executing our convictions of duty.
The proof which is here presented of the nature of the Sab- bath i& the best answer to the question. How ought it to be kept ?
544 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
Let conscience and heart respond to God's requirement that his day be hallowed by us, and the details will be easily arranged.
But the answer to this question of details given in the West- minister Confession is so precise and so scriptural that it will not be amiss to repeat it : we must " not only observe an holy rest all the day from our own works, words and thoughts about our o'svn worldly employments and recreations, but also take up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship and in the duties of necessity and mercy."
A day consists of twenty-four hours, and Avhen God commands us to sanctify one day to him, as we devote the other six to " all our own work," the honest conscience will find no difficulty in concluding that holy time should not be abridged by unnecessary sleep or by needless recreations any more than any other day. Let true faith possess the soul with a scriptural sense of the ardu- ous task to be finished in the believer's own life in fitting it for the everlasting Sabbath, and of the multitudinous claims of misery and ignorance surrounding him among his perishing fel- low-men, and the holy occupations of the Sabbath day will appear so urgent and so numerous that there will be no room in it for either worldliness or indolence. Let us hear the law and the tes- timony, which we have shown to be unrepealed:
Deut. V. 12-14 : " Keep the sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee. Six days thou shalt labor and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates."
Ex. xxxiv. 21 : " Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing-time and in harvest thou shalt rest."
Ps. xlii. 4 : " I had gone with the multitude ; I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a mul- titude that kept holy day."
Nell. xiii. 15: "In those da^'s saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses ; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath day ; and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals."
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. O-io
Mark ii. 27 : " The sabbath was made for man, autl not man for the sabbath."
Matt. xxiv. 20: ^'But pray ye that your flight be not ... on the sabbath day."
Luke xiii. 15, 16 (to show that "works of necessity and mercy," however forbidden by rabbinical superstition, were always con- sistent with the fourth commandment under both dispensations) : " Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering ? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this l)ond on the sabbath day '? "
Rev. i. 10 : " I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day."
Isa. Iviii. 13, 14 : " If thou turn away thy foot from the sab- bath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; and call the sab- bath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable ; and shalt honor him, not doing thine owti waj's, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words : then shalt thou delight thj^self in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee Avitli the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."
lY. The increasing disregard of the Lord's day in the United States demands a renewed application of the authority of the civil law to support right customs. The American common- wealths usually have Sabbath laws. These do not, indeed, com- pel the citizens, under any civil pains or penalties, to attend the churches or the sacraments; nor do these laws attempt to prescribe a spiritual use of the day. The latter is the function of the church alone. But the state closes all her own halls of legislation and justice, and gives an entire rest to her own ser- vants-, on the Christian Sabbath. She also enjoins upon all citi- zens a cessation of all forms of secular employments on that day, except such as are unavoidable, so as to secure for all a w^eekly rest and the opportunity to keep religion's holy day to God if they desire it. In how many ways even this slender respect of civil society to God's day is now impaired the reader knows but too well. Espticially is the law of rest trodden upon by those great carrying corporations which seem to feel themselves already too great for the law.
To add to this disorder, large niimbers of oiir citizens, com-
VOL. I.— 35.
546 THE CHEISTIAN SABBATH :
posed of a few professed, atlieists and infidels and a multitude of immigranta from states abroad, where tlie Sabbatli lias been lou<^ dislionored, now formally attack tlie right of the state to enact any Sabbath rest or to enforce it by civil pains. Their argument is plausible. It proceeds from the thorough separation and inde- pendence of chui'ch and state established by the American con- stitutions. These documents say that men of all religions and of no religion shall be equal before the law; that all shall enjoy lib- erty of thought ; that no man shall lose any privilege which the other citizens possess by reason of his opinions or usages about religion ; that it shall be unla'W'ful for the state to make any reli- gious establishment of any rehgion. From this position the ene- mies of the Sabbath proceed thus : " The Christian Sabbath is no more than an ecclesiastical and religious institution. The Jew- ish Sabbath, in its day, was only a temporary and typical one. The churches may require an observance of a Sabbath from such persons as choose to join them. But the state has no more right to pass any law about its observance than about enforcing attend- ance on any other Christian rite or sacrament. Hence, when a citizen who does not believe in religion or its holy days is estop- ped from his lawful labor or pleasure on such days, it is an infringement of his guaranteed freedom of opinion. The loss of the day's profit is of the nature of a fine levied against him for his opinions, and is therefore unconstitutional."
Several repKes to this argument are commonly heard from the pious. One reply has been that, according to the American laws, the majority are entitled to rule; and, since the major part of Americans are Protestant Christians, they are entitled to en- force Sabbath laws. But this argument is ruined by two re- joinders. One is that, while the majority has a right to rule, it is only in accordance \\ith, and within the limits of, the consti- tution. The other is that, should the majority in America ever become infidel, then, by the same argument, they would have as good a right to pass laws prohibiting a Sabbath.
Again, it is argued that our Sabbatli laws lay no other restric- tion on the infidel than on the Christian, and that therefore they are just and equal. The Christian citizens do not require of the non-Christian any other Sabbath observance than what they ex- act of themselves, so that there is no unfairness. That this is also invalid may be shown thus : Let us suj)pose Paj^ists in the
ITS NATURE, DESIGN AND PROPER OBSERVANCE. 547
majority here, and forbiddiiig Protestants to labor on tlieir nn- merous saints' days, wliose observance we regard as wlioUy su- perstitious. They could say that their requirement was fair, be- cause they observed it themselves. But we should regard it as oppressive, because we should find ourselves prohibited by others' superstitions from acts to which we had a moral right. Just so argue the infidel immigrants against our Sabbath laws.
Again, we hear the argument put thus : Although church and state are separate here, yet the American is a CJiristian people. The country was settled by Christians. The great mass are pro- fessed Christians. Hence the immigrant who finds himself a dissentient must submit to this Christian feature of the society whose hospitality he enjoys. If he does not hke this usage of ours, he is free to go away. But, unfortunately, the state, which enforces these Sunday laws, and which invites these dissentients to become citizens among us, has made an express constitutional covenant with them, that they shall incur at the hands of the state no restriction or hmit of jjri^^lege whatever on any religi- ' ous gi'ound. Now, if any man has a natural, secular right to Hve without a Sabbath, this objection is formidable.
Once more, it is urged that Christians, conscientiously believ- ing it their own duty to observe the Sabbath, have a civic right, on the lowest grounds, to observe the day, and to be protected , from molestation by the amusements and emplojTuents of those who care nothing for it. The infidel replies that it is as much the Christians business to take his psalm-singing out of the way of the- worldling's Sunday theatre or brass-band. He says that/ in a non-Christian state, such as the American, the one stands on as lawfid a footing as the other.
But a more tenable plea for the Sabbath laws of the state is found in the facts noticed above, that man's natural constitution requires a weekly rest. Hence, even regarding the state as non- Christian, and as possessed of no functions except protecting temporal and earthly interests, we may claim for it a right to legislate a rest for man and beast on the gi'ounds of health and temporal welfare. This is a sound argument, but it only rests our Sabbath laws on a hygienic ground. It is as when a state enacts that children and minor servants shall not be kept at work in shops and factories more than a healthy number of hours.
548 THE CHRISTIAN SABBATH :
But the real ground of tlie state Sabbatli laws was touclied when we raised the question in a previous paragraph, whether any- reasonable creature, a subject of civil society, has a natural right to live without the Sabbath ? We answer : He has not. Whether he chooses to profess the Christian religion or not (a point on which the state has no right to dictate), he is bound simply as a rational creature of God by the Sabbath law of the human race. The positions by which this argument is constructed are these :■
1. "\\Tiile the plan of redemption is not essential to ground the vahdity of a state authority, the doctrine of natural theism is ne- cessary. On the atheistic theory no reasonable or obligatory basis can be found for civic duties and allegiance ; no solid an- swer can be given to the question, "Why am I bound to obey the civil magistrate?" nor can any basis of morality safely be laid do'WTi. If atheism were true, men would be only .ingenious animals; convenience might prompt them to feed in herds, but they would no more be suitable subjects for civil society than other brutes. Civil society is, while a temporal, essentially a moral institution. Morality can be established only on theism.
2. The Sabbath, as fii'st given to the human race, was an ordi- nance of natural theism. It was given to man before he was a sinner, or needed a Sa^dour. It was equally enjoined on all races, and at first observed by all Here the reader need only be referred to the argument of our first section. The Sabbath, as an institution given to men for all ages and dispensations, even including that of Paradise, was and is God's means for maintaining in the human family his knowledge and fear as our Maker, Ruler and future Judge. But on that fear all moral in- stitutions repose — the family and the state, as truly as the church. Therefore, men are naturally bound to keep the Sabbath simply* as men, and not only as Christians.
3. After man fell, and came to need redemption, the Sabbath was also continued by God as a means of grace and a gospel in- stitute. But this did not repeal or exclude its original use. The professed Christian has two reasons for observing the Sabbath ; every human being has one.
4. The civil legislator makes use of the books of Genesis and Exodus in supporting the propriety of his state laws for the Sab- bath, not as a code of redemption, but as an authentic history of man's origin and early code of natural theism. As such, it is
ITS NATUKE, DESIGN AND PEOPEE OBSEEVANCE. 549
supported by all authentic tradition and history, by the teachings of experience and the approval of all -s^ise and virtuous legisla- tors who have known their contents. There is the same species of reason Avhy this sacred historj- should guide the legislation of all states, as for the British Parliament's guiding itself by Magna Charta.
This argument, it will be noticed, gives no pretext for any intermingling of the state with the Christian church or an}- denomination in it. The church is the spiritual organism of redemption. The state is the secular, but moral and righteous, organism for safety, justice and welfare in this life. The state is not necessarily Christian. But it is necessarily theistic, because on the atheistic theory its basis, its rights and its healthy exist- ence are lost. Hence, while the chui'ch has its use of the Sab- bath as the institute of redemption and means of grace, the state has its use of it as the institute of righteousness and the natural knowledge and fear of God. The church accordingly enjoins and seeks to enforce, by her spiritual means, on her members the right spiritual improvement of the day. The state, by its secular power, enjoins and enforces the outward rest of the day, so that the people may, if they will, use it to learn of God and of his righteous law, to cultivate morals and decency, to rest their faculties of body and mind, and to enjoy the ennobling and wholesome moral influences of the family and fireside.
On this theory no man's franchises as a citizen are abridged on account of his failure to adopt a Christian profession of any name whatsoever. But on this theory w^e candidly avow the state does discountenance atheism as her necessary and radical antagonist. Should either church or state therefore persecute an avowed atheist ? By no means. Both should treat him with pity and with all the forbearance compatible with the duty of self-preservation. But the state has the same right to restrain him from destroying society by his atheism which a householder has to prevent a lunatic son from burning down the children's dwelhng-house. To this catastrophe the systematic neglect of the Sabbath naturally tends, because it tends to the forgetfulness of God, the ruler of mankind; and that such is its tendency experience is the best proof. The only atheistic communities y^hich have ever had a permanent existence in the w^orld have been mere hordes of savages, like the Australians and Hotteu-
550 THE CHKISTIAN SABBATH.
tots. All the civilized pagan nations of ancient and modern times had at least polytheism as the basis of their morals and government, and when reUgious faith was overflowed by skepti- cism in Athens and Rome, those repubhcs fell. Twice France has seen attempts to found a civil government on atheistic prin- ciples. The results weie the two Keigns of Terror. Russia now has an atheistic sect seeking to establish a new commonwealth, and its favorite measure is assassination.
The sum, then, is : Theism is essential to the state ; the Sab- bath is essential to maintain theism. Therefore it is that the state can do no less than maintain an outward Sabbath rest.
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
"According to tlie grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can, no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stoiaes, wood, hay, stubble ; every man's work shall be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire. "
TH E E E are few passages of Scripture concerning which more numerous and more contradictory explanations have been given than this. The most noteworthy of these schemes of exposition may be classed under three, from which they differ only in some minor details. The first of these is the scheme of the common current of the Popish writers, and of many of the Patristic interpreters. It makes the foundation to be the or- thodox doctrines of the gospel, as Rome understands them ; the various builders to be Christians ; the gold, silver, precious stones, to be good works superadded to faith by Christians ; the wood, hay, and stubble, venial sins committed by Christians ; and the day and fire which shall burn up the latter, the season and the punishments of purgatory. The Christian who has added such venial sins to an orthodox faith is accordingly represented by tlie 15th verse, as getting to heaven indeed, but with loss, and by passing through the purgatorial fires. The obvious drift of this whole explanation is, therefore, to make the passage teach that there is a purgatory.
This interpretation is too bald and crude to satisfy even learned Papists. Cardinal Bellarmine, for instance, who is perhaps the ablest and most learned of their polemics, himself refutes it, in order to establish one more plausible. The arguments are ob- vious, such as, that the several builders are all obviously minis- ters, as is implied by the whole cun*ent of the chapter, and not professed Christians in general. The cardinal then presents the following scheme, corintenanced by some of the early fathers, 551
552 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORIXTHIAXS III. 10-15.
•wliicli leads bj a more circuitous way, to the same doctrinal result as the first. The foundation which Paul says he laid is the orthodox gospel ; the several builders are legitimately or- dained church-teachers ; the gold, silver, precious stones, which they superadd to the foundation, are the correct and accurate details of Popish doctrine ; the wood, hay, stubble, are inaccu- rate and incorrect details of doctrine, not indeed positively her- etical (for they would have sent the teacher straight to hell), but ill-judged and partially perverted; the day and the fire are the season and punishments of purgatory, in which such teachers shall be chastised. But such teachers, if genuine Catholics at bottom, shall reach heaven at last, after passing through purga- tory. The inference then is, that if this passage teaches a pur- gatory for imprudent or imperfect ministers, it may be assumed, by good logical consequence, to await all other classes of Chris- tians, except the beatified who die in actual perfection.
The third scheme is that followed by the current of respectable Protestent commentators ; for example, by Calvin, the continua- tors of MattheAV Henry, and Scott. They give the same inter- pretation with Bellarmine to the foundation, the various builders, and the contrasted sets of materials in the superstructure, only they suppose the foundation to be, the doctrine of the cross -understood as Protestants hold it. They then suppose the day to be the day of judgment, when the preaching of God's minis- ters shall be strictly tested, and the fire to be the penetrating and hoi}' judgment of God concerning his creatures ; or, as Calvin interprets, with nearly the same virtual result, the fire represents the Holy Ghost, as in Acts ii. 3, by wliom the hearts and teach- ings of ministers will be searched. This terrible and holy ordeal of the divine inquest will utterly explode all erioneous super- stitions, and self-righteous doctrines which have been attached to the pure doctrines of the cross. But if the minister has truly embraced and preached Jesus Christ, he shall be saved in spite of his unfortunate errors in smaller points of doctrine. Yet he will lose much of the glory and blessedness graciously bestowed by God on A\ise, orthodox, and faithful ministers, and will gain the gate of heaven as it were with difficulty, and only by running as it were through a fiery ordeal, to reach it.
This explanation avoids the unscriptural and superstitious consequences of the two others; and leads to no practical
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 COltlNTHIANS III. 10-15. 553
error. Yet we are persuaded that it still comes short of the meaning of Paul, and misses therefore his true intent, and the rich instructions contained in it. We Avill first state the view ■which seems the true one, and then give the grounds of dissent from all the three schemes recited, following the order of the passage of Scripture itself, instead of attempting to refute each scheme sepauately. Brevity and clearness will thus be pro- moted.
We hold, then, that as Paul names himself "wise viaster-hmld- der," he means by the other various builders ministers of rank in- ferior to the apostolic, coming after him. The foundation which he laid is that blessed cluster of fundamental doctrines which set forth Christ crucified as our salvation. The building reared on this foundation by various hands is the church of Jesus Christ, taken generally ; and the gold, silver, precious stones, are gen- uine aud regenerate persons introduced into the church by the labors of wise and faithful ministers, while the wood, hay, stub- ble, represent spurious converts, and unconverted professors of religion, introduced into the church by less judicious laborers. When the day of judgment comes, this church universal, thus variously built, shall be tested by the holy, searching and pene- trating inquest of God the judge, even as a material building w^ould be by having the torch applied to it. In such a build- ing, the living rock on which it is founded, and the imperish- able stone and precious metals, would remain after the confla- gration ; but the perishable materials would be utterly consumed. So, nominal Christians, spurious converts, whose faith is a dead faith, however connected mth a genuine and orthodox church of Christ, will be cast into hell, and forever consumed by God's wrath ; while true Christians will remain uninjured. And in the judgment day, those ministers who by their soundness, prudence and fidelity have added genuine converts to Christ's church, will receive a reward from the free undeserved grace of their Lord. These ransomed souls having stood the test of the judgment day, will shine as stars in their crowns. But this gracious re- ward wdll be lost by those injudicious and rash ministers who liad introduced unsound professors into the church. If the ministers are themselves built on the Bock Christ Jesus, they v/ill indeed be saved ; but they will see the unregenerate mem- bers whom they have brought into God's house sink to hell
554 AX EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
under his strict judgment, and will wear in heaven a crown stripped of its jewels.
Although this scheme is found in none of the commentaries which the writer has consulted, no originality is claimed for it. It was first orally suggested to him in its leading feature by the late Dr. F. S. Sampson.
An unprejudiced consideration will show the congruity of this explanation in all' its parts, and with the rest of the scripture; and in this there is no little evidence of its correctness. That the various builders represent ministers in the church is evident, and indeed, is disputed by none of the modern interpreters. That the structure is the church and the contrasted sets of materials are genuine and spurious church members, we may solidly estabhsh by several proofs. 1st. The passage itself ex- pressly asserts that the fouudati(5n laid is Jesus Christ. But the usual tenor of scrij^ture figure, in both the Old and Xew Testaments, represents the church of Christ as the structiu'e built on that foundation, and indi^ddual Christians as the con- stituent parts of the structure. Let the reader only refer to the well known passages in Isaiah xxviii. 16; Matt. xvi. 18; Eph. ii. 20-22; 1 Peter ii. 4, 5. In all these passages, the building resting on this foundation is the church, and Christians are the stones united to that sure basis. Why suppose that the apostle departs from this uniform mode of using the figure here? But 2nd. The context of our passage settles the mean- ing. The subject is introduced by that unseemly strife in the Corinthian church in which the disciples ranked themselves in parties, according to the minister by whom they had been gath- ered in. The apostle's object is to rebuke this division, by sho\\'ing that the foundation is one; that the only Efficient in making a true Christian is God ; that the only function of any minister is to be an instrument in Imilding up this one structure, not two rival buildings, and that all should tremble wdth holy fear, because a man might be connected with the true, orthodox church of Christ, and might even be introduced into it by a minister who was a sincere Christian, and yet be damned. In introducing this train of thought, Paul employs two similes, that of the husbandman and that of the builder. But the latter suits his x:)urpose best in some respects, and he expands it. In verse 9th he says to the members of the church : " Ve are God's
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15 555
husbandry: ye are God's building." And in verse 16tli he re- peats: "KnoAv ye not that ye are the temple of God?" We may justly claim, therefore, that the apostle himself decides for the sense we have given. The different constituents built upon the true foundation are the different classes of church members, regenerate and unregenerate. Zrd. It seems far less natural to speak of erroneous or human doctrines connected with the gos- j)el, as consumed by the fire of God's heart-searching justice, than of unsound persons. The former metaphor is unusual and unnatural ; the latter is customary and easy.
In the next place, we concur with the Protestant interpreters in understanding by " the day''' wliich shall declare every man's work, the day of final judgment. It is spoken of emphatically as the day, as thoiigh it were well known. What day so em- phatic and marked in the mind of a Bible Christian as "the day of judgment ? " The ver}^ phrase is repeated almost perpetually. " God hath appointed a day in which he ■^dll judge the world." (Acts xvii. 31.) "He who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. i. 6.) There is a striking and curious confirmation of this meaning only eleven verses from the passage on which we are remarking. In 1 Cor. iv. 3 Paul says : "With me it is a verj^ small thing to be judged of you, or of man's judgment." So reads the English version, but in the original it stands literally "to be judged of you or of riianHs dayT The translators seem justly to have considered that the meaning of a day of judgment was so plain in the word "day" that it was proper to institute "judgment" for • day," in order to make sense to the Enghsh reader. Now, if the day which shall declare each minister's work, so as by fire, is the day of judgment, there is no countenance here for the doctrine of purgatory, for the plain reason that, according to all Papists, purgatory is finished completely before the day of judgment comes. The same conclusion follows also from the 15th verse, where the unsound work is destined to "be burned." The word rendered "burned" means "burned down," "burned to a thor- ough destruction." But the pretended fires of purgatory are represented by Papists as only perfecting him who is subjected to them.
The next point to be proved is the meaning we have assigned to " the fire " which is to try every man's work in that day. Cal-
556 AX EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIAXS III. 10-15.
vin iiuderstands hx it tlie Holy Gliost, who Avas symbolized by tonf'ues of fire sitting ou each disciple at the day of Pentecost. Other sound expounders understand by it the strictness of the divine hoHness and justice, by which ministers and their follow- ers vnll be judged. We would think either sense admissible, and practically they come to the same thing ; for if Ave suppose the Holy Ghost here alluded to, it is only as a spirit of truth and judgment. But the second sense is somewhat more accordant Avith scripture usage. In Hebrews xii. 29 the fact that " our God is a consum- ing fire " is assigned as the reason why Ave should serve him with reverence and godly fear. In Mai. iii. 2 , Jesus Christ is described as like a refiner's fire and fuller's soap ; and it is said that he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver to purify the sons of LeA'i, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. In both these cases the fire represents the character of the diA'ine attributes Avith A\-hich we have to deal. That the fire in our passage cannot mean Avhat the Papists suppose, the actual fire and torments of a purgatory, is plain from the fact that it is throughout only figu- rative. The minister who, though united to Christ, has built uj) his church Avith bad materials, "shall be saved, yet so as by fire.'' The particles we have itahcized clearly suggest a simile. If the saA-ing of the workman by fire is figurative, it is reasonable to sujDpose the testing of his work l)y fire is figurative also. This, a correct exposition, removes eA^ery shadoAV of meaning favorable to a purgatory. The strict and terrible ordeal through Avhich the fooHsh Avorkman Avill get to heaven, and in Avhich his foolish work AA'ill utterly perish, is the ordeal of the judgment day.
This striking passage, thus restored to its true meaning, pre- sents many A-aluable, practical inferences. One of these is that Christ's church is composed in this Avorld of mixed characters ; some are regenerate and some are unregenerate ; and this is true CA^en of churches founded on Jesus Christ by apostles and built up by pious ministers who reach heaven. Thus that A'ieAV of the church is confirmed Avhich Christ giAcs in the parable of the tares and Avheat (Matt. xiii. 36) and of the net and fishes (Matt. xiii. 47), and that unscriptural doctrine is again over- throAvn, b}' AA'hich the attempt is made to exclude our children from the church. Another practical lesson terribly enforced by this passage is that addressed to ministers at the end of the
AN EXPOSITION OP 1 COEINTHIANS III. 10-15. 557
lOtli verse, "Let every man take lieed liow lie iDuildetli tliere- upon."
The apostle enforces a solemn caution to take lieed what kind of accessions are gathered into the church. And this caution is addressed, not to heterodox, but to oiihodox ministers., who truly hold Christ the head and preach fundamental truths. A moment's consideration will show that it is one of vast impor- tance to American Christians, not only because of the conse- quences of the evil to ministers and people, but because of the prevalence of unsound profession among us.
One form in which ministers, substantially sound, perpetrate this mischief is the lack of diligence, firmness, and fidelity in purging the roll of the church by admonition and discipline. If any member of the spiritual building evinces an unsound and perishable nature, he should be removed from the structure of the church itself before the fiery day of inquest destroys him and mars his pastor's rewr.rd. The unconverted man is better anywhere than in the full communion of the church.
Another way in which unsound accessions are often made is by the application of lax or erroneous tests to the religious ex- perience of new converts. The minister preaches Christ in- deed, he points out the right way of salvation, but, from indo- lence, ill-judged softness of temper, or ambition to count large numbers of converts, he admits many to his communion with- out taking time and pains to apply discriminating tests of a true conversion. In the light of this third chapter of First Corin- thians, how vain and foolish does this ambition to report num- bers appear. It is not the wood, hay, stubble that will truly add to the altitude of the structure and the reward of the work- man, but only the gold, silver, and costly stones. The more of the former he heaps up, the larger ruin is he preparing for his own hopes. There is, therefore, scarcely a more solemn duty that a minister has to perform than that of trying and training young Christians before he admits them to a profession.
But there is still a third form of the error, which is most "mis- chievous and extensive among us, and which we would, there- fore, unfold with greater particularity. It is the habit of en- deavoring to promote religious feeling by other means than the application of enlightening and saving truth to the soul, while that truth is also presented with a good degree of fidelity.
558 AX EXPOSITION OF 1 COIilXTHIAXS III. 10-15.
Witli those who do not truly preach Christ ^xe have nothing to do just now; for they cannot even claim to be building their spurious and perishable trash on the apostolic foundation. But there is a set of expedients, used frequently in connection -with. good preaching, by Presbyterians sometimes and more by others, which are familiarly knoMTi by. the name of "new measures." Some of these expedients are capable of a pai-tial apology, as when they profess to enlist the intercessions of God's people for an anxious soul, but they are more often calculated to mis- lead, by confounding natural religious feelings 'wiih. the super- natural and sanctifying; and thus they often result in the heap- ing up of much wood, hay, and stubble in the church. Let us then examine the dangers of these methods, by looldng into the facts of human nature as influenced by religious excitements.
The fii'st fact to wliich we would call attention is, that all ex- citements about religion are not therefore good, or pious, or sanc- tifying. It may be supposed that a thing so obyious would need no remark; but it is amazing how blindly multitudes of Christians credit any strong emotion about religion as being, of course, wholesome and beneficial emotion. That the man feels acutely, that he has been profoundly disturbed, and has attained to more comfoiiable emotions, seems to be all these good peo- ple demand, in order to think well of him ; and any excitement ahovi religion is hailed as a precious religious revival. It is for- gotten that grace is supernatural, while a multitude of religious emotions are very natui'al. The word religion has been so long used as the same with Christicmity, that men have lost sight of the fact that there is a multitude of religions, some bad, yea vile, and only one good; that all m^inkind, down to the basest pagan tribes, have their religious systems and religious fears, anxie- ties, joys and triumphs. Emotion merely religious may be com- patible with the most depraved and atrocious state of character, and ^vith creeds utterly false. To think of future welfare, to be goaded by a guilty conscience, to be full of feeling and passion about eternal realities, may be just as congruous with paganism as with Christianity. And Turkish Der^'ishes, Hindoo-Faquirs, or Indian Medicine-men, have their religious revivals, just as truly as our ill-judging churches. That is, they have their sea- sons of prevalent and contagious religious emotions, agitating at once large masses of men. Now, since these things are so,
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 COEINTHIANS III. 10-15. 559
would it not be reasonable to suppose that poor liuiuan nature inaj frequently be subject to these spreading impulses of merely natural, nnsanctif jing feelings about religion in our Christian lands as well as in heathendom, and that there is probably a great deal of feeling here also about the soul which yet does no good to the soul ? Indeed, these contagious accesses of feehng are so natural to the human race, that they may occur about many other subjects besides reUgion. We haye seen our politi- cal reyiyals, fostered by inflammatory speeches, songs, badges, processions, which were as truly revivals as, and perhaps little less worthless than, many religious excitements. It is not enough then to produce feehng about the soul ; we must aim to produce right feeling. And this is only produced by reyealed truth intelligibly presented to the understanding, and applied by a supernatural agent. All else, no matter how genuinely warm or intense, is only that sorrow of the world that worketh death, and needeth to be repented of. The whole labor of the wise minister, therefore, \\dll be to replace this natural religious feel- ing by the supernatural.
Let us- next adyert to the principle of sympathy in the human soul. We so habitually limit the operations of this, in our thoughts, to the sorrowful emotions, that we almost forget its universality. The Creator has formed man with this law of feehng, that the mere witnessing of any human emotion colors the soul of the spectator with a similar emotion, in a less degree. In the object of the sympathy, the emotion was propagated ac- cording to the laws of the understanding, which presents to the heart some "sdew of facts rationally adapted to be the motive or occasion of the feeling. But in the subject of the symj)athetic feeling, there is no acting of the understanding, no view pre- sented by it to the heart, unless we call the mere perception of emotion in the other person a view of the understanding. The sympathetic emotion is wholly unintelligent, is superinduced by the mere sight of the feeling in another, and usually vanishes Avhen that is removed. In proof, we point to the facts that we are saddened when we see a person weep, although we do not know the cause of his grief, and if we see persons angry or fighting, we partake of theu' excitement, though we know and oare nothing of them or their quarrel. In a word, our sympa- thetic feeling is provoked, not by the rational cause of the feel-
560 AX EXPOSITION OF 1 ( OKIXTHIAXS III. 10-15.
iug we beliold, but by tlie mere beliolding of the feeling. Again, it sliould be remarked tliat sympathy is involuntary and imme- diate. The senseless passions of mobs, where men are sud- denly led to clamor or fight with vehemence for objects of which they are utterly ignorant and careless, are familiar and trite illustrations of this power.
It Avill now be at once seen that we have here an engine which may be used to a slight extent as occasion of genuine, gracious emotions ; but which admits of indefinite and tremendoiTS abuse for the excitement of spurious, senseless, religious feeling. It is usually called into use by rash ministers in two ways, of which one is the rhetorical painting of startling or moving pic- tures in their discourses, and the other is the parade or display of the religious passion in those who are already inflamed with it. These ill-starred artists have learned by experience that the machinery of the sympathetic passions is one on which they may count Avith perfect regularity. No human feeling can be exhibited to human beings without awakening the correspond- ing feeling to some degree. In some persons the susceptibility is slight, in some it is strong : but the more widely the sympa- thetic flame is spread the more power does it have to propagate itself, and the more certainly, promptly, and fiercely. Nothing-^ more is needed then than to display the desired passion, either by the dramatic rhetoric of the preacher, or by the collecting and exliibition in public of persons already infected; the result naturally follows. Feelings of supposed religious anxiety, con- viction, penitence, gratitude, spiritual joy, spread from heart to heart, assuming the garb of true spiritual emotions. But from the very nature of sympathy, they are unintelligent ; that is to say, they are produced by mere contagion from the feeling of others, without any view presented by the understanding of the truths by which true, gracious emotion should be produced, and therefore it is a sheer impossibility that they can be sanctify- ing; because the Holy Spirit, the sole agent of sauctification, only works on reasonable souls by the instrumentality of truths intelligen tly comprehended. The understanding is the only chan- nel through which the sanctifying means can reach the heart. The subject of this sympathy does not truly feel for his own sins ; he only feels for another who is feeling for his sins. He
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 561
is not properly anxious for liis own soul; lie is only anxious about the anxiety of another for his soul.
We are now perhaps prepared to give an ansAver to the ques- tion, hoAV far sympathy may be legitimately employed as a lever for moving the careless about the things of God. This laAv of sympathy, yea, of the religious sympathies, w^as given to our souls by our Maker ; was it for nothing ? Has it, unlike all his other works, no legitimate use ? Again : the true orator, when he arouses feeling by the exhibition of his own feeling, undoubt- edly appeals to the law of sympathy. Is all this improper? "We answer, no : there is a legitimate use Avhich may be made of this laAv. We often find our fellow-men because of their inat- tention insensible to the clear truths presented to the under- standing, which are the Spirit's sole instruments for salvation. It is then .desirable to superinduce feeling in connection with these truths, even if it be at first unintelligent feeling, and sucli as is not sanctifying, in order that saving truth may catch the attention, may be truly heard, remembered, and by God's fur- ther blessing felt. We Avould then alloAv to these sympathetic impressions their proper place as means, but as means of sec- ondary grade and importance. They are, indeed, only means to other means; they are but an expedient for securing attention to that more direct means, the truth, by which alone saving im- pressions can be made. If therefore the preacher aims to excite the sympathetic religious emotions by that scriptural and rational Avarmth of feeling with Avhich he is expounding scrip- ture truth to the understanding, with that feeling AA'hich such truths should reasonably stimulate in a gracious and enlightened heart, he does Avell : he is guilty of no abuse. For, while he aims to produce the sympathetic emotion which, if it remained mere sympathy, Avoidd be unintelligent and w^orthless for idterior good, he also presents Bible truths to the understanding, gain- ing for them the warmth and quickened attention of the tem- porary feeling; so that by their truths the hearer's soul may now, perchance, be profited. But if he merely seeks to excite and harrow the sympathies by touching or dramatic incident, or by fiery displays of passion, which contain no perspicuous ex- plication of Bible truths, he is abusing his poAver. He is exciting by mere contagious influence a senseless and worthless agitation, Avhich can do no good, being accompanied Avith no light for the
Vol. I.:-.3G.
562 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 COKINTHIANS III. 10-15.
understanding, and wliich is likely to do irreparable evil, hy being mistaken for tiiie religious feeling. Again, tbe exhibition of genuine religious emotion, Avliicli is the just fruit of right views of truth held by the understanding, may have a valuable sympathetic effect on others ; as Avhen that exhibition is properly made in the daily duties of a holy life, in the approaches to the throne of gi-ace, in the tender expostulations of the Christian •with his impenitent neighbor. The sympathetic softening may make way for the teachings of instructive example or discourse to the mind before inattentive. But when emotions are paraded in pubHcity and inflamed by the artifices of the ecclesiastical "manual exercise," in order to propagate a passion beyond that begotten by the truth itself, the result is unmingied mischief. The misguided subject is taught to regard this unintelligent pas- sion as the end, instead of a very secondary means, and to rest in it as constituting gracious affections. It is as though the sick man, benumbed vnih. the approaching chill of death, should mis- take the warmth of the apphances used from witlioiit for the glow of that animal heat, the inward and living result of vi- tahty, which the former could only serve to stimulate. To apjjly our comparison to the soul, where the true principle of ^'itaUty exists, which the Spirit of God bestows and which he only be- stows by the means of the truth intelligently apprehended in the understanding, the ai-tificial caloric applied from without may do some good, by stimulating the internal spiritual heat w^hicli is the effect of genuine spiritual life and which there- fore must ever originate from within. But all the Avarming of a dead corpse with external applications of heat which human art can imagine will never make it a living man. It may hasten putrefaction ! Just as soon as the applications are suspended, it will be a cold marble corpse again. And how ruinous Avould be that error which shoidd mistake the fleeting touch of warmth given from -without for the true animal heat?
The nature of sympathetic excitements has now been some- what explained. It has been shown that the mere witnessing of emotion superinduces some degree of the same emotion in the soul of the spectator, and that this excitement is not pro- duced by any rational \iew of a cause of emotion seen, or at least supposed to be seen, in the understanding, as is always the case with independent emotions; but that it is immediate
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 (OKINTHIANS III. 10-15. 563
and uninteUigeut. But now, tlie first great fact wliicli we men- tioned must be recalled. It was tliat some sort of religious — not Christian or sanctifying — feeling is native to man ; and tliat higli degrees of such feeling are compatible with the deepest depravity and often co-exist with it. What are we to expect, then, but that this bhnd, sympathetic excitement will, in accordance A^dth the great law of association, excite these religious feelings in their direct forms also? Thus the state of the agitated soul, instead of presenting that single and simple emotion we have thus far described, becomes very mixed and complex. The un- reasoning impulse of sympathy mingles with the rational but unsanctified emotions produced by the convictions of the sinner's awakened understanding., and perhaps with those also awakened under the teachings of the Holy Ghost. The three-fold ele- ments would require nice and careful discrimination to distin- guish between them, but the storm of excitement leaves the sub- ject of them no disposition to watch or investigate. Let us here remember also, another fearful fact, that Satan is often at hand, stri\ang to mislead and pervert those movements for good which he cannot wholly prevent, by his false and destructive sugges- tions. For example : we will make the more favorable supposi- tion, that the emotion exhibited by the indiscreet minister, or the persons whom he parades, for the purpose of stai-ting the agitation, is genuine, spiritual emotion. The only direct effect it has on the spectators, in virtue of the law of sympathy, is to awaken the contagion of an unintelligent excitement. But this sympathetic wave immediately starts the emotions of natural religious feeling, consisting of the sinful sorrow of a guilty con- science, selfish anxiety and slavish fear, with perhaps supersti- tion. The two elements mingle, and how natural is it that the ignorant soul, especially if misled by the father of lies, should suppose them as piire and spiritual as those feelings in the Chris- tians before him, from whom he has caught the infection ? " The heart is deceitful above all things." There is here deep feeling about God and rehgion ; it is mistaken for godly feeling.
But now, to the storm there will siicceed calm, just as surely as day follows after night, summer after winter, and the ebb tide after the flood. The human soul never endures a high tension of emotion for a long time at once. If there is no other cause to relax it, the result vnl\ be produced by the very violence of
564 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
feeling : the passion wears itself out. The natural fancy is pos- sessed with lively pictures of the loveliness of Christ, and the imagination embraces him in a sense, but not the heart; for there is no scriptural view of the evil of sin, or desirableness of his redemption, which is a redemption unto holiness. It may be a slavish fear compels to a sort of surrender of some sin, which the frightened transgressor concludes he is willing to desert rather than endure hell fire. Now, suppose some indiscreet friend, or the sinner's own anxious .self-love, or Satan, who knows so well how to quote scripture, should whisper the suggesti<m : "Is not this calm, this surrender, the peace of believing?" There is every prospect that the delusion will be embraced. And when once harbored, the spurious joy which it suggests of course tends to propagate and increase itself for a time.
The consequent peace is deep and sweet just according as the previous pain was pungent. It is mistaken for spiritual joy. Self-love of course prompts a spurious gratitude and praise for it ; and causes the heart to love the scenes, the means and the companions of its delicious intoxication. And now we have "the stony ground hearers" reproduced. (Matt. xiii. 20-21.) The dead heart, having no true vitality to generate spiritual emotion from within, sinks into a chill and dreary vacuity when alone ; and thus it is all the more prone, for a while, to crave a return to the place and the scenes where the exhilarating ap- pliances were enjoyed. It loves that exciting companionship which alone can save it from the unwelcome conviction that it is as wicked as ever, and thus the graces of lirotlierly love and delight in ordinances are simulated for a season by its spuri- ous affections. He is befooled into the church. And now many things confirm his mistake. Do feelings decline ? He says : " Christians should not live on frames." Does sin tri- umph again over him ? He remembers that even a Paul had a "law in his members, warring against the law of his mind." Habits formed during the fever-fit of his religion, together with pride of consistency^, cause him still to persevere in some duties ; and other unsanctified principles propagate other observances. Quite a warm zeal may be begotten by party feeling, the social principle, self-love, desire of applause, meddlesomeness, emula- lation, or the love of power. Let self-love or pride of intellect hallow to itself some creed or system, by enshrining it on the
AX EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIA.NS III. 10-15. 565
polluted altar oi its self-worship, and forthwitli it is loved and asserted. To liear it ably expounded or defended gives vivid pleasure ; to hear it assailed arouses indignation. Thus the sinner is deluded into the belief that he loves God's truth. And almost all the marks of Christian character may be thus coun- terfeited.
But the whole is not yet stated. In many accessions made to the churches means of excitement are applied still more deadly in their results. We speak now of what are called the anxious seat and the altar; the directing of all j^ersons who can use certain language, supposed to be decisive of a change of heart, to rise or kneel in their places in the public congregation ; and the various other arts for tricking persons into a hurried committal of themselves. If these arts have any object, the whole and obvious design must be to excite certain natural emotions, with the hope of stimulating by their means warmer religious feeling. But, as we have seen, the great evil is the mixture of the natural \nili the supernatural ; and the main de- sire of the wise minister is, to separate and suppress the former, in order that the latter may be clearly evinced unto the saving of the soul. We will not dwell now so much upon the fact that persons of a true sense of propriety, modesty and humility, will usually be the last to make these unseemly exposures of them- selves ; and so the very persons Avho would most profit by the at- tentions and instructions of the ministers — if those instructions were w^orth anything — are overlooked, and fail of them entirely. But what are the unsanctified emotions which these usages excite ?
1. In the first place, they arouse the blind sympathies in a powerful and dangerous degree. Then a flustered and abashed modesty produces tremendous agitation in all young persons and females. The social and domestic affections are also em- ployed, by using parents as decoj'S for children, or children for parents, sisters for sisters ; and even lovers for lovers, so unscru- pulous is the spirit of management often displayed. Again, when the exposure has once been made, and the notoriety ac- quired, the unfortunate victim feels that he is "in for it;" and every principle of pride pushes him on to act out his part, and force, by every expedient, the continuance of his artificial feel- ins;. So, if advantage is taken of the turmoil and whirlwind of
566 AX EXPOSITION OF 1 COKINTHIAXS III. 10-15.
passion which often attends snch scenes, to exact an unthinking avowal of conversion in public, either in act or Avord, a terrible motive is created, out of the pride of consistency, to persevere in that profession, and to shun the self-examination which might reveal the mortifying delusion, until the soul is undone. Men nearly ignorant of the fearful machinery of the human emo- tions, and unconscious of the significancy and influence which even slight acts possess with the soul in times of intense excite- ment, tamper with these springs of eternal weal or Avoe with a heedless and rash hand. It would be less insane for the sur- geon's apprentice to toy -udth the naked jugular vein, \nt\i the point of his master's keen bistoury ! What an argum-ent is there here against entrusting the work of the ministry to any but a " scribe instructed unto the kingdom of God !" (Matthew xiii. 52.)
2. Let us now inquire, what is the testimony of that sure guide, experience, concerning the fruits ? It is notorious that, even where the preaching is orthodox, discriminating, and faith- ful, the accessions made to the church by tliis class of means are often found to be "wood, hay, stubble." Some congrega- tions of Christians report almost annual and splendid acces- sions, which, if half genuine, should in a few years have raised them to the highest sj)iritual power and prosperity ; yet, after a long series of such revivals, the churches are found small, lan- guishing, and unsound as ever. The thing is so well known that in many regions the public coolly expects about fort^'-five out of fifty, or even a higher ratio, to apostatize ultimately. And this, alas, is not the language of exaggeration ! The sinful world, too, instead of awe and reverence — which the world always feels in the presence of God's Spirit, even when it fights with the heav- enly visitor, — looks on with disrespectful levity, and makes such revivals its jests. A multitude of these unsubstantial accessions fall away so speedily that there is scarcely time to count them as communicants; but of those who continue church members, is there not reason to fear that numbers had better be open apostates ? Even the judgment of charity" decides that our churches have many dead members. These are the result of this building with wood, hay, and stubble, by hasty or unskilful workmen.
We have seen how natural and common are the elements of a religious excitement ; that it is so entirely possible for them to
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 5G7
act utterly without auytliiug good or lioly, that they are found frequently among pagans and heretics, and that similar excite- ments may even arise where religion is not in question at all. We have seen the modes in which the natural and sinful exer- cises may easily counterfeit the genuine and supernatural. We have seen the evidence of a sure e.r2)erience, which shows that the mistake does occur in multitudes of cases. The apostle tells us what are its fatal consequences. The wood, hay, stubble, shall be utterly burned ; the miserable victims of all this handi- craft of self-deception shall lose their souls ; and the ministers who work the machinery, if they escape hell themselves, will escape it " so as by fire," and will lose the reward of their labors. And now, does it not seem amazing that even uneducated men, who have some good sense and scriptural knowledge, should, in view of these truths, perpetrate the acts which are often done amidst religious excitements; that ministers of the gospel, for instance, should triumphantly proclaim a given young person regenerate in the face of the crowd, because forsooth he has extracted from the confused, the almost frantic mind, some ran- dom expression of faith or love towards Christ ? Or that they should persistently inflame all the spurious emotions we have described, and then, on the ground that they are felt, recognize whole crowds of persons ignorant and credulous, as true con- verts to Christ, without either allowing the time or taking the pains to discriminate between the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of their own arts, wdiich is so exceedingly apt to ape and simulate God's work? We would distinctly admit that many truly good men are concerned in this error, because of an honest, but misguided zeal to save souls ; but yet a portentous amount of guilt is contracted and of everlasting mischief done in this way. That the error of management lie explored and thoroughly exposed is one of the most urgent religious wants of our age.
I object to this well known system farther :
3. Such measures are hazardous for the aAvakened, not only because (see above) they produce a mischievous turmoil of the natural sympathies, or worse, where the utmost perspicacity, solemnity, and sincerity are desirable ; but
{a.) They raise a false issue for the sinner's conscience. The real Ipriip is as stated in John vi. 29, or Acts xvii. 30, or ii. 38. The
568 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
false is, Will you come to the anxious seat? or some similar ob- servance. Tims follows unavoidable confusion of conscience. If the person awakened has dignity and good sense, lie will pro- bably refuse to come, and tlien tlie drift of the system is to tell him that therein he has rebelled against God and grieved the Holy Ghost; hence, groundless distraction. If he is more gullible, and goes, it is implied that he has performed a saving act, or at least one that has gratia congruens. It is in vain they disclaim ; for the common sense reasons, " Why so much urgency, if the means is not truly effective of something?" The altar, or anx- ious bench, is called the "foot of the cross," "blessed place," etc. Those who come are gloried over. Hence —
(J.) The victim is placed in a false position, where his soul is subjected to most vicious considerations. It is claimed, these measures "bring the sinner to a decision, and make him com- mit himself." Yes, unfortunately ; but only mischievously. " C^est le 2^remier j^as qui conte f " True, of sinful courses, the completion of which is in the sinner's own depraved power and will; not otherwise. Is this decision a determination to come to Christ f Then the man is a believer. Why not instruet him as such? He has gotten past the need for "measures." Is it a determination to do something else? Then it is mischievous, for until he comes to Christ he does nothing.
But he has "committed himself." Yes, unfortunately. Not to his God, to enlightened, honest, deliberate conscience, but to false pride, to a human public, to false shame. If he does not go on, he is — not unjustly — left full of indignation and spite for the mortifying attitude ; he feels he has been entrapped. If he cowers before the false shame, then a fearful temptation is created to "get up" a spurious conversion with counterfeit graces. Look at results !
The system is very like the Eomish plans of ensnaring vows, etc.
(t'.) They foster a vicious and unhealthy development of the religious character. The exposure and parading of sentiments which should be most sacred and delicate before a public audi- ence, and that a ]yi'omiscuous one of Christians and sinners, many of the latter profane, and even scoffing, is deadly to deli- cacy of feeling, especially among young persons and females. The system produces a sensational religion, and a dependence
AN EXPOSITIOX OF 1 CORIXTHIAXS III. 10 1."). 569
on clap-trap for religious wariiitli. Modesty and reserve being broken down, there is a fearful danger of awakening vain glorj, and a fondness for display and applause. The new measures tend to banish reverence, which is the essential spirit of true piety, and to foster a flippant and profane spirit. They are an inlet for disorders, as lay preaching, the thrusting forward of neophytes into an unwholsome publicity in leading in prayer and exhortation, etc., and even the public prapng and exhort- ing of women. For the prime thing to be done is to mcike a sensation anyhow, and if stale novelties will not effect this, then fresher ones must be resorted to.
In this connection, I note the two other plea.^ for these new measures : that they are necessary to give suitable special in- struction to inquirers ; and that they lead believers to special prayer for them. To the first I reply, no time or move could well be more vnjjrojMtious for such instruction. "Witness the actual transactions ; a few muttered or whispered words of com- monplace to a mind blind with confusion and passion. If indi-- vidvial instruction is needed, no place is suitable except the 23astor's study or the person's home ; if collective, then the desk is the proper place. As to the latter plea, what sort of interces- sory spirit is that wdiich must needs he 2^^1^''^^ '^J ^^ siglit of the weeping, agitated mourners before it will pray for them ? More like claj^-trap than faith.
4. The real impulses which propel ministers to the new mea- sures, while sometimes ignorantly pious, are more frequently improper, a prurient impatience to hurry and huddle the work which God reserves as his own, — sinners' conversion,— with a secret mistrust of the power of the simple truth, with prayer and faith ; a love of notoriety, and of the reputation of effective- ness; a desire to count large numbers of converts, and espe- cially an indolence which is impatient of God's method, the detailed, unobtrusive, sustained work of pastoral and catechet- ical instruction. It is, in a word, a system of spiritual quackery. It relies not on spiritual powers, but on theatrical sympathies and manipulations.
5. The charge would be sufficient against the new measures, that they constitute an EdzAo-d^fjr^axeia. The system is not set doA\ai and authorized for us in God's w^ord ; and this is enough to make it contraband to a strict Protestant. They plead sun-
570 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
dry things in all Protestant clinrclies, all probably different from, and additional to, what was in the primitive precedent, as pews in chnrehes, choirs, etc. Answer : If these are right, they are only the natural and fair development of rites of worship which are ordained in sacred Scripture. The new measures are more, — a sid^stantive addition. The motive stamps them as the sin of will-worship; for that motive is notoriously the desire to employ human inventions, springing out of the mistrust in God's plans. Every corruption of popery was, at its inception, a "new measure," prompted and apologized for precisely as we hear in our day, and several of them decidedly more plaus- ible and reverential: pictures and statues in churches, relics, monkery, confessional and penance, processions, sacred dramas, etc. Only time is needed to develop these modern ones into as palpable a system of man-made religion as popery.
Last. Events have disclosed a marked tendency of the new measures to foster Pelagian and semi-Pelagian doctrines. See the history of the New School and of the Missionary Baptists, both of whom were largely corrupted by these measures. See their chief prevalence among semi-Pelagian sects, United Breth- ren, Wesleyans, Lutherans (New School), Winebrennerians, Cum- berland Presbyterians, et al. Tn fact, they do not cohere with the Bible doctrines of original sin, effectual calling, and sovereign grace.
In connection with these measures, let us consider the usage of the prompt admission of professed converts to the Lord's table. The reasons against this usage are obvious. In favor of it, they plead {a,) That it is well to get them committed at once ; (J,) The example of the apostles at Pentecost, etc. The answer to the first is, that it is the wrong sort of committal, to motives factitious and unwholesome. To offset the apostolic example. Dr. Miller says that there was a special reason why they must be seemingly precipitate, namely, that the bulk of their converts were only assembled for the week of the feast, and would then disperse. Dr. Alexander says : A similar pre- cedent would impose on us community of goods, that Christ chose, not to make his apostles infallible as to every point and detail of pastoral discretion by an inspiration, but left them to learn from experience like other Christians. It may be added : suppose God was pleased to give, in that work, a gen-
AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 571
(
eral purity, and to reveal to the apostles a guarantee of it, such as are iiot given in our modern revivals, tlien, of course, we are not to imitate tlieir immediate reception. Paul says to Timo- thy, "Lay liands suddenly on no man." In a word, experience shows that to imitate them would now be mischievous, and a violation of that pastoral prudence which h undoubtedly en- joined. (See Shorter Catechism, Question 97 ; Bo'ok of Disci- pline, Chap. I., Sec. II.; Directory of Worship, Chap. IX.)
Time has exposed the hollowness of the conversions under discussion so frequently that the persons who persist in employ- ing the dangerous methods dare not deny it. But their plea is "that some are genuine converts; that one soul is of priceless value, and that, if nine out of every ten go back, they are only where they were before, while the tenth is saved." The apostle does not speak thus. The wood, hay, and stubble, when built into God's spiritual temple, is not as well off as when left in the forest or the field. That building is destined to be tried by fire ; and in that day woe unto the perishable stuff which has been thrust into it. The plea just stated assumes two things both of which are untrue. One is that the majority, who prove to be spurious fruits of these excitements, are no worse off than before; the other is that the small minority of genuine fruits would not have been gathered in without these means. Of the latter assumption I remark, first, that it is notoriously untrue. In almost every case where true grains of Hving wheat are found among the masses of chaff raked together by these efforts there will be formed a preparatory work in the heart, the result of intelligent scriptural teaching and consistent Christian ex- ample, watered for some time by the Holy Spirit in the retire- ment of their homes. And the only result of the revival appli- ances as to them has been to hurry them a little, perhaps, in their disclosures of their new feelings, and at the same time to mar and pollute the wholesome soundness of their spiritual character. Had scriptural means of grace been used with them, and no others, they would have come into the church in due time, none the less surely, and with a ^Diety more symmetrical and profound.
Nor is the other assumption true, that the rest who are not savingly converted are no worse off than before. Is it nothing that the power of divine grace and the sanctity of a religious
572 AN EXPOSITION OF 1 COIilNTHIANS 111. 10-15.
professiou are disliouored before tlie world, till the very name of revival becomes trivial? Is it nothing that the misguided converts who apostatize have the guilt of broken vows and pro- fessions, and perhaps of sacraments profaned, added to all their previous lists? But this is not all; the sjDiritual effects of one of these delusive and abortive excitements are lilighting. At best, the sensibilities of the subject are exhausted and worn out to no purpose, until his heart becomes almost incapable of ini- j)ression, and his " conscience is seared with a liot iron." Those who have passed throu.gli two or three of these fires are usually found the most impious and heaven-daring of profane swearers, xevilers and mockers, where they are not restrained by princi- ples of social decency and respectability. If they belong to the latter class, they are usually found in a state of skepticism or hostility as to the very truth of Christianity. They feel that a cruel trick has been played upon their inexperience Ijy the min- isters and friends of Christianity in thus thrusting them, in the hour of their confusion, into false positions, whose duties they do not and cannot perform, and into sacred professions which they have been compelled shamefully to repudiate. Their self- respect is therefore galled to the cpiick, and pride is indignant at the hiimiliating exposure. No wonder that they look on religion and its advocates henceforward with suspicion and anger. Often their feelings do not stop here. They are con- scious that they were thoroughly in earnest in their religious anxieties and resolves at the time, and that they felt strange and profound exercises. Yet bitter and mortifying experience has taught them that tlie'ir new birth and experimental religion ;it least was a delusion. How natural to conclude that those of loll others are delusions also? They say: "the only difference between myself and these earnest Christians is, that they have not yet detected the cheat as I have. They are now not a whit more convinced of their sincerity and of the reality of their ex- ercises than I once was of mine. Yet I know there was no change in my soul; I do not believe that there is in theirs." Such is the fatal process of thought through which thousands have passed ; until the country is sprinkled all over with infi- dels, who have been made such by their own experience of spu- rious religious excitements. They may keep their hostility to themselves in the main; because Christianity now "walks in
AN EXPOSITIOX OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 573''
her silver slippers ; " but tliey are not tlie less steeled against all saving impressions of the truth.
But Avhat shall we say of that large number, who having en- tered the church with a counterfeit conversion, continue there as formal and dead professors, blinded l\v habit, pride of con- sistency, and self -righteousness, to their real condition? Their case is, alas! worse if possible than the former. Humanly speaking, everything concurs to keep them insensiljle to their true condition. Their false hope, like an adamantine shield, turns aside every arrow of wholesome admonition or awakening. Is Christ oflfered in the gospel as a Saviour for lost sinners? They consider themselves as among the found. Is the danger of the unconverted painted in the most alarming colors? It is nothing to them, for they consider themselves as among the con- verted. Are the privileges of believers held forth ? They pa- propriate them all, saying to themselves: "Peace, peace, when there is no peace." The result is that their mistaken profes- sions convert all the gracious promises, which are the nutriment of the regenerate soul, into deadly poisons to them ; and close their mouths against the reception of a single one of those bit- ter but wholesome convictions, which are the necessary medi- cines for their dangerous case. Let ministers address faithful and discriminating warnings to professed Christians, against self-deception, or against inconsistency, and you shall see that all the truly humble, sound, consistent Christians in the audi- ence, whose piety nobody doubts, will at once accept the admo- nition with contrite thankfulness, and diligently search their hearts therewith as Avith a lighted candle. But every dead pro- fessor, for whom they were especially intended, will be seen busily applying the warnings to his neighbors, and with a self- satisfied air perhaps admiring and complimenting the fidelity of his pastor! "Verily, the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before" these (Matt, xxi. 31). Let us ap- peal again to the testimony of experience. We know that the churches contain multitudes of these dead believers ; and 3'et, though they are usually church-goers, and so, within the reach of the means of grace, when revivals come, it is the rarest thing in the world to hear anything of .the conversion of this class. A few of those who have undergone a spurious conversion and discovered their delusion are now savingly renewed, along with
574: AN EXPOSITION OF 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15.
numbers of open, careless sinners ; but liow few of tliose who "have a name to liye and are dead?" When Satan gets the "wood, hay, and stubble" quietly built into God's spiritual temple, he is best pleased ; for he knows that they will proba- bly remain there undisturbed till the day that trieth every man's •work by fire; and then they will be ine^dtably consigned to everlasting burnings. Then "let E'S'eky man take heed hoav he
BUELDETH."
It is not intended in these remarks to imply that delusive conversions and unsanctified communicants are only found in those congregations which employ the dangerous expedients described above; but only that they may be reasonably ex- pected to be more frequent among them. So strong is the tendency to self-deception and formalism in man's sinful soul, much of it will exist in spite of the most scriptural preaching and cautious management. Doubtless the purest churches have dead branches. But does not this sad fact constitute a strong reason for shunning all those expedients by w^hich this danger of self-deception, so prevalent at best, is manifestly increased in a high degree ?
KuLEs FOR Pastor in Revival.
1. The chief use to be made of the juncture is to j9rec<?<3;2^ ipi- portant truth. Hence catechetical work should be then most ac- tive, preaching most doctrinal.
2. Gently repress all excitement which the Holy Ghost does not make.
3. Give personal instruction as much as possible in jyinvate.
4. Beware of permitting anxious persons to lean on the pas- tor, instead of the Saviour.
5. Keep John vi. 29, and Acts xvi. 31, ever foremost. Do not permit anxious persons to feel that an3i;hing is done, until this is done.
6. Present Christ in his prophetic and kingly, as well as his priestly work.
7. Don't allow any 07ie to tlmist you aside from your proper share in the work.
8 Minimize the recoil of the excitement.
9. Commend Dr. Plumer's Hints on Past. TheoL, Ch. XXI.
THE WORLD WHITE TO HARVEST:
EEAP, Olt IT PERISHES.'
' ' Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on tlie fields ; for tliey are white already to harvest. " — John iv. 35.
THE most familiar truths are the most influential. This is a fact which our ambition to be novel often causes us to overlook. Much that is ingenious, and at the same time cor- rect, has been said upon the commercial, civil, and social re- sults of missions and of Christianity. There is some danger of our prosecuting the evangelical work from these considerations, to the exclusion of the more sacred motives drawn from eter- nity. In the latter must ever be the main spring of the church's zeal. The same vast, old, familiar truths, which made Paul, Peter, Jesus Christ, missionaries, that the whole human race are children of wrath and in the highway to everlasting ruin ; these must move our missionary efforts also. Our faith should con- stantly recur to these great facts, to receive from them fresh im- pulses of their might. This is just the method of our Saviour in the text, when he introduces the enforcement of gospel effort by saj^mg, "Lift up your eyes and look on the fields." And the preacher of the gospel ought to be far more ambitious to be able to restate these trite but potent doctrines, with a serious- ness, fervor, and palpable faith appropriate to their a-s\-ful im- j)ortance, than to win the applause of his brethren by an elo- quent or ingenious novelty. There is the more reason that we should recur to our principles, now that infidelity so boldly charges that the church is no longer impelled in her evangeli- cal toils by a vital and actual faith in the threatenings of sacred Scripture against "the nations that forget God." They have found, alas, but too much pretext for the taunt, in the biting
' A sermon preached for the Board of Foreign 3Iissious of the Presbyterian Church, in New York, May 2, 1858. 575
576 THE WORLD WHITE TO HARVEST :
contrast l)etween the tremendous urgency of our creed and the sluggishness of our endeavors.
You recognize the text as a part of the discourse uttered by our Saviour after his interview with the Samaritan woman at the weU. She had gone for a moment to the town to call her friends to hear the gracious Teacher. Meantime, the disciples returned with supplies for our Saviour's weariness, w^hich had arrested him first at that spot. But now they find the claims of hunger and fatigue silenced in him by his more consuming zeal for souls ; his meat, his solace for toil, his cordial for faint- ing nature, is to fulfil his great mission as Teacher and Re- deemer of the perishing. He proceeds to assign the reason for his self-denying diligence in this work in the words, " The fields are white already to harvest." This illustration is a favorite one with our Saviour.^ Its propriety is evidently in this fact: that when the pale yellow of maturity colors the fields of w^heat, the precious grain must be gathered at once, or else it will fall to the ground and perish. The harvest labor of the husband- man is peculiarl}' one which admits no delay. ^Vhen the golden crop beckons him with its nodding plumes, he must bestir himself, disregardful of scorching heat and panting fatigue; next month it wall be too late, for mildew and rot will have reaped his fields before him. So the labor of the spiritual hus- bandman is also harvest toil. The harvest of soids awaits no man's sluggishness. Death is afield Avitli his flashing sc^-the mowing down the nations and gathei'ing his sheaves for hell fire ; so that the Avork of redeeming love for them must be done at once, or never. In this is the point of our Saviour's reasoning. This is obviously true of each generation of sinners, as to its o^vn generation of Christian laborers, on the supposition that the whole world is indeed subject to condemnation. Our Sa\dour evidently extends the application of the fact to all his servants in the harvest, as well as to himself. But I am persuaded that his w^ords include a meaning more extensive and profound. Not only is the short lifetime of each generation the harvest time of its souls ; some eras of the world are harvest seasons as to many preceding and subsequent generations. There is then a conjunction of rare influences and circumstances, rendering evangelical labors practicable and successful, so that a hundred
1 Matt. ix. 37, 38; Mark iv. 20; Luke x. 12.
REAP, OR IT PERISHES. 577
fold as much may be done as afterAvard, when that conjunction is dissolved. Such a season the sacred Scriptures clearly de- scribe the era of Christ and his apostles to have been. Then "the fulness of time had come," ^ chosen by God to bring his first begotten into the world. Then was fnlfilled the gracious and golden hour, foreseen by Isaiah,^ for Christ to call to the isles and the people from afar, "in an acceptable time, and in a day of salvation." So deemed Paul when he said ' to the men of his age, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."
If this apprehension is correct, the text will be found to carry for us a twofold meaning. The first of the two important truths which it teaches is this, that the souls of this generation of man- kind will quickly perish unless they be saved by the gospel ef- forts of Christ's church. You will perceive, my brethren, that we are confronted here with that solemn question on which pro- fessed followers of Christ are by no means agreed, Wlietlier tJie soids of the heathen vnll certainly perish loithoat the gosi^el. Let us look briefly for the answer the sacred Scripture gives it. For if the present ignorance of the heathen exempts them from the curse of a broken law and a fallen nature, while their in- struction in revealed truth would subject them to it, like our- selves; and if we may anticipate the proliable success of that instruction in turning them to Christ, by the obduracy of sin- ners at home ; then the result of our misplaced zeal may mainly be to scatter broadcast th-e gratuitous seeds of an aggravated damnation. It were better to centre all our energies on the rescue of sinners at home, who have certainly made themselves subject to the curse by their neglect of Christian light. But if the heathen are also destined to perish inevitably unless the church thrusts forth its laborers into the harvest; then here is the great, the dreadful motive, next to God's glory, which should strain every nerve of every redeemed soul to rescue all he can.
I. It has been urged that a just God cannot punish the breach of h law, or neglect of a gospel, which the heathen could not know. I answer: he will punish no one unjustty. But hath he left himself without witness among them ?^ "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handi- work." Idolatry and its crimes are not all sins of ignorance.s
> Gal. iv. 4. ^ Isaiah xlix. 8. ^ 2 Cor. vi. 2. -> Ps. xix. ^ Eom. i. 20.
578 THE WOULD WHITE TO HARVEST:
"For the invisible tilings of God from the creation of the "svoiid are clearly seen, Ijeing understood bv the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead ; so that they are without excuse. " They who have no Bible may still look up to the moon w^alking in brightness and the stars watching in obedient order : they may see in the joyous sunbeams the smile of the Universal Father, and in the fruitful shower the droppings of his bounty ; they hear the rending thunder utter his wrath, and the matin jubilee of the birds sing his praise ; the green hills are swelled with his goodness ; the trees of the wood rejoice before him with every quiver of their foliage in the summer air ; and the floods clap their hands in praise, as their multitudinous waves leap up flashing the laughing sunlight from their crests. Are the}-, then, without blame who turn aside from all this to worship abomi- nations ? Nature, by her universal anthem, says, No ; ^ " because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God."
Or shall we suppose that, while every nominal Christian some- times disobeys his owai conscience, heathens are so much purer that they never do ? To many moral distinctions they may 1)8 blind; but among them, as everywhere else among our fallen race, men's light is better than their walk. When the pagans boAV down to vile stocks, or defile themselves with universal fraud and lies, infanticide, murder of parents, and all abomina- tions, shall we be told that natural conscience utters no protest ? Be it besotted as it may, it cannot Avholly tolerate these things. It were a libel on him who made man in his own image to say that even heathen idolatries and crimes could so crush out the moral sense, the noblest trait of his handiwork in us. No ; there is not a rational heathen in the world who, however blind his conscience, does not sometimes violate that conscience. There, at least, is sin : there is ground for the righteous judgment of God against him.' "For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law." Nor need we tarry long for that other objection : that a merciful God will surely smile upon that man who sincerely desires to do his duty, and who lives honestl}^ up to the l^est creed which it was possible for him to know, erroneous though that creed be. The short answer is, that among Adam's sons there is no such man.^ "For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under
' Kom. i. 21. -Eom. ii. 12. ^Kom. iii. 9.
EEAl'j Oil IT I'ElilSHES. 579
sin." Every man comes sliort of liis own creed, wliatever it may be.
These objections lie too near tlie surface of tlie question to detain ns long. We are compelled to admit tlie sorrowfid truth by reasons far more profound ; and one of these is suggested by the pleas which have just been set aside. It is this : 1. That while all men are guilty, no pagan, no infidel scheme provides an ade- quate atonement. The necessity of this full atonement for par- doned sin is declared by every attribute of God, by every inter- est of his universal government, and by all the teachings of his w^ord and works. Do not these attributes and principles direct his government of pagans as well as of nominal Christians ? Is not God everywhere the same ? He " will render to every man according to his deeds, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile ; for there is no respect of persons with God." ^ Yea, the heathen conscience has itself written this necessity for atonement all over their superstitions, in horrid characters of torment and blood. Their ablutions, their penances and self-tortures, their costly and ceaseless oblations, the sweat and dust of their pil- grimages, the abhorrent offerings of the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul, confess at once a sense of guilt, and a con- scious need of satisfaction for it. And in the more refined creeds of Islam and Deism, we read the same confession in their pro- posal to compensate for their guilt by alms, good works, refor- mations, or repentings.
But all these atonements are inadequate, " "for it is not pos- sible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins." Least of all would those speculative persons, with whom Bible assertions are of little weight, admit that these spurious virtues or senseless abominations can atone for guilt ; they only add to it. The only atonement is that which God has provided for us in the sufie rings of his divine Son. And the onlj' way by which any one can share this atonement is the exercise of evangelical faith. Our argument, then, is this : that all pagans are self-convicted of some sins, at least against the light of na- ture ; no sin can be pardoned M-ithout atonement ; but the gos- pel is the only proposal of atonement to man,
2. Paganism is also fatally defective with regard to the other great want of the human soul, moral renovation. Here we take
1 Rom. ii. 6, 10, 11. ^ Heb. x. 4.
580 THE AYOKLD AYHITE TO HARVEST :
oiir stand iipou the great doctrine of our Confession, ^ tliut all tlie race are "dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body." However men may differ in de- grees of ^N^ckedness, the best, equally with the worst, are wholly prone to workUiness instead of spirituality ; and the hearts of all are fully set in them to disobe}' some of God's kno%^Ti com- mands. The natural will of every man dislikes and rejects the hohness, the communion, and the ser^dce of God; and this by the perpetual and certain force of those innate dispositions which determine rational volitions. No power but one from "s\'ithout and above can renew that will, because all within it is. of course determined h\ those controlling dispositions. I shall not affront you by supposing it necessary to offer proof of these statements. Such is the inheritance which our own eyes see all in Christian lands deriving from their first father. But we have the testimony of God, that all the heathens bear to Adam the same relation. "He hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth." ^ And if our smaller vices mournfully substantiate this view of man's moral state here, how much more may we assert it of the heathen, from the general and loathsome corruption of their lives ?
Now, "except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- dom of God." ^ Here is a prohibition, not pronounced only by the divine justice, but made inexorable by a natural necessity. The carnal mind cannot enjoy a holy and spiritual heaven ; but this is the only state of real and everlasting welfare which a holy God can appoint for moral beings. To be unholy is to be unhappy. Were the justice of God dethroned, and the very throne of judgment demolished, were all his holy attributes re- pudiated, and all the interests of his kingdom disregarded, still the truth, "ye must be born again," would remain a flaming sword, turning every way to keep the path to paradise. But no pagan creed provides means or agency for the new birth. The very conception is strange to them. Their languages lack the very terms for expressing the holiness which it produces. So far are their theologies from any sanctif^dng influence, their morals are immoral, the deities which they invite man to adore and imitate are often impersonations of monstrous crime, and
' Conf., Cliap. YI., Sees. 2, 3. - Acts svii. 26. ^ j^^]^ ^^ 3^
Vol. I.— 37.
REAP, Oil IT PERISHES. . 581
the lieaveu "s^ilicl^ is to reAvard tlieir zeal is a pandeinoniiiin of wickedness, triumpliant and immortalized.
Wliere now are tlie claims of tliose virtuous lieatliens, a Con- fucius, a Numa, an Aristides, who are supposed to have walked uprightly according to that scanty light of nature vouchsafed by Providence? We might waive the considerations that every earthly child of man is condemned by his own standard, and that justice must be satisfied for these shortcomings. Wliere is the upright heathen who has shown true spirituality of heart; whose gratitude and love towards a holy God, whose hunger- ings for sauctification, whose delight in communion with heaven, have proved him "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light"? Have travellers or missionaries found such hearts, formed under the tutelage of paganism ? Now, if we decide — as we must — that the most magnanimous gentleman in this Chris- tian land, the most amiable wife, mother, or sister, whose un- derstanding approves the Bible, and whose social life is regu- lated by higher ethics than ever Aristides dreamed, that he also must be new created unto holiness before he can see God ; it is simple absurdity to talk of heathen men admitted to heaven for the uprightness of their intentions. But let us speak of the common grade of pagans, of those whose whole life was brutal vice, whose hearts were all uncleanness, whose very worship was a carnival of lasciviousness and blood. What would that heaven be to them, which we awfully recognize as too j)ure to admit the most ingenuous of our sons, the lovliest of our daugh- ters, whose social graces are the j)erfiime of our homes and hearts, while they are ungenerated ? Let us suppose that the whole sentence of God against the Gentiles, were : " He that is un- just, let him be unjust still ; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still." ^ Then look at that earthly hell of destitution, dome'3i*:ic tyranny, public barbarity, revenge, and unbridled passion, which heathen society often makes in this life ; and judge what these elements will evolve when let loose in the world of spirits, without social restraints or the illusions of hope, and deprived of those animal enjoyments which now form their chief happi- ness. In fine, the heathen, like us, are depraved ; they need a new birth. Therefore they cannot be saved without the gospel, which is the only instrument of regeneration.
' Eev. xxii. 1 1.
582 THE WOULD WHITE TO HARVEST :
"We -know there are Cliristians who reject this coneliisiou, thinking God cannot justly condemn any man who is not en- dowed with all such means and ability for knowing and loving him as put his destiny in every sense within his own choice. These means the heathen do not fully possess wdiere their ignor- ance is invincilile. The principle asserted is, that God cannot justly hold any one responsible wdio is not blessed mth botli natural and moral ability. I answer, that our doctrine con- cerning the heathen places them in precisely equal condition with those unhappy men in Christian lands Avho have the outward Avord, but ex]3erience no effectual calling of the Spirit. God requires of the latter to obey that law and gospel of which they enjoy the clearer lights; and the obstacle which ensures their failure to comply, not indeed with any physical constraint, Init with a moral certainty, is a depraved heart wdiich is unwilling to submit. Of the heathen, God wonld require no more than full obedience to that limited light of nature which his provi- dence has granted them ; and the obstacle which ensures their failure also is the same — a depraved will. When God holds the heathen responsible for their light, therefore, he deals with them no more unfairly than Avith the finally impenitent under the gospel.
This is too obvious to be denied ; and hence it has been found necessary, in order to maintain the moral ability of sinners, to assert that every human being, Christian and pagan, enjoys a common sufficient grace, consisting of various influences allur- ing him to the right, wdiich restores the depraved will to its equllibriuDi. And it is said, Avhere any heart yields to this com- mon grace, God's mercy and fidelity stands pledged to second those movements of the yielding soul, and bestoAV all the helps necessary to redemption. And if a poor pagan, guided by this universal light, begins to feel after God, if haply he may find him, surely the Father of mercies Avill not leave unreAvarded the striA'ings Avliich his OAvn grace has aAvakened ; but Avill find some Avay to give saving knoAvledge and the Holy Spirit.
The fatal ansAver is, that the Scriptures, properly undei-stood, are silent concerning such universal sufficient grace. Our ex- perience contradicts it ; for Ave usually see the actual operations of God's grace far less extensive than the means. Hoav then can it be plausil)ly said that, in other cases, the grace is ex-
REAP, OR IT PERISHE8. 583
iended so far beyond its outward means? So far is God from extending a universal gracious influence sufficient to restore eqtiUihnum to a perverted will ; Paul tells us tliat " whom lie will lie liardeneth."^ And of tlie pagans especially it is said, "even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind."- Once more : if this grace is sufficient, why does it not bring all alike to God ? If it is successful in some cases only because He adds something to its influences, then in the other cases it was not sufficient grace. If he added nothing, then the difterent result w^ould show that the common grace found in those cases less perversity of heart to overcome. All men would not Ije in the same spir- itual condition towards God, as the Bible most distinctly as- serts they are. " They are all gone out of the way ; they are together become unprofitable."^ "Who maketh thee to differ from another ; and what hast thou that thou didst not re- ceive .'' *
We find; then, that the foundation-truths oi redemption forbid us to lioi^e for the escape of the heathen ; Ave can only indulge the thought at the expense of those prime axioms on which our whole theology and our own salvation depends; while the cus- tomary palliations of their danger do but touch the surface of the terrible case. Every child of Adam, Christian or pagan, must have justifying righteousness ; and lie must have a new heart. We know not that adult and rational men can obtain these gifts, save by the intelligent reception of the gospel: I say not the reception of the full details of the New Testa- ment, but of that rudimental gospel and those great primal con- ceptions of God, holiness, sin, gratuitous justification, and saiic- tification, embraced by a living faith and hope, which pervade the patriarchal as well as the evangelical revelations. "Neither ^s there salvation in any other ; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." ^
But admitting all this, may Ave not still hope that there are elect Gentiles, objects of God's sovereign and omnipotent grace, and that they receive from Him those gospel rudiments in some Avay extraordinary and unknoAvn to the church? Would God that Ave had al )undant grounds to hope this ; but alas, experi-
' liom. ix. 18. -Rom. i. 28. See also, 2 Thess. ii. 10-12. ■■liom. iii. 12. ■•1 Cor. iv. 7. 5 Acts. iv. 12.
584 riii: would white to harvest:
ence and rclevatioii, Avliile they may not absolutely denounce its possibility, command iis to act just as though all depended upon the agency of the church. Have our missionaries found among the heathen hitherto untaught of man the fruits of such divine teachings? Have they told us of men who, while they may not have learned to worship Jehovah by the names we use, yet know and love a Being of true godhead and holiness ; who hate sin, trust in free grace, strive after righteousness, and tri- umph over death by hope? We fear the instances are few and doubtful. If there are cases which relieve the common picture of selfishness, fraud, and lust, they are but instances of Avorldly uprightness. The heathen, like the unredeemed of our own land, are found to live in bondage to evil desires and a guilty conscience, and to die in suj^erstitious delusion, or beastly apathy, or despair.
And while God has not said that he sends his saving truth as the medium of his saving grace by no hand but that of Christian effort, every example and precept of the Scriptures bids us act as though this were true. The great commission is, " Go ^-e into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," ^ as though every human being under heaven were dependent on this loving ministry of the church. The inspired preachers, by their consuming zeal in the missionary work, implied the same truth, ^liy did Paiil, for instance, submit to dangers of death oft ; ^ to receive of the Jews forty stripes, save one, five times ; to be beaten tlu'ice with rods ; to be stoned ; to Bj)end a night and a day in the deep ; to endure varied perils, weariness, watch- ings, hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness ? Like his Divine Master, he believed that a harvest of precious souls was perish- ing for lack of Christian reapers. And when the charge of in- sanity was provoked by his gigantic labors, from men too dead in unbelief to comprehend him, his simple solution was, "The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead." ' And, in one word, God gives us the rule of our hopes and duties, as to the rmevangelized world, in the Epistle to the Eomans. "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek : for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How, then, shall they
' Mark xvi. lo. ^ 2 Cor. xi. 23-27. s 2 Cor. v. 14.
IIEAI', OK IT PERISHES. 585
call ou liim in wliom tliej have not believed ? und liow sliall tliey believe in liim of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach ex- cept they be sent?" ^
AVe conclude, then, that the church should feel and act to- wards the human race substantially as though all without the gospel were perishing forever. Do any murmur at our earnest, yea, vehement, zeal to drive the dread conviction home upon you ? I answer : It is not because we are glad to have it so, but . because we sadly know it is so. We think our true compassion is to face the dire reality, and thus rouse ourselves and you to that burning activity which alone can mitigate it. That is but a false and puling tenderness which j^rofesses not to see it, in order that its indolence may evade the toils of the rescue. Should I discover one of these dwellings burning over its sleep- ing inmates, while you, their neighbors, were skeptical of their danger, my cry of fire would be no argument of my delight in the catastrophe, but of my zeal to arrest it. And now that I see a world threatened by the devouring fire of hell, while the church slumbers that ought to stay the destruction, must I not lift up my voice like a trumpet ? Oh ! if we could but relieve the danger of the heathen by arguing that it was slight, how joyfully would we plead the glowing theme! But this cannot be.
Here, then, is the vast, yet simple, case : At least four-fifths of the thousand millions of our race are without the Bible, and must therefore sink into hell as fast as death can mow them down. In about one-third of a century the generation of our contemporaries will be forever beyond the reach of our love. We seem often to imagine that India, that China, that Africa will still remain a century hence awaiting our tardy zeal ; but it is a terrible delusion. Unless we bestir our- selves now, the India, the China of to-day will be gone, and another India, another China, inheritors of their crimes and miseries, will be there to wait a little time uioon the succor of another Christian generation, and then, unless our successors be more prompt than we have been, to plunge into perdition in. their turn.
Now, liave we thoitght what a ])lunge this is? Have we fol- ]owe(t witli our minds the ruin of one poorest, darkest, Aveakest
1 Kom. X. 12-15.
586 THE WOKLD AVHITE TO HARVEST :
pagan soul, tlirongli its progressive clepra^dty and despair, tlirougli its increasiug caj)acities for sinning and suffering, and tlirougli the never-ending, ever--s\ddening, vistas of its immor- tality, till tlie woe is vaster tlian the wreck of a world? And do we remember how frequently this ruin occurs? Every blast of war, or pestilence, or famine which shakes the human crop strews hell with precious seed of lost souls as thickly as when the November wind sweeps the sere leaves of some track- less wood into its silent lake. If the deaths of this generation of siimers were perfectly regular in series, it would furnish well-nigh sixty for every minute ; so that, while we sit here de- liberating in cold debate, somewhere in this field of death every second of time marks the dpng gasp of a human being ! Hark to the fatal beat ! Each stroke of the pendulum tolls the knell of another soul that drops ; each stroke is another plunge into ilie pit, and a new burst of another everlasting wail joining the many- voiced threnody of despair. Oh ! terrible world in which to live! Oh ! dread responsibility of this li^ang harvest, in the reaping of which we must race with death! How can our sluggish feet overtake the swift angel to snatch the prey from his grasp, when the baleful shade of his Avdngs is seen flitting over isle and continent, even as the gathering gloom of night would ap- pear to some watcher from the skies to sweep around the re- vohang globe? Should we not shrink in shuddering horror from the tremendous competition till we recur to our Divine Master to infuse us A\dth his strength, and to wash out the sin of our sluggishness mth his blood? Yet let us not be cast down ; we remember that so s-svdftly as the dark edge of night devours the surface of our world from sight, even so swiftly does the advancing flush of day revolve behind it, and recon- quer it to light and joy. Thus will the light of the Sun of Righteousness follow and outrun the shadows of death until they darken the earth no more.
II. There are eras in the world's progress which compare with other ages as harvest seasons for Christ ; and such an era our Saviour e"\ddently considered his own generation to be. I cannot suppose that when he i)ronounced "the fields white to harvest," his all-seeing eye, which declared "the field is the world," embraced only the approaching clusters of Samaritans •summoned by the startled woman to the well ; or only the teem-
REAr, on IT PErjSHES. 587
ing Tillages of Galilee and Jiidea. Doubtless lie meant to in- clude tliat general preparation for tlie gospel pervading the civ- ilized world at tliat day, wliicli liad brought in "the fulness of time," and "the acceptable year of the Lord."
Many important elements concuiTed in this preparation. Both Jews and Gentiles Avere aroused by a general hope of a divine intervention, and the clear announcements by which Hebrew prophets had heralded the coming of the Messiah were repeated in the fainter echoes of eastern Magi and Latin poets. It was also the Augustan age of mental acti"sdty, when the languages of antiquity had received the finishing touch of their cultivation, and human speculation had borne its maturest fruits. The Greek tongue, fittest of all for expressing moral distinctions, and already, in virtue of the Septuagint version, a sacred lan- guage to God's people, was diffused throughout the ciAolized world as the language of polite intercourse and traffic. The Macedonian arms had carried it from Ionia to the jungles of Hindostan and the cataracts of the Nile ; and even after Greece herself fell before the Roman, the rough conqueror, by adopting his captive as his tutoress, had spread it throughout the west. More than this, in " every nation under heaven " were found the Jews of the dispersion, nursing the great spiritual doctrines and worship of the Old Testament, and that most often in the Greek scriptures; so that to whatever place of note in any land the evangelist might go he found in the bosom of paganism a j)lace and audience familiar with at least the rudiments of his sys- tem. Yet more, the civilized world was at length at peace. The empire of the C?esars, so vast that it proudly styled itself by a name synonymous "v\dth the habitable globe, had consolidated the nations under its iron rule, and stilled their jars with a force too mighty to be even assailed. From the Atlantic to the Eu- phrates her armed police protected the freedom of travel and traffic, so that the stranger of every tongue was safe in every other land, whatever the lawful piirpose of his journey. The bar- riers of danger and prejudice which fenced people fi'om people were levelled, and mankind were mingled in a fermenting, in- quiring mass. Once more, the pagan mind had outgi'own the swaddling bands of its mythologies. Understandings, sharpened by the dialectics of Athens, Tarsus, Alexandria, rejected the pu- erile theogonies which impressed the awe-struck fancies of their
588 THE ^Y01iLD WHITE TO HARVEST :
rude fatliers. And while liiimau depravity, tliiis educated, dis- dained tlie fears of a fabled Eliadamantlins and Tartarus, and rushed to every excess of crime, thoughtfuL minds felt the in- stinctive craving for a creed and a resting-place, and recoiled from the blank unbehef and chaos of moral corruption ^^•hich threatened to absorb every hope of humauit}-. The race had now fully vTOUght out the long experiment, whether " man by his wisdom could know God," and stood aghast at its disastrous failiu-e, when Christ appeared, " by the foolishness of preaching to save them that beheved."
Such were the features of this harvest time. The apostles and their fellow-reapers thrust forth into the field with the ^'igor in- culcated by the example and injunctions of their Master, to gather fiiiit unto life eternal. Di"sdne "oisdom taught them to compre- hend the emergency ; and the result was, that thej carried the gospel in one century from the Indus to the Pillars of Hercules. The energy and speed of the heralds of the cross was not unwor- thy of the symbol by which prophecy impersonated them : " an angel flying in the midst of heaven, ha^ing the everlasting gospel • to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." ^
These favorable circumstances continued but a few genera- tions. Let us suj^pose that the j^rimitiA'e Christians, instead of toiling with the urgency of harvest laborers, had contented them- selves -with a few decent exertions, resigning themselves for the rest to a snug and selfish religious epicurism. After the first generation came fiery and bloody persecutions, which seemed for a time almost to drown the churches in their ovra. slaughter. Next came the decay, the internal convulsions, the world-re- sounding fall of the empire, whose arts and arms had all conciTr- red to make a highway for the Prince of Peace. Barbarian and pagan hordes ravaged and dismembered the mighty fabric. The language of the gospel, of science, of civiUzation, became a dead one, except to one people, the rare accomplishment of the learned few, and the curse of Babel again separated nation from nation. Literature was banished by the din of wars and rapine ; order, commerce, travel were almost at an end; and at last there re- mained only the chaotic sea of the middle ages, strewn with the eddpng %\Tecks of the ancient world, and tossed with perpetual
'Bev. xiv, 6.
EEAP, Oli IT PERISHES. 589
storms, from which a uew order was slowly aud painfully to emerge.
Now, need we state the contrast between the probable success of missionary effort in this dreary and turbulent winter, and in the glorious summer of the Christian era? True, it was still the duty of the church to endeavor to obey the perpetual injunc- tion, regardless of gigantic obstacles; for with her almighty Head all things are possible. Time, it was still her privilege to hope that faithful toil would not be wholly fruitless, even in the most untoward seasons. But still, Christ does not wholly abro- gate the force of natural causes in his providence over his king- dom. It was also true that the church was now bereft, not only of her golden opportunity, but also of her gifts, (miracles, tongues, prophecy,) aud of much of her primitive purity. But the possession of these, as well as of the opportunity to employ them fortunately, was among the things whose concurrence made the harvest season ; and their lack will account only in pai-t for the failures of the church. She was not forgetful of the work of missions in the dark ages ; but how scanty and difficult were the conquests ! The lirst century sufficed for her to run the circuit of that Mediterranean Sea, around which were then grouped the civilized races of man ; but now she consumed four hundred years in creeping doubtfully fi'om the Rhine to the Vistula ; and in most of the new ground which she essaj-ed to tread, her footprints were obliterated as she passed, as though they had been made in the shifting sands.
Consider, next, how long this impassive reign of darkness con- tinued. Only in the fourteenth century did the twilight begin sloAvly and dimly to emerge, which at length in the sixteenth broke into the new dayspring of the Keformation. From that day to this there has been a steady progress in the rearrange- ment of all the influences which can facilitate the world's re- demption : "And now behold, lift up your eyes aud look on the fields, for they are white again to harvest." Never since the era when Christ sent forth apostles and evangelists into the whitened crop has the world seen a second season so propitious :is our age for the ingathering of the people to him. Let us see how many of the elements of favorable preparation have been reproduced.
One of tliese was the mental activity of the Augustan age.
OUO IHt; WOliLD "WHITE TO HARVEST :
But ever .siucc tlie triumpliuut iusurrectiou of the liuinau iniucl against Popery, thought has been increasingly free and active, until this age claims it as its peculiar glory. The Avhole realm of science knoAvn to the ancients has been reoccupied, and other domains have been added, as unknown to them and as magnifi- cent, by comparison "^^ith theirs, as the new world which Colum- bus opened to our industry. Everywhere the human mind fer- ments, inquires, and discusses. The printing-press, though four hundred years old, still develops new magic in its powers : an agency for which Paid would probably have gladly exchanged his gift of tongues. We even see the strange fact that Papists and Brahmins eagerly employ this engine of light, and with ju- dicial blindness accustom their people to its use, only to destroy their own empire of darkness.
Second, No universal monarchy now dominates over the world, compelling the nations to a temporary and enforced brotherhood ; but in its room we have the benignant sway of imperial Peace, with her handmaid Commerce, more potent over human pas- sions by the blessings she confers than was ever Assyrian or Median, Greek or Roman concpieror, by the devastations which he threatened. For even where the short and partial wars of our day prevail, Christianity has so narrowed their operation to actual combatants, and legislated for their atrocity, that the peaceful labors of traffic, letters, and religion are scarcely sus- pended in their presence. And under the wings of this peace and commerce the Christian may go to more peoples and tongues than were ever dreamed of by the fabulous geography (jf the ancients, with a safety as great as was invoked by the proud challenge, "I am a Roman citizen!" Need I refer to those wonders of modem science by which distance is abridged, and Ave may almost say with prophecy, "there is no more sea" to divide the nations?
Third, In place of the common language of antiquity we hare now the English, a tongue 3-et nobler, and spoken in more dif- ferent tribes, and in more of the hives of men than was the Greek in the days of Paul. And with this language goes the prestige and fear of the British people, protecting us almost equally with them. For such is the community of tongue, race, character, rehgion, and interests, between Britain and America, that in the pagan world men fortunately almost forget to dis-
HEAP, Oi; IT PEF.ISHES. 591
tiuguish between us. Wliat silent sea or ancient river is not Texecl by their prows and Aisited b j their enterprise ? In what mart do not their flags inspire fear and respect ? So that — to omit their vast dependencies, more ample than the empire of Augustus — there is scarcely a province in the pagan world where Protestant poAver and enterprise have not so preceded that the Protestant teacher may enter securely and perform his mission under the shield of their protection. Eor even China and Japan, the last strongholds of exclusive jealousy, will doubtless, before long, disclose their mysteries before the inev- itable forces of the age.
When we turn to the lands of the Beast and the False Pro- phet, we see there also a rapid relaxation of liindrances. Mos- lem fanaticism l^urns but feebly in our day, for decrepitude and dependence now compel those powers, once so terrible to Chris- tianity, to purchase the protection of the most Protestant nation at the price of a tolerance of Christians which they were little wont to exercise. How wondrously hath God wrought here! Even popery, enemy of the gospel more inexorable than Islam, is compelled by triumphant moral influences to relax its exclu- siveness. In Sardinia, France, Belgium, in Brazil, and the other States of Central and Southern America, soon to he seats of teeming empires, a partial liberty is yielded to the gospel. And as though it were not enough to open every door to us abroad, providence has precipitated a pai-t of the destitute into our arms at home, bj' directing the emigration of popish Eu- rope to our Atlantic, and of pagan Asia to our Pacific l)order.
While God has thus prepared the field for us, he has also prepared us for the field. In those Protestant nations to whom he has virtualh^ given the empire of the world, he has given to his churches the numbers, the wealth, the education, the moral influence, requisite to enable them to go up and occupy the ground. Kever since the Christian era has there bee'::a a second concurrence, such as this, of everything which promotes fhe facile and successful spread of Christianity. "The fields ar© white to harvest."
But now let us solemnl}^ remember, that a harvest season is fi'om its very nature short. Let us review these advantages, 2iot in the spirit of pompous self-gratulation too often seen, Init with a trembling sense of the duties which they imply. For,
592 THE WORLD WHITE TO HARVEST :
be assured, tliis fortunate juncture cannot be permanent. It is too good to last, unless it be improved. xA.s reasonably might "we liope tliat two planets, wliicli had been wheeling their long cycles in de-sdons opposition around the remoter verge of Saturn, when at length they meet one instant in our field of vieM', would arrest their ceaseless cotirses to remain in conjunc- tion. It is the attril>ute of human affairs to revolve. And when this great liAang wheel of providence, which "ig so high that it is dreadfid," ^ shall have once more turned away its aus- picious segment from the church, who can tell how many ages may elapse before its stately revolution "s\ill restore it to us ? Let us take a probable warning from the past. The liarA'est time enjoyed l)y the primitive church was spent, and it returned not again until a mighty year had rolled around, of which the months were ages, and winter the ten dreary centuries of bar- barism and the frosts of spiritual death. So if we waste this summer which seems at length returning, after so long a -s^dnter, so tedious a spring, and so mahy capricious frosts blighting the rising j)romise of the church, when will the third harvest for the world return ? By what second series of dark ages, by how many national convulsions and retriliutive woes, may not God chastise the church for its neglect ; and, then, h\ how many throes of great, struggling souls, by what strifes and toils, by what streams of martjT." blood, may she not be required to earn for mankind another season as propitious as the one we now waste ?
And should this picture be realized l)y the shortcoming of the church, history- suggests another probalole warning of spe- cial significance to us as Americans. It is not likely that our land will be one of those which A^dll be honored to send forth that third day-spring of gospel light to the race of man. '\^Tien once the soil of a country' hath been polluted by the failures and apostasies of God's church, he removes his special favors from it, to return no more for long ind disastrous ages. Look at those lands on which the Helu'ew and the primitive churches enjoyed, and misused, and sinned away their splendid opportu- nities ; how blighted, how benighted, how accursed, have they lain ever since ! God sought out other lands which had lain in reserve in virijrin wilderness, untainted bv the churct's treason
' Ezek. i. 18.
KEAP, OR IT PERISHES. 593
to liis cause, or else wliicli had undergone the lustration of cen- turies of chastisement, in which to relume the light of the gos- pel. So, if we waste this golden season, it is prol)able that America will not be the land to which the Gentiles will come for the church's light, and kings to the brightness of her rising, "^liile this fair domain will lie blasted by the guilt of its inhab- itants, some neAV church on some soil now pagan will enjoy the privilege of sending f(jrth to a benighted world, and to our de- generate posterity, the dayspring of the millennium.
And what, my l)rethren, is the catastrophe of a series of hu- man generations, mainly lost through the betrayal of that- crit- ical one on which providence thus partly stakes the fate of many of its successors ? We have endeavored to grasp the eyjl implied in the death of one pagan soul, but found it too great for imagination. We have endeavored to represent to ourselves the immense interests of the generation of our pagan contemporaries, who are directly dependent on us for their rescue from perdition, but the mind staggered under the vast- uess and the frightfulness of the thought. We must now add this further truth, that the destiny of our critical age may largely determine that of mauj coming after it ; and then we begin to see the weight of owv responsibilities. Take this great and dreadful fact home to your meditations, and let it grow upon your comprehension in the houi'S of silent thought and of communion with God. Had I the tongues of men and of angels, it woidd still be mere mockery for me to seek words by which to exalt your conception of it, for words cannot utter the uuutteral)le.
And now we doubtless all feel that the discussion of such themes as these should have but one conclusion, the enforce- ment upon our own hearts of the duty of most intense exertion in this awful yet Ijlessed work of the world's redemption. But who shall dare to define and paint that energy,, or to fix the standard of that zeal which is commensurate with the vast ex- igency? Who, that had not, like Isaiah, received the touch of a live coal from off the altar upon his lips, or, like Paul, been caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words, would be sufficient for the task? Let me not attempt it. But there is a picture of the love, the effort, the liberality which the oc- casion should inspire, a picture accurate, and equal to the case. Vol, 1.— 38.
594 THE "WORLD WHITE TO HAKVEST.
It is the liviug image of tlie Saviour's own example, when he came as the Missionary of Heaven. See, then, in Him, and not in the stammering words of man, the appHcatiou of his truth. Let us learn to describe our labors for the lost in his words : "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." ^ And when we give of the abundance with which God has blessed us, let us consider "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his povei-ty might be rich." -
1 John iv. 34. * 2 Cor. viiL 9.
THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHOG.
FEOM the days of Enoch, who prophesied (Jude 13), and of Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter ii. 5), to our day, God has employed "the fooHshness of preaching to save them that believe." To us who hold that "the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants," both the war- rant for preaching, as a religious ordinance, and the model for its performance, must be given from the word of God, The pa- triarchs, the prophets, probably the Aaronic priests and the pious kings, preached to Israel. But the first full description of the nature of the exercise is the oft-cited j^assage from Nehe- miah viii. 1-8, when Ezra and his associates ^'read in the hook of the laic of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them, to xinderstand the readingP Here we have the true scriptural idea of the preacher's function : to make the people understand what is in God's word. The Christian minister's commission is in these words : " Preach the word ; (herald the word /) be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long- suffering and doctrine." (2 Tim. iv. 2.) The object of preach- ing is the salvation of the soul ; and that salvation consists in a redemption from the guilt, love, and practice of iniquity. The instrument of this redemption is God's truth, as he has 7'evealed it. " Sanctify them through thy truth." The preacher is most explicitly called a herald; that is, the dehverer of a message. Now, the herald does not make his message, he merely trans- mits it. He has nothing to do with judging its wisdom or fit- ness ; let him simply proclaim it as it is given to him. This was God's command to an ancient preacher: "Arise, go unto Nine- veh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I hid thee." (Jonah iii. 2.)
Or, the preacher's office may be illustrated by the work of one who uses a die j)ut into his hands, to form impressions on some plastic substance. The sinful soul is that substance. The word
596 THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHING.
of God is the die ; and the divine image of knowledge and true holiness is the impression to be formed. God, who made man's soul, and therefore knows it made the die ; and of course he best knew how to make it, to produce the impression he desired. Now, the workman's business is not to criticize, re-carve, or alter the die which is committed to him, but simply to press it down upon the substance to be shaped. In this view, how plain is it that all preaching must be accurately representative of Bible ti-uth, and in Bible proportions? Else it is not God's work. The preacher's business is simply to take what he finds in the Scriptures, and as he finds it, and press it down upon the under- standings, hearts, and consciences of men. Nothing else is his business as a preacher. The die is just so sharp and hard, so large and so perfect as God would have it. lie judged it was the right die to produce the impression he intends. This is enough for us. Here we have a few obvious truths which none will dispute vv^ho are known as evangelical Christians. But if we are not mistaken, they contain the following deductions, by which many things very prevalent in the practice of persons con- sidering themselves evangehcal are condemned.
1. Not only must Bible topics form the whole subject matter of preaching, but they must be presented in scriptural aspects and proportions. God made the Bible for the people ; not raw material which the religious philosopher is to work over into new forms. Here is a simple and admitted fact, which is full of neglected inferences. The book of God is not like the book of creation, a mixed and crude mass of the ore of knowledge, which must become the subject of scientific re-arrangement, to become inteUigible to common minds. The Bible is for the people ; this is the great principle of Protestants. And this implies that God, who knew best, has set forth the truth he purposed to apply in such forms and aspects as he knew would best suit the human mind. There can be no other forms of ^presentation so suitable to the people, because God has chosen these. "The preacher's business is just to show the people what is in the Bible," as God has there set it forth.
2. These principles cvit up by the roots the whole fashion of "preaching up the times," as it was quaintly called by out- Scotch forefathers. If the preacher's business is the redemption of the soul, and his instrument is the Bible truth, it is plain that he has
THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHING. o97
no biiinesss in the pulpit with Nebraska bills, Abolitionism, poli- tics, Eastern questions, and all the farrago of subjects with which infidel ministers of Christianity essay to eke out, as they sup- j)ose, the deficient interest and power of the message of salva- tion. The preacher's business in the pulpit is to make Chris- tians, and not to make free-soilers, Maine-law-men, statesmen, historians, or social philosophers. His message from the pulpit is that which God has put into his mouth, and nothing else. The question may be asked : " Are Bible principles never to be applied, then, to the correction cf the social evils of the day by those Avho are the appointed expounders of the Bible ? " So far as God so applies them in the Bible, yes ; but no faiiher. Let the preacher take the application of the principles, as w^ell as the princijjles applied, from the word of God ; let him take, not only his starting position but his whole topics, from God's word, and he will be in no danger of incurring that sarcasm, as biting as it is just, directed against those who " take their texts from the Bible, and their sermons from the newsj)apers." Many preach- ers seem to think that if it is a scriptural principle which they use, it matters not how unscriptui'al or extra-scriptural is the use which they make of it. They forget that it does not follow, be- cause a man has drawn his weapon from the king's armory, that therefore he is fighting the king's battle ; soldiers have sometimes used the sovereign's arms to fight duels with each other. It may be asked again: "Is the preacher to forego and disuse all that influence for social good which his Christian intelHgence gives him ? Has he ceased to be a citizen and a patriot because he has become a minister ? " No. But when he appears in the pulpit he appears not as a citizen but as God's herald. Here is a ver}- simple and obvious distinction much neglected. The ot/ier channels of patriotic influence are open to him which other citizens use, so far as he may use them without prejudice to his main calling. To cleave to this alone is made his obvious duty by three reasons. The importance of the soul's redemption is transcendent. All social evils, all pubhc and national ends, sink into trifles beside it. Hence God's ministers owe this practical tribute and testimony at least to this great truth ; to devote all the machinery and power of religious ordinances — that single domain into which the aU-engrossing world does not intrude — to this one grand object. That minister is false to truth and to
598 THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHING.
liis Master who says by his conduct that there is anything on earth important enough to subtract one atom of sacred time or sacred ordinances from their one great object. Again, by secur- ing the redemption of the soul, the preacher will secure all else that is valuable in his hearers. Let him make good Christians, and all the rest will come right without farther care. If we have a nation of Bible Christians, we shall have without trouble all the social order, Uberty, and intelligence we need. And last, he who undertakes the work of the social philosopher, the legisla- tor, the politician, will diminish his energies, zeal, time, and in- fluence for promoting his higher object. He will waste on the less those energies of head and heart which were all needed for the greater. He will shut up his access for good to all the minds w^hich are opposed to him on these secular questions, and thus inciu' a hindrance which will incapacitate him for his own Mas- ter's work, by undertaking work which belonged to other people. "What is this but treason ?
3. From the scriptural idea of the preacher's work we may learn what is the true nature of that spirit in the minister which thinks it necessary to take a more ample range in preaching than simpfy showing the people what the Bible means. How many are there who would shrink back with dread from what they consider so confined a walk of ministerial labor. " There is not interest enough! There is not variety enough! The preacher would not have elbow-room enough to display his mental jdow- ers ! It is too plodding and simple a business for the theologi- cal philosopher! There would not be mental pabulum enough to feed the intellects of weU-informed hearers!" And so, in some latitudes, we have, as a supplement to the leanness of the gospel, metaphysical discussions of the psychology of religion, analytic dissections of the religious actings of the human soul. In others we have grandiloquent expositions of the moral system of the universe. In others, scholastic discussions of heads of divinity, splitting up "the bare bones of orthodoxy" into splin- ters as angular and dry as the gravel of the desert. Now what is all this but unbelief? Or else it is unbelief combined with ignorance of those treasures of heavenly wisdom which the word of God contains. God puts his sword into the minister's hand, and tells him that with this he shall conquer. He distrusts it, and endeavors to add something more trenchant. God tells him,
THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PEEACHING. 599
" take tliis die and press it on the human soul ; the result shall be the lovely image of God." He insists on re-carving it be- fore he will apply it. God says, in his infinite wisdom, " these are the truths which are quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and which are discemers of the thoughts and intents of the heart." "No," says the unbelieving servant, "they are dull; I can devise truths more piercing." This is the spirit of infidelity, and such preaching breeds infidelity. Such men are wholly unfit to do the work of that God who "hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the Avise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are."
There have been two stages in the defection of the church from the simphcity of the gospel in past days. The first has been when the ministry have held to the truths of the gospel system, but have insisted on arranging and presenting them according to the methods of the fashionable human philosophy of the day. The second — and it is close to the first — has been when they have gone to human philosophy, both for their ar- rangement and their doctrines. The eras of efficiency and. spirit- ual might have always been prior to both stages, when the min- istry were content to set forth Bible truths in Bible aspects. The preaching of the primitive church vras simply scriptural and expository, and the word had free course and was glorified. From Origen's day we find the Christian Fathers construct- ing their discourses on the principles of philosophy, and a false, artificial rhetoric. Then began the season of shallow and heart- less conversions and of general corruption. And soon after came Ai'ianism, Prelacy, Neo-Platonism, Pelagianism, Popery. The same steps of decline were trodden again after the Reformation. Luther and Zwinglius, Farel and Calvin, Latimer and Knox, preached expository sermons, in which the word of God was simply set forth in its application to the soul; and the conse- ciuence was a revival almost as vnde as Christendom. In the next century succeeded the age of scholastic preaching and the bandying to and fro of orthodox symbols, under which the odium iheologicurii was far more cultivated than the love of God;
600 THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHING.
and then came Rationaiism. Many of us are now in the first stage of dechne, and many more among us have ilkistrated its tendencies hy passing down to the second. How many are the pulpits in NeAv England, now Socinian, which fifty j-ears ago rung with the metaphysics of religion! (^1 la Jonathan Ed- wards, as they vainly supposed. They forgot that Edwards wrote his Freedom of the Wi/l for philosophers, and preached the simple gospel for his flock.) This class of preachers seems to have selected its favorite and prevalent topic, not by asking what is most nourishing to a believing soul, but "what is best adapted to display my powers of discussion or of analysis?" And so some have occupied the Sabbaths of their people with those polemics hy which the philosophic theologian has de- fended the outworks of Christianit}', bordering on the foreign domain of human psychology against infidel assailants. And thus the}' have committed the absurdity of feeding the flock inside the fold with the bristling missiles which should have been hurled at the wolves without. Others of them have dis- sected, or sublimated, or evaporated, truths which they should have embodied in the warm proportions of life, as though they would try to feed the sheep with an analysis of grass instead of the grass itself, tender, rich and fresh from the green pastures ; or would present a kind of chemical resolution into first elements • of skin, horns and hair, instead of pieces of the strong meat of the word itself.
4. If the business of the ])reacher is simply to make the peo- ple see and feel what is in the word of God, preaching should usually be what is popularly known as "expository." Inmost cases it is no fair exposition of the divine meaning to single out a single proposition from its connection, and fix the whole attention (m it, to the exclusion of those truths which God has placed beside it. The Scriptures are a whole. To resume the illustration of the die, if we would produce a whole impression we must impress the whole die. "\Ve shall never obtain a sym- metrical image by detaching little fragments of a feature, a WTeatli, or a letter or two of the legend here and there, and en- stamping them wit!i great force. Passages of Scripture must be unfolded in their connection. Yea, whole books and epistles must be so applied to the Christian soul. And where we depart from this method, to preach topically upon a single proposition
THE GOSPEL IDEA OF PREACHING. 601
of the Scriptures, it sliould yet be a true exposition, an evolu- tion of the meaning of the spirit in that text. There seem in- deed to be but two chisses of subjects "where such preaching is strictly consistent with the gospel minister's position. One is where a single proposition of the word of God contains a truth so fundamental and so operative that it justifies an unusual expenditure of time. Such are the cardinal doctrines of de- pravity, the new birth, faith, repentance. The other class is composed of what we may call representative texts ; where the single proposition contains the point of a discussion, or the iiionil of a story, stated for us by the Holy Ghost himself. Thus, Romans vi. 1, "What shall we say then? Shall we con- tinue in sin that grace may abound?" states the subject of dis- cussion of the whole sixth chapter. We ma}' take this one verse for our text, Init in doing so it becomes our diity to unfold the argument of the apostle upon it, and not one of our own devis- ing. The sermon is still a true exposition. So Luke xviii. 7 sums up the instruction of the parable of the importunate widow. In preaching on it we expound that parable. The representa- tive text may also be fairly used, though not in juxtaposition Avith the passages it represents ; as John xvii. 21 states what is unfolded in John xv. 1-8, 1 Cor. xii. 11-27, Eph. iv. 16, etc., i etc. But still it is God's discussion which is expounded, and not man's.
OUR COMFORT IN MIMV
A SEKMON.
"Lord Jesus receive my sjjirit. "— Acts vii. 59.
IT is proper that tlie minds of Christians should be familiar with thoughts of death. This seems to be the object of the prayer of Moses in Psa, xc. 12 : " So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." It is inculcated by our Saviour, in Matt. xxiv. 42: "Watch, therefore, for ye know not "what hour your Lord doth come." In the season of health and prosperity it will be wholesome for us to remember that it is apjDointed unto men once to die. It will sober our inordinate desires and restrain us from abusing our abundance And to the mind accustomed to look its destiny in the face, the sorrows of old age, of sickness and of death, will not come with the bit- terness of surprise.
It is somewhat remarkable that under each dispensation the first believer's death which is recorded w^as that of a martyr-. In the Old Testament it was that of Abel; in the New that of Stephen. Let us endeavor to conceive the awe and dreadful
1 The private correspondence of General T. J. Jackson with. Mrs. Jackson was found to contain an account, and quite a full and correct analysis, of the following sermon, in a letter written August 26, 1861. The author has been induced, by what, it is hoped, will be considered a jjardonable infirmity, if it is an infirmity, from the knowledge of this fact, to select it for insertion, from among the many preached in the camps. It was prepared and preached many years before to a little social assemblage in the author's pastoral charge, with especial reference to a venerable "mother in Israel" there present. On the 25th of August, 1861, the Sabbath day, the 18th reghnent was encamped within a mile of the Stone-wall Brigade. The latter lay on the wooded ridge east of Centerville, Fairfax Co., Va., where the main road to Alexandria crosses it. On the right of the way was the en- campment of the infantry and on the left that of the artillery and the quarters of the General. Being requested by him to preach for his command, and having secured a supply for his own regiment, the author delivered this sermon in the •woods, in the presence of the General and his staff, and a promiscuous assemblage of men and officers. It seemed to him to present a subject not inappropriate to 6o2
OUR COMFORT IN DYING. 603
curiosity with which the first human beings witnessed the first execntion upon one of their fellows of the threatened doom, death for sin. Hitherto, the %asage of death had never been seen ; man only knew that it was something irresistible and terri- ble, which terminated the existence of the body and restored it to the dust from which it was taken. But now they beheld it ; they saw the glazed eye, the sunken and pallid coimtenance, the marble rigidity, and above all the ghostly aspect of the corpse. How much was the terror of the spectacle enhanced by the fact that the death of their brother was by violence : that his blood was poured out in murder, and the image of humanity in him foully marred before he became food for worms'
There is also a peculiar interest in the death of the first Chris- tian of the new dispensation ; for the grave and the world of spirits had now received a new illustration. The saints of the Old Testament had, indeed, good hope that "their souls should not be left in Hades." But the instructions and the resurrection of Christ had now illuminated the tomb with a new flood of light and hope.
" There the ilear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume. "
His death had now conquered the king of terrors, disarmed him of his sting, and led captivity captive. Believers, with such an example, must surely learn a new lesson of submission and cour- age. Accordingly, the death of the proto-martyr, although accompanied with every outward circumstance of cruelty and horror, was full of consolation and peace. Persecuted upon the unjust charge of perverting the religion of Moses, he had defended himself and rebuked his accusers' sins with a faith- ful boldness by which they were cut to the l>eart, insomuch
Christian soldiers, whose business it was to die for their coiiutry. It was hoped that the sublime truths revealed to*us in this passage of God"s word would be impres- sive to those who were out of Christ, and consoling to those who were vmited by faith to him ; and especiallj', that the Divine Comforter would bless them to such as, in his secret purpose, might be appointed unto death. Subsequent events have shown that among this number was the great leader himself ; and it is felt as no small favor of the Head of the church that this discourse was carried as a mes- sage of consolation and strength to that devout and consecrated heart, as was shown by the elevated joy with which he received its doctrine, and his reference to it in his letters. So may it strengthen the souls of all God's chosen ones to whom it comes, and ' ' deliver them who, through fear of death, have been all their lifetime siibject to bondage."
604 OUR COMFORT IN DYING.
that the J gnashed upou him with their teeth. His justification of himself and his charges against them were unanswerable; but the tyrant's argument remained to them, and they resolved at once to silence his voice and to gratify their malignity by his death. He was condemned to that ghastly mode of execu- tion, stoning to death with stones. Surrounded with a raging multitude, who were rather wild beasts than men, he was dragged out of the city; and while a young Pharisee named Saul, afterwards the great apostle of the Gentiles, kept the clothes of the executioners, they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
But his Redeemer, who had so recently passed to his throne throiigh a similar ordeal, did not forsake him. By the power of the Holy Ghost he vouchsafed to his dying servant a vision of the glory of God, and of Christ standing on his right hand, which was sufficient to repay for the agonies of a violent death. How amazing, my brethren, was the contrast between that scene, which was obvious to the eye of sense, and that different one which disclosed itself to the eye of faith at the same time ? The one presents us with a solitary, helpless sufferer, the centre of a group of murderous assailants, prostrate, crushed with innumera- ble blows, his dying countenance begrimed with dust and blood, and his palpitating form mangled almost beyond the semblance of humanity. But oh! behold the other! Look up! There opens before us that heavenly court, which violence, sm and death can never enter, radiant wdth light ineffable, displaying the throne of Almighty justice, now newly occupied by the God- man, who rises up at his martyr's cry, and with a countenance combining unutterable human love and pity with the terrible glories of deity, stretches forth his hand, lately l)leeding for us on the cross, now armed with the sceptre of the universe. At his beck the liberated soul leaps from its poor, dishonored tenement, leaving it all insensible to its wrongs, and mounts, beaming wdth love and triumph, to the inviting arms! Blessed compensation. What are the pains of dying compared with such a reward ?
Could we see invisible things we should often witness similar contrasts at the bedsides of the departing people of God. Thai which our senses make known to us is a gloomy, shaded room, a couch, a circle of tearful, solemn watchers and a gasping, pal-
OUR COMFORT IN DYING. 605
lid mortal, in wliat men call the agonies of deatli. Bnt conld we see in the light of the upper sanctiiary, we should more cor- rectly call them the agonies of birth. One moment the siifferer is hovering in insensibility upon the faint line which separates life and death, or wrestling with the strong throes of his last strug- gle. The next, the body lies a corpse, and the suppressed wail of bereavement from the survivors fills the chamber of death. But could we follow the ransomed spirit, as it soars to its home, how diftereut would be the world of glory which bursts upon its fsight, and the shout of joy with which it enters in?
But I have proposed, my brethren, to consider especially the proto-martyr's dying prayer, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
First. This seems to teach us that Stephen regarded Jesus Christ as very God. There are sundry places in the Scriptures where this prime doctrine is not so much dogmatically asserted as unintentionally, though clearly implied. These evidences of our Saviour's divinity are, in one aspect, even more satisfactory to the mind than the set and formal assertions, because so ob- viously sincere expressions of the sacred writer's inmost heart, and because they show how this cardinal truth is interwoven with the believer's whole experience. We are told by Scripture that Stephen was an eminent saint and an inspired man. The heavens had just been opened to him, and the celestial realities had been disclosed^ with the position of Jesus at the right hand of the Father. And now, immediately after this vision, and amidst the solemn emotions of the last hour, he praj^s to Jesus Christ, addressing to him the most momentous petition which the creature can raise to deity Your English bibles read: " They stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." You will notice that the word God is printed in itahc letters ; by which our translators would signify that there is nothing in the original answering to it, but they have judged it better to supply it in order to complete the sense. In my judgment it would have been more correct to have it as it stands in the Greek: "They stoned Stephen, invoking and raying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Thus the intention of the evangelist, which was to state that Christ was the object of his prayers, is made clear. But even though his meaning be lost in this point, the petition which is raised to Jesus Christ in the last clans is one which no scriptural behever could address
606 OUR COMFORT IN DYING.
to any other than God. He alone is the proper object of rehgi- ous worship; and the man is bhnd, indeed, who would entrust his everlasting all in the ai-ticle of death to any other than an omnipotent arm.
In every office of the Redeemer the enlightened Christian feels that he could not properly rely upon him for salvation unless he is very God. It is "because he is God, and there is nono else," that Isaiah invites " all the ends of the earth to look unto him and be saved." But in the hour of death especially, the Christian needs a Saviour who is no less than God. An angel could not sympathize with our trial, for they cannot feel the pangs of dissolution. A human friend cannot travel with us the path through the dark valley ; for the creature who j-ields to the stroke of death is overwhelmed, and returns no more to guide his fellow. The God-man alone can sustain us ; he has felt the mortal blow, for he is man ; he has survived it, and returns tri- umphing to succor us, for he is God. Unless this di\ine guide be "^dth us we must fight the battle with the last enemy alone and unaided. Just Avhen the struggle becomes most fearful to the soul, the veil of approaching dissolution descending between it and all this world shuts it off in the outer darkness ; and then, in vast sohtary night, must the king of terrors be met, "uith no human arm to succor and no ear to hear the cry of despair that is lost in the infinite silence. So must you die, my friend, and I. Though wife and children, and officious comrades be crowding around your bed, and loved ones be stooping to receive 3-our last sigh to their very hearts, and 3-our dying head be pil- lowed upon the bosom which was the dearest resting place of your sorrows while li^'ing, the last approach of death will sepa- rate you from them all, and you wall meet him alone. The icy shadow of his dart, as it comes near your heart, will obstruct aU the avenues of sense by which their sympathy can reach you. Even then, practically, you will die alone ; as truly alone as the last wanderer in some vast "uilderness, who falls exhausted on the plain, and sees nothing above but the burning sky, or around save the boundless waste ; as truly alone as the mariner who, when the ship is rushing before a gale through the midnight sea, drops from the mast-head, and buffets vainly with the innumer- able billows amidst the pitchy darkness, while his despairing shriek is dro^\'ned by the tumult of the deep.
qUE^COMFORT IN D Y I NG. 607
But then it is that Jesus Christ draws near as an omnipotent Saviour. He alone of all the universe has fathomed the deep- est abysses of death, has explored all its caverns of despair, and has returned from them a conqueror. He is not only sympathiz- ing man, but omnipresent God, who can go with us into thu penetralia of the court of death. When our last hoiu- comes, then let us say, brethren, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "When I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, be thou "uith me ; let thy rod and thy staff comfort me."
Second. I am taught by this prayer of the mai-tjT to expect an immediate entrance into the blessed presence of Jesus Christ. I see here that Stephen believed that "the souls of behevers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory." He e\ddently did not expect that the grave would absorb his spirit into a state of unconscious sleep, to last until the final consummation ; or that any limbus, or purgatory, was to swallow him for a time in its fiery bosom. His faith aspu'ed di- rectly to the arms of Christ, and to that blessed world where his glorified humanity now dwells.
Some would persuade us that death is an unconscious sleep ; that the soul is not a distinct substance, possessed of its own being and powers of thought independent of the body, but a mere pJie- nomejion, the result of the body's organic action, as sound is of the vibration of the musical chord ; and that so there is an absolute suspension of the soul's conscious existence until such time as the body is reared from the dust in the resurrection. So thought not the inspired martjT. He manifestly regarded his spirit as separable from the body, and therefore as true, independent substance. The latter he rehnquishes to the insults of his ene- mies; the former he commits to Jesus Christ. So taught not that Saviour and his two favored disciples when they showed us Moses and Elijah in glory. So promised not the dying Redeemer to the penitent thief, when he said, "This day thou shalt be ■with me in Paradise." His body was left upon the tree a prey to the brutahty of his executioners, and probably to ravenous birds. Yet his soul, the true being, passed \\dth his d;)dng Re- deemer into immediate blessedness. So believed not Paid when he said that " to him to Hve was Christ and to die was gain," and that " to be absent from the body was to be present ■with the Lord." And would he ever have been in a strait betwixt the
608 OUR f 'o^rFc )irr ix dying.
two desires, to live and lal)<)r for ]iis converts and to die, liad the latter been a sleep of dreary ages in the dust ? Surely this zealous laborer for Christ could not have hesitated between the choice of such a useless, unconscious blank on the one hand, and a Hfe of praise and of happy activity on eai-tli on the other hand, albeit it was checcpiered with toils and persecutions. ^
How much more dreary woidd not the tomb be if the sen- tient, thinking soul were engulphed in it along with the body? Xor is there an answer in the saying that its loss ^vill virtually be no loss, because the soul will be totally unconscious of it at the time. But it would not be unconscious of it before and after. Man is a being of forecast and of retrospection ; and it is impossible that he should not recoil ^itli dread from the ab- sorption of his o-rni active, thinking being by this realm of an- nihilation, and the dedication of so many ages which might have been filled ^vith u.sefulness and enjoyment to fraitless non-exist- ence. Such is not our creed, my brother. If only we are in Christ by time faith, the grave will have naught to do with that which is the true, conscious being. Is the tomb dark and dole- ful and chill, and loathsome with the worm and the dust ? "What is that to me ? I shall never lie there ; I shall never feel the gnawing worm. The coffin lid v^iW never confine mc ! The spirit, the conscious, spontaneous, thinking, knowing, feeling tiling, which constitutes the true man, the /, which alone can hope or fear, or experience the tooth of pain, ^"ill have soared away to a brighter realm before these abhorred scenes overtake it. Only the poor, disused tenement, the unconscious clay, v^ill be theu* Adctim.
It is vdth. equal comfort that the believer's mind is emanci- pated fi'om the fears of a purgatory beyond death. The efficacy of Christ's vicarious righteousness is asseiied in terms which for- bid the thought that any retribution will ever be exacted of one who by a time faith has become interested in Him. " There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth ; who is he that condemneth " ? - "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. . . . And their sins and iniquities "srill I remember no more. Xow, where remi>.-
> See Luke ix. 30, 31; Lukexxiii. 43; Phil. i. 21; 2 Cor. v. 8; Phil. i. 23. -Tiom. viii. 1, 33.
OUE COMFORT IN DYING. 609
sior of these is, tliere is no more offering for sin."^ I will not detain you uselessly by following all tlie thorny sophisms by wLicli this most potent engine of superstition and priest-craft is supp<^rted. One conclusiye view will show you that it cannot be true. The passages cited teach, beyond a peradventure, that no other penal retribution exists or is required for the guilt of the believer's sins than that of Christ's sacrifice. I now add : neither is it possible that any purifying chastisement, sent in love and not in judgment, by purgatorial fires after death, can be in- flicted upon believers, for the reason that when they die they are at once made perfectly holy. How can that be purged which is already absolutely clean? But that justified sinners are at death immediately made perfect in holiness is taught beyond dispute, where we are told that they go directly from death to heaven, and that heaven is a place of perfect purity. "Lazarus died and was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom." To the thief it was said, "This day thou shalt be ^dth me in Paradise." Stephen, looking up from the bloody gi'ound which was about to be his death-bed, said to a present Sa^-iour, " Lord Jesus, re- ceive my spirit." "If our earthly house be dissolved, we have a building of God in the heavens." " To be absent from the body " is "to be present with the Lord." But "corniption doth not in- herit incorruption." That upper sanctuary is the assembly of "the spirits of just men made perfect," "and there shall in no Avise enter into it anything that defileth.""
On these impregnable foundations rests the blessed assurance of our immediate glory after death. " And I heard a voice from heaven saying imto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their laljors ; and their works do follow them." ^ Dreary would be the Christian's death-bed, indeed, if the best prospect which could be offered him amidst the decays of nature were but this : that he must pass from the toils of life and the pangs of dying to fiercer pains beyond the gi-ave, of uncertain duration, which could only be abridged by the piety and doubtful care of survivors. Blessed be God, such is not our hope ; but when once life's pilgrimage is ended, if we live in faith and love towards
' Heb. X. 14-18. See .-dso Ps. ciii. 12; Micah vii. 19; Eom. v. 1. 2 Luke xvi. 22; xiriii. 43; Acts vii. 59; 2 Cor. v. 1, 6-8; 1 Cor. xv. .50; Heb. xiL 23; Rev. rxi. 27. » Eev. xiv. 13.
610 OUR COJIFOKT IN DYING.
God, the eternal peace begins. The pains of our last struggle are the last experience of evil to "which the ransomed spirit is called forever.
Tliiixl. We learn from the text to what guidance the Christian may commit his soul during its unknown joui'ney into the world of spirits. Let us endeavor, mj- brethren, to obtain a practical and palpable conception of that world. I beheve that heaven is as traly a place as was that paradise of the primeval world where the holy Adam dwelt. When we first anive there we shall be disembodied spirits. But finite spirits have theu" locahty. The clearer evidence, however, that heaven is a literal place is, that it now contains the glorified, material bodies of Enoch, of EHjah, of Christ, and probably of the saints who rose vith their Redeemer. But where is this place? In what quai-ter of this vast universe ? In what sphere do the Man Jesus and his ran- soned ones now dwell ? When death batters down the walls of the eai'thly tabernacle, whither shall the dispossessed soul set out ? To what direction shall it turn in beginning its mysterious jour- ney? It knows not; it needs a skilful, powerful and friendly guide.
But more; it is a journey into a spiritual world, and this thought makes it awful to the apprehensions of man. The pres- ence of one disembodied spirit in the soHtude of night would shake us with a thrill of dread. How, then, could we endure to be launched out into this iintried ocean of space, peopled by, we know not what, mysterious beings ? How would ^ye shrink with fear at the meeting of some heavenly or infernal principality, rushing "with lightning speed through the void, upon some mighty errand of mercy or malice, clothed with unimagined splendors of angehc attributes, and attended by the hosts of his spuitual comrades? How could we be assured that we should not fall a prey to the superior power of some of these evil angels ? How be ceiiiain that we might not lose our way in the pathless va- cancy, and wander up and down forever, a bewildered, solitary rover, amidst the wilderness of worlds? This journey into the vmknown world mustj else, issue in our introduction to a scene whose awful novelties will overpower our faculties ; for even the very thought of thim, when they are permitted to dwell upon our hearts, fills us with a sense of dreadful suspense. Truly will the trembling soul need some one on whom to lean, some mighty,
OUR COMFORT IN DYING. 611
experienced and tender guardian, who will point the way to the prepared mansions, and cheer and sustain its fainting courao-e. That guide is Christ : therefore let us say, in dj-ing : " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
It is a delightful belief, to which the gospel seems to give most soHd support, that our Eedeemer is accustomed to employ ir^ this mission his holy angels. "What Christian has failed to de- rive sublime satisfaction as he has read the allegorical descrip- tion in the Pilgrims Progress of Christian and Hopeful crossing the river of death, and ascending with a rejoicing company of angels to the gate of the celestial city. It is, indeed, but an al- legory, which Hkens death to a river. But it is no allegory — ifc is a literal and blessed truth — that angels receive and assist the departing souls which Christ redeems. "Ai'e they not all minis- tering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " Wlien Lazarus died " he was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom." They are our destined companions in the upper world to which we go. "With what tender sympathy wiU not these pure spirits assist the dying moments of their ran- somed brethren of earth ; and wdtli what lo^'ing joy -udll they not welcome them to their home ? "When we were brought by re- pentance out of our guilt and enmity, there was joy among them. During all the long and wavering contest of the saint on this earth these ministering angels are his watchful assistants. And now that the %dctory is won, the cultui'e of the soul for heaven completed, and the fruit which first budded in his repentance is matured for glory, mth what glad songs ■v^'iU not the angels shout the harvest home ? "We cannot distinguish by our gross senses the presence and agency of these incorporeal assistants. Even while they minister to us they are unknown to us, by name, as in nature. But none the less are they present.
' ' There are more things in heaven and earth Than are dreamed of in onr philosophy. "
And when the walls of the flesh are battered away by death, tlie vision of the spiritual world will flow in upon us unobstructed. Not seldom does the death-bed of Christ's people present instan- ces which seem as though some gleams of that celestial light, and some glimpses of the beings who inhabit it, begin to reach tjie dpng saint before he quite leaves the clay, through the rents which are made in his fi-ail tabernacle by the strokes of the last
612 OUR COMFORT IX DYING.
enemy. ^Miat is it that sometimes makes tlie sunken counte- nance light up in the article of death with a sudden glory, and the eye, but now devoid of speculation, beam "sntli one more ex- piring flash of heaven's light ? Has the soul seen through the torn veil already the angels' faces bending over its agony, and heard their tender call, unheard by ears of flesh, wooing it out of the crumbling bodj-:
"Haik! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away! "
But perhaps these questions are not authorized by the revela- lation God has vouchsafed to give us of the secrets of the other world. Yet there is one more truth which is revealed, even more glorious than this. It is that ransomed souls are the actual com- jDanions, not only of angels, but of the "God manifest in the flesh." When the martp' uttered the prayer of the text he mani- festly looked to the arms of Christ as his final home. We are authorized by his example to say, "Lord Jesus, receive my spuit, not only that thou mayest sustain it in the pangs of dying and guide it to its heavenly home, and clothe it in thy own robe of righteousness and answer for it in the great day of accounts, but that it may dweU with thee in a world mthout end. Tliou didst pray, ' Father, I ^\ill that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory ; ' ^ and thee the Father heareth always. Thou didst show the holy apostle that, after thou comest wdth the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, ' we shall ever be with the Lord.'^ Thou has taught us that, ' when thou shalt appear, we shall be like thee; for we shall see thee as thou art.'"^ Oh! blessed resting place ! "In thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore."* Let us, brethren, Hve and die Hke beheving Stephen, and our spirits will be received to the place where the God-man holds his regal court, to go out thence no more forever. We shall see him on his throne, so gloriously earned; we shall see the same face which beamed love upon the sisters of Bethany and upon the beloved disciple, and Avhich wept at the grave of his friend ; not, as then, marred with our griefs and pensive with the burden of our sorrows, but shin- ing as the sun. Yet that splendor will not sear our vision ; it
'John xvii. 24. ' 1 Thess. iv. 17. ^ j joim in. 2. ^ Psalm xvi. 11.
OUE COMFOIiT IX DYING. G13
will be tlie light of love. We shall see the very hands Avhieh were pierced for us ; not then bleeding, but reaching forth to us the sceptre of universal dominion to guide and protect us. We shall hear the very voice which once said, " Come unto me all je that labor and are heavy laden," bidding our worthless souls welcome to his glory. And as we gaze and adore and praise, we shall be changed by his Spii'it into the same image of holi- ness. " This honor have all his saints.'
But, alas ! all whom I address have not the faith and holiness of Stephen. They live in wilful impenitence, and call not oil the name of Christ. Yet they too must pass through this iron gate of death ! On whom will you call, you who have neglected your Saviour, when you jjass down into this valley of great dark- ness ; when the inexorable veil begins to descend, shutting out human help and sympathy from your despairing eyes ; when death thrusts out your wretched soul from its abused tenement ; Avhen you launch forth into the void immense, a naked, shiver- ing ghost ; when you stand before the great white throne ? Can you face these horrors alone ? How will you endure a beggared, undone eternity?
It ma}' be that you will seek in vain this terrible, helpless solitude, rather than the worse alternative which the justice of God may assign you. The de\T.ls who now tempt you may then become your captors, beset youi* dying bed and seize your "UTetched soul, as it is cast out fi'om the body, to bind it in everlasting chains under darkness against the judgment of the last day.
Call on Christ, then, to-day, in repentance and faith, in order that you may be entitled to call upon him in the hour of your extremity. Own him now as your Lord, that he may confess you then as his people.
THE CHEISTIAS SOLDIER.'
*'Be of good cotirage and let us play the man for onr people, and for tlie cities of our God; and tlie Lord do that which seemeth him good." — 2 Samuel x. 12.
THE duties of patriotism are not prominently urged in sa- cred Scripture. . Tliis we account for, not by supposing, witli a certain sickly school of moralists, tliat this sentiment is selfish, narrow or inconsistent with the broadest philanthropy ; but by the facts, that the obligations of the citizen are not di- rectly rehgious, and that they are so natural as to require little inculcation. The Hebrew Scriptures do indeed say enough, as in the text, to justify an intense love of native land and its in- stitutions. Ci^dl government is God's ordinance, and if it be just, one of his greatest temporal blessings. The diversity of tongues, characters, races and interests among mankind forbids their union in one universal commonwealth. The aggregation of men into separate nations is therefore necessary ; and the authority of the governments instituted over them, to maintain internal order and external defence against aggression, is of divine appointment. Hence, to sustain our government with lieart and Jiaiid is not only made by God our privilege, but our duty. Our best way to advance the well-being of the race is to iidvance that of the portion of our race associated with us in the same society. He who extends his philanthropy so broadly as to refuse a special attachment to the interests of his oAvn people, will probably make it so thin as to be of no account to any people.
I therefore beheve that there is nothing opposed to an en- lightened Christianity in a warm patriotism for our particular country. Tliis feeling is made up of several elements : a legiti- mate regard for our own welfare and worldly estate, interest in that of our famihes, and a wider benevolence towards our fellow- citizens ; together with an honest pride in the glories of our his-
' A sermon, commemorative of the death of Abraham C. Carringtou. Preached in College Church, Va., Dec, 1862. 614
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 615
tory, and in the justice of our institutions, -^atli tlie attachments of local affection to the very scenery and soil of our native land.
The text expresses this sentiment in action against the un- righteous assailant of our country. It was uttered by one who ■was very far from being a friend of God at heart, the haughty and violent Joab, the murderer of Abner, the patron of the dis- solute Absalom, the chieftain who closed his stormy career by bringing his hoary head at last to the block for treason against his master's chosen successor. But Joab was now the lawfully appointed general of Israel. Although not a child of God, he was probably a sincere patriot; and his unsanctified lips, like those of Balaam, were now employed by God to utter words of truth and duty. We regard the text, then, as God's command, not because it was spoken by Joab, but because his language is virtually sanctioned by the Holy Ghost in the general tenor of the narrative and the issue of the transaction. The Ammonites, after publicly affronting King Da\dd's ambassadors without pro- vocation, had hired a multitude of pagan Syrians, and were threatening to desolate the land of the Hebrews. Joab went to meet them, and after making the most prudent disposition of his forces, exhorted them, " Be of good courage," etc.
Unprovoked ^\'ar is the most monstrous secular crime that can be committed ; it is at once the greatest of evils, and in- cludes the Avorst forms of robbery and murder. Wherever war is prompted by mere pique or lust of aggrandisement, or ambition for fame and power, it deserves all that can be said of its mis- chiefs and criminality by the most zealous advocates of peace. And nothing can rescue a people waging war from this guilt except the fact that their appeal to arms is necessary for the defence of just and vital rights. But while the Scriptures teach this, they give no countenance to the weak fanaticism which commands governments to practice a passive non-resistance in such a world as this. Nations are usually unjust and unscrup- ulous. The very fact that they are politically sovereign implies that there is no umpire between them, except divine providence. A passive attitude would usvially only provoke, instead of dis- arming, attack. Hence its only effect would be to bring all the horrors and desolations of invasion upon the innocent people, while the guilty went free God has, therefore, both permitted and instructed rulers, when thus unjustly assailed, to retort these
616 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
miseries upon the assailants "svlio introduce tlieui. Tlie very fact that all war is so terrific a scourge, and that aggressive war is such an enormous crime, only makes it more clear that the injured party are entitled to their redress, and are justified in inflicting on the injui"ers such chastisement as will compel their return to justice, even including the death and ruin which thej- were pre-, paring against their inoffensive neighbors.
It is perfectly clear that sacred Scriptiu'e legaUzes such de- fensive war. Abram, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Josiah, the Maccabees, were such wan-iors ; and they were God's chosen saints. It was " tlirough faith they waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens." (Heb. xi. 34.) God fought for and with them, by gi^dng, in their battles, answers to their pray- ers and miraciilous assistance to their arms. Under the New Testament, when Christ's forerunner was preaching the baptism of repentance, he did not enjoin on soldiers the surrender of their profession as sinful, but onlj^ the restricting of themselves to its lawful duties. The New Testament tells us of a centurion affectionately commended by our Redeemer as possessed of "great faith;" and of a Cornelius, who was "accepted ^^•itll God, as fearing him and working righteousness." (Luke iii. 14 ; vii. 9 ; Acts X. 33.) The Apostle Paul (Rom. xiii. 4) tells us that the magistrate "beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minis- ter of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." It would be strange indeed if the ruler who is armed by God with the power of capital punishment against the domestic miu'derer could not jiistly inflict the same doom on the foreign criminal who invades our soil, unprovoked, for the pui'pose of shedding blood. The security of Hfe and property which the magistrate is intended to provide by his power of punishing would be illusory, indeed, if it could onl}' be used against indi- A'idual criminals, while the more mischievous and "s\adespread crimes of organized multitudes must go impunished. Aggres- sive war is wholesale murder ; and when the government sends <jut its army to repel and chastise the invader, it does but in- flict summary execution on the murderer caught in the act,
I have briefly stated this truth in order to ground firmly your behef in the righteousness of the calHng of the Christian soldier. God has authorized him. The objects for which he contends are excellent, noble, yea of supreme temporal value- "for our
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 617
people and for the cities of our God." Our homes and the shel- ter of our families, the rights bequeathed to us by our ancestors, the whole earthly welfare of us and all our fellow-citizens, every thing which is included as valuable in the words, iny cotmtry, is committed to his protection. And how much that jihrase includes he can appreciate who, as a conquered exile, has no country. We could understand in part lately, when we began to fear that this fate might be ours. The godly soldier is called to defend also the far dearer interests of the church of God, in- volved in so many ways with those of the country in which it is planted. He protects all these precious objects by the exercise of the noblest attributes of manhood, courage, self-devotion, faith in God.
The glory of the soldier's prowess has always inflamed the admiration and dazzled the fancy of mankind above all other greatness. To the warrior who has done acts of high emprise on the bloody field, have ever belonged the loudest shouts of pop- ular applause. The multitudes throng his chariot wheels as those of no other benefactor. His name is written highest on the mon- umental marble. The heart of ingenuous youth thrills more warmly as he reads his exploits than at all the other marvels of history, and even tender woman reserves for him her sweetest smiles, "and loves him for the dangers he has passed." Let not the pseudo-philanthropist say that this universal, this resist- less impulse of the popular heart is merely an irrational remnant of the more bloody and ruthless ideas of Paganism, or a gust of the fancy fevered by the romance
"Of luoviug accidents by flood and field, Of hairbreadth 'scapes i' th' imminent deadly breach;"
that it is unworthy of the benevolence and knowledge oi a Chris- tian age ; that the admiration of men should rather be bestowed on those who bless by the gifts of science and the exertions of our nobler part, the mind, than on those who are eminent only for their power to destroy; that he who has "made two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before," or who has helped to civihze his fellows by invention in the arts of peace or the lessons of high philosophy-, should be the true hero, and not he who exhibits the might of a mere animal rage to devastate and degrade.
It is true that, if this admiration of the military virtues is be-
618 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
stowed on the liireling, tlie mere soldier of fortune or the scourge of nations, who, like "Macedonia's madman or the Swede," fifrhts from the lust of fame and power ; it is a monstrous perver- sion. But the great instincts of the human heart and reason never go totally astra^^. These perverted instances would not oc- cur unless there were a true military glory, to blind men as to the black deformity of its coimterfeit. This universal applause of the martial "vartues is the instinctive testimony of man's heart to the fact, that they require the exercise of the noblest sentiments of the human soul. He who cultivates the arts of peace does, indeed, make a worthy contribution to tbe well-being of his fel- low-men; but he who defends them with his life makes the contribution of supreme value. He maintains that peace and security which are the necessary- conditions for enjoying all other acquisitions. But for his protection it would be of no avail to the citizens that the two blades of gi-ass grew for every one that grew^ before, when all were trampled down by the ruthless invader. Nor is it true that the exploits of the soldier are merely those of the brute muscle and sinew, and of animal courage. War, and especially modern war, is not an unreason- ing art ; but it is a profession requiring, especially in its leaders^ the widest combinations of the elements of thought, the most sleepless reflection and most rapid sagacity.
But the true glory of the Christian soldier is in this : that he is called to the noblest exertions of the emotions and the will. And even if his occupation were contrasted with those of the civilian and the philosopher, as being non-intellectual, which we have denied, the moral sentiments which actuate his exer- tions justify the exalted admiration of his fellow-men. For the heart is nobler, -ndser, greater than the head. The speculations of the head are cold and devoid of moral trait. It is the im- pulses of the heart which characterize man as a moral being. To love is better than to analyze. To will magnanimously is more noble than to invent. Disinterestedness is more excellent than ingenuity, and courage for the right is grander than talent. If a man go upon the battle-lield in foohsh forgetfulness of his duty and danger ; if he is bold merely because he refuses to think ; if he rushes forward only with the senseless fury of the bull maddened by the trumpet, and
' ' His courage dwells but in a trovibled flood Of mounting spirits and fermenting blood ; "
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 619
if he is moved bj no moral appreciation of the cause for wliicli he stakes his life, he is not brave ; his frenzy is not true courage ; he is not the man of whom we speak, however he may sometimes intrude himself into his honor.
But let us suppose the Christian man, who wholly prefers peace and its joys to the turmoil of war, who considers all his risk, and weighs well the preciousness of the home, the hfe and the love, from which a violent death would tear him, but who yet foregoes those dear delights of peace, and deserts that home and its loves, for a time, and jeopards life itself, reluctantly, yet with determination, because he finds that duty, dearer than peace and home and hfe, demands the sacrifice. This is he who "is of good courage and plays the man for his jjeoj^le and for the city of his God." And I assert this Christian courage is but another name for self-sacrifice. It does but postpone self to duty, and to the good of others. Its spirit is precisely that of the martyr, who yields up his life rather than be recreant to dut}-, to his church and to his God. It expresses the same dis- interestedness, the same consecration to the sentiment of oblisa- tion, the same faith in God. I beheve that in many a soldier who is now baring his breast as a bulwark for our rights, this determination is as true a work of the grace of God as was ever fulfilled in the Christian martyr when he embraced the stake rather than deny his Lord. Yes, this courage, I assert it with reverence, is, in the true Christian soldier, but the reflection in his humbler measure of the spirit with which his divine Master set his face steadfastly towards Jerusalem and calmly braved the baptism of fire which awaited him there. He is the vine ; they, the branches. He is the noblest exemplar of true moral courage ; they, the feebler reflectors of his apirit in their lower spheres. It was this magnanimous sacrifice of Christ which purchased for him the throne of universal dominion, and filled all heaven with the acclaim of angels and ransomed saints. Shall we not, then, pay to his followers, when, for their humbler imitation of his self-devotion, they die for their people and the city of their God, the best tributes of our earthly affections ? Such, I beheve, was the courage of our brother, prompted, indeed, by a chivalrous and honorable nature, but regulated and sustained by the grace of God derived fi-om the example and spirit of Christ his head.
620 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
The temper of tlie Christian soldier is also one of high faith and profound submission to God. While he plays the man for his people and the cities of his God, he adds, "And the Lord do that which seemeth him good." Here is a recognition of the ovemiling providence of God in the fate of commonwealths and the decision of battles. Here is expressed a hearty confidence in the wisdom, goodness and justice of the event which God may ordain, and acquiescence in his decisions. There is here no senseless fatalism, dissevering the appointed means from the desired end, and reposing in vain confidence or supine despair. But the truth is recognized that " duty is ours, events are God's." Every nerve is strained to perform the task allotted by the provi- dence of the hour, manfully, and if in its performance death or defeat is met, it is well. The Christian accepts this result as a revelation of the fact that this was the hour and this the place appointed by God for his end, and that, therefore, no other hour and place can be so suitable. He feels that if duty be courage- ously done all else will be secure. He may die, but the cause of his country is immortal ; the blood with which he enriches her soil becomes to his fellow-citizens a new argument of the pre- ciousnes.-? of the cause in which it was shed, and a sacred pledge to persevere in it to the end. Thus tlie blood of our country's martyrs becomes the seed of our new armies. The dj-ing pa- triot achieves more for her by his death than by all his Hfe, and lays down his sword at the gates of the tomb in the triumphant assurance that a people contending for their right in the fear of God will be made in\'incible by his aid. He leaves the family for whose heme he was fighting; but his God and a grateful country become their guardians in his place. "I have been young," says the Psalmist, " and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." Life is ended; but it is to begin a better life in heaven. Matthew X. 39 : "He that loseth his Hfe for Christ's sake, shall find it."
Death, and especially what men call a premature death, must ever be regarded by us as a natural evil. If I should profess to be, myself, or should demand of you, to be insensible to it, you would justly consider me as guilty of cant. The very instincts of man's animal nature abhor it, and his earthly affections shud- der at the severance whi<5h it effects between them and their dear objects. So, the death of friends cannot but be a felt bereave-
THE CHEISTIAN SOLDIER. 621
meut to survivors, be its circumstances what tliej iiuiy. But it lias ever appeared to me that, in the fall of the Christian soldier in battle, there was more to mitigate the stroke and to over- come death by the victory of triumphant consolation than in any other by which the good man meets his fate. The unreflecting may be startled by this assertion. They think of all the exter- nals of a death on a battle-field ; of the ghastly forms in which the destroyer comes ; of the corpse prone upon its mother earth, begrimed perhaps with the sweat and dust of the conflict ; of the burial to which he is taken fresh and gory fi-om the field, his breast unconfined by coffin or winding-sheet, and shrouded only in his martial cloak ; and of the nameless grave where he sleeps alone in his blood. All this is pictured in contrast with the sol- emn decencies of those funeral rites which affection renders, in more peaceful seasons, with a sort of mournful delight. They afflict themselves with the thought that no friend was near to minister to his pangs, no saintly man of God to calm the agita- tion of his soul by his prayers, no mother or wife to receive his last farewell ; that his dying groans found no echo but the thun- ders of the receding battle.
Well, all these things are true ; too often, alas, have I seen them verified ; but they are true as elements of pain only to the survi- vors. The dying hero feels them not. Here is our illusion : that we cheat our sorrow into the belief that these ministrations of affection reach the insensible clay when in truth they only solace our own bereaved afiection. Death is always a soHtary struggle ; however we may be surrounded by friends, when the shadow of the great agony falls upon us it shuts us out like a dark veil from their aid, and we must meet the last enemy alone. And however the neglect of the beloved remains may harrow the feelings of those who loved him, the depai-ted is all unconscious of it. On the other hand, is it nothing that he is translated to his reward by a sudden and painless stroke ? He feels one elec- tric shock as the deadly missile smites him, and then the very ca- pacity for pain is benumbed, and he awakes no more till he awakes in that world where pain is unknown. He has no share in the long tortures of w^earing sickness or the mortifying decay of age ; he feels none of the anxious forebodings, the hope deferred wan- ing into sickening despair, by which the more peaceful bed of disease is haunted. Death casts none of its shadows before.
622 ■ THE CHEISTIAN bOLDIElt.
But in place of all this there is the calm testimony of a good con- science, the elation of the manlj soul nerving its noblest powers for duty, the tumultuous rapture of those powers in highest ac- tion, the generous emulation, the hope of triumph, the joy of victory. And in the midst of this exaltation of soul comes the sudden stroke, and death is finished almost before it is felt. Such an end is not a death ; it is a translation. Shall the be- reaved count it no compensation for their loss, too, that the w-armest instincts of every man's soul declare the glory of the soldier's death ? There is solace in this ; yea, more than conso- lation, there is proud triumph in it. And it is a triumph not unworthy of the Christian heart. It is even more appropriate to us than it was to the Greek to sing :
"Glorious Ms fate, and envied is Ms lot, Who for his country fights, and for it dies ; "
for we contend, not only for the lawful interests of home and country, but for the more precious and sacred cause of God and of souls. I am not one of those who hold that these senti- ments are the birth only of pagan ferocitj', or unholy pride. The principles of personal honor and the love of glory have been perverted among us into a code of wickedness and bloody retaliation, for which we now doubtless suffer the chastisement of an offended God. From this abuse the professors of a spu- rious and debased puritanism have taken occasion to deer}- all such sentiments until they seem to be vanished from among them; and the vileness of pubHc morals, which is the conse- quence of this extreme, has become as loathsome as the other was violent. But there is a true glory and a true honor, that which cometh from God and not from man : the glory of duty done, of obstacles overcome, of fears resisted, and of generous sacrifices made to a worthy cause, the honor of an integrity of principle stronger than the sense of pain or the fear of death. He deserves most of this honor who from pure motives braves the direst evils and pays the costliest sacrifice for the noblest object. Wliat fear can be darker than that of death ? What more precious than life? What object more w^ortliy than the cause of our country and our God ? In attuning our souls so as to make them thrill at the applause of our fellows, our Cre- ator doubtless assigned to this affection some legitimate scope. Its lawful exercise is found when we seek the approbation of
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER, 623
the good and wise, which is but the echo of the divine verdict, ""Well done, good and faithful servant." Such applause, when nobly won, is valuable; it is ennobling. It is an inheritance of honor to the children who emulate the virtues that won it. Is there one who "hath the stomach and mettle of a man" that would not rather leave his sons freemen, enriched only with this heritage, won for them bj a father's blood, than wealthy slaves? And is there a true woman who would not elect, heart-rending as it might be to make the election, to be the widow of such a Chris- tian hero than to live in the embraces of a dishonored and ab- ject man, the serf of despots?
The doctrine which I have now drawn, as I believe from the wojd of God, finds strong illustration in the death of Lieutenant Carrington. My conception of the proper objects of funeral discourses has usually forbidden all eulogistic reference to the dead. If its purpose were to gratify or benefit the departed, it would be superstitious folly. Not only are they forever removed beyond the reach of our applause or blame, but beside the solemnities of that bar before which they have been arraigned, our verdict would seem to them infinitely trivial and imperti- nent. If the purpose of funeral encomiums is to compliment be- reaved survivors, it might be admitted to be socially amiable ; but to employ the pulpit' for such a purpose is a perversion. God has appointed him who stands here to l^e the herald of his truth alone. No other message is allowed to proceed from his mouth The only lawful purpose of these services is to com- mend that truth to the living.
But God sometimes teaches us by example; and when his grace has given to the church an instance peculiarly bright, it should be improved to impress the lessons of Christianity by the aid of the affections and memories which cluster around it upon the hearts of survivors. To pass over such a Christian character as that of our brother, and let his memory drop in silence without thanksgiving to him who formed him to holi- ness, would be ingratitude to God and neglect of the instruction of his church ; for never have I known a man in whom grace bore more excellent fruit in its short summer time than in him. Under the ministry of the late venerable pastor, Doctor Eice, the sacred instructions of his childhood ripened into faith, and he devoted his early manhood to God. From the very first his
624 THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER.
'modesty brave, and honorable nature displayed the refining influ- ence of grace, and he assiimed at once the standing of a thorough. Christian. His religion was of that type which, like Joshua's and Caleb's, '^ followed the Lord fully." The result was that, after two years, lie was introduced into the eldership, with the unani- mous approval of the church. In that office he was a model of fidelity, ever postponing his private convenience to the calls and duties of the elder, firm in discipline, iu purity of life an "ensample to the flock," and ready to assume any burden of labor or responsibility to which duty called him ; so that, though of all men most modest and least pragmatical, he soon found the largest share of the church's work resting on his shoulders. It was thus that I came, first as stated supply and then as pas- tor of this church, to know and love him. If I did not know that my estimate is warmly sustained by all who knew him best, I should suspect myself of a too part'ial affection, and put a constraint upon my heart and lips; for truly can I say that my soul was knit to his as the souls of David and Jonathan. And now that I have lost him, I can find no words to express my personal bereavement better than those of David in the requiem of his princely friend : " How are the mighty fallen iu the midst of battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thy high places; I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me." (2 Sam. i. 25, 26.)
Need I commend his kindness as a neighli(n' when I see so many glistening eyes before me attest it? Need I remind you of his public spirit, his inflexible integrity, his coiu'age for the right in this community? On the graces of his character as son, brother, husband, father, in the interior circles of his home, the sacredness of the grief which his loss has left behind it almost forbid me to enlarge. Abram C. Carringtou was the truest man with whose friendship it was ever my lot to be blest. Let him but be convinced in his clear and honest judgment of the call of duty, and his effort to accompHsh it was as ceiiain as the rising of the sun ; and it was made at once, without a pause to consider whether the task was easy and pleasant or arduous and repulsive. Let him once bestow his friendship upon you, and he was yours in every trial, mth fortune, and hand, and heart, and, if need be, life blood.
As a soldier, his courage was of the truest temper. His com-
THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER. 625
rades whom I see before me will remember how his body was prostrate with disease at the first battle of Manassas, but the energy of a determinate will seemed to be medicine for his weakness ; so that, instead of making it an excuse for going to the rear, as so many did, his spirit invigorated his failing strength. In the battle of Gaines' Mill, where his regimen!" had one man of every three struck, his gallantry was conspicuous ; and on Monday, June 30th, at Frazier's Farm, he was encour- aging and cheering on his men, when he fell, with a bullet through his breast. His was the courage of the Christian. It was as truly exhibited by his steady Christian example in the camp as on the field. In a letter written on the morning of the day he died, while describing the carnage through which his company passed the Friday before, he modestly says of him- self : "Amidst it all, I lifted up my heart to God in prayer for safety, and, thanks to his holy name, he was pleased to hear me." In the same calm spirit, he again commits himself to God in prayer and well doing with reference to the bloody day before him.
And now, my hearers, of what use shall this symmetrical and lovely example be to us ? Let me exhort the young men of this community to be "followers of him as he also was of Jesus Christ." Let me also commend the example of our brother to my co-presbyters, the elders of his church. How many of us, my brethren, how many of you who have instructed me to preach this sermon and display the lessons of the life we have reviewed, mil come up to the measure of his fidelity, of his manly and vigorous piety, of his industry in the concerns of God's house ? Who will fill the breach we now feel ? Happy would that people be whose pastors were always actuated by his steady zeal ! And I will add, boldly bidding away every thought of personal offence by the awfid solemnities of that bourne whence our dead colleague's example preaches to us, happy would those pastors be whose sessions all sustained them like other Abram Carringtons !
Vol. I.-n40.
THE SIX OF THE TEMPTER/
"Woe unto Mm that givetli his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness. " — Hab-
AKKITE ii. 15.
ABOUT six linndred years before Clirist, tlie great Chaldean or Babylonian empire reached the height of its power. It rose rapidly in a few generations upon the rains of the Assyrian or Xinevite kingdom by treacherous rebellion and violent wars, until it reached the zenith of its wickedness and success under Nebuchadnezzar. It is this triumphant power which forms the main subject of Habakkuk's prophecies. He foresees it founded in violence and revolt, ravaging its unoffending neighbors abroad, and building up its splendor at home by domestic tyranny and exaction, until its iniquities are full ; and it meets an overthrow as astounding as its successes. But it w^as in this shoii and rapid career of national crime that it was employed by God as a rod to scourge rebeUious Judah. In like manner had Assyria been used to punish the kingdom of the Ten Tribes.
"We learn that rapacity and violence were not the only crimes of the Babylonian kingdom. It appears that it was also notori- ously guilty of propagating its false religion: a form of gross idolatry w^hich was probably peculiarly arrogant and wacked. This people not only overthrew the altar and w^orship of the true God, and did what they could to suppress the very exist- ence of his Aasible church, but profanely asserted the inferiority of Jehovah, and inculcated in the conquered nations the imitation of their own vices. Idolatry is as coiTupting to man as it is dis- honorable to God. It is the parent of all forms of moral de- pravity, and of all crimes. Hence the question between idolatry and the worship of the true God is always one between vice and virtue ; so that, even if God's exclusive claim to the homage of
'A sermon preached in the College Church, Hampden Sidney, Va., February, 1860.
626
THE Sm OF THE TEMPTER. 627
his creatiu'es be set aside, a most solid reason remains for his forbidding and piinisliing the worship of idols.
This intimate relation between false religions and gross morals may help to explain the fact that the symbolical language of prophecy has selected some of the more sensual vices to repre- sent the complex giiilt of idolatry. In many places (as Jer. iii. 1 ; Ezek. x\i. 15 ; and Eev. xix. 12) it is represented by the sin of "imchastity ; in Eev. x^^i. 2-5, the idolatry of Eome is s.ym- bolized by the combined figures of adultery and drunkenness; and in the text, the inculcation of false rehgion by the Chal- deans by enticing to the sin. of drunkenness alone. When we give this general sense to the figui-e of one putting his bottle to his neighbor, we by no means exclude a particular reference to the literal sin of intoxication; for doubtless this was one of the abominations with which the orgies of their pagan worship were celebrated.
Now, as Babylon was the great persecutor and destroyer of the church under the Old Testament, so the Komish apostasy has been its great enemy and coriaipter under the New. Hence it is, that in the Apocalj^se, Bcibylon is the prophetic name for Home and Popery. The symbol of Rev. xvii. 2-5, a pompous and licentious queen, as abandoned as splendid, seducing with the golden cup of her uncleanness and abominations the mighty ones of the earth, and di'unk Tidth the blood of saints, may assist us to explain the figure of the text. The crime of Eome was that she persecuted and slew a part and endeavored to corrupt the remainder of Christendom with her false religion and gross morals. Such, therefore, was the sin which the text denounces in Babylon : the teaching of iiTeligion and vice, and soliciting to its commission. The disgraceful exposure resulting from the seduction of the foolish \^ctim represents the degradation and shame which the maUgnant tempter produces, and then scorns.
The principles of God's moral government are stable ; the tre- mendous judgment of the Chaldean empire is but one instance of the righteous rule by which God has ever punished those who tempt their fellows to sin. The verses next to our text predict, in language of terrible power, the appropriate retribution which he poured out upon Babylon. The humihation and ruin which this people had •wrought upon so many of their innocent neigh- bors was speedily visited in its extremest form upon them ; and
628 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
the lieaven-daring compotmd of impiety and senstiality, wliicli they had gloried in inculcating, was the immediate occasion of their pimishment. The proud kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar so speedily raised to the pinnacle of pomp and seeming strength, as speedily tottered to its fall. In the third generation from him the weak and impious Belshazzar held the throne, successful only in disorganizing his empire, provoking his enemies and distin- guishing his own infamy. In the very night that he was cele- brating an impious and disgusting revel, profaning the holy utensils of Jehovah's temple, and filling his palace with vile ex- cess and lust, the hardy Medes and Persians forced the two- barred gates of brass, ravaged the pompous city, and slew the swinish king with his herd of j^arasites in the midst of their de- bauch. Here ended the haughty dynasty of Chaldea in igno- minious and vile defeat, the victim rather of its own baseness than of its enemies' force. And the same God who directed this retributive drama sits in judgment upon sinners now, and pro- nounces the same "woe" against him who entices his neighbor to dishonor God by irreligion or himself by vice. Do not feel, my hearer, that wo are enervating the majesty of this truth when we descend from the review of that grand assize of Provi- dence in which nations and thrones were the culprits, and ajDply the principle to the conscience of the individual tempter of his fellow-man. Viewed in the light of eternity, the infliction of the disease of sin upon one soul is a more tremendous calamity than the overthrow of dominions and powers on this earth. No scenery of earthly crime and woe can form too grand a back- ground for the suitable presentation of this sin and its punish- ment, though pertaining to the smallest sinner in this house.
My subject, then, is the sin of tempting a fellow-man to trans- gression. For the sake of brevity, I must classify the multifa- rious forms in which this sin is committed, under four heads.
The lowest class in guilt is that which unintentionally entices others to transgression by the mere force of evil example. These persons directly intend only their own sinful gratification in the breaking of God's law, and, therefore, their purpose is not in- tentionally malignant towards their fellows, nor their guilt so aggravated in this respect. But yet it is their duty to remem- ber the obvious fact that man is an imitative and social crea- ture, so that every deed performed by fellow-men exerts some
THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER. 629
influence to produce its imitation. The power of different liabits and princij)les dictating opposite acts may not be in every case overcome by tliis influence, but it is always to some extent undermined by a process, it may be as sliglit and yet as sure as the " continual dropping which weareth away a stone." No evil action done in the knowledge of a fellow-creature is wholly devoid of the mischievous power of example, and no man is so obscure as to be without influence on others. Hence, while he who creates an unintentional evil example is not guilty of the malignant design of ruining the souls of others, he is guilty of a reckless indifference to their ruin. In carrying ovit the sinful and forbidden purpose of grasping unlawful pleasures, he incurs the further sinful result of misleading others. As he who accidentally takes life when he intended to commit an un- lawful assault is guilty of murder, so these men are guilty of the blood of souls.
The second class is of those who provide for their fellow-men the means and appliances of vice from motives of gain or other selfish good to themselves. Their immediate object is not to ruin the virtue of others, but to secure for themselves advantage from the employment of the apparatus of transgression, while they well know, and coolly disregard the fact, that the use of the appliances they provide usually and surely results in sin, guilt, and injury to their victims. If it were equally convenient to se- cure from those victims the selfish advantages which they desire, by some more innocent expedient, they would have no objection to doing so ; but as interest and convenience dictate it, they de- liberately plan to make their ends out of the ruin of their neigh- bors' morality. To this class belong those who offer to the community the common means of drunkenness ; to it belong all the varied troops of harpies, the gamesters, the thespians, the " singing men and singing women," who live by the dissipated and corrupting amusements of society. Here, likewise, must be classed all those literary caterers, whether the Grub-street hack who spins out of his sordid brain the penny fiction for the mil- lion or the towering genius who seeks readers and applause (ob- jects as sordid, when prized as he prizes them, as the rusty shil- ling that is craved to relieve the hunger and purchase the dirty debauch of Grub-street) by painting vice or inflaming unholy emotions ; whether the merchant prince at whose golden wand
630 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
steam presses whirl to print the mental poison or the smaller dealer who scatters them for a penny profit through the land. "We denounce the nnfeeling man who for filthy lucre will oflfer his fellow-man the stupifjing anodyne or the fiery draught which steals away the brain. By what argument do we judge him a less sinner who perverts the heavenly gifts of intellect in order to debauch the conscience or to Ixirn in on the mind the images of lust and vice with the fires of eloquence or fancy tiD the brain is intoxicated with a worse phrensy than that of wine ?
The guilt of all this class of tempters is far heavier than of the first, because the result is with them intentional and the motive selfish. In God's sight they are the deUberate producers of all the crime, guilt, and misery which may be reasonably foreseen as flowing from the vicious appliances which they pro- vide and display. According to the Levitical law (Esod. xxi. 19), the man who reared an ox which slew a human being, if he knew that his ox Avas wont to lyxitih %vith his horns, was judged guilty of murder ; he was held responsible for the whole result which he had selfishly contemplated for a paltry gain.
The third class exhibits a still more revolting grade of malig- nity. It is composed of those who inculcate vice and sohcit transgression for the very pleasure of corrujDting those who are iless guilty than themselves. There are men, such is the fiendish malice to which human nature can sink, who, after they have degraded themselves to the abyss of corruption, delight to drag down as many others as they may into the same slough. Their superior experience in evil, their guilty skill in the commission of crime, are the merits on which they j^lume themselves ; and the callousness with which they can tread on conscience, on vows, on all sanctities and restraints, where less hardy sinners blush to venture their foot, is the very glory of their position. It is on these super-eminent traits of depravity, and on the ex- ploits of superior crime they base their proud pretensions to be the admired instructors of younger sinners than themselves. Does the fair earth bear on its indignant bosom a spectacle more abhorrent than that of one of these " oracles of profligacy," as he gathers around him his circle of younger sinners, less lost than himself, busies himself by every art of treacherous kind- ness or unfeeling ridicule to obliterate the last blush from the cheek of his victim, and encourages the dubious heart yet
THE SIX OF THE TEMPTEE. 631
trembling with some sense of right to plunge into the debauch, or to roll forth the words of blasphemy, or to venture the ap- proaches of her whose house is the way to hell? Other temp- ters wdn at least a selfish advantage by the ruin of their fellow- men. But this, like the gorged tiger, destroys for the gratifica- tion of a pure malignity, which draws its delight directly from the useless miseries of its victims.
The fourth species of this sin, doubtless, deserves the "bad preeminence " above all other forms. It is that usually desig- nated by the term "seduction," when used in popular language in its special sense. If you will consider, you mil decide that the honorable mind justly condemns it as the most loathsome combination of treachery, cruelty and selfishness which can be exhibited towards a fellow-creatui'e. The victim is one whose feebler sex should have appealed to every manly instinct for honorable protection instead of wrong ; and whose love, stronger than the instinct of life, creates of itself a sacred obligation to refrain from injury. But that very love, so generously and un- suspiciously bestowed, is the fatal weapon employed with medi- tated perfidy for her ruin. And then, the wiles by which virtue is disarmed ; what are they but pretended tenderness and false vows of affection, in which the sacred bonds of truth and love, which are the foundation of all well-being, are prostituted by the traitor to his treacherous purpose. The baseness of the means can only be surpassed by the atrocity of the result ; a result by which parents and relatives are wrung 's\dth a shame and anguish, beside which the emotions which would have followed the lost one to an early grave seem almost a joy; and the miserable vic- tim herself, after becoming the sacrifice of ruthless selfishness, is "flung like a worthless weed away," and left either to a remorse, if enough of virtue survives a wrong so crushing to feel remorse, and a shame which court the grave as a coveted refuge ; or else to a degradation and despairing depravity more lamentable than even a despairing death. Is there any symbol vile enough to body forth the seducer's wickedness? None but that serpent form which the satanic father of the brood assumes. Like a ser- pent he glides into the household he would ruin, hiding his sibi- lant malice and his fatal fangs under his burnished skin ; dis- playing his perfidious graces with pretended innocence, until the moment is found to strike his remediless venom into the bosom
632 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
wliicli lie lias beguiled to clierisli liiui. Aiul jet tliere are men ■wlio, though foul with these treasons against all that is most holy and tender of human affections and social vows, dare to call tliemseh^es "men of honor!" — so honorable, forsooth, that the insinuation against their spotless fame must needs be washed out in blood ! For such hypocritical iniquity there is no earthly infamy deep enough and no penalty heavy enough. The very cord that should stop their perjured breath would be dishonored to embrace their necks, and the gibbet would be defiled by the burden it had to sustain.
Having pointed out the leading forms in which the sin of tempting to evil may be committed, I proceed to that which is the main object of this discourse — to justify the "Avoe" which is pronounced against it — by some general considerations. And —
I. The sin of the tempter is enormous, because in enticing his neighbor to do wrong he has inflicted upon him the greatest mischief of which his nature is capable.
It has been said :
' ' Who steals my purse steals trash, But he who filches from me my good name, Hobs me of that which not enriches him, And leaves me jDOor indeed. "
With a more truthful emphasis may this be said of him who robs his fellow-man of his innocence ; he strips him of that which adds no wealth except store of wrath to the plunderer, and leaves the victim beggared of happiness. Sin is the monster mischief of our world. He who brings it upon his neighbor has thereby helped to dash the image of God in which he was created, and to mar the health of his nature. He assists in spreading a moral leprosy which eats into the soul until the last lineament of virtue is effaced, and the corruption of spiritual death is spread over the whole being. He assists in opening a spring of perpetual misery in the victim's soul, from vdiich the bitter floods of re- morse must some day burs-t forth, with all their ingredients of selfishness, hatred, fear and despair. The transgression which he inculcates may for a season appear to sear the conscience in corrupting it, but just so surely as there is truth in Jehovah must man's " sin find him out," and avenge itself in the lashes of self- accusation. Nor does the tempter injure the object of his seduc- tions alone • others suffer with him the pangs of shame and mor-
THE SIN OF THE TEMPTElC, 633
tified affection, and those otliers perhaps virtuous, or at least innocent of wrong against the author of their calamity. But, above all, to entice into sin is to lead our brother under the Avrath of the Almighty. It is to pluck down upon his head the penalty of eternal death. It is to thrust him into a quarrel with the omnipotent God, whose righteous wrath "burns to the lowest hell"; whose justice condemns the impenitent transgressor to make experiment of what infinite power can inflict through end- less ages in recompense for the outrage of infinite attributes. This, sinful man, is what transgression accomplishes — that trans- gression which you so lightly commit — which you seek to thrust upon your comrade as though his fall into it were a merry jest. "Fools make a mock at sin!" That sin at which all else above the pit is solemn as eternity — " which brought death into our w^orld and all our woe" — which hollowed out the abyss of hell and filled it wdtli its torments and wails — which kills the soul with the second death. Had nature sense and feeling it would not be unreasonable to imagine the ground in mourning, and the skies dropping down their tears at every sin ; as wdien the first tempter triumphed, Milton sang
' ' Earth felt the -wound, aud nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost. "
II. The wrong done to our neighbor and to God in this sin is enormous, because it is' irreparable by man. The creature can successfully solicit to evil, but God alone can efficiently recall the corrupted soul to good. Sin, when once committed, leaves its virus in the soul to spread and propagate itself in evil habits and dispositions, defying all stay by human power. Nor does he who tempts to evil intend to make any effort for its arrest. He puts forth his hand to begin or to accelerate the downward career, but he has no mind to trouble himself to stay it. No ! when the irreparable injury is inflicted, he is done ; his purpose is accomplished, and unless there is still some lower deep of ruin into which his victim may be plunged, he has no fuiiher concern with him than, like the Chaldean in the text, to ridi- cule or to despise the degradation which he has helped to pro- duce.
Nor is the tempter either able or willing to bear the wrath of God which he has been the instrument of drawing down upon
634 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
his fellow. Had lie even magnanimity enough to offer it he ■would be refused ; for it is written (Prov. ix. 12), " If thou be vdfie, thou shalt be wise for thyself ; but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it." The selfish cruelty which could inflict the mischief will not now awaken into disinterestedness when it has plucked down upon its comrade the mountainous load of Almighty vengeance, or put forth so much as a little finger to lighten it. And did it endeavor the rescue, it would find itself immovable beneath a still more tremendous burden — the judg- ments due to its own guilt.
So that, according to every rule of fellowship by which the men of this world combine, there is an element of mean treach- ery in the conduct of the tempter. When one invites his fellow to join him in some venture or enterprise of risk, it is well un- derstood that he thereby makes an implied promise, in case his invitation is accepted, to stand by his comrade in any danger or disaster which may result. The associates are to be faithful to each other in sharing both the gains and the losses of their com- mon undertaking ; and the man who was not •willing to be pledged to this, would refrain if he had one spark of magnan- imity or honesty, from soliciting any one to join his enterprise. Thus, when the professed patriot summons his fellow-citizens to join him in the dangerous attempt to pluck their liberties by force from the grasp of the angry despot, and when they rally to his side, they expect him to share their risks and exposures — to share in the storm of battle, and if defeat and captivity must needs be, to share their bonds. When men who have any spirit combine to break the laws, when heedless youth associate to tempt the authority of their instructors, even they would think it foul shame that the very inventor of the offence should desert the friends whom he had inveigled into it, so soon as danger or exposure overtook them. Now, then, seeing that the tempter is neither willing nor able to do anything to remedy either the de- filement or the guilt — either the shame and remorse of the pol- luted conscience, or the wrath of God incurred by the sin he is about to inculcate — if he has one spark of the honor of a man, one instinct of honesty or pity, he should refrain. If you must walk the dangerous road of transgression, if you must brave the power of the Almighty, we beseech you proceed on your way alone, and carry no comrade with you to your dreary fate. It
THE SIN OP THE TEMPTER. 635
will be horrible enough without being aggravated by the sight of their ruin, procured, in part, by your treachery, and without the torment of their just reproaches.
III. The work of the tempter has this farther element of treachery, that while the purpose is mischievous, and either di- rectly or indirectly malignant, the pretence is always one of good fellowship and kindness. "Whatever be the sin to which the inexperienced is allured, the seducer well knows, as it is his solemn duty to know, that it must in the end result in nothing but misery ; and if his immediate purpose is not to inflict that mis- ery, it is at best a purpose to gain some unholy, selfish, and often trivial end, by a reckless indifference to the terrible result. He is willing to help to murder a soul in order to gain the coveted companionship of an hour in forbidden indulgences ! Were this repulsive atrocity of purpose candidly professed, who would not recoil from it with salutary horror ? " In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." But it is always concealed under the veil of benevolence. The aggravated perfidy by which the de- stroyer, in the peculiar sin of seduction, employs the dearest and most sacred symbols of afiection and vows of devotion to work his purpose, has been already noted. But all tempters are in this alike. Saith Solomon, *' When sinners entice thee they plead, *we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil ; cast in thy lot among us — let us all have one purse.' '' Here is the language of a pretended generosity, of a genial, free-handed kindness. "But they lay wait for their blood ; they lurk privily for their lives." In the case of all the classes who seek their selfish ends at the expense of their neigh- bor's moral injury, by offering the apparatus of dissipation, we find the same mask. Do they publish the cold selfishness of their purpose to batten on the sin and ruin of their fellow-man, to clear a shilling on a folly of his which will be to him more costly than all the jewels of an emperor's estate? Not they. Do they advertise thus, " The public is invited to come, that I may turn a penny by giving them to drink liquid damnation " ? Or, " The young of both sexes are requested to attend, in order that I may give them the tires of remorse for their money"? Not they. Well would it be for their dupes if they did. But their guise before the public is always one of cheerful, benevo- lent alacrity, of polite attention, as though they delighted to
636 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
confer true happiness. And tlie hardened reprobate who glories to extinguish the \-irtuous scruple from the heart, and the ingen- uous blush from the cheek of the inexperienced, also assumes the suppleness of the seii:)ent, and professes that his only mo- tive is to confer enjoyment. So that in every form of the sin of the tempter, there is some degree of that treason, smaUer or greater, "which gave the satanic trait to the crime of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, when he took his comrade, Amasa, by the beard to salute him, while he smote him ■v\dth his sword in the fifth rib ; and to that blackest human act ever "oTought on eai*th, in which Judas betrayed his Kedeemer with a kiss,
IV. I have intimated that there is a satanic trait in all such enticements. Here, in truth, is the most stai-thng A'iew of their wickedness; that they do precisely the devil's work and carry out his cause. Consider the fearful analogy between the two. The cause which impelled Satan to attempt the ruin of the hu- man race was that he had himself fallen ^ he desired to make his feUow-creatures as miserable as himself. So the seducer of his fellow-man endeavors to drag him down, because he cannot ]3atiently endure the sight of a virtue superior to his own. The insti-ument by which Satan seeks to destroy is not the sword, or fire, or poison, but sin ; so that his victim may be his own de- stroyer. It is thus vnth. the human tempter. The guise under which the adversary appeared was one of innocence and amia- biHty, and his plea was, "in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." So the seducer pleads only the gratification which he pre- tends to ofi'er. And last, the result in both cases is the same — the death of the soul — a misery irreparable, immeasurable and endless. To this whole class of sinuc^rs then may be justly ap- plied those words of our Sa\iour to the apostate scribes — words too full of dread severity for any other than the all-knowing to frame: "Te are of your father the devil, and the lusts of 3'our father ye will do, who was a murderer from the beginning."
Not seldom the dire results of temptation begin to manifest themselves on earth, so that the soul-murderer is enabled to look on his o^vTi work in its true lights. Pictures of those results are so frequent in human experience, dark as they are, that I shall not be justly liable to the charge of personal allusions, when I draw one or two in such a way as__to represent what is, alas! too
THE SIN OF THE TEMPTEE. 637
generally real. Who can live to olcl age in this evil world, and fail to know only too many of such scenes? There was the amiable and genial youth, who departed for college or some place of business freighted with sacred afiections — -with a fa- ther's l)lessing, a mother's iinutterable prayer, and pure sisterly yearnings. He went away innocent, and even ignorant of vice, gay and confident of well-doing. But he returns with the shme of the serpent upon him. His cheek is still red, but it is the flush of vane, not the rosy hue of health. His eye is no longer beaming mth domestic love and cheerful animation, but is dull "with the reaction of excess, or else fired with baleful passion. The simple pleasures and affections of his home are now all too mild to suit his palate, debauched "s^ith the fiery flavor of vice. Now let his tempter note the thrill of anguish which harrows the parents' hearts, as the suspicion of his change first shoots through them. Let him watch the long agony of the contest in which they strive against e^adence, and are at last compelled to admit that he is lost, and the blight of the sister's bosom, as even she at last surrenders his cause and owns that she has no longer a brother. Let him follow the impetuous career of his ruin — it will not detain him long, for the fallen reprobate hastens to his catastrophe — until he is brought to his home the last time, slain, it may be, in driinken broil or dying of excess. And let him contemplate the hoary heads that are brought down in sor- row to the grave. There is his work : let him study it. There is "the beginning of the end."
Or, it may be, that the progress of the tempter's work in the early life of his victim is slower. He comes to man's estate with uncertain virtue, indeed, yet not wholly fallen ; sometimes ;}delding far more from amiability and good fellowship than from actual love of vice, yet always restrained in part by his better instincts. His true fi-iends tremble for him, while they love him for his generosity, and kindly conceal his danger from his own house. Thus he fares along until other destinies are linked with his own, so that when he falls he must carry a wider desolation. He has become a husband — a father. As the in- sidious seductions of his tempters and the folds of evil habits wind around him, he struggles against them sometimes even more manfully than before, for he is not dead to the gentle and potent pleas of love. But still his seducers return to the charge.
638 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
The quick instincts of tlie wife have long divined, ah! too acutely, that all is not secure ; and every absence from home is to her a torturing suspense, which yet she must conceal. But we will not attempt to detail this hidden warfare of fear and hope where each party in the strife is armed by love itself to rend her gentle breast and which embitters even the happiest days of her existence. At times his irregularities almost turn her fears into despair, and then the pleasing promise of perma- nent amendment is so j)rolonged that the agitating hope rises painfully towards peaceful confidence. It is at the end of some such season that his boon companions of former days meet him again. They are delighted to see him ; they urge him to go with them to some festive resort, where they may drink again to the memories of "auld lang syne" and renew its wild enjoy- ments. But he demurs, and at first with apparent firmness. They press him again and again, and demand to know what un- genial change has come over him. Still he deprecates the pro- posal, and, it may be, alludes to the dangers which overhang his sobriety, explains in touching words the long and, he trusts, successful struggle he has made to save himself, and even sug- gests the sacred ties which draw him to self-denial. But what is all this in their profane eyes ? They regard the compunctions of honor, principle, and love as no better than childishness; they rally him on his puritanism. He reminds them of what they well know, that with the first indulgence his self-command is liable to be overthrown, and begs them to spare him. They reply by jeering him for timidity, and assure him that he is in no danger; for where is the harm of a little jollity? At length he yields to their perseverance and his own false shame, and accompanies them " as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver ; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and hnoweth not tliat it is for Ms life" They drink ; they jest ; they laugh. There is one hour of vivid social enjoyment, while his false friends applaud him for his wit, and tell him that now he is himself again. But the slumbering demon appetite, which seemed long to be bound, and would soon have been starved to extinction by denial of its indulgence, has now awakened again in its fury, bursts the re- straints of conscience and affection, and casts them wildly to the winds. He pours down the fiery floods with reckless handi his
THE SIN or THE TEMPTER. 639
late tempters now leave him, perhaps in genteel disgust at his excesses, and day after day he plunges on in a tempest of dissi- pation until brain and heart are stupefied.
But we turn from the scene of his debauch, where his boon companions now stand afar off from his shame, or sneer at the bestiality Avhich they helped to produce, to his home and to the anxious heart that beats and watches there. Night after night has passed, and the failure of his promised return has held her eyes Avaking, and day after day her aching sight is strained to see whether he is coming, till hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and she now understands it all only too well. Shall we venture to lift the veil from the chamber of holy grief on one of those long night watches ? See her pacing the floor with convulsive step, and then pressing her wet cheek to the window as though the poor eyes all dimmed with tears could pierce the pitch darkness of the stormy night, — a darkness yet not equal to the blackness that in- closes her heart. Now she wrings her hands, and, in utter abandonment of misery, tears her fair hair and calls upon God, scarce knowing whether to invoke his vengeance with all the phrensy of a ruined wife and mother on the seducers of her hus- band or to implore his mercy on herself and her babes. And now those Httle ones awake from short slumber, frightened by the tempest of her grief, and cluster around her in strange alarm. Thus wears away the black, endless night, and with the sad, gray dawn there comes a step, a well-known step, that makes her throbbing heart stand still. But she does not fly to meet it, for it is heavy and unsteady, and announces the drunkard's stag- ger. He meets her, it may be with stupid petulance and bru- tality, or it may be with the maudlin tenderness of the sot ; but either way, every word is a dagger that stabs her to the heart until the heavy sleep of the inebriate arrests his folly. Now, see that chaste couch polluted by the senseless frame that lies snor- ing— a human swine ! At length he wakes up with a shudder ; he glares at the wall with starting eye-balls, which see serpents and devils writhing about him ; now he screams with fright, and now he babbles wild gibberish. It is delirhmi tremens! And now the drama hastens to its catastrophe. Parents and friends gather to him with their kindly offices and assist the wife as she ministers at his bed. But they venture no word of consolation, for her countenance is dreadful and rigid with self-contained
640 THE SIN OF THE TEMPTER.
agony, and shows a sorrow too deep to be intermeddled with. At length there is a bursting forth of the smothered anguish, and the wails that go up from the sick man's room tell that all is over. His ravings are now quiet, the inflamed cheeks are blanched, and the blood-shot eye has lost its speculation and its life and ceased to stare at the visions of the diseased brain. "He is dead, and gave no sign."
Shall we attempt to follow the guilty soul as it passes into the awful world of spirits and the presence of its God, from this scene of guilty pollution ? No ! we will not attempt to fol- low it ; the heart recoils from an inquiry so dreadful. Let us turn rather, and look once more at the wife, as she sits a wan and woeful widow in her father's house, gathering her orphan children around her knees. They must henceforth bear a dis- honored name, and study to forget the memory of him who gave them existence.
And now, what say the tempters to this, their handiwork? Perhaps they drop a word of hypocritical regret ; or, more pro- bably, they speak virtuously of the folly of the man who "makes a beast of himself, and thus destroys the happiness of his fam- ily!" And then they walk forth, defying the stars with their brazen front, as though they had done no wrong. Just heavens ! is there no thunderbolt in your arsenal to strike such monsters dead ? Look at their haughty impunity, and say, is it wrong to rejoice, with a stem and righteous joy, that there is a Judge who will know how to avenge, and a hell deep enough to give to such bottomless atrocity its full deserts ? Yes, it is wrong, ■we will not rejoice, but rather pray to be enabled to say of th-em, as the Redeemer said of his murderers: "Father, forgive, them ; they know not what they do."
No doubt they would be more ready than is just to avail themselves of this excuse, if taxed with the mischiefs they wrought, and to plead tlioxigldlessness. Yes, the palliation is, that these terrible consequences were neither intended nor fore- seen; that they thought of nothing more than a little trivial amusement. It is to be hoped, for the credit of humanity, that this extenuation is true. But for what is forecast, understand- ing, memory, given to man, except to show him the well-estab- lished consequences of a given course of conduct ? If men will disuse their faculties — will shut their eyes — will refuse to look
THE SIN OP THE TEMPTEE. 641
at results wliich they could not but know lay just in tlie patk they are wickedly pursuing, are tliey therefore innocent? Nay, verily! Inspiration liatli decided this: "As a madman who casteth fire-brands, arrows and death, so is the man that de- ceiveth Ms neigliboi% and sayetli, mn I not in sport? '''*
There is another pretended justification which is often used by certain classes of the purveyors of the means of transgression. They plead, " Man will have such indulgences ; if we forbear to provide them it will make no difference in the result, and we might as well enjoy the advantage of furnishing them as others." We need not dwell upon the obvious fact that this plea is always false in j)art, and that every addition thus made to the facilities for dissipation helps to swell the tide of temptations which bears increasing numbers to perdition. Wa rejoin: What is the plea itself, even if admitted to be true, but this: "Here are fellow- creatures T.'ho are bent on self-destruction, and, therefore, we are covetous, for the sake of a little filthy lucre, of a share in the horrible exploit of their damnation— of a part of the stain of the blood of souls, and of a j^ortion in that unutterable woe which God denounces against those who give to their neighbors drink." If it is so certain that these misguided men will be corrupted by others, better leave to them the unenviable guilt and doom of that work.
Another excuse, raised frequently by other classes of tempters to evil is, that the subjects of their sinful allurements were al- ready fallen : "They were corrupt before by the agency of them- selves or others : we made them no worse." I reply, every re- peated transgrsssion makes the transgressor worse — more hard- ened and more guilty ; and if ever these fallen fellow-creatures are to escape final perdition, must it not be by " ceasing to do evil and learning to do well ? " Your plea, then, is this : Some previous hand thrust those wretched souls into the water : y on found them in it, but alive, and only helped to hold them down until they were dead !
Sometimes a more defiant justification is pretended, and the tempters to evil say the men whom they helped to mislead were free agents ; they had as good opportunities as others to know what was best for themselves, and to choose ; they were not con- strained to sin, and they went to it with their eyes open. " On their own heads be \\\q consequences." I reply : just there is the
Vol, I.— il.
642 THE 8IN OF THE TEMPTER.
refined malignity of tlie tempter's work, that it ruins liis fellow- man witlioiit taking fi'om him his free agency. If the means ■which drew him to sin were constraining, then responsibility would be at an end, and his damnation would not result. But because the tampter acted freely and sinfully in soliciting, and the tempted in yielding, therefore, they both shall be pimished for the common ruin of a soul. TMien one hires a bravo to strike the dagger into the heart of his neighbor whom he is too cow- ardly to attack alone, the hired assassin acts freely, but they both are guilty of murder. "Wlien the father of tempters seduced Eve she yielded freely, but his doom was none the less accursed.
In conclusion ; standing as I do before so many of the young, the inexperienced, and the comparatively innocent, I must be permitted to apply this discussion as an enforcement of the ad- vice of inspiration : " My son, if sinners entice thee consent thou not." "Wlien solicited to e^'il, I beseech you to look behind the deceitful veil of good fellowship and geniality which is worn, and consider the end, which is the death of the soul. Shun such as- sociates, whatever their pretensions or their fascinations, as you would the scaly splendors and the serpentine grace of the venom- ous snake. Flee for your life.
And because we are told that, wheresoever the prey is, thither are the eagles gathered together, we fear that some of these classes of tempters to evil are here also, dogging the steps of in- tended victims. To them I would say : See here the dread de- pravity of which the human heart is capable ! When these ma- lignant instances of cruelty present themselves in the persons of hoary sinners, whose habits are hardened and whose consciences are seared by a long course of sin, the spectacle is repulsive enough, though, alas! not unnatm-al. How much more mon- strous and abhorrent, then, to see a young man so early in his career of transgression reach this bad preeminence in mischief ? Hardened men, look into your own hearts and shudder at your- selves. Look up at the woe denounced by God, and tremble before his coming judgment. And fly, even you, with all your aggravated guilt, fly to the Lamb, that he may turn your stony heai-ts to flesh and pm^ge away your dreadfid guilt. " Tliough your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isa. i. 16.)
xUEDITATlON A MEANS OF GB.ACE.
"My meditation of him shall be sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord. " — PsA. civ 34.
EEVERIE is at once tlie seductive temptation of every sen- sitive mind, and tlie subject of reprobation in our current treatises upon education and morals. These tell us that it is the dreaming of the waking mind ; that its name is from the verb by which the French denote the act of dreaming, and that this ha? a suspicious relationship to the word "rave." They warn us that reverie is idle, enervating, unhealthy ; that it is, in a, word, the rust and canker of the spirit. But, for all this, was there ever a soul that had in it the stin-ings of a true manhood which has not felt the allurements of this prohibited delight ? There is no youth of pith and promise who has not felt the impulse to propitiate these stern censors, asking them whether the dew of their owti youth is covered so deep -^-ith the dust of their utili- tarianism that they cannot recall some still summer eve, when the breezes were sighing themselves asleep, and the slant rays of sunhght lingered upon the eastern tree tops ; how they sat upon the hill over against the homes of their hearts, di-eamy and lapped in bliss, while the ploughman's homeward song, the voices of the kine lowing for the folds, and the notes of the evening biixl, softened to the outer ear like echoes from elf land, mingled with the tide of sweet memories upon which their souls floated at will ? Have they never known this ? Then let us pity them, say we, as dull soids to whom the higher teachings of nature have ever been a sealed book.
The grandest of all the human theories of reverie was that of the ancient Mystic ; for this consecrated the waking dream, pro- vided only it was haunted by the right visions, and drew its in- terpretation from the depths of a past eternity, in which they supposed the intellect was born from the infinite Spirit, and made it a prophecy of the ransomed immortality, when it is to 643
644 MEDITATION A MEANS OF GRACE.
be restored to liis bosom. According to this creed man is not body and soul only, but three-fold — body, animality, and intel- lect. And this intellect, the true personality of the man, was not born of woman, nor even created of God, but was evoWed from the Infinite Spirit himself as his progeny, in the distant past, before the world was. Many blissful ages had these spirits dwelt in the ethereal spheres, until, for some sin against the Father, they were coupled with animal souls, and impri- soned in material bodies. But this habitation manacles, be- smirches, and soils them with sin and sense, until the very con- sciousness of their birth and high estate is obscured.
What then, said the Mystic, can restore them but disengage- ment from animality and matter? And how can this be ef- fected ? Only by quietism and meditation upon God, assisted by solitude and those austerities which exclude sense and mace- rate the flesh. Even as they suppose Christ Jesus, the God- man, effected the personal union between the human reason and the eternal Word by a heavenly meditation, in long centu- ries before his incarnation, so intense that the human was ab- sorbed at last into the divine ; so must the Christian, to become Christ-Hke, suspend the life of sense, and exist only in spiritual reverie. The obtrusive clamor of the world must be shut out by the door of the hermit's cell. Animal joys must be forbid- den to tempt the eye, the ear, the palate. The body must be subjugated by asceticism. Even the mind must be repressed from every activity of investigation and reflection ; the attention must be held absolutely passive, and waiting for the influx of the divine reason. Let the saint do this, said they, and the hu- man and divine intelligences will reassert their primeval rela- tionship. Spiritual communion will be resumed. The eternal word will flow in and fill, and by filling purify, the waiting in- tellect. When it again shuffles off its mortal coil it will return to the bosom of God, and there be embraced in immortal bliss by being absorbed in him.
This weird and shadowy scheme implies errors fatal to almost every doctrine of revealed Christianity. It perverts and mis- represents the hypostatic union of the divine and human na- tures in Christ, and discards his true vicarious purchase of our souls in his sacrifice. It scouts the representative connection of our race with its head, Adam, and our common fall in him.
MEDITATION A MEANS OP GRACE. 645
It represents our reasonable sonls as still intrinsically pure, only soiled externally by a defiling association, and, therefore, it discards tlie necessity for a regeneration by grace, and makes the man his own sanctifier. It must reject the hope of the resurrection and glorif^ang of the body as inconsistent. Tracing sin to its wrong source, it proposes a futile remedy, and thus, while it boasts of purity, leaves men slaves to deceitful lusts. Yet has it shown an abiding potency over the human soul. Kot only does Paganism confess this by the prevalence of monkery under Islam, Brahma, and Buddha, it has tinctured the Christian church in all ages, and during its darker seasons has given it the most sincere type of its perverted piety in such saints as Thomas a Kempis (whoever he was), Gerson, Molinos, Madam Guyon, and the amiable Fenelon.
But errors which have no elements of truth have no vitality ; the human reason cannot openly outrage itself by entertaining them. Can this element of truth in quietism be eliminated ? I answer, it is given to us in those Scriptures which, like the text, teach the exercise of adoring meditation.
Both the philosophy and the practical temper of our age are in contrast with quietism. T\"e represent man's morahty and sin as residing in his ■wdll. We regard the virtuous habitude of soul as the effect of a series of A-iriuous acts only. "We value only, what results in a palpable good ; and our whole tendency is not only busy and utihtarian, but sensuous and materiahstic. The popular vocabulary has few terms by which it denotes a stronger sense of worthlessness, than " muser " and " dreamer," But there is an extreme here also, and the more sure word of j)rophecy gives us the just mean. It recognizes not only the busy but the contemplative state of the Christian soul, and calls it to medita- tion upon God and joy in his perfections. The Bible, and espe- cially the Psalms, are fuU of this duty. Psalm i. 2 : " His dehght is in the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate day and night." Psalm iv, 4, bids you "commune with your o^ti heart upon your bed, and be still." Psalm xxxix. 3: "While I was musing the fire burned." Psahn Ixiii. 5, 6 : "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee wdth joj-ful lips; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches." This silent adoration is not the mental bustle of investigation, but the dwell-
646 MEDITATION A MEANS OF GKACE.
iug of tlie thought upon the ascertained perfections of God, until the soul is suffused with sacred affections. It is not to have the lesser lights chase each other like meteors flashing athwart the horizon of the soul; but it is to have an absorbing and ascer- tained verity rise to its zenith, and dwell there, bathing the whole continent of thought with its light and warmth. This placid state of the inteUigence is not the pursuit, but the possession ; not the search, but the fi'uition of the soul.
jS^ow, it was the mistake of the two extremes ; that the Quietists represented the meditative habit as a passive state of soul ; and our active temper, regarding it as such, disdains it. But I assert that true meditation is, in the best sense, active. It is not true that even idle reverie is passive. You may exclaim, "What! is there not a clear contrast between mere musing, when the soul drifts idly, with the cmTent of thought and study, in which the will directs it along a selected line of inquiry ? " There is, but it is not the contrast of passivity and activity. "When the youth idly piu'sues his ball or his dog, in amusement, his limbs are surely not at rest? The difference between this sport and labor is, that the activities of his sport — and it is, perhaps, intensely active — are prompted by motives wliich meet no inward resist- ance, and so require no self-denial ; while in labor his activity is moved by a different motive, which in controlling him conquers some competing tendency of self-love, so that his labor is a struggle and a victory. But this difference does not show amuse- ment to be an intrinsic evil ; it is only when it wastes time, or directs to corrupting objects, that it becomes such.
But holy meditation is not reverie. It does not yield the soul to the current of suggestions. It steadily directs the attention by the power of the ^-ill to a noble object. Now, is not all vol- untary attention active? It is only when it is the subject of outward impressions that the waking soul is, or can be, passive. Action is its nature. Every conceptual process, however quiet, is action ; for if the soul itself did not act, whence the concep- tion, seeing its name confesses it to be from no outward source ? To hold the thought fixed upon the same idea is the highest function of will ; it is one to which none but the noblest souls are competent. "^^Tien the ^\•recked mariner clings all day to the Kfe buoy, is there no volition, no action, because there is no pro- gress? Yea, most intense; although the man moves not, save
MEDITATION A IMEANS OF GRACE. 647
as he is raised by tlie lieave of tlie billow. Since, then, true meditation is not a passive state, the cavils of our active theory- are removed.
True, this exercise of soul is calm ; it is even a quiescence, in that it stills the clamor of the senses and of doubt. But it is energy, and not idleness; calm, because it is an action which perfects itself. This bustUng and materiahstic age has so per- verted our habits, not only of business, but of study, that Ave value truth only for the excitement of its pursuit, or from some apphcation to satisfy our material wants. Some have so mis- imderstood the spirit of philosophy herself as to glory in this grovelling perversion as her chief honor. They would have our minds like some beasts of prey, which hunt their game only foF the pleasure of the pursuit, but have no use for it when caught. "Wlien the truth is found the interest is gone, and a new race is begun for novelty. They are hke the miser, who is capable of enjoying his wealth onl}^ in its acquisition ; when once it is won, he cannot use it more; or if the truth acquired has any sub- sequent use, it is only to make him more skilful in providing for some sensual appetite. If man is something more than an accomphshed beast, hke the serpent, which was more subtle than the other beasts of the field ; if his heritage is an immor- tality vithout an animal nature, then truth must be an intrhisio good. Then there must be a mental fruition, as well as pursuit. This is 7?ieditatio?i, the harvest home of the mind's husbandry.
Is the field of divine knowledge an arena only, furnishing strife, dust, emulation, and exercise, but no fruit, save for the body, — like the Olympic stadium, where the sole prize was a fading Avreath, and the applause the only real end ? Surely, no ! Truth ascertained is a possession of the soul. The end must ever be better than the means. The artist who has given the last touch to his picture lays do-\\Ti his brush and stands silent, drinking in, by happy contemplation, the joy of the beauty he has achieved. So every lover of truth knows something of that calm dehght, better than the interest of inquiry, which arises upon the view of results determined. Sir Isaac NoAvton was justly celebrated for his powers of concentrated reflection. Who can doubt that, at the conclusion of one of those immortal pro- cesses by which he evolved the principles which rule the planes, he returned again and again to hang Avdth quiet rapture over the
048 MEDITATION A MEANS OF GRACE.
grand result ? It was not a problem which then entranced his intellect, but a solution ; not a doubt, but a certainty ; not curi- osity, but satisfaction. But was his delight caused liy the thought how these principles might so interpret to him the sig- nals of the stars as to assist him to steer the ship freighted with his lucre more cunningly to its market ? No ; while his philan- thropy did not despise the slightest utility which attended upon his discoveries, it was the intrinsic beauty, justness, and har- mony of the truth itself which satiated his soul.
If there is such enjoyment in the fruition of scientific truth, what shall we say of that higher realm of spiritual truth whose ciiief objects are God, his perfections, his law, his works, and his redemption ? There the mind is fed with most perfect verities, the conscience is filled with moral complacency, and the heart satisfied with love. Not one, but every power of the soul is here provided with its appropriate good. God himself is the uncloy- ing object of meditation, full orbed, many sided, of manifold and infinite perfection. Let men call the meditative Christian a dreamer. It were better for us to sleep in this world of sin. and sense, if only we dreamed of him.
I prove the excellence of this exercise of soul by the fact that it is the great characteristic of our heavenly state. The vision and fruition of God are a part of its bliss. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." (Matt. v. 8.) "As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness." (Ps. xvii. 15.) "For now we see through a glass darkly ; but then face to face : now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as I am known." (1 Cor. xiii. 12.) Then our doubts will be solved, our inquiries will be ended, and heavenl}^ intuition shall take the place of curiosity. ■ But A^ill the glorified saint thereby become any the less an intel- ligent being, or will his rational activity be impaired ?
But I have a proof even higher than this. God, the "Father of spuits," the infinite intelligence, never investigates. There is •with liim no pursuit of truth, no inquiry, no doubt, becaiise there is no ignorance. " His understanding is infinite." His know- ledge was always omniscience. If God has, in the lapse of time, deduced or discovered anj-thing, then before that discovery or inference was made, he knew it not. He who ahvays knew all things searches not. Therefore it must be that his cognition is
MEDITATION A. MEANS OF GRACE. 649
intuition, his thought all simple contemplation. Is God any the less the highest intelligence ; and are his intellectual blessedness and gloiy thereby impaired ? Our perfection is to be assimilated as much as may be to him ; so that the quiescent contemplation of holy, spiritual truth must be the highest and healthiest exercise of the human mind. Let us, then, trace some of its valuable effects.
1. The meditative temperament is often reviled as inert. But I assert that it is the very one from which to expect the noblest action. For it is this brooding upon great and assured objects which fires the soul 'with those intense sentiments that incite ex- ertion. Such is the testimony of history. "What more energetic than fanaticism ? If there have been human beings who have approached a satanic strength and acti\nty in blighting the earth with mischiefs, they have been fanatics. But fanaticism is the child of solitude. The hermit's cave, the monk's cloister are its native homes.
The fiery energy with which Mohammed inspired his hordes, and by which he founded at once an empire and a faith, was bred in the caverns of stony Arabia, where he had fasted and dreamed day dreams of angelic messengers and heavenly revelations. It was the hermit Peter, whose ghostly ardor, nursed in deserts and cells, set Europe on fire with crusading fury.
The strength derived from meditation has also been potent to bless. To this are due the evolutions of the greatest truths of philosophy and religious freedom which form the heritage of civilized man, as well as the noblest exploits of arms and poUcy. The authors of human progress have not been your self- styled "practical men," whose only notion of activity is change ; whose only energy is restlessness ; who see no end for truth save its immediate appHcation to corporeal good. Let not these say that they can well resign to the man of meditation the shadowy glories of philosophy, since the arts are theirs which supply men's practical wants. They cannot even do this ; even in their own poor, materialistic sense. But for the nobler dreamers, they could not have taught us to navigate ships, to spin calicoes, to compound drags. Where would be your dexterous man of arts, your navigator, your chemist, your machinist, without the musings of a Kepler, a Bacon, a Newton ? No ; your merely practical man is not he who descends into the central caverns and prime- val abysses of nature, to mine for us the golden ore of truth and
650 MEDITATION A MEANS OF GRACE.
right ; he is but the trafficker, who circulates it from hand to hand, and who tarnishes and wastes it in his traffic.
The men Avho have changed the face of the Avorld have been the resers^ed, the meditative ; men of profound insight, wont to retire into the depths of their owti consciousness ; men who re- ceive the beautiful and the good with a poet's intense apprecia- tion, and hold them with unwavering grasj) of mind and heart. See King David, warrior, conqueror, legislator, busy founder of a polity and dynasty; he, more than any other inspired author, delighted in holy musings, and satisfied his soul mth midnighi meditations, as with marrow and fatness. See the man from whose giant will proceeded, more than fi-om that of any other man, that revolution of thought upon whose swelling tides we are stiU borne, after more than three centuries, whither, we know not. Luther burst upon Europe as teacher, preacher, critic, poet, musician, statesman, ecclesiastic, polemic, j)atriot, and filled it with the din of his activity. It was amidst the musings of a convent and the reveries of his prison at Wartburg thai the fires of this will were kindled. And this is what one should antici- pate. Man feels as he sees, and acfes as he feels. A great pur- pose is only formed when a great idea is kept in contact with the soul, by prolonged communion Anth it in the depths of its own conception. The mind which has basked long in the light of some quickening truth, like the tropic earth, bursts with the most vigorous and fruitful germs of purpose.
2. The habit of silent adoration is a fountain of happiness to the soul. "I will be glad in the Lord," saith the text. There is immediate pleasure in the sight of a material object of ;aste. We pause instinctively over a flower. "We stand before a mas- terpiece of art, and crave leisure to enjoy it, deprecating analy- sis, criticism, and even converse, that the soul may silently im- bibe the happiness of its perfection. "NMien we look up, and see the moon walking in brightness, and the stars shooting their radi- ance from a stainless and unfathomabla depths ^^ receivo a spell of peaceful joy upon our heaiis. But most hajDpy are we when our meditations are charmed by the beauty of holiness and our eyes filled with the perfections of God ; for there are the trans- cendent glory and symmetry to satisfy the intellect, the taste, and the conscience at once. "What thought can be as sweet and grand as that of the Christian's God, infinite in being, in dura-
JEEDITATION A MEANS OP GRACE. 651
tion, iu knowledge, iu power, in holiness, directing liis boundless kingdom "witli the calmness of infallible might, and yet with the beneficence of infinite love communicating himself as ^^-idely as his universe, and " opening his hand to satisfy the desire of every living thing," to creatures like us, tossed amid vanities, cares, and change ? How full of calmness is the thought of a Being sufficient to himself, as unchangeably blessed as he is excellent ? In this vision of God are merged our noblest conceptions of the stability of the spheres, the j^urity of the fields of azure, the du- ration of grandest cycles, the might of all elements, all creature beauty, all good, all power, all wisdom, all blessedness ; all are in him, even as one drop is in the sea ; and the more the soul expands towards the thought the more are we assured that ever- lasting intuition -uill never exhaust nor even comprehend its glories.
3. But the Christian's adoration includes a richer element than the sense of intellectual and aesthetic joy. This divine ob- ject is the image of perfect moral beauty, the supreme object of moral complacency. And this is at once the highest and purest sentiment of the soul, in which reason and heaii; and conscience find their supreme satisfaction. I have admitted that a thing of beauty is an immediate joy. But how poor are its charms be- side those of a jDure and lofty virtue! No eye can refuse to dwell with pleasure upon the stalwart grace of manhood in its symmetry of health and vigor, or upon the softer beauty of woman adorned with the glow of youth, gentleness, and sensi- bihty. But look now upon the face of the djing patriot soldier, toil-worn and sunburned, but beaming with the heroic purpose which pelds his life a •^^'illing sacrifice for duty and native land ; or upon a Christian mother, pallid it may be, or even haggard with watchings and tears, bending wdth ineffable pity over the anguish of a reprobate son. Beside the moral beauty of these faces, reflections of heaven's light, how paltry are those material charms which pleased you just now! Ah! now your eye has passed from the brightness of a lamp which man lighted to the radiance of the skies ; and the other, which before seemed splen- did, is, in comparison, murky and dim.
Now, every virtue of holy creatures is but a reflection from the perfect hohness of God. This glory, which is in them a slen- der, refi"acted ray, is in him an ocean of Hght. Let us learn to
652 MEDITATION A MEANS OF GRACE.
look up from even Cliristian excellence as it is disclosed in his- tory and experience to the holiness of God as it shines in the history of his law and works, and onr souls may rejoice as he who hails the day after a starlit night.
4. The crowning good of a meditative spirit is that, as it dwells upon God, it is sanctified by its converse -wiVa the divine idea. But let us not babble the nonsense of the ancient Mystic, as though the soul could disengage itself from sin, by its own agency filling its thought with his image. Our corniption is within, and not without ; the soul is not only besmirched with the soil of its encasement ; it is sick. The -will itself, which is thus vainly expected to embrace the image of perfect purity, is per- verted, and obstinately in love vrith. e^il. The new birth must precede; we must obtain the answer to that prayer of Psalm cxix. 18 : " O Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may behold won- drous things out of thy law." Then the cleansing light finds access, and the vision of God becomes a potent instrument to purify the soul. Adoring meditation beholds the perfect model which both incites and instructs the longings of the heart after righteousness, while it imbues it with his temper. Thus " we all, -uith open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. iii. 18.) Is not the vision of God in Christ one of the means which we shall employ in heaven for perfecting our nature? "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."
This truth has to us, under the second dispensation, a sweet- ness which the psalmist could not taste in it. In this, as in other things, our Father hath favored us with a privilege whicli prophets and kings desired, but never saw. The immediate ob- ject of our meditation is God in Christ. Messiah hath come, and hath displayed to us his lovely person, saying, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." He is "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person." Our adoration is assisted by having its object both softened and de- fined for us, so that its severer glories are veiled 'withoilt ob- serving them, and adapted to our feeble eyes.
This text, with its kindred ones, teaches us that the Christian life must have its seasons of quietude and calm meditation. Too much of even a rehgious bustle is unwholesome for the souL
MEDITATION A MEANS OF GRACE. 653
Time must be allowed in sacred seasons for divine trutli to steep tlie lieart with its influence. Onr Imrry and externality lias im- poverislied our graces. Solitude is essential to the health of the soul. Is not our modern life far too hurried? Surely we are in too much haste to be rich; we are too strange to self- communion ; our very education is too stimulating and merce- nary; and while we degrade the heavenly minister, science, to material uses, we teach our young men to forget that the true, the beautiful, and the good are in themselves the happy heritage of the soul. The clangor of our industry and the dust and glare of our skill have repelled the heavenly Dove and exhaled the dews of his grace out of our life. How woeful is the waste of our hoHness and happiness by this mistake! Let us, then, learn to commune with our own hearts and be still.
Sacred meditation explains the delight which every true be- liever takes in prayer and praise. These acts of worship are sweet to him, because they are simple and direct acts of com- munion with God ; because they present his perfections as the immediate objects of adoring thought and love. And the indif- ference of the major part of men to these exercises shows how shallow and external is their rehgious life. Unless the acts of direct homage to God are rendered tolerable by the material charms of music, they are regarded as but irksome preludes, de- taining men from the sermon (the only part of the service which concerns them), hindrances which they must endure as decently as they may. In these simple ascriptions to God of his tnown perfections, there is nothing to entertabi them, nothing to pique their curiosity, nothing upon which the edge of their acumen can be whetted, nothing of which to prate after they withdraw. Had these men stood where Isaiah was when he heard the Sera- phim proclaim, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory," while the temple was filled "s^ith smoke, and the sohd pillars of its door Aabrated with the thun- der of their tones, they would only have said in their hearts, "Well, what of that? We knew it before." The triteness of such a doxology would quite have fatigued them !
Yet is praise the occupation of heaven, and its words, if only the heart make melody along with them, are the noblest utter- ance of the human tongue. If they are level to a child, they are also the highest language of angels.
THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST EXI)LES8 PUNISHMEXT
UNSATISFACTOKY AS A SUKE GKOTIND OF HOPE.'
"Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. . . . And the serpent said unto the -woman, Ye shall not surely die. " — Genesis iii. 1, 4.
WITH a heart wliicli craves to siu, a pkmsible doubt counts for much more than it is worth. If men listened to reason, thej "would no more brave a chance than a certainty of a useless danger or loss. This should be oui* decision as to a lixG of sin, unless we can certainly demonstrate that there is neither judgment, nor heaven, nor hell. There is no man who will deliberately say that a hfe of piety and purity detracts, on the whole, from our earthly well-being or honor. As long, then, as there is a possibility of future retribution for a life of sin, to choose such a life is as gratuitous a foUy as though the trans- gressor saw the future jDunishment before him. But to this rea- sonable conclusion the sinful heaii; refuses to listen. It seizes on the imagined doubt and magnifies it into a shield of impu- nity. Satan understood this weakness of human nature. Hence, he began his seduction of our first jDarents by suggesting a doubt (vs. 1), and then irrationally leaps to a denial (vs. 4). He trusted to the force of temptation on the heart to make his victims fol- low him blindly across this chasm of evidence.
The very same process in now taking place in a multitude of souls throughout Protestant Christendom, and, it is not unnat- ui-al to suppose, at the prompting of the same tempter. The death denounced against the first transgression was not so much bodily as spuitual— the death of the soul rather than of the body ; so that the doubt raised by Satan's first question is sub- stantially the same with that which is now enticing the minds of
^ A sermon preached in the chapel of Union Theological Seminary, and pub- lished by request of the students. 654
THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT. 655
sinful men. Hatli God said tliat final impenitence in trans- gression shall be foUo^ved by everlasting death ? May we yen- ture to doubt this ? Such is the question by which men are now really deceiving their own hearts. They strive to see at least plausibility in the pleas of those who deny — an easy task for a heart yearning after license in sin! And when this stage is reached, they then j)roceed to cast away restraint, just as though they had certainly proved that there is no hell. Let but the head decide that it is questioncible whether God hath said so, and the heart rushes to the practical conclusion, "Ye shall not surely die."
One mode by which men sometimes find a pretext for reject- ing the solemn tmth is to get up a species of resentment against what, they say, is the temper of Christians in testifying to it. They charge that our severity and harsh dogmatism cause us to take a cruel delight in asseiiing terrible dogmas. They even claim to enlist all the benevolence and amiabihty on the side of the skeptical position. Now, to this I reply, that I have no dogma whatever to assert at this time. It is impossible that I can have any interest in asserting unnecessarily that the second death waits on sin, for I am a sinner myself. The judgments of God are just as formidable to me as to you, my unbeheving brethren. I have no more ability to endure them, or to escape their condemnation, than you. Could I be so insane as to dig out a hell, of set purpose, in the spirit of bigotry, into Avliich I know I am as certain of falling as you, except as I have a hope of deliverance through the sacrifice of Christ ? Sure I am, that if hell can be disproved in any way that is solid and true, and con- sistent "wath God's honor and man's good, there is not a trem- bling sinner in this land that would hail the demonstration "wdth more joy than I would. Can any of you give that demonstra- tion ? Let us see it. Let us see whether it will answer as a foundation on which I may venture an immortal soul. I repeat, I have no counter proof, at this time, to advance. My only pur- pose is to show you how I have endeavored to find some footing in the sentiments on which the doubters seem to build, and how the footing has utterly failed ine. I have painfully studied the speculative logic and the wire-drawn criticisms by which what seems to be the plain declaration of Scripture is impugned, and have found nothing there but a pavement of mist. It is not with
656 THE rOPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
these I -svould deal now. I have placed myself in sympathy with the more practical sentiments which I perceive infecting or swaying the minds around me. I have felt them with all the force which the interests of a common guilt and a common dread could give. But I wish to tell you simply the results to which my sinful soul has been unwillingly forced as to tliese so in- fluential sentiments, and I would show you how baseless they are as foundations of any solid hope that sinners shall not surely die.
I. Men are, after all, much more influenced by feehngs than by analytic reasonings. Here is one sentiment which is, doubt- less, doing its work with all to hide the formidable side of this question from our minds. There is great comfort in numbers. Man is a social being. He is largely governed by the example of those nearest to him, and it is easy and grateful to our indo- lence to imitate and to save ourselves mental effort by thinking as the multitude thinks. When we see the vast majority ad- vancing with gayety and confidence in the path our hearts crave to follow, we seem to have all that mass between us and the peril, and we are incredulous that death can consume all this afiiuence of life in order to get to us. Now, when we set this doctrine in contrast with the actual feelings and conduct of the •world, we see that everybody is evidently acting as though the doctrine of a hell could not be true. If the world thought it certainly true — nay, if there were but a probability it might be found true, then the simplest child can see how all the sinfid world ought to act. Every sinner should ask : Is it so that I am condemned already, except I repent and find deliverance by faith ? That this sentence is the everlasting curse of the Al- mighty ? That it is to fill my soul and' body with intolerable torments ? That hope is to depart for ever and ever, and eter- nal despair is to gather up the infinite aggregate of future woe, and in every conscious instant crush my soul wdth the tremen- dous prospect ? That all this is to go on and on, parallel with the eternity of God ; and that between me and this death there may be but the step between health and sickness, or present se- curity and sudden accident? Is this my peril? " Horrible ! oh, horrible ! " Then what time have I for pleasure ? what business with the riches which perish in the using? I ought " to say of laughter, It is mad ; and of mirth, What doeth it ? " Everything
UNSATISFACTORY AS A SURE GROUND OF HOPE. 657
except the one means of escape from this infinite Avoe, ought to be loathsome for its frivolity. I ought to have time for nothing but prajer ; every breath ought to be a cry, and tears ought to be my drink until the mercy of Christ pluck me from the awful verge. Thus ought every sinner to agonize. And this wide world ought to be a Bochim. Who can gainsay it ?
But what do we see ? The world eats and drinks, marries and gives in marriage, pursues riches, earthly pleasure, yea, seeks to "kill time," as though it had too much of it ; sings and dances, and fills its atmosphere either with jest and lavighter, or with new insults to this awful Judge ; in a word, studies to act pre- cisely as though it were certain there is no hell. Now, has all the world gone insane ? Is all the keen sagacity which we meet everywhere in its worldly pursuits and rivalries clean turned into madness ? So it would seem, if this doctrine of a hell were true ! But it is hard for a denizen of this world to conclude thus of his own kind, as well as of himself ; and, there- fore, the practical feeling of doubt comes, like a penetrating tide, into the soul, that somehow the ghastly dogma cannot hold. Who has not felt the seductive influence, not reasoned out per- haps, possibly only semi-conscious, yet seducing the soul back from the rough, harsh warning of conscience into luxurious re- lief by the plea, "Ye shall not surely die" ?
But, my friends, there was one discovery wdiich, so soon as my unwilling reason was constrained to look at it, dashed all the ease and solace which my deceitful heart was drawing from the senti- ment. I was compelled to see that if the Bible is true, and man's nature what my own observation evinces, the pleasing inference has only a foundation of clouds. Suppose, as the Bible says, it is the nature of the sin which imperils to produce this very in- sensibility ? Suppose that warning should be sober truth, which tells us to beware of "being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin," so that it is literally trae ; that "madness is in men's hearts while they live " ; and that this dense callousness is itself one of the surest symptoms of the reality of the disease ? If I were to find a freezing man in the snow, and he were to answer my rousing appeal by the assurance that he was suffering no evil, and needed nothing except the balmy sleep to which he wished to resign himself, I should understand well that this ease was but the symptom of approaching death. So, if this spiritual
658 THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
torpor of the world may perchance be only the indication of the approaching frosts of spiritual death, then plainly- it is madness for US to argue safety fi'om it. The Bible represents also that this benumbing and deluding quality of sin is one of the very featui'es which has caused a God, at once all-wise, just and be- nevolent, to estimate it as so immense an evil, and has constrained him to adopt means so stern for curbing it. Can this be true? Can you or I refute it ? And when we turn to our own observa- tions, do we see that in fact human experience does contain fre- quent monitions of a solemnity and dreadful awe precisely ap- propriate to these revealed facts ; that God does indeed from time to time lift a corner of the veil which mercifully hides the pit of despair, and makes men hear in anticipation the waOs of its torment in the cries of guilty death-beds, the catastrophes of dying nations, the ghastly ravages of plague and war, and that men refuse to hearken and strive to forget the salutar}' warning? Then we have before our eyes the proof that sin can rncike a world as mad, as insane, as we saw the argument of the Bible impHed. Alas, yes! we see men all around ns, under parallel influences of deceitful lusts, shut their eyes to known and experi- mental dangers. We see the drunkard madly jesting of his "pleasure and jollity," when every worldly wise man except him- self sees deUriuin tremens grinning over his shoulder. We see even woman, intoxicated with flattery, rushing into the snaky coils of the seducer, while every one but she perceives nothing but the envenomed fang that is to poison her soul. Yes, they go "as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life." With this solution assigned by Scripture for men's in- sensibility in spiritual danger, and this stubborn confirmation of its reasonableness in my own experience, I can no longer find any solace or hope in the blindness of the world to its own des- tiny and duty. It only enhances the fearful picture, and its per- verse example adds a formidable obstacle to all the others which exist between me and my safety-.
II. Another plausible but most practicable element of doubt arises fi-om the example and deportment of professed Christians. How should they act for themselves, they who profess to have the vision of faith, if they saw the doctrine certainly true ? The hope of deliverance they akeady have in Christ might indeed ex- empt them from the anguish which should till the souls of the
UNSATISFACTORY AS A SUEE GROUND OF HOPE. 659
guilty and condemned ; yet should they feel that they had a race to run with perdition to make good their exemption. To this every power of their souls should be bent eveiy hour of every day, like the muscles of a racer upon the course. Is not this what their Bibles enjoin? Should they not say to themselves:
"Be this my one great business here — With holy trembling, holy fear, To make my ealling sure " ?
"And what should be their demeanor towards us sinners?" doubting men may ask. "Do they indeed know that we are * condemned already,' and that but a few uncertain years or days divide us from that unutterable hell ? Do they see us insanely wasting, as they judge, our fleeting opportunity, and trifling on the brink of so unspeakable a fate? With what a visage, then, should they not meet us ! Tears ought to break forth at the sight of us, as one would weep at the sight of a felon on his way to the gallows; every cheek ought to turn pale at our meeting, and there ought to be no time nor heai-t for anything but ' entreating us night and day with tears' to flee from the wrath to come! Surely this would be but the natural beha%dor for them. But what do we actually see? We spend days and months with these behevers in futiu'e endless torments, and the time is all filled up with worldly jest or worldly aims ; they pursue what we pursue, and apparently live for what we live for. They jostle us at every turn in our eager race for this world's honors and pleas- ures. They seem to have neither thought nor care for our ap- proaching miser}'. What, now, are we to conclude ? That these kind, cordial, jo\dal fiiends and brothers of ours, who are so generous in relieving our little earthly evils, are harder than the millstone, and more cruelly indifierent than a "wild beast to our immense and certain misery ? This, surely, is a harsh conclusion ! Must we not rather conclude that these good, kind, believing people, who have the faith and know what is true, have discovered that sinners ' do not surely die ' ; that their dreadful creed is some- how a pious fiction, and the warnings of their preachers are not expected to find a reception in their literal sense ? " Such is the doubt as it forms itself in the private thought of many a transgressor, or as it flows, unformed but influential, in their un- reasoning feelings. Alas, that Christians should give so much ground for this doubt ! Alas, that the most j)lausible and influ-
660 THE POPULAK ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
ential argument tliat contradicts the warnings of God should be the drowsy example of his professed people ! Alas, for the blood of souls, which will be found partly in our skirts in the day when God shalt call these doubters to their account ! Forgive,
0 Christ, this unnatural contradiction, and deliver us from the woe which is denounced on " those by whom the offence cometh." Forgive us, ye deceived souls, for the mischief we have done you in thus assisting you to drug your own consciences. And we beseech you, believe us not, trust us not, for we are verily unworthy to guide you. But now let me tell you, doubters, the reasons why I have been compelled to conclude that this incon- sistent example of professed believers furnished me no ground of confidence whatever that I should not surely die by my sins.
1 found that I could not trust to it one instant : First, because I saw that it was every way likely, probable and natural, that tbe faith of weak Christians should be benumbed by that same " de- ceitfulness of sin" which we have found deluding the unbelievers into an insane rashness. This Bible of theirs, the same Bible which tells of the hell we are so unwilling to admit, explained that spectacle of the weak Christian forgetting his own faith ; explained it with a consistency so clear that it made the rising hope of security in sin die within me. It told of indAvelling sin. And as I replied, How "WTong, how perverse, that sin should stiU work, and work inconsistencies so glaring in quickened souls, it rejoined : Well, you have there but another and a more formi- dable illustration of the malignity of sin, that it can thus poison and mislead the hearts even of those in whom the Holy Ghost dwells ! We read lately in the journals of French workmen in a deep pit who fell stupefied by the foul air, and while in moment- ary danger of death, were already as helpless as corpses. But as we learned further how the healthy men who descended to their rescue also became stupid and staggered and fell, we shud- dered more than at first at the malignancy of that poison. Sup- pose that God may take this view of sin in Christians and of the guilty callousness it produces, I can see nothing there but another reason why he should hate it the more, and should judge the sternest measures proper in order to curb it.
But second: I saw, upon closer inspection, that the sorry, common sorts of believers were less callous to my danger than I had supposed. I found they often rebuked themselves for that
UNSATISFACTORY AS A SURE GROUND OF HOPE. 661
timidity which had shrunk from warning me to flee from wrath. I discovered a canse, a canse not unnatural, which kept them silent, even when yeaTning to speak some word of awakening; and that was my own observed callousness. They knew that I knew my peril, and yet saw me reckless. They heard the most solemn admonitions of the pulpit launched at me, pointed with all the human force which study, preparation, and burning earn- estness could give ; but they fell from my heart blunted as by a shield of adamant. It was, if not right, yet how natural for them to say in their discouragement: "What can we do? Our words will be yet more vain!" Thus I discovered that they limited their efforts to prayer for me in secret. Yes, not seldom after an interview, when all their converse with me had seemed of the earth earthy, they went away and prayed in secret that my eyes might be opened. Thus I found that, after all, I had much over-estimated their apparent callousness to the fearful truth.
Then, tMrd: I could not but observe that there was a differ- ence among these Christians. Some compelled much more of my respect by the honest consistency of their lives. And I always found that, just in proportion to this, these few did ap- proach that mode of living and striving which their solemn creed demanded. They obviously were "working out their own salva- tion with fear and trembling"; they did meet me and greet me with the aspect of tearful and solemn concern, and they did not forget to warn me of the coming wrath, even with a fidehty which was irksome and offensive. Thus, wherever I extended my observation, I found that, just in proportion as the Chris- tian's integrity of life commanded my respect and confidence, that life was most nearly squared upon the theory that hell is real! A Paul, for instance, that apostle whose sturdy heroism inspired even my dead heart with a thrill of moral admiration; who had seen invisible glories, and heard words which it was not lawful to utter, braved seas, and robbers, and prisons, and scourges, and deaths that he might "warn every one night and day with tears." Thus I was forced to say to myself, how ab- surd to put my chief trust touching this momentous question on the very kind of Christians for whom I have scarcely enough re- spect to confide in them in an ordinary bargain ! If I am to de- rive any in«ference as to the question whether I must surely die
662 THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
for my sin, it is the men I respect most whom I had better re- gard, distasteful as is their solemn conviction.
But, once more, there has been one Man on earth who was of all others best qualified to judge of the urgency of a sinner's con- dition on earth and the degree of his danger, and of all the be- ings who have ever lived among men was the truest, the most disinterested, and the wisest. He knew the real state of the case, for he came from the other world, and thus had the advan- tage of the perfect knowledge of an eye-witness. This was the man Jesus. And he is the one being who has literally lived and preached and toiled up to the full standard of that zeal and de- votion demanded by the claims of eternity. Let any one look at him, and infer from his proceedings what was his sense of the case. The one aim of his life was "to seek and to save that which was lost." To this every power and every day was de- voted with a zeal so intense that his worldly relatives said, " He is beside himself" ; and his disciples beheld in his burning career a fulfilment of the prophecy: "The zeal of thy house hath eaten him up." Laborious days of teaching were followed by whole nights of prayer. Not one hour did he ever divert to the pur- suits of business, or ambition, or pleasure; and, after a min- istry of superhuman energy, he submitted his Hfe itself to a cruel sacrifice for the redemption of your souls from the fate whose infinite bitterness he alone could appreciate. Here, then, is the safest example from v/liich to infer the real truth, whether we shall surely die for our sins. Jesus must have felt that hell was real ; for there is no other solution of his career.
III. Again, some who pretend to speculate more profoundly argue that the eternal ruin of sinners is inconsistent with the appearances of things which providence itself has instituted. " The order which he has impressed on this earth and our mor- tal life is not such as a wise and consistent God would have se- lected, if our race were, indeed, moving to such a fate." And here, say they, we argue, not from the actions or feelings of our fellow-men, who may mistake, but of the Sovereign Judge him- self. '* Consider, then," say they, " what the aspect of this world should be if this dogma of an endless hell were true. Take in all the conseqiiences which are involved, in all their horror: that all, all the thronging millions who compose our genera- tion, except the few consistent Christians, are going straight
UNSATISFACTOKY AS A SURE GROUND OF HOPE 663
down to that tremendous doom, one single instance of wliicli, if properly conceived, should be enough to make a world stand aghast; that all the successive generations which fill the cen- turies are born only to inherit this fate, save so far as the tardy efforts of this delinquent church may rescue a few; that mor- tal life is then, in most men, but an unutterable curse! But, if all this is literal, what is this earth lint a charnel-house of dead souls; a yawning gateway through which men may be borne into hell! Would God ever have put it into man's better na- ture to rejoice in the birth of children, or have said, 'Blessed is he that hath quiver full' of these arrows of the strong man, if our paternity only avails thus, in most cases, to multiply the instances of immortal ruin and woe? In what scenery of woe should not such a world have been draped ? It should be like the condemned ship, which floats away in the dark night, with its black flag, freighted with its load of crime and despair, to' the solitary ocean. Its atmosphere should be darkness visible, its sole occupation the wailing agony of entreaty. The globe itself should blot the sky with its disk, and be followed as it rolls in its orbit by a dirge of pitying angels, while its fair sister- spheres should veil their light at its approach, even as a tender woman would cover her face from the sickening horrors of the scaffold. Such should God have made the home of a race who 'were by nature children of wrath.' But what has he made it? Behold its light and beauty and beneficence! Lo! its scenery is gilded with sunlight and overarched with azure. ' He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. He watereth the hills from his chambers ; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, that he may Ijring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.' And throughout this beautiful earth 'he setteth the solitary in families'; he invites man to hope and joy by social sympathies, and teaches the mother's heart to sing for joy that a man is born into the world. Do not nature and providence, then, refute this gloomy and saturnine view of man's destiny?"
664 THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS 1»UXIS«HMENT
Glad slioukT I be, my hearers, to read the appearances around us thus; but, ahis! there is another side of the picture which must be viewed. The earth is full of blessing ? Yes ; but it is like the vale between Ebal and Gerizim : the curses are over against the blessings. Gloomy night answers to day, temjDest to calm, freezing \^dnter to teeming summer, desert to fruitful field; the poison grows beside the flower and the fruit, and death waits on life — the death which is to every heart the mon- ster-evil. And when the man has viewed the whole scene, and tasted all that earth can give, his reluctant testimony is, " Yanity of vanities"! Nor are all the aspects of Providence smiling! Turn your eyes to the darker scenes, which fill all the larger pages of history, where human crimes and divine retributions have made this sinfuJ earth an Aceldama. Hearken to the scream of the oppressed upon the rack! Hear the roar of bat- tle,'the crash of falling cities, the wail of ruined nations! Does not our earth, after all, sometimes seem dark enough to be in- deed the vestibule of hell? And when we examine more nar- rowly the conditions of man's existence here, we find the same strict doctrines e\ddently applied on earth which underlie the future retributions: that man is required to fulfil a probation for his own welfare, under responsibilities to comply carefully Avith the conditions prescribed him, or else receive from the course of nature itself a stern and inexorable recompense. Does outraged nature, when the time has come for her to pronounce her final doom on the glutton, the drunkard, the debauchee, hold her hand, or hearken to entreaty ? Alas, no ! she shows herself as inexorable as the darkest dogma of the Calvinist.
How, then, shall this strange mixture of good and evil, this seemingly capricious juncture of mercy and wrath, be explained ? The only solution I know is the one which Scripture proposes. It is this : that, had man's doom been immediate and absolute, like that of the fallen angels, then the world, which is his home, Avould have been unvisited by one ray of mercy or light. But because the seed of the woman was appointed to bruise the ser- pent's head; because God would first offer man atonement through the death of his ovm. Son before he shuts him up in death, therefore it is that he has made us for the time "prisoners of hope," and adorned our prison with all these alleviations in order that they might allure us to the footstool of gosjDel mercy.
UNSATISFACTOKY AS A SURE GROUND OF HOPE. 665
"Accoimt that the long suffering of our God is salvation." (2 Peter iii. 15.) "The goodness of God leadeth thee to repen- tance." (Rom. ii. 4.) "He left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful sea- sons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." (Acts xiv. 17.) Thus every terrestrial blessing, from the daily food which re- freshes the hunger of an hour up to the children which fill your homes "udth love, is a voice to remind you of that amazing sacri- fice of infinite love to which God was moved by his infallible knowledge of the depth of your everlasting doom, and to woo you to flee to this city of refuge before it is too late. This is God's explanation of his earthly dispensation of good and evil to man. Does it furnish any solace to ohat man who is resolved to slight the only atonement ? Surely there ^could be no mistake so tragical and so perverse as that which wrests this ministry of mercy into an argument for contumacy. Here is a state pris- oner, accused, tried, condemned, locked up, awaiting his con- dign punishment ; but because the king and the king's son have so thorough an apprehension of the horror of that fate which justice will inflict, therefore they cast about for some way of es- cape, whereby "righteousness and pSace ma}^ kiss each other." It is found at length in this amazing plan, that the king's son shall drink the cup of deatli in his stead. So, to prepare the Avay for the message of this ransom, the gloom of the condemned cell is lighted with the sun ; the fetters of the doomed man are relaxed ; he is fed with dainties from the king's own table, and the cheering voices of hope penetrate his despair, inviting him to reconciliation through the son. But now the perverse wretch begins to abuse the very overtures of mercy, to argue that his sentence was not just, and the king knew it and never dared to execute it; that all this doom and threatened destruction had been onl}' an unsavory jest. To that man "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judg- ment and fiery indignation." His unbelief, by a dreadful al- chem}^, converts ever}^ fleeting blessing into an abiding curse, and stores it in the treasury of ^^Tath against the day of wrath.
There is no safe footing here, then, for a doubt whether "we must surely die " if out of Christ. The Bible explanation of the mercies sinners experience is too consistent ; to the gospel de- spiser too terribly consistent and reasonable. And in the light
666 THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
of that explanation every earthly mercy has a voice which, even in its sweetest accents, implies that there is a hell as it cries, " Turn 3'ou to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope ! '
IV. But some, driven fi'om God's providence, resort to his character for arguments to sustain the doubt as to his purpose to punish forever. They ask whether the justice, Avisdom, and goodness of God will not forbid his forever destroying a being whom he has himself formed for happiness. Men ask, for in- stance, How can it be just in God to punish a puny creature eternally for a sin committed in this short life? They claim it as almost a self-evident truth that temporal punishment is suffi- cient for temporal sin. Now, I might dwell upon several thoughts Avliich have presented themselves to ni}' mind neutralizing the probabiHty of this position. I was reminded, for instance, that neither the course of nature nor human law measures its penal- ties by the length of time consumed in the transgression. But sometimes the recklessness of a moment incurs a result from the laws of nature which fixes calamity and pain on the whole future: life ; and a murder, which it required a few moments to perpe-' trate, is justly punished with an everlasting banishment from this life and all its benefits.* One cannot but think, again, how the estimate of his sins may be affected by the infinite glory and majesty of the Being at whom they are aimed. If the youth who strikes his own parent, for instance, is justly held far more guilty than the common brawler, how high may not the aggrava- tions of our guilt against the Universal Father rise? But our very sinfulness and unl^elief unfit us to weigh this element of o-ur case fairly. We cannot rise to the impartial estimation of God's exalted rights and honor; we are too selfish and bhnd. Look, then, at another thought. None but atheists are so inso- lent as to deny that temporal sins deserve temporal punishment. Suppose, now, that you should cojithiue sinners after death, while paying off the score of your earthly transgressions ? Why not ? Yes, ichy not f Because you will then be suftering punishment ? We do not see that God's chastisements of you in this world have had any tendency as yet to make you any better; why should you count on them to make you better there ? Or be- cause your habits and evil principles will then be so confirmed by a life of sin ? Which is easier to bend, a twig or a tree ? Or because the company of hell wiU be so edifying or improving
UNSATISFACTORY AS A SURE GROUND OF HOPE. 667
to your lieart ? Hardly ! Take, tlien, one sober, liouest look at yourself, and answer me, what is tlie likeliliood that you, who are an obstinate sinner now, will not be a sinner then ? You, whose resolutions of repentance have hitherto been so absolutely worthless ; you who cannot be in the least restrained from your sins by the near prospect of a retribution so heavy that you are now murmuring at its weight ? But should the prediction of Scripture prove true, that he who is unjust now will be unjust still, and he who is filthy now will be filthy still ; and should you be heaping up a second mountain of transgressions while you are paying your debt for the first, when will you ever finish? There is the question which ruins all your hope. Be God's jus- tice what it may, obviously no reasonable being, who has once resolved to curb rebellion by penalty, can consistently stop pun- ishing until the criminal stops rebelling. To do so before would be impotent child's-play. But after you have on this earth re- jected Christ, who is to help you to cease rebelling ? Who is to intercede for you with the avenging Judge to hold his hand ? I see not where your hope is to hang.
" But God is supremely wise and kind ! " How do you know he is ? From the Bible ? The same Bible that tells me, " God is love," tells me that he "turns the wicked into hell, with all the nations that forget God." (Ps. ix. 17.) Which side of this state- ment must we take? And if we reject either, then the Bible ceases to be of authority with you for both ; it no longer author- izes us to say God is love. Or will you turn from it to God's works and plead that "the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord"? (Ps. xxxiii. 5.) When we look there we "behold both the goodness and severity of God " (Rom. xi. 22) ; death set over against life ; calamity against blessings ; war against peace ; sick- ness and pain against health; "distress of nations and per- plexity " against prosperity. And when you bid me infer that God's wisdom and goodness forbid his destroying forever even a guilty creature, whom he himself formed for immortal happiness, then I know that we have both gone far beyond our depth. Who can find out the Almighty unto perfection ? It is higher than heaven ; what canst thou do ? It is deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? Look around, and so far as your earthly wis- dom can read his dispensations, do you not see him daily per- mitting the most ardent aspirations of your fellows to end in
668 THE POPULAR ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
vanity, despair and deatli ? Do you not see liim permitting mU- lious of young infants, in whom lie liad implanted tlie seeds of reason, and love, and happiness, and beneficent action, die like the budding flower that drops from the tree with its undeveloped germ to rot on the ground? How is that ? Do we not see him rain on the salt, barren ocean and the unpeopled deserts, while the vales on which the children of men hope for their daily bread, and whose clods they have watered ^dth their sweat, shrivel from drought ? How many men, judging by earthly reason, have ever been content to die as satisfied with the results of their life ? The one thing, the only thing that is certain to us all, is that we must die; and so far as earthly wisdom can see, "How dieth the v/ise man? Even as the fool dieth!"" Thus, when I see this awful God stamp "vanity and vexation of spirit" on all the hopes of man, I cannot undertake to decide what awful severities on the guilty he may not purpose to execute in another world. He has worlds under his government. His purposes span eternity. " Clouds and darkness are round about him ; but justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." (Ps. xcvii. 2.) Fee- ble man, we are out of our depth ! There is here no standing ground for any hope. Let us, then, go back and hear what message the Lord himself hath been pleased to send us out of his Word. And when we look there, the most striking fact is, that the clearest, the most dreadful declarations of the eternity of the unbehever's ruin are those uttered by Jesus. Men some- times babble of a difference, even a contrast, between the the- ology of Paul and of his Master. They talk of Paul as the aus- tere logician, excogitating a rigid system of dogmas ; they pre- fer, they say, to turn to the teachings of the "meek and lowly Jesus," whose theology is that of love. Well, one thing we do know:' never was there love like unto his love! It surpassed the love of woman. " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He laid down his for his enemies ! No man can see one trait of cruelty in this Jesus ; for his life was a ministration of kindness, not to the deser^sdng, but to the "publican and sinner." Never did the cry of human woe strike his ear in vain ; never did human anguish appeal in vain to his soul while on earth. And he knew, also, the real facts; for he came from the world of spirits and thither he went back. How comes it, then, that this meek and loving Jesus uttered
UNSATISFACTORY AS A SURE GROUND OP HOPE. G69
liig -wamings against hell in Avorcls sevenfold more frequent and solemn than the "austere" Paul? Is this also done in love? Yes; the beauty of his beneficent life and death permits us to think nothing else. If, then, it is the tenderest heart in the uni- verse which cries out to us most fearfully, "Beware of the pit! " what shall we think ? Is it because he who knows best and loves us best is most fully informed of its inevitable certainty and its intolerable pains ? Hear this Divine pity, then — ^Mark ix. 43, 44} Matt, xviii. 34, xiii. 41, 42, xxv. 30-46; Luke xvi. 23-26; Eev. vi. 16, 17.
What, then, is the part of reason for you ? As I said at the outset, I have no dogma to advance. I have no interest in arguing that there is an everlasting hell for impenitent sinners. If any man can prove that there certainly is none, by any evi- dence honorable for God and safe for man, sure I am that no man's soul will be more rejoiced than my sinful lieai-t. I have but one parting word to utter, and that is so plainly just that it needs no argument. It will be weU for you to look tJioroughly into this doubt before you trust yourself to it. Your eternity is at stake ! And if, after your faithful, honest and exhaustive ex- amination, you are constrained to feel that there is a possibility that Jesus may be right and Satan Avrong on this point, it vriW be best for you to come with me to the safe side, and hide under the sacrifice of Christ.
PRAYEE REASOTdBLE.
ACHATRMAX, presiding in one of the meetings of the late Evangelical Alliance, remarked that the cavils of infidels had had no effect in an'esting the prayers of the church. Nor can they, in the nature of things, have snch effect. Prayer is the most universal rational function of the human soul, in all ages and under all religions. However men differ about other things — about the objects of desire, about the divinities to be worshipped, about the mode in which they should be approach- ed— they all agree in praying. Not even the skeptics themselves will prove exceptions in the day when " the soitows of death compass them, and the pains of hell get hold upon them."
About Mr. Tyndall's prayer-test, by which he hoped to de- monstrate the folly of prayer, much has been ^T;itten, but we have not seen the truest and shortest answers. They are these : First; the objects we pray for fall into two classes, the innocent, natural good, and the spiritual good pertaining to redemption. The healing of the bodies of sick men in a hospital falls under the former class. But God has only given an explicit promise as to the latter class. It is proper to pray for bodily health, our daily bread, and other lawful, worldly goods ; om- Saviour has expressly authorized us to do so. But he has, ^^itli equal clearness, told us that there are often circumstances in which these seeming goods cease to be real goods, and then he will re- fuse the gift to his dearest and most accepted saint. He has also refused to disclose to us in advance when those circum- stances exist. Hence, for these objects, the intelligent Christian always prays with submission, and in ignorance of the issue. They do not faU in the class which we know to be " things ac- cording to his will." It is only of this latter class that we are authorized to say, "We have confidence that he heareth us." (1 John V. 14, 150
But second, and more conclusively, the proposed prayer-test 670
PKAYEE EEASONABLE. 671
is preposterous. If there is an answer to prayer, the thing pro- posed to be tested, there is a personal God — a being of -will, ■^dsdom, power, and majesty. TThen such a test is applied, he must be a party to the response. But if there is such a God, it is the Christian's God, who has already graciously told us that he does answer j^rayer ; who has already given us a great deal of condescending instruction on that very point in his word. Hence, that the petitioners should apply a further test to his fidelity cannot but be supei"iluous, and, therefore, impertinent. There must, therefore, always be a powerful motive in the mind of the Divine Sovereign for dechning to respond to the test, however he may be disposed, on other terms, to answer the humble petitioner. That motive is a regard to his own honor. It would always be conceivable, yea, probable, in such a case, that this motive would prevail ; so that the proposed test would test nothing, and reveal nothing, as to God's faithfulness in an- swering prayer, except its ovm impiety.
Infidel physicists make a mighty difficulty nowadays about an answer to prayer, fi'om the uniformity of second causes, and the absolute stabihty of their laws. They tell us that it is the law of man's reason — if they acknowledge that reason has any funda- mental laws — that we expect "like causes always to produce like effects." They tell us also, that experience shows us abso- lutely nothing in nature save regular laws. The widest observa- tion of the heavenly bodies and the earthly organisms, only con- firms the truth that, in nature, second causes always produce their appointed, natural effects, and interraption is unkno"\\Ti. Now, when we pray to God for a thing, Ave must expect him to give it, either by a miracle, a supernatural intervention over the natural laws which were going to bring on us some other thing, or we must expect him to bring it to pass by some modification of the second causes "SAithin the laws of nature. Put either ex- ]jectation, say they, is irrational.
As to the first horn of the dilemma they have made for us, they tell us that the knoAATi uniformity of nature leaves no place for the supernatural. Thus, says Mr. Baden Powell, the histo- ries of the miracles, which were once the glory of Christianity, are now her chief embarrassment.
The first remark Ave make upon this supposed difficulty is, that it is but a sorry resuscitation of the ghost of Hume's once
672 PRAYER REASONABLE.
famous sophism against the credibility of miracles, so thoroughly slain by 'the logic of Dr. George Campbell and other divines. How do we know that the operations of nature are always and everywhere uniform ? Our own limited observation is not enough to teach us this. If we are sure of it, it must be by the testi- mony of others. So that we come just to Hume's exploded ar- gument. Next, it is obvious that, if the difficulty is consistently urged, it is atheistic. Certainly creation was a* miracle. The almighty acts out of which nature first arose were certainly su- ]3ernatural ; and it would be a queer philosophy which set the effect above its own cause, which regarded the omnipotence which produced nature and endowed it with all these regular jiroperties as too feeble to interfere with its own work. But to deny a creation is practically to deny a creator. The truth is, nature implies the supernatural. Nature shows us herself the signs that she cannot he eternal and self-existent. She had, therefore, her origin in a creation. But what can be more su- pernatural than the act which originated nature ? If it were in- deed impossible that there could be a miracle, then this nature herself would be non-existent, whose uniformities give the pre- text for this denial of the miraculous. Nature confesses that her causes are second causes — they suggest their origin in a first cause. Just as the stream suggests its fountain, so do the laws of nature, now flowing in so regular a current, point us upward to the Source who instituted them, and can, therefore, control them.
But the easiest refutation is in this exceedingly familiar fact, that our own free agency is continually originating effects out- side of material forces, and is continually reversing natural forces up to a certain extent. "We know, at least as well as we know the things testified by our senses, that we have a true spontaneity ; that this cause does absolutely originate many ef- fects. Take a familiar instance : the natural laws of liquids re- quire water to seek its own level everywhere and always. But any peasant, by the intervention of his free agency of mind, pro- duces absolutely the opposite effect; he causes it to ascend above its level in the tube of his pump. Let us trace this " anti- natural " effect in the simplest and most practical manner. This peasant observes that this rise of the water against nature is caused by the intervention of a lever moving a piston ; that this
PEAYER REASONABLE. 678
lever, however, is not the true cause, for it is moved by his arm; that the arm, itself a lever of bone and muscle, is moved by his nerves, and, finally, that these nerves are but the conductors of a volition which, his consciousness tells him, originated in his mind. Here, then, is an effect upon matter above material na- ture, originated by the spontaneity of a spirit! But now, when this peasant is thus simply and clearly taught that the volition of his own spirit is an original fountain of effects outside of and above material nature, and when he lifts his eyes to the heavens and sees in their wise and wondrous frame the evidences of another spiritual intelligence there like his own, but immeasur- ably grander, how can he doubt that this superior mind has also in its will another primary source of effects above nature? If there is a Creator ; if he is a personal, intelligent, and voluntary being, governing the world he has made — the denial of either of these postulates is virtual atheism — then, since he may at any time possibly see a motive for intervening with his own possessions, our experience of our own free agency makes it every way probable that he may, on occasion, intervene. Every rational man cus- tomarily conducts his own affairs on regular methods, and occa- sionally, upon sufficient motive, uses unusual expedients. It is absurd for him to make any difiiculty about conceding a similar free agency, upon proper occasion, to God — if there is a God. This pretended argument of infidelity is a "vicious circle." It excludes a God because it cannot admit a supernatural, and lo! its only ground for rejecting the supernatural is its uncertainty of the existence of a personal God. This pretended jirofundity is thus exploded by the simplest experience of every plain mind. But while the Christian miracles are thus proved to be en- tirely credible, we have no need to claim that God now answers prayer by miracle. The doctrine of the Bible is that he answers prayers for spiritual good by grace in the hearts of men, and for natural good by that perpetual and special providence through which he regulates the working of every second cause in accord- ance with its natural law. It is against this customary provi- dence the cavil is mainly objected. There is no room, says the modern infidel, for the divine will to introduce an answer to prayer. Here, for instance, is a company of Christians in a leaking ship amidst a storm. On smooth water the crippled vessel might float to her desired haven, but if the tempest con-
674 PEAYER REASONABLE,
tinues, she cannot outlive it. So the people assemlDle in the cabin and pray to God to arrest the storm, " Now that praver," says the infidel, "is absurd. This storm is the natural effect of physical causes, in air and water, ah-eady established. These causes were, in turn, effects of previous physical causes. Hence, when those earlier causes were once established, the ulterior ef- fect— namely, this storm — was potentially present in them al- ready. And since natural causes are invariable, the whole re- sult was natui'ally inevitable days or months before the prayer began. Do these foolish Christians expect their God to work a miracle now to stay the storm, as they pretend Christ once did on the Sea of GaHlee? No! they disclaim that expectation. Then their prayer is senseless. They might as reasonably pray to the mnds and waves. Natural law takes its course. If the continuance of the storm was in its natural causes, it will con- tinue ; if not, it will terminate. But, in that event, the termina- tion can have no possible connection wdth the prayer ; the natural causes had spent their force. The effect would have ceased just the same without the prayer." Such is the cavil.
The answer is, that our inability to explain Tiovj an all-wise God modifies natural effects in accordance with natural causes is no proof whatever that he cannot do it. The peasant sends his message with confidence by Morse's electric telegraph. He has sufficient evidence that it can be done, but hoio it can. Ixi done he can neither imagine nor explain. Now, we presume there is more difference between God's knowledge and oiu"s than between Professor Morse's and the peasant's. We presume that Mr. TjTidall and the rest of the "scientists" would be very much outraged were we to refuse to believe that they could perform their beautiful experiments because we common folk cannot con- ceive how they do them !
We answer again, that we are able to regulate and employ our mechanisms, in strict accordance with their structure, to execute oiir special purposes. Shall we deny to the great God a similar power? "What more regular and exact than a railroad? The motive power is a mechanical one, blind, senseless, and tremen- dous. The machinery is of iron. What more unyielding than iron? The track consists of two horizontal and parallel bars of iron, immovable, and of inexorably uniform position and dis- tance. The trains must all rim by a "time-table," whose exact-
PRAYER REASONABLE. 675
ness imitates tliat of tlie planetary motions. The rigid rules of the road could not be infringed without the risk of a terrific crash. Yet this raih'oad train can be easily made to hear prayer. Its every motion is as completely under the hand of the engi- neer as the horse under the rein of the rider ; and at the cry of a sick child, the conductor may stop the whole. Now, is God less able to manage his machine? Are his resources less than those of his creature, man ?
May not this be the point of our Sa%dour's question in Mat- thew vii. 11 : " If ye, then, though evil, hioio Jiovj to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in heaven give good things to them that ask him " ? "We are sin- ful and weak, yet we have knowledge and power to give answers to our children's petitions, through natural means, without vio- lating their nature. Is not this an argument by the stronger reason for the Almighty God's having that knowledge and power ?
In conclusion, we argue that the perfect adjustment of this machinery of nature gives us the clearest proof at once of the existence and the skill of the creative mind. The more com- plete the machine, the more cunning the maker. Do they teU us of the unvarying regularity ^\ith. which the forces of nature act through all recorded time and over all known space amidst their almost boundless complexity? Well, just so mvich do they exalt our conception of the resources and wisdom of the divine Ai'chitect. And shall they t!ien teU us that the machinery of nature is so complete that the A'ery Maker of it cannot intervene ■without violating its structure ? This is precisely as though one should say, "There was a clock-maker of extraordinary skill, who made so perfect a clock that he himself could not regulate its motions." He was, forsooth, so thoroughly successful that the result of his very success in clock-making was to banish him in impotency from the control of his own handiwork! And yet that success in the construction is the practical evidence that he possessed boundless skill and power as to such machines. Such is the simple residuiaa of this much-vaiinted scientific skepticism.
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES/
"And lie shall turn tlie heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth "with a curse. " — Mal. iv. 6.
"And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just ; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." — Luke i. 17.
THE religious importance of parental obligation may be in- ferred from many scriptural truths; and, among otliers, from the place it occupies at the end of the old dispensation and the beginning of the new. Historians tell us that from the pro- phespng of Malachi to the Christian era was an interval of more than four hundred years. During all these ages the heavens were silent, and the church received oracle neither by " Urim and Thummim," nor by prophetic voice. Malachi, in his last chapter, prepares the people for this long silence of revelation by two words, of which one is a promise, and the other a pre- cept. The command is (chap. iv. 4) to walk by the law of Moses, God's servant, and to keep the statutes and judgments given, through him, for all Israel. The promise is, that in due time the Messiah's forerunner, coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, shall usher in the solemn, yet glorious day of Christ, by his pre- paratory ministry. This was to be, therefore, the next prophet whom the church was entitled to expect. But his work was to be prominently a revival of parental fidelity and domestic piety. " He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."
The next recorded message from the skies is that of the Angel Gabriel to Zacharias, given in Luke i. 11-20. The heavenly herald begins just where the earthly prophet had ended, with the promise and work of the forerunner, who was to be Zacha- rias' son. " And he shall go before him (the Lord) in the spirit
^ A sermon preached before the Synod of Virginia, at Danville, Va. , October, 1879.
6^6
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 677
and power of Elijah, to turn' the hearts of the fathers to the chil- dren, and the disobedient to the A^sdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Vs. 17.) That this work upon fathers and children was to be far more than the re- moval of domestic alienations; that it was to include this, but also to embrace a great revival of parental and filial piety, an awakening of the parents' hearts to the salvation of their chil- dren, and the docile seeking and reception of parental instruc- tion by the cliildren, — this is plain from the whole passage ; it is a turning of both to God, and a " turning of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." We are reminded also our Saviour told his people that, oftentimes, his gospel was the occasion, though an innocent one, of family alienations, rather than recon- ciUations. Luke xii. 51 : ' Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you. Nay, but rather division."
This re%dval of domestic piety and parental fidelity to the souls of children, Malachi declares, is necessary to prevent the coming of the Di^-ine Messiah from being a woe, instead of a blessing, to men. This reform alone prevents his coming to " smite the land vnth. a curse," instead of crowning it with mercies; because the T^dckedness, which would other^vise prevail among men, would outrage the holiness, instead of attracting the compassion, of the incarnate God. According to the angel, the same reform is the appointed means to " make ready a people prepared for the Lord." God's way of promoting revival, then, is not to increase the activity of any public and outward means only, but " to turn the hearts of the parents to the children."
This review shows us also that the duty of parental fidelity is equally prominent in both dispensations. The old terminates ■snth it ; the new opens with it. This is the connecting link be- tween both ; it is the hinge in which they meet and combine with €ach other. How plain it is that God regards it as of prime practical importance for man's salvation !
It has been already indicated that the fidehty of the parents ought to imply the docility of the children. The duties are mu- tual. Either branch might be profitably inculcated ; but space admonishes that it will be best at this time to confine the discus- sion, for the rest, to the duty of parents to the souls of their off- spring. The attempt -^-ill be made to unfold somewhat of the im- speakable importance of this duty, in addition to the scriptural
678 PARENTAL EESPONSIBILITIES.
teachings abeadj examined, by some other facts, and thus to turn the hearts of these parents to these children.
I. And, first, the urgency of parental responsibihty appears in a solemn, and even an awful manner, from the nature of the parental relation itself. Perhaps we fail to appreciate its mo- mentous nature by reason of its very commonness and of our familiarity wdth it. "Wherever human society is, there the parent is. Every man was once a child ; every human existence begins in a parental relation. Our perpetual familiarity with the light of the sun disqualifies to appreciate its glory and beauty as we would, were we to behold it but once before entering on a life of blindness. Thus, we are so accustomed to see the child pro- ceeding from the parent, that we are incompetent to perceive the solemn nature of the relation. Let us seek to gain a juster view bv comparing the human race with that order of angels than which man was made a little lower. It is every way probable that to the angels the power of reproduction, bestowed on Adam and Eve in paradise, appeared the most marvellous and splendid part of this new creation of the Almighty. For the bliss and glory of the elect angels there is no multiplication. The only increase within their reach is that arithmetical addition which may arise out of their individual progress in knowledge, love and happiness. The eternal adoption of Gabriel is assured against all the powers of hell and accidents of time. But Ga- briel cannot multiply his happiness and transmit it to l3eloved offspring of his own likeness. Except as he has communion, wdth his fellow-angels who began their career with him, he re- mains solitary in his blessedness. But the glory of the Di\dne beneficence towards the human race appears in this, that the parents, without alienating anything of their own immortality, are able to multiply immortalities in ever-widening and pro- gressive numbers. Thus, by the multiplications of the genera- tions of men, the field of the Divine love and benevolence is wddened as time flows on, until the subjects of the Divine bene- factions and instruments of the Divine glory on earth unspeaka- bly surpass in number the heavenly hosts. It may be beyond our skill, as it is unnecessary to this argument, to distinguish and allot the several parts of the agency wdiich belong to God and to the human instruments in the origin of a new hviman soul. It is enough for us to know that God, by his mysterious
PAEENTAL EESPONSIBILITIES. 679
works of creation and providence, does empower human parents for this amazing result — the origination, out of nothing, of a new being — and that a rational, immortal spirit ' How solemn, how high, this prerogative ! It raises man nearer the almighty Crea- tor, in his supreme prerogative a^ Master of all things, than any- thing else that is done by creatures on earth or in heaven. An- gels are not thus endued. The responsibility of this relation is not fully seen by merely regarding the infant as a beautiful ani- mal, organized, in miniature, after the kind of the parents. It is the mysterious propagation of a rational soul that fills the re- flecting mind with awe. The parent looks upon the tender face which answers to his caress with an infantile smile ; he should see beneath that smile an immortal spark which he has kindled, but can never quench. It must grow, for weal or for woe; it cannot be arrested. Just now it was not. The parents have mysteriously brought it from darkness and nothing. There is no power beneath God's throne that can remand it back to no- thing, should existence prove a curse. Yes; the parents have lighted there an everlasting lamp, which must burn on when the sun shall have been turned into darkness and the moon into blood, either with the glory of heaven or the lurid flame of de- spair.
The command to the first pair to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth was given as a blessing of paradise, and while man was unfallen. To understand it, we must remember that covenant which was made with Adam as the representative of the race. God gave him an easy law to keep, with the implied promise that, by keeping this command, he should " enter into life." Had Adam stood his probation successfully, he would have been lifted from his mutable position into a permanent adoption of life, making both his holiness and his happiness indefectible. And we have every reason for believing that he would have raised all his posterity to that state along with himself. He stood ag their representative. When he transgressed, "they sinned in him, and fell with him." It is hard to believe that God would have broken that representative union when about to result in the glorification of the race which he had established, and which he inexorably maintains when it issues in universal ruin and con- demnation. Neither his goodness nor equity would prompt such unequal dealing. Had Adam been confirmed in glory, the law
680 PARENTAL EESPONSIBILITIES.
would doubtless have held by which " he begat Setli in his own likeness after his image." All his posterity would have been holy and happy. Cain would have lived a saint, innocent of his brother's blood, and Abel would never have felt the murderer's blow. As the successive generations of men extended, parentage would have extended and multiplied immortal happiness until earth surpassed heaven. Such is the magnificence of that plan which the Creator proposed to execute through man's parental relation.
But the amazing plan was marred. The malice of Satan saw in this feature also his opportunity to execute a mischief as much more gigantic than the seduction of his brother-angels, as the aggregate of the whole series of human generations is greater than the number of the devils. It was, indeed, the infinite refine- ment of malice which he taught one of his heathen servants to cherish, when he inspired the Roman despot to wish that all the people of Kome had but one neck, that he might decapitate all at one stroke. Thus Satan saw that humanity had then but one head. By poisoning this, he would taint all the vast future body with spiritual death. Tims he vainly ho^jed he would usurp that very power, the power of parentage, which God had l^estowed to be the instrument of multiplying blessedness, and he would turn it into an inlet of spreading and boundless sin and misery. By poisoning the spring-head, he would at once poison the whole stream in all its Avidening course, until it disembogued its innumerable drops — each drop in the flood a lost soul — into the ocean of eternity. Thus it is that we owe to this malignant perversion of God's plan of benevolence, that every parent now transmits to the child he loves, along with the gift of existence, the deadly disease of sin.
These, then, are the two facts which give so unspeakable a solemnity to the parent's relation to his children. He has con- ferred on them, unasked, the endowment of an endless, respon- sible existence. He has also been the instrument — if the un- willing, yet the sole instrument — of conveying to this new exist- ence the taint of original sin and guilt. Can the human mind conceive a motive more tender, more dreadful, more urgent, prompting a parent to seek, for the beloved souls he has poi- soned, the aid of the great Physician ? And if this parent pro- fesses +0 have felt his bles.sed skill in his own soul, to be rejoic-
PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 681
ing in the Divine cnre, and is yet callous to tlie ruin lie lias transmitted to liis own child, lie is a monster, witli a lieart harder than a wild beast's. There are hereditary diseases of the body. Their indications pierce the parent's heart like barbed arrows, even when suspected in the beloved child. To see, beneath the hectic glow of the cheek, else so beautiful, the fatal sign of the worm at the root of life ; to remember that it was from your own blood the sufferer drew the poison — this awakens the pity and love of the father to all its depths. There is an authentic illustra- tion in the last days of the first Napoleon. As his life was con- sumed upon the gloomy rock of St. Helena by that fearful malady, cancer of the stomach, one of the few alleviations allowed him by his jailors was the presence of a skilful Italian physician. Dr. Antomarchi. The French officers near him relate that, when death was recognized as certain, the emperor laid his dying commands on his compatriot to return to Italy, visit his only son, watch over his health, and endeavor by every resource of his art to ward off the dire inheritance of his father's disease. Thus spoke the parent's heart in this man so ruthless and hard, who had reared his throne upon a pyramid of human skulls, and ground the nations of Europe under the chariot-wheels of his ambition! How could it speak otherwise, cruel though that heart was to others ? How can you, O Christian ! fail to bring your child to the great Physician of souls, to be healed of the deadly contagion jow have conveyed into him ?
Let us pause here to make an application of this question. All worldly parents do thus fail, as to the spiritual disease they have conveyed. Here they are caUous to that pity which, in the dying emperor, melted the heart of the scourge of the nations. They see the children they love grow up and pass through their career with the disease of sin derived through them festering in their veins, and they do nothing and feel little for their piteous case. Yet, these j^arents do unquestionably love their children 1 For their temporal relief and safety they make great and disin- terested sacrifices. Whence this strange inconsistency ? "What should w^e think if we saw a generous, loving woman, when her child came to her vnth. its little jDetulant grief for the prick of a thorn, embracing, consoling and binding up the sufferer with eager and tremulous sympathy, and then afterward, when the ■same child fled to her with a smarting wound which the mother
682 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
recognized too well as tlie sting of a viper, if we saw her coldly tlirnst it away ? But sucli is tlie neglect of all godless parents for the bite of the " old dragon " in the souls of their offspring, while they are eager and sincere in their zeal for the trivial ad- vantages of this world. How can it be explained ? Must it not be because this parent's carnal mind is enmity against God — because he is dead in trespasses and sins ? Let the generous, the decent, the affectionate but ungodly parent, who makes his possession of these shining social virtues the pretext for denying his own total depravity toward God, ask himself for any other solution of his own amazing inconsistency. Unless he can find one more true and reasonable than the Bible solution, he is bound to accept it and to humble his pride of virtue before God, as a lost sinner.
II. The responsibility of parents is argued, again, from the unique and extensive, character of their authority over their offspring. For, just so surely as God, who gave this authority, is a righteous and equitable ruler, is he certain to apply to pa- rents that just rule of law, that men will be held accountable ac- cording to the extent of the powers intrusted to them. The steward to whom a thousand talents are committed must be held accountable for a thousand talents ; he to whom ten, must account for ten. If this equitable principle must rule where the trust is nothing but dead money, 'how much more where power over rational, responsible fellow-creatures is intrusted to fellow- creatures ! If the steward in this case were not held to account according to the degree of the power he had perverted to the injury of his fellow-creature's destiny, and of God's rights in him, this would be a glaring injustice to the victims of his abuse, and to the Divine Master whose j)ower he had wrested. Be as- sured, then, parent, that you must be held responsible according to the extent of the power committed to your hands.
But it must be remembered, now, that your trust is not cor- ruptible things, as silver and gold, but immortal souls, capable of knowing and glorifying their Maker ; or, very much as you shall determine, of blaspheming him, and experiencing his al- mighty justice forever.
Let the extent of the parent's legitimate or unavoidable power over his children be pondered. As he is industrious and dis- creet, or indolent and prodigal, he decides for his children
PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. . 683
whether they shall begin their adult existence with a compe- tency or as panpers. As he is virtuous or vicious, he decides for them whether they shall bear an honored name, or be branded with the mark of infamy at their outset in society. As he is pure and courteous, or coarse and sensual, he assigns to his children a social grade creditable and elevated, giving them a passport to good society, or he condemns them to the associa- tion of the vulgar and low. His neglect of their early mental culture determines whether they shall reach adult life stupid boors or educated and intelligent men. Yea, more than this, character itself, at the outset of manhood, is mainly determined by the parents, and that chiefly by their example ; so that they have the power of deciding with probable effect whether their childr* u shall begin their careers with base or with virtuous principles and habits. According to the ordinance of provi- dence, and the unavoidable tolerance of the civil law, the parent is irresponsiljle to any earthly authority in the use and abuse of these sweeping powers. There is no hand beneath the skies that can beneficially interfere with authority between this pa- rental autocracy and its victims. It is true, that when the civil law assigns to the son or daughter his majority, he may then throw off the malignant incuhus, if he pleases, and begin for himself the arduous task of reversing the evil work of the neg- lectful parent. He maj^, if he pleases, then begin the hard task of earning a personal good name in the place of his inher- ited infamy, and of acquiring knowledge in Keu of ignorance, culture in lieu of boorishness, and competency instead of desti- tution. He may — if he pleases! But what prospect is there that he will choose this hard task, with a character debauched and enfeebled by the parental curse ? And if, contrary to all probability, he prove to have the nerve of steel requisite for such a revolution, how cruel is the load which the parental tyranny has assigned him to carry in this life-and-death struggle ! There is no power allowed to any creature under heaven over another responsible creature so wide as this providential power of the parent. Men speak of the Czar as "the Autocrat of the Eus- sias." They describe with s shudder that imperial power over the property, the Hberty, the life of the subject, unrestrained by constitution, law, jury, or appeal. But the power of a Czar over a subject is trifling compared with this parental power over children.
684 . PARENTAL EESPONSIBILITIES.
That may dispose of the body and goods ; this disposes of mind and soul. How helpless is the little child to resist the destiny which the domestic autocrat is thus preparing for him ! Whither shall he carry his appeal against his own father? And how dead must that parent's soul he to all magnanimity who can consider, with unrelenting selfishness, this mute appeal of a child's helpless dependence !
But the whole of this power is not yet described. All men who understand liberty beUeve that spiritual freedom, the pre- rogatiye of the immortal mind to think for itself, in obedience to the law of conscience laid upon it by its Maker, to judge its own duty, to select its own moral and religious opinions, and to serve its God according to its own understanding of his will — that this is the corner-stone of all other liberty, and the most precious of all. T\ e proudly erect ourselres and declare this to be the crowning prerogative of our manhood. This liberty, we exclaim, is, next to the throne of God, the most sacred thing in the universe ; and he who presumes to intrude his fallible vnVi. between the creature's soul and the immediate authority of its only Lord and Judge is guilty of a profane usurpation of the authority of Almighty God. Well, the parent has power almost to invade this sacred lilierty of the soul. It is made both his pri-^dlege and his duty to impose the principles and the creed which he has sincerely adopted as the truth for himself upon the spirit of his child. Some men, it is known, vainly prate of a supposed obligation to leave the minds of their children inde- pendent and " unbiased " until they are mature enough to judge and choose for themselves. But a moment's thought shows that this is as unlawful as impossible. No man can avoid impressing his own practical principles on his child. If he refrains from words, he does it inevitably by his example. The only way to prevent the " dictation," as it has been stigmatized, is to banish the child absolutely from the parent's society and protection, and thus to be recreant to every duty of the parent. Again, if he could avoid every impress upon the soul of his child, others would not refrain. One thing is certain, this young and plastic soul will take impress from some whither, if not from the ap- pointed and heaven-ordained hand of his parent, then from some other irresponsible hand, of man or evil angel. One might as well speak of immersing an open vessel in the ocean and hav-
PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 685
ing it remain empty as of having a youthful soul to grow up in society " unbiased," until it is qualified to elect its own creed most wisely. The only alternative left the parent is either to bias the child's soul himself for God and the truth, or to see it fatally biased by other influences against both. The Scrip- tures here are positive. The parent is commanded to "train up the child in the way he should go." Which is that way? He must " bring up the child in the nui'ture and admonition of the Lord." Which is that nurture ? Popery, Presbyterianism, Rationalism, or Infidelity ? At the time the training is to be- gin, the child is wholly unqualified to judge ; the parent must judge for him.
Now, it is fully admitted that neither divine nor human law gives a parent the right to force the tender mind of the child by persecutions or corporeal pains or penalties ; or to abuse it, by sophistries or falsehoods, into the adoption of his opinions. But this power the providential law does confer : the parent may and ought to avail himself of all the influences of opportu- nity and example, of filial reverence and affection, of his supe- rior age, knowledge, and sagacity, to reinforce the power of truth over the child's mind, and, in this good sense, to prejudice him in favor of the parental creed. And how potent is this in- fluence ! Does it not almost commit the spiritual liberty of the young soul to a human hand ? How mighty the power of op- portunity which the parent is thus authorized to employ to pro- pagate his creed on another soul ; while as yet the pupil is ignorant of the process wrought upon him, and incapable of re- sisting it ! There is no power beneath the skies, authorized by God, that is so far-reaching, so near the prerogatives of God himself; and for that reason there is none so solemnly respon- sible. When God has clothed you, O parent! with such powers, ^\-ith results so beneficent and glorious, and has thus made you so nearly a God to your own children, do you sujppose that you can neglect or pervert them without being held to a dire ac- count ? It were better for that man that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. Here appears a new argument to prove man's responsi- bility for his moral and religious opinions. The code which he heartily believes is, to him, his authoritative creed. It is to this the privilege of parental inculcation must practically apply.
686 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
Hence, lie who lias perverted his own reason and conscience to mistake a lie for the truth, makes himself responsible, not onlj for his own destruction, but for the probable destruction of the children God has submitted to his guidance. Take heed, then, parents, how you hear and how you believe, not only for your own sakes, but for your children's sakes.
III. But would it not be an injustice toward the children's souls for God to commit so sweeping, so imperial a power over them to any creature's hand without suitable checks and guards? He has not forgotten to provide them. One is found in the strict responsibihty to which he holds the domestic ruler — strict and fearful in proportion to the width of the trust. Another is found in the affection which nature binds up with the parental relation. God — blessed be his name ! — has not surrendered the young im- mortal, undefended, into the parent's hands, but has sought to fence him in against abuse, by the strongest and purest social affection which survives the fall. Parental, and especially ma- ternal, affection is the most disinterested principle which remains in the ruined nature of man. God has kept alive this remnant of the estate of paradise, like the one entirelj^ fresh oasis in the desert of depravity. He preserves it, apparently, that there may be a spot whence can flov\^ forth the water of life for dying hu- manity. It is the only adequate type on earth of divine love. God honors it by making it the imperfect image from which he would have us comprehend his own infinite benevolence and pity. He instructs us to address him as " Our Father which art in heaven." He declares, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." When he Avould exalt the love of redemption to its most transcendent height, he, can find nothing on eai-th which comes so near it as a mother's love, although this also comes short of it : " Can a woman forget her sucking child ? " Tbe depravity of human nature is most strongly asserted in the Scripture, and it cannot be depreciated by the just observer of mankind. Yet, it should probably be conceded that the love of even selfish, avaricious men for their children is usually sincere and profound. Many moraUsts suppose them- selves constrained, by the doctrine of total depravity, to deny this. They seek to represent the professed zeal of such men for the wealth and social advancement of their children as but a pre- text for their own covetousness, pride and lust of power. This
PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 687
is a short-sighted analysis. It is true that nothing in fallen man is untainted by sin, and that these selfish desires mis more or less with the disinterested affection. But the desire for the chil- dren's secular good is usually real. "We see it urging the hard- est natures to self-sacrificing devotion. The griping man of the world, who can grind the faces of the poor without a pang of pity, is yet generous to his owii offspring, and for them he cheer- fully foregoes delights and lives laborious days. When they die he mourns more ingenuously than for any other loss. He feels that a pai-t of himself has died ; that they are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. But there is no need to attempt the im- possible task of exaggerating our conception of a parent's, and especially of a mother's, love. There is not one of our readers who is not the child of that love, and his own experience has taught him better than words or images its blessed strength.
But what does the Maker of our frames mean by planting and preserving this master affection in human hearts ? It tells us, in accents as sweet as they are potent, the duty which parents owe to children, and children to their parents. It is God's teaching in the inmost heart, instructing us that the fulfilment of this affection is the highest, holiest, most urgent of all the earthly du- ties man owes. Parental love is the main bond of human society among creatures otherwise selfish and unjust as fallen men are. Without it society would doubtless degenerate into anarchy and men into savages. Can any reasonable mind believe, then, that God will overlook this master affection in his plans for the sanctification of a fallen world, or that God's true grace can be prevalent in any parent's heart, and not energize and direct this love ?
lY. These considerations prepare us to expect that the parent's influence will be more effectual for good and evil than any or all others that surround the young soul. Hence is drawn another argument for the parent's awful responsibility. Pastoral experi- ence teaches us that, as parents perform or neglect their duties, the children usually end in grace or impiety. The impressions for good or for e\i\ made in the families of Christian countries are usually found too deep to be effectuall}' changed after adult years are reached. The parent has the first and all-important opportunity. Those who come after him — the teacher, the pas- tor— have but the remnant. The forming hand of the parent
688 PAEENTAIi EESPONSIBILITIES.
is armed with a veuerable authority, all others -with but a small portion of the delegated power. His words and example are weighted by filial love. He has pei-jDetual famiharity and oppor- tunity ; his children are with him at his board ; they sleep in theu' httle couch at his feet ; they follow him as he comes in and as he goes out. Even when his lips are silent, his example speaks perpetually to them.
But, above all, the parents have the forming of their plas- tic years. "When they are moulding the child, his character is in the gristle, yielding to the softest pressure. By the time he has come to the hands of the pastor the gristle has been hardened into rigid bone, which may be broken by ^dolence, but cannot be bent. Every way the parent has the advantage over the pastor ; so that the latter has small prospect of reversing the j)arent's work when it has been for evil. If men are broiTght from sin to Christ after they reach adult years, examination usually reveals the fact that the remaining influence of parental piety, cleaving to the heart during its apparent indifference, has far the larger part in the result.
It may be objected that the success of the evangelist among adult pagans, and even the obligation of preaching the gospel among them, refute this view. For all these pagans had god- less parents, and grew up utterly unblessed by domestic piety. If, now, the rule above claimed, as to the controlling importance of the home religious influence, were correct, all these pagan adults wojild be hopeless, and the duty of preaching the gospel to them unreasonable, because necessarily futile. But we know that we are commanded to preach the gospel to them, and many of them are savingly enlightened by this means of grace. To this objection there are three answers : First, it is true that the godless home influence of their childhood has left the souls of adult pagans exceedingly hard and obdurate, so that the evan- gehst does, in far the largest part, labor with them in vain. Se- cond, neither they nor their parents have enjoyed any gospel offers, so that, -u-ith aU their sins and hardness, they are not yet loaded with the sin of vexing the Holy Ghost. But the neglect- ful and inconsistent parent tacitly encouraged his child to com- mit this sin repeatedly, and to raise up this fearful and pecuHar barrier aroimd his stubborn heart. Third, the pagan child, with all his grossness and ^'ice, has not yet had his soul poisoned
PAKENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 689
by tlie lesson of parental hypocrisy, the most deadly of all means for fatally searing the conscience and petrifpng the heart.
This pagan child may have for his father a gross, sensvial bar- barian, and for his mother a superstitious, silly, lying babbler. He may hare been carried, while an infant, to the idol temple, and made to bow his head, and cast his little handful of rice before the horrid image of Siva or Kali. This tuition is bad enough. But he has not yet experienced the spiritual curse, to which every pretended Christian home is subjected, of detecting his own father and mother — whom he is to revere, if he reveres anything — in practising cheats upon their God, in promising sa- credly what they have no purpose of performing, and in giving the practical lie, by their actions all the week, to the hohest pro- fessions they make on the Lord's day. That accursed lesson the heathen youth has not yet learned from those whom he loves best and imitates most. Therein he is in a state far more acces- sible to truth and more hopeful than the neglected child of nomi- nal Christians. The missionary, preaching to such heathen growm up, has a more hopeful charge than the pastor at home vainly stretching out his hands all the day long to the souls seared and hardened by the commanding influences of ungodly homes over the youthful heart.
To this coiTespond the experience of pastors. "\^Tien they have a hardened adult or aged sinner bow apparently to the force of a preached gospel from their mouths, they are apt to find, if they inquire faithfully, that this hardened subject had not always been hard ; that his youth had been spent, in part, at least, under the blessed influence of home piety ; and that the seeds of good then sown, long buried beneath the clods, have at last borne their fruit. But for those early planted seeds, the later sowing of the pulpit would also have fallen upon the trod- den roadway and been caught up by Satan. Pastors know that there are few cases of conversion among grown-up men who have been the children of hypocritical or nominal Christian homes. They are taught that the exploits of their spiritual wea- pons are piiny and poor, compared with those of godly, sincere parents. The confession is not grateful to self-love, for it is natural to desire success, and it is sweet to boast in our efii- ciency ; Ijut candor compels this avowal. An authentic instance
Vol. I.—U.
690 PAEEXTAL EESPONSIBILITIES.
now rises from tlie early recollections of tlie -writer. A churcli was rejoicing mtli its new pastor in an ingathering of souls, and among tlie converts was one whose appearance was so surprising that it filled them -sx-ith wondering gratitude. The subject was a man of the world, who had lived past middle life, far from Christ and good. He was a man of inherited wealth and social position, generous and profuse, profane when irritated, a sports- man and keeper of thoroughbred houses, a frequenter of all scenes of gayety and worldly amusements which were not low. This man now suddenly manifested a solemn interest in divine things, was constant in God'shouse and was found, before long, sitting like a contrite child at the feet of Jesus. And let it be added here, that his after-life nobly attested the genuineness of the change : he lived a pure Christian and devoted philanthropist, and died in the faith. There was natiu'ally in the new pastor's heart a curiosity to know how so surprising and gratifying a revolution was wrought, and, perhaps, a trace of elation as he argued with himself that this case must be purely a result of pulpit instrumentahties. So, when the convert came to confer ■with, the session, he was asked what sermons had been the spe- cial means of his awakening. It seemed hard for him at first to apprehend the drift of such a c[uestion, but at last he answered very simply that his change was not due to any sermons or recent means, but to Ids inother. To his mother? She had been dead so long that few remembered what manner of mother he had ! She had been in her grave more than forty years. The oldest el- der present had never seen her — had, in fact, never heard of her. She had died in the bloom of her beauty and maternity, when he was a boy of sis years. Thus the wonder grew. But he ex- plained that she was a Christian woman, a fniit of the ingather- ing of Samuel Davies in the colonial days, and she had begun to instruct her oldest-born in the truth. He stated that now, if he was Christ's, it was the power of those teachings over his infant mind, and especially of the dying scene, which were the true instruments for bringing him back ; without which all other instruments would have been futile. When this young mother was about to die, she had gathered her little flock at her bed- side, cowering like a cluster of frightened birds before the mighty hunter. Death; had prayed for and lilessed them, and, as she laid her dying hand upon his brow, had charged him, her
PARENTAL EESPONSIBILITIES. 691
first-born, to fear liis mother's God, and remember her iustruc- tions. That hand had been upon his head ever since, through the long years of his worldliness ; he had felt its touch in .the haunts of business as well as in his hours of soUtude; in the hunt, as he was hieing his hounds after the fox ; on the race- field, as he cheered his mnning horse; and it was this which, at last, had brought him back to God.
Here is the parent's responsibility, and here also is the en- couragement. Our God is a faithful and a righteous God. He has not laid this heavy and fearful burden upon our shoulders •v\'ithout the promised help to bear it. His covenant still stands, to be a God to his people and their seed. Faithful effort and holy example shall be rewarded ; and that word of Holy Writ will ever be found as much a di^dne promise as it is a deduction of experience, that, if we "train up our children in the way they should go, when they are old they shall not depart from it." By the very reason which makes parental neglect so blighting to the souls of children, parental teaching will prove an efficient helj) ; and that God who, in paradise, pronounced paternity a blessing, before Satan the murderer had infused the ciu'se of original sin into the stream of humanity, has promised through Christ, the woman's seed, still to use this holy relation for its primeval end of raising up sons unto glory.
Two inferences Avill close this sermon. Seeing the parental relation is what the Scripture describes it, and seeing Satan has perverted it since the fall for the diffusion and multipHcation of depravity and eternal death, the education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the one business for which the earth exists. To it all politics, all war, all literature, all money-making, ought to be subordinated ; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that, next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God — this is his task on earth. On the right training of the generation now arising, turns not only the individual salvation of each member in it, not only the religious hope of the age which is approaching, but the fate of all future generations in a large degree. Train up him who is now a boy for Christ, and you not only sanctify that soul, but you set on foot the best eai-thly agencies to redeem the whole broadening stream of human beings who shall proceed from him,
692 PAEENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.
down to tlie time "u lieu men cease to many and ^ive in marriage. Until then, the work of education is never ending.
The generation which is trained for heaven is the oue that dies; the oue that is born into its phice is born in enmity and under the curse. Thus the task of training is ever renewed, until the final consummation shall make the race equal to the angels.
In the last place : We observe some sincere Christians, whose minds are so swayed by the assertion that personal faith must be the invariable pre-requisite to baptism and admission to the church, that they seem incapable of ever entertaining the thought that the church membership of the children of believ- ers may be reasonable and scriptural. The doctrine seems to them so gi*eat an anomaly that they cannot look dispassionately at the evidence for it. But to one who has weighed the truths set forth above, the absence of that. doctrine from God's dispen- sations would seem the strange anomaly. To him who has ap- preciated the parental relation as God represents it, the failure to include it within the circuit of the visible church, to sanctify its obligations and to seal its hopes with the sacramental badge, would appear the unaccountable thing.
We have seen that the promise of a multiplying offspring was the blessing of paradise ; that paternity was the splendid expe- dient of our Maker for multiplying the human subjects of his blessings and instruments of his glory, and of making holiness and bliss the sure, hereditary possession of the increasing multi- tudes of men, through the probation and adoption of their first father. We have seen how, when Satan had essayed, with a stupendous, yet impotent malice, to pervert the invention of God to the propagation of sin and death, our merciful father rendered his \dctory void through the woman's seed, thus causing redemp- tion in the second Adam to spring again out of the family tie. We hear him declare in Malachi ii. 15, long after the fall, that his object in founding the family, in the form of monogamy, was " to seek a godly seed." Thus the supreme end of the family institution is as distinctly religious and spiritual as that of the church itself.
Civic legislators speak of the well-ordered family as the inte- ger of which the prosperous commonwealth is formed. But God assigns the family a -far higher and holier aim. The Christian
PAKENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES. 693
family is the constituent integer of tlie church — the kingdom of redemption.
The instrumentalities of the family are chosen and ordained of God as the most efficient of all means of grace — more truly and efficaciously means of saving grace than all the other ordi- nances of the church. To family piety are given the best pro- mises of the gospel, under the new, as well as under the old dis- pensation. How, then, should a wise God do otherA\'ise than consecrate the Christian family, and ordain that the beHeving parents shall sanctify the children ? Hence, the very foundation of all parental fidehty to children's souls is to be laid in the con- scientious, solemn, and hearty adoption of the very duties and promises which God seals in the covenant of infant baptism. It is pleasing to think that many Christians who refuse the sacra- ment do, with a happy inconsistency, embrace the duties and seek the blessing. But God gives all his people the truths and promises, along with the edifying seal. Let us hold fast to both.
A PHASE OF RELIGIOUS SELFISHNESS.
"Justifying faitli . . . . respects Christ in his priestly office alone. " — Owex on ' ' Justification. "
"He" (the materialist philosopher) "may be tempted to show his contempt, ■when he is told that actions instigated by an nnsellish sympathy, or by a pure love of rectitude, are intrinsically sinful ; and that conduct is truly good only when it is due to a faith whose openly-professed motive is other worldliiiess." — Hekbeet Spexcee, First Pein .
OXE of these sentences, from a great cliTine, seems to avoucli a defect, not in tlie gospel, but in our mode of presenting tlie gospel, -whicli the other sentence, from a would-be-great in- fidel, bitterly charges upon it. Christ's priestly work is that in which he makes sacrifice, satisfaction and intercession for be- lievers, to deliver them fi'om the penalty due their guilt. The human want which this mediatorial work meets, is man's sense of guilt and danger. This feehng awakened by the con^•incing light of the word and Spirit, regards seK du'ectly ; and it is en- tirely compatible with a dominant selfishness. It is but self-love awakened by foreseen danger. There is, then, nothing charac- teristic of the new and holy nature in it. Men dead in tres- passes and sins often feel a degree of it. Lost sx3mts feel it. The biting phrase of Herbert Spencer, ''other loorldliness,'' sug- gests a charge against this species of Christianity which is just. We Christians use the word " worldhness" very patly to describe a selfish devotion to the pleasiu-es of this world. We charge that it is idolatry. We point to it as the very signature of a dead, soxil, and justly. Now, on what principle do we proceed in this judgment? On the obvious distinction between natural good, or the advantages which confer selfish, natural gi-atifica- fcion on our desires ; and moral good, or the principles and acts ■\vhich satisfy conscience and meet our accountability. We see clearly enough that, in this earthly sphere, to crave and act for personal enjoyment simply is not moral good, being merely sel- fish, and that it may be, and most often is, -racked. When we 694
A PHASE OF RELIGIOUS SELFISHNESS. 695
see a responsible creatiu'e Ihdng supremely for wealth and what wealth purchases, gratified sensual appetites, gratified vanity and ambition, immunity from personal toil and pain, we regard him as a selfish and sinful creature. But is the principle of the case changed in the least by placing the gratification craved in an- other sphere of existence, and beyond the grave rather than this side of it? Obviously not. This "other worldhness" is but worldliness exaggerated and intruding its unhallowed gi'asp into the holy realm of redemption. It is not forgotten that there is a legitimate and righteous regard for one's own weKare, that Christianity does not extinguish this appetency, but appeals to and stimulates it. But the gospel consigns it to a subordinate place, and requires the absolute " denial of self " as the very con- dition of discipleship.
Every act of the soul receives its moral complexion from that of its real motive. If the sole want of the soul, which impels it to Christ in faith, is this sense of future danger from its guilt, then the faith exercised is nothing but the temporary faith of the " stony ground " hearer. Redemption is presented to this soul, not as a moral good, but simply as an advantage. The cross is to be prized and sought, not for any purj)ose or desire of holi- ness, but for its utility to an endangered selfishness. The Saviour is degraded to subserve a function precisely similar to a life preserver or life boat, or a fire extinguisher, or a dentist's forceps, or an anod^oie, or a dose of other medicine. The joy of the supposed release has nothing in it distinctively spiritual, any more than the frisking of the thievish pig which has released its neck from the fence. There is no real faith, no real coming to Christ, except that which embraces him in his three offices of prophet, priest, and king. Hence there is no real coming to Christ until the soul is so enlightened and renewed as truly to view not only its danger, but its ignorance and 2:)ollution, as in- tolerable evils. The true believer goes to Christ in faith, for personal impunity indeed, but far more for sanctification. He is fleeing from sin as truly as from punishment. The object to which his soul moves is he "who of God is made unto us vds- dom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." This is God's representation of the matter, " Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after ri(//tteousness.'' How much wiser and safer is the statement of the " Confession of Faith " than
696 A PHASE OF RELIGIOUS SELFISHNESS.
Owen's ! " By this faith a Christian acteth differently upon that which each particular passage of the word containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God. . . . But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiying and resting upon Christ 2^on.Q. for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace." It is true that Owen cautiously qualifies his questionable statement, and abundantly exhibits, in other places, a fortunate inconsistency. But the selfish leanings of human nature are too strong to permit this presentation of the gospel without a mischievous result.
Is not Protestant preaching very defective in this respect ? Do we not hear Christ currently held forth too exclusively for the personal advantages of embracing him, while his sanctifying work as a Saviour from sin to holiness is left out ? Sinners are exhorted to flee to the Saviour, simply that they may not be punished in hell. The penal wrath of God is described as though it were the only evil. Even the reprehension of the preacher proceeds as though the sin of neglecting one's enlight- ened future self-interest Were the whole of the crime of unbelief. It is very true that personal recklessness is criminal ; but such preaching leaves in the background the far more enormous crimes of the impenitent against God's rights. And too often, when the sinner's idolatrous and sinful selfishness is alarmed, the preacher lauds and praises him for this, as though there were something good in it. The advantages to self-love are dwelt on as the sole attractions of the church and of heaven. Oftentimes the pictures, designed to allure the sinner, appeal as dii'ectly to his self-love as those of the playbill or the tavern ; and, while more decent in coloring, they are sometimes little less sensuous. Is not this a deplorable oversight ? Let even the Reformed or Presbyterian pastor call himself to account here, and he will be shocked to perceive how seldom he has pleaded to sinners to come to Christ hecause it is right ; how prevalently he has lim- ited his plea to the promise that it will he advantageous. Let the question be urged : Is selfishness any the less idolatrous and wicked simply because it has become shrewd enough to project itself into the future ?
One evil which has resulted from this defective presentation of the gospel is the filling of the churches with " stony-ground
A PHASE OP RELIGIOUS SELFISHNESS. 697
hearers." Their selfish fears of punishment have been aroused. Their remorse has been quickened. But there is in theiv pseiido faith and repentance no " hungering and thirsting after right- eousness." Hence they have no root in themselves. Not hav- ing embraced Christ in his kingly and prophetic offices, they have no spiritual life, and so soon as the alarmed self-love is quieted, immediately they wither away. Another consequence, ■we are persuaded, is that the gospel is shorn of much of its strength. The reasonable and valid appeal to t/ie cojiscience is left in the background. But our Maker designed this faculty to be the mistress of the human heart. Sin has usurped its au- thority ? True. And the monster will not be effectually de- throned without the intervention of God's grace ? True. But "that grace acts on human nature in accordance with the healthy laws of nature. Hence the instriuuent who neglects and omits the appeal to what ought to be the dominant faculty has no right to expect the aid of the great agent. "We are mistrustful of the power of this imperial faculty over the soul ; perhaps also we are mistrustful of God's promise to enlighten and ena- ble the conscience. We aim at the baser principle of self-inter- est ; and we fail as we deserve. We forget that in a soul dead in sin self-interest is even more impotent than conscience to prompt any godly action. If we made the argument to self-love less jDrominent, and said more about righteous and reasonable obligation ; if we urged sinners to believe and repent, less be- cause thus they escape hell, and more Ijecause it is rigid ; if we made less of the claims of self, and more of the righteous claims of God, we should find him honoring our ministry more by making it effectual. A fashionable mother, who knew no way of controlling her children, except wheedling or force, once heard a wise Christian woman base her authority over her young child on a simple appeal to conscience — " You must do this, my dear, because it is right," — and secure a prompt and sincere obedience. The godless woman expressed her aston- ishment at the method, and declared, that with her children such language would be breath thrown away. The Christian replied, that her Bible taught her the Creator had imprinted conscience in tlie human soul as the ruling faculty, that she had always concluded, hence, that her first duty as a parent was to appeal to it, and that the appeal was usually successful.
698 A PHASE OF EELIGIOUS SELFISHNESS.
"But if you act," said slie, "toAvarcls your children as tliougli the faculty were not there, of course you leave it dormant." Too often the pulpit commits the same mistake. If we struck more habitually at the sinner's slumbering conscience, we should find the Spirit of God sending home the blow.
OUR SECULAR PROSPERITY
Is not this the first occasion within the memory of man when the temporal prosperity of the people was so great and gen- eral that even complaining politicians were compelled to admit it? Agriculture, the basis of all prosperity, is successful; har- vests are abundant, and markets unusually good. Commerce is expansive and progressive. Money is plenty. The general standard of comfort in living is constantly improving ; and among the higher classes the standard of luxury is rising with what we cannot call a rapid improvement, l:)ut at least with a rapid in- crease. Meanwhile, our modern Ophir continues to pour in its steady stream of gold. Perhaps such a spectacle of national plenty and increase was never seen before.
Christians are enjoying their full share in these blessings, if blessings they are. They are in the foremost rank of every law- ful business and of every material comfort and luxury, and are gathering a full part even of the golden harvest of Califor- nia. Besides this, the church is free among us in a sense in which it never enjoyed freedom before. Not only has it the fullest religious liberty secured by law, but it enjoys the appar- ent respect of the press, of the government, and of the masses. Surely "religion walks in her silver slippers." Such a combi- nation of secidar advantages was never possessed before by Christians.
Now, we have pointed out these facts to lead the minds of ministers and private Christians to the inquiry : Is this a spirit- ually safe state ? Has the church ever been able to stand such temporal prosperity without being poisoned by it? Let us get the answer to this question from historj^ and from human na- ture. The past answers that there has not been a single instance in which the spiritual health of the church has survived a season of high temporal prosperity. She has survived the sword and the fire. Like the burning bush, persecutions have not con- sumed her. The power of kings and commonwealths and the 699
700 OUR SECULAR PROSPERITY.
gates of liell have not been able to prevail against lier; but never, in a single case, lias she failed to succumb before the miasm of temporal ease and plenty. AVheu, iinder Joshua, God "made Israel ride on the high places of the earth that he might eat the increase of the fields, and he made him to suck honev out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock, butter of kine and' milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, -vN-ith the fat of kidneys of wheat, and he did drink the pure blood of the grape," what was the result? '' Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked." And again, when the talents and virtues of David and of David's less noble son had raised the theocracy to the crisis of its prosperity, so that " Judah and Israel were many as the sand which is by the sea in multitude, eating and drinking and making meny," when the nation became so rich that " silver was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon," how long was it before the apostasy of Jeroboam, and the idolatry, of the calves, in Bethel and Dan, yea, and Solomon's own backsliding, followed? So, under the Christian dispensation, as long as the primitive church was op- pressed and reviled, it remained tolerably pure and active; but from the very date of its establishment by Constantine, "when it received external respect, ease, revenues, and honors, began those corruptions which, in three hundred years, wrought out the monster of poj)ery. Thenceforward the only commun- ions which had purity or vitality were down-trodden churches like those of the Waldenses. The pure and active churches of the Reformation were born and grew strong amidst reproach, danger, and strife. As soon as they had become safely estab- lished, and providence had given them rest on every side, their decline began. And where is now the glory of Geneva, of Wit- tenberg, of Leyden ? Set in the dark night of Eationalism or Socinianism. Compare the pure zeal, the fraternal charity, the humility of the Church of England as it emerged from the fires of bloody Queen Mary, with its subsequent arrogance, Armin- ianism, popery, and worldliness. See what has been the effect of outward prosperity and power on the Established Church of Scotland, or Puritanism in New England, and on ourselves. Yes, let us count the feeble and retrograding beat of our o-^ti spiritual pulse, and note how miich weaker is oui' spiritual vitahty than in the days of Da-\des, Tennent, and Blaii'.
OUE SECULAE PEOSPEEITY. 701
Looking to man's nature, we sliall see some of the reasons of this. It ought not to be true, but it is true, that it is man's mean-spirited disposition to feel less gratitude as the favors he receiyes are multiplied. Try it, my brother, with any neighbor you have. Send him a quarter of mutton as a present this week and he will return you his hearty thanks ; but send him one every week for three months and then omit two weeks, and he will feel as if, on those two weeks, you had robbed him of a right ! It will be weU if he does not tell you so. Now, we treat God in the same thankless way. The frequency and the multi- plication of mercies necessarily make the reception of them a habit ; and habitual incidents make less and less impression the longer the habit is maintained. So that the multitude of our blessings, instead of begetting proportionate gratitude, deadens our sense of obligation. Here, then, we have this result, that sluggish, thankless indifference to God's love and benevolence will naturall}' grow out of continued prosperity.
It is very obvious that the indulgence and the rewarding of worldly desires will cultivate those desires. Diva aiiri fames ipsa ]}ecnnia crescit. (Pardon us the Latin, for Horace's words are more expressive than any we can put together.) The more money men have it in their power to make, the more will they love to make money. Gain will stimulate the desire of gain. Continued success will weaken the sense of dependence on pro- vidence, and the too-prosperous Christian will "sacrifice to his drag and burn incense to his net." And when the money is made, how shall it be spent? Why, of course, in living, dress- ing, building more expensively. Thus comes in luxury, -with its enervation, its self-indulgence, its pride, its impatience of whole- some toil, its sensual desires, and spiritualit}^ dies as surely as the lamp goes out in the mephitic air of the cavern.
But here is the most fatal consideration of aU : that the dan- ger arising from temporal ease and plenty is one which leads the Christian away from his fountain of strength, the mercy- seat, just in degree as the danger becomes more imminent. The spiritual life of a Christian or a church is like the roots of the sturdy oak, which grow more tough by the storm, because then they grasp more tightly the crevices of the rock. It is like the refined gold, which must be purified from its dross in the fur- nace of fire. It is like the strength and hardihood of the sol-
702 OUK SECULAR PROSPEEITY.
dier, which are formed by exposure and battle. Let the Christian be persecuted, troubled, or afflicted, and his trial, by casting down his heart, brings it to the foot-stool of grace in humble prayer, and there he finds a strength which rises elastic and indomita- ble under every oppression, because it is the strength of divine omnipotence. Hence it is that the Christian only grows by re- proach and affliction, and that the fire of persecution has often been the most prosperous element for the church. That which crushes down, at the same time brings into contact with the source of might and life. But alas! when the forgetful Chris- tian is most endangered by pride, fulness of bread, worldliness, and sensuality, then he is farthest from prayer. Let us bor- row an illustration from classic mji;hology. When Hercules wrestled with the giant, Antaeus, son of the earth, he was baffled by finding that his antagonist rose from every fall with renewed strength, so that the more he was subdued, the more unconquer- able he became. But at last Hercules perceived that it was be- cause Antaeus, as often as he fell upon the bosom of his mother, received new vigor from the contact; and then the god of strength, lifting him up in his mighty arms, so that he could no longer touch his mother earth, crushed him to death in his embrace. So wrestles this mighty and insidious prosperity. So wi-estles Satan now with the church, which he has found by other means unconquerable. Since the church has risen with immortal vigor, as often as she has been pressed down upon the bosom of her Saviour, and driven out of her pride and self-de- pendence by affliction, he now lifts her aloft into carnal abun- dance, security, and haughtiness, in order that, having separated her from the spring of her strength, he may choke her to death in his treacherous embrace.
In a word, the whole is made up of its parts ; the spirituality of the church consists of the spirituality of its individual mem- bers. But let any Christian view his own life, and see how nearly his whole spiritual progress has been made in the sea- sons of trial. It is by their private afflictions chiefly that indi- viduals grow in grace. Is it not on the sick bed, in the chamber of bereavement, by the dying beds, and beside the fresh graves of those they love, that their steps heavenwards are chiefly taken ?
Is it, then, an exaggerated statement, that a time like the pre-
OUR SECULAR PROSPERITY. 703
sent is one of more danger tliau the time of oppression and persecvition ? We verily believe that, splendid as is the grace which carries the martyr to the stake, and sustains him in his baptism of fire, glorious as is the display of Divine power, in a church down-trodden but indomitable, persecuted but not con- sumed ; the grace "which would carry a church through such a season of continued prosperity and carnal ease as we are now experiencing, without a decay of spirituality, would be still more mighty. The church has often enjoyed the former grace ; she has not yet attained unto the latter. It seems as if this is a height of spiritual attainment, which is reserved for those bet- ter days which are to introduce the millennial reign. But the rule is, that grace is bestowed in answer to prayer. And while seasons of persecution are seasons of abounding prayer, this is a time of prayerlessness. By how much is the danger more imminent! If, then, the approach of oppression or persecution, or the prospect of the loss of our religious liberties, would awake the voices of the watchmen on our Ziou trumpet loud, what should be the course now of those "who have understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do"? Should not the teachers and rulers of the church lift their voices in warn- ing more loudly even than when Knox called upon his country- men to stand for their lives and liberties against pope and ty- rants? And should not every Christian gird himself against the danger, with a spirit more earnest, cautious and prayerful than if he were counting the cost for a final warfare with persecu- tion? True, ours is a danger which comes with no clamor, "no distress of nations and perplexit}'," or roaring of the 'Seas of popular commotion. But if it is a danger, the wise man will therefore proclaim it with a voice only the more urgent and startling. The household which should be awakened at the cold midnight with the news that an absent member was freez- ing to death somewhere on the highway, would start from their beds into intense alarm and exertion. But that frost which is now fast freezing their brother's or father's blood into an inex- orable sleep is a thing most quiet, most noiseless ; as quiet as the genial dew! And so, "the pestilence that walketh in dark- ness," with no outward sign or voice but the stillness and deser- tion of the streets, and the muffled roll of the hearse, will thrill the heart of a people with as sharp an alarm as the clamorous
704 OUE SECULAR PEOSPERITY.
voice of war. And rightly. We ntter a most deliberate and sorrowful conviction when we say, that in our opinion, unless we bestir ourselves with a wise alarm and diligence, utterly unlike our present conduct, and entirely above any to which any pre- vious church has ever been able to attain in the like case, this present ease will be our ruin, and future history will date "the decline and fall" of American Christianity from our generation. And, alas ! where is the voice loud enough to pierce the ear be- numbed with this worldly abundance, and to rouse the sleepy, self-indulgent soul of the church, lapped in the folds of this in- toxicating ease, to more than the awakened energy and hardi- hood and prayerfulness of a martyr communion? Can we flat- ter ourselves that we shall be an exception to all previous his- tory? "We fear not. Humanly speaking, our history must be this; either to sink deeper and deeper into formalism, worldli- ness, heresy and immorality, with partial and temporary resus- citations, till our light shall go out in a night which shall have no morning, like that of the seven churches of Asia ; or else, to be lashed back to the throne of grace and to spirituality by the loss of our abused abundance and religious liberties, by social calamities and political oppressions, till we are purified and re- stored, and fitted to take our place as one of the millennial churches. And if God, in his grace, shall deliver us from both these destinies, if he shall sustain and restore our spiritual life, while he leaves us our present outward prosperity, then will that display of divine power be more truly new and wonderfu-1 than anything which the church has ever yet experienced.
What then is the remedy ? By what means is this rescue, so difficult, so unusual that it is scarcely to be hoped for, to be found ? We shall find the answer of this question in asking another. What was God's benevolent design in giving this prosperity? Not to be a trap and a curse to us, surely. This is the secondary use to which his righteous and wise retribution will convert it, if it is abused by us. But surely, he gave it primarily, that we might find our safe and innocent enjoyment in it, by using it for his glory. Here, then, is our escape from its benumbing effects. We must be unlike all the outwardly prosjoerous churches which have ever gone before us, in the use which we make of our pros- perity. We must be as distinguished for ouv large-hearted lib- erality and our expanded plans of beneficence as we are for
OUR SECULAR PROSPERITY. 705
riclies aud temporal privileges. We must burst fortli on every side into a magnificence of missionary enterprise, as marvellous as the growth of our commerce, arts, agriculture, and general prosperity. We must cast the antiquated measures and stand- ards of Christian liberality to the winds. Our prosperity has utterly outgrown them, and calls upon us to ado|)t new and larger ones. This is our only safety valve for our expanding wealth. Thus alone shall we be able to consecrate it, and ren- der it harmless. Hence, it is one of the prime duties of the ministry to inculcate new principles of Christian beneficence. And hence it is the time for the church to go forward with gi- gantic strides, and give tenfold expansion to all those means for glorifying God which his temporal bounties can sustain.
70L. I.— 45.
THE CHRISTTAX'S DUTY TOWARDS IILS EMMIES.
IT maybe surmised that tliis is a duty wliose "metes and bounds" are ill understood by many of the people of God, and that, consequently, the minds of many of them are harassed with doubts and temptations concerning it. On the one hand, many, perhaj)s, excuse to themselves criminal emotions under the name of yirtuous indignation, and on the other some of them afflict themselves with compunctions for and vain endeavors against feelings which are both proper and natural to us as rational beings.
The embarrassment is increased by the current opinion that there is inconsistency between the teachings and examples of the Old Testament and the New upon this subject. Men read in the former the stern language of the imprecatory Psalms, for instance, of the thirty-fifth, the thirty-ninth, the one hundred and ninth, the one hundred and thirty-seventh, and the one hun- dred and thirty-ninth, where the inspired man prays: "Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul. . . . Let them be as chaff before the wind, and let the angel of the Lord chase them"; or describes the persecuted church as crying to her oppressors: "Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us" ; or protests : "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ? And am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee ? I hate them with perfect hatred." They then turn to the Sermon on the Mount and read the words of our Lord : "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." They there- upon imagine a discrepancy, if not a contradiction, between them, and adopt the mischievous conclusion that the two Testa- ments contain different codes of Christian ethics. This notion, it is to be feared, has a general prevalency. What is more com- mon than to hear Christians, who should be well informed, and w^ho profess full reverence for the inspiration of the whole Scrip- 706
THE CHEISTIAN'S DUTY TOWAEDS HIS ENEMIES. 707
tures, speak of the morality of the Old Testament, of the Hebrew saint, of the jDrophet, as harsh, austere, and forbidding, while that of the New Testament, of Jesus, and of the Christian is sweet and forgiving?
All these notions are of Socinian or rationalistic origin, and are incompatible with an honest belief in the actual inspiration of the Scriptures. If inspiration is but an "elevation of the consciousness," a quickening of the intuitions of the transcen- dental reason, an exaltation of the soul, of the same generic kind with the other impulses of genius, only of a higher grade, then it can be understood how prophets and apostles may contradict each other ; although yet they may teach us noble lessons, and such as common men would never have found out of themselves. But if "all Scripture [the apostle means the Old Testament] is theopneustic," if "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and the apostles, in their turn, had the promise of the Holy Ghost to "lead them into all truth," then a real discrepancy between them is impossible; for all truths must be harmonious among themselves. The honest believer can admit, of course, that the partial revelation of the Old Tes- tament, although absolute truth as far as it goes, and as perfect in its principles as the God who gave it, stops short of that ful- ness of detail to which the New Testament afterwards proceeded. But while there is a difference in degrees of fulness, there can be no contrariet3\
The same view commends itself irresistibly to the plain mind from this fact, that Jesus Christ, not to add the apostles, sus- pended the trath of his mission and doctrines on the infallibility and holiness of the Old Testament. His appeal is ever to them. He cites Moses and the prophets as though he thought their testimony must be the end of strife. Now, if they are not in- spired and true, . it follows irresistibly that Jesus Christ was either mistaken or he was dishonest. Ahsit imjjietas. In either case, he is no Ecdeemer for us. And, indeed, the former alternative of this dilemma is inadmissible for one who claimed, as he did, an infallible knowledge for himself, a precsistence of the era of Al^raham and the prophets and the authority of the Messiah by whose Spirit those prophets spoke. So that, if the Old Testament were imperfect, Jesus of Nazareth would stand convicted of criminal attempts of imposture!
708 THE christian's duty towards his EISTEMIES.
There is a second reason wliy sucli an explanation cannot he applied to tlie supposed vindictiveness of Old Testament morals : that the same sentiments are expressed in the New Testament, and the same maxims of forbearance which are cited as so lovely in the latter are set forth, both by precept and example, in the former ; so that, if a discrepancy is asserted, it must not be between Da^dd and Christ, Hebrew and Christian, but both Testaments must be charged -^-ith contradicting themselves, as well as each other. Thus, in Acts viii. 20, Peter exclaims to Simon Magus, " Thy money perish ^vith thee ! " In Acts xxiii. 3, Paul sternly denounces the persecuting chief priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall ! " and in 2 Tim. iv. l-i distinctly ex- presses a prayer for retribution upon Alexander, the copper- smith of Ephesus : He " did me much evil ; the Lord reward him according to his works." In 2 Thess. i. 7-10, Christ's coming " in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God," is subj ect of admiration in all them that believe. In the Apocalypse vi. 10, the souls of the martp's under the altar are heard crpng with a loud voice: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that d^vell on the earth? " And in Matt. xi. 20, and xxiii. 13, Jesus of Xazareth is heard denouncing awful woes upon the enemies of truth.
On the other hand, the Old Testament contains substantially the same precepts of forgiveness, and examples of forbearance, which are so much admired in the New. First, the great truth, which lies at the root of all this subject, that retribution is the exclusive function of the Lord, was first published in the Old Testament, and it is thence Paul quotes it, in Eom. xii. 10, " It is v-ritten, Yengeance is mine, saith the Lord." It is written a thousand years before (Deut. xxxii. 35 ; Lev. xix. 18j, " To me belongeth vengeance and recompense ; " recognized by David as a nde for him (1 Sam. xxiv. 12) towards his deadly enemy, jSaul, — " the Lord judge between me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee ; but my hand shall not be upon thee ; " re- peated in Psalm xciv. 1, "O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth;" and cited against evil men, as a rule which they had violated, twice in Ezek. xxv. 12, 15, " Edom and the Philis- tines have taken vengeance, and have greatly offended." The lovely precept for rendering good for evil is enjoined upon the Israelites in a form most perspicuous and impressive to a pas-
THE christian's DUT^ TOWAKDS HIS ENEMIES. 709
toral people : " If tliou meet thine enemy's ass or his ox going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again." (Exod. xxiii. 4.) Israel was enjoined to practice tenderness towards foreigners, a duty ignored then by the pagan world, and espe- cially towards Egyptians, their late ruthless oppressors. (Exod. xxii. 21 ; Deut. xxiii. 7.) Job, the oldest of the j)atriarchs whose creed has been handed down to us, recognizes malice, even when limited to the secret wishes, as an iniquity : " If I re- joiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up my- self when evil found him ; neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a ciu'se to his soul." (Job xxxi. 29.) David, the author of nearly all the imprecatory Psalms, repudiates mahce ■with holy abhorrence : " If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace A\ith me ; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy,) let the enemy persecute my soul and take it," etc. (Ps. vii. 4.) And in Psalm xxxv. 13, he describes his deportment towards his enemies, as in contrast with theirs to- wards him, and in strict accordance with Christ's command : "But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sack- cloth ; I humbled my soul with fasting," etc. That all this was not mere profession, we have splendid evidence in the sacred history, where he displayed such astonishing forbearance and magnanimity towards Saul, after the most vehement provoca- tion ; twice delivering his life from the indignation of his fol- lowers, and singing his dirge with the honorable affection of a loyal follower.
This age has witnessed a whole spawn of religionists, very rife and rampant in some sections of the church, who preten- tiously declared themselves the apostles of a lovelier Chris- tianity than that of the sweet Psalmist of Israel. His ethics were entirely too vindictive and barbarous for them, forsooth ; and they, mth their Peace Societies, and new Hghts, would teach the world a milder and more beneficent code ! How im- pertinent does this folly appear, coming from the petted favor- ites of fortune, whose wilfulness and conceit had hitherto been pampered by a rare concurrence of privileges, so that they had hardly experienced the call for the Christian virtue of forgive- ness ; and who, as soon as they are crossed (not in their rights, but) in their most arrogant caprices, show themselves incapable of one throb of Da^-id's magnanimity, and break out into a vin-
710 THE christian's DUTY TOWAEDS HIS ENEMIES.
dictiyeness set on fire of liell ! He wlio knows liis own lieart and human nature will liumbly avow, instead of accusing the Psalms of unchristian malice, that he will do well if he never o-oes beyond their temper, under bitter -uTi-ong, and if, while swellino- A\ith righteous sense of injury, he can always remit the retribution, in wish, as in act, to God alone.
The consequence of this erroneous admission of actual dis- crepancy between the morahty of the Old Testament and the Kew is, that expositors have fatigued themselves wdth many vain inventions to explain away the imprecatory language of the Psalms. The generality of this feeling is betrayed by the fre- quency of these attempts. A curious betrayal of this skeptical impression exists to this day, in the book of Psalms, in the hands of our own Presbyterian people. Instead of a metrical version of Psalm eix., as it stands in the inspired Ip-ics, there is a human composition upon the beauty of forgiveness. In the psalm books in use for a whole age among the Presbj-terians of England and this country, this hymn was formerly prefaced ^^itll the words (Psalm cix.), " Christian forgiveness after the example of Christ." This title the last editors of our psalm book be- thought themselves to omit. Any one who compared the hu- man poem with the actual hundred and ninth Psalm could hardly fail to overlook the suggestion of a contrast, that while the uninspired psalmist of our modern Israel gave utterance to Christian forgiveness after the example of Christ, the actual ode of inspiration expressed unchristian revenge after the example of David. How could the feeling be more clearly betrayed that the sentiment.^ of the psalmist were indefensi- ble ? "
Hence ingenious expedients have been sought to explain them away. Of these, the most current is the following : that where oiu' version says, for instance, " Let his days be few, and let another take his office," the verbs are improperly rendered as imperatives. It is asserted that they may as fairly be ren- dered as simple futures, "His days \d]l be few," etc., and then all these passages are converted from imprecations to pre- dictions. The psalmist . only foretells the divine retributions. "Waiving the insuperable difficulty, that it is only to a part of these texts the explanation even plausibly applies, we perceive this general objection : that if they be all understood as pre-
THE CHKISTIAN's DUTY TOWAKDS HIS ENEMIES. 711
dictions only, yet they are predictions to tlie accomplisiimeut of which the inspired men evidently looked forward with moral satisfaction. Thus they reveal precisely the same sentiments towards evildoers as though we understood them as appealing to God wath requests for their righteous retribution, while they at the same time recognize his sole title to avenge, and the sin- fulness of their taking their retaliation into their own hands.
All these inventions, then, must be relinquished ; the admis- sion must be squarely and honestly made, that the inspired men of both Testaments felt and expressed moral indignation against wrong-doers, and a desire for their proper retribution at the hand of God. This admission must also be successfully defended, which, it is beheved, can be done in perfect con- sistency with that spirit of merciful forbearance and love for the persons of enemies which both Testaments alike inculcate.
Simple resentment is an instinctive emotion, immediately arising from the experience of personal injury. It can scarcely be called a rational sentiment, for it is felt by men and animals in common, and in human breasts is often aimed against irra- tional assailants. It does not arise in view of the moral quality of the act, but immediately in view of the hurtfulness of the act to the person who feels the resentment. Its final cause is, to energize man for his needful self-defence. Hence resentment obviously has no necessary moral character, more than hunger, thirst, or pain ; its moral character only arises when it is regu- lated or directed amiss. Resentment may be innocently felt, or may be criminal, according as it is j)roperIy limited, or is per- mitted to become inordinate. This is the sentiment concern- ing which Paul says: "Be ye angry, and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath." Last, the emotion is strictly personal ; its immediate cause is injury aimed at one's self.
Moral indignation, or moral disapprobation, in its warmer and more emotional type, is an affection often coexisting with simple resentment, and often confounded with it. But the two feelings are essentially distinct. The moral sentiment is imper- sonal ; it is not directed merely to self-defence, but disapproves of our neighbor's unrighteous injury as of our own. It is awak- ened, not by mere hurt, but by injustice; that is, it arises* in view of the moral wrong of the injurious act. It is strictly a
712 THE christian's duty towards his enemies.
rational emotion, taking its rise in that highest and noblest form of the intuitions of the reason, the judgment of moral distinc- tions, and being thus the function only of rational spirits. Hence this sentiment can never be indifferent or negative as to its moral quality, as simple resentment may be ; but wherever it is not righteous, it must be wicked. And whereas the final cause of resentment, the subject's self-defence, requires it to be temporary, the final cause of moral disapprobation requires it to be permanent up to certain limits, which ynU be defined. No inspired man has said of this sentiment, as a general rule, " Let not the sun go down upon it."
This moral sentiment, as was remarked, often coexists with resentment. When we are ourselves made the objects of as- saults which include both hurt and injustice, the mixtui'e of the two feelings is unavoidable. When we behold such an attack upon a fellow-creature, the impersonal sentiment of moral re- probation may be mixed with a reflex resentment received by the law of sympathy. In both cases the effect is to give a warmer and more passionate aspect to the moral sentiment.
The next truth to be considered is, that the judgment of de- merit intuitively accompanies every act of moral disapproba- tion. The wisest Christian philosophers teach that the idea of obligation is inseparable from the idea of moral rightuess in acts. In other words, to say that an act is obligatory is the same thing with saying it is right. Now, obligation implies an obligator. This judgment of the conscience is but an intuitive recognition of a relation between the personal moral agent and a personal moral ruler, God, whose will is the rule of the obli- gation to him. The judgment of moral disapprobation is, there- fore, in its very nature, a judgment of wrong relation between the sinning agent and the personal wdll of the divine Ruler; it recognizes that holy will as outraged by the sin. Hence, b}' a necessary law of the human reason, our judgment of the sinful- ness of every wrong act includes the decision that the agent has therein demerit ; that is to say, it is now right that he should receive suffering for his sin, physical evil for his moral wrong, in a just ratio, as its proper moral equivalent. This judgment, we repeat, is unavoidably included in our judgment of the wrongness of his act. And this relation between sin and de- served p^nal suffering, the reason apprehends as morally obliga-
THE christian's DUTY TOWARDS HIS ENEMIES. 713
torv. Its preservation is necessary to satisfy righteousness ; its rupture is necessarily wrong.
It appears, therefore, evident that if the reason is impelled to this judgment of demerit by the very law of its moral action, and this demand for penal equivalent to sin is a valid part of its moral verdict, the mere entertaining of it as a sentiment cannot be morally wrong. To assert that it can be, would be to assert that the soul may act immorally in the very acts which are im- mediately directed by the law of its nature as a moral agent. Moreover, as the judgment of moral disapprobation involves a judgment of demerit, affirming the righteousness of the requital of suffering for the sin, it is inevitable that the soid should find a pleasure in the satisfaction of this sentiment ; and if the senti- ment is moral, the pleasure cannot be immoral. For it is absurd to say that a rational creature is crimintil for its satisfaction in the rightful actings of the laws of its own reason. How can the laAvful hapj^iness of the creature be more justly defined than as that pleasure which is found in satisfying the righteous and reasonable promptings of its own native powers ? " Hajoj^lness,'' said the most profound of the Greeks, "/« vlrtuoxts energy"
It thus appears that the impersonal sentiment of moral repro- bation is lawful, yea more, that it is positively virtuous; and that the rational desire for the satisfaction of it cannot be sinful 2)er se. But lest some mistrust of this conclusion should be felt, from the abstract nature of the analysis, it will be confirmed by these further considerations.
1. Every one easily recognizes this sentiment of moral repro- bation as the counterpart to that of moral approbation. In the latter, the mind has, as its root, a similar judgment, in the rea- son, of the virtuousness of the act; it thereby recognizes the agent as meritorious for the act, that is, as righteously entitled to his suitable well-being as its moral equivalent ; and the mind finds virtuous pleasure in the satisfaction of this, its verdict, by the actual enjoyment which the meritorious agent has of his re- ward. That a soul should be capable of witnessing a virtuous act and its reward, and remain wholly devoid of this sentiment and this satisfaction, would of itself argue a criminal defect. The man who is capable of being spectator of some splendid and lovely instance of filial gratitude and fidelity, and of its re- ward in the benediction of the happy father, and the well-earned
714: THE christian's duty TO^yAEDS HIS ENEMIES.
lionor and prosperity of the pious son, and who can feel no pleasing judgment of approval in his own soul, and no vrrtuous satisfaction in witnessing the reward of merit, is thereby shown to be a cold villain, capable himself of any ingi-atitude or treachery to his parents.
But add to this that, in morals, -^T.'ong is the necessary coun- terpart of right, as every moralist admits. As absence of caloric is cold, or absence of light is itself darkness, so, in moral ac- tions, lack of right is wrong. There is, hence, no such thing as a moral neutrality in a case involving positive moral elements. It appears, therefore, very plain that the susceptibility of moral approbation imphes necessarily that of moral reprobation ; that to be insensible to the latter would involve insensibility to the former. But this, as all admit, would characterize the man as 250sitively evil. Hence it appears that these active sentiments of moral reprobation for wrong doing, so far ai'e they from being unholy, are positively necessary to right character. The reader may find this conclusion confirmed by numerous scrip- tural testimonies, among which these two, from the New and Old Testaments respectively, may be cited: Prov. xvii. 15: "He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord"; Bom. i. 32: Paul condemns sinners as those who " not only do the same, 1 jut have pleasure in them that do them."
2. When flagrant crimes are committed against the law of the land, and the "gallows is cheated," the most virtuous citizens feel the craving of their moral nature for the retribution of jus- tice upon the criminal and the grief of its disappointment. This feehng cannot be accused of selfishness, but is wholly imper- sonal, for it is vividly felt by virtuous persons who have no con- nection Mdth the object of the outrage, and who suil'er no special wrong by it. It is found most often in the most disinterested and noble natures. It is impossible for the subject of it to re- buke himself for entertaining it ; for he feels that to lack this feehng would be to lack vii^tuous regard for the law which has been dishonored and the innocent victim who has been wronged. Sympathy with the right implies reprobation of the wrong.
3. The Scriptures, beyond a doubt, describe the saints in glory as participating in the judicial triumphs of the Bedeemer,
THE CHEISTIAIs'S DUTY TOWAEDS HIS ENEMIES. 715
wlien lie shall pour out liis final retributions on the wicked; and the satisfaction of this intuitive sentiment which craves just penalty for demerit is one of the elements of the bliss of the redeemed. Psalm cxlix. 5-9 says: "Let tlie saints be joyful in glory. , . . Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand ; to execute vengeance upon the heathen," etc. The yearning of the martp's in heaven for a righteous vindication has been ah'eady seen in Rev. vi. 10 ; and in Kev. xix. 1-3 heaven is heard in jubilee over the- judgment of the persecuting Babylon of the Apocalypse. Now, it \\ill scarcely be doubted that it is right for Christians to feel here as they will feel when perfectly sanctified in heaven.
Lastly. Eighteous retribution is one of the glories of the di- vine character. If it is right that God should desire to exercise it, then it cannot be wrong for his people to desire him to exer- cise it. It may be objected that, while he claims retribution for himself, he forbids it to them, and that he has thereby forbid- den all satisfaction in it to them. The fact is true ; the infer- ence does not follovv% Inasmuch as retribution inflicted by a creature is forbidden, the desire for its infliction by a creature, or pleasure therein, is also forbidden; but inasmuch as it is righteously inflicted by God, it must be right in him, and must therefore be, when in his hand, a proper subject of satisfaction to the godly.
Now, if the feeling of moral reprobation, when thus imper- sonal or disinterested, is righteous, its propriety cannot be wholly destroyed by the circumstance that he who feels it was object of and suffered by the crime reprobated. The crime is still the same in princijDle, and is properly the object of the same moral emotions. The only difference is that the tempta- tion of the sufferer to inordinate and sinful resentment is thereby rendered much greater, and he is thereby called to strict watch- fulness and self-control, lest the personal feeling, which is mixed Avith the impersonal, assume the ascendancy, and thus mahce usurp the place of righteous zeal ; but otherwise no reason ap- pears why it is not as righteous to approve and desire the just penal recompense of the enemy who has assailed the right in attacking one's self as of the party who has injured our neigh- bor.
But, it cannot be too often repeated, the righteous desire for
716 THE christian's duty TOAYAKDS his EXE5IIES.
recomj^ense never craves to take its vindication into its own liancls. The godlv man always prefers to remit tlie penal settle- ment to a perfect God, and arrests liis O'wii forcible agency as soon as the purposes of mere self-defence are secured. It is the declared principle of both Testaments, that God reserves retri- bution to himself as his exclusive function. He has, indeed, delegated a limited poi-tion of this authority to the civil magis- trate, to wield it, as his representative, for a specific purpose. But this is no exception, for when civil society punishes crimes, it is as much a part of God's providential ordering, and of his providential act, as when he punishes them by sickness or dearth. The principle stands absolute : a limited resentment, purely de- fensive and temporary, may be man's ; but vengeance is God's. This is proper, because the injured man is himself a sinner, as well as the injurer ; and so rigorous a function is not appropri- ately ■s\'ielded by one who is himself exposed to it, and who is seeking to escape it by the door of mercy. It is proper, because man is ignorant of those spiritual conditions of crimes, on which the aggravation or palliation of their demerit so much depends. It is proper, because the impersonal moral sentiment demand- ing retribution is, in man's breast, so seldom unmined "s^dth the personal passion of direct or sympathetic resentment ; so that it is doubtful whether a human being is ever in a condition to judge a A\Tong act with perfect equity. It is proper, because God is not only an omniscient and perfect being, devoid of aU passion, but is the supreme proprietor and ruler of men, and his will is the source of the obligation which they violate, as well as its infallible rule. Hence, the state of feeling to which the Chris- tian should strive, is, not insensibility to ^^-rong, not indiiference to the craving of our moral nature for its just penal recompense, but a hearty willingness to leave that retribiition in God's right- eous and unerring hand.
A stage has now been reached in this discussion, at which it is necessary to introduce a few plain distinctions. One is the well- known distinction of divines between the love of complacency and the love of benevolence. The former is founded on moral approbation for the character of its object, and implies moral excellence in it. The other does not, and may exist notwith- standing moral disapprobation of its object. Of the former kind is the love of God the Father for God the Son. Of the latter
THE christian's DUTY TOWARDS HIS ENEMIES. 717
kind is tlie love of the Trinity for sinners. Ob\dously the love of complacency is directed towards its object's character, while the love of benevolence is directed to the person of its object, and exists in spite of his obnoxious character. And it is thus possible that love may hate the character and compassionate the person of the same man. Such, in fact, was Christ's love to us " while we were yet sinners." The adjustment between the New Testament and the Old is partly to be found in this distinction. When Jesus Christ commalids us to love our enemies, it is with the love of benevolence and compassion. When David declared that he hated God's enemies with a perfect hatred, he meant that he did not entertain for them the love of moral complacency, but, as was proper, the reverse. This love of benevolence for the person of a bad man ought to be, in the Christian, the finite reflexion of what it is in God, limited only by the higher attri- bute of righteousness.
Next : To understand the relations of godliness between us and our enemies, the elements involved in their injurious acts must also be distinguished. The sin of a -^Tong-doer against his fel- low involves three elements of offence. One is the personal loss and natiu-al evil inflicted, and is expressed by the Latin divines by the word daimium. The second is the guilt {reatus) or rela- tion of debt to the law, by which the wrong-doer is bound to pay for his act in ptmishment. The third is the moral defilement or depravity of character {^praintas vel riiacxdct), which is both expressed and increased by specific acts of sin. Now, when the Christian is made the object of an unrighteous act, the element of loss, or damnum, is the only one which is personal to him, and therefore the only one which it is competent to him to remit. And since nothing but self-interest is concerned in this element, the great law of love requires the Christian to remit it without price or compensation, provided the moral conditions of the case do not forlnd it. And to pursue the aggressor \vith evil, directly for the sake of this element of his offence, is sinfid malice. The second element, that of guilt, is not personal to the injured Christian. It is not his business to pursue the satisfaction for guilt, but God's. He is to leave this element wholly to God, only taking care that his moral sentiments touching it are conformed to those of the divine Judge. But practically he has no outward duty to perform with reference to it, in any circumstances what-
718 THE christian's duty TO^YAEDS HIS ENEMIES.
ever, unless he is pro-s-iclentially called to fill the office of magis- trate in the commonwealth; and then he is bound to execute upon the guilty that portion of the retributive penalty committed to his charge by the lavts of God and his country, without either favor or malice ; feeling that where guilt is dul}^ affixed, he has no more option to remit any of its penalty than he has to give away another man's property intrusted to his charge.
The thii'd element, that of the inward defilement represented and fostered in the wrong act, is als6 impersonal to the injured party. He has no option or license to disregard it, and the love of complacency has no relevancy to a prompting to over- look it. By the very reason that it is his bounden duty to love holiness, it is his duty to be opposed to impurity. He who should argue that his compassion and Christian kindness ought to, or could, lawfully prompt him to overlook this defilement, and restore his approbation and fellowship to the transgressor while still defiled in character, would be as preposterous as he who should say that his compassion justified him in agreeing with the liar that falsehood is truth and truth is falsehood. Kindness and compassion have no application to the case; but our judgment and treatment of the evil must be according to the eternal principles of truth and right. Now, for this third element of moral impurity the only remedy is true repentance, prompted by the renewing and sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit', and manifesting and fostering itself in oiitward reform. For the second element, that of guilt, the appointed remedy is the atonement of Calvary, embraced by faith. For the first ele- ment, that of damnum, the remedy is reparation.
The light which these distinctions throw upon the Christian treatment of enemies may be displayed by applying them to a concrete instance. Let it be supposed that the crime is a rob- bery committed upon the goods of a private Christian. There is an element of dainnum which consists in the privation of the use and value of the property taken. There is an element of guilt by which the robber is made debtor to the laws of the commonwealth and of God in certain penalties ; and there is an element of moral defilement or taint attaching, through the theft, to the robber's character. Let it be supposed, first, that the offender provides no appropriate remedy for either ; that he neither makes reparation of the stolen property nor makes sat-
THE CHPvISTLIN'S DUTY TO\YAJ:lDS HIS ENEMIES. 719
isfaction to linman and divine law, nor exhibits any purification of character by repentance. How ought the injured Christian to treat him? The answer is, that the law of love does not bind him to extend moral fellowship and approbation to a defiled character, nor to intervene between the guilty party and the penal claims of law; for these consequences of the sin are not personal to the injured party. But the law of love may bind him to remit the claim for restoration of the value stolen "with- out money and without price" ; as, for instance, if the thief have become unable to repay ; and in any case it binds him to succor the thief when suffering, if he is able, and to perform to him any other duty of humanity, as though he were no aggressor.
Let us suppose, again, that the thief has, from some motive impl}-ing no virtue, made exact reparation, but that his guilt is not atoned for and there is no purification of character by re- pentance. How ought the injured party now to treat him? The answer is, precisely as in the first case. The damnum is repaired indeed, but that element of offence was personal to the injured party, and it was right that he should waive it without reparation at the prompting of Christian kindness.
Let us suppose, again, that the thief has made no rej)aration of property because he is really unable, but that, having made full atonement to human law, he has by faith embraced the righteousness of Christ for the remission of his guilt towards God and has evinced by a true repentance the cleansing of his soul from depravity. How shall he be treated by the Christian whom he has injured ? The answer is, precisely as though he had never injured him. The guilt and defilement of the sin have now received their approj)riate remedy. The element which remains uncompensated is the dam.num ; and it is the Christian's duty to remit this freely and joyfully, seeing it is personal to himself, at the prompting of love.
Now, it is asserted that, if the imprecatory passages in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be compared with these conclusions, they will be found to contain nothing incon- sistent with them. And if the Christian j)i'ecept of forgiveness (Eph. iv. 32), "Forgive one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you," be examined, it will be found to ex- press the same thing. God is "kind to the unthankful and to the evil" so long as the claims of his justice are suspended; but
720 THE chkistian's duty towards his enemies.
lie does not remit their guilt, nor relax liis righteous disappro- bation and fixed purpose to punish, without satisfaction to law. Nor does he compromise his puritj hj adopting the sinner who remains impenitent and depraved. TVTiat he does is this: he extends to them, in the midst of their sin, all the compassion which his wisdom, justice, and holiness permit; and as soon as guilt is satisfied by an interest in Christ, and personal defile- ment purged by regeneration, he graciously oyerlooks every out- rage of his honor and person, and adopts them into his favor as fully as though they had never sinned.
The sum of the matter, then, appears to be this : the law of love does not require the injured Christian to approve or coun- tenance the evil character manifested in the wrong done him, or to withhold the verdict of truth and justice against it when righteous ends are gained by pronouncing it. The law of love does not require him to intervene for delivering the ag- gressor from the just claims of either human or divine law for penal retribution ; nor does it forbid his feeling a righteous sat- isfaction w^hen that retribution is executed by the appropriate authorities ; but the law of love does forbid his taking retribu- tion into his own hands, and it requires him still to extend the sentiments of humanity and the love of compassion to the enemy's person so long as he continues to partake the forbear- ance of God, which love of compassion will prompt the injured party to stand ready to forgive the element of personal damnum to his enemy, and to perform the offices of benevolence to his person, in spite of his obnoxious character.
Such a discussion should not be closed without repeating the wholesome caution against the confusion of personal resentment wdth moral reprobation. The intermixture of the two in the breast of the injured Christian is perhaps unavoidable for im- perfect man. The temptation to sanctify the inordinate indul- gence of the one under the holy name of the other is dangerous. Hence every child of God under wrong is called to watchful- ness, prayer, and jealousy of himself.
But it should not be concealed that there is also a subtle danger in the opposite direction. The sentiments of righteous resentment and moral reprobation are the great supports in- tended by God for the rectitude, nobleness, and independence of the soul. But when injuries are enormous, and often re-
THE christian's DUTY TOWARDS HIS ENEMIES. 721
peated, there is a terrible clanger lest the very frequency and violence of the impressions made upon this moral susceptibility shall blunt it. Familiarity with -wickedness, even when it is wickedness aimed against ourselves, ever tends to stain the purity of the soul. T\ hen the capacity of virtuous indignation is thus depraved by violent and frequent fi-ictions, aggression comes gradually to excite the mere emotion of abject fear, in- stead of the nobler moral emotions ; and the wretched victim gradually grows as base and servile and unprincipled as he is miserable. Both domestic and public history teem yvith. fear- ful examples of this degradation by submission to ^vrong ; and there can be no more supreme and sacred duty which is owed to God and to himself by the good man than that of protecting his own moral sentiments from this corruption. To resist 's^Tong within the lawful limits, or to evade the power of the oppressor when resistance is no longer feasible, may be the first obligation which man owes to his o^\^l virtue.
INDEX.
Accessions to the church, the danger of spuri- ous, 557, 566. Agricola of Eisleben and antinomianism, 73,
75.
Alexander (A.) on the will, 242.
Alexandrine MS., 394.
Alford on the Greek text. 354.
Altars for sacrifice, when erected, 428.
Amsdorf, Nicholas, on relation of faith and works, 93.
Annihilation and resurrection, 47.
Anthropomorphism, 291, 296 ; essential, 297.
Antinomianism, 73, 83, 178.
Appetencies, spiritual, 245 ; direct the last pre- valent judgment, and thus the wUl, 245, 24G.
Application of redemption, the Campbellite view of, 331.
Armiuianism, 187 ; Hodge's views on imputation charged with, 151.
Articles of religion, the Anglican and Episco- pal, on justification and a holy hfe, 80.
Assurance of faith, what it is, 216 ; distin- guished from assurance of hope, 215.
AsBvirance of hope, the true doctrine of, 177, 216 ; to be sought, 178 ; views of Plymouth Brethren, 173 , the Confession, 175 ; errors of Calvin and early Reformers, 173 ; Christian effort a result, not a cause, 178-180, 181, 182 : fault;; definitions cause of false views, 183 ; distinguished from assurance of faith, 215 ; views of Keformed theologians, 218 ; of mod- ern theologians, 219; the Confessions, etc., 220 ; the Scriptures, 220 ; development. 227 ; Owen on, 228.
Atonement, the, its necessity, 123.
Attributes of God, 50.
Augsbui'g Confession, on free justification, 78.
Babylon, a type of Rome, 627.
Baptism, the Campbellite doctrine, 341 ; proper view of, 346.
Baptismal regeneration, CamiJbelUte doctrine, 331.
Baird (S. J.) on imputation, 259, 275.
Baur and the "critical " school, 449.
Being of God. Breckinridge's demonstration of, 37 ; defective, 38.
Believer, the, and the moral law, 73.
Bellarmin on imputation, 153 ; on 1 Cor. iii. 10- 15, 551.
Beneficence of God, 663.
Benevolence, theory of justice, 469 ; refuted by reason and Scripture, 470: furtherrefutation, 471, 478 ; dishonoring to God and corrupting to man, 479.
Benevolence, the love of, distinguished from love of complacency, 716.
Bengel on the Greek text. 352. 360.
Bentley on the Greek text, 352. Beza on imputation, 154, 161. Bible, the, a rule of duty and life, 17 ; its own witness, 115, 131 ; its claims, 115 : its de- mands, 115 ; the infidel's solution of its power, 115, 118 ; the papist's solution, 116 ; self-evi- dencing, 118 : excellence and truth of its con- tents and proposed end. 119 ; its agreement with the primary beliefs of mankind, 119 ; providence. 120; God's nature, 120; and God's law, 120 ; consistency of, 121 ; its multiplied sources, 121 ; its chief end, 122 ; account of
the fitness of Christ for redeeming work, 123; converging lines of evidence, 126 ; effect upon the Christian character, 127 ; its vitality, 391
Bledsoe's (A.) Theodicy. 139.
Bohemian Confession on free justification, 80.
Bonar's (H.) wrong views on assurance, 74; concerning nature of testimony to new birth and faith, 174.
Bossuet's variations of Protestantism, 219.
Breckinridge's (R. J.) Theology, 29 ; egotism, 30; reviewers, 31 ; grammatical errors, 32 ; bad rhetoric, 32 ; unnatural division of theology, 33 ; division impracticable, 36 ; argument for the spirituality of God, 37 ; argument for the being of God, objections to, 38 : argument in- conclusive, 41 ; argument for immortaUty in- conclusive, 41 ; view of personal identity, 43 ; rebuke of old argument for immortality of man unfounded, 43 ; and accounted for, 43 ; influenced by Locke decries lorertous moral- ists, 41-47 ; view of the resurrection of the wicked. 44; of identity, 44; of universalism, 45 ; incautious statements, 48 ; interpretation of the conclusion of the Lord's prayer, 48, 50; view of Christ's estates, 48 : classification of the divine attributes, 50 ; objectionable, 52, 56; charged with iilagiarism. 56: acknow- ledgment of authorities, 58 ; method of teach- ing, 61 ; theodicy. 66 ; on miUenarianism, 68 ; excellences, 69 ; estimate of his theology, 70.
Building, the scriptural figure, 5j3.
Bulfiuger, Stapfer's indebtedness to, 65.
Butler's (Bishop) argument for immortality, 43.
Calvin (John) on 1 Cor. iii. 10-15, 552 ; on as- surance of faith and of hope, 215 ; his incau- tion, 216 ; his doctrine rejected by the body of the Reformed. 218 ; on imiDutation. 153, 260 : on saving faith, 184.
Campbell (Alexander) on sa\-ing faith, 185 ; pro- posal to remedy the e\'il of " sects,'' 314 ; mis- understanding of unity, 314 ; inconsistency in repudiatiQg " creeds." 316, 322; the foimder of a "sect," 317 ; view of regeneration, 332; of the Trinity, 330 ; repudiates the Old Testa- ment, 327 : holds moral suasion theory, 335 ; denies regeneration in its true sense, 332 ; philosophy concerning faith, 336.
Campbelhsm, its leading points, 314 ; dis- paragement of creeds, 315 ; inconsistency, 316 ; bigotry, 317 ; false claim to be a "broad church,'' 325. 327 ; tolerates Pelagians, Arians, Socinians, Unitarians. Univer8alists,325; doc- trine concerning the Old Testament, 327; the Trinity, 330 ; the apphcation of redemp- tion, 331 ; practical endorsement of the opiis operatum theory of baptismal regeneration, 331 ; moral suasion theory, 335 : design and effects of baptism, 341 ; water justification, 345 ; not identical with the Romish opw; ope- ratum theory, 347 ; not recognized by Pres- byterian Church, 349.
Campbellites, a creed-loving body, 317. (Seg (\impbeUism.)
Carrington (Abram C), funeral sermon, 614 ; personal character, 623.
Causations, redemptive, their order in Calvia- istic and Arminian schemes, 152.
Central University, the literary executor of Dr, Landis, 143.
724
INDEX.
Chalmers (Thomas) and the doctrina of free justification, 75 ; testimony on believers' boastfiilness and zeal, 85 ; conversion after his ordination, 109.
Channing (William), cavil against free justifica- tion, 75.
Chastisement, 207.
Church, the, and the Bible, 126 ; the visible composed of mixed characters, 536.
Christ's mediatorial person. 47 ; humiliation and exaltation, 48 : offices, 48 ; resurrection, 50 ; coming and the world's preparation for, 587 ; and endless punishment, 142.
Christians, primitive, their activity, 588.
Christianity, practical, the power of, 111.
Christlieb's Modern Doubt, etc., 451.
Clement of Alexandria and the Sabbath, 537.
Cognition, God's, immediate intuition, 294.
Commandments, the, binding on believers, 84.
Common grace, there is a true, 25].^
Comparative criticism, 355, 301.
Compassion, God's, 299, 302-'4 ; texts proving, 306.
Complacency, love of, distinguished from love of beneticenoe, 716.
Conativc powers, the, 289.
Confession of Faith, the testimony of to a godly life with free justification, 78 ; on assurance of hope, 175.
Confessions, the Reformed, etc., on assurance, 220.
Conformity to the world, 10.
Conjecture, as applied to determine text of New Testament, 352, 358.
Conscience, Plymouth Brethren's view of its origin, 172.
Consciousness, the Christian, its testunony,222; how afl'ected, 223 ; how tested, 225.
Consensus of Christian people, Hodge's use of, 230.
Consistency of the Bible, the, 122.
Corinthians, exposition of First, iii. 10-15, 551.
Covenant of works, not revoked when Adam sinned, 271 ; and of grace, their relation to imputation, 262, 272 ; illustrated, 263.
Covetou-sness, prevalence of in the church, 12.
Creation, Platonic theory of the, 40.
Creationism, favored by Hodge. 257.
Creeds, repudiated by CampbeUism, 314 ; their necessity and use, 315 ; as a basis of union, 316 ; their utility, 319 ; their advantage as a judicial construction of statutes, 321 : the impUed command to formulate, 321 ; neces- sary to guard doctrinal purity, 321 ; not di- visive, 322-325 ; the result not cause of divi- sions, 324
Crisp, Dr., charged wlh antinomianism, 73
Damned, the, not in a majority, 134.
Darby (John) and Plymouthism, 169.
Death, the Christian's, 602 ; Christ's isresence in our, 610. I
Debt to God, moral, not commercial, 84.
Decalogue, the, and the Sabbath, 499. ]
DeMoor on imputation, 161. I
Deportment of Christians used against doctrine of endless punishment, 658.
Depravity, does it follow guilt, or is it concur- rent with it, 250 ; Thornwell, 264 ; Adam's and Christ's imputation not perfectly parallel, 266-268. (See Iinjnitittion.)
Des Marets on imj)utatiou, 102.
Divinity of Christ proved by Stephen's death, 605.
Doctrinal passages omitted in ancient MSS., 372 ; do not afl'ect the doctl-ines, 374 ; differ- ences and causes, 377.
Domestic piety, revival of, 677.
Drunkenness, effect in the home, 637.
Dying, comfort in, 602 ; Christ's guidance, 610, 620.
Ebionites, the, 525. Economy, principles of Christian, 1. Education, Christian, of paramount import- ance, 691.
Edwards (Jonathan) scouted by Plymouth Brethren, 174 ; on imputation, 258.
Effectual calling and compassion, 308.
Eichhorn rejects supernaturalism, 448.
EUicott, Bishop, on the Greek Text, 391.
Emotion, the religious, 563 ; compaUble with deep depravity, 563 ; accoimted for, 504 ; tes- timony of experience, 566, 570, 571 ; depravity and reUgious emotions, 563.
Endless punishment, 132; belief in, no proof of want of affectionate interest in souls, 133 ; Farrar's argument against, 133 ; denial of based in utilitarian view of God's government, 133, 136; a ]!• io i argument against not iJos- sible to created reason, 141 ; jjroper effect of behef in, 141 ; the arguments against unsat- isfactory, 654 ; doubt not proof, 655 ; men's feelings, 636 ; Christian deportment, 658 ; providence, 662 ; and God's justice, wisdom and goodness, 666.
Enemies, the Christian's duty towards, 700 ; no inconsistency in the Old and New Testaments, 706.
Erastianism in Germany, 442, 453.
Estates of humiliation and exaltation, Christ's, 48.
Eternity of matter, the belief in, 41 ; doctrine disproved, 41.
Eusebius, accused of mutilating the Greek text, 387 ; on the doctrine of the Sabbath, 537.
Everlastmg. Farrar's view of the meaning, 135.
Evidences, internal, of the Bible as God's word, 117 ; its universal diffusion, 119.
Exaltation and humihation of Christ, 48.
Example, power of a holy, 107 ; the gospel's main argument, 114 ; the force of evil, 628
Excuses, for idle, profligate living, 74.
Expediency not God's rule, 102.
Expensive living, attempted justification of, 22.
Faith, its relation to holy character and living, 92 ; to assurance, 171 ; wrested by Plymouth Brethren, 171 ; how true distinguished from false, 180 ; definition of, 184 ; the best unin- spired definition, 185 ; dead, 189 ; test of, 189; relation to new birth, 186 ; to repentance, 238.
Farrar's (Canon)' arguments against endless punishment, 132 ; objections more against Calvinism than against sin. 133; arguments not new, 133 : light estimate of sin, 134 ; mis- representations of orthodox view, 134 ; objec- tion to being called a Universalist, 135 ; dog- matism. 136 ; Pelagian leanings, 136 ; theol- ogy denies God's attributes, principles of the- ology and facts of Bible history, 136.
Fathers', the early, testimony as to the Lord's day, 537 ; grounds for questioning. 538.
Federal imiou, its nature and results, 148.
Feelings vs. reasonings, 656;
Fenelou, 645.
Forgiveness, taught in Old Testament as well as New, 708.
Frederick the Great, simplicity and self-denial, 15.
Free-agency and natural law, 672.
Freedom of the wUl, the, 297.
Free justification, moral efl'ects of, 73 ; objec- tions against lie as much against sacramen- tarianism and legalist, 74 ; the best scheme to produce good works an^l a holy life, 94-106; the theory not Utopian, 105.
French Protestant Confession and justification, 79.
Froude's (J. A.) objections to free justification, 76.
Future, property provision for the, 6.
Gain from evil, 629.
German heresies, Hodge's attention to, 230.
German scholarship), cause for, 440, 441 ; credit given, 445 ; its spiritual atmosphere, 446 ; not always original, 455 ; boast and ambition aa to "new work," 450 ; evil results of this, 457 ; unsettling, 461.
German University system, influence upon the- ological bterature, 440.
INDEX.
725
Gnosticism revived in Plymouthism's doctrine of the two natures, 395.
God, belief in the existence of, an immediate and universal result of human reflection, 119 ; the knowledge of hia existence, Hodge's meth- od, 230.
Godliness, characteristics and power, 128.
Good works, relation to rewards, 8G ; a proof of epiritual life and of a title to heaven, 88-90 ; the fruit not the root of trust, 91.
Gospel, the, proof of the divine origin of, 128 ; its adaptation to excite to holy living, 98 ; its commission, 534.
Grace, the believer bom of. 432.
Graf, quoted by W. Kobortson Smith, 402.
Gratuitous justification exalts the divine holi- ness and the evil of sin, 99 ; a supreme mo- tive for obedience, 103.
Greek text of the New Testament, S.'jO ; methods of determining, 353, 360 ; tampered with, 375, 382, 387.
Griesbach on the Greek text, 352.
Grotius (Hugo) on God's justice, 469.
Guilt and depravity, their relation, 257. (See ImpiUati II.)
Guinness (H. Grattan) and Plymouthism, 170.
Harvest, the fields white to t'ae, 575.
Heart, meaning of tlie worJ, ■-46.
Heathen, are ail lost? 577; arguments from conscience, 578 ; want of renovation, 579 ; need of regeneration, 580 ; immoral lives, 581 ; because ignorance is no excuse, nor can even be urged, 582 ; the Scriptures silent, 582.
Heaven, its essential trait, 93.
Helvetic Confession on justification. 78.
Higher Criticism, theological tendencies of the, 436.
Hilgenfeld and <he alleged forgery of John, 450.
Hodge (Charles.) 143 ; misrepresents tae church's views on imputation, 145 ; views on imputa- tion declare! illogical, unscriptural, ua- churchly, 14i-160; argument from Eom. v. 11-12, 119 ; claim of support from Turrettin unfounded, 1.54 ; exposition of Kom. v. Soci- nian, 160; misquotes Reformers, 161; incau- tiou-i, 163 ; does not receive jiistice from I^an- dis, 165 ; as a debater, 232 ; quietly dogmatic, 232.
Hodge's (Charles) theology, 229 ; general verdict upon, 229 ; chief characteristics, 229, 230 ; ig- nores the usual theistic method of proving God's existence, 230 ; use of philosophy, 230 ; attention t) German heresies, 230 ; points of the author's dissent from, 231 ; view of pri- mary seat of original sin, 231 ; dogmatism, 232 ; misrepresentation of opponents as to the view of depravity, 233 ; agreement with A. Alexander and Dick, 235 ; departure from Alexander, 237 ; on imputation. 253 ; agree- ment with Turrettin and Thornwell, 254 ; on creationism, 2)7 ; holds identity of imputa- tions, 262 ; increases difficulties in answering cavils against imputation, 274.
Holiness essential to heaven, 9d ; its relation to faith, 92 ; what is ? 244.
Holy example, its power, 107.
Holy Ghost, his work, 127 ; prayer to discour- aged by Plymouth Brethren, 20O ; and pre-ad- ventists, 211 ; Campbellite rejection of his agency in redemption, 334 ; place assigned him by Campbellism in the order of redemp- tion, 339 ; symbolized by fire, 555.
Holy life, a proof of title to inheritance, 88.
Hopkins (Samuel) and self-love. 471.
Howe (John) and the hypothetic universalists, 282-284.
Hug, on the Greek text, 353.
Human nature of Christ, 48.
Humiliation and exaltation of Christ, 48.
Hypothetic Universalists, 282 ; Turrettin on, 287.
Ignatius, and the Sabbath, 537. Illumination, relation to regeneration, 235 ; view of Dick, 244
Immediate imputation, 144. (See Tmpntation.)
Immortal.ty, Breckinridge's argument for, 41-43 ; Bishop Butler on, 43 ; definition of 46.
Impunity, mere, not the iaheritance of beUev- ers, but an incident of it, 93.
Imijutation of sin, distinction of mediate and immediate. 149, 2.J5 ; in expiation and justifi- cation unlike that in sin, 149, 262, 158 ; Lan- dis' views charged with popish tendency, 151 ; refutation of the objection, 151 ; the denial of immediate does not savor of the doctrine of inherent righteousnecS, ir>Z; Hodge's view opnosed to the traditional reformed, 160 ; adoption of Hodge's doctrine must modify one's views of justice and sjvereignty, 162 ; ethical relations, 164 ; Hodge's view of, 253 ; the questions it involves, 2)3 ; history of the question, 2.54 ; Plac»us' view, 2j5 ; distinc- tion of mediate and immediate ill-starred, 255 ; not known before Placjeus' day, 255 ; Sta-jfer's view, 258 ; Edwards', 258 ; Baird's, 2.59'; Shedd's, 259 ; Sohn's, 250 ; Rutherford's, •2M ; Calvin's, 260 ; relation to covenant of wor'.is and of grace, 262 ; the imputation of guilt to Christ, 264 ; the identity of the two imputations as held by Hodge, 262 ; cavils against the doctrine, 273, 277 ; Hodge's an- swer, 274 ; ThornweU's, 275 ; Baird's, 275 ; the author's solution, 278-281.
Inconsistency of Christians not unexpected, 128.
Inglia (James) and Plymouthism, 171.
Inspiration, view ofW. Robertson Smith, 403 ; Morell's theory of, 403.
Intellect, is it ijrimarily the i-eat of depravity 7 234.
Introspection, not a sure ground of hope, 177 ; but sometimes gives comfort, 178.
Jackson, Gen. "Stonewall," an incident, 482 ; analysis <.f sermon, 602.
Je:us Christ, the fulness of the character and functions of, 193-125.
Jewi.sh restoration, 211.
Joab's sin, 636.
John's Gospel, erroneous views of its origin, 450.
Judas, the "betrayer, 130 ; his sin, 636.
Judgment day, the, 555.
Justice (and holiness) of God as related to the believer's eanctification, 93 ; vindicatory or punitive, 466 ; declared in paradise, 466 ; the carnal mind obtuse in perceiving, 467 ; vain speculations resist, 467 ; identified by some with disinterestedness, 468 ; scriptural ac- count of, 468 ; erroneous theories of, 469 ; Grotius' view, 469 ; where analogy with man's fails, 472 ; proved by conscience, 474 ; by ne- cessity for future adjustment of awards, 477 ; by inevitable punishment of every sin, 478 ; justice and endless punishment, C66.
Justification, free, moral efl'ects of, 73 ;_ the agreement of evangeUcal churches, 83 ; a meins to an end, 92 ; distinguished from Eanctification, 96 ; relation to regeneration, 267 ; Alexander Campbell's view, 344 ; Owen on, 694.
Justin Martyr and the Sabbath, 537.
Lachmann on the Greek text, 354.
Landis (R. W.) 143 ; estimate of his book, 165.
Legalism, 74 ; what it proposes, 99.
Levitical code, its force, 430.
Licentiousness charged against doctrine of free justification, 74.
Locke's influence upon Breckinridge, 43.
Lord's Prayer, the meaning of its conclusion, 49.
Love of complacency distinguished from love of beneficence, 716.
Luther and gratuitous justification, 74 ; on sav- ing faith, 184 ; on the Sabbath, 446.
Luxuries of life, their tendency, 6 ; motive, 13.
Luxury, the justification of, 19, 23.
Macaulay on Frederick the Great, 15. Malan (Caesar) and Plymouthism, 172. Manichean theory of the origin of evil, 65.
726
INDEX.
Manuscripts of the New Testament, compari- son of the older and more recent, 363-372.
Masoretic text, disparagement of by W. Kob- ertson Smith, 405 ; proof of the value of, 406 ; compared with the Septuagint Version, 408.
Matter not eternal, 41.
Mediate imputation, 144. (See F-nqjutation.)
Mediatorial person of Christ, 47.
Meditation, a means of grace, 643 ; not reverie, 646; a characteristic of the heavenly state, 648 ; Godlike, 648 ; not inert, 649 ; signalized in religions fanaticism, 649 ; in science, 649 ; a source of happiness, 650 ; that of the Chris- tian afl'ords a supreme object, 651 ; in contact with the divine idea, 632 ; needful and help- ful, 652 ; explains the delight in prayer and praisp, 653.
Methodist Episcopal Church and free justifica- tion, 80.
Methods in religion, objections to, 567 ; wrong motives assigned for, 509.
Military vii-tues and renown, 617.
Millenarianism, modern, 68.
Ministers' function in building the church of Christ, 554.
Miracles, 484 ; credible, 673.
Missionary enterprises in early ages, 588 ; pre- sent oxjportunities for, 589.
Mi'iehler's SymhoUsm, 75.
Modern theologians on assurance, 219.
Money not wealth, 24.
Moral effects of free justification, 73 ; the Con- fessions on the, 78.
Moral government, the principles of, 627.
Moral suasion theory of redemption, 335.
Moral truth, its obligation instantaneous and imperative, 131.
Moreirs theory of inspiration, 403.
Moses' books a proper code for civil legislator, 548.
Motive and volition, their relation in God's will, 295.
Motives in predestination, 301 ; howunrevealed, 304.
Miiller (George) and Plymouthism, 171 ; his life and success, 201 ; secret of success, 203.
Mystic, the ancient, 643.
Nature, cannot account for spiritual changes, 127.
Natures, the two in Christ, 47 ; are there two in the regenerate man ? 191 ; disproof of this no- tion, 192-197 ; gnostic, 195 ; false psychology, 195.
Necessaries of life, 19.
New birth, the, 127 ; relation to faith, 186, 236 ; of almighty grace, 482.
New Testament Greek, various readings, 350.
New Testament, the Revised Version, 391.
Nioolaitanes, John's argument against, 379.
Nolan on the Greek text, 353.
Obedience, prompted by free justification, 103,
Offence, tliree elements in, 717.
Offices of Christ, 48.
Old Testament, repudiated by Campbellites, 327 ; the orthodox reasons for accepting, 329,
Omnipotence of God hupugned by Arminians, 286.
Opportunities for missionary effort, 589.
Origen and restorationisui, i.32 ; accused of tampering with the Greek text, 382 ; reasons for, 382 ; Nolan's opinion of, 385.
Original sin, the doctrine of, 143 ; its original seat, 231 ; various theories, 233 ; proof of the author's view, 240 ; Scripture concerning, 246 ; the doctrine mysterious, 273 ; its difficulties, 274.
Ornaments, feminine, 18.
Owen (John) on imputation, 161 ; on justifica- tion, 694.
Pajon on regeneration, 236, 249. Parental responsibility, 676 ; taught in the Scrip- tures, 076 ; proved by the parental relation
itself, 678 ; by the parent's authority, 682 ; by the checks and restraints placed upon them, 686 ; by the power of their influence, 687,
Passive powers, not in God's nature, 287 ; the Confession on, 291.
Patriotism a duty, 614.
Paulus, reliance upon criticism, 449.
Peace Societies, 709.
Pelagian view of faith, 185.
Pentateuch, the ; W. Robertson Smith's views, 405, 421 ; alleged grounds of rejection of parts, 422 ; refutation of these, 422.
Pentateuchal criticism, 405, 421.
Philology, relation to theology, 464.
Philosophy, Hodge's use of, 230 ; prevalency and mutation of German schools, 451.
Pietism, 444.
Placaeus' doctrine of imputation, 144, 254 ; his defence, 255.
Plagiarism, the charge against Dr. Breckin- ridge, 56.
Platonic theory of creaiion, 40.
Pliny the Younger, testimony as to the Sab- bath, 537.
Plymouth Brethren, the, theology of, 169 ; no recognized head, imiforraity or consistency, 169 ; merely a species of prevalent complexion, 169 ; the difficulty of dealing with, 169 ; for- mation of the sect, 170 ; its best qualities, 171, 175 ; its evil quahties, 171, 176 ; exaggeration, 172 ; denies conscience, 172 ; good works, 172 ; use of means, 172; vicarious worth of Christ's sufferings and work, except the pangs of the cross, 172 ; defends Cassar Malan's views, 172 ; denounces J onathan Edwards, 174 ; travesties truth, 174 ; teaches error as to assurance of hope, 173, 176 ; misrepresents Reformed faith and pastors, 176 ; teaches the dual nature in the regenerate, 171 ; has contempt for nomen- clature, 173 ; disparages learning and pious writings, 177 ; inconsistency of this disparage- ment, 177 ; Pelagianism, i85 ; Arminianifm, 187 ; ignorance of Calvinism, 188 ; and of reli- gious exiierience, 189 ; rejjudiates progressive sanctiflcation, 190 ; its theory of regeneration, 190 ; of the Christian Sabbath, 199 ; discour- eges prayer to the Holy Ghost, 200 ; believes Simon Magus saved, 201 ; relation to prayer, 201 ; Pre-adventism, 209 ; the theory refuted. 210 ; definition of saving faith, 215.
Positive and moral precepts, the difference, 498.
Prayer, to the Holy Ghost, 200 ; George Miil- ler, theory of, 201 ; analyzed, 205 ; the jirayer of faith, so-called, 206 ; and its refutation, 206-209 ; reasonableness, 670 ; relation to the uniformity of second causes, 671 ; God's method in answering not a matter of concern to us, 674
Preaching, the gospel idea of, 595 ; impressing a die, 596 ; must embrace Bible topics, 596 ; op- posed to " preaching to the times," 596 ; must not attempt a widpr range than the Bible cov- ers, 598 ; must bo ordinarily expository, 600.
Pre-adventism, 209 ; iiltra views of the Ply- mouth Brethren, 171 ; unfulfilled prophecy,
210 ; ecclesiastical duties, 210 ; dispensation of the Holy Ghost, 211 ; return of the Jews,
211 ; t^piritual mindedness, 212 ; the standards, 213.
Predestination travestied by Farrar, 140 ; not motiveless or unreasoning, 301 ; illustrated, 300, 303, 304.
Promises, relation to justification, 96.
Propension and volition, 293,
Property, God's, 2 ; a trust fund, 2 ; proper use of, 4.
Proposals of mercy, God's indiscriminate, as re- lated to his power, sincerity, etc., 282 ; the objections to human parallels, 288.
Prosperity, secular, a source of danger, 699 ; remedy for the danger, 704.
Providence, God's, 120 ; relation to endless pun- ishment, 662.
Psalms, the, date of, 405, 413, 419 ; W. Robertson
INDEX.
727
Smith's viewa, 413 ; the general faith con- cerning, 415 ; Christ's testimony, 41C.
I>imishment, endless, 132. (See iJndless I'%uiisli- vu'uf.)
Purgatory disproved at Stephen's death, GOT.
Puritanism, a debased, G22.
Quietists, denial of the active powers of the soul, 646.
Eeason and faith, relation between, 162, 165.
Keformed Confessions, the, deny the doctrine of two natures in the regenerate, 194.
Eef ormed theologians' view of assurance of faith and of hope, 218.
Eeformed theology, the, its crvr, 309.
Keformers', the, view of imputation, 153 ; defi- nition of saving faith, 183 ; cause of some of their errors, 215.
Regenerate, the dual nature in, asserted by Plymouthism, 171, 191.
Begeneration, Plymouth view of, 190 ; this view licentious, 191-197 ; the doctrine of two na- tures, 191 ; rudimentally a revolution of the will, 235 ; relation to illumination, 235 ; vari- ous views, 235, 230 ; relation to faith, 237 ; and to justification, 267 ; CampbeUite view of, 332 ; is only of divine power, 482.
Religion, Cicero's definition of, 35.
Religious excitement, sx^urious, 557.
Repentance, relation to faith, 238 ; its true meaning, 238 ; relation to regeneration, 239 ; after death, 136.
Reprobation, moral, as necessary as moral ap- probation, 714.
Resentment an instructive emotion, 711 ; dis- tinguished from moral indignation, 711.
Responsibility, 241.
Restorationism, 132, 139 ; andsemi-Pelagianism, 138.
Resurrection, 46, 47 ; of the bodies of the wicked, 44 ; and annihilation, 46.
Retribution, judicial, gloried in, 714 ; a glory of the divine character, 715.
Revelation, its contents and end, 119.
Reverie condemned, 643.
Revised New Testament, the origin of, 391 ; es- sentially a British work, 392 ; departs from the tfxtns recptus, 392 ; improvements in translation, 396.
Revivals, suggestions for, 574.
Rewards and legalism, 99.
Rice (N. L.) debate with Alex. Campbell, 339.
Rivet (Andrew) on imputation, 153.
Romans v., exposition of, 157 ; Dr. Hodge's So- cinian, 160 ; Dr. Landis', 143ff ; various inter- pretations, 260, 262.
Romans ix. 11 interpreted, 301.
Rosenmiiller, obsolete in Germany, 448.
Sabbath, the Christian, denied by Plymouth Brethren, 199 : Luther's views of, 446 ; nature, design, etc., 496 ; law contained in the deca- logue, 499 ; not repealed in the New Testa- ment, 511 ; grounds for change to first day of the week, 530 ; variety of views and cause for this, 496 ; Westminster Confession, 498 ; bind- ing on all men, 500, 510 ; perpetuity proved, 500 ; coi'val with the human race, 502 ; scrip- tural proof, 503, 507 ; pagan testimony, 505 ; not a type only, 508 ; nor a "sign," 509 : use of the term, " Sabbaths," 510 ; argTiments for its repeal cited and considered, 511 ; refuta- tion, 523 ; direct argument, 524 ; the true cause of troiible in the early chiirch concern- ing Sabbaths, 525 ; necessity for it written in man's nature, 541 ; in man's social and uaoral natures, 542 ; in man's spiritual nature, 542 ; the princiiile underlying the proper observ- ance of it, 544 ; Confession on its observance, 644 , Scripture directions, 644 ; as related to civil law, 545 ; how violated, 546 ; arguments against a civil Sabbath, 546 ; reifutation, 546 ; untenable pleas, 547 ; tenable pleas, 547 ; man's natural constitution requires a weekly
rest, 547 ; natural theism essential to state authority and involved in Sunday laws, 548.
Sacrameutarianism, 74.
Samaritan woman, the, 575.
Sampson (F. S. ) on 1 Cor. iii. 10-15, 5.54.
Sanctification distinguished from justification, 96 ; denied by Plymouth Brethren, 171 ; dual nature in the regenerate asserted by the same, 171 ; progressive, 1H9, 198.
Saving faith, Plymouth definition of. (Also see CamphrU.)
Schafif (P.) and the Revised New Testament, 392.
Scholarship, German and continental, 440.
Scholz on the Greek text, 354.
Srinitia media, 293.
Secular prosperity, a source of danger, 699 : remedy for danger, 704.
Self examination required, 179.
Self-interest not the only or best motive to a Christian life, 86.
Selfishness, a phase of reUgious, 694.
Self-love, relation to the benevolence theory of Gorl'3 justice, 470 ; proof, 471.
Self- Ighteousuess not necessarily involved in confidence of hope from introspection, 182.
Semler, once a leader, now repudiated, 448.
Septuagint, the, compared with the Masoretic text, 408 ; with the Samaritan, 411.
Sequence, not inconsistent vrith God'a simphc- ity and unity, 294.
Simon Magus, his regeneration beheved by Plymouth Brethren. 201.
Simplicity, God's absolute, 289 ; of the Spirit, 290, 293.
Simplicity in living, reasons for, 16.
Sin, God's hatred of and aversion towards, 100; no such thmg as a little, 134 ; God's permis- sion of, 139 ; imputation of, immediate or mediate, 144, (see Imputatiov) ; argument against Hodge's view of, 14i; ; Reformers' views, 152 ; Dr. Hodge's view makes God the author of it, 147 ; and tends to Arminianism, 151 ; what is sin ? 233, 243.
Sinaitic codex, 393 ; claims for its antiquity, 386 ; reasons for repudiating these, 370.
Sincerity, God's, in the general call, 282 ; how impugned, 286.
Smith (Prof. W. Robertson) 399 ; his insincerity, 399 ; his following, 400 ; unfaithfulness to a trust, 400 ; object of his lectures, 401 ; disre- gards and contemns sound criticism, 401, 402 ; disingenuous, 402 ; rejects the supernatural, 402 ; uncertain on inspiration, 403 ; his book untrustworthy, 404 ; dogmatism, 404 ; his po- sitions, 405 ; attacks the Psalms, 416 ff ; ob- ject in this, 419 ; views refuted, 420 ; beheves parts of the Pentateuch to be forgeries, 421 ; pretended e\'idence for, 422. 423 ; criticism in bad faith, 424 ; inconsistency, 434 ; theologi-. cal tendencies, 436.
Soi iniau objection to gratuitous justification, 101; Hodge's exposition of Romans v., 155' dogma of comprehensibUity, 162.
Sohn on imputation, 2.59.
Soldier, the Christian, 1 14 ; his death, C22.
Soul, the. a monad, 233 ; mystic idea of Its origin, 644.
Specialism in scholarship, its evils, 454.
Spirituality of God, 53; Breckinridge's argu- ment for, 37.
Spiritual life, wanting in German schools, 448 ; mystic notion of increase, 644.
Spontaneity, meaning of the term, 244.
Stapfer's Polemic Theology, 56 ; speculations, 64 ; views on imputation, 166, 258.
State and church, their relation, 549.
Stephen's death and comfort in dying a proof of Christ's divinity, 605 : a disproof of purga- tory, 607.
Stewardsliip, 2.
Strauss, David Friederich, 451.
Subjective marks of regeneration, 182 ; depre- ciated by Plymouth Brethren, 171.
Subjective motives and inward striving, 287, 298.
728
INDEX.
Sublapsarianisin, 296.
Substance known only through its attributes,
290. Sirffering of Christ, Socinlan view of the ground
of it, 101 ; the true ground, 102. Sunday, or first day, why substituted for seventh
day, 530. (See Sabbath.) Superstition, Froude's charge of, 70. Supralapsarianism, 162, 295. Surplus wealth, proper use of, 8. Sympathy, as a means of moving to reviva.1,
559 ; proper use of, 560-552.
Tempter, the sin of the, 626 ; in evil example, 628 ; in making gain of sin, 629 ; in corrupt- ing the less guilty, 630 ; in seduction, 631 : enormous because entaUing great mischief, 632 ; injury irreparable, 633; committed under false pretences, 635 ; satanic, 636 ; vain ex- cuses, 640.
Text of the New Testament, methods of deter- mining the true, 353 ; mischievousness of cer- tain methods, 356.
Tcxtus Hfceptm, what is claimed for it, 350 ; its contents, 351 ; its confirmation, 351 ; its reea- tablishment in critical authority, 352 ; its claims for retention, 356 ; the Revised New Testament, a departure from, 392 ; depre- ciated by revisers, 395.
Theism and civil government, and its author- ity, 548.
Theodicy of Breckinridge, 66 ; of Bledsoe, 139.
Theological literature, influence of German University system, 440.
Theology of Breckinridge, 29 ; of the Plymouth Brethren, 169 ; review of it reviewed, 214 ; misrepresentations of the review of review corrected, 214.
Theology, the German, 441 ; reasons for its pe- culiarities, 442 ; the atmosphere it breathes, 446 ; unfavorable to evangelical investigation, 447.
Thomas a Kempis, 6^5.
Thomasites, the, and their faith, 318.
Thomwell's answer to cavils against imputa- tion, 275.
Tischendorf on the Greek text, 350, 354, 360 ; Sinai codex, 393.
Tregelles on the Greek text, 354.
Trinity, the, Campbell's view, 330.
Turrettin on imputation, 154; on asiurance, 219 ; on hj-pothetic universalism, 287.
Tyndall'.i proposed prayer-test, 670 ; unreason- able, 671.
Union, with Christ, 2G8 ; between Adam and his posterity, its nature, JG9 ; Christian, the jiro- per basis of, 316.
Universahsm, unsatisfactoriness of popular arsruments for, 654 ; Breckinridge, 45.
Universalists, the hypothetic, 282.
Variations in the Greek text of the New Testa- ment, 350.
Vicarious work and suflferings of Christ denied by Plymouth Brethren, 1'. 2.
Vindictiveness, the apparent, of the Scriptures explained, 707.
Volition, absence of in God does not imply absence of compassion, 299.
Voluntarinef^s, Christ's essential to imputation of guUt to him, 264.
Warfare not necessarily wrong, 615.
Washington and Andre, 284.
Watson (Richard) 282.
Wealth, its true source, 25.
Wesley (John) views on justification, 81, 82 ; origin of his views, 81 ; testimony to free justification. 83.
Westminster Confession on justification and a holy life, 79.
Wicked, the resurrection of the bodies of the, 44 ; their relation to Christ, 44.
Will, the relation of the, to depravity, 243 ; de- cided by the last prevalent judgment, 244 ; the beUever's, 196.
Willets on ioiputation, 154.
Winebrennarians, the, 570.
Wolf (Christian), history and tenets, 65 ; vanity of his scheme, 67.
Word of God, the, its use in regeneration and the new life, 284. (See Bible.)
World, the, its meaning in John iii. 16 and else- where, 312.
Worldliness. 10.
Worldly amusements, defended by some, 541.
Zinzendorf 8 (Count) relation to Wesleyanism. 80.
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Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Eph. ii. 8
- Jas. ii. 20
- Luke xvii. 9
- Job ix. 30
- Ps. cxliii. 2
- Luke xvii. 10
- Gal. iii. 11
- Titus iii. 5
- Acts x. 34
- Jas. ii. 24
- 1 John iii. 7
- Titus ii. 11
- Matt. xix. 16
- Matt v. 16
- John iv. 41
- John i. 13
- Luke xiii. 23
- John iii. 5
- Romans v. 11-21
- Romans v. 17
- Romans v. 12
- Rom. v. 12-21
- 1 Cor. xv. 22
- Rom. v. 16
- 1 Cor. xi. 28
- 2 Peter i. 10
- Ps. cxix. 6
- 1 John iii. 14
- 1 John v. 2
- 1 John iii. 19
- 1 John ii. 3
- 1 John iii. 22
- John xv. 14
- Galatians v. 22
- Zech. iii. 4
- Rom. v. 1
- Gal. iv. 5
- John i. 12
- Matt. iii. 1
- Gal. v. 17
- Col. i. 21
- Eph. ii. 1
- 1 Cor. vi. 11
- Heb. vi. 1
- Eph. iv. 11
- 2 Peter i. 5-10
- 2 Peter iii. 18
- 2 Thess. i. 3
- Phil. iii. 11
- 1 Thess. v. 23
- Acts xx. 32
- Eph. i. 13
- 2 Cor. i. 22
- 2 Tim. iii. 13
- Prov. iv. 18
- James ii. 22
- Eph. iv. 22-24
- 1 Cor. xv. 46
- Psalm li. 11
- Eph. i. 17
- Psalm xxv. 11
- Matt. vi. 12
- Matt. vii. 7
- Mark xi. 24
- 1 John V. 14
- 1 Thess. iv. 3
- Luke xi. 13
- James i. 5
- 2 Cor. xii. 8-10
- Romans viii. 26
- 2 Cor. xii. 10
- Acts i. 2
- 2 Peter iii. 13
- Rev. xxi. 1-3
- John xvi. 7
- 2 Peter iii. 4
- 1 Cor. ii. 12
- 2 Cor. xiii. 5
- Isaiah 1. 10
- Mark ix. 24
- 1 John iii. 21
- James ii. 18
- Acts ii. 38
- Mark i. 15
- Acts v. 31
- Matt. xxi. 32
- 2 Thes. ii. 10
- Rom. i. 28
- 1 John iii. 4
- 1 Peter iii. 4
- Mark iii. 5
- Eph. iv. 18
- Ps. cxix. 18
- Jer. xxxi. 33
- Eph. ii. 3
- Exodus xx. 5
- Deut. xxiv. 16
- Rom. vi. 23
- Isaiah vi. 10
- Gen. V. 3
- Col. iii. 9
- Rom. vii. 6
- Ps. vii. 11
- Jer. ix. 2-4
- Rom. ix. 11
- Ezek. xvi. 5
- Neh. ix. 27
- 1 Peter iv. 17
- Ezekiel xviii. 32
- Luke xix. 41
- Heb. i. 3
- John xiv. 9
- Luke ii. 14
- John xvii. 6-11
- Rom. ii. 4
- 2 Pet. iii. 15
- John iii. 17-19
- John xvii. 20
- Gal. i. 8
- 1 John iv. 1
- Titus i. 9-11
- 2 Tim. ii. 1
- Heb. xiii. 9
- 1 Tim. iii. 15
- John xviii. 37
- Rev. i. 20
- 1 Cor. x. 1-5
- Acts iv. 12
- Rom. iv. 5
- Gal. iii. 17
- Isa. xlv. 22
- John v. 39
- 2 Tim. iii. 16
- 1 Pet. ii. 6
- Luke x. 22
- John v. 22
- Ezek. xxxvi. 26
- Deut. xxx. 6
- Eph. V. 26
- Matt. v. 8
- Eph. iv. 24
- Col. iii. 10
- Eph. i. 19
- John vi. 63
- 1 Cor. ii. 4
- Rom. viii. 7
- 2 Thess. ii. 13
- 1 Cor. ii. 14
- Heb. x. 29
- 1 John v. 1
- 1 Cor. xii. 3
- 1 Cor. iv. 15
- 1 Peter i. 23
- Prov. xx. 1
- Jer. xxxii. 39
- Luke xxiv. 45
- Acts xvi. 14
- 1 Cor. iii. 6
- 2 Tim. ii. 25
- Deut. x. 16
- Rom. iv. 11
- Gal. iii. 7
- Rom. ix. 6
- Rom. xvi. 26
- Matt. xiii. 15
- Acts iii. 19
- Mark xvi. 16
- Gal. iii. 27
- 1 Peter iii. 20
- Luke iii. 7
- Acts x. 14
- Eph. v. 25
- 1 Sam. xv. 22
- Ps. xxiv. 4
- Matt. xii. 7
- John iii. 10
- Matt. x. 22
- Jas. i. 18
- Mark xvi. 8
- Matt. xiii. 35
- Matt. vi. 13
- John viii. 1-11
- Acts ix. 5
- Acts XX. 28
- 1 Tim. iii. 16
- 1 John V. 7
- Mark xvi. 9
- Acts viii. 37
- Matt. iii. 16
- John V. 37
- Matt. xii. 28
- John viii. 18
- John vii. 53
- John viii. 2-11
- John V. 4
- John viii. 34
- Titus i. 1
- Acts xvi. 31-34
- 1 Cor i. 16
- 1 Cor. xvi. 15
- Matt. xvi. 26
- Isaiah xix. 18
- Deut. xxvii. 4
- Josh. viii. 30
- 2 Kings xvii. 28
- Zech. vii. 10
- Ezra. iii. 10
- Luke xx. 42
- Acts i. 20
- Heb. iv. 7
- Luke xxiv. 44
- 2 Sam. xii. 14
- 2 Sam. v. 9
- Hosea vi. 11
- Joel iii. 1
- Deut. xii. 11
- Jer. vii. 22
- 1 Kings xviii. 32
- Amos iv. 5
- Hos. iv. 10
- Amos v. 25
- Hosea vi. 6
- Ps. li. 16
- Jer. ii. 8
- Isaiah viii. 20
- Ps. xix. 8
- Hosea viii. 12
- Ezek. xx. 28
- 2 Kings xxii. 8
- Deut. xix. 3
- Num. xxxv. 2
- 1 Kings xviii. 36
- Gen. iv. 4
- Deut. vi. 7
- Deut. xiii. 4
- 1 Kings viii. 27-52
- Psalm i. 2
- Zech. xii. 12
- Lev. xvii. 3-6
- Deut. xii. 15
- 2 Sam. vii. 2
- Judges xvii. 18
- Judges ii. 7
- Ps. xiv. 3
- Jer. v. 5
- Ezek. xx. 13
- Amos ii. 4
- Nehemiah ix. 29
- Lev. xxv. 10
- Nehemiah v. 1-12
- Lev. xxv. 9-13
- 2 Kings XV. 5
- Num. v. 2
- Num. xvi. 40
- Nehemiah ix. 14
- 1 Kings XV. 14
- 2 Kings xii. 3
- 2 Kings xviii. 3
- Matt. viii. 4
- Matt. xix. 7
- Deut. xxiv. 1
- Mark x. 3
- Mark xii. 19
- Luke xx. 28
- John i. 17
- John iii. 14
- Num. xxi. 9
- John vii. 14
- Acts iii. 22
- Deut. xviii. 15
- Acts vii. 37
- Rom. x. 5
- 2 Cor. iii. 15
- Heb. ix. 19
- Exod. xxiv. 5
- Luke ii. 23
- Exod. xxxiv. 19
- Num. iii. 13
- Matt. xv. 2
- Gal. ii. 11-16
- Rom. ix. 17
- Exod. ix. 16
- John vii. 17
- John ii. 27
- Rom. xii. 19
- Prov. xvii. 15
- Gen. xviii. 25
- Ps. i. 5
- Ps. v. 5
- Isaiah liii. 5
- Micah vii. 19
- John iii. 6
- Gen. iv. 3
- Gen. xxix. 27
- Gen. 1. 10
- Exod. xii. 3-20
- Exod. xvi. 22-30
- Gen. ii. 3
- Deut. v. 22
- Exod. xxxi. 1
- Deut. v. 6
- Exod. xx. 2
- Exod. xx. 11
- Exod. xxxi. 13-17
- Ezek. xx. 12
- Deut. vi. 6
- Exod. xxv. 16
- Josh. xxii. 26-34
- Lev. xxv. 2
- Lev. xix. 3
- Lev. xvi. 31
- Lev. xxiii. 24
- Matt. xii. 1-8
- Mark ii. 23-28
- Luke vi. 1-5
- Deut. xxiii. 25
- Prov. xxi. 3
- Rom. xiv. 5
- Gal. iv. 9-11
- Col. ii. 16
- Gal. iv. 11
- Luke xviii. 12
- 1 Cor. v. 7
- Deut. v. 13
- Exod. xxxi. 13
- Heb. iv. 4-11
- John xx. 19
- Lev. xxiii. 15
- Deut. xv. 9
- Acts i. 14
- Acts xx. 7
- 1 Cor. xvi. 1
- Matt. vi. 20
- Phil. iv. 18
- 2 Cor. ix. 12
- Rev. i. 10
- Heb. iv. 9
- Deut. V. 12-14
- Ps. xlii. 4
- Mark ii. 27
- Matt. xxiv. 20
- Luke xiii. 15
- 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15
- Acts ii. 3
- Isaiah xxviii. 16
- Matt. xvi. 18
- Eph. ii. 20-22
- 1 Peter ii. 4
- Acts xvii. 31
- Phil. i. 6
- Hebrews xii. 29
- Matt. xiii. 36
- Matt. xiii. 47
- 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 561
- Matt. xiii. 20-21
- Matthew xiii. 52
- John vi. 29
- Acts xvii. 30
- 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 571
- 1 CORINTHIANS III. 10-15. 573
- Acts xvi. 31
- John iv. 35
- Matt. ix. 37
- Mark iv. 20
- Luke x. 12
- Gal. iv. 4
- Isaiah xlix. 8
- 2 Cor. vi. 2
- Rom. ii. 6
- Heb. x. 4
- 2 Thess. ii. 10-12
- 1 Cor. iv. 7
- 2 Cor. xi. 23-27
- 2 Cor. v. 14
- Ezek. i. 18
- 1 John iv. 34
- 2 Tim. iv. 2
- Jonah iii. 2
- Romans vi. 1
- Luke xviii. 7
- John xvii. 21
- John xv. 1-8
- 1 Cor. xii. 11-27
- Eph. iv. 16
- Acts vii. 59
- Matt. xxiv. 42
- Luke ix. 30
- Phil. i. 21
- 2 Cor. v. 8
- Phil. i. 23
- Heb. X. 14-18
- Ps. ciii. 12
- Luke xvi. 22
- 2 Cor. v. 1
- John xvii. 24
- 1 Thess. iv. 17
- Psalm xvi. 11
- 2 Samuel x. 12
- Heb. xi. 34
- Luke iii. 14
- Acts X. 33
- Rom. xiii. 4
- 2 Sam. i. 25
- Rev. xvii. 2-5
- Prov. ix. 12
- Isa. i. 16
- Psalm xxxix. 3
- Ps. xvii. 15
- 2 Cor. iii. 18
- Genesis iii. 1
- Acts xiv. 17
- Ps. ix. 17
- Ps. xxxiii. 5
- Rom. xi. 22
- Ps. xcvii. 2
- Mark ix. 43
- Luke xvi. 23-26
- Luke i. 17
- Luke i. 11-20
- Luke xii. 51
- Malachi ii. 15
- Acts viii. 20
- Acts xxiii. 3
- 2 Thess. i. 7-10
- Matt. xi. 20
- Deut. xxxii. 35
- 1 Sam. xxiv. 12
- Psalm xciv. 1
- Ezek. xxv. 12
- Deut. xxiii. 7
- Job xxxi. 29
- Ps. vii. 4
- Psalm xxxv. 13
- Psalm cxlix. 5-9
- Rev. vi. 10
- Eph. iv. 32
- 1 Cor. iii. 10
- John iii. 16
Volume II Discussions
Introduction
IV CONTENTS.
ifeaternaii relations, 472
The Atlakta Assembly and Fraternal Relations, 503
The Pan-Pkesbyterian Alliance, 528
"Pan-Presbyterian Alliance," 543
The Southern Church and the Presbyterian Alliance, 549
The Dancing Question, . 560
The Sabbath and the State, 594
The General Assembly of 1881, 618
A Thoroughly Educated JMinistry, 651
USES AXD RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.^
IX attempting to perform tlie duty required of me by tlio directors of tlie Seminary to-day, I do not propose to enter into any discussion of tlie general principles of theological edu- cation. The numerous discourses ou occasions similar to this have accumulated a mass of traditionary remarks on this vn.de topic, to -which I could hope to add nothing new or impressive. It will be sufficient to announce, in connection with the pledge which I give to-day, the great cardinal truths which shall ever guide my action as an instructor in this Seminary : that the first great requisite for the Christian minister is fervent piety; and that to cultivate this should be the chief aim of his training ; that there is no royal road to mental improvement, but the faculties are only improved by honest and diligent labor; that the doc- trines, government and mode of worship of the Presbyterian Church m the United States compose the wisest and most scrip- tural set of religious institutions known to us ; that the sacred Scriptures possess plenary inspiration, and are infallible truth in every word ; that to the dictates of these Scriptures, interpreted according to the fair and customary sense of human language, a,ll philosophy, all speculations, and all inferences must implicitly bend; and that the Holy Spirit, to be obtained by constant prayer and holy living, is the only sufficient interpreter of God's word.
It would seem that the practical intention of the authorities of this institution, in requiring such a discourse as the present fi-om their new professors, is this: that the Chui'ch may have some indication and warrant of the manner in which the instruc- tors to whom she entrusts her interest intend to discharge their duties. She has called me, through the electors of this Seminary, to the task of training her candidates for the ministry in Eccle-
'A discourse delivered at Dr. Dabueys Induction into the Professorship of Ecclesiastical History and Polity in Union Theological Seminary, Hampden-Sidney, Virginia, May 8, ISo-i.
Vol. n.— 1. 6
6 USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
siastical Histoiy and Polity. I propose to discuss, therefore, the ^proper uses and results of the study of church history.
The full attainment of those results require certain previous qualifications, in both teacher and pupils. The student must possess a competent knowledge of the outlines of secular history, geogi*aphy, chronology, and political institutions, in all past ages; for these furnish the frame which encloses and sustains the picture of ecclesiastical history. And this knowledge should be acquired beforehand; otherwise he will make an imperfect progress. It is obvious that the instructor must possess this knowledge in a still higher degree. And it may be safely af- firmed that there is no department of human study requiring "wider or more j^rofovind knowledge, and a rarer union of varied talents, than are requisite for him who would be master of the science of history. The study of this science is no dull tread- mill of names, dates, and events, as some seem still to imagine. It is based, indeed, on a multitude of ficts ; but it is concerned with all their causes and relations. For the mere verifying of these facts there must be a combination of extensive and accu- rate knowledge, with patience, impartiality, sound judgment, subtlety, and perpetual watchfulness against the blinding influ- ences of prescription, habits, great names and prejudices. All the faculties which are requisite for eminence in judicial trans- actions are here called into play; for the historian must sit in judgment on a multitude of competing witnesses, and hold the balance of truth mth an acute eye and steady hand. Nor can he seek his witnesses only among compilers and professed his- torians. He must ascend to the contemporary sources of in- formation ; he must know the literature and the spirit of the age he studies ; he must gather notices of the true nature of events from every side, because statements or hints which are collateral or accidental are often, for that very reason, most impartial. The more rigidly he questions the original witnesses for himself, the more will he be convinced that those writers who have pro- posed to compile and digest the materials to his hand have dis- colored or misrepresented the true, living picture of events. De Quincey has said, "Two strong angels stand by the side of His- tory as heraldic supporters: the angel of Research on the left hand, that must read millions of dusty parchments and of pages blotted with hes • the angel of Meditation on the right hand, that
USES AND EESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 7
must cleanse tliese lying records with fire, even as of old the draperies of Asbestos were cleansed, and must quicken them into regenerated life."
The teacher of church history will also have occasion for an ample knowledge of all the theories of philosophy which have influenced the world ; for human speculations have ever had an intimate connection with doctrine, and a potent influence upon it for good or evil. The speculations of Plato and the dialectics of Aristotle infused elements into Christian theology which have ajBfected every age, and are felt to this day in our modes of thought and the errors which beset us. But the Greek philoso- phies were but the progeny of earlier speculations, which were indulged in the remote antiquity of Persia and Egypt; and to know the daughters, we must know the parents. So that we are at once compelled to journey backward to meet the very earliest dawn of human science in that orient realm from which the hu- man race first spread ; and the expanding subject, at its succes- sive steps, gathers into itself everj^ addition which man has made to his philosophy, down to the present day. Indeed, the accom- plished historian must use the audacious and yet subhme words of Bacon when he was preparing himself for revolutionizing science: "I have taken all knowledge to be my province."
And when the facts are thus verified and correctly compre- hended by laborious research and cautious judgment, the mate- rials are only prepared. While some of the deductions from them lie on the surface, and offer themselves necessarily to the most shallow investigation, the complete use of these materials demands the highest exertions of the faculties. The facts to be generalized are the most diverse and varied presented by any science. The problems offer the most numerous and complicated premises. Nothing short of the widest knowledge of human na- ture and the soundest political sagacity will protect from erron- eous classifications and unsafe deductions.
But none can feel more strongly than myself that, in enforcing the high qualifications which church history requires for its study, I have been only illustrating my own deficiencies. If I should permit these remarks to be interpreted into a claim of these qualifications on my own part^ it would be only a display of arrogance and conceit. " I count not myself to have appre- hended." This model of the complete historian is not the stai-t-
8 USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY,
ing jDoint, but the goal, to which the industrious labors of a life- time will perhaps only approximate.
Much is said in these latter days of the dignity and importance of the science of history. We often hear the phrase, " philosophy of history," and perhaps not seldom in the mouths of men who do not know what they mean b}^ it. Many splendid things are prophesied of the fruitfulness and interest which history will at- tain when scientifically cultivated. And many scornful and con- temptuous things are said as to the past results of this study. It would seem that the usual impression of educated men of this day is, that history is a mine, teeming with most numerous and precious gems, into which the mattock of the discoverer has but just penetrated ; a field waving with rich fruits, which are yet to fill the bosom of the hardy reaper who shall enter it with the sheaves of fame and wisdom. Permit me formally to disavow all this boasting vaticination. It is as delusive as to the future, as it is unfair and depreciating towards the past. We will not be held responsible for the production of fruits from our histori- cal studies, so much richer than all that has been gathered hith- erto, as to justify these prognostications. To assert that histori- cal knowledge has been hitherto comparatively barren and un- fruitful betrays an unreflecting ignorance as to the true source of many of the most valuable principles now in the possession of the world, and even of those who complain. And the expec- tation of a sj)eedy harvest, comparatively more abundant and valuable, betrays an equal amount of mistiness in their coucej)- tions of the method by which that harvest is to be reaped. Far be it from tis to intimate that there is to be no more progress and no new fruit. But we are oidy to expect it as the gradual result of pains-taking and long-continued labor. Nor do we deny that there is propriety in the idea of arranging history un- der the forms of an inductive science. The countless and diver- sified y«c^!s of history, like the phenomena of nature, may gradu- ally be coiTectly classified, according to their resemblances and agreements. The general truths, indicated by a multitude of agreeing particulars, may be deduced. The sequence of classes of events on other classes may giiide us to the relation of cause and effect between them. And these general truths and relations may become the grounds of a multitude of instructive and pro- fitable inferences. What we assert is, that much of this has al-
USES AND KESULTS OF CHl'ECH HISTOEY. 9
ready been done, if not in technical form, in actual result, by the reflection of mankind and the labors of previous writers. We hope that much more of this "will be done in future by the grad- ual labors of many hands. But we believe that the complete digesting of history into the shape of an inductive science, and the realizations of all these splendid anticipations of its pro- fessed admirers, will be beset with peculiar difficulties.
One of these difficulties is obvious in this remark : that among the fifcfs of our science we shall find many things intangible and invisible to our inspection, if we take the phrase "facts of his- tory " in that comprehensive sense which is necessary when we profess to make a safe and complete generalization fi"om them. History is the record of the doings of the human race. But, in human affairs, passions, purposes, impulses, are acts, and secret motives are their causes. Many of the data necessary for complete deductions, therefore, are invisible to every eye, except that eye which can search the human heart. The secret operations of men's hearts are among the most important ele- ments of human events, and our synthesis of those events can- not be complete, because our analysis cannot be complete, un- less the annalist of the events could exercise the attribute of the Searcher of hearts.
Another difficulty will be found in the fact that the conditions of events which are externally similar are almost infinitely di- verse, as they occur in the shifting pantomime of human life. A thousand influences, more or less direct, cooperate in ever varying strength and combination to produce resiilts. There is perpetual risk of overlooking or mistaking some of the circum- stances which attend the eventc we seek to arrange.
Nor are we certain that facts are correctly dehvered to us, even so far as they were external and visible to those who profess to record them. Observation shows us that it is no small ex- ploit of integrity and good sense, in the afiairs of social life, to tell a thing just as it happened. And we know that, to have ■v\Titten many and larsre books, and to have much learninii;, is no warrant whatever for the possession of either integrity or good sense. A thousand misconceptions, prejudices, habits of thought, prevent the apprehension, and therefore the record, of events.
We never know that we see the true color and proportions of the past transactions reported to us ; we only know that we see
10 USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
theDi as they appeared to the annalist through the medium of his own mind and heart. And at every stage in the stream of tradition we must expect to find additional misconceptions and errors infused. How can there be an accurate and reliable in- duction from facts which cannot all be accurately verified?
Nor is this obstacle all. Unfortunately, the records of the most essential facts no longer remain. Those things which are the most operative elements of social, national and religious welfare are just the things which historians have been least careful to record. The knowledge of them has, in many cases, perished away for ever from our search. In secular history, battles, sieges, coronations, conquests, treaties ; and in ecclesias- cal histor}', councils and their canons, controversies and anathe- mas, have been the favorite themes of the story. But the food which nations ate, the clothing they wore, their domestic life, the state of domestic discipline, their arts, agriculture and amusements, the method of their devotions, their superstitions, the h^'mns they sang, the preaching to which they listened, the books they most read, the color of the national and social pas- sions, the pecularities of the national spirit ; all these every-day and homeh' influences are the causes which potentially form the character and compose that might}' current of the age on which kings, battles, conquests and conquerors are biit the floating bubbles which indicate its motion. But all this historians have usually left to die with the passing time, as if it was unworthy of the dignity of their drama. And such is the perversity of this misconception, even to the present day, that there are not a few readers of Mr. Macaulay's III story of England who pronounce his invaluable chapter on " The State of England," the third of his first volume, the great blemish of his work. But noAV, all that remains for the enlightened student of the past is, with bit- ter regrets for this blind neglect, to glean those scanty fragments of the precious materials which have floated down to ns as the Avaifs of the stream of literature. What w^ould be the hope of useful additions to medical science from the analysis of cases where the record, instead of carefully reciting the temperament and habits of the patient, the symptoms of the disease, the remedies applied and the issue, should occupy itself with an ambitious account of the alarm and excitement of tlie household, the mes- sages which passed between them and the physician, the hour
USES AXD RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 11
at -^-liicli the liurried messeDger was dispatclied, and tlie speed at which he rode ? It is nearly thus that the true causes, indi- cations and remedies of the diseases of nations have been passed by, to record the external incidents of their catastrophe.
And at last, when all the facts which can be verified have been collected and arranged, the deducing of our concjusions is beset with difficulties. All the disturbing causes which can attend moral and political questions cluster around our deductions. The prolilems of history are just those which arouse all the pre- judices of mankind, and relate to all their contested interests. The controversialist meets here the same odium theologicuin, which would excite him in the polemic field, and the politician the same prejudices which would make him a partisan on the floor of a parliament. Unless we make ourselves almost more than human, we shall, each one, deduce those historical conclu- sions to which our interests and prejudices incline us, from the same set of premises.
And yet, no branch of history has been a fruitless study. There are broad and established facts which have been made the sources of most valuable deductions. The study has borne abundant fruits ; and some of them are all-important to human happiness and progress. And while I would by no means con- vey the impression that it has reached its greatest cultivation and yielded all the results which are to be expected from it, I profess that, if I shall succeed in imparting to my pux)ils only those old and known lessons which church history has taught all along, I shall consider the course by no means useless.
In attempting to point out some specimens of the practicable results which have been derived from chui'ch history, or may be expected from it hereafter, permit me to suggest that we over- look the source of much of our most important knowledge de- rived from history, because of its very certainty and obviousness. These valuable lessons lie so upon the surface of past events, and when seen, are so evident, that all men pick them up, and they use them so habitually that they forget whence they came. And the educated man could not, perhaps, be made to appre- hend how much of the furniture of his mind, and how many of his principles of action, were obtained from this source, unless the whole knowledge of past events were stnick from his mem- ory. Whence, for instance^ does the statesman learn that power
12 USES AND EESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
must have definite limitations, to prevent its becoming despotic ; that its tendency is to absorb other powers to its own centre ? From the history of states. How do we know that republican- ism is better than despotism ? From history. How do we know that presbyterianism is more favorable to true Christianity than prelacy? How do w^e know that prelacy tends to beget arro- gance in the higher and obsequiousness in the lower clergy? How do we learn that prelacy incliites to popery? How that heresy begets moral corruption, and moral corruption social ruiu? All these are the obvious lessons of church history, not j)erhaps of history' ^^Titten in learned folios, but of the record of past events, written in the experience, the traditions or the books of the age. If we extend the definition of history a little, so as to embrace, not only those past events of which we learn from the testimony of others, but those also which have happened under our own limited observation, then the statement will be literally true, that to the lessons of history we owe all our experimental knowledo;e of human affairs.
And except that limited knowledge which our own observa- tion conveys to us, we are indebted to the same source for all our acquaintance with human nature. There are two remarks to be made, which show the importance of that part of our knowledge of human nature and affairs which we receive fi*om the past. If we knew nothing of the transactions of past ages, we should only know those phases of man's nature, and should only have an experimental acquaintance with those affairs which fall under our own limited observation. What a mere patch is this in the great field of life ! He who knows but this, must be a man of most narrow mind. And again : that experience which comes from our own observation is only obtained in any com- pleteness after the observation is finished ; that is, after our race is run, and experience is too late to help us. It is the know- ledge of the past which gives to the young man the experience of age. While yet he retains the energy and enterprise of youth, and it is not too late for action, history guides his acti^dty with the prudence and wisdom of venerable infirmity. It is hers to unite the attributes of both seasons in one person. In private and personal affairs, the force of these observations may not be so distinctly illustrated, because the field is limited, the results of steps taken are near at hand, and the agent himself is the
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 13
person most concerned. Here the narrow but increasing expe- rience of the young man, united with caution, may protect him from all ruinous errors. But public institutions or influences, whose operations are far-reaching, whose right conduct involves the welfare of many j^assive persons subject to them, should never be committed to any man who has not gained a wide ex- perimental knowledge of similar institutions in all former times. The man who undertakes to teach, to legislate, or to govern, either in church or state, without historical wisdom, is a reck- less tyro. His wicked folly is like that of the quack who should venture upon the responsibilities of the physician without hav- ing either seen or read practice. For, a series of human genera- tions constitute but one lifetime of a political or ecclesiastical institution. The incidents of one human lifetime, or one era, constitute but a single "case," a single turn of the diseases of society. And no man has experience of those diseases who has not studied the symptoms and results through many genera- tions.
In this connection no more is needed than to point briefly to the fact that the best arguments against bad institutions are drawn from their history. The readiest way to explode unrea- sonable pretensions is to display their origin. Such an auditory as this need only be reminded that the battle against popery in the Reformation was fought on scriptural and historical grounds. Many of the most mortal stabs which Luther gave to mischiev- ous popish institutions were by simply telling the ignorant world where and when they arose. And when the two hosts were reg- ularly marshalled for controversy, there speedily came forth that great work, the parent of Protestant church history, the Mag- debwrg Centuries. This work, which was little more than a di- gest of the annals of ecclesiastical events, proved a grand his- torical argument against popery, and its effects were so deeply felt that Rome put forth her utmost strength in opposition to it, in the annals of Caesar Baronius. And now there is no better argument against popery than a simple history of its growth. There is no better confutation of the exclusive pretensions of episcopacy than a history of the Enghsh Reformation. Often there is no way so practical and so efficacious to disarm a mo- dern heretic as to prove that his pretended improvements are substantially the same with the errors of some schismatic who
14 USES AND KESULTS OF CHUKCH HISTORY.
lias been stamped with the reprobation of Christendom in ages long past. To affix just reprobation to a wicked thing is often its most effectual punishment.
In accordance with this, it will be found that there is no readier, and, we assert, no juster, mode to silence that shallow and arrogant theology which professes to enlighten the Calvin- ism of New England, than simply to expose, wdthout debate as to its merits, its detested origin, as it may be found, even in its minutest lineaments, in the fragments of Pelagnis, preserved among the works of Jerome and Augustine. Affix to it, as it may be justly done, this name, which has met the execrations of Christendom for thirteen hundred years, and it dies in merited shame and contempt. Let us show, as it may be truly and justly shown, that the rampant Arminianism w^hich reviles our doctrines of grace in these commonwealths is exactly the semi- Pelagianism of the Jesuit Molina, which even Rome, with all her instinctive hatred of God's grace and truth, has never had the hardihood to adopt, audit will speedily diminish its arrogant front.
These illustrations suggest another most important result of historical studies. The most instructive and profitable way to study theology is to study the history of theological opinions. It has been often remarked that he wdio thoroughly knows past errors is best prepared to refute the errors of his own day. There is much less that is new in human speculations than is supposed. The assertion of the royal preacher may be ap- plied to the current of human thought with as much justice as to any other subject: "The thing which hath been, it is that w^hich shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done ; and there is no now thing under the sun. Is there an}i;hing whereof it may be said, see, this is new ? it hath been abeady of old time which was before us." Indeed, we are not surprised that this should be so, since God has impressed a gen- eral sameness upon the hearts and understandings of all the generations which produce these recurring opinions. The his- tory of theology, therefore, is a complete arsenal, which fvir- nishes us with all the weapons of discussion. There w^e shall find in regular array the arguments which were found most ef- ficient to slay the heresiarchs of their day ; and when the old enemies revive, it is our wisdom to grasp those same weapons and burnish them again ; their temper has been tried.
USES AND RESULTS OP CHURCH HISTORY. 15
But this is a familiar remark. It is perhaps more important still to point out the value of the history of opinions, in gi-s-in"" a fulness, maturity and symmetry to our theological knowledge, which he Avho studies dogmatic systems alone can never attain. Tlie dry system only produces a pedant. The union of histori- cal studies with systems makes the true scholar. The former prepares for the forensic defence of our faith the mere disputant, the chopper of logic ; the latter equips the controversiaHst wdth practical, flexible, moderate wisdom. We have here a fact in the great business of education which deserves more leisurely and philosophic discussion. What I am able to say in its elucida- tion will be no more than a hasty hint or two. The diflerence between these two modes of study may be illustrated by the two methods of studying natural history, in cabinets of dried speci- mens or in the fields and w^oods. The former method gives a certain sort of knowledge of plants, trees and animals ; yea, it is necessary. But how imperfect is that man's knowledge of na- ture who stops here ! He must add to his system an acquaint- ance with the objects of nature as she presents them in the colors, shapes and attitudes of life. So, to know any specula- tive science, we must not only define and classify its dogmas ; w'e must see them as they have shaped Miemselves in human minds, and examine them in the relations and aspects which they possessed by their origin. Indeed, I have always found a knowledge of the origin of a dogma, and of the creed and ten- dencies of the man who originated it, invaluable as a guide to its logical affinities and consequences. Relations and results, w^hich fui'nish a complete test of the value or hurtfulness of the dogma, are suggested at a glance by the relations which it held in the parent system. But to trace out those affinities so suc- cessfully by original and independent specvilation would have been a task most difficult, and often wholly baffling, to the clear- est minds. Once more ; by learning how other men have thought and reasoned, we obtain, without going fi'om our studies, much of the benefit of foreign travel, and converse with gi'eat men of different nations. The mind expands and bursts the unconscious shackles of local prejudice and sectional modes of thought.
I may illustrate the importance of history as a school of ex- perience by its warning and purifying effect upon the moral
16 USES .VXD RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
judgments of men. It teaches lis to beware of tlie estimate whicli the seductive brilhancy of present success might entice us to make of the doubtful acts of our cotemporaries, by point- ing us to the end of simihxr acts and principles in others. In the tangled web of Ufa we often see a crooked policy crowned with apparent success, specious but vicious principles of action applauded and leading to the goal of wealth or fame, and sturdy honesty branded with reproach or cold neglect for its opposition. Amidst the tumult of success and a]:)plause, the warning doubt is too often suppressed, conscience is silenced, and the unreflect- ing, unread multitude are seduced first into admiration, then into approval, and finally into imitation. But here, to the mind of the instructed man, history intervenes and forbids the heai*t to be depraved by the example of prosperous vice, or misled by the seeming success of dangerous measures. She lifts the veil of the past and unrolls similar scenes, showing not only the gaudy beginnings, but the gloomy end, to which these principles have conducted. It is hers to show us " the end from the be- ginning." It is hers to correct our judgments and reestablish our tottering rectitude, by setting before us the whole instead of a part, by leading us to contemplate not only the specious summer of prosperity which often shines for a time upon false principles, but also the winter of adversity, in which, in the righteous dispensation of providence, they finally issue.
There is an illustration among the essays of the popular his- torian akeady mentioned which is so apt to this remark that I must be permitted to apply it here. He is defending Sir J. Mac- intosh fi"om the charge of fickleness in his judgments concerning the great Kevciution in France. This philosopher, it seems, when he first beheld the splendid and liberal reforms of the early revolution, hailed it with admiration. When he saw it is- sue in the Eeign of Terror, he repudiated the whole movement with abhorrence. But again, when he saw the firm, enlightened government of the consulate emerge from the sea of troubles, stripped of aU the encumbering remnants of feudalism, securing liberty of conscience and domestic order, founding private rights on the just and liberal laws of the Napoleon Code, he returned partially to his first feehng of approval. This, says his eloquent defender, was not fickleness, but the natural and necessary con- sequence of what fell under his observation. He was like a
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 17
man mIio, travelling in some newly discovered islan 1 of the Sontli, finds a tree loaded with productions of golden hue and seducing fragrance. He plucks and eats, and the taste is equal to the promise of its appearance. Thereupon he pronounces it a delicious fruit. But after a little he is moved with violent nausea, prostrated with weakness, and seems at the verge of death. He recovers at length, but now he retracts his judg- ment and pronounces the specious fruit to be a dangerous poison. But again, upon the more delilierate observation of the succeeding weeks, he discovers that his frame has an un- wonted vigor, and is freed from chronic disorders which had long lurked in it. And now he again reconsiders his opinion, and comes to the final judgment that it is a potent but whole- some medicine.
Xow, to this, the final and connect conclusion, history leads us. By pointing us to similar principles and actions in the past and their ultimate results, it protects us from confounding the errors and vices which are the true poison of society wath its pleasant food, and the wholesome and necessary medicine with its poison. It teaches us to distrust the temjiorary and specious prosperity or gain which attends immorality and error, and tells us, with solemn and monitory voice, to remember, amidst all the clash of unthinking applause, that "the lip of truth shall be es- tablished forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment."
Permit me, for farther illustration, to call your attention to such a lesson of history presented by the records of the French Church. This lesson is to be found in the apostasy of Henry lY. from the Calvinistic to the popish religion. Many apolo- gists have pleaded excuse, cr even justification for this crime, by which he deliberately abjured an honored creed, received from the teachings of a sainted mother, and embraced the profession of a superstition which he secretly despised to the end of his life, in order to secure his crown. He found that the hostility of the League would be invincible as long as his protestantism afforded a pretext for it. Thus argue his advocates : " By this act he only surrendered his personal preferences for the good of his country and his posterity. Becoming a Catholic, he at once disarmed a faction otherwise implacable and invincible. He re- stored peace to a bleeding country, and averted the probable danger of its dismemberment. He transmitted a powerful and
Vol. 11.^2.
18 USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
glorious crown to generations of his heirs; and, above all, he secured to himself the ability to shield his former brethren, the bleeding Huguenots, fi'om the ferocious bigotry of the papists, to whom, if he had blindly continued a Huguenot himself, they must have fallen a prey, in spite of- his useless fidelity. By this compromise he enabled himself to establish the rights of con- science on the basis of the Edict of Nantes, and gave to Calvin- ism a long and prosperous career. Shall an act, so fruitful in immediate and extensive benefits, be branded as a crime?"
History casts her serene eye over the finished tragedy and an- swers unhesitatingly, "Yes; it was the crime of arraying the hu- man against the divine wisdom, and of presuming to find some safer path to follow than the ]3ath of God's commandments."
What the destinies of France might have been, if this impious sacrifice to her peace had not been offered, w^e may not conjec- ture. What fate the righteous ruler of nations might have given them, if the Huguenots had separated themselves fi"om every un- holy alliance and odious conjunction, and had calmly drawn the sword with the resolve to conquer for themselves an honorable liberty, or else to die freemen; if they had said to each other with the sublime composure of faith, "Let us be of good courage and play the men for our people and the cities of our God, and the Lord do that which seemeth him good," Ave cannot tell. But we need not discuss the pleas which are urged to excuse the apostasy. We would willingly agree that no argument should be used but to pass the results of this act in grim review before the royal criminal himself, and let him decide whether those re- sults were worth the sacrifice of his honor and his faith. It re- stored peace to France, but it consigned her to two centuries of despotism. It secured his throne to him for seventeen years; but they were years of toil and danger, disgraced by his licen- tiousness, and they conducted him only to a terrible and sudden death by the dagger of a frantic bigot. He gave the Huguenots indeed the Edict of Nantes, and with it ninety years of existence as a legalized sect ; but it was an existence beset with uncertain- ties and alarms, harassed by perpetual encroachments, unworthy of a noble church, and degrading to its purity, and ending in banishment and remorseless persecution. He conciliated, in- deed, the papal party, but conciliated them by submission, and left their rampant bigotry unwhipped of justice and untamed, to
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 19
crush out tlie light of freedom and truth in France, and plunge her into the gloom of priestcraft and superstition, and thereby into atheism and anarchy. He transmitted his crown to seven successors ; but it was only that they might disgrace their ances- tral name with every foul "excess of tyranny, debauchery, and cruelty, and die by the hand of murder, or amidst the horrors of remorse and the neglect of their accomplices in crime. And one of these successors, perhaps the least guilty, closed his stormy reign upon the scaffold ! And now, in the presence of that guil- lotine and that remorseless throng of anarchists, where the star of the house of Bourbon set in bloody night, let it be decided whether such a race, ending in such a catastrophe, was well purchased at the price of truth and right. Standing beside such retributions of ancient wrong, history lifts her voice with the severe majesty of a messenger from the throne of the Al- mighty Judge, to repeat the lesson, " Be sure your sin will find you out."
Whether in church or state, man's true political wisdom is only learned from experience ; in other words, from history. This is the only source from which any safe light can be ob- tained as to the future workings of proposed opinions and insti- tutions. The workings of the human heart and the relations of human society, are infinitely diversified. To foresee and meet, by original speculation, all the results which will be evolved by the contact of any set of institutions, or principles, with these diversified relations, would be the attribute of omniscience, and not of human wisdom. But there is much of this folly, at this day especially, among our would be wise men, who seem to think that institutions can be invented which shall run of them- selves, like some improved carriage or locomotive, forgetting that their machine must meet diversities of positions and rela- tions in its course of which they can foresee nothing. We have no respect for your constitution-makers, who, like the Abbe Sieyes, keep a warehouse full of institutions which they can furnish to customers at order. We repeat, there have been several instances shown to the world in which men of great speculative powers have undertaken to think out a body of in- stitutions according to the pure dictates of their own wisdom. Such is the origin of Plato's republic, a system of government so absurdly impracticable that fortunately it has been impossi-
20 USES AND BESULTS OF CHURCH HISTOEY.
ble for auy people even to attempt it. The great Locke also tried liis liand at the work and made a form of government for the colony of North Carolina, which, to the cost of the people, was put in operation, and was found to be a most wretched one. "We repeat the proposition with emphasis, that the only politi- cal wisdom which is worth having, is that of historical experi- ence. And we repeat the reason, that the conditions nnder which any proposed new institution will have to act in the fu- ture will be endlessly diversified, and hence it is wholly beyond the province of human speculation to foresee by its own efforts all the numberless exigencies which may arise out of the work- ings of the institution upon these new relations. Man has no pole star and no compass, by which he may boldly break away from the track of experience and navigate the ocean of the fu- ture. The province of his wisdom is to follow the ways explored by previous voyagers, and only to venture into the uncertain storms of the untried so far as the light of the past is reflected forward upon it. All the safe and successful progress which has been made in human institutions has been from changes made under the guidance of history. The spirit of English re- form has been eminently historical. Her statesmen have ever looked for the guidance of prescription ; have retained all old and tried institutions with tenacity, and where they have altered have done it with strict regard to the lights of the past and the forms previously established. The same spirit marked the meas- ures of the wise fathers of our nation. They took their lessons from the past. The liberty and the rights for which they con- tended were the prescriptive rights of British freemen. Even in passing from monarchy to republicanism, thej removed no- thing which was not incompatible, and built the new structure of their commonwealths upon the old historical foundations, which were fixed in the habits and national associations of their people. But we have an illustration of the other more ambi- tious wisdom and its ruinous results, in the policy of the leaders of the first revolution in France. These men discarded the lights of the past, because their past history was only hateful to them for its oppressions and disgraces, and their literary taste preferred to the sober voice of a Thucydides, Polybius, and Tacitus, a Moses and Ezra, the fantastic pictures of a Plutarch, and other speculators like him, who, though born the slaves and
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 21
living as the sycophants of despots, babbled about a liberty of which they knew nothing, and of which they were unworthy. The reyolution announced its mission as one of destruction to the past, to its abuses, its principles, and even its recollections, and of new and independent creation for the futiire. They dis- dained the safe and gradual reform of institutions tried, and known because tried, but partially perverted. They swept all away ; and proceeded to reconstruct on the basis of their own airy speculations. The very names of government were studi- ously changed. The old departments of France, whose bounda- ries had once marked the marches of independent kingdoms and languages, and were embalmed in the associations and very speech of the people, and in many cases defined by nature her- self, were replaced by arbitrary rectangles which made France the resemblance of a chess-board. And the result was, that they found they had created a machine whose unexpected action smote down and crushed its inventors. They had unchained a maniac whom they knew no charm to tame. Their reforms only ran a career of self-destruction, and left France exhausted by anarchy, war, and new despotism, to begin again the work of renovation.
We shall be wise, therefore, if we hearken to the striking in- struction of these instances, and make it oui" method to submit with modesty to the sober teachings of the past in all our legis- lation for the future.
Permit me to suggest another especial reason for giying prom- inence to the history of the church in our plans of education at this time. This reason is to be found in the neglect of such reading, and the ignorance of the potency of the rehgious ele- ment in public aliairs, which prevail among our legislators. The time was when enlightened statesmen were aware of the fact that they, their measures and their institutions, were but the driftwood upon the great current of moral influences which per- vade the nations, indicating its direction and power. They were aware that rel/'fjiori is the great mistress of these influences, for good or for evil. They studied reUgion and its institutions as the prime learning of the statesman, and counted the ability to avail themselves of I'ehgious elements the right arm of their strength. But these things are changed in this self confident generation. Men spring up into legislators and rulers fi'om the
22 USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
farm, the work-shop, the counter, or the bar, scarcely knowing that there are great religious questions of centuries' gi^owth work- ing in the very fibres of the hearts of nations. Thej put forth a rash hand to the springs of a nation's energies in ignorant un- consciousness of the tremendous powers with which they tamper. But a few years ago the legislators of this very commonwealth were on the verge of introducing into our laws, in a subtile but most mischievous form, the gi-eat principle of mortma'in. Others of our commonwealths have abeady admitted it under limitations which are melting away with every generation. Did they know that this principle was the most fatal legacy of Constantine to the church of the Eoman Empire; that when once admitted, it must inevitably shake off all control, and absorb every thing to itself by the very laws of the human heart : that it was this which corrupted, as it ever will corrupt, the Christian ministry, and made popery possible ; that this principle had transferred one- third of the soil of France, and half of the soil of Denmark, Sweden and Scotland, at the Reformation, into the insatiable maw of ecclesiastical corporations, converting their clergy from the active ministers of a holy religion into the incubus of the state, the corrupters of public morals, and hordes of impostors, rakes and drunkards? No; they knew nothing about it. All unconscious of the ine'S'itable mischief, they were about to do an act, as they supposed in the spirit of a commendable liberality, which would, in future ages, have marked their day as one of the blackest among the dies nefasti of Virginia. And now, what do we behold? Our ]Doliticians are seen "currying favor" with popish hierarchs, and bending their policy, even while sworn servants of the American constitution, to catch popish votes. Little are they aAvare, that in all this they are but dallying with the mighty paw of the Apocalyptic beast, which nurses a na- tural, a necessary, an immutable enmity to all that is distinctive in that constitution, and only " bides his time " to rend it and them in pieces. They know not that popery has been, ever since the Reformation, and must ever be, the embodiment of aU the elements of hostility to human rights. They do not under- stand that the question between poper}- and Protestantism is everywhere the same with the question between despotism and civilized progress ; and that, from the sixteenth century forth to the great millennial consummation, there is but the one mighty
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 23
issue to be tried on the arena of CLristendom, and but the one plot which runs through all the remaining acts in the drama of European affairs, and that this issue is the one between the Bible and Rome. No. They do not know the history of the church. And hence the necessity that these great lessons of the j^ast shall be everywhere studied, everywhere discussed. Hence the importance of expanding by them tlie minds of educated men in all professions.
The history of the church and of the world, regarded as a whole, is but the evohitiou of the eternal purpose of that God who "worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Deep in the secrets of his own breast is hid the united plan, fi'om which the pattern is gradually unfolded on the tangled web of human affairs. As that decree is one, so history is a unit. And as God gives no explanation of his purpose, except by its unfolding, the great whole cannot be fully understood until it is completed. Revelation gives us the key to unlock the meaning of many parts, and it has told us what is to be the final result. Hence we may derive two truths : one is, that no man l)ut the believer is capable of understanding the philosophy of history. He who learns from the Scriptures, and he alone, can possilily understand the meaning of events or interpret them aright. Your infidel historian must needs l)lunder on in Eg^'p- tian midnight. The other is, that the science of history will only attain that philosophic completeness which some have de- sired and prophesied for it, after the course of human events is ended. We are now in the position of soldiers in some mighty host, moving in many detachments to eft'ect the destined evolu- tions of a great commander who overlooks the whole field from a separate point. Wrapped in the smoke and dust of our ovra conflict, we comprehend little of the great design, and are pushed on in many movements of which we cannot guess the intention. Sometimes, perhaps, we imagine that we are bearing an undue share of dangers and hardships for no adequate purpose. Some- times we complain that we are left in useless inacti^-ity ; and sometimes the lifting up of the battle cloud, or the distant huzza of our lirethren in arms, reveals to us that a partial victory is won. But it is only after the field is fought, as we review it in the leisure of our triumph, that we will understand the comph- Gated whole and appreciate the perfection of the plan.
2-i USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY.
There are parts of the great design "u-liieli we are able to read in the unfoklings of Providence, and we learn from them that the elements are gradually conspiring to the final triumph, and that, subsidiary to the main movement, God is accomplishing many beneficent effects, and chastising nation after nation for apostasy or idolatry. Already we can see why it was that God did not permit Mohammedanism to overwhelm the Christi- anity of the East as long as it was worthy of preservation, and w^hy he made the infidel invincible by all the efforts of popish Europe in the Crusades. It was that the Mohammedan power might be at hand to divert Rome from the murderous design of trampling out the life of Protestantism, and might thus act as the unconscious protector of God's cause. And it was that these fair and teeming regions of the East, the centres of ancient civil- ization and power, might be kept from the clutches of Eomauism until Protestantism should be strong and adventurous enough to possess them. "We can even now understand why Wolfe con- quered before Quebec, and the fair domain of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi was transferred from France to England. This event substantially transferred the continent from Pvome to Protestantism, There Avas a youth of fiery passions and energy in Hindostan in the last centuiy who was once on the verge of suicide; but Providence diverted the design. He entered the military service of the infant East India Company, then strug- gling weakly against the superior arts and arms of France. Again he was on the verge of engaging in the Avar of the Ameri- can Revolution, but by an accident was detained in India. These two providential incidents gave to India Lord Clive, the successful opposer of the French in Hindostan, the victor of Plassey, the founder of the splendid dominion of Britain in the East. And at the same time they detained out of America a man who, by replacing sloth and incapacity with genius and biirning activity, might have turned the doul)tful scale of Avar against us. Thus, then, did God probably decide that America should be independent and republican, and that the mighty East should fall under the control of a Protestant instead of a popish power. In all these instances we see that the means are gradually prepared to install Messiah as King of kings.
And again, there are stages in the drama at Avhich a resting point is reached, and one part of the plan is as it were completed.
USES AND RESULTS OF CHURCH HISTORY. 25
From such a stage we may look back aud comprehend much of the preceding events. Such a point was the Christian era, pre- eminently, when all the results of four thousand years conspired to bring in that " fulness of time " which was needful for Christ's appearance, aud all the moral influences of the civilized nations seemed to arrange themselves in a solemn pomp around Judea as the centre, the oaicalo- of the world.
Yet, when we comprehend these things, we only catch glimp- ses of the divine meaning. " These are parts of his ways, but the thunder of his power who can understand ?" To compre- hend fully the intent of the divine dealings, to read the vast plot fi'om its inception to its consummation, this must be one of the studies of heaven. When we look back thence upon the field fought and won, when we have before us the finished whole, and above all, when we have the tuition of him into whose hand " all power in heaven and on earth is given," to explain to us the eternal plan, then Ave shall know fully what is the teaching of history.
And here, fathers and brethren, you will all assent that I have bestowed upon my science the most magnificent encomium which is possible, when I have said that the history of the church is one of the studies and enjoyments of heaven. But is it not true ? Here, then, let me stop, only repeating the expression of unfeigned diffidence with which I assume a department of in- struction demanding for its most successful treatment universal scholarship aud a mind whose imperial powers unite the saga- city of tlie statesman with the epic vision of the poet. I am well aware that such an undertaking cannot fail to result in a hfe-long sense of deficiency. Let it be mine to feel this sense as a stim- ulus to the greater diligence. And above all, I would seek the guidance of him whom we expect to be our teacher in heaven to unfold the divine dealings. May my historic muse be that 230wer invoked by Milton :
"And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all shrines the upright heart and pure, Instruct me ; for thou knowest. Thoii from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread, Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, Aud madest it pregnant. What in me is dark, Illumine ; what is low, raise aud support ; That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal providence, And justify the ways of God to men. '"
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY!
THE clmrcli has ahvays held that none should preach the gospel but those who are called of God. The solid proof of this is not to be sought in those places of the Scripture Avhere a special divine call was given to Old Testament j^rophets and priests, or to apostles, although such passages have been often thus misapplied. Among those misquoted texts should be reckoned Heb. v. 4, which the apostle there applies, not to ministers, but to priests, and especially Christ. The call of these peculiar classes was extraordinary and by special revela- tion, suited to those days of theophanies and inspiration. But those days have now ceased, and God governs his church ex- clusively by his providence, and the Holy Spirit applying the written Scriptures. Yet there is a general analogy between the call of a prophet or apostle and that of a gospel preacher, in that both are, in some form, from God, and both summon men to a ministry for God. The true proof that none now should preach but those called of God is rather to be found in such texts as Acts xx. 28, "Take heed . . to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers " ; 1 Cor. xii. 28, etc. ; and in the obvious reason that the minister is God's am- bassador, and the sovereign alone can appoint such an agent.
What, then, is the call to the gospel ministry? Before the answer to this question is attempted, let us protest against the vague, mystical and fanatical notions of a call which prevail in many minds, fostered, we are sorry to admit, by not a little un- scriptural teaching from Christians. People seem to imagine that some voice is to be heard, or some impression to be felt, or some impulse to be given to the soul, they hardly know what or whence, which is to force the man into the ministry without rational or scriptural deliberation. And if this fantastic notion is not realized — as it is not like to be, except among those persons of feverish imagination who of all men have least business in the pulpit — the young Christian is encouraged to conclude that
26
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MIXISTRY? 27
he is exempt. Let the pious young man ask himself this plain question, Is there any other expression of God's %yill giyeu to us except the Bible? Where else does God authorize us to look for information as to any duty ? The call to the ministry, then, is to be found, like the call of eyery other duty, in the teach- ings of God's reyealed word. The Holy Spirit has ceased to giye direct reyelations. He speaks to no rational adult now through any other medium than his word, applied by his gra- cious light to the understanding and conscience. To look for anything else from him is superstition. While the call of pro- phets and apostles was by special revelation, that of the gospel minister may be termed a scrij^tural call.
What, then, is a call to the gospel ministry ? We answer, it is an expression of the divine iclll that a man should preach the gos- 2)d. To this another question succeeds. How does God now giye a man that expression of his -v^-iir? We answer, he does it thus : by enlightening and influencing the man's conscience and understanding, and those of his Christian brethren, to under- stand the Bible truths and the circumstances and qualitications in himself which reasonably point out preaching as his work. The full and certain call to the ministry is uttered by the Holy Spirit, both to the candidate himself and to the church. The me- dium of its utterance is God's dealing with the candidate and the principles of the ^Titteu Scriptures. The object of these remarks will be secured by explaining the aboye definition in a series of particulars.
1. First, then, a call to preach is not complete until the Holy Spirit has uttered it, not only in the Chidstian judgment of the candidate himself, but in that of his brethren also. Their minds, taught of the Holy Ghost, and inspired by him with spiritual principles and aftections, recognize in the cantlidate a "brother beloyed," fitted by his spiritual gifts for the ministry, and their utterance of this judgment is a part of his yocation. Sometimes, as in the case of Knox, the brethren anticipate the candidate's own conclusion in uttering this call ; usually they follow it by uttering it after he has acted so far on the probable e^ddence of a call found in his own Christian judgment as to prepare himself to preach. And it is manifest that the candi- date must necessarily, in common cases, proceed so far as his preparation on the incomplete eyidence he finds in himself.
28 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTKY ?
greatly confirmed, indeed, hy the advice of individual hretliren, because the church cannot usually judge his pro].)nble call until he jDrepares himself.
2. The principles of Scripture which the Spirit will employ to instruct him and his lirethren as to the divine will are sucli as these: That "it please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe," (1 Cor. i. '21 ; Rom. x. 14). That every man is bound to render to God the highest service and love which his circumstances and capacities admit, (Deut. vi. 5 ; Matt. xxii. 37). That "we are not our own, for we are liougiit Avitli a price, and must therefore glorify God in our b(^dies and spirits, which are his," (1 Cor. vi. 20; Rom. xiii. li. That "whether therefore we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, M'e must do all to the glory of God," (1 Cor. x. 31 ). That the work of him who is permitted to preach the gospel is of all others most excellent, (Titus iii. 1 ; Jas. v. 20; Dan. xii. 3). And that every Christian has been redeemed from his sin and death by the Saviour, for no other purpose than this, that he shall be that, and do that, by which he can best glorify his Lord, (Acts xxvi. 16; Eph. i. 6). These Scriptures, and a hundred others, plainl}- teach that the only condition of discipleship permitted by Christ to any lieliever is complete self-consecration to his service. In this the self-devotion of the minister is just the same as that of all other true Christians. If a Christian man proposes to be a teacher, physician, lawyer, mechanic, or farmer, it must be, not chiefly from promptings of the world or self, but chiefly because he verily believes he can, in that calling, best serve his heavenl}' Master. If he hath not this consecration, we do not say he is unfit for the ministry only, he is unfit to be a disciple of Jesiis Christ. If any man think this standard of dedication too strict, let him understand at once that he is " not fit for the kingdom of God ;" let him reliucpiish his delusive hope of sal- vation; let him at once go back among the dark company of Christ's enemies, on the ground scathed and riven by the light- nings of his wrath, and under the mountainous load of all his sins unatoned and unforgiven. There is no other condition of salvation. For did not Christ redeem the whole man ? Did he not purchase with his blood all our powers, and our whole en- ergies, if we are his disciples? We profess to desire to love him with our whole souls, and therefore what reason is there
■WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY? 29'
whicli demands a part of the exertion and service in our power wiiich does not also demand the whole ? That professor of re- hgion who contents himself with exerting for his Savionr a j^or- tion only of the efficiency for which his capacities enal)le him confesses himself a hypocrite. The mo<7i<-u)ii of religions effort which he renders is not truly rendered to Christ, but to self- righteousness, or to a guilty conscience, or to public opinion. Had the motives which exacted this partial service been genuine, they would assuredly have exacted the whole. Let every young Christian heed this solemn truth, and the question of the minis- try will be relieved of its indistinctness ; for then the question of the profession in which he shall serve God will be seen by every Christian to be only the relative one as to his own capacities and the demands of God's cause at that time.
This leads us to add another important class of texts b}' which the Holy Spirit will inform the judgment, both of the candidate and his brethren, as to his call. It is that class in which God defines the qualifications of a minister of the gospel. Let every reader consult, as the fullest specimens, 1 Timothy iii. 1-7; Titus i. 6-9. The inquirer is to study these passages, seeking the light of God's Spirit to purge his mind from all clouds of vanity, self-love, prejudice, in order to see whether he has or can possibly acquire the qualifications here set down. And his brethren, under the influence of the same Spirit, must candidly decide by the same standard whether they shall call him to preach or not.
3. Our definition of the call to preach asserted that God would make known his will to the candidate and to his brethren, not only through the medium of the Scriptures, liut also of out- ward circumstances and qualifications viewed in the light of Scripture truth. Much has been said by Christians concerning "the leadings of providence," touching the duty of preaching and many other duties. And not a little nonsense, with perhaps some profanity, has been uttered on this subject. It is true that everything which befalls us is determined by God's special pro- ' vidence, for which reason we justly conclude that, in many cases, an occurrence, after it has happened, is a real expression to us of God's will. But there is another truth, that the designs of God's special providence are chiefly reserved among the awful secrets of his own fathomless wisdom. He forbids us to attempt
30 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ?
to surmise liis secret purpose from the apparent tendencies of his sovereign deahngs, and pointedly remands us " to the law and the testimony " for our practical guidance. The light which " providences " cast upon the question of God's will as to our conduct is chiefly cast backward on the past, not forward on the future. The man who attempts to frame the " leadings of providence " into an indication of duty, instead of resorting to his revealed will, is often in danger of wickedly intruding into those secrets which belong to the Lord our God, and of jDrofanely foisting the selfish leanings of his own inclination upon the Holy One as the teaching of his acts.
There are, indeed, certain dispensations of providence which, in the light of the word, do clearly reveal God's will. If he has deprived any man of the health, the voice, or the knowledge, without which he cannot possibly preach, and has made it abso- lutely impossible to acquire or regain them, or if he has sur- rounded a man with clear, unavoidable duties which cannot possibly be post])oned or delegated, and which are clearly in- compatible with the ministry, here is indeed a sure expression of the divine will that he may not preach. But it has often been said, in well-meant treatises on the call to the ministry, that a Christian may know whether God designs him to preach by the providential facilities which open, or hindrances which seem to bar, the entrance into the sacred ofiice. This rule is to be accepted with many " grains of allowance." If God has fa- cilitated the acquisition of the suitable learning and the other means for preaching, it does indeed present a probable evidence that the jDerson may be called. But the converse is not true. If circumstances have hedged up the young Christian's access to the ministry with obstacles, difiiculties, hardshijDS, we freely admit that all these are determined by God's special purpose and providence. But we do not hioio viliat God vieans Jjy them. He has not told that young Christian whether he means to tell him thereby that he must not preach, or whether he means it for " the trial of his faith, that being much more precious than gold that perisheth, it may be found unto praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Let that man, therefore, take heed how he presumptuously misinterprets a providence which God has not authorized him to read at all ; let him turn to the Bible and to prayer. How plausibly might the great
^YHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY? 31
apostle have argued after the modern fashion when he met ship- wreck, seourgiugs, prisons, stoning, wanderings, neglect, poverty in the prosecution of his ministry, that " the leadings of irrovi- dence clearly indicated he was not called to a foreign mission !" But he argued no such thing ; he knew better. He said, "None of these things move me ; neither count I my life dear, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I re- ceived from the Lord Jesus." Does the reader object that Paul had a revealed call, but we common mortals must judge by just these providential events, which he properly disregarded ? Let us take then the case of Dr. Wm. Carey, the great Baptist mis- sionary to Hindostan. When he first began to seek his duty, a poor shoemaker with a growing family already upon his hands, without classical learning, without money, without patronage, with the power of the East India Compau}^ so arrayed against the gospel that it was forbidden to all their ships even to carry a missionary across the ocean, might not he have plausibly con- cluded, according to this argument, that " the leadings of pro- vidence " were against him ? But who can now doubt that he was called of God, first to become a preacher of the gospel, and then to begin the Serampore mission ? By this cowardly argu- ment Washington would have judged the " leadings of provi- dence " to be against the cause of his country. But why men- tion the ten thousand cases in which history shows us the noblest enterprises were conducted to success, with the final blessing of providence, as no one now doubts, only by braving obstacles almost insuperable ? If, then, the young Christian is surrounded with outward hindrances, it is his duty to ask : " Is it possible for me lawfully to conquer them by the most strenuous exertions of my best faculties, nerved by deathless love for Christ ?" If it is, then it may be his duty to preach.
4. The Scriptures which define the necessary qualifications of the minister may be digested in substance into the following particulars: He must have a hearty and liealtliy piety, a fair re- imtation for Iwliness of life, a respectable force of character, some Christian experience, and aj)tness to teach. Let us repeat the re- mark that these particulars are given by the Holy Spirit as a rule by which the church is to judge in calling, as well as the candidate in obeying the call. And let us remark also, with emphasis, once for all, that the young Christian, in concluding
32 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY?
whether he possess these qiiahfications, should attach miich weight to the opinion of judicious Christian friends, yea, even more than to his own, because men are often more in the dark, by reason of self-love, concerning their own characters, than their acquaintances.
The first requisite is pieti/. All Protestants are agreed that it is preposterous to set that man to expound the gospel who neither understands, nor loves, nor believes it. And the weighty responsibilities and cares of the minister require that his piety should be, if not eminent, at least of a vigorous and healthy type. But here the yoiiQg Christian should take heed to an important distinction. As far as the church and its officers are concerned, it is perfectly just that they should refuse to call or ordain one whose piety is not hearty. But it by no means fol- lows that he may excuse himself from the duty of preaching be- cause he is conscious his piety is low. If he reasons thus he insults God; for how comes it that his piety is low, except by his own fault? Is not the mercy seat open to him, at which he may obtain increase of grace if he wiU seek? Those states of feeling and principle which stamp his piety as feeble are every one SINS ; and so is that neglect of pra^-er and means by which his grace has been stinted. It is his duty to be an eminent Christian; yea, a perfect Christian. Now, woe to that servant who obtrudes against his Master one transgression as a justifica- tion for a second ! It is adding insult to rebellion. And if a man feels that he has not grace enough to preach, he should ask him- self whether he has grace enough to serve and please God in any other calling, grace enough to die with, or enough to enable him to enter the awful world of spirits, and stand in an awful judgment. To such a man we solemnly say : there is but one thing you can do, if you would not outrage your God, grieve the Holy Ghost, and run an imminent risk of sealing your own damnation. Do not, indeed, enter the ministry with feeble piety, but at once seek and obtain a hearty piety, in order that you may properly enter the ministry, if it is God's wall. In one word, the fact that one's piety is low cannot prove it is not his duty to preach, because he knows it is his immediate duty not to let his piety remain low. That fact is, on the other hand, sufficient evidence to his Christian brethren that, if he viU not do his duty in seeking more eminent piety, they ought not to call him.
WHAT IS A TALL TO THE MINISTRY ? 33
In this connection may be best mentioned another quahfica- tion, on -which some pious writers have said much, and some- times very indiscreetly. It is the possession of a strong desire ; the necessity of which is argued from 1 Tim. iii. 1. "If a man desire the office of a bishop (pastor), he desireth a good work." It is obvious that such an inference from this passage might be easily pushed too far. The same distinction applies here which has been stated in the last paragraph. Of course, the church ought not to entrust the ministry to a man who has no heart to work. The true minister must, of coui'se, have a desire to see souls snatched from hell fire, truth upheld, sin curbed, the hap- piness of true religion diiiused, and the Holy Trinitv glorified in the redemption of transgressors. These are the grounds, the motives, of that desire which he feels to preach, if he may right- fully do it. But are not these feelings common, essential, to all true Christians? Does not the absence of them place a very black mark on any man's piety? The church, therefore, in judging a candidate's fitness to be called, will be influenced by his possessing this kind of desire, just as they will by his pos- sessing a healthy piety, and for the same reasons. Hence it is that our "Form of Government" very properly requires the can- didate for ordination to answer. Yes, to this question : (See Form of Government, Ch. YL, Sec. V., Qaes. 5.) "Have you been induced, as far as you know your own heart, to seek the office of the holy ministry from love to God, and a sincere desire to pro- mote his glory in the gospel of his Son ? "
But how foolish and mischievous is the j)erversion of this scriptural truth to argue, as some have seemed to do, that, there- fore, if a young Christian does not feel an ahidrng and strong de- sire for this special work, he ought io conclude that he is not called? Is it so, forsooth, that if a man, to whom God has given the capacities and opportunities to do a certain laborious work for His glory, feels himself sinfully reluctant to it, because of a selfish and cowardly fear of its toils and self-denials, or because of a false and wicked shame, or because ambition and covetous- ness rather impel him to a different calling, he may, therefore, conclude that he is exempt from all obligations to it? Nay, verily. It is that man's duty to repent immediately of this his reluctance, and to cnicifv it, for it is sin. How can a man be what every Christian ought to be, except he earnestly desire
Vol. n.— 3.
34 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY?
God's glory in the salvation of souls? But the minister can iisuallv do more, caeteris lyarlhus, for this cause than the lay- man; so that every true Christian on the earth, young and old, male and female, ought to feel, with reference to the work of preaching, that he would be glad to preach if God permitted him. Away with the notion that the young man is not called to preach unless he hath fallen in love with this special work, in some senseless and unaccountable manner, as though pierced with the invisible arrow of some spiritual Eros, or Cupid ! It is nonsense, it is wickedness. The Holy Spirit is a rational being, the Bible is a rational book, and every Christian emotion which he produces in the human soul by applying Bible truth is pro- duced according to the laws of the human understanding ; it is a reasonable emotion prompted by reasonable and intelligent views of truth.
If we regard the Scriptures, we certainly find there very little support for the necessity of this unaccountable desire. In the third and fourth chapters of Exodus, we read that Moses, when commissioned by God to become the prophet of Israel, displayed his reluctance by so many excuses that the divine wrath was ex- cited. Jeremiah (i. 6 and xx. 9) similarly deprecated the sacred charge. Jonah sought to flee the work; at Mhat cost the reader knows. And Paul says (1 Cor. ix. 16), "Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of, for necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel." He felt that he could claim no credit, because he dared not exercise any option concerning the ministry, but was impelled by the awful convic- tion that he could only evade this duty at the peril of his soul.
If, therefore, the young Christian does not feel this scriptural desire to glorify God Ijy saving souls, so that he would be glad to do it hj 2)reac7img if he might, he ought not, indeed, to thrust himself into the ministry like a slave going to a hated task. But he ought immediately to suspect himself of some most unchris- tian influence, of selfishness, indolence, vanity, ambition or avarice ; he ought immediately to crucify these base feelings at the foot of his Saviour's cross ; he ought never to rest till his heart is in such a frame that the desire to do good, in any way God may point out, is his ruling passion, and he ought to do all this wholly irrespective of his finding his way into the minis- try or not. For while his heart is in its present frame, he has
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY? 35
no sufficient evidence that he has ever felt the love of God, and that he has not the wrath of God and the daily danger of hell fire abiding on him. Certainly, without this pious desire, he is as truly unfit to serve God in any other eaUing as in the ministry.
The three qualifications next mentioned, a fair reputation for sanctity of Hfe, a respectable moral force of character, and some degree of Christian experience, may be grouped together. The man whose Christian character does not command confidence and respect would, as a minister, only dishonor God and his cause. Yet it is every man's duty to reform those inconsistencies by which he has forfeited the respect of mankind, whether he is to preach or not. And having thoroughly reformed them, he may find his way open into the pulpit. The minister must have some force of character. The feeble, undecided, shufliing man, who cannot rule his own family, nor impress and govern his in- feriors by his moral force, had better not preach. There may be cases where this weakness of character is found incurable, al- though co-existing with genuine piety. Again, he must not be in the novitiate of his Christian profession. But this circum- stance can very rarely be a valid obstacle to the young Chris- tian's proceeding so far as to begin his preparation. Our church has made this preparation long ; for this reason, among others, that the neophyte may acquire Christian experience by the time he comes to his ordination.
The last qualification mentioned is aptness to teach. The apos- tle means by this that assemblage of bodily and mental endow- ments which will, by due cultivation, enable the pastor to teach God's truth T\-ith reasonable efficiency. It includes sufficient bodily strength, an understanding of fair respectability, either the possession of, or the oppoi-tunity and ability to acquire, ade- quate knowledge, and a capacity to attain a tolerable fluency and propriety of speech. Such disease or infirmity as would make it impossible to Uve and perform the duties of a minister efficiently is a clear indication that a man is not called. But this fact cannot be fairly inferrecl from every grade of bodily in- firmity. Let the reader consider how much a Calvin, a Brainerd, a Payson efi'ected for Christ in spite of bodies bowed doAvu by chronic disease. Yet no one now doubts that God called them to preach. And the perseverance of many resolute men in the laborious professions of this world for the sake of mammon or
36 "WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ?
ambitioD, iu spite of feeble health, is a most practical evidence that bodily weakness does not necessarily prove the Christian to be precluded from the ministry.
Many young Christians, again, excuse themselves by profess- ing a doubt whether they have natiu'al talents adequate to so responsible a work as the ministry. "We fear that in many cases, if their friends were to concur candidly in this doubt, their vexation would betray the insincerity of the j^retended hu- mility. Now, we freely assent that Christ has no use for fools in the pulpit. The impotent, beggarly, confused understanding should not undertake to teach other minds. And the very noisiest capacities are desirable, and will find ample scope in this glorious work. But nothing more than respectable good sense and justness of mind is requisite to secure such usefulness in the ministry as should decide any pious heart, if that mind is used to the best advantage. Let the heart be warmed and en- nobled with Christian love, the good common m ind will be ex- panded and invigorated, and a conscientious diligence will give it an indefinite and constant improvement. Love and labor will make the small mind great. The late memoir of Dr. Daniel Baker contains an instructive testimony on this point. His energy and success in the gospel led some to remark how emi- nent he might have been in worldly pursuits; what a nuUlonaire, if a merchant ; how eloquent, if a lawyer ; how popular, if a statesman! But his biographer, who is his own son, says : "No; it was his religion that was his strength ; grace alone made him great." Blessed be God, the church has often found that plain talents, faithfully improved for God, by love and zeal, have ac- compHshed the largest good. Let the young Christian, then, judge his own quahfication by these truths. It is clear that, in the general, the church must always expect to find her ministers precisely among those who honestly appraise their talents mod- erately. For who would like to see the young Christian come forward and say "that he felt called to preach Ijecause he con- sidered himself so smart P'
The scholarship which the Presb^^terian Church considers necessary for the minister may be seen described in our Form, of Government. To the acquisition of this any sound mind is adequate, with diligence and perseverance. Such is the pro^-i- sion which is made for aiding the needy, no Christian, except
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY? 37
one too far advanced in life, or precluded by other duties, can plead inability to acquire it. And if there be difficulties or hardships in the way, it may be the will of God that he should manfully surmount them for his sake.
Once more, the incurable stammerer, the man of totally dis- eased throat, the man who cannot acquire the capacity of speak- ing in public "without a slowness, rudeness, confusion or hesitation painful to the hearers, is not called to preach. Public speaking is the most prominent function of the pastor. But there is scarcely any qualification about which young Christians are more apt to reason delusively. The promise of fluency in early manhood is no sufficient proof of fitness for the pulpit, and the lack of it at that season is no evidence whatever of unfitness. Experience shows that many who early win the reputation of " the college orator " in actual life sink into obscurity, and many who go through college without a particle of reputation for flu- ency become afterwards famous as effective speakers. And let the reader remember, that a minister may be effective without being melodious, polished or graceful. No young man whose Tocal organs are not fatallv maimed is entitled to conclude, be- cause he is now unskilled, that he cannot learn to speak to edi- fication. On the contrary, he should conclude that he can learn to speak, no matter what his difficulty, if only he will endeavor and persevere. Such is the emphatic testimony of Lord Ches- terfield to his son, and he declares that his own eloquence (of no mean fame in his day) was wholly the result of his persever- ance. There was a candidate for the ministry in the Presby- terian Church who, even after he commenced his seminary course, stammered painfviUy. But he resolved, by God's help, to con- quer the obstacle, and he is now a most fluent and impressive ex- tempore preacher. There is a most mischievous mistake as to the nature of good speaking. It is but unaffected, serious, per- spicuous talking. That which is simplest is best. That lan- guage which presents the idea with the most transparent natural- ness is in the best style. Who is there in his senses that cannot talk when he is interested ? The man of plain good sense, whose mind is thoroughly informed Avitli divine truth, and whose heart is instinct with divine love, will not fail to find words and utterance.
5. The young Christian id bound also to consider the present
38 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY?
wants of the church, and the relation of supply to demand. The jjroprietv of taking all this into his account is not only ob- vious to common sense, but asserted by our Sayiour himself (Matt. ix. 37), when he makes the fact that "the haryest is plen- teous, but the laborers few," the ground of the prayer that God would " send forth laborers into his harvest." How can one answer the question aright, " Where does God most need me ?" without considering the necessities of his church ? Christ has made it the duty of every Christian in the world to otter this prayer. Is not the pious young man mocking God when he of- fers it, if he is not willing God shall send him into the haryest ? Now, it is true in our day that the harvest is plenteous, and that suitable laborers are comparatively few. Our home destitutions are large, many of them of long standing, and rather increasing in number. The supply of young ministers barely repairs the waste of death and removals. For the whole pagan world we may be said to be doing nothing, in consequence of the paucity of young ministers ; for we have only one soul from the whole Synod of Virginia, a godly woman, laboring on pagan ground. And for the teeming multitudes of the new commonwealths springing up in the west and south we are doing almost as little. But the young Christian, in considering the necessities of the sacred cause, is bound to consider, not only the harvest at home, but everywhere, for "the field is the world." Only one word need be said to remind him how loud and imperative is the call cre- ated by the gracious and amazing openings which God is now making over the whole world for missionary effort. It is a trumpet blast, summoning the whole church to arise and reap. Does the wise God sound a blast which he has provided no ser- vants to hear ? Openings for ministerial labor are created by the same God who watches over the church, renews souls by his grace, and endows his servants with the capacities for serv- ing him. The prudent farmer only plants so many fields as he has provided laborers to till. The wise manufacturer appor- tions his machinery and materials to the force at his disposal. It seems a very reasonable inference that when God sets open so many doors for usefulness before his church, he at the same time gives her sufficient numbers and quahfications to occupy as many. If God has made ten openings for useful ministerial labor for every candidate who presents himself, the inference is
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MIXISTEY ? 39
very plain that tkere must be nine men to every ten of these fields, somewhere in the church, whom God calls to preach, but who refuse to g;o. When, on the one hand, we consider the vast and glorious fields for evangelical enterprise beckoning us on, well mav Ave, on the other hand, stand aghast at the extent of the recreancy to duty which must exist in the church.
This fact, that an extensive and terrible indifference to the claims of the gospel ministry prevails in the church, constitutes an additional and most pressing reason that every young Chris- tain who can should give the influence of his example to break it up. Let us suppose that the commonwealth was invaded by enemies, that in her exigency she was calling for thousands of her sous to take up arms in her defence, and that, from some strange and criminal apathy, an exceeding small and inadequate number were responding to the summons. Would it not be the clear duty of every patriot who could to fly to her aid, in order that a better spii'it might be propagated among the citizens ? He who, in less urgent times, w^hen the necessary armies of defence were nearly full, would have felt no call of duty to the military profession, if he has the spirit of a man, now feels that he must not hesitate to gird on his sword. So, in our generation, Jesus Christ is calling to his church by the woes of a perishing world, and by the critical conjuncture of such opportunities for evangel- izing it as the world never saw before, and may never see again, for ten thousand volunteers ; but only a few here and there slug- gishly and dubiously respond. Should not every brave man, then, arise and fly to the front, that his gallant example may re- buke the fatal sloth of his comrades and teach them to be ashamed of their hesitation ?
If there is force in these reasonings, they have a most sad and peculiar application to the young Christians of Virginia. For, bad as is the case in the rest of the Presbyterian Church, among us it is worse still. A careful calculation shows, that the ratio which the number of our candidates bears to the number of our communicants is not only far smaller than that observed in other favored sections of the church, but smaller than the aver- age in the whole church, and only larger than that in the new- est, most destitute, and sparsest Synods. The territory of Vir- ginia is chiefly covered by the Synod of Virginia and Presbytery of Winchester. In these two bodies there are this day not less
40 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ?
tlian fifty ministers, boru, converted, and trained for tlie ministry in other States, engaged in our service as pastors, teachers and editors. But after subtracting the infirm, we shall probably find scarcely a hundred active ministers positively engaged in the public service of the church. So that, for half our own suppl}' w^e are now indebted to the help of other sections of the Presby- terian Church, less oppressed than ours -with a benumbing world- liness and more alive to the love of God. Perhaps some one may say, that this sad account should be counterbalanced by the numbers of ministers who have gone from the Presbyterian Church in Virginia to other States. After a careful inspection of the catalogue of three thousand names, composing the minis- try in the whole United States (to our shame we do not pretend to claim a minister among the pagans), we do not lielieve that there are forty who were reared in the churches of Virginia. So that, after full allowance for this counterpoise, we find that we do not produce ministers enough to keep up our own numbers ; "but for the kind aid of better people abroad, we should be dying ■out — starved to death by our own worldliness. Here, then, is a <?hurch one hundred years old, strong in numbers, plentiful in wealth, glorying in her religious freedom, decimated by no pes- tilence, war, or persecution, prosperous in her external peace^ equipped Avith adequate and accessible schools for the training of her sons. Xow, if any church under heaven should be ex- j)ected not only to keep up her former status from her own re- sources, but to possess all the means for a rapid and vigorous j)rogress at home, and to make liberal contributions of men and money for evangelizing the sister States, which are springing into their giant youth, and the wide world of heathenism, surely such a church should. If such as she may be excused from this, how in the possibility of things is the world ever to be saved? But, lo, instead of doing this, she is still leaning in part, like a dependent weakling, on other sections. Here the Lord hath opened up what he proposed should be a perennial spring, which should not only keep its own basin filled to the brim, liut send out streams of life, flowing ever farther and far- ther, to water the desert sands that lie burning with spiritual drought around it. But instead of this, the water must be brought from other less faithless fountains and continually poured into it to prevent its drying up. Is it then a living
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY '? 41
spring ? Or is it a staguant pool, absorbing uselessly in its sands the waters of life that elsewhere might carry fruitfulness and Aerdure ? And will not its Lord at last tire of the unpro- ductive toil, and leave it to be trampled over until its place can no longer be found ? It is but too evident that somewhere among the young men of the Presbyterian Church in our State, there is widespread and terrible guilt, because of this neglect of the claims of the pulpit. Let every such Christian ask with trem- bling, "Lord, is it I?"' And it is equally plain, that this fact constitutes a special and solemn reason that every young man who can preach should weigh well Avhether it is not his diity to set a better example.
Meantime the argument is greatly strengthened by the fact, that all other useful professions, except perhaps that of Chris- tian teachers, are full to overflowing. Go where we may, we see more merchants than can find customers, more physicians than have patients, more lawyers than clients. Society has enough of them — too many. But to supply all our home destitutions, to carry the gospel to every one of the eight hundred millions of pagans on our globe, the church needs a hundred times as many ministers. Now, what young Christian, qualified to preach, who asks in the spirit of the true convert, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " can say in view of these facts, that God and. li'is felloii'-raen have more need for Mm at the har, hehind the counter, or in the 2^hysicia)is calling, than in the ^ndpitf If he cannot, let him beware how he neglects the prayerful examina- tion of the duty of preaching, at the peril of the wrath of his Saviour. We hesitate not to say, that while all Christians, of course, are not to be preachers, and while none should preach whom God does not call, in such a time as ours every Christian who can preach, should conclude that the a priori presump- tion is in favor of his doing so until the contrary is evinced ; and he should approach the examination of his duty on this supposition.
But many say, "I admit the obligation to choose that calling in which I can most glorify God ; let me therefore be a pious lawyer, or physician, in order that I may show these very influ- ential, but often in-eligious professions, the right example, and thus begin a revolution in their religious condition. Thus I may do more good than even in the pulpit. Or, let me be a
42 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ?
pious teacher, for do not some sucli teachers, enjoying the pri- vilege of moulding the ductile minds of youth, do more for Christ than many pastors, to say nothing of the secular benefits of their labors ? "
There are two very conclusive answers. First : Avhile we admit with sorrow that there are many inefficient pastors, and while we bless God that there are some noble laymen who save more souls than some ministers, we ask, how the latter case is to be explained ? It is always because those devoted laymen exhibit an eminent zeal and love for souls, a perseverance in efforts to do good, a self-denial, a good-sense prudence, which would have infallibly placed them in the very fi-ont rank of min- isterial usefulness if they had been ministers, and had enjoyed a similar blessing from God in their labors. A Matthew Hale, a Harlan Page, a Samuel Budgett, may indeed be favorably compared Avith your ill-trained, inactive, common-place minis- ters, but can he be compared in Christian usefulness with a Baxter, a Payson, a Chalmers ? The truth is, the direct and main work of the minister is to save souls ; the direct and main work of all secular professions is to secure temporal good ; and though the motive of all these secular labors in the case of Christian laymen is pious, their efforts to save souls are inci- dental and exceptional ; their main, direct work is worldly. It is simple absurdity to say, that a given amount of qualification and devotedness may do as much for eternal objects, working for them incidentally, as though it wrought for them directly and mainly. But second : how does the young Christian who turns aside from the sacred calling to medicine — and especially to the law — know that he shall be able to maintain that eminent piety which alone will prevent his becoming a reproach to Christ in those worldly professions ? His plea for entering them is founded on this ground in part, that those important and in- fluential professions are now so unfortunately devoid of Chris- tian principle. Aye ! How comes this to be so ? How comes it that many lawyers, professing Christ, have sunk to a grade of spirituality so low that the salt of grace is still urgently needed to be cast into the profession ? Must it not be because the temptations of this calling are so potent — so fatal? Then, if this young Christian thinks that he, forsooth, has strength enough to stand where so many predecessors— lawyers profess-
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ? 43
ing Christ — have fallen, there is clear revelation of a spiritual pride, of an ignorance of his owti heart, which make it verj" cer- tain that his fall, when he becomes a Christian lawyer, will be most speedy and ignominious of all. "A haughty spirit goeth before a fall." " He that trusteth his own heart is a fool."
6. We have now defined and limited the qualification laid down in the Scriptures and indicated in the providence of God, so as to show in what manner, and with what cautions, the in- quirer is to reason upon them. Let us gather up the sum of the matter. The Divine will is to be learned from these teach- ings of the Scriptures, and of events interpreted by Scripture, all studied under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, obtained through prayer. The reader will observe that, in all our re- marks, we have supposed him viewing every evidence of a call to preach, as a reasonable creature. The whole process has been treated as one to be conducted according to the natural laws of the human understanding. 'We have treated it thus because we are assured that the Holy Spirit always operates on human souls in accordance with those laws when he instructs them by the Holy Scriptures, his only instrument for rational adults. But let us not be mistaken. The process by which the call is ascertained is strictly reasonable, but it is also spiritual. The true minister is as realh' " taught of God," concerning this call, as the prophet in the revealed word was ; it is only that the mode of the teaching is different. If the young Christian " leans to his own understanding " in this matter, the deceptions of spir- itual pride, self-confidence, love of applause, drawing him to- wards the pulpit, or of false shame, indolence, carnality, secu- lar ambition, avarice, or other inordinate desire, drawing him away, will infallil)ly befool him. He will decide wrong. He must conduct his inquiry under the superintendence of the Holy Ghost, purifying and elevating his Christian affections, crucify- ing his carnal inclinations, infusing a genuine love of God and souls, and thus illuminating his understanding to comprehend the word. There is none but the Spirit of God that can do these things in the soul of the young Christian so as to secure a safe decision. This Spirit will come, indeed, not through the medium of a voice, a vision, or an inspiration, but through the channels of the Christian's own conscience, judgment, and sanctified af- fections. Yet his coming is not the less necessary and real.
4A ".YHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTEY?
Ye sliall know liis presence "by liis fruits." Those fruits -will be a sweet consciousness of a meek, docile temper, and of tliorough sincerity of purpose, a revival of divine love and zeal, and a joyous self-abnegation, resulting at length in a calm, sat- isfying decision of the great question.
7. Last, then, to obtain this spiritual guidance, prayer must be fervently and incessantly offered. The very act of unveiling the whole heart with transparent sincerity before the Infinite Majesty will itself still the clamor of carnality, and prove as " euphrasy and rue," to purge the mental vision. God has pro- mised also, "The meek will he guide in judgment, and the metk will he teach his wa3^" "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraideth not." But let the Christian take care that he ask with a "meek" spirit, with pro- found honesty of soul, with utter submission of all prejudices and inclinations. Woe to that man who, while he professes to submit the question to God's decision, mocks the Heart-searcher by bringing his own decision to the throne of grace, prejudicated in the secret places of a selfish heart! And the danger is not only on the side of running uncalled, but also of tarrying when he ought to run. The sin of preaching the gospel without God's call has been preposterously equalled to that of Uzzah (2 Sam. vi. 6), or of Nadab and Abihu (Lev. x.). All the differences of a typical worship, a theocratic government and a miraculous separation of the sacred office are overlooked in such a compari- son. To intrude into the pulpit Avithout a call is doubtless a sin ; for no man possessing such means of instruction and promises of divine light as the Bil)le affords him can make this mistake, exce])t from the predominance of sinful motives or the neglect of prayer and inquiry. It is a sin which is likely to bring mischief upon the church and chastisement and repentance on the mis- taken child of God. But to stay out of the pulpit when called to enter it is also a sin, a sin which can only proceed from evil motives, and which must naturally result in the damnation of souls which should have been saved through the disoliedient Christian's preaching, but were not, and which must bring him under the frown and chastisement of an offended Saviour.
The Christian who has begun this inquest and prayer, but is not conscious of the sweet, enlightening influences of the Spirit in his examination, may by no means conclude that therefore he is
WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY? 45
not to preach. For the iufluences of the Holy Ghost are as truly needed to answer the great question rightfully in the nega- tive as in the affirmative. Is there not a possibility of error and sin on either hand? If, then, the reader has felt that while he investigated he did not enjoy those influences, let him by no means conclude that God exempts him from the sacred office ; let him rather infer that he is under the hidings of God's coun- tenance, that he is a backsliding Christian, and that he is there- fore in imminent danger of perdition.
AVe conclude with this final caution. The claims of the min- istry on Christian young men are so strong that in many cases the head cannot misunderstand them, though the reluctant heart may shrink from them. Such cases often result thus : the un- decided Christian says, "I will investigate farther; I will give myself time, and meantime I will teach or seek some temporary business ;" or he says, " I will preach ; I cannot dispute the duty ; but I am young ; two or three years hence will be time enough." And then, under this deceitful plea, he plunges un- necessarily into secular business, till its trammels, or the new affections of married life, or some fancied necessity, settle the question, and the man never j^reaches. Show us the case where such a retraction of the better resolution is not evidence of, yea, synonymous with, spiritual decline. Ah, how many are there now in the secular professions, keen, money-loving lawyers, busy politicians, indolent dilettanti, fallen drunkards, degraded repro- bates, who were once promising Christians, and whose apostasy began just in this way ? Look, young, hesitating professor, at the dire fate of a Balaam. He professed to seek the Lord's will, and he received an expression of it which he clared not dispute. Well would it have been for him if he had then ceased inquiring and gone at once to obeying. But the deceitfulness of his heart prompted him to what he supposed was a middle course. " He would not proceed in the teeth of the Lord's will ; oh ! no, not he ! not for worlds ! But he would inquire again ;" and the re- sult w^as that he got no answer from God better than the first, but he secured the damnation of his own soul. To say that you will " consider farther of the matter," after God has made an end of consideration by giving light enough to settle the question, is but virtual disobedience. There is then no time to consider; it is time to act. If you are prepared at present to
46 WHAT IS A CALL TO THE MINISTRY ?
preach, and God calls you to preach, then he calls you to preach now. If you have preparation to make, and God calls you to preach, he calls you to begin that preparation now ; for a per- ishing world needs you now ; while you causelessly hesitate souls drop into hell. " To-DAY, IP YE will heae his voice, harden not
YOUR heart."
MEMORUL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.'
THE undersigDed would respectfully state to the Assembly's Committee ou Theological Seminaries that he was called at an early age by the voice of the church to her service in theolo- gical instruction, and has devoted the prime of his life to it with all the attention and zeal of which he was capable ; that he hum- bly conceives it is both the duty and privilege of the pubhc ser- vants of the church to communicate the results of their experi- ence ; that he has been thoroughly convinced by his observation that our system of theological training permits impoi-tant im- provements, by which it might be made more effective for the glory of the Head of the Church and the salvation of souls. He therefore begs the Assembly, inasmuch as the church now enjovs an interval of peace, and no other fundamental subject arises to engross its time and thought, to take in hand at this time this important interest, and perfect the agencies of the church for its execution according to their wisdom. With a view to this re- sult he humbly begs leave, through the Committee on Seminaries, to submit some practical views for their consideration.
Theological seminaries are about forty-five years old in our denomination. This, although more than the lifetime of a gen- eration, is but a short space in the lifetime of a system, so that we may regard this plan of theological training as still a novelty in our church. In many respects it certainly shows the unset- tled relations of a new thing, and this justifies continued discus- sion even of its fundamental traits and principles.
I, The first question is the form of control under which such schools shall be formed and governed, assuming for the time that all are convinced of their necessity. The Presbyterian Church has never dehberately decided whether they had best be under the direct control of the supreme judicatory, or of the Synods. In 1809 the General Assembly refeiTed the following questions to the Presb^-teries : 1, Shall we have c/^t^ seminary? 2, Shall
' To the Assembly's Committee on Seminaries, Mobile, 1869. 47
48 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
vre have two equal ones'? 3, Shall there be one for each Synod? T-\veuty-seven Presbyteries responded in 1810, six A'oting against any seminary, one for two equal ones, ten for one sole seminary, and ten for one for each S^mod. It was understood, on all hands, that if either of the tirst plans was adopted, the direct control should be in the Assembly ; if the last, in the Synod. Although there was but a minority for the first plan, the Assembly saw fit to adopt it, and founded one seminary at Princeton. They ar- gued that it would secure a fuller faculty, better course of in- struction, more liberal endowment, larger libraries, and a general acquaintanceship of young ministers, and a common esj)/'ii (hv corps. These arguments are sufficiently neutralized by the church's growth. It then contained four hundred and thirty- four ministers, seven hundred and seventy -two churches, and twenty-nine thousand communicants. Reasonings which were true for a body of that size soon ceased to be of force by reason of its rapid increase. The church in the South hoj^es for a similar increase, and should look forward to an in- crease of the number of seminaries; for the experience of the denomination in the United States has shown that their multi- plication is a necessary and proper result of its growth. The pleas for a larger faculty, library and endowment in favor of a single school are exploded by the church's progress in wealth and liberality of giving. The idea that this plan would secure fraternity among the young ministry was illusory, for the alum- nus of three years before was as much a stranger to the later alumni as though educated elsewhere; and the eftect, if pro- duced was to be deprecated as tending to that centralization of power and influence so greatly to be dreaded. On the other hand, everything supports the policy of having several semin- aries ; it is most imprudent to give supreme control over our or- thodoxy to any one human institution, when we take into ac- count the fallibility of all things human, the danger of awaken- ing arrogance in the teachers and pupils of an institution so gi'eat and overshadowing, the known tendency of scholastic cor- porations to corruption, and the power which able teachers have over the minds of scholars, either for good or evil. The single thought of the deplorable situation in which the church in the Southern States would now be had Princeton continued our sole seminary, enforces these views beyond a dispute. Un-
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGIC.VL EDUCATION. 4:9
less we are peculiarly shortsiglited, and blind to tlie maxim of Solomon, that what has been is that which shall be hereafter, we shall consider it as onr settled pohcy, after so striking a warn- ing, to guard the safety and independence of our church by hav- ing several seminaries as checks on each other. There are now two ; and every lover of our Zion will desire that neither of these may ever be shorn of a particle of its usefulness, and that they may, in due time, have other worthy sisters.
Now, the General Assemblies of 1809 and 1810 evidently as- sumed that the efficiency of a direct government by the Assembly required that there should be but one central school, or at most two, and that a multiplication of them would, of course, imply their direct control by more local bodies. This is correct. We shall see that the moment these schools are multiplied, the As- sembly becomes an unsuitable and incompetent body for their immediate management. Indeed, it seems to us that from that moment all honest advantages of such control are at an end, and the only practical motive why one among several co-ordinate seminaries should seek or desire it is an unfair purpose to em- ploy the partiality of the common parent, the Assembly, for its factitious advantage over nominal equals.
The General Assembly is "the bond of union, peace, corre- spondence, and mutual confidence among all our churches." It is the body which expresses the unii^ o^f the church. The train- ing of its ministry in orthodoxy is a matter of such radical and general importance that here, if anywhere, this unity ought to be expressed by the oversight of the supreme judicatory. But the word ovemigJd suggests the kind of control which this com- mon bond of union should attempt over it. It should supervise and exercise a general and careful government over the perform- ance of this function by the bodies beneath it, without attempt- ing to become the direct doer of it. For illustration, surely no- thing can be of more universal and radical concernment in the spiritual commonwealth than the admission of members to full citizenship in it. The supreme court does not, therefore, undertake to examine every applicant itself; there are reasons which render this properly the immediate function of a more local body, the church session. But the Assembly lays down for all church sessions the essential terms of admission, and super- vises the administration of these terms by her general powers of
50 MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATIOX.
"review and coutrol." Such, we liokl, is the general truth as to the direction of theological education. Hence, on the one hand, when the old Assembly, North, attempts directly to govern three or four co-ordinate seminaries, she attempts a task for which she is incompetent; and the attempt leads onlj to inefficiency, confiision and corruption. On the other hand, for a semiuarv to make no report to the Assembly, and no acknowledgment of its general power of review and veto, is violative of the church's unity.
The proper course for the Assembly appears, therefore, to be, to exercise her ])owers of review and control, by assuming an ef- ficient general control over all the seminaries, and attempting the immediate administration of none. All those fundamental principles and rules which in their natiu'e must be common to every good theological education the Assembly should devise of its own wisdom, and enforce them impartially on all the sem- inaries. For, obviously, no section of the church should be left without the best attainable education of its pastors ; and by what argument can the Assembly excuse itself from the duty and re- sponsibihty of giving to all parts of the church that which she deems proper, in this concern, for one part ? Such things as these, then, the Assembly should impartially and authoritatively ordain for all the seminaries. What constitutes a liberal course of theological study, after the intent of the constitution ? What por- tion of time, in the main, should be given to study and what to vacation? What should be the general organization of a corps of teachers? What should be the mode and what the extent of pecuniary aid to those who require it? Under what respousi- bihties of government candidates should be during their course of study ? Whether the attempt to combine scholastic and pa- rochial training at the same time shall be made? etc., etc.
The exertion of its rightful aiithority by the Assembly over all principles, such as these, Avhich are of equal and common concernment throughout the bounds of our church, would be every way wholesome, removing occasion of unseemly rival- ries between seminaries, encouraging the timidity of these insti- tutions against the fear of ahenating patronage, by spirited re- forms in which they stood alone, and spreading in all parts of the church a grade of attainment and devotion to labor level Tsith that prevalent in the most favored.
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 51
But the Assembly sliould not undertake to fix for any semi- nary special details, lest by endeavoring to produce uniformity they should ^vork a practical inequality and injustice. Thus, the Assembly should say imperatively what ought to be the course of study for every candidate throughout its jurisdiction. But if there sliould be a particular seminary to which, by reason of proximity or such reason, the Committee of Foreign Missions sliould desire to send some young man to be trained for the Choctaw mission, it would be very unwise for the Assembly to ordain, either that that seminary should not have a teacher of the Choctaw language because the other seminaries had none, or that all the rest should have one because this seminary pro- perly had one. The Assembly should say that her candidates everywhere shall as a general rule work so many months and rest so many out of the twelve, so as to prevent one seminary from over-working, in ill-judged zeal, or some other from mak- ing an unseemly Ijid for the favor of self-indulgent men by un- derworking. But it would be very unequal for the Assembly to say that given seminaries, seated at places which in tlie later summer are malarious, shall have session during August and September because other seminaries, in salubrious or mountain- ous regions, find it well to have session during those months. So of other details, such as the nomination of teachers, etc., etc. The Assembly seems, on its present plan, to be somewhat in this anomalous position : it demits in part the constitutional and all- important functions to which it is competent, and attempts to execute some of those which should be left to its agents.
My conception, then, is, that the Assembly, having ordained a code of general rules for all seminaries alike, fixing every com- mon 2)rinc'q)le in the most enlightened, energetic and constitu- tional way, should commit the execution of details to boards of directors or curators selected by itself. These boards should be the^r^'^ men oii\\e church; and their travelling expenses and maintenance while engaged in their duties should be invariably paid out of the treasury of the institutions. These boards should be small, not containing more than nine members at the largest. But they should be held under strict responsibility to the As- sembly. Their selection sliould be mainly from the section of the church directly interested in the particular institution ; and the preferences of the church courts around the institution as
52 MEMOEIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
to tlieir selection sliould usually receive a certain regard ; for as soon as we have more than one seminary, each becomes neces- sarily, in a certain good sense, sectional ; and justice requires that those who have its chief burden to bear shall be considered in its management. But on each board should be about two members not from the section of the seminary. These should be men of national reputation and attainments, and in each case they should be lirought by the Assemlily from distant and di- verse sections of the church, in order to infuse a liberal and broad policy in each board, and to prevent a spirit of nepotism and narrow locality.
To this board, thus constituted, a given seminary should be committed, with sufficiently ample discretion and strict respon- sibility. The board should manage all details, including the election ofprofe^sors. But the last act, and all changes of estab- lished rule or usage, should be made subject to the veto of the Assembly; and no professor should be installed until the As- sembly had confirmed his election.
Such is, in outline, my conception of the proper plan for car- rying out the spirit of the constitution on an enlightened scale. I will now support my views by a series of remarks, the applica- tion of which will be plain.
1. When the church determines to have more than one semi- nary, it has determined that the support of each one, for funds, teachers and students, shall be, in the main, sectional. The eminent reputation of individuals will only educe exceptional cases under this rule. Hence, the supposed prestige which woiild result from a direct national management, must either be illusory or else unfair to equal institutions. The impartiality of the Assembly, if it be impartial, will compel it to make each seminary as truly a local and sectional one, in a good sense, as though under sectional control; hence, a grievous temptation to unseemly rivalries and squabbles. The special friends of each will find that the advantages they hoped to derive from the Assembly in the race of competitions are deceitful, unless they are partial, and so dishonest.
2. The Assembly, while wisely constituted for a body of gen- eral review and control, is ill-adapted to the direct government of a school of learning. It is a temporary and changing bod}' ; the school is permanent. It is general ; the school is local in
MEMOlilAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 53
its immediate interest. The members come together strangers, and scarcel}' become acquainted before they part, so that they are iintitted to handle in common a multiplicity of local details. They cannot have time for faithful examination of them all, and if burdened Avith them will huddle over a part with indecent haste. Thus the pretended government of the schools by it will be no evidence whatever that the collective wisdom of the church has been evoked thereon ; but the ordinances made will be, in fact, the dictates of some adroit clique of parliamentary mana- gers. The Prhicetoi lievlew charged that the Assembly at Buf- falo actually adopted the plan- of instruction reported to them by the directors of Danville nominally, in reality dictated by Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, without hearing it read! Thus a plan of instruction, entirely new and anomalous, was propounded as the preference of the Assembly, when in fact not one man in ten of Presb;yi;erians regarded it as anything else than ridiculous. Nor will Assemblies have greater financial skill and care to watch over the funds of an institution. The sectional constitu- ency directly gave the money, values the institution, receives its immediate benefits. The General Assembly only represents it indirectly. Lastly, an Assembly of the kind of o.urs is the last body to be expected to make a judicious selection of professors ; they are without that intimate knowledge of the peculiar quali- ties of mind, temper, and scholarship necessary to fit one for this arduous post, and they are ever liable to be led astray by the false glitter of some merely popular talent, not to say by other less excusable motives of ecclesiastical demagogism. Who believes that the professors in the late universities of Ala- bama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Yirginia would have been as wisely chosen by the legislatures of those States as by the boards to whom these legislatures entrusted them ?
3. Justice requires that the effective management of every seminary shall be shared by those who bear the main burden of its support, in proportion to their interests in it. When the section of our denomination appropriate to the support of Union Seminary, for instance, finds that, after all, it has the burden to bear, the money to pay, the students to furnish, they feel that they ought to have the voice in the management of the institu- tion. Why should strangers to Union, from distant sections, strangers pledged to the support of other and rival institutions,
54 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
have equal control witli themselves over their money and labors ? In the old Assembly this ^vas felt on all hands. How often have not members of the late Assemblies candidly acknowledged that in legislating, and especially in electing jjrofessors for the semi- naries, they consulted chiefly the wishes of the special friends of each institution? "We voted," say they, "to place a cer- tain brother in this seminary, not because we knew him, but because its friends desired him." Nor could they have pro- perly done other\^dse. They could not else have ausAvered the just complaints of its friends. "It is we who have the money to pay, the loss to suffer, and if there is failure, the fail- ure to repair. AVhy, then, have you, coming from Georgia, coming from Louisiana, refused us the man of our own section, whom ice knew to be the right one, because he was not person- ally known to you, when it was not to be expected that you, in your distant section, should know him so well?" Upon that plan the recommendation of the friends of each seminary should and must have a potential influence.
But now, how shall that recommendation be made ? Who shall be recognized as the authorized exponent to the Assembly of the wishes of that part of the church ? There is no safe an- swer, and the truth is just this, that an influence must be intro- duced into the management of these seminaries which common justice demands shall be weighty, and which yet has no declared and constitutional mode to express itself . The old method of elec- tion is liable to the idlest abuses of the caucus system. When we consider of what poor human nature is capable, and what plots, ambitions and rivalries have been seen in the church, he who needs to have the deplorable results of such a system pointed out must be short-sighted indeed. In the Assembly of 1836, at New York, a professor of church history was to be elected for Allegheny. A professor of the seminary was present as a lobby member, and we were given to understand that Dr. Dickinson, of New York city, was the choice of Allegheny, The most of us had never heard of him ; but we necessarily reasoned as above, and elected him. Scarcely had we gotten home when we were told that his election had given great dissatisfaction at Alle- gheny ; that a professor was not the seminary ; that he had mis- represented their desires. Dr. Dickinson, it seems, was a man of some dehcacy of feehng, and he promptly declined to have
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 55
anything to do with the chair, so the seminary was rid of the mistake, at the cost of a year's vacancy, a result continually oc- curring, by the way, from this cumbrous plan of government.
These considerations are so practical and forcilile that the Princeton Seminary adopted the more candid method of having a formal and open nomination from the board of directors of the man they desired. But here, again, if the directory is the proper body to make this nomination, which is a virtual election, why may we not better call it in name what it is in fact, and fairly and squarely give to the directory a r'ujJd of election, with a veto power in the Assembly ?
4. The unity, purity and comfort of the Assembly itself, and through it of the whole church, are marred by this direct con- trol. The Assembhes will be perpetually agitated "v\4th election and other details. AVitness the Assembly of the United States at Indianapolis, Rochester, Buffalo. The questions thus raised are unfit to be introduced into the general court of the church. They involve j)ersonal emoluments and dignities ; they evoke too many selfish and partizan feelings. The seminaries, if un- der the immediate care of the Assemlily, meet on its floor as com- petitors for its favor and fostering care. Prominent men will be allured from one to another. Complaints of partiality will be made.
But worse still, those corrupt combinations Avill be made, known in the slang of the day as " log rollings." The condition will lie intimated from one side of the house to the other, "Pro- mote my measure, and I will promote yours." The threat will be hinted, " Dare to oppose mine, and I will thwart j^ours." It is well known that the Assembly of 1853 placed its seminary at Danville, contrary to the opinion of the western church, and the decision was really obtained by getting the votes of the Prince- ton clique in favor of Danville. And their motive was the threat , ingeniously intimated by Dr. B. J. Breckinridge, that unless they voted for his place he would thrust Dr. Humphreys doAvn their unwilling throats at Princeton. They wanted Boardman, and to escape the former gratified Breckinridge by voting for their location. AVhen members of church courts are so lost to pul)lio virtue and purity of principle as to permit motives of partizan or personal concernment thus to dictate their decision on meas- ures of general interest, the days of simony and clerical bribery
56 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
are not clistaut. Why should these heats, intrigues, plots and complications be thrust upon the whole church, to embroil, cor- rupt and alienate it ? Let these sectional and personal matters be kept where they belong. Let each seminary be directly gov- erned by its own section, with a veto power in the Assembly.
The Presbyterian Chiirch in the Southern States had nevei- expressed a formal opinion on the above question. Informally it may be considered as committed to my views. The two seminaries now in existence among them had never sought the direct government of the Asseml)ly. Dr. Tliornwell, the great exponent of Columbia, had argued ably against it. In this state oi things the three Synods of South Carolina, Georgia, and Ala- bama directed their board to transfer the seminary at Columbia, and make it the seminary of the Assembly immediately. This action, if sanctioned by the Assembly, was a virtual decision of the Avhole principle for the whole church, and in a direction op- posite to the previous poUcy of the church ; for it necessitated the other seminaries to "follow suit," whatever their intrinsic objections to a vicious relation, or else submit to see an equal or junior elevate itself into a pretended superior by seizing an arti- ficial distinction, and thrusting itself more prominently before the whole church as par excellence its own national institution. And not only was the action adopting Columbia virtually a re- volution of the principles of the whole church on this question, but the friends of the opposite views felt that they had reason to complain because it was effected -without mature and general dis- cussion, and at a time of confusion and distress. The three Svnods which made the application came very near being the judges in their own suit, for their commissioners were nearly half of the whole number in attendance. Nor can they wholly justify this impropriety by saying that this Avas the fault of the absentees ; the whole public mind was imperatively engrossed by the war ; it was physically impossible for Texas, Arkansas, and pai-ts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North- ern Yirginia to attend. The ground of complaint against this haste is strengthened by this, that remonstrance was addressed to the leading movers of this radical change against pressing it at such a time, but it was unavailing. It would seem l)ut fair, then, that the opponents of the change shall hold it subject to re c onsideration.
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 57
II. The second point is as to the phiu and constitution of the seminary itself. All our seminaries have hitherto, in thought- less imitation of New England colleges, organized their course of studies into a curriculum measured by a certain term of years, in which all matriculates pursue the same studies for the same time and in the same order. On this plan the professors not only rule, but also teach, jointly, not as independent persons, but as a faculty, each one only occupying in connection with his colleagues his allotted share of the students' allotted time. So the examinations are the examinations of the faculty; This plan, although possessing some advantages to recommend it in gymnasia intended for the drilling of youths in science and lan- guages in the case of a professional school, has nothing what- ever to recommend it. It has been generally discarded by the continental universities of Europe, partly by the English, and wholly by the best schools in our country. We should discard it here. Our seminaries should be organized into three schools, one of theology, one of ecclesiology, and one of Biblical litera- ture, having two professors, (if you please, a Greek and a Hebrew, dividing between them matters of introduction and exegesis). While the professors should move in concert as to hours of teaching, discipline, and police, and in these things, and the general exercises in public speaking, constitute a faculty, yet in teaching his course, each one should be an independent teacher, responsible only to his employers. Each department should be an independent school. Each professor should judge for himself the extent of his course. He should examine his own pupils himself, for, notoriously, no one else can do it thor- oughly at once and justly to his students. The idea that the ex- amination is the exercise of the faculty, or worse yet, of the board of directors, is impractical and al)surd. The standard of proficiency which he should exact should be fixed, and fixed high, by his employers ; otherwise the examining should be as completely his own personal work as the teaching. Students should then be allowed to take such schools as they find con- venient, under judicious advice, and consume as much or as little time in completing their studies as they need. The idea of a curriculum measured by years should be utterly ignored. The course, indeed, should be made so rich that no mortal, what- ever his preparation or talent, could complete it in less than two
58 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
years, the constitutioual iiiliuriuini of study. But as for the rest,, let the students owu capacity alone decide for him whether he shall expend two, or four, or five years in the course.
And here is the first advantage which I mention of this organ- ization, that it abolishes the irrational measure of time for dif- ferent men's capacities. It no longer attempts to stretch the quick and the dull together on the Procrustean bed of three years. Second, it communicates intense energy to the efforts of the instructors, by opening the way for an honorable emulation among themselves. The efficient no longer feels that he has to carry an inefficient colleague along on his shoulders. The dif- ferent schools no longer have of necessity the same nu)iiher of stu- dents. A young man may take the school of church historj' and government in this seminary, and go to some other for the school of theology, where it is more efficiently taught. And this leads us to remark that thus active young men are enabled to get the very best education in the least time, by taking in each semi- nary only those schools which are most approved. Third, this organization will soon lead to a vasth'-improved standard of ex- aminations and tests. When the instruction is conducted, and literary honors are awarded by the faculty acting as a body, the standard is practically that of the lowest, least efficient man in the faculty. No one professor feels personally responsible for the misdirection of honors and awards, or the degi-adation of the standard of acquirement. That standard has to be kept down for all the faculty to the grade of the s^-0\vest and most perfunc- tory man in it. But hj separating the schools, the energetic and spirited men are untrammeled; the}^ feel a personal responsi- bility for the honor of the literary awards in their departments ; they practice a wholesome thoroughness in teaching and testing. Nor is the advantage of thoroughness in a ]:)art of the course all that is gained. The thorough men stimulate their more indolent and relaxed colleagues, and set a fashion of literary zeal which they dare notnvholly disregard. Once more, the present injudi- cious plan of our seminaries forbids a liberal-minded professor mvich to enrich, or enlarge his own course. He has to teach it in a certain fixed fragment of the three years' time. He cannot enlarge it, except by robbing his colleagues of the time they are entitled to occupy the common pupils. Let the professor of theology, for instance, endeavor to give a larger knowledge on.
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 59
some point of liis course by referring to abler or newer authori- ties, or any otlierwise, and in a day or two lie will hear a com- plaint from some other professor, that he is egotistically vionopo- liziiKj the students; that young Mr. A. or B. went to that other professor unprepared, and boldly justified himself by saying that the professor of theology absorbed all his time. Thus this sys- tem actually creates obstacles, where none need exist to progress and improvement of the course. But let the idea that the stu- dent is l^ound to take a given number of studies in any given time be exploded ; let him be told from the first that he must judge for himself how much or how little he should undertake; that if he finds he has not time for theology and those other stu- dies also he has only himself to blame for it, ho has undertaken too much, and nobody hinders him from rectifying that mistake. Then this unfortunate limitation w^ill be thrown down. Each j)rofessor will be entitled to exact as thorough work of his school as his own judgment points out without a seeming infringement of his colleagues' rights. I will venture the assertion that, while such a curriculum might possibly make a tolerably just distri- bution of a youth's time between the drill-tasks of geometry and syntax, no professional school can ever be taught on that plan in a truly liberal and expanded spirit. If the directors would have a truly fine school of divinity, they should talk thus to each of their professors: "You are sole judge of the amount of labor needed for proficiency in your department. Exact as much as you judge necessary-. Should you occupy the whole year of a student in your sole course, we shall not complain. The harder you make it to acquire the honors of your department, the better for our young ministers."
III. This leads us to the third point of remark : the propriety of educating j^oung ministers under literary responsibilities and collegiate rules like other men. There is on all hands a lack of fidelity in appljdng the tests of character and scholarship for licensure. Presbyteries, because the seminaries profess to give a certificate on examination of a mature course of study, are far too much inclined to take for granted the candidate's scholar- ship. As a matter of course he who has his seminary testimo- nial gets his license. Where, in practice, is the instance to the contrary ? But the faculties of the seminaries on their part ex- cuse their laxity by saying, "We are not a Presbytery. Our
'60 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
award has uo constitutional antliority. It is not worth our while to reject a dunce, for he will go before some easy, good natured Presbytery and get our decision reversed, and come back tri- umphant, to twit us with his license. Besides, if we are not very strict in examining, it does not much matter, because another trial is still to come after ours." Thus the duty is bandied from one to another, and faithfully performed by neither.
When instances of glaring deficiency in scholarship occur, a part of the Presbyteries are usually conscientious, and would do their duty by postponing or refusing license. But to take the lead in such acts is painful, invidious, and there are always some brethren, in whom goodness of heart has swallowed up good sense, who come to the rescue of indolence and ignorance. "Well, Moderator, I doubt whether many of us would not be unable to answer some of these questions any better than this young brother. We all know that it is not the most learned man who makes the most useful minister. With zeal and in- dustry, I don't doubt this young brother will do a great deal of good; it would be a sin to disappoint that good by refusing him license, now that the church stands so greatly in need of minis- ters. Gifts are better than book learning. Our Daniel Bakers, with an imperfect education, have done ten times as much for Zion as we common men with all our education. I was pleased with this young brother's })opular sermon, and don't doubt he will be very useful."
Such are the arguments which we are accustomed to hear on these occasions. It is wholly forgotten that we are a religious commonwealth, governed by a written constitution, which every 23resbyter is sworn to enforce ; that a certain scholarship is there required in the ministry ; and if this requisition is found unne- cessary, the only proper or honest course is first to seek an amendment of this constitution. It is forgotten that the very proof which the Presbytery should have, the only sufficient proof of that zeal and industry in the candidate which would make him a useful minister in spite of ignorance, is diligence in im- proving the means of education which the church has provided for him ; and that his failure to improve them properly is the very evidence which the Presbytery is bound to take, that he has not zeal and industry, and will be as lazy in the ministry as he has been in the seminary. It is forgotten that God requires
MEMOKIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 61
each man to serve him with all his mind and strength ; so that when a Daniel Baker, with his neglected talents still, in virtue of natiiral gifts, effects five times as much as one of us common mortals, it is no justification to him. For the thing God exacted of him was all the service those talents, cultivated, could yield ; and if it is true that, with diligent training, he might have done yet more for his God, he is truly a delinquent. The servant that could have brought ten talents increase, would not have been justified by bringing five, like his humbler neighbor, who was applauded for his five.
But the Presbyteries are not the chief delinquents. The seminaries are managed upon a preposterous plan, which any man's common sense may see would disorganize any other school. They have virtually no government over students, no roll call at prayers or recitation, no police, no grade of scholar- ship enforced, no marks at recitations, no responsibility of stu- dents to teachers. Each pupil does that which is right in his own eyes ; he fears no demerit ; if he chooses to learn next to nothing, the professor has no penalty ; and at the end of three years every student who has in form attended all the examina- tions receives his certificate of proficiency. Now is it not the plainest thing in the world, that where a given number of young men apply for graduation, and all receive it, the testimonial so conferred ceases altogether to be any evidence of proficiency? And since in every group of human beings some will be found inefficient wherever there are no rejections, the testimonials of scholarship must be worthless.
The" tendency of such a no-system is to impair diligence and scholarship. If this result has not followed, it is due to the unusually high character of our Southern candidates, which per- forms its duties in most cases without impulsion. But it has not always been so in seminaries. It may at sometime be other- wise among us ; nor is our neglect of system now entirely harm- less. The scholarship of our young ministry loses in depth what it has gained in extent of surface; in many, the habits of re- search and knowledge of the learned languages is soon lost after they enter upon their active duties. The average grade of dili- gence is not what it should be in the seminaries, nor even equal to that of the better students in secular institutions. I shall not, of course, be understood as saying that it is as low as the
'62 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
average which we should find in the colleges, by taking all the idle and dissolute who are found there along with the diligent. It is believed that the standard, both of literary attainments and of industry in study, is as high in Union Seminary as in a:iy Pres- byterian seminary. But very often has the writer asked the better students here, "Are you studying now as you did when competing for an honor in the senior class at college?" And the answer has usually been, with a smile at the absurdity of the question, "Why, no, of course not; not by any means." But surely, as the young Christian draws nearer to his sacred and responsible work as a minister, and enters upon the more essential preparations for it, this is no time to relax any of the effort of which he has shown himself safely capable. The church should be satisfied with no diligence in her ministry beneath that which is exhibited by the foremost in secular professions. While she has employment and reward for every grade of capacity, even the humblest, she has no use for any grade of indolence, or for any but the highest energy. The times demand that she should realize in the zeal of her ministry the promise by Zechariah, "He that is feeble amons; them at that day shall be as David, and the house of David as the ang-el of the Lord before them."
This ill-judged facility, in both Presbj'teries and seminaries, operates only to repel the minds which we should most desire to win. A Presbytery sits under a solemn oath to execute faith- fully the constitution of the church. It may repeat to itself, v\ath no little propriety, the Avords of the eighty-second Psalm : " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty ; he judgeth among the rulers." The body proceeds under these sacred sanctions to jierform one of its most solemn acts, the trying of those who are to be examples and guides of Christ's flock. But the tests actually applied are often so different from those pre- scribed in the constitution, that the whole proceeding is a mere mocker}' of fidelity. The candidate is professedly tried to see whether he can write Latin, whether he knows well Greek and and Hebrew, science and history, theology and interpretation, and when the trials are carried far enough to make it pretty manifest that he does not know these things in a proper sense, it is voted that he does know them, and he is licensed. How can it be made more certain that this candidate thus admitted shall be himself an inefficient, unfaithful presbyter all his minis-
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 63
terial life tliau by thus signalizing liis clerical birtlida}^ with a general example of presbyterial unfaithfulness ? And what can be the impression concerning the moral grade and dignity of the ministry among those who propose to pursue their secular pro- fessions with an honorable energy and tidelity ? Much has been said concerning the unwillingness of our young men of promise to seek the ministry, and many explanations have been sug- gested. We yerily believe that one of the most important is this, that admission has been too easily obtained. The spirited and ingenuous young man feels no disposition to enter the lists for a prize which he sees bestowed with indiscriminate looseness on the unworthy and worthy alike. He was proposing to win the honor by industry and strenuous exertion ; he is disgusted to see it bestowed on mediocrity. Only the ignoble value a prize which may be won -without exertion or merit. The spectacle exhibited in the seminaries thus concurs with the mismanagement of the Presbyteries to repress the zeal and aspirations of every young man of mettle. In proof, we point to the well known fact that in those colleges and universities where a high grade of scholar- ship is faithfully applied, this strictness and consequent diffi- culty of attaining the honors is a prime element of their popu- larity with all spirited young men, such as are worth having in the seminary. And this element of popularity is ever strongest among the young men themselves. The writer speaks that which he A'novjs of his own observation, that when himself a student, the thing which above all others fired the hearts of 3*oung students with admiration for the University of Virginia, and longing to study there, was the conviction that its examina- tions actually meant all that it professed, and that its honors W'ere hard to win. This, above all other influences, filled its halls mth the first young men of the land.
On this suliject we would commend to all the wise remarks of Archbishop "Whately on the University of Oxford, that its his- tory has always shown literary honors cease to he soa(jld when- ever they become so attainable that nobody fails of them. In like manner, our unfaithfulness in applying a professed test re- pels young men of high and ingenuous impulses.
The faculties of our seminaries should therefore assume a pos- ture accurately conformed to the principles of our constitution. The Presbytery is the master, the judge, the guardian of all the
64 MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATIOX.
candidates for the ministrv, whetlier licensed or unlicensed. The theological faculty is but the teaching agent of the Presby- tery to train its candidates. It is not a Presbytery. Let not the agent, then, assume the functions of the guardian and judge. But, at the same time, let not the guardian and judge be igno- rant of the result of his agent's labors. In a word, the agent should rejwrt all these results to his employer ; there his power ends. The appropriate policy for our theological facidties woidd be, then, to discard for ever the notion of giving a general cer- tificate of having finished the curriculum, a sort of paper di- ploma, which is often a qxiasi license. But they should keep accurate records of each student's diligence in study, punctu- ality in recitations, and attention to the ordinances of religion, of his daily and yearly scholarship, as compared with a fixed grade, of his energy of character and conscientiousness as dis- played in his academic demeanor. Each professor should ex- amine faithfully the student's proficency at the end of each session and graduate his scholarship accurately. A grade of proficiency should be fixed, and he who fell below this should be held not to have a competent acquaintance with the subject. Then let the professors faithfully report the whole to the Pres- bytery to which each student belongs. Let the latter body, when it comes to decide whether the candidate is worthy of li- censure, have all the facts before it, so that it may know, not only by a brief and imperfect examination in Presbytery, but also by the recorded testimony of its teaching agents, the exact degree of his diligence, knowledge and Christian walk. Then the responsibility of deciding would be wholly j^laced, in fact as well as in form, where the constitution places it. Presbyteries might still be indiscreetly easy, but they would have no pretext in their relations to the seminary to be so. The young man might believe that a facile Presbytery would license him in spite of the unfavorable repoi*t of his professors, but every one who had any honorable self-respect would yet be stimulated by the knowledge of the report to be made. It may l)e said that all this college apparatus of roll-calls, of marks of grade, of demerit marks, of reports, would treat divinity students too much like school-boys ; that such a scholastic regimen is a reproach cast upon their prin- ciples ; that if it has any effect, it can only be by substituting a carnal fear and rivahy and appetite for applause for conscien-
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 65
tionsness, tlius degradmg the nature of the yoimg minister's mo- tives ; and in fine, that unless a young man has conscience enough to be dihgent without such stimuli, he is certainly* not fit for a preacher.
True ^ and the yery thing we wish to find out, by hokling him in the position of a candidate, is Avhether he is fit for a preacher. How can that question be settled except by keeping and laying before the appointed judges a record of his conscientiousness ? Surely it is a senseless arrangement to hold a man for a number of years under a trial as to this very point among others, and yet take no notice of the manner in which he stands it ; and that such a surveillance is a reproach upon the honor of the good student, is certainly not the doctrine of the apostle, who teaches us that the same law which is a terror to evil-doers " is a praise to them that do well." The short and complete answer to all such shallow reasonings as those of the objection is that, by the same rule, all repressive and punitive measures in chiirch and state ought to be abolished, lest they should seem to cast a slur on good people. Let the student show himself by his con- duct a good one, as is his plain duty, and then the regimen and report will be naught but a testimonial to his honor. We should like to be convinced by what title these wards of the Presbyte- ries are to claim an irresponsibihty the like of which no other class in Christian society enjoy. Children are placed by God's ordinance under the rule of parents, and citizens under that of magistrates. The ordained ministers of the church are gov- erned, are required at church courts to answer to a roll-call, are forced up to their duties by penalties ; but it seems candidates for the ministry are to be held as greater and better than they : too great to submit to, and too pure to need any government.
Nor is it easy to see how a conscientious student can be made less conscientious by knowing that if he were to fail in his duty, he would incur certain unpleasant personal consequences. All desire of the 'approval of the good is not wicked. A value for the approbation of God's dear children, seconding a desire for the approval of God himself, is not evil, but good. All emula- tion is not sinful. Paul commands us to provoke one another to good works. A fairly-earned literary honor is a legitimate cause of pleasure to a Christian heart, where the attainments are
Vol. n.— 5.
66 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
all consecrated to God. The good sense, modesty, and pietj of all our candidates at this time does, indeed, shame these sophisms, and leave almost nothing for collegiate discipline to effect. But suppose there should be many cases in which stu- dents show none of this high etlierial conscientiovisness, to which it is presumed even the fear of just l^lame, and desire of the applause of the good, would be a taint, but in its place ex- hibit a sheer laziness and indifference ? Is not a little eye-serv- ing industry even better than absolute idleness? Practically we think it is ; though he would be a very sorry sort of minister who was governed mainly by either. But common sense and the laws of the mind concur in teaching, that if we would strengthen any virtue which was before deficient in the soul, we must procure the outward exercise of it by any innocent means we can apply. It is by acting it grows. By evoking the out- ward acting of the quality the potent law of habit is brought into play, and thus the good quality is confirmed. We train our children to kindness by compelling them, through fear, to forego acts of violence and cruelty. We do not argue that, because an enforced mercy is of no worth in the eyes of the Searcher of liearts, therefore it is well to permit every indulgence of angry tempers until conscience checks them. Every sensible parent knows that, under such a preposterous plan, conscience never would be enough developed to restrain the soul of itself.
There is good reason to suspect that a more practical objec- tion to this scheme of education arises out of the sensitiveness of the seminaries to their rivalry about numbers. Now, if there is sense and reason in placing all the seminaries under the con- trol of the Assembly, it is precisely for this, that the Assembly, exercising its supreme authority, may deliver all the seminaries effectually from the incubus of these timidities and rivalries, by rigidly compelling them to move abreast in wholesome, but stringent, reforms. Unless the Assembly will do this, it is hard for me to see what Assemblies are for.
IV. The next point to be discussed is the attempt to combine a practical training in parochial duties with the literary and re- ligious cultivation of the divinity student. In 1853, the Synod of Virginia committed itself definitely to that attempt, and partly for that object lengthened the vacation to four months, in order that students might engage in colportage, and similar duties.
MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 67
In mj opinion, the attempt lias been a failure and should be re- linquished. Ko one can dispute tliat a practical knowledge of pastoral duties, and skill in preaching the gospel from house to house, are essential to the scribe who is thoroughly instmcted to the kingdom of God. But it by no means follows that there- fore the two kinds of preparation must, or can be, pursued to- gether. A sword needs to be not only forged and tempered, but ground. X'ntil the latter is done, it A^-ill not cut. Tet the smith does not attempt therefore to grind it while he is tempering it. The one process, would spoil the other. So, the attempt to giye thorough scholarship, and that to cultiyate pastoral tact at the same time, haye been found incompatible. A great deal has been said of the uselessness of green, awkward, impractical book-worms. Much of this is true ; but I see no e^ndence that the awkwardness is produced or increased by the scholarship. The former defects are usually the consequences of natural traits of taste and temper, which thorough mental culture would rather correct than exaggerate. The rest of the cure must be effected, if at all, by the young minister's own experience under the pres- sure of pastoral responsibilities.
But, as a general rule, our students cannot be made to employ the summer yacation in colportage. Some excuse for this may be found in the fact, that the heat of the season is noxious to the constitution of a person whose hfe is suddenly changed at the beginning of summer from sedentary to actiye. Cases haye been known at Princeton in which zealous men haye contracted diseases fi-om exposure to these unaccustomed heats and fatigues, brought them back to the seminary, lost the session by them, and eyen died with them. Be this as it may, the fact is, that the bulk of our students spend the time in yisiting, or recreation only.
Now, four months are obyiously too long a time to idle. Yet, eight months are too long to study continuously and industri- ously. Towards the conclusion, the animal spirits will flag, the cheek pale, and the digestion become deranged. The old method of two terms yearly, with two short yacations, is the true one. Ten months should be deyoted to study, and two to recreation. During the years which are intended for mental culture, this cul- ture should be the main thing, and all should bend to the secur- ing of the best results in the main point. In the average run of
68 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
constitutions (and a general plan slioiild l)e adjusted for tlie average, and not for the exceptional, cases), the benefit of rest and change of scene is all reaped in the first few weeks ; the elasticity of the system reacts, apjjetite returns, and all is done to recruit the body that rest can do. The student then returns to the seminary without so grievous a chasm in his studies and habits. He resumes his books before he has become '^ rudy" in last session's acquisitions. He sets in with life and studies for five months without injury, and about the time his energies begin to flag, another moderate season of rest recurs. But upon the plan of one session annually, eight months are a period too long to study w^ell, and four months are certainly too much to play. The customs of our fathers of the English public schools, and of the universities, bear me out. We departed from them chiefly for this plea, that in our extensive country too much time and expense are required to take the remoter students home and back again twice a year. Railroads have exploded this ar- gument. The fact is, that few of our students are now content with one journey a year ; the most get tired of the monotony of a long session and spend money and time in going, not home perhaps, but to some city. The difference is, that this second trip is stolen time.
But the one session and the long vacations are now the fashion ; and a return to old usages would be unpopular with students. Here, again, the general legislation of the Assembly should be invoked.
V. Another important point in which our training for the ministry needs adjustment, is the form in which aid should be extended to meritorious youDg men of scanty means. The pre- sent plan of making them beneficiaries of a Board of Education has been advocated by venerable names, and has produced some good fruit. But "one swallow does not make a summer." The propriety of the plan is not proved by some exceptional results, which may be accounted for by other causes, but by a fair gen- eral view of its working upon the whole. The writer freely con- fesses that his dissatisfaction wdth the plan has been radical ; it lias usually succumbed partially to the mere authority of such names as the elder Alexander, without ever being rationally re- moved. I once made just this statement to Dr. Addison Alex- ander (a very wise and practical man, despite his recluse habits).
MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 69
and lie replied that I had expressed precisely his state of mind ; and he concurred, in the main, in all the vieAvs which I am about to state.
Notwithstanding the plausible justification which is made of the attitude of the beneficiaries, the instincts of a good many of our ministers haye obstinately dissented, and they have refused to accept such aid. Now it is of some weight to remark, that this class of our ministers is certainly not behind others in eyan- gelical spirit and character. It was the emphatic testimony of Dr. Addison Alexander that these beneficiaries seemed to him to be worse strung, and toned to a lower key of efi^ort, than the young men who supported themselves ; that there was a sort of in- different and cowed spirit about all they did. It is now mani- fest that the character of the Presbj^erian ministry in the Northern States has deteriorated for some cause; and many ju- dicious men account for it by the introduction of so many per- sons of lower breeding and mercenary views. Jeroboam cor- rupted the religion of Israel parth^ by making priests of the lowest of the people. Now the ministry, especially in the South, must be gentlemen in bearing and principle. Mere conversion, while it may make a peasant a Christian, confessedly does not make him a gentleman. Hence, an}^ plan which contemplates rearing the bulk of the ministry out of the lower classes, must produce a deteriorated class. When we say this, we by no means claim a monopoly of all the honor and principle for the upper classes ; nature has her noblemen of all classes. But these men of innate nobility born in the lower classes will raise themselves by an invincible energy to the grade they deserve, and the effort of doing so will be the needful test and discipline of their char- acter. Where a wholesale provision is made for elevating men of that class promiscuously, withoat subjecting them to that test and discipline, the inevitable result will be the introduction of a majority of scurvy characters, who should have remained in the rank they were born in. The plan of the old Board of Education in connection with other church machinery prepared a way by which any man could he floated into the ministry and a living without any special eftbrt. Hence, the temptation to mercenary men to seek this aid was too strong. It is looked to as a mere living. The safeguards of Presbyterial examination wiU never be sufficient. The church must have o. practical ted of the man-
70 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
ifest mettle, capacity, and disinterestedness. As was remarked to me br Dr. Alexander, in the case of young men of wealtli and ■worldly prospects, of yoirr C. C. Jones, Yan Eensselaers and Sampsons, this test is given in their sacrificing a brilHant worldly future, and adopting a profession whose worldly emoluments are to them unimpoi-tant, and rather a loss than a gain. But the young mechanic has no such worldly prospects; a minister's worldlv compensation is to him an important gain as compared with dsij labor. And if the test of devotion presented by strenuous exertion to overcome his difficulties and educate him- self be wholly removed by the church's alms, there is no practi- cal guarantee left that he is not mercenary, and that he is not a feeble, inefficient person. Hence, it is a fatal mistake for the church, in its generosity, to lift all the difficulties out of such a man's way.
It has been often argued in defence of our education alms, that they were not alms at all, Init a fair delit ; that in expend- ing money to educate a poor and pious youth for usefulness, the church was not gi^^ng to him, but to herself ; that when he had given himself io the work, it was nothing but right the church shoidd give the filthy lucre. We beheve that this statement is exaggerated. The man who feels aright the pri^s-ilege of preach- ing Christ will recognize the aid which places the work in his reach as a very precious personal l^enefit. It may be reason- able and right that the rich Christians who bestow it should feel bound to do so ; but it is none the less a gift to the recipient. Moreover, to the class of men who receive this aid the ministry is a social promotion, and help to reach it is as truly a personal gift, yea, a gift of secular value, as a tract of land would be. Now the current doctrine of our Boards of Education leaves the moral sentiments of the beneficiary in an unwholesome posture. Is he taught to deny that the gift is a gift? Here is an odious schooling in ingratitude. Does he recognize it as a gift ? The personal giver is unkno^s^Ti, and gratitude has no object, except an abstraction. Thus aU that cultivation of the heart, which is a chief part of God"s object in alms-giving, is lost.
It is also to be remarked that, after all the specious justifica- tions of the plan, there is usually a lurking feeling of degivada- tion about the recipients of this aid ; they cannot but feel that, for a strong, able-bodied man to receive public alms in such a
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 71
coiintiy as ours, under the name of getting an education, makes liim a sort of panper. This humiliation is obviously increased by the odious system of reports, distinguishing them from their richer comrades (yet, though odious, a necessary corollary of the scheme), by ■which their receiving their a^Dpropriations is made to depend on the private report of a sort of professorial inquisition. But this difficulty would be removed by adopting for all students a system of strict responsibilities, as above re- commended.
Now, there shoidd be means provided for aiding, and thus abridging, the preparation of meritorious young men, and where they are already of mature years, saving their time to the chiu'ch. But this aid should be the exception, not the general rule. It should come from two sources : 1, The gifts of personal benefac- tors, personally interested in the recipient, so that the whole transaction would be one oiijr'ivate Christian frieiulsh ij) between man and man ; 2, Scholarships in our literary institutions. And these scholarships should be what their name denotes, avMi'ds of merit, bestowed as prizes on actual examination upon siich. as had won them over their fellows by superior diligence, integ- rity and capacity. And let not the indigence of the applicant be named as a qualification for receiving. If the hest student is as rich as a Yan Rensselaer, let him take the prize, if he demands it. If the poor student needs it, let him show his mettle and win it. Then, instead of feeling humiliation in the help obtained, he will feel elevated and invigorated. The colleges should have a few such prize scholarships, to be bestowed for merit in the academy, and enjoyed while passing through college. The sem- inaries should have more, to be bestowed on those who won them by excellence in their college course, or in the first and second year's work of the seminary.
For reasons above indicated, it is believed that the church should never adopt it as her established rule to bear the whole charge of any candidate's education in any form. It is all-im- portant that a part of this burden be left resting upon himself as a test of his disinterested devotion and a training of his hardi- hood. Woe to the purity of the ministry if the church ever de- parts permanently from this principle. "What the indigent can- didate needs is help to make his progress possible; not such
72 MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
lielp as supersedes the necessity of using his own limbs to walk in that progress. Bat we freely admit that our discharged sol- diers constitute an exception to this rule. The}^ have expended four years in the seryice of their country, and have left the army utterly impoverished. They are too old to be longer delayed ; the church needs them now. They should be borne through their preparation without a day's delay. But when this merito- rious class is exhausted, the Assembly should imperatively re- qiiire all the seminaries and its Committee of Education to re- turn to the old rule, wliicli extended only help, and not a main- tenance.
YI. In conclusion, the relations of those sciences (as geology) which affect the credit of inspiration should be studied by divinity students on the right footing. It is desirable that at least a part of our clerg}^ be well informed upon these subjects. But to make the study of them, therefore, a part of a divinity course in a school strictly ecclesiastical appears to me extremely objection- able for several reasons.
First, when thrust thus into a divinity course, the instruction upon these extensive and intricate sciences must needs be flimsy and shallow, a mere sketch or outline. The result will be that our young ministers ■u'ill not be made natural historians, but con- ceited smatterers in these branches of knowledge. There is no matter in which Pope's caution should be uttered with more em- phasis :
' ' Driuk deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. "
The great lights of these sciences, armed with the results of life-long study, are not to be silenced, if perchance infidel, by a class of men Avho make it a liy-play to turn aside from their own vocation, and pick u}i a scanty outline of this foreign learning. These clerical smatterers will only make matters worse by dis- playing their own ignorance ; and their so-called defences of in- spiration will provoke the contempt and sneers of their assail- ants. If Christianity needs to be defended against the assaults of natural science with the weapons of natural science, it must be done by competent Christian laymen, or by the few ministers who, like Dr. Bachman, are enabled to make natural science a profound study. Let our Cabells defend the "unity of the race" while our pastors preach the simple gospel.
MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 73
Second, The tendencies of sncli a course will be miscliievoiTS as to both the professor and his pupils. The latter will be found more inclined to mere human learning and to the conceit which usually attends it, and which always attends a small degree of it, babbling the language of geology and ethnology with a great deal more zest than they recite their catechisms. The undoubted soundness of all our present teachers and clergy, and their un- feigned reverence for inspiration, now blinds us to the ulterior tendency of such attempts. It may be two or three generations before the evil comes to a climax, but I would solemnly declare that it will 1)6 found that the most mischievous skepticism and the most subtle doctrines of anti-Christian science will be just those propagated from these church schools of natural science; and after a time the church will have more trouble with her de- fenders than with her assailants ; for the sjiirit of these sciences is essentially intidel and rationalistic; they are arrayed, in all their phases, on the side of skepticism. The professor placed in ihe seminaries, remembering that he is the exponent of the na- tural sciences to the theologues, will feel bound to expound them as held by some naturalists. Hence, his expedient wall be, to adopt that phase of them propounded by these non-Christian authors least glaringly obnoxious to the authenticity of inspira- tion. But this phase will also be found covertly anti-Christian, and the attempt to make it tally with Scripture will only betray ihe church professor into a rationalistic mode of dealing with Scripture. This is the rationale of the fact that it is precisely from the professed Christian geologists the most insidious books have come, because nominalh^ friendly. Thus no book of geo- logy is more thoroughly impregnated with the secret virus of rationalistic infidelity than the Testimony of the Jtocks written by a Hugh Miller for the professed purpose of defending the Bible.
Third, and chiefly. The scheme of science adopted to recon- cile the authority of Scripture with itself is ever a matter of dif- ference among orthodox Presl)yterians themselves, and is not, and cannot be made a part of the body of our creed. But a man is set up by ecclesiastical authority, paid with the church's money, to teach the church's wards some such scheme. Hence endless contentions. For instance, does the professor of natural science
74 MEMORIAL OX THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION.
say of geology that because the fact which it attempts to settle by empirical deduction is the fact of a creation, the work of an omnipotent agent, therefore, in the very approach to this ques- tion the validity of such deductions fails, and all such specula- tions are superseded, because this fact of a supernatural crea- tion, if it has occurred, has transcended all natural law ? Does he hence briefly infer, as I do, that such speculations about the mode and date of creation must, by a logical necessity, always be incompetent to natural science, no matter how extended? Then Drs. Hitchcock, Hodge, and a great multitude will cry out : "You old fogy, the church did not put you there to discredit her in the eyes of the scientific world by such antiquated stuff. You misrepresent her; you abuse your trust."
Does he, on the other hand, attempt to reconcile Moses and geology, by adopting Hugh Miller's theory that the six days were six vast ages? Then I shall crj^ out against him : "Sir, you are giving a mortal stab to Christian faith, by countenancing a licen- tious, rationalistic canon of interpretation, and you are involving God's sacred truth in a still pending squabble between the worldly advocates of science touching the disputed agreement of the order of events in Genesis, first chapter, and the chronolo- gical order of the fossils. You shall not be permitted to commit the Presbyterian Church to this pernicious scheme, however you may choose to commit yourself."
In a word, is it not obvious to common sense that the church must not attempt, in her authoritative schools, to expound any- thing which the church is not agreed upon ? The only way to avoid this just ol)jection is to include in the seminarj^'s course no doctrines except those which the church herself holds as " of the faith," as a part of her established orthodoxy, and no branches of secular knowledge but such as are established and are directly subsidiary to the doctrines. For example, in teach- ing original sin, as established in the church's code of orthodoxy, the professor of necessity introduces a certain doctrine of men- tal science touching motive and the will. But first, all scholars of all schools have been agreed for ages that this doctrine of theology and this doctrine of psychology, true or false, go to- gether ; and second, all Presbyterians are as much agreed in the truth of the latter as they are on the former. Every point of
MEMORIAL ON THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION. 75
science merely secular of which this cannot be said must be kept out of the divinity course proper, and we must forbear to comrnit the church to it by teaching it officially in her ecclesias- tical schools. Those branches which interest theology, and are still unsettled, should be taught in seciilar schools, under friendly, though not official, denominational auspices, where at least tli© premium minds of our young ministry may inform themselves profoundly.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
LAY-PREACHING.'
WHEN a work is exciting the pious enthusiasm of good men it is an invidious task to cry, " Caver But it may, none the less, be a necessary and imperative duty to utter that caveat. No friend of God and man, who witnesses efforts which really result in rescuing sinners from perdition, can fail to ap- prove of that effect, however he may mistrust the mode ; and if he permits any pride of class or spirit of party to sway him into condemnation of the former, he is not only weak, but criminal. We may concede, likewise, that it will be very difficult for the dissentient from the new mode so to utter his caveat against it as not to appear opposed to the result, in which all good men should concur. Yet the friends of truth may be shut up to at- tempt that nice distinction. Ministers of the gospel should, of all men, be most humrble, and therefore they should be the first to remember that their regular membership in the ecclesiastical guild will by no means ensure to them a monopoly of all the skill for its functions. The regular medical faculty has doubtless learned some things from classes whom it stigmatized as quacks. The Thompsonian taught them some things about caloric as a remedial agent, and the homoeopathists have made them more sparing of their drugs. The ministry should be discreet, and be taught by such instances not to be too proud to learn from humble laymen the ways of proclaiming God's truth more effectively, if there is anything to be learned from them. The history of Eldad and Medad (Num. xi. 27-30) has not seldom been cited against the clergy, and the modesty of Moses com-
' This article appe.ared in The Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1876, re- viewing: 1, Minutes of Assembly, Southern Presbyterian Church; 1869. 2, Nar- rative of tlie Awakening; London: James Nisbet & Co. Pp. 384; large octavo. 3, The American Evangelists. By Dr. John Hall and George H. Stuart, Esq. Dodd &Mead. Pp. 455; 12mo. 4, Addresses and Lectures, with Narrative of Labors of Messrs. Moody and Sankey. A. D. F. Kandolph. Pp. 222 ; 8vo. 5, The Work of God in Great Britain. By KufuB W. Clark, D. D. Harper & Bros. Pp. 371. 6, Sacred Songs and Solos Sung by Ira D. Sankey. Loudon: Morgan & Scott. (With Music.)
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LAY-PREACHING. 77
mended, when lie replied : " Would that all the Lord's people were prophets." Although ministers might fairly except to this instance that the two new prophets in the camp of Israel pre- sented, in their inspired afffatas, a divine warrant which would, in any age of the church, if it were really manifested, supersede the necessity of regular appointment, but which none in our age can claim either in or out of the ministry ; yet they may well re- gard it as always seemly for them to pay a modest heed to this instance.
Whatever, then, can be learned fi'om eminent lay-preachers, of devotion, simplicity of language and aim, or skill in winning souls^ all this the ministry should meekly and thankfully learn. We may note among these timely lessons the following: The success of Mr. Moody in enlisting the popular attention to the gospel should be an impressive illustration of some homiletical truths which our church anxiously seeks to impress on her younor ministers, such as these : that preaching to the people should usually be in popular, as opposed to theological, structure ; that it is the fundamental truths of the revealed gospel-theology which, above all human speculations and niceties, command the heart of man.^ This examjDle reminds us, also, that the profane classes of men will never be brought under gospel influences by building churches and inviting them to come to the minister ; the minister must go after them. The practical sense of Mr. Moody has also shown him the importance of finding some way by which transient impressions made in public may be promptly followed up vrith. personal inculcation. He has also given us another il- lustration of that which can never be too often impressed on those who aim to do good — the power of sympathy and sincerity over depraved hearts.
We shall now claim at the hands of our readers credit for our candor in declaring that all assaults upon Mr. Moody's purity of motive and Christian character are as far as possible from our thoughts. In dissenting from a part of his example, we only assert the well known fact, that good men have often made mis- takes, which, though not designed, have been hurtful. It seems almost customary now to assert that the unquestionable divine blessing which is claimed to attend the labors of the lay-evangel-
' See Lectures on Sacred Rhetoric, by R. L. Dabney, Lectures II,, VII.,
xvin, XX.
78 LAY-PREACHIXG.
ists is God's sanction of their metliod. This supposed argument has been lately heard from the most respectable as well as the most inconsiderate sources. Plausible as it appears to the pious, it is transparently erroneous. This is patent from a simple ques- tion : has not God often blessed the pious efforts of misguided men, not for the sake of, bitt in spite of, their peculiar errors? The monk Augustine went to Canterbury among the Pagan Sax- ons, preaching the gospel indeed, but with especial purpose to assert among them the papal supremacy. Did not God largely employ his preaching to Christianize those barbarians ? Doubt- less. But are we ready to concede that God thereby set the seal of his approval upon the missionary's Romanizing principles ? This was, indeed, the stupid and superstitious inference of Augus- tine ; it is not that of any Protestant. Again : John Wesley urged his great evangelistic movement in the especial interest of an Arminian theology and an unscriptural church-government. No Presbyterian grants that the unquestionable success of him and his missionaries in winnincf souls is God's endorsement of his erroneous principles. A search through our church histories might multiply these instances a hundred-fold.
With these preparatory truths, we wish to remind our readers of a few admitted Scripture facts. Christ, the Head of the church, has himself ordained the mode in which he wills his gospel shall be preached to mankind. He has instituted in the wcrld a visible church, and appointed it to be "the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15. j He has given it, at least in outline, its form, laws and officers, and has enjoined upon it the species of didactic and disciplinary functions it is to perform. He has taught this church that hir public organic functions are all to be performed through these officers, whose names and places he has himself assigned. When he was pleased to ordain that "by the foolishness of preaching" those who be- lieve are saved, he provided expressly how the preachers were to be selected and apjaointed. The qualifications of the men he bestows by the gifts of his providence and grace. The brother- hood recognize the possession of these qualifications by certain critet'ia, which he has caused to be laid down in his word. The existing elders of the church are clothed with the function of trying the qualifications of the new heralds, and, on verifying the presence of those qualities, of clothing them with the office-
LAY-PKEACHING. 79
power of the ministerial elder. It was thus the highest evangel- ists were appointed. (Acts xvi. 1-3 ; 1 Tim. iv. 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 6.) Thus the ordinary ministers of the church are to be perpetuated. (2 Tim. ii. 2.) We thus see that Christ has not left anj-thing to human invention, as to the instrumentality for preaching his gos- pel ; that matter is distinctly settled. It should be enough for the humble Christian that thus Christ has ordained. Hence, we are as sure that Christ's plan is the wisest, as any human ex- perience can make us ; we do not need the lessons of church his- tory, so often repeated, where the betterments which man's officious zeal has insisted on making upon Christ's plan have borne their regular fruits of mischief and confusion, to make us content with the ordained method. Amidst all the plausibilities and excitements of the human inventions, we remain quiet in the conviction that Chriat hwios hest.
But it is not unprofitable to recur to the practical reasons for this divine ordinance of a regular ordained ministry, preaching officially only as they are commissioned by the church through her presbyterial courts.
Were we Quakers, we could consistently claim an exemption from this law. If all preaching were done like Eldad's and Medad's, by the specific and immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the preacher might consistently claim that he was not dependent upon these practical reasons. But the apostle taught us (1 Cor. xiii. 8), that " prophesyings should fail." The modern evangelist and pastor must preach aright, by the combined as- sistance of his natural and acquired mental gifts, scriptural knowledge, and spiritual discernment. Hence, the preacher needs all the support, the guidance, and the restraining responsibili- ties arising out of his official relation to the church, and the church cannot possibly fulfil her grand function of being " the pillar and ground" of the gospel, viuless she preserves those official relations and checks with those who preach. She must claim her rights of selection, ordination, and government, over those who preach her gospel, for her own and her Master's sake, as well as for the sake of sustaining and endorsing their mes- sage. This point of view gives us a triumphant answer to that flippant argument which asks, What actual eftect an ordination ceremony has upon the ordained ? " Do gifts and graces," they ask, "emanate from the palms of the ordaining prelate or pres-
80 LAV-!'iti:Af'Hi,\a
})yU>.VH, arid ponctrato tlm hUuUs or lnjarts of Ukj (iandidatoH? '^ If tlio truth JH ])r(}ach<!d, wljat (WiYcrcnca can l)e made l>y a formal, Imman appoiiitiiKint of liiiii vvlio pn^atduiH it? Wo an- swer it rriak(!H this (liircrciici! : in tlio oiio cas*;, tlio li<!ar(;r has tlic; opinion of one. individual f.rllow-sinncr ; in tin; otli(!i', lui liaH tlio judj^nwaii of tlic; (rliiirftli of (!lirist, nttffntd tlirf)n^li li<;r ])roj)(!r orf^an, thai the, tliit)^s nttciwid aro tlio truths of (irod. This is a vory dirrcrciii, |M>siiioii fr^ini that of tho ]);ipist, who claims for tli(( church inf;dlil)ilil V, and dtnuands of tho lioantr an im[)licit f;iith ; vci, it s(!cur(!S to tlio siniicr iin important didactic advan- tai^c. 11(5 can only l)c savfid by tho ti'utli, as lio has rational as- Hur!(nc(! that it is from (lod, and tluuviforo of divine authority. Of that rational <ronvi(rtion tin; asso(Mat(ul tf^stimony of tluj chuiuth, God's !i|)|»oint('(| \vitn(!ss on (Mith.isiin important clcnuint. Tho ndnistcr is, to most of his hc;ircrs, ])<'i'sonally a sti'anf^(;r ; th(!y know nothin;^ as to whcithcr ho is a wise, and ti'iio man or not ; but llii- church he represents is not a str;in;^er ; her character and slul iih !ire known. A;^';iiii: <he l;i y-j)i'e,ach(!i" speid<s under no (scclesias- ticnl responsil)ilitv ; he may ])r(!S(uit th(i truth iipti y or itni])tly, to the edilicilion or \.\\v misloadiu}^ of his hearers; hut tin; chiii'ch whicli permil-s him to preach without her commission c.innot curl) him. lio (h)<!S not (hu'ivo iiis j'i;^ht to s[)(!ak from her. I low c;in she sujxirviso it, ho lon;^ iis his oi'rors are not flaj^^rant onoufi;h lo conslitui(5 wh.'d, would Ik; ;i, discipliuMhli' oU'eiict! in alavnuinV Tho i'nishyterian (Ihurch does not mak(! \i a ccn- siirthlc. i-riiin: for a lavnuin to believe that children should not be b;ipl,i/,e(|, l,li;it ;i, s;iint may tolallv and linally apostatizi;, that r<!j.^«!m!i'a,tion is synerj^istic. Th(ui, can she punish om; who owes her no otiu'-r i-esponsibilities than those of a lavmaii for sayiu}^ what Ih' believes? 'j'his \ iew makes ii |)erfeclly ob\ ious that l.(lij-pf'(i(t('Jini(/ iiii/>ri(t< hri>'i(/-</i iirc/iisiii . The <-liurcli which ac- (M'.pts it as a (aistomary onbnanco must, in consistency, Hin}^ down hor doctrinal standards, and open her dooi'S to latitndina- rian doctrine, willi all its fearful conseipiences. Lei all Presby- terians, timn, bear in mind, as one " lixeil fad ," 1 lial tlui r>'c;);^iii- tion of lay-preaching incc/is hrond-rhnvchixin . Tiiis ai'^ument may n<iw bo brou;^lit within very close and simple limits. Christ oi'(hiined that th(«. human heralds of his truth, since they would not be infallible, should preach under stiict r.'sponsibility to his church. I5ut IIk; lay-preacher, especially the omc who mi!rg<!S
LAY-lMtKACHINO. 81
Ills own (Iciioiiiiuatioii.il comicct ion in catlKilic labors, is' under no rc'sponsil)ility to tin" flinrch. Sin; lias no clit'ck on his mo- tions. AN'c must juld tliat i\\o, concession of tln^ full rij^lit of lay- ])r('acliin^ wili leave us no ;j;u:irantee of I In- prenclier's ])re)>ara- tion. Christ has diMljir.il (h;it ]iarticular (pialiticatioii and pre- paration are esscaitial. JJut if tho preaclier jippoints himst^lf, how is this requircnnent to bo (^nforc<'d V Tlie iiiii)uls(> to preach, of course, implies the; subject's conviction of his own litness, and he "is judjj;e in his own cMse." There is no s.-ife^uard left.
Tile 11 ion lent oils li;i( lire of this conseinieiiee is not ;i|tpreliendeil until Avc remember that smdi lay-evauj^^elists as Messis. ^Foody and Saiikey Mre destined to have many iinit;i<ors. Tt mi^lit bo "Well for the church could we be <i;u;ir;iiitccd iluil nil tlios(< who arc to come after will l»e us sound ;iiid script iir.d ;is llii> distin- guished leaders, ihii we li;i\e no ri,i;lit to .iiit icipnte any otiier result tliMii this: tlmt these iniitntors will he of ;ill kinds, "good, bad, and indilVereiit ." If the journals may l»e l)clic\ed, our prophecy is already fiiltilliii;^ in solium wiio art^ apinj^ ^Ir. IMoodys ro/e. IJut when we are infested with that harvest of rashness, indiscretion, bad taste, heresy, and iiitnision, wliich is to come from this sowinj^, we shall understand why the Head of the church imposed olhcial i-es])onsiltilit ies, in addition to the lay, upon thos<3 who puhlicly preach his "gospel.
AVe ai"(; perfectly await- of the retort which awaits us, tliat tho church court is no more infallible than tho lay-preachers. AVo shall be told that the preachers keeper needs keepiii;^ as much as he does. I Jut the reply to this is in the principle w hich Solo- mon announces in tlu^ words, " 1 n the multitude of counsellors is safety." The error or ajiostasy of the many is far le.ss probablo than that of tlio one; tho aggrof.^ato wisdom of tho many is far greater than that of the one. All le<^itinnito •^oviu'nments are but specimens of tho ■wisdom of di\ iiu- Vrovideiice in so com])inin}^ men in society as to make them checks u|)on each other. ( 'hnrch government contains the same useful and lieiieticeiit I'eat lire. And wo rep(sit that it should \n\ enoii;j;h for us that this is the method >vhich Christ, in his divine wisd(jm, has actually adopted to re- press the disorders of erratic, individual luiiids and wills in his kingdom on earth. If thi; objection meant no more than tliafc
this mt'thod will also come shc^rt of yic'lding [imfoct results, wo Vol. II.— C.
82 LAY-PREACHINa.
should freely concede it. No plan, though devised by divine wisdom, "udll ever work perfection when intrusted to human hands, for these are at best imperfect. But shall we, therefore, disdain the safeguards which that wisdom has devised to protect us from total and disastrous failure?
But to our Assembl}' of 1869 there appeared to be another side to this subject. That body looked abroad upon the vast des- titutions of the country, and then observed the lamentable masses of buried talents in the laity of the church. It seemed to ask itself why this latent talent should not be at once directed to at- tack these vast destitutions everywhere, and without the formal- ity of professional training. Thus it was prompted to adopt the ambiguous action which authorized church sessions to license, in a sense, elders and laymen who should be virtually lay-preach- ers, and yet, in some sort, ecclesiastical officers of the church. To us it always appeared that the Assembly should not have gone thus far, or else should have gone farther. The only kind of preacher, not an ordained minister and administrator of the sac- raments, known to our constitution is the "probationer." The only court Avhich can lawfully license him is the Presbytery ; and he can only be licensed lawfully after a certain prescribed pre- paration. But these sessional ajyj^ointees were preachers, and yet not probationers. If the Assembly judged it right to direct lay effort into public channels, it would have been less inconsist- ent and illegal simply to invite laymen (and elders) to exercise their gifts publicly, without waiting for formal authority from any church court. That is to say, it would have been better for the Assembly to hold and teach that these extra-constitutional public exercises of individual gifts, while encouraged by the brotherhood, must yet be held as authorized by the personal rights of private members, as Christ's freemen, and not by any official appointment. Or if the Assembly felt the intrinsic loose- ness of this footing for the exercise — as Presbyterians could not but feel — and yet desired to encourage this species of public labor, it should have gone farther, and changed the constitution, ■so as to provide for sessional "licentiates," who should not be "probationers," nor trained for the ministry, and yet regular ecclesiastical officers. It is fortunate for the integrity of our system and the peace of our churches, that the instincts of good sense in our people have left this legislation practicaUv a dead
LAY-PREACHING. 83
letter. So may it remaiu until the "sober second tliouglit" of the Assembly shall revoke it.
But yet, pious zeal urges us with such thoughts as these : There is, notoriously, high qualification for usefulness outside of the ordained ministry ; why not let it act, when the world is perishing ? The truest wisdom is to give free scope for all good energies. And then, has not Christ made every behever a teacher of his lost fellow-men, leaving it as the last enactment entered upon the pages of the New Testament, " Let him that heareth say, Come V (Rev. xxii. 17.) Thus, it is the very con- dition of every Christian's life, that he shall, somehow or some- where, siDeak to others for Christ. Now, if, by speaking for Christ to one fellow-creature, a believer ascertains that he can edify tAvo, where is the difference in principle ? Is it not twice as well ? And if he may properly speak to two, why not to twenty, or to two hundred, or to two thousand? And if God blesses his speaking in the awakening, renewal, or edification of souls, how can any good man dare to arrest the blessing for the sake of a human ordinance which is lacking to the speaker?
This is plausible ; j-et the reconciliation is not difficult. We remind the pious advocate of this liberty, that ordination is not a "human ordinance," in the sense of his argument, hut a divine one. Christ enjoins it; only he enjoins man to perform it. When amiable enthusiasm asks of us whether we expect divine grace to "run in our ruts," we fearlessly replj- — abating the homeliness of the image — ^that we do expect it to move in chan- nels which Christ has assigned for it ; and if we have these, then we are entitled to expect that Christ will honor his own institu- tion. The solution of the objection is found, secondly, in the fact that, this side of the official heralding of the gospel by the word and sacraments, there is a wide and diversified field for lay effort, extending from the teaching of the child at its parent's knee, up to the school and the Bible class. But, third, if this lay effort develops in any male Christian real qualification for more public usefulness than all this field can offer him, this is one element of his call to the regydar ministry ; and with the seal of success added, it is the crowning and decisive element. As a devout and faithful behever, he is bound to accept the sign as meaning this. The "aptness to teach," "good report with them that are without," and other traits which constitute him a sue-
84 LAY-PREACHING.
cessful lay-preacher, are precisely those M'hich Clirist has laid down as designating those whom he calls into the ministry. That regular ministry, ordained in the regular ecclesiastical mode, is precisely the agency which he has appointed to do the preach- ing. Hence the case is perfectly clear. If the man is mistaken in supposing he has the gifts for lay-preaching, he should l)e stopped. If he really has them, then Christ thereby calls him into the regular ministrj^, either as a pastor or evangelist. How else can any man be more clearly called than by just the gifts and successes which are claimed for these evangelists by their friends ? If they may refuse to heed, we see not how any other man can be more bound to come into the ministry. If love and duty to Christ prompt them to preach as laymen, we see not how the same affections can fail to draw them into the ministry. If, for instance, such laymen as the late Mr. Brownlow North and Mr. Moody have the qualifications and the seal of the divine bless- ing which their friends claim for them, this is, to our mind, a demonstration that God calls them into the regular ministry, and they should seek a regular ordination like other ministers, each in that branch of the church which has his conscientious preference.
This, then, should be the solution of the impulse to lay-preach- ing. The consistent application of this solution would not im- ply the refusal of all liberty to the exercise. The ecclesiastical authorities would permit a tentative use of the gifts of laymen in this way. But they would require that each case should, be- fore very long, find its appropriate issue, either by passing on into the regular ministry, or by such practical evidence of the lack of abilit}- to edify as would justify the church court in withdrawing the exceptional privilege. If the possession of gifts were evinced without the learning and culture which the church rightfully requires as necessary to the highest ministerial efficiency, then the same honest zeal which prompts the aspirant to serve God in public should surely prompt him to sulunit to that training by study which will equip him for serving God ef- fectually and wisely in public.
Now, the evasions which will be attempted from this plain reasoning are, first, that the lay-evangelist honestly believes he can do more good thus than if ordained. This plea deserves no more answer than has been already intimated. We presume that
LAY-PKEACHIXG. 85
God knows best, and lie has called tlie preachers into the min- istry. Another plea is, that the irreUgious "svill listen ^\-ith more symjjathy and confidence to one who is not paid for his preach- ing. Again we retort, we presume that the God Avho "ordained that they Mho serye the altar should liye of the altar" knows best. If the regular ministry is indeed mercenary, then the pro- per remedy is to correct the fault by rigid church discipline, to ex- trude the mercenary men, if necessary, from the office they dis- gi-ace, and to till it with regular ministers of a Moody's generous deyotion. If the profession is not obnoxious to this suspicion, then we opine that to truckle to the hostile, infidel prejudice, which wickedly defames a noble and disinterested order of men, is but a sorry way to promote the interests of truth and ri<Tht- eousness. A third and more respectable plea remains, that there are gifted elders, who are prevented by the duties ah'eady owed to dependent families, or by the res angustce domi, from making their way into the regular ministry, but who are admir- ably qualified to do good by public discourse. The aspirations of this class deserye the most generous sympathy of eyery good heart. The true solution which ought to be applied to their cases should be assistance from the brotherhood, so unstinted that it would meet all domestic obstacles and open up a happy road for these yearning souls into the full work of God, by sup- plying the wants of those dependent on them while they are preparing for the higher sphere. But suppose this solution is not giyen, then it might be a more harmless irregularity, if there must be any, for these gifted elders to continue to speak in j)ub- lic, with due prudence and modesty, hy virtue of tJieir ordination as elders, than to resort to a species of licensure as preachers from a court which has no constitutional right to giye it. Be- lieying assuredly, as we do, that the ruling elder is a presbyter, a member of that order of which " aptness to teach " is required in general terms, we would rather see the zeal and gifts of non- clerical laborers expand themselves in elders'-preaching than in lay-preaching. For the former exercise would possess the all- important advantage that it was performed under official sanc- tions and responsibilities.
There are heedless thinkers, who call themselves " practical," who suppose they find an answer to all cautions and every plea of principle in the triumphant question, " How many regularly
86 LAY-PEEACHING.
ordained ministers preacli as well or with as mncli success as Mr. Moody ?" Possibly few or none. Any admission we might make on this point is wholly irrelevant to the argument. For the " practical " Christian will not defy God's word by denying that study and sacred learning give some advantage for expound- ing Christianity, or that the church institutions Christ has or- dained have some utiUty for promoting the great work of the world's redemption. Now, we remind them that Christ requires all of us to love him with all our hearts, and serve him with all our strength. The thing which Christ demands from a Chris- tian of eminent natural gifts and zeal, is not merely that he shall love and serve God better than we poor, plodding " pro- fessionals," but that he shall serve him as well as he can. If his natural gifts, unassisted by ministerial training and sanctions, enable him already to surpass us, that is not the question. The question is, whether the gifted layman, with this training and ordination, might not surpass us a great deal farther in glorify- ing Gocl ? If he might, then he is solemnly bound to do it ; and thus he is bound to make these professional acquisitions which confer that fuller efficiency.
It is from this point of view that we would proceed to what is the most distasteful part of our task — and yet a part required by fidelity to truth — the criticism of Mr. Moody's actual method of preaching the gospel. Let it be, then, distinctly borne in mind, that we do not complain that his preaching is not good, but that it is not better. We do not charge upon it fatal error, or any criminal unfaithfulness to truth ; but we assert that it presents blemishes enough to offer precisely the proof that might be ex- pected of the necessity of regular training to him who under- takes to preach the gospel. Mr. Moody's preaching is correct enough to evince great promise, and great knowledge of the English Scriptures ; but it is not correct enough to evince that he, more than any other man, can adequately instruct the church of God without the regular training. The point which we claim, after conceding all his eminent merits, is, that here again we haA'e the experimental evidence, the more conclusive because it is found in so eminent an instance, to prove that no man should preach who has not had the advantages of preparation and regu- lar appointment.
We hear Mr. Moody, for instance, teUing the Christians of
LAY-PREACHING. 87
Edinbnrgli, in Jannarv, 1874, it was "liis belief that God piiu- islies believers in this life for their transgressions, while the pun- ishment of unbelievers was reserved for a future state." The natural construction of this sentence would, of course, give the same meaning to the word " punishment " in its two members, "Were Mr. Moody's attention challenged to this grave error, he would probably claim that he knew the vdde difference between chastisement (of justified believers) and punishment (of con- demned sinners). But our objection is, that his language teaches the ignorant to confound that distinction.
In a sermon delivered in London, he divides his hearers into three classes : Christians ; those who have wandered fi'om God, or backsliders ; and " those that never have been saved." This distribution seems to imply, that the second class are not Chris- tians now, but W'Cre once saved. Yet Mr. Moody is a declared believer in the perseverance of saints.
Again, he paints in colors of the warmest approval the con- version of a bereaved father, who professes no motive for desir- ing salvation or heaven except the certainty that only by reach- ing that state and place could he again enjoy the society of a> favorite and engaging child, who had died in earh* youth. And this conviction was the result of a vivid dream only ! How dan- gerous may not this delusion be, which thus encourages impul- sive minds to confound the yearnings of an affection merely natural, and shared by myriads of hearts utterly carnal and im- penitent, with spiritual-mindedness.
In a sermon on the new birth, he describes the domestic peace and happiness which have returned to the hearth of a re- formed dru.nkard, who is the father of a family, and exclaims : "Yes, God has done all that ; and that is regeneration." Would it not have been safer to say, " That is one of the fruits of regen- eration," lest some vicious man might adopt, from his words, the soul-destroying error that reformation is regeneration ? In the same sermon he describes Nicodemus, whose history gives him his text, as "belonging to the house of bishops" ; " one of the church dignitaries " ; " one who now would doubtless be a D. D. and LL. D." There is here, perhaps, a very fair hit at the two unfortunate classes among the moderns designated by these titles, but we perceive also a rather confused view, for a religious teacher, of the duties of the Jewish Sanhedrim.
0» LAY-PREACHING.
In tlie sermou on tlie word "gospel," lie repudiates the kindly intercessory petition of a brother, that he — Moody — " might lay hold of eternal life."' He declares that, having gotten this gift at his conversion, nineteen years before, he has no use for this prayer. Does not this savor a little of the unscriptural extrava- gance of the Plymouth Brethren ? They deem it an absurdity to pray for the Holy Ghost, because, they argue, every man who has faith to pray, has the Holy Ghost already. Such teachers forget that Bible saints, whose title to an assurance of a gra- cious state is at least as sound as that of any modern Chris- tian, do continually pray for life and for the Holy Ghost, and do expressly exhort each other to "lay hold on eternal life." They forget that rudimental truth of Christian experience, that breathings after spiritual blessings are the very acts of soul in which the possession of spiritual gifts finds its normal ex- pression.
In the same sermon a desire for eternal life is unhesitatingly ascribed to every person in a vast congregation of impenitent persons; and "eternal life," that which is the great gift of the gospel, is described and illustrated as merely the endless prolon- gation of that natural life to which any worldly man would cleave in the prospect of natural death, even at the cost of his wealth. The argument by which this multitude, dead in trespasses and sins, are assured that they all really have a supreme desire for "eternal life" is simply this. Suppose any one of them were in the condition of a rich man with a million sterling, in a sinking ship in mid-ocean, who offered to give all this wealth to save his life from drowning, would he not do the same? Of course. Well, then, he supremely desires eternal life, and as the heavenly Father stands yearning to bestow it on everybody, everybody may get it on these terms. Thus "slightly is the hurt of the daughter of the people healed." Yet Mr. Moody wo aid promptly accede to those Scripture statements wliich describe all unbe- lievers as carnal and dead to every s})iritual desire. The slight- est discrimination should have saved him from this dangerous confusion of that natural love of existence Avliich every vilest sin- ner feels, and feels all the more pungently by reason of his guilty remorse and fear, with the desire for that true life which is a "hungering and thirsting after righteousness." It is to the latter only that the gospel-promise is made, and the real misery and
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sin of every unbeliever's state is tliat of this desire lie docs not feel a single pulse, and never will, save as the Holy Ghost quickens his dead soul.
And here a solemn protest should be uttered against this trait which pervades much of the preaching of Mr. Moody and his admirers, that tends so strongly to betray the partially-awakened sinner into a "temporary faith." These teachers regard the in- viting features of the gospel as far the most persuasive. Hence they are not thorough in probing the corruptions of dead souls with the instrument of God's holy law. They wish to make coming to Christ very easy. Hence they continually speak to wicked men as though all that is needed is to gratify the natural desire for well-being and impunity. They are so eager to induct their ]3upils into the joys of a full assurance that they tacitly pass over that careful self-examination and the self-distrust implied therein, which alone can safely discriminate, as assisted by the witnessing of the Spirit, between a spimous and a genuine faith. They abound in soft and sensuous pictures of the believer's life and of heaven, as smiling with enjoyments and security. Thus, in his sermon on the great commission, Mr. Moody tells sinners expressly, "Let me say — mark the words — God does not come here and ask any man to give up anything." Is it possible for a religious teacher to fly more directly into the face of his Master ? "We remember that Christ said, in Luke xiv., except a man gives up everything, he cannot be his disciple. It is true that the preacher explains his declaration by promising his hearers that their cases shaU be all Hke his; in that the reception of a free salvation through Christ's blood, in his own case, immediately made the crucifixion of his sins perfectly easy. We feel no dis- position to test the accuracy of Mr. Moody's own peculiarl , happy experience. But this we do know, that if his experience has been thus singular, he has no right to promise a similar one to other behevers ; Christ never did. The teaching which we hear fi'om him is after this fashion : that the denial of our lusts for his sake ought not to be difficult, and were holiness complete in us, w^ould not be ; that, therefore, redeemed sinners, in their mili- tant state, are bound in duty to practice that self-denial manfully, whether they find it more or less bitter, that, by reason of in- dwelling sin, they will find it more or less bitter, Init that his grace will assuredly give them prevalent consolation and final
90 lay-pkeachixct.
"vdctory in tliis death-struggle, if they cleave to him by faith. Such is the amount of encouragement upon which Christ invites the soul that is awakened to the "sinfulness of sin," and ani- mated by the "godly sorrow that worketh repentance unto life," to enter upon the Christian warfare by trust in his love and grace. To the truly humbled and renewed soul it is glorious, sweet and sufficient ; to the mere stony-ground hearer it is but a sapless promise, '\\1iat he desires is a gospel of easy impunity, selfish advantage and luxurious sentiment. But we warn those who preach the gospel thus that they must expect their con- verts to fulfil the prophecy, "When tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by they are offended."
The sermons since preached in America betray similar inac- curacies. At Northfield, Mass., Mr. Moody tells us " Paul's let- ter on election was written to the church, and not to the world." First, we ask, which is Paul's "letter on election," the Epistle to the Romans, or Ephesians, or those to Timothy ? The intel- ligent reader finds election in all his epistles, as well as in Christ's sermons. And next, we see no evidence that the holy apostle restricted his teachings of this doctrine to behevers ; certainly Rom. ix. 20 does not wear this appearance. Again at Northfield, commenting on Matt. vii. 7, he teaches his hear- ers that the "asking Christian" is a lower grade, the " seeking- Christian " a higher, and the " knocking " the highest and best grade ; the last being most assured of an answer to prayer. But our Saviour, in the next verse, proceeds to give the very same promise to all three, thus showing that he did not mean to dis- tribute praying people into gradations by this language, but to reinforce the encouragement given to all praying people in common by an emphatic repetition. It is a far graver error that he evidently confounds the two classes of objects of prayer and promises of answer given in the gospel. He speaks as though Christians had the same specific warrant to pray for ob- jects of problematical benefit (yet naturally and innocently de- sirable to the pious heart), as for the benefits of redemption expressly pledged to faith in the promises. This heedlessness tends to encourage believers who are more ardent than well- informed to push their faith into presumption. The wretched result will be, when they are refuted by a final disappointment, that they ^ill infer either their own rejection by God, and thus
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fall into profound discouragement, or a skeptical doubt of God's faithfulness. This error and its dangers has been fully explicated in a former number of this lievleic^- and we therefore dismiss it with a reference to that discussion.
The reporters have doubtless done that kindly office for Mr. Moody, in preparing his speeches for the journals, which they are wont to render to other extempore orators. Enough re- mains, however, in defects of grammar and style to make every cultivated Christian feel that training for the ministry would not have hurt the preacher. The bad grammar and the provincial- isms which bristle over his discourses are not the worst blem- ishes. An English wit has drawn an amusing picture of a lady of the old-fashioned high-breeding, who was intensely anxious to rebuke in her son a certain fashion of speech, and who yet could not bring herself so far within that guilty fashion as to pro- nounce the unseemly — ^though only — word which characterized it — " slang." We labor under a similar embarrassment in doing our duty on this point to Mr. Moody. We can only protest that we do not beheve even a coal-heaver or sailor finds the infusion of this element, in addition to all that simplicity, perspicuity, earnestness and affection can do, essential to his edification.
There are two more points in this movement which require a. word of caution. One is the absolute importance attached by the lay-evangelists to the undenominational quality of all their measures. The point to be remarked is not that their services are " union meetings," or that the evangelists deem it expedient sometimes to subordinate their own denominational convictions for the temporary purposes of wider Christian communion. The most decided and consistent ministers have done this. But the point is, that the leadars of the new movement make not only the subordination, but the suppression, of their own and of all other people's denominational convictions, even the most con- scientious, an absolute requirement of the success of their work, and that not occasionally, but uniformly. When Mr. Moody was asked, in London, to what l)ranch of the church he be- longed, the only answer he would give was, "that he belonged to the general assembly and church of the fii'st-born, whose names are written in heaven." When a young person honestly asked him, in Edinburgh, to instruct her conscience as to the proper
' January, 1872. "Theology of the Plymouth Brethren," Vol. I., p. 169.
92 LAY-PREACHING.
mode of baptism, lie positively refused, and required lier to sat- isfy herself witli some views as to the significance of baptism. These must have been most inconsistently " sectarian," inasmuch as immersionists differ from us as much about the significance as the mode of this sacrament. In a lecture at Dublin, Mr. Moody's two chief topics were ^^ drtoil'enness and seciciria?iism" "God had vouchsafed a blessed unity ; woe to the unhappy per- son who should first break it. Yet it would be broken if there was j)roselytism. This would be the triumph of sect over Christ. The cry is, 'Come out, come out from a sect.' But where ? Into another sect ? Every body of believers is a sect." There are several remarks wdiich will serve to set this claim in its proper light. It is almost self-evident that he avIio would cooperate in a work thoroughly undenominational with mem- bers of several denominations, must expurgate his teachings of everything which might impinge upon either of his friends' peculiarities. Now the evangelist, who is at once competent and honest, must be supposed to have adopted for himself, either from the standards of some denjomination or from his own original studies in Scripture, a system of revealed doctrine Avhich he conscientiously believes to have correctness and a certain completeness. If private members were justly blamed by the apostles, in Heb. v. 12, because they had not advanced beyond "the first principles of the oracles of Christ," such a state of knowledge is, of course, unpardonable in one who assumes to teach multitudes. But this teacher must noAV clip off one truth at one corner of his own system, in concession to his Methodist ally; another for the Immersiouist ; another for the Episcopa- lian; another for the Eomanist. He wall plead, "Yet the fun- damentals of saving truth remain." We reply, Possibly. But yet, dares he assert that a maimed system of truth will be as ef- ficacious as a complete one ? Is any divine truth valueless ? Is the faithful soldier as willing to right for his king with a sw^ord which has large gaps on its edge, and has lost its point, per- chance, as wath a perfect blade? A good man, as we conceded, may consent to a temporary silence concerning a peculiar truth which he believes to be God's truth, for the sake of other right- eous objects of wider Christian communion. He may concur in a Bible society effort with Quakers, Papists, and even Socinians ; but to consent to a constant silence is dishonest and unfaithful
LAY-PREACHIXG. 93
In the second place, the great proximate end of the chnrch is the redemption of souls. If undenominational teaching is so much the more efficient for this end, it seems very evident that denominations onght not to exist in the church at all. That is to say, the church ought to have an absolute visible unity, as Rome claims. Then, first, the church must either have an earthly infallible head, to settle and suppress all doctrinal dif- ferences, as Rome claims ; or secondly, this catholic church must be a "broad church," wholly latitudinarian as to doctrine outside of the bare fundamentals of saving truth; or thirdly, some Christians must be forced to suiTender a part of their fun- damental convictions to other Christians no more conscientious or infallible than themselves.
In the third place, this exalting of the union effort as the only efficient mode to build up Christ's kingdom, and this denuncia- tion of denomiuationalism as an obstiiiction to good in revival meetings, contain a very plain impUcation that denominations are "\;\T[cked things. The inevitable effect ^^^ill be, that a genera- tion of Christians will be educated opposed to all denominational distinctions. Then there will be but three possible resorts for these Christians — j)opery, or broad churchism, or the renuncia- tion of the visible church in every form. This is the lesson which divine pro^ddence has taught to Christendom bv the struggles of eighteen hundred years, and especially by the agonies and blood of the Protestant Reformation ; the existence of the visible church catholic in branches or denominations, each conscientiously teaching the whole counsel of God for man's sal- vation, as it honestly understands it from the Scriptures, yet each respecting the sincerity and the church rights of the others, is the only condition possible for the existence of orthodox Pro- testantism— on the one hand, not persecuting, and on the other hand, not dishonestly latitudinarian — in such a world as ours. Such, we solemnly testify, is the lesson of God's providence as of sound reasoning. Let the reader scan the gi'ounds of this conclusion again and again ; he will find them adamantine. It will be a calamitous day for truth and for immortal souls when the novelties of a restless and conceited age shall persuade us to cast away this costly truth.
Let a more popular ad homhiem argument be appKed to Mr. Moody. He is, we will suppose for the argument's sake, an
9-i LAY-PREACHING.
immersionist. His owu deuoniinational connection is -with that church. Now, either he beheves that there is some value in the argument for that mode of baptism, or that there is not. If there is none, why is he himself an immersionist ? If there is some value in that mode, then he is bound in honesty to seek that advantage for his converts also. Why should a good man be -^-illing to leave others deprived of that scriptural means of blessing which has done his own soul good ? ^
We conclude with a word touching the office of Mr. Sankey, "singing the gospel." The Jewish temple service had its chief singer. It will be a curious result if this modern movement should develoj) this function into a new and prominent branch of the ministry unauthorized by the New Testament. Singing is unquestionably a scriptural means of grace, and good singing is a very efficient one. But in order that the church may retain the blessing of good singing, the privilege which Mr. Sankey and his imitators claim, of importing their own lyrics into God's wor- ship, must be closely watched. That saying has been quoted in favor of Mr. Sankey's ''ministry of song," which has been as- signed to Lord Macaulay and to Sir W, Scott, and to Thomas Moore, " Let me make the ballads of a people, and I care not who makes their laws." We cite that very principle to condemn the approaching license of so-called sacred song. Dr. Nettle- ton was wont to say that he could cause a company of people to "sing themselves into the doctrines of the gospel more easily than he could preach them into it." Then it is even more im- portant that church courts should use their authority of deciding what shall be sung than of securing the qualification and ortho- doxy of its preachers. Dr. Nettleton took the liberty of compil- ing and using his "Village Hymns" in public worship. His learning, sanctified genius and experience excused the act in him. If the same license is to be usurped by every self-ap- pointed chorister, w^e shall in the end have a mass of corrupting religious poetry against which the church will have to wage a sore contest. Our children will then learn, to their cost, how
' We are not alone in foreseeing the disorganizing consequences of this self- appointment of evangelists. Dr. Thos. H. Skinner, of Cincinnati, has clearly de- monstrated the same point in a pamphlet npon " Laj'-Evangelism, " of unrivalled manliness and vigor, in which he fortifies the inferences of good sense by the les- sons of experience borrowed from the Congregational, the Scotch, and the Presby- terian Churches.
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legitimate and valuable was that restriction wliicli we formerly saw in the lyrical liturgies of the old Protestant churches, ex- pressed by the im2?r'i'>natur of their supreme courts, ^^ Appointed to he sung in c/iu?'ches." The most that can be said of Mr. San- key's developments in this direction is, that they do not appear to have introduced positive error as vet, and that they exliiliit no worse traits than a marked inferiority of matter and style to the established hymnals of the leading churches. The most dan- ger thus far apparent is that of habituating the taste of Chris- tians to a very vapid species of pious doggerel, containing the most diluted possible traces of saving truth, in portions suitable to the most infantile faculties supplemented with a jingle of "vain repetitions." What shall we gain by giving our people these ephemeral rhymes in place of the immortal l}Tics of Moses, Da^dd, Isaiah, Watts, and Cowper, so grand in their rhythm and melody, so pure in taste, and above all, so freighted with com- pact and luminous truth? "The old A\-ine is better."
Intelligent Christians will watch the residts of these mammoth meetings with interest, that " by their fruits we may know them." It is probalily impossilile to ehmiuate the chaff from the wheat as yet in the reported results in Great Britain. No one is compe- tent to decide how much of the apparent enthusiasm was due to curiosity, to animal sympathy, to a species of religious fashion and social furor, to the impressive stimulus of vast multitudes singing or agitated with a common impulse, and how much to divine truth and sanctifying grace. We have seen the London press, with Mr. Spurgeon, after six months' experience, pro- nouncing the successes in that city delusive. It is very apparent that the supporters of the effort in Brooklyn were disappointed, though loth to confess their failure. We incline to the conclu- sion that this method, with its monster congregations and extra- ordinary incidents, is mistaken ; that it will prove a waste of money and labor as compared with the more humble and unob- trusive, but permanently fruitful, work of parochial laborers, and that it -will be found more promotive of an unwholesome reli- gious dissipation than of holy living.
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF AYOMEN/
IN this day innovations marcli with rapid strides. The fan- tastic suggestion of yesterday, entertained only by a few fanatics, and then only mentioned by the sober to be ridiculed, is to-da}^ the audacious reform, and will be to-morrow the re- cognized usage. Novelties are so numerous and so wild and rash, that in even conservative minds the sensibility of wonder is exhausted and the instinct of righteous resistance fatigued. A few years ago the pulilic preaching of women was universally condemned among all conservative denominations of Christians, and, indeed, within their bounds, was totally unknown. Now the innovation is brought face to face even with the Southern churches, and female preachers are knocking at our doors. We are told that already public opinion is so truckling before the boldness and plausibility of their claims that ministers of our own communion begin to hesitate, and men hardly know whether they have the moral courage to adhere to the right. These re- marks show that a discussion of woman's proper place in Chris- tian society is again timely.
The arguments advanced by those who profess reverence for the Bible, in favor of this unscriptural usage, must be of course chiefly rationalistic. They do indeed profess to appeal to the sacred history of the prophetesses, Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and Anna, as proving that sex was no sufficient barrier to public work in the church. But the fatal answer is, that these holy women were inspired. Their call was exceptional and super- natural. There can be no fair reasoning from the exception to the ordinary rule. Elijah, in his civic relation to the kingdom of the ten tribes, would have been but a private citizen without his jirophetic afflatus. By virtue of this we find him exercising the highest of the regal functions (1 Kings xviii.), administering the capital penalty ordained by the law against seducers into idolatry, when he sentenced the priests of Baal and ordered their
1 Appeared in The Southern Presbyterian Review for October, 1879.
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THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 97
execution. But it would be a most dangerous inference to argue hence, that any other private citizen, if moved by pious zeal, might usurp the punitive functions of the public magistrate. It is equally bad logic to infer that because Deborah prophesied when the supernatural impulse of the Spirit moved her, there- fore any other pious woman who feels only the impulses of or- dinary grace may usurp the function of the pubUc preacher. It must be remembered, besides, that all who claim a supernatural inspiration must stand prepared to prove it by supernatural works. If any of our preaching women will work a geniiine miracle, then, and not until then, will she be entitled to stand on the ground of Deborah or Anna.
A feeble attempt is made to find an implied recognition of the right of women to preach in 1 Cor. xi. 5 : "But every woman that prayeth or prophesietli with her head uncovered, dishonor- eth her head : for that is even all one as if she were shaven." They would fain find here the implication that the woman who feels the call may prophesy in public, if she does so with a bon- net on her head ; and that the apostle provides for admitting so much. But when we turn to the fourteenth chapter, verses 3-i, 35, TN'e find the same apostle strictly forbidding public preaching in the churches to women, and enjoining silence. No honest reader of Scripture can infer that he meant by inference to allow the very thing which, in the same epistle and in the same part of it, he expressly prohibits. It is a criminal violence to repre- sent him as thus contradicting himself. He did not mean, in chapter xi. 5, to imply that any woman might ever preach in public, either with bonnet on or off. The learned Dr. Gill, fol- lowed by many more recent expositors, supposes that in this place the word "prophesy" only means "praise," as it unques- tionably does in some places (as in 1 Chron. xxv. 2, the sons of Asaph and Jeduthun "prophesied with the harp"), and as the Targums render it in many places in the Old Testament. Thus, the ordinance of worship which the apostle is regulating just here is not public preaching at all, but the sacred singing of psalms. And all that is here settled is, that Christian females, whose privilege it is to join in this praise, must not do so with unveiled heads, in imitation of some pagan priestesses when conducting their unclean or lascivious worship, but must sing God's public praises with heads modestly veiled.
Vol.. II.— 7.
98 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
We have no need to resort to this explanation, reasonable though it be. The apostle is al)ont to 2:)repare the way f(n' his categorical exclusion of women from public discourse. He does so by alluding to the intrusion which had probably begun, along with many other disorders in the Corinthian churches, and by pointing to its obvious unuaturalness. Thus he who stands up in public as the herald and representative of heaven's King must stand with uncovered head ; the honor of the Sovereign for whom he speaks demands this. But no woman can present herself in public with uncovered head without sinning against nature and her sex. Hence no woman can be a public herald of Christ. Thus this passage, instead of implying the admis- sion, really argues the necessary exclusion of women from the pulpit.
But the rationalistic arguments are more numerous and are urged Avith more confidence. First in natural order is the plea that some Christian women are admitted to possess every gift claimed by males, zeal, learning, piety, power of utterance, and it is asked why these are not qualifications for the ministry in the case of the woman as well as of the man. It is urged that there is a mischievous, and even a cruel impolicy, in depriving the church of the accessions and souls of the good which these gifts and graces might procure when exercised in the pulpit. Again, some profess that they have felt the spiritual and con- scientious impulse to proclaim the gospel which crowns God's call to the ministry. They "must obey God rather than men," and they warn us against opposing their impulse, lest haply we be " found even to fight against God." They argue that the apostle himself has told us, in the new creation of grace "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor imcircumcision, barba- rian, Scythian, bond nor free." In Christ " there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male Bor female " (Col. iii. 11 ; Gal. iii. 28). But if the spiritual king- dom thus levels all social and temporal distinctions, its official rights should equally be distributed in disregard of them all. And last, it is claimed that God has decided the question by set- ting the seal of his favor on the preaching of some blessed wo- men, such as the " Friend," Miss Sarah Smiley. If the results of her ministry are not gracious, then all the fruits of the gospel may as reasonably be discredited. And they ask triumphantly,
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 99
Would God employ and houor au agency which he himself makes unlawful ?
We reply, Yes. This confident argument is founded on a very ti'ansparent mistake. God does not indeed honor, but he does employ, agents whom he disapproves. Surely God does not approve a man who " preaches Christ for envy and strife " (Phil. i. 15), yet the apostle rejoices in it, and "knows that it shall result in salvation through his prayers and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." Two very simple truths, which no believer disputes, explode the whole force of this appeal to re- sults. One is that a truly good person may go wrong in one particular, and our heavenlj* Father, who is exceedingly forbear- ing, may withhold his displeasure from the misguided efforts of his child, through Christ's intercession, because, though mis- guided, he is his child. The other is, that it is one of God's clearest and most blessed prerogatives to bring good out of evil. Thus who can doubt but it is wrong for a man dead in sins to intrude into the sacred ministry ? Yet God has often employed such sinners to convert souls ; not sanctioning their profane in- trusion, but glorifying his own grace by overruling it. This ex- perimental plea may be also refuted by another answer. If the rightfulness of actions is to be determined by their results, then it ought evidently to be by their whole results. But who is compe- tent to say whether the whole results of one of these pious dis- orders mil be beneficial or mischievous ? A zealous female converts or confirms several souls by her preaching. Grant it. But may she not, by this example, in tlie future introduce an amount of confusion, intrusion, strife, error and scandal which will greatly overweigh the first partial good ? This question cannot be answered until time is ended, and it will require an omniscient mind to judge it. Thus it becomes perfectly clear that present seeming good results cannot ever be a sufficient justification of conduct which violates the rule of the word. This is our only sure guide. Bad results, following a course of action not commanded in the word, may present a sufficient, even an imperative, reason for stopping, and good results follow- ing such action may suggest some probability in its favor. This is all a finite mind is authorized to argue in these matters of God's service, and when the course of action transgresses the com- mandment such probabihty becomes worthless.
100 THE PUBLIC PKEACHING OF WOMEN.
Pursuing the arguments of the opposite party in the reverse order, we remark next, that when the apostle teaches the equal- ity of all in the privilege of redemption, it is obvious he is speaking in general, not of official positions in the visible church, but of access to Christ and participation in his blessings. The expository ground of this construction is, that thus alone can we save him from self-contradiction. For his exclusion of women from the pulpit is as clear and emphatic as his assertion of the universal equality in Christ. Surely he does not mean to contradict himself. Our construction is established also by other instances of a similar kind. The apostle expressly ex- cludes "neophytes" from office. Yet no one dreams that he would have made the recency of their engrafting a ground of discrimination against their equal privileges in Christ. Doubt- less the apostle would have been as ready to assert that in Christ there is neither j^oung nor old, as that in him there is neither male nor female. So every sane man would exclude children fi-om office in the church, yet no one would disparage their equal in- terest in Christ. So the apostle iuhilnted Christians who were implicated in polygamy from office, however sincere their rej)ent- ance. So the canons of the early church forbade slaves to be ordained until they had legally procured emancipation ; and doubtless they were right in this rule. But in Christ there is " neither bond nor free." If, then, the equality of these classes in Christ did not imply their fitness for public office in the church, neither does the equality of females with males in Christ imply it. Last, the scope of the apostle in these places proves that he meant no more, for his object in referring to this blessed Christian equality is there seen to be to infer that all classes have a right to church membership, if believers, and that Chris- tian love and communion ought to embrace all.
When the claim is made that the church must concede the ministerial function to the Christian woman who sincerely sup- poses she feels the call to it, we have a perilous perversion of the true doctrine of vocation. True, this vocation is spiritual, but it is also scriptural. The same Spirit who really calls the true minister also dictated the Holy Scriptures. When even a good man says that Tie thinhs the Spirit calls him to preach, there may be room for doubt ; but there can be no doubt what- ever that the Spirit calls no person to do what the word die-
THE PUBLIC PKEACHIXG OF AVOMEN. 101
tated by liim, forbids. The Spirit cannot contradict himself. !>To human being is entitled to advance a specific call of the Spirit for him individiiallj to do or teach something contrary to or beside the Scriptures previously given to the church, unless he can sustain his claim by miracle. Again, the true doctrine of vocation is that the man whom God has designed and quali- fied to preach learns his call through the word. The word is the instrument by which the Spirit teaches him, with prayer, that he is to preach. Hence, when a person professes to have felt this call whom the word distinctly precludes from the work, as the neophyte, the child, the penitent polygamist, the female, although we may ascribe her mistake to an amiable zeal, yet we absoliitely know she is mistaken ; she has confounded a human imjjulse with the Spirit's vocation. Last, the scriptural vocation comes not only through the heart of the candidate, but of the brotherhood, and the call is never complete until the believing choice of the brethren has confirmed it. But by what shall they be guided ? By the " say so " of any one who assumes to be sincere ? Nay, verily. The brethren are expressly com- manded " not to believe every spiidt, but to try the spirits whether they are of God." They have no other rule than Scrip- ture. Who can believe that God's Spirit is the agent of such anarchy as this, where the brotherhood hold in their hands the word, teaching them that God does not call any woman, and yet a woman insists against them that God calls her ? He " is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints." It is on this A'ery subject of vocation to public teaching that the apostle makes this declaration.
The argument from the seeming fitness of some women, by their gifts and graces, to edify the churches by preaching, is then merely utihtarian and unbelieving. When God endows a woman as he did Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, it may be safely assumed that he has some wise end in view ; he has some sphere in earth or heaven in which her gifts will come into proper play. But surely it is far from reverent for the creature to decide, against God's word, that this sphere is the pulpit. His "wisdom is bet- ter than man's. The sin involves the presumption of Uzzah. He was right in thinking that it would be a bad thing to have the sacred ark tumbled into the dust, and in thinking that he had as much physical power to steady it and as much accidental
102 THE PUBIJC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
proximitj as any Levite of them all ; but lie was -oTong in pre- suming to serve God in a way lie liacl said lie did not choose to be served. So when men lament the "unemployed spiritual power," which they suppose exists in many gifted females, as a dead loss to the church, they are reasoning with Uzzah ; they are presumptuously setting the human wisdom above God's wisdom.
The argument, then, whether any woman may be a public preacher of the word should be prevalently one of Scripture. Does the Bible really prohibit it ? "We assert that it does. And first, the Old Testament, which contained, in germ, all the principles of the New, allowed no regular church office to any woman. When a few of that sex were employed as mouth-pieces of God, it was in an office purely extraordinary, and in which they could adduce a supernatural attestation of their commission. No woman ever ministered at the altar, as either priest or Levite. No female elder was ever seen in a Hebrew congregation. No woman ever sat on the throne of the theocracy, except the pagan usurper and murderess, AthaHah. Now, Presbyterians at least believe that the church order of the Old Testament church was imported into the New, with less modification than any other part of the old religion. The ritual of types was greatly modi- fied ; new sacramental symbols replaced the old ; the temple of sacrifice was superseded, leaving no sanctuary beneath the heavenly one, save the synagogue, the house of prayer. But the primeval presbyterial order continued unchanged. The Christianized synagogue became the Christian congregation, with its eldership, teachers, and deacons, and its women invari- ably keeping silence in the assembly. The probability thus raised is strong.
Secondly, If human language can make anything plain, it is that the New Testament institutions do not suffer the woman to rule or "to usurp authority over the man." (See 1 Tim. ii. 12; 1 Cor. xi. 3, 7-10; Eph. v. 22, 23; 1 Peter iii. 1, 5, 6.) In ec- clesiastical affairs, at least, the woman's position in the church is subordinate to the man's. But, according to New Testament precedent and doctrine, the call to public teaching and ruling in the church must go together. Every elder is not a public teacher, but every regular public teacher must be a ruling elder. It is clearly implied in 1 Tim. v. 17 that there were ruling
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 103
elders wlio were not preachers, but ne\er was tlie regular preacher heard of who was not ex officio a ruling elder. The scriptural qualifications for public teaching, the knowledge, piety, experi- ence, authority, dignity, purity, moral weight, were a fortiori qualifications for ruling. "The greater includes the less." Hence it is simply inconceivable that the qualified person could experience a true call to public teaching and not also be called to spiritual rule. Hence, if it is right for the woman to preach, she must also be a ruling elder. But God has expressly pro- hibited the latter, and assigned to woman a domestic and social place, in which her ecclesiastical rule would be anarchy.
This argument may be put in a most practical and ad hominern (or ad foeminavi) shape. Let it be granted, for argument's sake, that here is a woman whose gifts and graces, spiritual wisdom and experience, are so superior her friends feci with her that it is a blamable loss of power in the church to confine her to silence in the public assembly. She accordingly exercises her public gift rightfully and successfully. She becomes the spiritual pa- rent of new-born souls. Is it not right that her spiritual pro- geny should look up to her for guidance? How can she, from her position, justify herself in refusing this second service? She felt herself j)i'operly impelled, by the deficiency in the quantity or quality of the male preaching at this place, to break over the restraints of sex and contribute her superior gifts to the winning of souls. Now, if it appear that a similar deficiency of male supervision, either in quantity or quality, exists at the same place, the same impulse must, by the stronger reason, prompt her to assume the less public and obtrusive work of supervision. There is no sense in her straining out the gnat after she has swallowed the camel; she ought to act the ruling elder, and thus conserve the fruits she has planted. She ought to admon- ish, command, censure, and excommunicate her male converts, including, possibly, the husband she is to obey at home, if the real welfare of the souls she has won requires.
The attempt may be made to escape this crushing demonstra- tion by saying that these women consider themselves as preach- ing, not as presbyters, but as lay persons, that theirs is but a specimen of legitimate lay preaching. The answers are, that stated, public lobj preaching is not legitimate, either for women or men, who remain without ordination (as was proved in this
104 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
Iteviein, April, 1876) ; and that the terms of the inspired prohi- bition against the public preaching of women are such as to ex- clude this plea.
Let us now look at these laws themselves ; we shall find them peculiarly, even surprisingly, explicit. First, we have 1 Cor. xi. 3-16, where the apostle discusses the relation and deport- ment of the sexes in the public Christian assemblages ; and he assures the Corinthians, yerses 2 and 16, that the rules he here announces were uniyersally accepted bj' all the churches. The reader will not be wearied b}^ details of exposition ; a careful reading of the passage will give to him the best evidence for our interpretation, in its complete coherence and consistency. Two principles, the-n, are laid down : first, verse 4, that the man should preach (or pray) in public with head uncovered, because he then stands forth as God's herald and representative ; and to assume at that time the emblem of subordination, a covered head, is a dishonor to the office and the God it represents; secondly, yerses 5, 13, that, on the contrary, for a woman to appear or to perform any public religious function in the Christian assembly, unveiled, is a glaring impropriety, because it is contrary to the subordination of the position assigned her by her Maker, and to the modesty and reserve suitable to her sex ; and even nature settles the point by gi\ing her her long hair as her natural veU. Even as good taste and a natural sense of propriety would pro- test against a woman's going in public shorn of that beautiful badge and adornment of her sex, like a rough soldier or a laborer, even so clearly does nature herself sustain God's law in requiring the woman to appear always modestly covered in the sanctuary. The holy angels who are present as invisible spectators, hover- ing over the Christian assemblies, would be shocked by seeing women professing godliness publicly throw off this appropriate badge of their position (verse 10). The woman, then, has a right to the privileges of public worship and the sacraments; she may join audiljly in the praises and prayers of the public assembly, where the usages of the body encourage responsive prayer; but she must always do this veiled or covered. The apostle does not in this chapter pause to draw the deduction, that if every public herald of God must be unveiled, and the woman must never be unveiled in public, then she can never be a public herald. But let us wait. He has not done with these
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 105
questions of order in public worship ; he steadily continues the discussion of them throiigh the fourteenth chapter, and he there at length reaches the conclusion he had been preparing, and in verses 34, 35, expressly prohibits women to preach publicly. " Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not per- mitted to them to speak" (in that public place), "but to be in subordination, as also the law saith. And if they wdsh to learn something " — about some doctrine -which they there hear dis- cussed but do not comprehend — "let them ask their own hus- bands at home, for it is disgraceful for women to speak in church." And in verse 37 he shuts up the w^hole discussion by declaring that if anybody pretends to have the Spirit, or the inspiration of pro- phecy, so as to be entitled to contest Paul's rules, tlie rules are the, commandments of tJie Lord (Christ), not Paul's mere personal conclusions, so that to contest them on such pretensions of spirit- ual impulse is inevitably wrong and presumptuous. For the immutable Lord does not legislate in contradictory wws.
The next passage is 1 Tim. ii. 11-15. In the eighth verse the apostle, having taught what should be the tenor of the public prayers and why, says : "I ordain therefore that the males pray in every place " (in which the two sexes prayed publicly together). He then, according to the tenor of the passage in 1 Cor. xi., com- mands Christian women to frequent the Christian assemblies in raiment at once removed from untidiness and luxury, and so fashioned as to express the retiring modesty of their sex. He iheu adds : " Let the w^oman learn in quiet in all subordination. But I do not permit w'oman to teach " (in public) " nor to play the ruler over man, but to be in quietude. For Adam was first .fashioned ; then Eve. Again, Adam was not deceived " (by Satan), " but the woman, having been deceived, came to be in ■transgression" (first). "However, she shall be saved by the child-bearing, if they abide, wdth modest discretion, in faith and love and sanctity." In 1 Tim. v. 9-15, a sphere of church labor is evidently defined for aged single looinen, and for them only, who are wddows or celibates without near kindred. So specific is the apostle that he categorically fixes the limit below which the church may not go in accepting even such laborers at sixty years. What was this sphere of labor? It was evidently some form of diaconal work, and not preaching, because the age, qual- ifications and connections all jDoint to these private charitable
106 THE PUBLIC PKEACHING OF WOMEN.
tasks, and the iminsnired history confirms it. To all yonnger women the apostle then assigns their express sphere iu these words (verse 14), " I ordain accordingly that the younger wo- men many, bear children, guide the house, give no start to the adversary to revile " (Christians and Christianity). Here is at least strong negative evidence that Paul assigned no public preaching function to women. In Titus ii. 4, 5, women who have not reached old age are to be " affectionate to their hus- bands, fond of their children, prudent, pure, ieejjers at home, benevolent, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." And the only teaching function hinted even for the aged women is, verse 4, that they should teach these private domestic virtues to their younger sisters. Does not the apostle here assign the Jiome as the proper sphere of the Christian woman ? That is her kingdom, and neither the secular nor the ecclesiastical commonwealth. Her duties in her home are to detain her away fi'om the public functions. She is not to be a ruler of men, but a loving subject to her husband.
The grounds on which the apostle rests the divine legislation against the preaching of women make it clear that we have con- strued it aright. Collating 1 Cor. xi. with 1 Tim. ii., we find them to be the following : The male was the first creation of God, the female a subsequent one. Then, the female was made from the substance of the male, being taken from his side. The end of the woman's creation and existence is to be a helpmeet for man, in a sense in which the man was not originally designed as a helpmeet for the woman. Hence God, from the beginning of man's existence as a sinner, put the \die under the kindly authority of the husband, making him the head and her the subordinate in domestic society. The Lord said (Gen. iii. 16), "Thy desire shall be unto thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Then last, the agency of the woman in yielding first to Satanic temptation and aiding to seduce her husband into sin was punished by this subjection, and the sentence on the first woman has been extended, by imputation, to all her daughters. These are the grounds on which the apostle says the Lord en- acted that in the church assemblies the woman shall be pupil, and not public teacher, ruled, and not ruler. The reasons bear upon all Avomen, of all ages and civihzations ahke. Hence the honest expositor must conclude that the enactments are of uni-
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OP WOMEN. 107
versal force. Such reasons are, indeed, in strong opposition ta the radical theories of individual hnman rights and equality now in vogue with many. Instead of allowing to all human beings a specific equality and an absolute natural independence, these Scripture doctrines assume that there are orders of hiimau be- ings naturally unequal in their inherited rights, as in their bodily and mental qualities ; that God has not ordained any human being to this proud independence, but placed all in subordina- tion under authority, the child under its mother, the mother under her husband, the husband under the ecclesiastical and civil magistrates, and these under the law, whose guardian and avenger is God himself. And so far from flouting the doctrine of imputation as an antiquated barbarism, these Scriptures re- present it as a living and just ruling principle, this very day de- termining, by the guilt of a woman who sinned six thousand years ago, when combining with the natural qualities of sex pro- pagated in her race, a subordinate social state and a rigid dis- qualification for certain actions, for half the human race. Be- tween the popular theories of individual human right and this sort of political philosophy there is indeed an irreconcilable op- position. But this is inspired. The only solution is that the other, despite all its confidence and arrogance, is false and hol- low. " He that replieth against God, let him answer it."
The inspired legislation is explicit to every candid reader as human language can well make it. Yet modern ingenuity has essayed to explain it away. One is not surprised to find these expositions, even when advanced by those who profess to ac- cept the Scriptures, tinctured with no small savor of infidelity. For a true and honest reverence for the inspiration of Scripture would scarcely try so hopeless a task as the sophisticating of so plain a law. Thus, sometimes we hear these remarks uttered almost as a sneer, " Oh, this is the opinion of Paid, a crusty old bachelor, an oriental, "v\-ith his head stuffed with those ideas of woman which were current when society made her an ignoramus, a plaj^;hing, and a slave." Or, we are referred to the fable of the paintings of the man dominating the lion, in which the man was always the painter, and it is said, " Paul was a man ; he is jealous for the usurped dominion of his sex. The law would be different if it were uttered through woman." What is all this except open unbehef anel resistance, when the apostle says ex-
108 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
presslj that this legislation was the euactment of that Christ who condescended to be born of woman ?
Again, one would have ns read the prohibition of 1 Cor. xiv. 34, o'j yao l-'-kz(j(j-z(u (j:j-(j~.z /«/$?> : " it is not permitted to females to babble." Some pretended usage is cited to show that the verb, jM/sXv is here used in a bad sense only, and that the prohibition to a woman to talk nonsense in public address does not exclude, but rather implies, her right to preach, provided she preaches well and solidly. No expositor Avill need a reply to criticism so wretchedly absurd as this. But it may not be amiss to point out in refutation that the opposite of this h/ltl'j in Paul's own mind and statement is "to be silent." The implied distinction, then, is not here between solid speech and babbling, but between speaking publicly at all and keeping silence. Again, in the parallel declaration (1 Tim. ii. 12), the apostle says, Djvar/c oh ocodaxeiu o'r/. sTTczpizio, where he uses the word dcddtjxtcv : concerning whose regular meaning no such cavil can be invcDted. And the apostle's whole logic in the contexts is directed, not against silly teachings by women, but against women's teaching in pub- lic at all.
Another evasion is to say that the laAv is indeed explicit, but it was temporary. AVlien woman was what paganism and the oriental harem had made her, she was indeed unfit for ruling and pulilic teaching; she was but a grown-up child, ignorant, capricious and rash, like other children ; and while she re- mained so the apostle's exclusion was wise and just. But the law was not meant to apply to the modern Christian woman, lifted b}^ better institutions into an intellectual, moral and liter- ary ecpiality with the man. Doubtless were the apostle here, he would himself avow it.
This is at least more decent. But as an exegesis it is as un- fair and untenable as the other. For, first, it is false that the conception of female character christianized, Avhich was before the apostle's mind when enacting this exclusion from the pulpit, VA'as the conception of an ignorant grown-iip child from the harem. The harem was not a legitimate Hebrew institution. Polygamy was not the rule, l)ut the exception, in rejDutable He- brew families; nor were devout Jews, such as Paul had been, ignorant of the unlawfulness of such domestic abuses. Jewish manners and laws were not oriental, but a glorious exception
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 109
to orientalism, in the place tliey assigned woman; and God's word of the Old Testament had doubtless done among the Jews the same ennobling work for woman which we now claim Chris- tianity does. To the competent archaeologist it is known that it has ever been the trait of Judaism to assign an honorable place to woman ; and the Jewish race has ever been as rare an exception as Tacitus says the German race was to the pagan de- pression of the sex common in ancient days. Accordingly, we never find the apostle drawing a depreciated picture of woman ; every allusion of his to the believing woman is full of reverent respect and honor. Among the Christian women who come into Paul's history there is not one who is portrayed after this im- agined pattern of childish ignorance and weakness. The Lydia, the Lois, the Eunice, the Phoebe, the Priscilla, the Damaris, the Eoman Mary, the Junia, the Tryphena, the Tryphosa, the "be- loved Persis " of the Pauline historj-, and the " elect lady" who was honored with the friendship of the aged John, all appear in the narrative as bright examples of Christian intelligence, activity, dignity, and nobleness. It was not left for the pretentious Christianity of the nineteenth century to begin the emancipation of woman. As soon as the primitive doctrine conquered a house- hold, it did its blessed work in lifting up the feebler and op- pressed sex ; and it is evident that Paul's habitual conception of female Christian character in the churches in wdiich he min- istered teas at least as favorahle as his estimate of the male members. Thus the state of facts on which this gloss rests had no existence for Paul's mind; he did not consider himself as legislating temporarily in view of the inferiority of the female Christian character of his day, for he did not think it inferior. When this invasion is inspected it unmasks itself simply into an instance of quiet egotism. Says the Christian ." woman of the period"" virtually, "I am so elevated and enlightened that I am above the law, which was well enough for those old fogies, Pris- cilla, Persis, Eunice, and the elect lady." Indeed! This is modesty with a vengeance ! Was Paul only legislating tempo- rarily when he termed modesty one of the brightest jewels in the Christian woman's crown ?
A second answer is seen to this plea in the nature of the apostle's grounds for the law. Not one of them is personal, local, or temporary. Nor does he say that woman must not
110 THE PUBLIC PKEACHING OF ^YOMEN.
preacli in puMic because lie regards lier as less pious, less zeal- ous, less eloquent, less learned, less brave, or less intellectual, than man. In tlie advocates of Avoman's right to this function there is a continual tendency to a confusion of thought, as though the apostle, when he saj'S that woman must not do what man does, meant to disparage her sex. This is a sheer mistake. His reasoning AN-ill be searched in vain for any disparagement of the qualities and virtues of that sex ; and we may at this place pro- perly disclaim all such intention also. Woman is excluded from this masculine task of public preaching by Paul, not be- cause she is inferior to man, but simply because her Maker has ordained for her another work which is incompatible with this. So he might have pronounced, as nature does, that she shall not sing bass, not because he thought the bass chords the more beautiful — perhaps he thought the pure alio of the feminine throat far the sweeter — but because her very constitution fits her for the latter part in the concert of human existence, and therefore unfits her for the other, the coarser and less melodious part.
But that the scriptural law was not meant to l)e temporary, and had no exclusive reference to the ignorant and childish woman of the Eastern harem, is plain from this, that every ground assigned for the exclusion is of universal and perpetual application. They apply to the modern, ediicated woman ex- actly as they applied to Phoebe, Priscilla, Damaris and Eunice. They lose not a grain of force by any change of social usages or feminine culture, being found in the facts of woman's origin and nature and the designed end of her existence. Thus this second evasion is totally closed. And the argument finds its final com- pletion in such passages as 2 Tim. ii. 9 and v. 14. A few aged Avomen of peculiar circumstances are admitted as assistants in the diaconal labors. The rest of the body of Christian women the apostle then assigns to the domestic sphere, intimating clearly that their attempts to go beyond it would minister to adversa- ries a pretext to revile. Here, then, we have the clearest proof, in a negative form, that he did not design women in future to break over; for it is for woman as elevated and enlightened hy the gospel he preached that he laid down the limit.
Every true believer should regard the scriptural argument as first, as sufficient, and as conclusive by itself. But as the apos-
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. Ill
tie said in one place, that his task was " to commend himself to every man's conscience in God's sight," so it is proper to gather the teachings of sound human prudence and experience which support God's wise law. The justification is not found in any disparagement of woman as man's natural inferior, but in the primeval fact : " Male and female made he them." In order to ground human society God saw it necessary- to fashion for man's matCj not his exact image, but his counterpart. Identity would have utterly marred their companionship, and would have been an equal curse to both. But out of this unlikeness in resem- blance it must obviously follow that each is fitted for works and duties unsuitable for the other. And it is no more a degradation to the woman that the man can best do some things which she cannot do so well, than to the man that woman has her natural superiority in other things. But it will be cried : " Your Bible doctrine makes man the ruler, woman the ruled." True. It was absolutely necessary, especially after sin had entered the race, that a foundation for social order should be laid in a family government. This government could not be made consistent, peaceful or orderly by being made double-headed, for human finitude, and especially sin, would ensure collision, at least at some times, between anj^ two human wills. It was essential to the welfare of both husband and wife and of the offspring that there must be an ultimate human head somewhere. Now let reason decide, was it meet that the man be head over the woman, or the woman over the man ? Was it right that he for whom wo- man was created should be subjected to her who was created for him ; that he whx) was stronger physically should be subjected to the weaker ; that the natural protector should be the servant of i\\e 2^^"otegee ; that the divinely ordained bread-winner should be controlled by the bread-dispenser? Every candid woman admits that this would have been unnatural and unjust. Hence God, acting, so to speak, under an unavoidable moral necessity, assigned to the male the domestic government, regulated and tempered, indeed, by the strict laws of God, by self-interest and by the tenderest ajffection ; and to the female the obedience of love. On this order all other social order depends. It was not the design of Christianity to subvert it, but only to perfect and refine it. Doubtless that spirit of wilfulness, which is a feature of our native carnality in both man and woman, tempts us to
112 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
feel that any subordinatiou is a liarcTsliip, so that it is felt while God has been a Father to the man, he has been but a stepfather to the w^oman. Self-will resents this natural subordination as a natural injustice. But self-will forgets that " order is heaven's first law ;" that subordination is the inexoroble condition of peace and happiness, and this as much in heaven as on earth ; that this subjection was not imposed on woman only as a penalty, but as for her and her offspring's good ; and that to be governed under the ^vise conditions of nature is often a more privileged state than to govern. God has conformed his works of creation and providence to these principles. In creating man he has en- dued him with the natural attributes which qualify him to labor abroad, to subdue dangers, to protect, to govern. He has given these qualities in less degree to woman, and in their place has adorned her wdth the less hardy, but equally admirable, attri- butes of body, mind and heart which qualify her to yield, to be protected, and to "guide the home." This order is founded, then, in the unchangeable laws of nature. Hence all attempts to reverse it must fail, and must result only in confusion.
Now, a wise God designs no clashing between his domestic and political and his ecclesiastical arrangements. He has or- dained that the man shall be head in the family and the com- monwealth ; it would be a confusion full of mischief to make the W'Oman head in the ecclesiastical sphere. But we have seen that the right of public teaching must involve the right of spiritual rule. The woman who has a right to preach, if there be any such, ought also claim to be a ruling elder. How would it work to have husband and wife, ruler and subject, change places as often as they passed from the dwelling or the court-room and senate chamber to the church ? When we remember how univer- sally the religious principles, which it is the prerogative of the presbyter to enforce, interpenetrate and regulate man's secular duties, w-e see that this amount of overturning would result in little short of absolute anarchy.
Again, the duties which natural affection, natural constitution, and imperious considerations of convenience distribute between the man and the woman make it practicable for him and imprac- ticable for her to pursue, without their neglect, the additional tasks of the public preacher and evangelist. Let an instance be taken fi'om the nurture of children. The bishop must be
THE PUBLIC PKEACHING OF WOMEN. 113
"husband of one wife." Both the parents owe duties to their children ; but the appropriate duties of the mother, especially towards httle children, are such that she could not leave them as the pastor must for his public tasks without criminal neglect and their probable ruin. It mar be said that this argument has no application to unmarried women. The answers are, that God contemplates marriage as the proper condition of woman, while he does not make celibacy a crime, and that the sphere he as- signs to the unmarried woman is also private and domestic.
Some minds doubtless imagine a degree of force in this state- ment, that God has bestowed on some women gifts and graces em- inently qualifying them to edify his churches, and as he commits no waste he thereby shows that he designs such women at least to preach. Enough has been already said to show how utterly unsafe such pretended reasonings are. " God giveth no account of his matters to any man." Does he not often give most splen- did endowments for usefulness to young men whom he then re- moves by what we call a premature death from the threshold of the pastoral career? Yet "God commits no waste." It is not for us to surmise how he will utilize those seemingly abortive endowments. He knows how and where to do it. We must bow to his dispensation, whether explicable or not. The case is the same in this respect with his ordinance restraining the most gifted woman from pubhcity. But there is a more obvious answer. God has assigned to her a private sphere sufficiently important and honorable to justify the whole expenditure of angelic endowments — the formation of the character of children. This is the noblest and most momentous work done on earth. Add to it the efforts of friendship, the duties of the daughter, sister, wife and charitable almoner, and the labors of authorship suit- able for woman, and we see a field wide enough for the highest talents and the most sanctified ambition. Does self-will feel that somehow the sphere of the jDulpit orator is more splendid still ? '\^'hereiu ? Only in that it has features which gratify carnal ambition and the lust for carnal applause of men. But let it be noted that Christians are forhidden to have these desires ! Let, then, the Christian comply with God's law requiring him to crucify ambition, and the only features which made any dif- ference between the private and the pul)lic spheres of soul-cul- ture are gone. The Christian who, in the performance of the
Vol. II.— 8.
114 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
public work of rearing souls for heaven, fosters the ambitious motive, has deformed his worthiness in the task with a defile- ment which sinks it far below that of the humblest peasant mother who is training her child for God. Does the objector return to the charge with the cavil that, while the faithful mo- ther rears six, or possibly twice six, children for Clod, the gifted evangelist may convert thousands? Bvit that man would not have been the gifted evangelist had he not enjoyed the blessing of the modest Christian mother's training. Had he been reared in the disorderly home of the clerical Mrs. Jellyby, instead of being the spiritual father of thousands, he would have been an ignorant rowdy or a disgusting pharisee. So that the worthiness ■of his public success belongs fully as much to the modest mo- ther as to himself. Again, the instrumentality of the mother's training in the salvation of her children is mighty and decisive ; the influence of the minister over his hundreds is slight and non- -essential. If he contributes a few grains, in numerous cases, to tvirn the scales for heaven, the mother contributes tons to the right scales in her few cases. The one works more widely on the surface, the other more deeply ; so that the real amount of soil moved by the two workmen is not usually in favor of the preacher. The w^oman of sanctified ambition has nothing to re- gret as to the dignity of her sphere. She does the noblest work that is done on earth. Its j)'i^^ic recognition is usually more through the children and beneficiaries she ennobles than through her own person. True ; and that is precisely the feature of her work which makes it most Christ-like. It is precisely the fea- ture at which a sinful and selfish ambition takes offence.
The movement towards the preaching of women does not ne- cessarily spring from a secular "Avoman's rights" movement. The preaching of women marked the early Wesleyan movement to some extent, and the Quaker assemblies. But neither of these had poUtical aspirations for their women. At the present time, however, the preaching of women and the demand of all mascu- line political rights are so synchronous, and are so often seen in the same persons, that their affinity cannot be disguised. They are two parts of one common impulse. If we understand the claim of rights made by these agitators, it includes in substance two things : that the legislation at least of society shall disregard all -distinctions of sex and award all the same specific rights and
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 115
franchises to women and men in every respect ; and that women, while in the married state, shall be released from every form of conjugal subordination and retain independent control of their property. These pretensions are indeed the proper logical con- sequences of that radical theory of human right which is now dominant in the country. According to that doctrine, every liuman being is naturally independent, owes no duties to civil or ecclesiastical society save those freely conceded in the " social contract"; is the natural equal of every other human except as he or she has forfeited liberty by crime. Legislation and taxa- tion are unjust unless based on representation, which means the privilege of each man under government to vote for his gover- nors. If these propositions were true, then, indeed, their ap- plication to women would be indisputable. And it would be hard for the radical politician to explain why it was right to ap- ply them in favor of ignorant negi'oes and deny their application to intelligent ladies. We here see the great danger attending the present misguided woman's movement. Neither the politi- cians nor the American masses cherish the purpose of being logically consistent ; and both are in the well-known habit of proclaiming doctrines for which they care nothing, and which they do not mean to hold honestly, as " stalking horses " for a temporary end. But their demagogism has given a currency and hold to these political heresies whose extent and tenacity make them perilous. God has made man a logical animal ; the laws of his reason compel him to think connectedly to some de- gree. Hence false principles once firmly fixed are very apt to bring after them their appropriate corollaries in the course of time, however distasteful to the promulgators of the parent er- rors. To the radical mind, possessed with these false politics, the perpetual demand of these obvious corollaries by pertinaci- ous women must apply a stress which is like the " continual drop- ping that weareth away a stone." They can quote the Declara- tion of Independence in the sense these radicals hold it : " We hold these truths to be self-e^-ident ; that all men are by nature equal and inalienably entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." " All just government is founded in the consent of the governed," etc., etc. It is true that this document, ration- ally interpreted, teaches something wholly different from the absurd equality of the radical, which demands for every member
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of society all the specific franchises which any member has. The wise men of 1776 knew that men are not naturally equal, in strength, talent, virtue, or ability; and that different orders of human beings naturally inherit very different sets of rights and franchises, according as they are qualified to enjoy and employ them for their own good and the good of the whole. But they meant to teach that in one very important respect all are natu- rally equal. This is the equality which Job recognized (eh. xxxi. 15) as existing between him and his slave ; the equalit}' of a com- mon origin, a common humanity and immortality. It is the equality of the golden rule. By this right, that human being whom the laws endow with the smallest franchises in society has the same kind of moral right to have that small franchise re- spected by his fellows, as the man who justly possesses the largest franchise. It is the equality embodied in the great maxim of the British Constitution, "that before the law all are equal." This is true, although Britain is an aristocratic monarchy, and rights are distributed to the different orders very differently. Earl Derby has sundry franchises which the British peasant can no more possess than he can grasp the moon. Yet in the con- stitutional sense, the peasant and the earl are " equal before th^ law." If indicted for crime, each has the inalienable right to be tried by his peers. The same law which shields the earl's en- tailed estates, equally protects the peasant's cottage. As the men of 1776 were struggling to retain for America the rights of British fi'eemeu, which the king was unconstitutionally invading, their declaration must be construed as teaching this equality of the free British Constitution. So when they said that " taxation without representation" was intrinsically unjust, they never dreamed of teaching this maxim as to individual tax-payers. The free British Constitution, for which they were contending, had never done so. They asserted the maxim of the com- monwealth. Some representation of the commonwealth taxed, through such order of the citizens as properly constitute the re- presentative popidus, is necessary to prevent taxation from be- coming unjust.
But this, the true, historical and rational meaning of these maxims, is now unpopular with radicalism ; it cannot away ^\dth the true doctrine. And for this reason it has no sufiicient answer for the plea of "women's rights." The true answer is
THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN. 117
found in tlie correct statement of liuman riglit we have given. The woman is not designed by God, nor entitled to all the fi*an- chises in society to which the male is entitled. God has dis- qualified her for any such exercise of them as would benefit her- self or society, by the endowments of body, mind, and heart he has given her, and the share he has assigned her in the tasks of social existence. And as she has no right to assume the mascu- line franchises, so she will find in the attempt to do so only ruin to her own character and to society. For instance, the very traits of emotion and character which make woman man's cher- ished and invaluable " helpmeet," the traits which she must have in order to fulfil the purpose of her being would ensure her unfitness to meet the peculiar temptations of publicity and power. The attempt would debauch all these lovelier traits, w^hile it would leave her still, as the rival of man, " the weaker vessel." She would lose all and gain nothing.
One consequence of this revolution would be so certain and so terrible, that it cannot be passed over. It must result in the abolition of all permanent marriage ties. Indeed, the bolder advocates do not scruple to avow it. The destruction of mar- riage would follow by this cause, if no other, that the unsexed politicating woman, the importunate manikin-rival, would never inspire in men that true aflection on which marriage should be founded. The mutual attraction of the two complementary halves would be forever gone. The abolition of marriage would follow again by another cause. The rival interests and desires of two equal wills are inconsistent with domestic union, govern- ment, or peace. ShaU the children of this unnatural connec- tion be held responsible to both of two sinful but coordinate and equally supreme wills ? Heaven pity the children. Again, who ever heard of a perpetual copartnership in which the parties had no power to enforce the performance of the mutual duties nor to dissolve the tie made intolerable by violation ? It would be as iniquitous as impossible. Such a copartnership of equals, with coordinate wills and independent interests, must be separ- able at will, as all other such copartnerships are.
This common movement for " women's rights," and women's preaching, must be regarded, then, as simply infidel. It cannot be candidly upheld without attacking the inspiration and au- thority of the Scriptures. We are convinced that there is only
118 THE PUBLIC PREACHING OF WOMEN.
one safe attitude for Christians, presbyters, and churcla courts to assume towards it. Tliis is utterly to discountenance it, as they do any other assault of infidelity on God's truth and kingdom. The church officer who becomes an accomplice of this intrusion certainly renders himself obnoxious to discipline, just as he would by assisting to celebrate an idolatrous mass.
"We close with one suggestion to such women as may be inclined to this new claim. If they read history, they find that the condition of woman in Christendom, and especially in America, is most enviable as compared with her state in all other ages and nations. Let them ponder candidly how much they possess here, which their sisters have enjoyed in no other age. What bestowed those peculiar privileges on the Christian women of America ? The Bible. Let them beware, then, how they do anything to undermine the reverence of mankind for the au- thority of the Bible. It is undermining their own bulwark. If they understand how universally in all but Bible lands the "weaker vessel" has been made the slave of man's strength and selfishness, they will gladly " let well enough alone," lest in grasping at some impossible prize beyond, they lose the privi- leges they now have, and faU back to the gulf of oppression from which these doctrines of Christ and Paul have lifted them.
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP/
IT strikes many Presbyterians with surprise, that the General Assembly and onr leading periodicals in this year 1860, one hundred and fifty years after the beginning of our church in America, should be largely occupied in discussing the question, "What is Presbyterianism ?" They ask with displeasure, "Are fundamentals never to be settled among us? Is the church never to be relieved of these debates, which thus agitate the set- tled foundations of our theory?" We may answer to these in- dignant questions -with an emphatic iVo. The good brethren who thus deplore these renewed discussions of first principles misconceive the nature of the human mind and of free institu- tions. While man remains the creature he is, such discussions are to be expected and desired. Each generation must do its own thinking, and learn for itself its own lessons in first truths and general principles. If we insist that this generation of Presbyterians shall hold our fathers' principles on trust, and by mere prescription, the result will be that they will not hold them sincerely at all. For, by the very reason that general principles do not lie on the surface, but are to be detected by analysis and induction, they are always, in every science, other than first ap- pearances and first impressions would lead men to suppose. Hence, in every science, the true general principles are unpopu- lar and paradoxical, in the first, unthinking view. Prior to this active investigation, it is, in astronomy for instance, the earth which seems to stand still and the heavenly bodies to move ; in hydrostatics, it is the empty tube which seems to suck up the water; in theology, it is the Pelagian view which commends itself to the natural mind, instead of the Calvinistic. So in church government, the actual first truths of the New Testament are not those which our unreflecting impressions would lead us to suppose. Hence each generation must correct those first im-
' This article appeared in the North Carolina Presbyterian, September, 1860.
119
120 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
pressions for itself, and be led down to the true principles hj the laborious collision of debate and investigation.
Besides this, the human mind loves the concrete ; and the labor of abstraction and correct generalization is most irksome to it. Yet it is certain that all general truths, that are properly such, are abstractions. Hence, most minds never trouble them- selves to attain independently to an intelligent view of such truths, but adopt the practical results of them Avith a sort of im- perfect comprehension and conviction ; and of many who make such first truths the regulative sources of their practical opin- ions, the general views are more or less vague, and their agree- ment with each other in them is only approximative. Now we cheerfully grant that both these classes may be practically very good and honest Presbyterians, and that their detailed opinions and conduct may be much better than the general principles of their theory. But it is none the less true that the general prin- ciples sooner or later work out their logical details in the public mind; and that it is the men who hold these abstractions — a Plato, an Augustine, a Calvin, a Des Cartes, a Jefferson, a Cal- houn— correctly or incorrectly, who in the issue determine the practical opinions of their fellow-men for good or for evil. The practical opinions can only be kept correct by a perpetual re- currence to first truths. Hence we must expect the perpetual agitation of those first truths. It indicates, not, indeed, the perfect health of the body ecclesiastical, a condition not to be expected while Christians are imperfect, but its sanative ten- dencies.
As in the General Assembly, the question of Boards was found to be indirectly connected with the question how far the Jbrm of the church's government is limited and fixed by a divine war- rant, so the nature of the ruling eldershij) will be found to de- pend in part on the same question. This fact is clearly indicated by the course which the pending discussion of the eldership has followed in our periodicals, and will appear further in the sequel of our discussion. Enough now to say, that just so far as we conceive the form of the church to be fixed by a divine warrant, so far will we feel ourselves limited and bound by what the New Testament teaches of the elder's office. Hence, something must be premised as to the question of jvs divlnurn. It may be as- sumed that aU parties among us, those represented by the ^e-
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. ] 21
pertory, and those represented by tlie Southern Presbyterian Hevieic, concur in these two truths on this subject:
First, That Jesus Christ, as King in his visible kingdom, the church, has positively fixed, by his divine authority, some gene- ral principles of church government, so that, with regard to those principles, no body of Christians under heaven ought to claim anv discretion of their own, on any pretext of policy, to depart from Christ's legislation ; and those bodies which thiis depart from him do therein commit disobedience and sin, and make themselves, so far, less scriptural and perfect churches of Christ.
Second, But yet, the general features of church order are not so established jwe divino that the mere lack of any one posi- tively unchurches a body of Christian believers. A church may to some extent commit sin and disobedience, and still be a true, though imperfect, church. On any other supposition, where . should we sinners, the Presbyterian Church, stand '? All parties among us embrace, as true parts of the church catholic, all bodies which hold Christ the Head, and maintain his word, ministry and sacraments among them, however they may vary in form of government.
But, then, we Avill agi'ee that we should strive to be not only imperfectly, but perfectly conformed to Christ's will in our government. How much discretion, then, has Christ left us as to forms of government ; or, to vary the question, how far does his divine legislation extend in fixing those forms '? It is here that the divergence among us begins. Some, with the Hepertory, say that Christ's legislation onl}' fixes the general outlines, and leaves all the rest to be determined, or from time to time changed, by the church herself, in a prudent regard to poUcy and conve- nience. These persons charge upon the class represented by the Southern Preshyteman Pevieic, that they, on the contrary, hold that Christ has fixed jcre dirhio the whole form of the church in all its details, so that nothing can be instituted in the church xmless a New Testament warrant can be found explicit!}' for it. To a dispassionate mind this charge is obviously overstrained, and is onh* prompted by forensic excitement. The latter party never intended to be understood thus in the absurd sense im- puted to them.
But our purpose is not to undertake to interpret the opinions of others, but to state our own. We would say, then, that the
122 THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
statement of the Jus d'tvlnuui given by the Repertory is inaccu- rate and ambiguous. For all might grant it, and still raise the question, " What are those general outlines which Christ has authoritatively given ? How general shall we make them ?" The latitudinarian party would make them so general that they would fix nothing but that the church shall have a rainistry, of any sort whatever, the word, and some sort of ordinances. All else they would claim as proper to be determined or changed by human discretion. Dr. Hodge would define those general out- lines to be the ultimate authority of the people, to be exercised representatively ; the parity of the clergy ; and the unity of the church, as opposed to a congregational independence. The pre- latist would say that the general outline was to be found in the essentials of diocesan episcopacy.
We would prefer, then, to state the doctrine of the jus divi- nwm dili2rently. On the one hand, Christ has not fixed b}* a divine waiTant every detail of the agencies through which the church is to act in all her varying circumstances, for then " I sup- pose the world itself would not contain the books which should be written." On the other hand, he has given to his kingdom a definite — not merely a general — outline, one which makes it a definite and characteristic thing in government as truly as in theology, and therefore the outgrowth of the details demanded by varying circumstances is to take place in strict conformity with those definite outlines, and only in the direction which they indicate. Is the question asked, " What are those definite out- lines ?" We answer they are to be found precisely in the apos- tolic precedents and directions as to government found by an honest exposition in the Gospels, Acts and Epistles. If asked more particularly for a detailed answer, we should be willing to reply in the tenor of Dr. Hodge's Essay on Preshyterianism, with some modifications : where the indwelling of the Holy Ghost is, there, under Christ, is the church power ; and hence, that power, so far as it has a human seat, resides ultimately in the whole brotherhood. This church power is to be exercised representa- tively, and not popularly, by the hands of equal and co-ordinate presbyters, acting in all customary cases, not singly, bat in pres- b}i:erial courts of wider or narrower jurisdiction. All these offi- cers are presbyterially equal, and all ministers enjoy a ministerial parity. Precisely three classes of official functions are assigned
THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 123
for reaching the great end of the church, viz., preaching, inspec- tion and deaconship, of which the two first may be in the same hands, so that there are three names of office, and no more, viz., the preaching-elder, the ruling elder, and the deacon. The church is one in such sense that a smaller part is subject to a larger in the Lord, and a larger to the whole. And last, the Bible alone is the authoritative statute-book of this government. Such is a substantially correct, not perhaps a perfect, statement of the divine plan of church government, and it evidently com- poses a distinctive and consistent whole, lohick is Preshyteriaji- ism. Now, we do not pretend to find an exphcit divine warrant for many details under this plan, such, for instance, as these : that preachers, and not elders, shall usually moderate all presby- terial courts ; that the number of courts shall be four, the pa- rochial, district, provincial and national presb3"teries, instead of three or five ; that some of them shall meet semi-annually and some annually; that some things they shall do in open court and some other things by committee, etc., etc. But we contend that all these details, undetermined by express divine warrant, oui]cht to be determined bv the church in strict accord- ance with the definite character of the divine outline. We do assert that Christ's simple plan being the device of infinite wis- dom, and being expressl}' assigned by Christ to his church for accomplishing all the parts of that sole function which he per- mits her to undertake in the world's conversion and sanctification, is adequate to that work in all ages and circumstances. So that the church is never entitled, on the plea of convenience, to make a fundamental addition or change with regard to this plan. Xor ought she to add anything more in the way of details than is really necessary for the attainment of her great end. In a word, Christ's church government is one of limited power and strict construction.
Before offering the evidence for this statement, we will ad- vert, for the pui'pose of illustration, to the manner in which it applies to the Board question, recently so much agitated in our church. The proper apphcation of it seems to have been either indistinctly stated by the opponents of our present boards or incorrectly apprehended by their defenders. Those defenders continually retort upon their adversaries, as though they held the jns div'muuh theory so strictly as to details that no scrip-
124 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
tural presbyterial court could lawfully depute aur of its fanc- tions at all; so that it was inconsistent in them to hold that a Synod could raise a committee under the title of a Board of Directors to superintend in its name the business of theological education within its jiirisdictiou, or a Committee of Missions, or any such thing, Xow all this is aside from the true application of the theory of jus divhnim. A scriptural, presbyterial court may properly depute some of its functions ; it may avail itself of the maxim. Quod facit 2>e'^ alium facHj)^^" ^6- But after grant- ing all this, two questions concerning boards remain. Are their present powers mere cases of deputized power? Are they pro- perly committees, or even properly commissions, of scriptural courts of presbyters ? Or is a board an unscriptural tertium quid, neither a proper committee nor itself a proper representa- tive court of presbyters of the church ? And second, if this ob- jection is surmounted, are not these boards more complex and cumbersome, are they not a Avider departure fi'om the simple, scriptural line of presbyterial action, than is really demanded for the efi&cient performance of the church's evangeHstic work ? If they are, even though they were granted to be nothing more than committees, their employment is in derogation of Christ's divine plan for the church's action. In using them the church is assuming more ungranted power than is properh' necessary to carry out the granted powers. She is departing from the spirit of Christ's plan, in that she betrays a lack of faith in the uni- versal adaptation of that simple, yet infinitely wise, organism which Christ has given his church. * Now, the two above ques- tions are questions of fact, of experience, about which honest Presbyterians may differ.
But to return. It was properly stated in the General Assem- bly, that if the boards are not scriptural coui-ts of presbyters, nor properly the creatures or committees of such courts, they should have no place in om- system, because the jus divinum form Christ has given forbids the church to invent any distinct, sub- stantive addition thereto. She may only carry out the details of Christ's invention according to circumstances. So that the absence of Scripture warrant for such additions is equivalent to a prohilution. Tpon this the question was asked (which would be ground of amusement were it not a ground for sorrow!, " where is the proof text to establish that doctrine ? " That a
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 125
Presbyterian officer should ask such a question is proof of a lamentable defect in the comprehension of our true system. The answer is : We hnd the proof texts in Matt, xxviii. 18, 19, where Christ declares his autocratic headship over the church, his kingdom, and gives it its great commission, appointing as its one grand function, the world's redemption from sin. We find them in 1 Cor. xii. 28, and Eplies. iv. 11, where we are told that Christ gave his church just so many (and no more) names of office for the edifying of the body of Christ. We find tbem in the pro- mises, such as, John xvi. 13, where Christ pledges to his apos- tles his infallible guidance in organizing the church and admin- istering it, and in the claims, such as Acts xv. 28, 2 Cor. xiii. 10, which the inspired apostles make of such power. Now in every government of laws, human or divine, which derives its authority from either constitutional precedents or documents, the powers proper to the government must be learned on this simple, com- mon-sense rule, that the government is to contain orihj what is granted. Otherwise, it is as plain as the sun, that its constitu- tion is no constitution. The demand of a Scripture proof text to establish the doctrine, that the church may not invent a new organism simply because Christ has withheld positive authority for it, is just as unreasonable as the demand that we should prove by express quotation from the text of the Constitution of the United States, that Congress may not constitutionally have a third house of ecclesiastical dignitaries. The proof is simply in the fact that the Constitution says, "Congress shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The fact that a third house is not ordained prohibits it. On any other theory a con- stitution is worthless.
We shall give a summary of the matter, which is but the sub- stance of the scriptural facts we have cited. Christ is sovereign, and the visible church is his kingdom. He gave to his church a set of institutions by Moses. At the new dispensation he ab- rogated a large part of these by himself and his apostles. What he did not abrogate is still of force. Just before his ascension he pointed out to the church its one grand function, the world's redemption. He gave to his church, by himself and by apostles to whom he gave inspired and providential guidance for that purpose, a set of officers and an organism adapted by infinite wisdom to the church's work under the new dispensation. He
126 THEOKIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
caused tliat organization to be left on record in tlie New Testa- ment, partly in tlie shape of precepts and partly of precedents for all ages to imitate. It is true that this organization was partly deyeloped under the apostles' hands, feature after feature, as the exigencies of the new dispensation called for it, first, speaking only of the parts intended to be permanent, the elder- ship, then the deaconship, then the presbyterial council of re- view. The organism was not made like a wagon ; it gi-ew like a iree. But this is the yer}^ reason why it possesses a diyine sim- plicity, wisdom and capability which render it adequate, when legitimately worked, to attain all the church's proper ends in all generations. But the fact that Christ formed it by a gradual develo^Jment by no means justifies ?/6' in undertaking to make any substantive addition in the way of farther development, ex- cept as that increase is the fair outgrowth of the tree Christ made. And the reason is, that the church no longer has hujnrecl nnen to guide the process of change. Our part is to take the iorm of government Christ has given us in its divine simplicity, and apply and extend it, until the world is subdued to him, in the spirit of humble faith.
We have given these explanations with a view especially to their application to the theories of the ruling eldership. This subject has received peculiar importance at this time through three articles in the April and July numbers of the Repertory. The view of the ruling elder's office, which, we were happy to beheve, was becoming prevalent in our denomination, is sub- stantially the one advocated by the venerable Dr. Samuel Miller, a man whose justness of thought and soundness in deduction the church will yet learn to value more highly than it has been the fashion to do. Tliis theory teaches that the office of ruling elder is emphatically of divine institution in the church. It is the same, so far as the powers of inspection and government go, with that of the preacher. "Wherein the preacher is -nza^i'jrziiu; and irzcaxoTzo:: he holds the same office in substance as the ruling elder. The difference is that he has the additional function of acting as God's public ambassador in the word and sacraments. Euling as well as preaching elders are intended in the New Tes- tament, where the}' are called Tznea^'jztooc and iziaxo-o: They are properly to be ordained presbyterially, by the parochial presby- tery, indeed, and by imposition of the hands of the whole session.
THEORIES OF THE LEDERSHIP. 127
They, as well as the deacons, are in as proper a sense clergy as preachers are. And all the ruling functions of the church be- long jointly and equally to these two kinds of elders, and are to Le exercised by them in presbyterial courts, local, district, j)ro- vincial or general, except in those cases where, under peculiar circumstances, these courts depute the temporary exercise of ruling powers to an evangelist or similar person.
The tlieor}' advocated in the Repertory is far different. It as- serts, indeed, that the ruling elder is a scriptural officer (incon- sistently, as we shall see), but denies that he is ever called officially Tznta^'jrzoo:; or i-caxo-o^ in the New Testament, and that lie is in any sense of the same order or office with the preacher. Whenever the New Testament speaks of 7:f)ta^uTt()o:; and i~iaxo-o^ in the church, it means exclusively preachers, so that ruling elders are not presbyters officially. The order of presbyter- preachers is the essential and characteristic one in the church, so that if this order is present, a full-fledged church court is present, and all church powers may be legitimately exercised without ruling elders. Yet the church may if she pleases — and it is politic to do so — scripturally admit ruling elders to all church courts as representatives of the people's rights and aids in government. But these ruling elders are still nothing but laymen, have no claim to the clerical rank ; and although they may with propriety receive a formal ap2?ointment to office with some religious solemnity, have no right to be ordamed by impo- •sition of hands ; nor is that appointment a presbj^terial act, i. e., sessional, but the personal and ministerial act of the preacher who appoints him.
Such are the astounding assertions by which the church has loeen startled at this late day, after having been brought, by the irrefragable facts and arguments of Dr. Miller and others follow- ing him, to a general acquiescence in the scriptural view for a whole ^;eneration. These essaj^s receive a factitious importance far above their ability, from their appearance in the Princeton Review, because it is generally understood that this quarterly admits nothing which does not represent with general correct- ness the views of its conductors. And this is confirmed b}^ the fact that the July number contains also an article entitled, "What is Presbyterianism," which almost avows its own author- ship, or at least is universally understood to be the work of the
128 THEOKIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
editor of tlie lievieic. This essay refers to the two on the elder- ship with general aj^probation, and avows subtantiallv the same views of the office. Now, if so influential a periodical as the Repertory advocates them, it is right that Presbyterians should look to their accuracy. We propose, therefore, to continue the examination of the two theories, which we shall attempt to do candidly and yet courteously.
The reader will bear in mind that the point of discussion is not whether God has instituted ruling elders in the church, for this the other party professes to admit; but the question is, whether ruling elders were among those scriptural -pta^-i'jrzooi, called also Iziaxo-oc, of whom we read in the Acts and Epistles, as set over the churches by the imposition of hands, and whose qviahfications and functions are described in Acts :sx., 1 Tim. iii., and Titus i. ; or whether they are to be regarded as a totally different and inferior order. It is on this question that the whole difference of the two theories turns. Now we assert with Dr. Miller that ruling elders, as well as preachers, are proper official Tzoia^j'jzioot and l~iay.o-ot in the Scripture sense :
1. Because the whole institution was borrowed fi'om the government of the Hebrew Church. From time immemorial the whole local government of the Hebrews had been presbyte- rial. But especially the synagogues, which may be considered the parish churches of the Hebrews, were governed by a bench of elders, never less than three, called in Hebrew, D^^pl and in Greek, T.itza^-i'jrzpot, or among the Jews of the dispersion, i-'ta- y.o-ot. To this all respectable antiquaries agree. Of this, what is said in the New Testament itself of rulers of synagogues is sufficient evidence. No matter how small the synagogue, these elders were always a plurality. There was also a deacon or deacons, whose duty was to keep the house and sacred books, called in Luke ix. 20 the minister. Now it matters not V-helher we beheve with Yitringa that any or all of these elders acted in turn as spokesmen or preachers of the synagogue ; or with Mai- monides, Lightfoot, Prideaux, and many others, that one of these elders was selected as a permanent president and director of public worship), under the name of "Angel of the Congregation," all agree that the whole bench were official elders, and were all ordained to the charge by imposition of hands. If Yitringa's
THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 129'
opinion is the true one, all were preaching elders. If the opin- ion of all the other antiquaries is correct, all Avere truly -nsa^-j- zBpo: and sTTcaxuzoc, and one among them had the additional func- tion of being not only a Tzota^fjzsoo:, but the public spokesman of the assamblage. The writer in the Repertory^ in his eager- ness to find some sort of elder in the s}Tiagogue lower than the proper -rnza^'jztooz, confounds the Rd/'nasim, the deacons or waiting-men, with the elders ; a strange blunder.
Now all Presbyterians, and many Episcopalians even, as Bishops Burnet and Whately, teach that the synagogue was the model followed by Christ and his apostles in forming the Christian congregation. And here is one powerful argument in favor of Presbyterianism. Is the Repertory willing to surrender the cause of Presbyterianism in this respect to the prelatists ? If not, if the argument from the synagogue to the Christian church is sound, then oiir conclusion is unavoidable. There was no sort of ruling elders in the synagogue, except tjie 0 vip.l ^^o were ordained by imposition of hands, and were called officially ~pza- l%ztnot^ and i-lcrxozo:. Then the ruling elders in the Christian church are of the same sort. In the pattern copied, there is no precedent for any other sort. But that the church was modeled on the synagogue appears plainly from the facts that the wor- ship of the synagogue was moral and perpetual, while that of the temple was ritual, typical and temporary; that Christ and his apostles were Hebrews, accustomed to worship in the syna- gogues from childhood ; that many primitive chiu'ches were but synagogues or parts of synagogues christianized; and above all, that all the three officers, and the very navies of office, in the synagogue were borrowed by the new dispensation, " angel," "presbyter," "deacon" (or waiting-man). In a word, this pres- byterial organization was God's own ordinance for the Old Tes- tament church, in all that part of the worship and discipline not typical. When the typical was abrogated by the new dispen- sation, this presbyterial form was left unchanged ; and, like the church-membership of believers' children, it stands, therefore, still sustained by the same divine authority which upheld it all through the ages of Moses, David and Ezra.
This view receives powerful confirmation from the striking fact that while the institution of the apostleship and deaconship is expressly described, no account whatever is given of the first
Vol. II— 9.
130 THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
institution of tlie Christian eldership. This office is first men- tioned as though it needed no explanation and existed as a matter of course, at the end of the eleventh chapter of Acts. Often afterwards elders are mentioned, but nowhere is any ac- count of their introduction given. How can this be explained so naturally as by this statement, that every Hebrew mind was so familiar with presbyterial government, in both church and state, that the church at once adopted it as a thing admitting no hesitation and needing no explanation ? But we repeat, if the Christian ruling elder is the Hebrew presbyter, then he is full- fledged 7:i)e(7fi'JTZ[)0z and i-caxoTzo;, in the official sense of the New Testament.
2. The meaning and usage of the two Avords show that they must apply to the riding elder at least as strictly as tliey do to the preacher. We are told much of a popular and general use of the word Tzpea^'jztfioc, as meaning, primarily, an old man, and then one of eminence, weight or wisdom ; so be it. But we opine that when the judges of thousands, hundreds and tens in Israel are cq^g^. vreshyters or elders, when the seventy members of the Sanhedrin are called ^j»/'e-y^>'?/?'6'r,s, the name is technical and official. And its official use, as well in secular as in sacred in- stitutions, alwaj'S suggested to the Jew the ideas of ruling, over- seeing and judicial functions, rather than teaching functions. The preachers of the nation were the prophets, and next to them were the priests, Levites and doctors. The parochial school- masters of the nation were the Levites. But the elders were chosen from all the tribes. A Levite was not an elder by de- scent from the priestly tribe ; he might happen to become an elder of the village or synagogue where he resided by election, and then there was an instance of a preaching elder. But the distinctive function of the eldership of the Jews was not preach- ing, but ruling. So the word i-iaxo-oz, currently given to these synagogue-elders by Greek-speaking Jews, means exactly in- sjJ&ctor — not a teaching, but a ruling function. Now, shall we be told that the Jewish Christians who Avrote the New Testa- ment, knowing their own language and usages, applied the words '7:[)ea^'jTt(>o:; and i-iaxozo:; exclusively to an officer whose promi- nent and characteristic function was, as the Jiep&rtorT/ asserts, 2Jreaching, and that they always excluded their application to the ruling officers, when the words both meant ruling r.ither
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than preaching by etymology and universal usage ? It is incred- ible. On the contrary, the preacher of the Cliristian church only becomes Tcpea^orBfio!; and i7rc(Txo7zo^ by becoming a ruling elder. He is a presbyter not only because he preaches, but because he also rules. And we repeat, this is not a mere etymological argument ; not only the etymology, but the absolutely uniform usage, in things civil and ecclesiastical, up to the time when the sacred writers began to apply the two terms iKcaxozo:; and Tzpea- I^UTspo^ to officers of the Christian church, gives ruling, and not teaching in 2)u})l'ic, as their distinctive meaning. It is simply preposterous to hold that the New Testament authors adopted "those very terms to express a function different from the one they had always before indicated, and absolutely withheld it from the men possessing the very function it was always used to describe. Hence, in part, arises the high probability of the correctness of that explanation which the waiter in the Repertory attributes, without warrant, to Neander as its inventor. This explanation supposes that the first elders {rtoza^'jzspoc, eziaxo-oi.) of Christian congregations after Pentecost were ruling elders rather than l^reaching elders ; that the function for which alone they were first needed and first appointed was that of inspection. The public teaching was sufficiently provided for at first by the per- petual labors of the apostles, and by the numbers of persons who were endued with charisms, or insjnred gifts of prophecy and exhortation. For we know that the apostles were exceed- ingly active, and that the abundant bestowal of these charisms, or extrordinary and inspired endowments, was one of the bless- ings of the day, regularly bestowed on every newly planted church which the apostles visited. Let the reader consult Acts il 38; vi. 3; viii. 15, 16; xix. 1-6; 1 Cor. xii. 4-11. But the apostleship and these charisais were both intended to be tempo- rary. Hence God, while he caused the introduction Jirst of the ruling elder, who alone was at first needed, continuing his own time-honored presbyterial mode of government, also caused his apostles, as soon as a more permanent provision for public in- struction was needed in the church, to introduce a permanent preaching officer, the "pastor-teacher" of Eph. iv. 11. But as nothing was more natural than that this officer should be sought among those members of the ruling eldership who had, in addi- tion to the presbyterial virtues, the gift of public speaking, the
132 THEOKIES OF THE ELDER.SHir.
combination of functions presented by the preaching presbyter, "the angel of church," was ultimately found in each church. And when one not hitherto a presbyter was chosen as a suitable preacher, he was naturally introduced into the church session.
The Itepertory asserts that Dr. Miller, who j)resents this ex- planation, borrowed it from the fanciful brain of Dr. Neander. This is sufficiently refuted by saying that Dr. Miller, in his treatise published in 1831, expressly says that he had held and published substantially the same views of the eldership twenty years before. This was long before Neander published the first crude essay of his History of the Church in the German language. But what difference does the paternity of the explanation make if it is every way probable and reasonable ? And that it is so, ap- pears thus : that it contradicts no New Testament fact, that it happily harmonizes and satisfies all the facts of the history, and that it accords with contemporary Hebrew usages and modes of thought.
But the author in the Repertory objects that preaching the gospel is the grand, prominent characteristic function of the church, and hence it is unreasonable to suppose that the essential order of church officers should be named and formally charac- terized by a function, that of ruling and inspection, which is so subordinate in importance. He urges that surely the official class in the church, its organic hand, will be characterized by that which is the church's great official function.
We reply, first : grant the assumption, and with this writer thrust aside the rviling eldership as a mere incidental of the church's order. The difficulty remains just the same, for we stiU have the essential order in whom the organic functions of the church are all expressed, the order of preachers, named l~lo'AO-oi and TZfitrrS'Jzzooc, instead of y:r^o''j-/.zc, They receive their name from that which is their non-essential function ! If the objection knocks down anj^;hing, it is the objector himself. But second, the objection is of no force, for it does not follow that a preaching rather than ruling were the church's most important and distinctive function, it would therefore be unnatural and un- reasonable to denominate the official class generally by the rul- ing function. It is perfectly natural to denominate all sub- divisions of the class b}^ that general function Avhich is common, to them all, though that function be not the highest. Thus we
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call a general officer a soldier, as well as liis subalterns and pri- vates. The distinctive idea of a soldier is one who fights. But the general, personally, never fights. And yet his function of giving general orders is more elevated and important than that of any one fighting man. But third, the statement needs con-ec- tion, that 2^'"<^'i<"Jt'^>^</ is the distinctive and most important func- tion in the church. The church is the "pillar and ground of the truth," and its great commission is to "disciple all nations;" but this only proves that its grand function is teacJiiug, not preaching. By preaching, by sacraments, by discipline, by do- mestic instruction, by teaching from house to house, the church in all its orders is to hold forth the word of life. We are far from being willing to admit that preaching is more important than all other means of inculcation besides.
The ■\\Titer in the Bei)ertory olijects to Dr. Thornwell's state- ment of " one order of presbyters embracing two classes, the preaching elder and the ruling elder;" that the term class is more general than order, and therefore the latter cannot be in- clusive of the latter. Well, then, let us state it thus : "There is one class of presbyters embracing two orders, the preaching elder and the ruling elder." Where, now, is the objection? This supposition shows that, even if it had any correctness, it would be merely a verbal quibble.
A soi*t of reductio ad dhsurdum is attempted in another place thus : the two statements are made : first, that ruling is the essence of the presbyterate in all cases, and second, that the preaching elder must be held, in accordance with 1 Tim. v. 17, as a more dignified and honorable office. But these two state- ments are asserted to be mutually destructive of each other. We answer, this is but a reassertion, in another phase, of an ob- jection already set aside. It is enough to answer, that fighting is the essence of the idea of the soldier, and the soldier who commands as well as fights, is more honorable than he is who only fights ; yet we call them both soldiers. The truth is, that the necessary opposition and inconsistency does not exist in the case, unless we hold that every officer must in every case receive his official denomination from the most important of his func- tions, for this is the n to jar of the syllogism. But is this true ? Every one sees that it is notoriously incorrect in a hundred cases, and especially where one combines in his person two functions,
134 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP
those of a preacher and a presbyter, it is every way natural that when we are speaking of his ruling functions, we should de- nominate him therefrom, presbyter, although these be not his most important functions.
A kindred objection to this is made by the assertion that it is an unheard-of absurdity to denominate by one term two classes of functions permanently distinct and untransferable. Let us see. Are not certain judicial officers called "judges," some of whom have federal jurisdiction under the United States, some appellate jurisdiction under State laws, some a chancery juris- diction, and some a common law jurisdiction ? Yet all are dis- tinct. Has the writer in the ItejMrtory ever heard of a class called "justices of the peace," who are taught by the law always to subscril)e themselves by that name, and who yet exercise at different times the functions of judges of law, of peace and po- lice officers, of assessors of taxes for their county, of commis- sioners of county buildings and bridges, and of notaries pubhc to authenticate conveyances ? Or, to select a more scriptural illustration, did he ever read Acts xiv. 15, of " the apostles Bar- nabas and Paul ? " According to this argument, he is bound to concede to the j)relatist, that there is here onl}' one order of apostleship, and one class under it. ( AVe beg his pardon ; one clcLSS, and one order under it.) That is, he must concede that Barnabas was an apostle in every sense and in every function in which Paul was. And where, then, is our defence against the prelatic claim, that the apostleship was transmissible ? The truth is, this, like the preceding objections, is but a verbal one. They do not rise to the dignity of arguments.
We will resume our discussion by reminding the reader of the .true point in debate. This is not whether there should be rul- ing elders, for all parties profess to concede so much : but the c^uestion is, what is the nature of tlie ruling elder's office, ordi- nation and powers ? One j)arty, finding expression in the Prince- ton Repertory, holds that wherever the Scriptures speak of official Tzozao'jzzooi and i-'iaxo-ot they mean preachers alone ; that they alone are the essential bond of the church's government ; that .ruling elders are in no proper, official sense 7:fjea6'Jze[joc or i-ia- xo-Qc and in no part of their office coordinate with preachers ; that they are not entitled to any ordination b}' laying on of hands ; that they are simply laymen admitted into iDresbyterial
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 135
courts as representatiyes of the people, yet in no sense essential constituent parts of those courts, Avliicli may in every case legiti- mately subsist without them, so far as Scripture warrants are concerned. Our view, on the other hand, is that of Dr. Samuel Miller, that ruling elders are scriptural rzoiao-jTzooc and k-laxo-ot ; that they should have a presbyterial ordination by laying on of hands — in the parochial presbytery, the church session — and that in all powers of inspection and rule they are co-ordinate with preaching elders, and have the same divine warrant for their authority. In support of this view we have presented two broad grounds of argument, and in connection therewith have removed some objections. We now proceed to our third reason. 3. When the Xew Testament speaks of official -o-ao-jziooc and i-:axo-u:, they could not have been all preachers, because, no matter how small the church, we always read of a plurality of them. Thus, in the little new churches planted in Asia Minor by Paul and Barnabas, " they ordained elders in every church'* (Acts xiv. 23). Paul " sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church" (Acts xx. 17). Writing to the Christians at Philippi (ch. i. 1), he addresses the izia/.o-oi (plural) and dea- cons. Titus (ch. i. 5) was to " ordain elders in every city " in Crete. Now, the argument is, and it is irresistible, that many of these primitive churches were too small to need or admit the stated labors of more than one preacher, and too weak to sup- port them. Yet they always had more than one Tzpsao'jzzoo^ or izicrxo-oc. Therefore some of them must have been ruling elders. This is so convincing that the Repertory seeks to evade it by saying that all the primitive churches had more than one preacher, and had use for them. Some of the churches, as Jerusalem and An- tioch, were so large that they employed many preachers at home. This we grant (see Acts xiii. 1 ). But as to the vast majority of the primitive churches w^e utterly den}' it. Many of them were evi- deutl}' the handfuls of Christians collected by the first labors of the apostles, and meeting in private houses. History tells us that the little island of Crete had one hundred " cities ;" that is, walled towns, of which the most were nothing more than vil- lages ; yet Titus was to ordain a plurality of elders in every one of these where there were Christians. This is so obvious that a further gratuitous supposition is made as to them, that the churches, though very small, were each of them foci of mission-
136 THEOKIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
ary labors for the surrounding pagans, so that thev cmploj-ed many preachers in itinerant journeys, etc., and these preachers were the phirality of elders. The answer is, that these little churches were indeed, when situated in large cities, foci of mis- sionary operations, but the regular officer for conducting them was the evangelist, not the local presbyter. It is Stephen, PhiHp the evangelist, and the apostles, not the elders of the Jerusalem church, of whom we hear as officially extending the gospel around about. This is further strengthened by the fact that when we read the qualifications of these presbyter bishops in 1 Timothy iii. and Titus i. we read nothing of any itinerancy or mission, but all the functions are permanent and local. In the case of the clnu'ch of Ephesus (Acts xx. 17), it is not the elders resident hi the city of Ephesus, but the ^^ elders of the clivrch," who are addressed. They not only lived there, but their charge vxLS there. The idea of their being the missionaries of the whole surrounding region is inconsistent with their local duties, and with the commands the apostle proceeds (vs. 28, etc.,) to lay on them. The Itepertory is so pressed with this case that it adopts the untenable ground that these elders were, no doubt, not all from Ephesus proper, but from all the affiliated churches around. On this evasion we remark, first, that it is the very one adopted by prelatists, on this passage, to escape the irresistible argument against diocesan power and the three orders of ministers. For in verses 28, 29, the apostle identifies presbyters with bishops, and, moreover, gives to these local officers all the power which prelatists claim for their diocesans. We do not thank the Rep- ertory for thus betrapng to the enemy one of our tried Presby- terian bulwarks ! Its misrepresentation of the passage places it in very bad company — ^company with which it has been little wont to consort. But " politics make strange bed-fellows." Sec- ond, we rebut the explanation by the fact that the text states, " Paul sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church." "The church" is singular. Xow, that iisage of the word in the singular, which is so common among us to express the associated churches over a whole province, as the " Presbyterian Church in North Carolina," is utterly unknown in the New Testament. In all such cases the word is used in the plural, churches, without a single variation in all the New Testament. The church of Ephesus can mean nothing but the local church Hterally resi-
THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 137
den-t in Ephesns. All tliose rr/tefTiSuzefWi-i-iaxo-o:, wlio were elders of it, were local officers, with a local charge, " a flock " (not flocks, vs. 28,) over wliicli tlie Holy Ghost raade them eyia- xozo!. All of them, of course, were not preachers.
But this is so clear that, most of the able Congregationalists even — who in practice discard ruling elders — such as Drs. Da- vidson and Wardlaw, admit that there was a plurality of pres- byters in every ancient church. But, they urge, their qualifica- tions and functions, and, therefore, their ordination, were evi- dently all the same ; and the Presbyterians err in making a per- manent distinction between the two species of elders in the same church. We may add, that this is just the assertion made by the writer in the Central Presbyterian of September 17, 1859, who calls himself Cramer, and to whom the Repertory refers tri- umphantly as having shown up the extravagances in which our theory of the eldership must legitimately result. Now we re- join, with Dr. King, of Scotland, that this notion of a college of presbyters in every church, large and small, all exercising all the same functions, is practically impossible. Can any one be- lieve, that Avhere there was enough work of inspection to occupy five or six men, and only enough public preaching to occupy one or two, all would still continue to preach ? Would not dif- ference of gifts, of popularity, and of taste, soon throw the preaching work wdioUy into the hands of one or two ? Would not the good brother who was slow of speech, and whose rising usually helped to empty the church of hearers, while he saw it crowded whenever his more fluent brother-presbyter preached, be irresistibly impelled to give up public preaching, and limit himself to the functions of rule and inspection, in performing which he w^as useful, happy, and res])ectable ? Is it ever so easy to get preachers of good capacity that several of them can be found in each congregation ? Let our Congregational brethren, or our brother Cramer, try it ; he would soon find that his plurality of preaching elders would slide into the Presbyte- rian usage, one or two of the best qualified doing the preaching, and the rest the ruling.
This is so obvious that Dr. Davidson and others are com- pelled to admit that, while the presbyters of the congregation were all officially equal, all entitled to the same functions, and all ordained to the same functions, a part of them would, per-
138 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
haps in every case, practically surrender the public preaching to- the more gifted brethren, and content themselves with rule and watch over the members. But, now, is not this admission equivalent to a surrender of the whole point ? It represents^ Jesus Christ and his apostles as instituting for the church a plan which would be found in every case impracticable in its working, and as looking forward to this disgraceful state of things, that there should be in every church a set of officers partially incapable and recreant to their ordination a'^ows. And this would not be the guilty exceptional case occurring here and there, and when occurring to be strictly chastised, but the regu- lar, normal state of things, to be everywhere expected and everv- where tolerated. Who can believe this ? And on this theory we should have to explain 1 Tim. v. 17, " Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in word and doctrine," after this fashion : " The elders who fulfil well a part of their ordination vows, and are wickedly recreant to the rest, count worthy of double honor, especially they who are recreant to none." Shall we put such nonsense into St. Paul's mouth ? Would not the honest old hero infalli- bly have said that the men who do their whole duty are woi-thy of double honor ; but the men who neglect a part, although ap- pointed by the Holy Spirit to all the same work, and solemnly sworn to perform it, are worthy only of shame and punishment? Since, then, the idea of a numerous college of preaching elders in every small congregation is practically absui'd and impossible, as our adversaries themselves concede, we must suppose, even were there no proof in the Scriptures, that Christ intended tico species of elders, and did not merely connive at them ; that he appointed two species, and that they had different tasks, differ- ent vows, and somewhat different ordinations.
4. But there are proofs in the Scripture. Let the reader bear in mind that the question now in hand is not simply whether it is scriptural to have ruHng elders, but whether these ruling el- ders are among the ojfiekd, ordained j^i'^shyters of the Scriptures. He will then understand the fairness of the application we make of our proof texts. And Ave claim, first, that all the passages by which we ha^-e proved a plurality of ordained presbyters in every church, even the smallest, show that ruling elders were among them, because we have evinced that all could not have been
THEOEIES OP THE ELDERSHIP. ISO"
j)reacliing elders. Next, in Rom. xii. 6-8, we have an enumer- ation of the "parts" or "members" of the ecclesiastical body. " Having then gifts " {char isms) "differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophecy according^ to the proportion of faith ; or ministry " [deaconshij)) " let us wait on our ministry; or he that teachetli" (the preacher) "on teach- ing; or he that exhorteth on exhortation" (the temporary gift); "he that givetli, let him do it with simplicity" (probably the deacon again); "he that ruleth" (the ruling elder) "with dili- gence," etc. Now, these functions are spoken of as belonging to different men. We have "gifts differing according to the grace that is given to vs." There would seem to be, then, an officer who ruled, but did not prophecy, nor teach, nor publicly exhort, nor j)erform a deaconship. We will candidly say, how- ever, that we would not esteem the evidence in this passage conclusive by itself, because there seems an uncertainty whether some of the clauses in the enumeration may not be intended to describe private unofficial performances, such as those of the master of a family and the private benefactor of the destitute. Let us, then, add to it 1 Cor. xii. 28, "And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teach- ers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, govern- ments, diversities of tongues." This enumeration contains all the church officers, temporary and permanent. Of the former class are the apostles, prophets, miracle workers, and miraciilous speakers of foreign languages here mentioned ; of the latter class are the teachers or preachers, the deacons (" helps"), and the rulers ("governments"). Now, there is no mistake here as to the apos- tle's intending official functions, for he says, " God hath set them in the church.'''' Nor is there any doubt as to the ruling office other than that of the teacher, for he says, "after that . . helps, governments," etc. But it may be objected, that the apostle does not in these texts call these "governments" official presby- ters. We grant it; but this is our argument from these pas- sages, that we here find an order of rulers other than preachers, among the di\anely appointed officers of the church ; and on the other hand, we defy any one to show us, in all the enumerations of the Acts and Epistles, and among all the records of the unin- spired apostolic church, any names of permanent offices except these three, preacher or angel, presbyter, and deacon. These
14G THEOKIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
*' governments," then, must be identified with one oi the three. The texts themselves distinguish them from the teaching office. Will the Itepertory endeavor to identify them with the deacon ? Hardly. They must be identified with the presbyter.
But a more direct argument may be found in the passage al- ready quoted from 1 Tim. v. 17. That the reader may have it before his eyes, we will repeat it : " Let the elders {j:()za^'j-cz(>oi) that rule well, be counted worthy of double honor ; especially they who labor in the word and doctrine." Now, we can hardly suppose that it will be necessary to repeat here for Presbyterian readers the argument foi the correct exposition of this verse. All v.'ho understand it fairly, including even some learned Epis- €opali*ans, admit that it shows us a class of r.nza^-i'j-ioot who rule well ; and another 7J»rt/'i!Z?/ different species of -oiafi'jzzpoc, who, in addition to ruling well, labor in word and doctrine. And these last are the preachers, or ministers, so called in modern phrase. It is true that several evasions, characterized by a wriggling lubricity worthy of eels, have been proposed ; but they have been all so crushed by the irresistible answers of Drs. Owen, Dick, and others, that we need do no more here than refer the reader to those writers. Now the elders who rule well, and the elders who also labor in word and doctrine, are here con- trasted. The one class are called -r)ta^'jzz(iOi, precisely as the other class are. The writer in the Rejjertory attempts to escape by saying that ruling elders, when called 7:(>Z(7[i'jzz()oc in the Scrip- tures, are called so only in the general, and not in the official sense; only as a title of seniority and respect, not of technical office-power. And the Jieview (July number, 1860, page 562) relates a passage between Dr. Thornwell and its editor in the last Assembly, in which the former asked whether the latter " admitted that the elder was a presbyter. Dr. Hodge rejoined by asking Dr. Thornwell whether he admitted that the apostles were deacons. He answered, No. But, says Dr. Hodge, Paul says he was a ocdxui^o::. O, says Dr. Thornwell, 'that was in the general sense of the word.' Precisely so ; if the answer was good in the one case it is good in the other."
But, say we, it is not good in the other case. Here we have, in 1 Tim. v. 17, the ruling elder called 7rfJZ(Tj3uT£po:: in the same sentence and in the same sense with the preaching elder. Hoav preposterous is it in an interpreter to change the meaning of a
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 141
word thus arbitrarily in passing from one clause to another of the same sentence ? If the ruling elder is not here called -^oso-- fi'jz^oo:; in the proper, technical, official sense, then neither is the preacher a TTpsffj^'jzsfto^ in that sense ; if it is a mere general title of respect in the one case, it is so in the other. A similar evasion of the proper presbyterial character of the ruling elder is attempted by the ReijertoriJ s correspondent in the passage at 1 Pet. T. 1. " The Tzpza^'jTEpot which are among yoii I exhort, who am also a -nza^'mpoz^'' etc. Here Peter, says the reviewer, calls himself a -pza^i'jzzpoz, in the same breath with the elders. But as he was an elder only in the general sense, so are they. Nay, then, the bishops also, who alone, according to him, are j)roper elders, are but generally so, for in the next verse Peter exhorts these same elders to act as ^-iaxo-oc of the churches — ■ rendered in the English Version, " taking the oversight thereof." The truth is, Peter was actually and properly a presbyter, for the apostle's office included all inferior ones within it. And these elders were properly presbyters and i-iaxo-oc.
Again, the Epistle to the Philippians begins with these words, " Paid and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are Philippi, with the bishops {zrua- y.ozoiz) and deacons, (diaxouo:^)." Where is the mention here of the ruling elders ? It was obviously the apostle's intention to send his greeting to all the church members at Philippi, and to their officers. He mentions even the deacons. Hence it is hard to suppose that the elders are omitted, unless we are willing to hold them more insignificant than the deacons. Nearly all re- spectable commentators accordingly uuderstanvl that they are included under the title e-caxb-otz, ; that is, that they, as truly as the preacher or preachers, were iuspecters or bishops. But all agree that i-iaxo-o:: and -ota^'jzeiioz are the same thing ; there- fore the ruling elder is a presbyter.
5. We now proceed to sustain the same assertion by this fifth argument, that unless we find the office of the rnliug elder in the proper, regularly ordained i-iaxo-o:; or -iisao-jzspo:: of the New Testament, we have no sufficient warrant whatever from Scrip- ture for the office. One would think, indeed, from the zeal dis- played li}' the v.riter in the iLepertuvy to drag down the supports and dignities of the elder's office, that it would be a result not very much to be regretted to find that it had no Scripture warrant
142 THEORIES OF THE ELDEESHIP.
at all. But he says tliat he does regard it as a scriptural office, and finds the warrant for it in the term " governments," in 1 Cor. xii. 28. Now, we have shown that the "governments" of that passage, and Eom. xii. 8, are no other than the presliyters of Acts XX., and the i-taxo-uc of Phil. i. 1. These " governments," which the liepertory condescending!}- admits to be the ruling elders of Scripture, must, from the very term, have been rulers. But now, in Acts xx., in 1 Tim. iii., and in Titus i., we find the Tuling functions distinctly and repeatedly given to the presbyter — z~iay.o-o'.. By this argument also the " governments " must be among the presbyters.
Again : It is uniformly admitted by the whole multitude of Presbyterian A\Titers, and by many even of Lutherans and Epis- copalians, that in the apostolic church there were hut three names of permanent church officers — the preacher or angel, the pres- byters and the deacons. The whole testimony of uninspired an- tiquity is, that in the church of the first and second centiu'ies there were but three offices permanently known in the church — bishops, presbyters and deacons. (The reader must understand that in the uninspired writings the scriptural language was speedily corrupted by depriving the bench of elders of their proper title of izhxu-u:, hisltoj^s or i/isjjertors, and restricting it to the presiding pastor and preacher, who is in the Scriptures called "the angel of the church." So that, when we use the word Ushop in the singular number, in stating the usages of these primitive Christians, we shall now be understood as mean- ing by it that to which they improperly restricted it, the preacher of the congregation.) Now, then, Clement of Kome, in his Epis- tle to the Corinthians, written in the first century, mentions none but presbyters and deacons. The Ignatian Epistles, sup- posed by some to be almost as early, mention no officer but the bishop, the presbyters and the deacons. Irenreus, writing be- fore the end of the second century, mentions no others. In one word, there is not one line nor syllable of authentic historical evidence that the apostolic church ever had any other perma- nent officers than these three. We well know that uninspired history is not infallible, that it is not authoritative ; but surely when we find our view concerning the state of facts under the apostles so confirmed by the indisputable state of facts immedi- ately after them, it gives strong proof that our view is correct.
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And these early testimonies all say tliat oiigiuallj bishop and presbyter were the same; that the bishop, even after his elera- tion over the bench of elders, was but a pr'nny^ inter jxires, but a presiding presbj-ter over his peers, and that these presbyters had a preslnterial ordination to office by the laying on of hands, and were universally esteemed as truly clergy men as the preach- ers. Morever, in some of these testimonies the relations be- tween the bishop and presbyters is minutely described, and we find it to be precisely what the relation between the pastor, as we call him, and his session now is, abating a little for dawning superstitions. The pretended Epistles of Ignatius, bishop of the church in Antioch, have been mentioned. He fell a martyr very early in the second century. It has always been doubted whether these Epistles Avere not either compiled or changed by some later hand; and the recent discovery of a disagreeing Syriac copy is said greatly to strengthen that suspicion. But if a later and a spurious origin should even be proved for them, our inference from them is rather confirmed than weakened, be- cause it will then appear that the state of things which we assert as the apostolic continued in the church even later than the days of Ignatius. Now, in these Epistles, it is said that the bishop should allow no one to administer the eucharist but him- self, nor even to baptize except himself or one deputed by him ; that his board of presbyters is his council ; that it is the bishop's duty to preside in all the meetings for public worship, and to be acquainted with the spiritual state of every individual, " not for- getting the men and maid-servants." How clear that this bishoi? is what we call the minister of a congregation, and that these presbyters are not preachers, but ruling elders. Yet here is the character of the primitive office.
Now let the reader bear in mind that the Itejyertory teaches, ruhng elders are not proper scriptural presbyters at all; that whenever the Scripture says presbyter technically it means 2)reaclier ; and that the scriptural warrant for the ruhng elder is in the term "governments," which is something else than pres- byter, and something lower. But we have proved that the churches of the New Testament knew nothing of any permanent officers but preachers, presbyters and deacons. Now, these governments are noi 2)reachers surely. None would spurn that supposition more than the liepertory. They are noi j^i'­ters^
144 THEORIES OF THE ELDEESHIP.
says the liepertory, and tliey are not deacons. Tlieu they are nothing ! Verily, the suspicion does not seem very harsh, which many have actually entertained, that this is a category to which this journal would not be very loath to reduce them. But as it has disclaimed such a desire, we will not make the charge. We repeat, however, with emphasis, that unless we find the ruhng elders among the scriptural presbyters, we can find no scriptural warrant for them at all. They are either that, or they have no business in our church organization. Let them be '' ant Ccesar, aut nihil."
The reader will now see the connection between this subject and the question. Is the form of the church's government jif?'e d'vino f We are not of those who would push the notion of a divine warrant to extremes. But if it is true even of the broad- est outlines, surely this is a thing which man should not under- take to introduce of his own motion, a new and grand coordinate member into the body which Christ has constructed. Change of circumstances may justify change of minor details ; but if a great fundamental branch may be iutrodiiced thus into the struc- ture, there is no constitutional limitation whatever. All is ab- solute license. The Federal government may multiply clerkships or jvidgeships as the country grows ; but if they undertake to add a whole new House to Congress, they have destroyed the con- stitution. We urge, therefore, that if the views of the Hepertory concerning the eldership are true, we are bound to go one step farther, and abolish it. It is a human invention, and however convenient or popular, it is rebellion against our Master's better wisdom to introduce so fundamental a modification of his insti- tutions.
6. Perhaps the most plausible objection which the Bevieio presents against our theory is this, "that if you teach the ruling elders are among the proper scriptural presbyters, then you can no longer draw any consistent line between them and ministers, but must make them all preachers. The Scriptures make no distinction between any of those whom they call presbyters, either as to qualification or ordination or functions." All alike must be "apt to teach." And we who hold that view ought in consistency to give ruling elders the same ordination with preachers, and encourage them to do all that a ]3reacher may do ; a result savs the liepertory, to which our principles are al-
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ready carrviug us. In evidence of this, it points to the article of Cramer in tlie Central Presbyterian, to Avliieh we have ah'eady referred. That writer does indeed argue that conchision with a force and perspicuity which place his article, although appear- ing in a weekly newspaper, far before many reviews in' import- ance. Those who wish to see the wrong side forcibly sustained may also consult Dr. PhiUp Schaff's Apostolic Church.
The views already presented against the supposition of Drs. Wardlaw and Davidson bear forcibly on this objection. On the one hand, we have proved that the ruling elders are among the presbyters ; and on the other, we have sho^Ti that, if they were thereby made a college of preachers in every church, all exer- cising all the same functions, the practical continuance of the arrangement would be impossible ; some of the college would inevitably relinquish their preaching functions, and it is deroga- tory to the wisdom and holiness of Christ to suppose that he would thus deliberately plan for a general connivance at neglect of official duty.
But it is asserted that the same qualifications are exacted, in 1 Tim. iii., and Titus i., of all presbyters ahke, and especially " aptness to teach," " that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." Hence, if ruling elders are actiial presbyters, they shoidd all be preachers. In reply, we remark that all will admit that ruling elders do need all the qualifications, such as good Christian character, orthodoxy, tem- perance, prudence, domestic authority, etc., which the preachers need except this "aptness to teach." And as to this, we assert that the ruhng elder needs it also just as truly as the preacher does, although not in the same phase, even if he is never to preach in public. It has been well remarked in support of this assertion, that the ruling elder should preach the gospel fi'om house to house, that he should be the private instructor of all inquirers, that he should be a catechist and Bible-class teacher. This is all true, but it comes very far short of the true strength of the case. Limit the ruling elder's task as strictly as is pos- sible to the business of riding, and still his function is just as truly and as purely a teaching function as that of the preacher. He rules only by teaching ; that is, his whole authority is exer- cised through an inculcative process. The only power exercised in church government is spiritual power; this power regards
Vol. n.— 10.
146 THEOEIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
each man as a free agent, possessed of tlie riglit of private judg- ment, and hence its only siippoii; is that of didactic evidence. The church has legitimate power over the conscience only as she presents to that conscience, in the exercise of its 0"\vn private judgment, what ought to be adequate evidence that her command is scriptural. The sceptre of Christ's kingdom is his word ; to Vjteld this is to teach. And we would distinctly declare, that our tendency to consider that teaching must mean preaching alone arises only from our over-Aveening and imscriptural fondness for pubHc preaching over the quiet, efficacious inculcation of the spiritual inspector. Had we used Christ's plan more efficiently TN^e shovdd not have contracted this perverted notion. TTere Tuling elders what they ought to be we should perhaps find that, so far from regarding preaching as nearly all of religious teach- ing, it is less than half. But we repeat, to rule is to teach ; and therefore the ruling elder should be "apt to teach," though he is never to mount the pulpit.
Again, it is objected, that the Scriptures indicate no such dis- tinction of work and title as we make between the jDreaehing jDresbj'ter and the ruling presbyter ; that as their qualifications are required to be the same, so no difference seems to be held forth in the work assigned them. This we positively deny. In Rom. xii. 8, and 1 Cor. xii. 28, we found the "governing" mentioned as a gift, a charisrn, bestowed on others than those "\vho had the gifts of preaching. In 1 Tim. v. 17, a clear dis- tinction is implied between those who rule well, and those who also "labor in word and doctrine." And in Revelation, the closing book of the canon, where we would naturally expect to see the apostolic institutions in their matured form, we hear each chui'ch representatively addressed by its "angel." After all the thorny discussions as to the interpretation of this term, there is none so natural and tenable as that which makes the angel, in imitation of the well-known order and use of titles in the sjTiagogue, the preaching presb}-ter, who presided over his brethren the presbyters, and was the public mouth-piece, or messenger, of the church to God, and of God to the church. So that we do assert, the distinction between the titles and tasks of the preaching and ruling presb^-ters, while yet both are pro- per presbyters, is as plain in the New Testament as could be expected.
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It is also urged against us, that tliere should be but one ordination, if we were consistent, for both species of elders. "Well, what if we grant it ? That is, we grant, yea, w^e strongly assert, that the appointment and induction of the ruling elder ought to be by a laying on of hands, which is generally and truly a preshyt^rial ordination as much as that of the preacher. But it does not follow hence that it shall be done in the same kind of presb}-tery. The rviling elder should be ordained in the paro- chial presbytery, the session, for reasons which we shall state anon, while the preacher is ordained in the district presbjiiery. The usage of inducting the elder into office by the mere appoint- ing pov-er of the preacher, is one introduced wholly by those hos- tile to the true theory. Is it not the rankest logical injustice, that we should be made inconsistent because of the inconsist- ency of this usage of theirs which w^e condemn ?
We may be told, that even if elders were ordained by the lay- ing on of the hands of the session, and held to be scriptural presbyters, still the usage of the modern Presbyterian Church does practically widen the space between the preacher and the elder more than the usages of the apostolic church. We reply, we grant it ; and we can show a consistent reason why it should be so. Even if it Avere proved that, in the days of Paul and John, the same parochial presbytery which ordained the ruling elder also ordained the preacher (which was probably the case), we can show a consistent reason for the difference we now make. Jesus Christ has ordained that all elders shall be " apt to teach." Suppose we were in the primitive church at Thessalonica, Cor- inth, or Ephesus, and were about to elect from among the re- putable and educated Christian gentlemen of that town a ruhng elder and a preacher. We should find that the sole difference of qualification we would need to seek in the preacher above the elder would be the gift of fluent and perspicuous public speech. As to all else, the same general Christian experience and Bible intelligence which would suffice for the elder would suffice for the preacher. For Ave pray the reader to note, there is this important difference between our condition of religious intelligence in the nineteenth century and theirs : Then the language of the New Testament was their living vernacular ; now it is a dead and a difficult language, only partially understood by the learned. Then all those political facts, social usages, religious opinions
148 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
and parties, which must be comprehended in order to under- stand the alhisions of Scripture language, were living familiar realities, as common and well-understood by the child as house- hold furniture ; now they are mostly passed away for long cen- turies, and are only regained by the painful and learned study of archaeology. For these and similar reasons, we doubt not that the common, educated, Christian gentleman of Thessalonica stood on a better platform for the work of expounding the Scrip- tures to his brethren than that to which young ministers are raised by a careful classical and theological education. All this modern training does but put the preacher back where every educated Christian stood in apostolic days, and repair the thefts of biblical knowledge made by time and change. And this is true for another reason ; not only was it much easier for that an- cient educated man to understand the Greek Scriptiires, it was much easier for his brethren to understand his easy explana- tions of them, because they also were Greeks. " But does not all this go to prove," the objector will say, "that all the ruling elders should now be put through a college and seminary also ? " "Did you just now say that the ruling work also was a teaching work ? " We answer : the conclusion does not follow as to the elder, because it is impossible for the church to give this train- ing to enough men to fill all her eldership, and it is unnecessary. It is necessary that a part of the presbyters shall, in each gen- eration, keep up this archaeological and biblical learning. But while there is a large learned class among them, the results of their literary industry will diffuse among the others who are not archaeologists, nor critical expositors, such a sound and just un- derstanding of their English Bible as will make them also apt to teach. Now, in order that we may be certain to have this trained class of biblical scholars among the presbyters, we must have some regular ylaii, some regular legislation, enjoining that some persons shall belong to it ; and there is no plan more convenient, or more consonant to the spirit of the New Testament than to require that at least the preaching presbyters in each session shall belong to it. If others of the elders besides them can attain to this lettered class, very well ; the more the better.
We have unavoidably detained the reader so long with this discussion that we shall now briefly hurry to a close, by reviewing some historical assertions and some corollaries from the subject
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adyancecl bv those who differ with us, Ti'e find them drawing largely iipou the history of the Reformed churches, asserting that the ruUng elder, where introduced, was neyer considered properly a presbyter ; that he was neyer ordained by imposition of hands, and that our doctrine is a noyelty. "We retort, that it is only a noyelty in the sense in which Protestantism was a novelty to Rome, because it was so yery old that the subsequent accretions of error had covered it up a good while fi'om sight.
We are not at all concerned to discuss the assertion, that Cal- -^-in, that the Reformed divines generally, that the Westminster, and first and second Scotch Books of Government, are against us. But we merely enter our caveat with the reader, warning him that these sweeping statements are far from being accurate. So far is it from being true, for instance, that the ordination of ruling elders by imposition of hands was a thing unknown among the Reformed churches ; it was uniformly practiced in the Pres- byterian churches under John a Lasco in London, during the reign of King Edward YL, and in those of the Bohemian Breth- ren, from which Dr. Miller thinks Calvin borrowed the idea of ruling elders.
But our answer is this, that the precedents of most of the early Reformers are no authority in this argument in favor of our opponents, because they no more dare to justify them than we do. The ruling elders in the Genevan Church of Calvin were appointed by the senate of the Republic. They served for one year only. Those in the early Scotch churches were appointed either by the minister or the squire of the j^arish. Those in the French and Dutch churches were appointed to serve only for a limited time. Does the Bepertory say that these are Presbyte- rian or scriptural usages ? Does it defend them ? Does it not know that here we have j^rima facie evidence that the New Tes- tament was not accurately comprehended and enforced on this point at that time ? Then it is utterly unfair to use these pre- cedents against us when it does not dare to defend them itself. The precedents are certainly wrong, whether we are right or not, and therefore they cannot prove that we are wrong. The truth is, the proper functions and nature of the office of presby- ter, as distinguished from minister, had been so utterly lost in the Romish — the prevalent — Church for so many centuries, the proper representative independence of the church in choosing
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its pastors was so nearly nnkuown among the Reformed clinrclies themselves — (the systems of the Swiss, the German, the Dutch, the Westminster, and the Scotch churches, were all devised with express reference to a union of church and state) — and the re- forms had to be carried out among so many political difficulties, that the Reformers plainly had no chance to attain unto the full scriptural system at first. It Avoiild have been almost miracu- lous if they had. Hence we do not bow to their crude, incij^ient opiuious here.
But the reviewer would indicate that our own Book of Govern- ment is against us. And what do you suppose, kind reader, is the proof? That tho title presbyter is applied in the Book of Government only to preachers. Whereas the only place where the word occurs at all, so far as we know, in. the Book of Govern- ment makes it identical with the word elder (Chap. lY.) ; so that, according to the showing of the book itself, we are justified in calling a ruling elder properl}' and strictly a ruling presbyter. , The other argument is, that in Chap. III. the book speaks of them as "representatives of the people, usually styled mling elders," the meaning of which, the reviewer insinuates, is that our con- stitution makers .would not call them so if they could help it, but that popular prejudice would have it so. This is really funny, that the constitution embodies in its text a title which it does not believe in, adds in Chap. Y. that the use of this title is sustained by the common understanding of " a great part of the Protestant Reformed churches," and sustains it by a proof text. And that text, too, is 1 Tim. v. 17, the very one from which we proved that elders are presbyters in the strict official sense.
In the next place, we find the contributor and editor of the Review concurring emphatically in the assertion, that the ruling elder is but a simjjle layman after his appointment. He should not have, they think, any presbyterial ordination, and he is ad- mitted to sit in all the presbyterial courts only as a layman to represent the people. Preachers alone are presbyters, in their view, and hence they alone are essential to the constituting of any presbj-terial court, from the highest to the lowest. Ruling elders are mere incidentals; verj^ convenient and useful ones, indeed, but still incidentals. And the sole argument for the as- sertion of the lay character of the elders is as astonishing as the assertion itself, that if they did not continue laymen after their
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assumption of the representative function, the laity would be unrepresented, the government of the church would be all cleri- cal, and therefore hierarchical and anti-republican. This is all, except the argument that elders ought not to be ordained, which we have already set aside.
Now, if the Itevleio means by the word clergy that which, is popularly meant by the words Itev. or ijarson, addressed to a preacher, a person who preaches in public and administers sac- raments and marriages, we grant an elder is not a clergyman. And if the word is understood to mean what Rome understands by it— one who intervenes authoritatively as a human mediator, ii, jyi'iest, between God and the layman's soul — then the elder is not a clergyman ; but neither is the preacher. But if we under- stand by clergy what the primitive church meant by the word, Christ's portion or -/.Arjooz, a class of servants set apart by divine command, by laying on of hands, and separated from the rest for a sacred service of divine appointment in the church, then elders are as much clergy as preachers. They were uniformly called so by the primitive church, for in every enumeration of clergy we ever saw in early history the three species are bishops, presbyters and deacons, and if we exclude • the subordinate orders of sub-deacons, lectors, etc., which all admit to be of hu- man origin, these are the only original species. If, then, elders are not among those presbyters who are clergy in the view of the primitive church, they are nowhere.
Again Elders are entitled to ordination. All the j)resbyters in Scripture were ordained by the laying on of hands, and if we do not include ruling elders among them, we should have none at all. Even deacons should be ordained by laying on of hands, so that if you deny this right to elders, they are placed even be- neath deacons. Indeed, the whole drift of the discussions in the Hevleio seems to be to reduce the elder to a position for which no form of address would be so appropriate as that of " his accidency."
Last : The peculiar function of the ruling elder is as truly sacred, as truly of divine appointment, and as truly essential to the church's spiritual state, as those of preaching and setting forth sacraments. We say not of equ/d importance and utility.
But let us look at the logic of the reasoning, that the elder must remain a simple layman, otherwise he could not repre-
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sent lavmeii ; liis elevation to the clergy would leave tlie Pres- bytery a pure hierarchy. These preaching presbyters must be a superhuman set of beings indeed, that the elevation to their class dignity renders the elder incapal^le of longer representing his common fellow-moi-tals ! The governor of North Carolina, when inaugurated, is made a magistrate, and is no longer a sim- ple citizen ; therefore he does not derive his power by delegation from his fellow-citizens, and Xorth Carolina is not a repubhc, but a despotism ! The head-man, when deputed by his fellow- servants to go into the parlor to ask the master for a holiday, washed his face and put on his Sunday clothes ; therefore he cannot represent the " great unwashed " outside the house! But let us see whether this logic does not cut against its authors with the force of a terrible, yet just, argumentum ad hominem. " If the order of laity is represented only by an order of clergy, the church court becomes a hierarchy." " We thank thee, Jew, for that word." Then, the Princeton Bevieic is in favor of having the Presbyterian Church governed by hierarchies, in which the laity is unrepresented, for it has advocated constantly the doctrine that a Presbytery, a Synod, or a General Assembly may sit and act though there be not an elder in their quorum. Yea, more ; the Bepertory says that preachers alone — who alone are clergy in its view — are the New Testament presbyters ; that they alone are the essential constituents of presbyterial bodies, and that elders are incidental, and not essential ; so that courts in which no ruling elders sat might, so far as the Scripture binds us, sit legitimately and normally at all times, and not merely when elders happened not to reach the meeting. Hence, it would seem, a piu^e hierarchical system, an exclusive aristocracy, might legiti- mately be the government of the church.
The truth is, that the republican nature of a government does not depend on the class of the individuals who hold power, but on the manner in which that power is derived. If it is power delegated by free election from the people, the government is republican. If it is power simply assumed by the class, without consent of the governed, then it is an aristocracy. The House of Lords is an aristocratic feature in the British commonwealth. But the fact that some men elected by the people to the House of Commons are of the order of hereditary nobles does not render that house an aristocracy.
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Here, it may be remarked, is tlie legitimate tendency of tlie doctrine held by the Repertory upon the celebrated " Elder Ques- tion." If ruling elders are presbyters, then they are a constitu- ent and essential part of presbyteries. This yiew has at last forced for itself an admission from the common sense of all. And now we haye a yirtual concession, in the line of argument fol- lowed by these two essays, that the only way to ayoid admitting the conclusion is to deny that ruling elders are presbyters, We are glad that this fact is plainly brought out at last, so that when next our church shall agitate these questions, which are now left in so imsatisfactory a condition, it may be well under- stood on all hands, that in order to depme elders of their posi- tion, as has been done, this theory must be held, yiz., " Elders are not presbyters ; they haye no ordination ; they are but sim- ple laymen ; a church and church courts might possess their essential substance and constitution without any elders at all; and their functions are all embodied and represented in the legitimate powers of the preachers, who on their part do not hold their power by delegation from the church oyer which they rule, but by their own order." AY ell ; noAv the cloyen foot is out at last !
In this connection, too, we may notice the surprising attempts made to claim the credit of Dr. Miller's name and countenance on this subject by men who seek to oyeithrow eyery one of his characteristic opinions about it. The reyiewer says, that al- thouo;h Dr. Miller once thoui^-ht ruling; elders should be ordained by laying on of hands, he receded from the opinion when better adyised. No. He says in his treatise that he receded from the practice, because he found that some captious persons among brother ministers were disposed to make strife concerning it, but that he was all the time of the same opinion that the prac- tice was right, and ought to be uniyersal. If he afterwards changed his opinion also, we haye seen no proof of it ; and we must be pardoned for candidly saying we do not belieye it. Again, the editor of the lievieic says in the article, "What is Presbjiierianism ?" that there is no difference between him and Dr. Miller, saye that he arriyes at the same conclusions by a different path fi'om Dr. Miller's. Yet Dr. Miller teaches that the ruHug elder is properly a presliyter ; the editor belieyes that he is not. Dr. Miller belieyes that he is, among the persons called
154 THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP.
ill Scripture kTziaxo-oc and TMtfizvr^z i tlie editor does not. "Dr. Miller believes that lie is entitled to a presbyterial ordination by liis peers ; the editor believes that he is not. Dr. Miller be- lieves that he is trvily and properly of the clergy ; the editor be- lieves that he is nothing but a simple layman. Is this substan- tial agreement? For our part, it is hard for us to conceive a more complete antithesis. It may suit a forensic purpose to re- present the views of the eldership which we advocate as rash novelties ; but the truth is, they are correct scriptural views, into which the great family of Presbyterian churches have been steadily emerging from the clouds of Erastianism and state- bondage which hung over their early years ; the views which were at length explicitly avowed in our Book of Government and by the founders of our church in America ; the views to which that wise, conservative and learned man, the first Presby- terian professor of church polity in our denomination, deliber- ately committed himself during the whole of his professional life.
In conclusion, we would present summarily the ground which exists in the real wants of mankind and of the church for the office of the ruling elder ; for we feel assured that the most prac- tical and forcible way to convince men of the true dignity and proper clerical and presbyterial character of the office is to show the essential necessity of the work. All agree that the great function of the church is to redeeni mankind through gospel truth. In this work every church member is to consider himself per- sonally enlisted ; but the church as an association, as an organ- ized whole, is also to devote itself wholly to it. For performing this work God has appointed in his church three species of func- tions, that of the preacher or accredited public ambassador for God, that of the inspector, and that of the deacon. The fact that such official organs are ordained of God to hold forth these functions is no reason why each member in his personal capacity should not labor at all of them in a general sense, teaching his fellow-man, watching over his feUow-man for good, and minis- tering to his fellow-man's necessities as he has opportunit3\ as parent, neighbor, master, friend, teacher, fellow-citizen. But the official execution of these three great functions is also abso- lutely necessaiy to the church's success. Our present purpose is to illustrate the importance of the second; and the idea of
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that function is jDreciselj that expressed by tlie New Testament title for the office, i-iaxo-o:;, the inspector, of the knowledge and de- meanor of the individuals of the flock. Now, since it is so easy for men to "hold the truth in unrighteousness," or in modern phrase to be theoretically right and practically ^^TOug ; since we are re- quired to be " not hearers of the word only, but doers ;" since the influence of habit is so potent for good and for evil, and habits are only formed in detail, it is obvious that the detailed inspection and oversight is not less truly essential to the flock than the public exposition of saving truth. Axid this is what experience confirms. It confirms it, alas ! by the sad lessons of our defects, showdng us how generally large masses of intelligent and respectable communicants remain almost totally inefficient and without spiritual progress, although provided with excellent preaching. The inspectors are lacking. The fact is, that the preaching and ordinances of the Presbyterian Church are good and scriptural ; yet another fact is undeniable, that the energies of our membership for the world's conversion are almost dor- mant compared with what they might be. We protest that Christ did not intend this to be so ; we assert that a far difi^erent stand- ard of lay efficiency is practicable, without setting up any Utopian expectations ; that it has been maintained in the primitive church, and that it must be reached again to render the millennium possi- ble. Do men say, "Alas, yes; but the great cause is human de- pravity ?" I reply, this is the ultimate soui'ce of the evil, but there is a proximate cause also ; for be it remembered, Jesus Christ constructed his church to be efficient, though made out of de- praved human nature. Will he have any other material to con- struct the millennium church with ? The proximate cause is that we do not work his appointed organism. The preaching, we re- peat, in our established congregations, does tolerably well. One of the main things lacking is the appointed inspection. The Scriptures themselves compare the church to an army. Now, the best field officers in the world will never make an army fight well unless they have enough good subalterns to attend to the squad exercise and discipline. The details of the mihtary art can only be learned in detail ; the field officers cannot teach all the privates, because they are relatively too few. Now, the in- spectors are the squad officers of the spiritual host. The preach- ers cannot do their work of detail. Without them the church is
156 THEOEIES OF THE ELDEESHIP.
but a religious moli, not a disciplined spiritual army. They are essential to teacli the habitual practice of the holy art of Chris- tian warfare, and to enforce eyerj man's actiyity in battle.
See how the conscious, the felt wants of the Christian world, have impelled them to attempt in various ways to find a substi- tute for this neglected, but all-essential function. The Wesleyan invents a class-leader, who oversees and instructs his class. Here is precisely the ruling elder's work. The great temper- ance movement in the Christian world at length shapes itself into the order of the Sons of Temperance, because it was prac- tically felt that without an agency for benevolent oversight, the reclaimed would be lost to the cause of temperance about as fast as they were won. Hence the extensive and complex or- ganization of this order, to seek out the inebriate, to watch over the reclaimed and see that they keep their vow, to report back- sliders, and to restore the lapsed. Well, all this is just the rul- ing elder's work, and if Christ's agency had been faithfully em- ployed, good men would never have felt the need of Sons of Temperance in any place Ayhere there was a church, because this would have been of itself the very best temperance society. Again, a well-meaning Christian invents the "Young Men's Christian Association," intended to sustain in towns and other populous places a regular agency for seeking out young men, for bringing them into houses of worship and under wholesome influences, for giving saving advice against temptation at the very moment of danger, for watching over their morals and re- storing their falls. And the institution has run like a prairie- fire throughout the Protestant countries. Well, all this is just the ruling elder's work. Had Christians acted on Christ's plan in his church, there would have been no need for such a society, because the church itself would have been found the best, and the sufficient " Christian Association " for young men and old men, and for young and old women too. Let us not be under- stood as opposing the well-intended exertions of the friends of these associations. The church may, perhaps, thank them un- der the circumstances, that they are piously striving to supply her lack of service. But it is a crying e^ddence of her misun- derstanding and neglect of her divine plan, that outside agen- cies should have to be patched up by human invention to do her proper work.
THEORIES OF THE ELDERSHIP. 157
In this -way mauj striking illustrations might be found, show- ing how important, and at once how little understood, is the function of the inspector. Now, let us connect with this two facts, and our practical- vieM^ of the elder's office wall be per- ceived. First : one man can preach efficiently to a great many more people than he can inspect, just as one field-officer can command many more men than he can possibly drill. Second : In the usual course of providence, the church can find many more men who have quaHfications for inspectors than of those who are able to preach. Now shall she say, with the Iiepertory, nobody shall be -psaf:l'jTSf)u- and i-c(Txo-o^ but the preachers ? This is equivalent to saying that, because a man cannot also preach, he shall not be ordained — receive Jesus Christ's appoint- ment and authority — to inspect. And yet the church needs five inspectors to one preacher, needs them just as essentially as the preachers ; and the church can get the material for five inspect- ors to one preacher if she will do her duty. The true, the di- vine wisdom, in economizing all the efficiency of the material, then, is to have an order of inspectors, clothed with all the pro- per sacred authority, who shall not be required to preach, and then to have with them a smaller number of inspectors who can and do preach.
This is Presbyterianism.
ON da^^CtEROUs reading/
As it is always my wisli to attain directness and practical utility in what I have to say, I will explain that, under the name of dangerous books, I mean now to attack particularly the usual kinds of fictitious narratives, novels, impure sentimental poetry, and biographies, wdiether accurate or not, of criminal and degraded characters. It is supposed that these are the sources from which present danger to my readers is most to be feared. Books professedly teaching error in religion, morals, or social concerns, are of course evil and dangeroiis. But they are open enemies. They are not usually surrounded with peculiar fas- cinations when set forth in the didactic form ; they will not gain much favor with those who read the Watchvum and Observer, who mav be presumed to respect and believe a sounder system. I would aim rather at covert and insidious enemies, which profess only to amuse while they destroy; which say, "Am I not in sport," while they " scatter firebrands, arrows, and death."
Asainst all the usual kinds of fictitious histories, whether in prose or verse, and dramatic representations, there are two great objections, even though they be allowed to be pure, free from criminal traits and pictures, and free from false principles —
1. To do what they profess to do, to give a correct picture of human life and character in a fictitious narrative, is extremely difiicult. To paint the springs of conduct and the passions in their causes and effects, to draw correctly the results in the life proceeding from dispositions in the heart, requires a high wis- dom and experience very rarely possessed. It is the attribute of a favored few, whose knowledge of men and things springs from a sound philosophy, has been cultivated by large and varied experience of life, and is guided by a powerful understanding. How vain to expect this rare historic wisdom, only attained in part by one or two in the lapse of centuries— such as a Shakes- peare and a Scott — in the pert, shallow, dreaming babblers,
' This article apiieared in the Watchman and Observer, Ricamoud, Va., 1849.
158
ON DANGEROUS EEADING. 159
whose frothy inventions deluge the country ! The inexperi- enced young person who observes the air of simplicity, nature, and ease, that marks the works of the great masters of historic and imaginative literature, may imagine that it is easy to imitate them, and to paint from the fancy scenes as natural as theirs. But it is only ignorance that causes such a supposition. The ver}^ ease and naturalness of the narrative shows the exquisite finish and perfection of the work. It is this very ease, simpli- city and naturalness that are forever beyond the reach of medi- ocrity, and are attainable by genius alone. The ignorant stone- cutter, looking at some model of classic beauty from a master's chisel, may imagine that surely he could make a statue like that, so utterly free from exaggeration and point, so exactly like a real man or woman. But his idea only shows his utter igno- rance of the sculptor's art. He dreams not that the harmony and truth to nature, the absence of exaggeration, and the soft- ened unity and propriety of the statue are just the qualities which it is most difficult to produce — just the qualities which the master alone can produce.
Thus, also, to draw an imaginary man, like nature in his feel- ings and his conduct, is the hardest task of literary genius, although the picture, when finished, ma}' seem so simple and easy. It is an exploit utterly beyond the reach of our herd of novelists. I fearlessly assert that, even though their intentions and principles were pure, and their scenes undefiled by pictures of A^ice, the views of human- life and of the human heart which they give would not be true to nature, but unnatural, exagger- ated and absurd. They do not truly paint the springs of human conduct and feeling. The men and women who flaunt on their fantastic pages are not the men and women with whom the reader has to deal in real life. And he who suffers his views of life to be colored by such reading, as every novel and play-reader must to some extent, is destined to nothing but blunders, disap- pointments and disgusts, when he attempts to buffet with the hard realities of the world. His course must resemlile that of the man who has never beheld visible objects except when dis- torted by a prism, and fringed with its fantastic hues, until he goes forth to travel through the world. Hence it is that we see so many young gentlemen and young ladies who have learned their views of life out of the delusive mirror of fiction disap-
160 ON DANGEROUS READING.
pointed of tlieir liopes, disgusted witli their experience of actual life, and jDrofessing -uliat they imagine to be a picturesque sort of Byronic misanthrophy, which is in the eyes of all sensible people as contemptible as it is selfish.
The true history of the past, on the contrary, gives true 'and useful views of life, because they are painted from nature. There men are drawn as they really liv^d and acted. There the youth who would learn from an experience more cheaj)ly purchased than his own, may look for instruction in the character of man, and the ways of the world in which he is to live. Let our read- ers resort to these wholesome pages, which instruct while they amuse. And especially must I commend those pictures of human life drawn by the finger of inspiration in the sacred Scriptures, as unerring in their accuracy and unequalled in their literary beauty, charming alike the unsoj^histicated taste of all classes, children and mature men, savages and cultivated masters of learning. The interest they inspire in all, and the inimitable freshness and simplicity of the narratives, contribute not a little to the evidence of the claim that their authors possessed more than human art.
2. The habitual contemplation of fictitious scenes, however pure, produces a morbid cultivation of the feelings and sensi- bilities, to the neglect and injury of the active virtues. The piu'- pose for which fictions are read, and the drama is frequented, is to excite the attention and the emotions. They must be ani- mated and full of incident, or they will not be popular. The reader who indulges much in them soon becomes so accustomed to having his sensibilities excited, and the labor of attention re- lieved by the interest of the plot, that he is incapable of useful reading and business. The just, natural, and instructive pages of history seem to him too flat, and he dozes over the most noble exertions of intellect which literature oflers. His de- bauched mind is as unfit for useful studies as the ireinulous and enervated arm of the drunkard the morning after his orgies for wholesome labor.
But there is also an injury to the moral character as well as to the habits of mental industry, which is a necessary result of the fundamental laws of feeling. Exercise is the great instru- ment ordained by God to strengthen the active principles of the heart. On the other hand, all the passive susceptibilities are
ON DANGEROUS READING. 161
worn out and tleadened b}^ frequent impressions. Illustrations of these tAvo truths are familiar to every one ; but there is one well-known instance which offers us at once an example of the truth of both of them. It is that of the experienced and benev- olent physician. The active principle of benevolence is strength- ened by his daily occupations until it becomes a spontaneous and habitual thing in him to respond to every call of distress, regardless of personal fatigue, and to find happiness in doing so. But at the same time, his susceptibilities to the painful impres- sions of distressing scenes are so deadened that he can act with nerve and coolness in the midst of suffering, the sight of which would at first have unmanned him.
Now, all works of fiction are full of scenes of imaginary dis- tress, which are constructed to impress the sensibilities. The fatal objection to the habitual contemplation of these scenes is this, that while they deaden the sensibilities, they afford no oc- casion or call for the exercise of active sympathies. Thus the feelings of the heart are cultivated into a monstrous, an un natural, and unamiable disproportion. He who goes forth in the works of active benevolence among the real sufferings of his fellow creatures will have his sensibilities impressed, and at the same time will have opportunity to cultivate the principle of benevolence by its exercise. Thus the qualities of his heart will be nurtured in beautiful harmony, until they become an orna- ment to his character and a blessing to his race. This is God's " school of morals." This is God's plan for developing and training the emotions and moral impulses. " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the father- less and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself un- spotted from the world." And the adaptation of this plan of cultivation to the laws of man's nature shows that the inventor is the same Avise Being who created man. It is by practicing this precept of the gospel that man is truly humanized. But the beholder of these fictitious sorrows has his sympathies im- pressed, and therefore deadened, while those sympathies must necessarily remain inert and passive, because the whole scene is imaginary. And thus, by equal steps, he becomes at once senti- 7ne)ital and hihyrnaii. While the Christian, whose heart has been trained in the school of duty, goes forth with cheerful and active sympathies in exercises of beneficence towards the real
162 ON DANGEROUS READING.
woes of liis neighbor, tlie novel reader sits weeping over the sorrows of imaginary heroes and heroines, too selfish and lazr to lay down the fascinating volnme and reach forth his hand to relieve an actual sufferer at his door.
I have proceeded hitherto upon the supposition that these books are pure in sentiment and description. But they are very rarely so. The vast majority, besides being liable to the objec- tions formerly stated, in their full force, lie under the still more damning charge of moral impurity. Many of them are, in truth, systems of error, covertlj^ embodying and teaching ruinous false- hoods. Some are written for the secret purpose of teaching in- fidelity, and some to teach the epicurean philosophy. Many of them are the aimless effusions of a general hatred against every thing correct and pious. There may be no professed attack on right principles, probably no didactic discussion at all, in the whole book, and yet the whole may be false philsophy or heresy, teaching by fascinating incident and example. To the thought- less young, in search of entertainment, it seems to be a tale con- structed to amuse, and nothing more, and yet every character represented in it, and all the plan of the book, may be designed to place religion, morality and right princij^les in a contempti- ble attitude, and to present the characters who advocate error in an attitude of superiority. How delusive this mode of teach- ing is, as a test or evidence of truth, can be easily seen. It is perfectly easy to draw two sets of characters, of which those embodying and representing error shall wear the superior, and those representing truth the inferior aspect, when the characters are all fictitious, and the painter is the errorist himself. When the lion and the man, in the old fable, travelling together, came to the picture of a man bestriding a conquered lion, the lion said to his human companion : " Had a lion been the painter of that picture the figures would be inverted." So it is perfectly easy to paint truth at the bottom and error at the top when false- hood holds the brush.
By this means of teaching, treacherous as it is, when regarded as a vehicle of evidence, subtle error is often insinuated into in- experienced minds, which have been educated in the love of truth, and would repel the oj)en approaches of falsehood ; of this kind are many modern and professedly pious novels, so cin'rent in this country, and especially in England, cunningly teaching Tory
ON DANGEROUS READING. 163
principles and Puseyism, in the history of imaginary personages, who are made attractive to the young by the dress of some gen- erous quahties. Such is the story called Ten Thousand a Year, which, while it presents us with much that is truly lovely and pious, treacherously employs the favor which it thus conciliates from us to make a false and malignant fling at the great and glorious Whig party of England. Such is the masterpiece of the Parisian novelist. Sue, constructed to recommend, in the fasci- nating person of a lovely young woman, painted with many he- roic and magnanimous traits and invested with every element of interest, an embodiment of blasphemous infidelity and beastly epicurism and unchastity. Such are the little Ilomans de Yol~ taire, which seem to be trifles light as air, thrown off in the hours of relaxation, and sparkling with careless wit ; but which are, in truth, every one a cunning and savage stab aimed at some vital trvith. Indeed, we shall lose nothing by passing a general con- demnation upon that whole school of modern French novels whose cheap translations, stitched in colored paper covers, cir- culate through all our railroad cars and book stalls, and even in the parlors of our people. They are, usually, foul with the concentrated moral filth that is collected and putrifies among the dregs of the great atheistical metropolis. They are rank with those poisonous errors in social concerns, politics, morals and religion, whose results are now seen in the agrarianism, the profligacy, the barricades, and the murderers of repubhcan Paris. Every lady of decent fame should blush to have one seen upon her parlor table or to acknowledge that she had read one. Every head of a family should devote them to the flames, however fashionable, or however fascinating, however fopliugs, male or female, may simper that ignorance of their contents would exclude one from the " ton,'' as inexorably as he would the foul rags of a beggar who had died of the small pox on his jjre- mises.
But these books, whether intended to teach heresy and false philosophy or not, are generally guilty also of representing to the reader supposed scenes of crime and vice, thus subjecting his heart to a danger similar to that of associating with bad company. They are, in a word, obnoxious to all the objections of evil company in their strongest form. Does the youth hear oaths and blasphemies in the tavern bar-room ? He hears them
104 ON DANGEEOUS READING.
in the scenes of tlie novelist. Does lie become benefitted bj witnessing brawls and duels ? He witnesses tliem in the novel. Is his lust excited bj beholding the arts and the gratifications of licentiousness in the house of ill-fame ? He beholds them also in the novel. Now some have argued, that it is desirable to make the young familiar by their own observation with all the forms of vice, because in after life they must be exposed to their temptations. But such a policy shows a great ignorance of man's nature. Not so judged the Psalmist when he prayed, " Turn away mine eyes from helioldhig vault}-." Not so judged the wisest of men when he urged, "Avoid it, pass not by it; turn from it, and pass away." Not so judged Paul, nor even the pru- dent heathen whom he quoted, when he taught that, " Evil communications corrupt good manners." All human beings, however amiable, have in their hearts, until sanctified, the dor- mant seeds of aU the vices. Who does not know that the con- templation of such vices tends to awaken those seeds into life ? It is just thus that evil companions and evil example tend to corrupt those who were previously innocent. It is dangerous to become familiar with wickedness, even by contemplating it in others.
"Vice is a monstsr of so frightful mein As, to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pit}', then embrace."
It were to be desired that the young should never know any- thing of vice by their own observation, except its retributions. How dangerous, then, the habitual reading of those works whose interest consists in the faults and vices of their imaginary per- sonages ?
And here I must pause to record my protest against a kind of reading which some persons seem to consider even less objec- tionable than works of fiction, because they profess to be true histories, the biographies of notorious villains. We have now lives of highway robbers, pirates, murderers, and swindlers, of Murrell and Monroe Edwards and Dick Turpin, and a multitude of such like rogues, giving a particular detail of all their vil- lainies, where the only claim to public attention they offer is the peculiar baseness of their lives. It is much to be lamented that the love of novelty and exciting incident should so mislead
ON DANGEROUS READING. 165
any as to make them capable of finding pleasure in dwelling upon these records of moral deformity, which should be repul- sive to all right minds. Those who busy themselves in the pro- duction of these biographies may be justly regarded as assum- ing, in the moral world, a grade only analogous to that of the turkey buzzard, whose office it is to gain a disgusting livelihood by picking up the fragments of spiritual carrion which pollute the community, and gloating over their loathsome particulars with epicurean relish. To the same elevated class must be as- signed those writers whose business it is to rake up the crimes of the prisons, the police courts, and the haunts of vice, for the columns of the newspapers. Indulgence in these kinds of read- ing is unworthy of a mind of the lowest grade of education. It tends to degrade and brutify the taste and feelings. And there is always danger that the wild daring and generosity imputed to the characters of outlaws will tempt the young to look favor- ably upon their crimes, and even to think of imitating them.
There are some reasons why the evil company of a bad book is even more corrupting and dangerous than that of a wicked living companion. One of these is, that the heroes and heroines, who are painted as defying the rules of good morals in some vital points, are still adorned with many imaginary qualities, such as courage, magnanimity, generosity, wit, and genius, which cause the young and impulsive reader to admire them in spite of their crimes. And from admiring the criminal it is but one step to excusing the vice, so that by this means the moral distinctions are worn out in the mind. Such a story as Bulwer's Eugene Aram should be entitled " Murder made Amiable." The usual tendency of these works is to familiarize the reader to viewing, without revulsion, nay, with actual admiration, the characters of duelists, drunkards, seducers, and other villains. And these fictitious villains are more dangerous companions than the bad men of real life, because this union of criminal traits with at- tractive and romantic qualities, which half atone for their faults in the view of the novel reader, is usually wholly imaginary. In actual life we find no such union, but wicked men appear coarse and repulsive. Vice soon robs their characters of that grace and delicacy which make the fictitious hero so dangerous an ex- ample.
These descriptions of moral delinquencies are, therefore, more
166 ON DANGEKOUS READING.
dangerous to the young than an actual mingling with living vice. In every real scene of wickedness there are usually features of coarseness, brutality, and loathsomeness, which disgust and re- pel the ingenuous mind. Vice appears in its real ugliness, and excites some of that hatred which it deserves. But in the ficti- tious painting all these coarser features are concealed, for they would mar the literary beauty of the Avork and outrage that pre- tence of decency which the world sees fit to wear. The scene is dressed in the gayest, the brightest, the most alluring garb which the genius of the author can throw around it. All can see how dan- gerous this false and partial poi-traiture must be to the unthink- ing. It represents the serpent with his graceful folds and his burnished scales of gold and purple, without his slime, his venom, and his fang. How natural that the inexperienced should be enticed to fondle it and be stung! And once more, the comi3anionship of these descriptive scenes of vice is twice dangerous, because of the wit, the eloquence, and the genius by which the poison is commended to the taste. Actual vice is usually coarse and vulgar. Here its picture is gilded by all the skill of accomplished minds. Scenes of Hcentiousness are en- stamped, hurned in, upon the youthful imagination and memory by all the fire and force of the author's genius.
But there are also general reasons wlw a dangerous book, whether a descriptive and imaginary one or otherwise, is more insidious than any other evil companion. These books present themselves to us as seemingly quiet and passive things. They do not obtrude themselves on us, but stand as our helpless ser- vants, coming only when we call them, and retiring the moment we bid them. They wear nothing of the aspect of assault or antagonism about them ; and hence we are completely off our guard, and open to their influences. Again, they are usually read in the hour of retirement, when the miud is withdrawn into itself. Complete mental solitude, united with an absorption of the attention, especially by a work of fiction, produces an over- wrought and morbid state of the sensibilities. Those whole- some, though unnoticed, restraints on the impulses of feeling, ■produced by the presence, the eje, the observation of a fellow- man, are absent. No human eye, no public opinion, no fear of ridicule, no sense of the shame of discovery, pierces the secret " chambers of imagery," where the soul is revelling in its intel-
ON DANGEROUS READING. 167
lectual orgies and spiritual abominatious. What wonder tliat the poison burns more deeply than when we are exposed to the corrupting society of h-sdng men checked by the restraints of publicity ?
The results of such reading are neither vague, slight nor imaginary. They are as real and practical, as palpable and direct, as the common results of drunkenness. The writer of these remarks could point to a decided case of lunacy, neither remote nor obscure, which was notoriously produced by pro- longed noyel-reading. When a tragedy was enacted in one of our cities, which shocked the whole country with sudden mur- der and the final desolation of a home, the grey-headed father of the wi-etched woman whose delinquency had produced the catastrophe, stood up in a court of justice and testified on oath that the ruin was attributable to his daughter's indulgence in noyel-reading. When the learned, pious, amiable and noble head of our University fell by the hand of an assassin, his death thrilling the community with horror and almost overturning the institution of which he was the pillar and ornament, the work of so many years of enUghtened and patriotic exertion, the mis- creant who shed his blood without cause boasted that his athe- istical callousness to danger and to the value of human life was imbibed from the poisonous pages of Bulwer. And though catastrophes so shocking do not usually result from such read- ing, there are few or none who have indulged in it who have not sufiered some injurj' in weakened principles, morbid feelings, and partial unfitness for the duties of actual life. Had a wise parental restraint been placed upon the youthful reading of the writer of these columns, it would have added no little to the equanimity, happiness and usefulness of his hfe. " Hand ignara mall tniseris succurrere disco''
I would, then, exhort all heads of families especially to be in- exorable in cleansing their households of all such literary poison. We all know well that, however the young who are in the habit of indulging this dangerous taste may be convinced of its evils, there is little hope that they will be firm enough to wean them- selves from it. And in this fact alone there is surely a sufficient argument of its danger, that its fascinations are so great, and its consequences so insidious, that even rational and ingenuous per- sons, though convinced of the mischief, cannot forego the indul-
168 ON DANGEROUS READING
gence. It devolves, tlieref ore, on the heads and guides appointed for youth by God and by nature to protect them from the intox- icating evil, by the strong arm of parental authority. Parents should feel that their station both authorized and required them to remove such evils, as much as intoxicating liquors or opium. Fictions are the intoxicating stimulants of the immortal part. As parents love the soids of their children, they should snatch away the poison more rigidly than those nuisances which deprave and ruin the body,
I am well aware that men are usually more influenced to evil ' by one bad example than they are towards good by ten good arguments. It betokens little success to this essay to promote a good cause and to protect my readers against a common danger, that they have it in their power to answer me, as they have per- haps done ere this, that the usage of genteel society counte- nances what I am condemning, that novels are found on every parlor table, in Christian as well as irreligious houses, on the book-shelves of the daughters of ruling elders and clergymen, and in the hands even of doctors of divinity. I suppose it will avail nothing against such examples for me to answer, that if the universality of a custom proved its propriety, then there would be nothing so proper as sin, since there is nothing so uni- versal, except perhaps breathing. In justice to those masters in Israel whe look into such books, it should be stated that some of them do it only from a sense of duty, similar to that which induces the physician to analj'ze poisons, in order that he may warn others of their effects. Many of them, too, must ac- count their indulgence in such reading as one of those lament- able infirmities to which good men are liable, an infirmity regi'etted by themselves, and by no means to be imitated by others. At most, the painful prevalence of the habit among those who j)ro- fess to be on the side of vii'tue cannot prove that it is safe or right, but only that our Saviour's description of the visible chiu'ch is still true : " Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, and I will profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
There is one more reason against fictitious reading, simple, brief and absolutely conclusive. All men who read novels will confess that usually they read them as an inrhilgence, and not as a means of im; irovement. Xo w, it is an indulgence which is not
ON DANGEROUS READING. . 1G9
recreation , for it excites, wearies and emasculates the miiul even more than excessive mental labor. But every man is responsi- ble to God for the improvement of every hour Avhich is not de- voted to wholesome recreation. Xovel-readlng is the murder of time, and oh this simple ground every mind v^diich professes to be guided by religious principles is sternly challenged by God's authority to forego it. " Redeem the time." " The night ■oometh."
CO-OPERATIOX/
SOMETHING FOE VIRGINIANS TO READ.
OF tlie trite maxim that "union is strength," the Presbyte- rians of Virginia seem often to l3e ignorant. There is scarcely a f)nbHc interest or institution belonging to them which has not suffered from the want of steady co-operation. Inde- pendence among us has become a vice, for it is often carried so far that one man will surrender no opinion, liking, or prejudice, in order to unite his strength wdth others in the support of an en- terprise of admitted and fundamental importance. Is the mat- ter in hand the founding or sustaining of a school, academy, college, religious paper, theological seminary? Is it urged, or even demonstrated, that its success will be most favorable to the cause of Presbyterianism ? Is it correctly inferred, thence, that each individual ought to give it the support appropriate to hi& condition ? AU this is admitted in the general and in the ab- stract ; but in the particular a sufficient number will usually be foiind preferring some similar project, so as effectually to mar its complete success. One says, "This school, college, seminary, periodical, whichever ii may be, is not so perfect as some other similar ones abroad, therefore I shall not sustain it." Says an- other, "This teacher, or editor, is not the man of my choice; replace him with Mr. A. B., and I will sustain you heartily." But says a third, "If you do remove him, to make room for Mr. A. B., I promise you, you shall never have another iota of my suppoi-t." Indeed, it often seems that you have but to make an enterprise a Virginia cause, and convince our people that it pre- sents a special claim for their support, to create a motive to neglect it ; our darling independence must be vindicated from the notion that we are bound to do anything regularly any longer than it pleases our sovereign selves.
The State pride also, of which Virginians are usually supposed
1 Au editorial article in TJie Central Presbyterian of October 31, 1857.
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CO-OPERATION. 171
to possess a fair share, often exliibits itself in very strange fashion. Let any one from abroad disparage onr things, -^'e are bold enough in resenting it, and meanwhile -sve practically disparage them oui'selves. The privilege of slighting or depreciating them is one which "we jealously reserve for our own gi'atification. If any of our neighbors abroad pick up a Virginia idea, invention, or man, and make it great or famous, we are quick to claim and glory in our ownership ; but if this invention or this man had remained on Virginia soil, we should have taken very effectual means to keep him or it from becoming great. Our intellectual estimates invert the rules of perspective : things at a distance loom largely in our admiration, and things close to us shrink to pigmy dimensions. Virginia is the hardest and most unjust of all stages upon which to sustain a reputation. The very fact that we possess a man, that he is ours, that he is close to us, is sufficient reason for our concluding that he is no great wonder after all. Hence, Virginians have ever been found supporters and patrons of enterprises whose prosperity was useless to them, and extravagant admirers of men and things afar off, just by rea- son of the fact that they knew little about them. "What literary institution on foreign, or even hostile, soil has not been enriched with Virginia patronage, while our own have languished ? How often has it been seen that Virginians have become famous in Virginia by going abroad, and have received from our people inordinate admiration and patronage, unjustly abstracted from home talents, to which these men would have held a subordinate place if they had stayed at home. The way to be honored in Vir- ginia is to go out of it. The reward which we give to a faithful and self-sacrificing consecration to our service is depreciation. Desertion of the State is the thing which ^^dns our applause.
Now, how unlike, how much wiser, is the policy which has been pursued by the Christians of Xew England, and of other sections of our country? You never found them depreciating or deserting their own institutions and interests, or " damning them with faint praise," by way of evincing their liberality and independence ; you found no flocks of New England 3'outh mi- grating to Southern or Western schools, and thus practically asserting the worthlessness of similar schools at home. And when New England men differed, as they naturally did, about the policy of their pubhc institutions, they did not carry their dif-
172 CO-OPEPiATION.
ferences to the preposterous and suicidal length of killing, by neglect or opposition, their own enterprises, because thej were not as prosperous as. their sectional pride might desire. No, they sustained them heccmse they icere tlelr oion. They sus- tained them manfully though conscious that they might be at the time inferior, because common sense told them that this was the only way to make them superior. They sustained them ■while they admitted their defects, in order by vigorous support to make them perfect. They stood firmly by their own until others learned by their conduct to value them. People in all other sections of the Union naturally concluded that institutions so appreciated at home must be meritorious, and thus New Eng- land schools and presses w^ere flooded with patronage from abroad. Does any one dream that this patronage would ever have been bestowed if those institutions had not been thus sus- tained by their own friends? Again, when these far-seeing, sensible people felt that any press was encumbered with an un- suitable editor, or any public school with an unsuitable teacher, they did not adopt the policy so fashionable in Virginia, they did not say, "As long as that man stays there the enterprise shall not have one iota of my support," They plainly saw that, on the sup])osition this incumbent was an unworthy man, he would be least affected by this withholding of their approbation, and would care nothing so long as his position and salary were se- cure. So that this line of policy on the part of the friends of the enterprise would be the feeblest, most indirect, and uncer- tain of all means to procure the removal of the unworthy in- cumbent, w^hich should have been the object, while it would be the most direct and fatal means to destroy the enterprise. They saw that such policy would amount exactly to this, to stab the enterprise which they loced through and through the vitals, in order to render the obnoxious incumbent behind it uncomfort- able, as they supposed he deserved to be made, by pricking his skin with the points of their swords. They did no such absur- dity. If the unsuitablencjS of the incumbent w:!S unbearable, they openly assaulted him, and not the enterprise, and honor- ably demanded his removal. If he was bearable, they sustained the institution firmly, not for his, but for Christ's sake, and covered the defect with a prudent silence, as a family secret which must be kept for their own honor and interest. Thus
CO-OPERATIOX. 173
tlieir institutions and enterprises, instead of being kept starv- lings, so unlucky and depressed that none but unworthy, third- rate men "would condescend to them, Avere nurtured into a strength sufficient to throw off defects by their yigorous growth, and to purge out unsuitable incumbents by becoming attractive to the most deserving.
Too long haye Virginia Presbj'terians indulged the opposite policy. Their Synod has lagged behind in numbers and in- fluence ; their yacant churches haye increased ; their enterprises haye been choked by neglect ; the yery presses and other means intended to present our Avants and urge the proper way to remedy them haye remained unknown, while all the interest of many has been expended in reading and talking about the en- terprises of other people, in Avhich we had no direct concern. We would sadly and solemnly testify against this fatal policy. "W'e would urge our brethren to a wiser co-operation. Unless we awake universally to our error, the sorrowful result will not be uncertain nor distant. Presbvterianism in Virginia will become a lame, scattering aifair, a sort of provincial dependency on some more prosperous, because more rational, section of oar church, and will drag its slow existence along, fed b}- such crumbs of refuse as the more favored sections find it convenient to spare from their own sustenance. In the first place, able and efficient men will not come among us from other sections. They will not leave places where their toilsome exertions can be effi- cient and appreciated to expose themselves to the mortifying torture of a depreciating jealousy following close on the heels of an extravagant admiration of neglected, stinted institutions, and of an uncertain, stingy and capricious patronage. We solemnly assure our brethren that this matter is already' well understood by sensible men abroad. We have already acquired a character nearly fatal, and the opinion which prevails is, that the Virginia church is at the same time a field in which only the scantiest fruits can be reaped, and in which it is more difficult to sustain a reputation than in the more prosperous enterprises of other sections, where liberal results and a national reputation can be secured with half the toil. We tell our brethren that the preva- lent idea abroad is, that Vii'ginia institutions have become, in consequence of our pecuhar temper, a sort of Sisyphus' stone, which QXQ fated to roll LacJi, even though propelled by giants.
174 CO-OPERATION.
And this opinion of ns is clearly manifested in another form, the mention of which leads to onr second remark. This melan- choly state of affairs in Virginia is so well understood by our brethren abroad, that they perpetually act upon the supposition that every efficient man among us must of course be anxious to get away. How else can we account for the fact, that the min- istr}' of Virginia, scantily as it is recruited, is the common j^oach- ing ground for churches, presses, and colleges, all around us which need supplies ? Why else is it that every young man in the Virginia church who has shown capacity is chased with semi-annual, and almost monthly, "calls" to positions abroad? Our neighbors take it for granted that such men, sustained as they are at home, must naturally desire to emigrate. And there is, at this very day, scarcely a man of efficiency in the Virginia church, who has not had repeated opportunities to exchange his home position for one abroad, where he would be better paid and enjoy more generous co-operation. We owe their con- tinuance among us only to their State patriotism, or to accident. The second consequence of our policy, then, must be to drive away our own men perpetually as fast as they become capable of usefulness. Alas, how widely has this result been already realized? What part of the church, north, west, south, is not now triumphing over us in a success and prosperity earned in part by the talents and reputation of Virginians, who would have been only too glad to labor thus for the Old Dominion if we had let them.
Yet there is a brighter side to this picture. Virginia Presby- terians are not all unwise and ungenerous towards their public servants. The history of The Central Pre.shyterian, while far from exhibiting that general co-operation which we believe tJie cause among us demands, yet presents cheering evidence that many of our brethren have another spirit. And the more hearty appreciation and general support now enjoyed among us b}- our beloved seminary in Prince Edward, is another instance which encourages us to hope that a better day is coming. There are members among the Virginia ministry and laity than whom no public servant ever had constituents more generous, magnani- mous and affectionate. We, for our part, should be ungrateful if we failed to honor with the most glowing acknowledgments their liberal support. The thought of them is the briglit spot,
CO-OPEEATION. 175
next to the tliouglit of our Master on liigh, wliicli helps to cheer us amidst the mortifications and discouragements which all the occupants of public station among us experience from lack of co-operation. And if we may judge of other public servants by ourselves, the thought of these generous sj)irits is the thing which, next to a sense of duty, keeps them at their posts.
OUR POSITIOjSV
WE hare elsewhere given an esplicit, and, as we liope, sat- isfactory answer to the inquiries of an esteemed New School brother with regard to the meaning of a sentence in a former editorial about w^hich he asks an explanation. We are aware that many of his brethren in the South agree with him when he says, " We believe your statement with regard to the condition of your own Assembly, and we greatly prefer a reunion with our brethren of the Old School to the formation of a new Assembly."
Moreover, correspondents and friends in our own connection have, by letter and by personal application, requested some ex- pression of opinion with regard to the course proper to be pur- sued by our church towards our brethren of the New School in the South, should they desire a reunion with us. We regard this as a proper time to define our position, inasmuch as the opinions expressed in the letter above referred to open the way for a declaration of our views, without making us liable to the suspicion of intermeddling with other people's matters, or of desiring to l)ring over to our side any who would prefer an- other connection.
We shall endeavor to express ourselves so plainly that none can misunderstand or misrepresent us.
We address ourselves to candid men, who prefer truth to mis- representation, and who earnestly desire to promote the true interests of Christ's kingdom. The circumstances which now surround us are siicli that we can give the freest utterance to our opinions with regard to the true policy to be pursued by ourselves and by our Southern New School Ijrethren, without the imputation of officious obtrusion of advice or the spirit of un- worthy proselytism.
It is conceded by all, and we refer to it in no boastful arrogance, but with humble gratitude to the great Head of the church, that
' This article appeared in The Central Presbyterian, July 11, 1857.
176
OUR POSITION. 177
the Old School Presbyterian denoniinatiou iu these United States is no\r strong, prosperous, and steadily progressive in its growth, power and usefulness. We need no accession from other eccle- siastical bodies to enable us to pursue our onward march to those successes and blessed victories to which we aspire under the guidance and beneath the banners of Christ our King, All we need is the blessing of God upon our present organization, and those accessions which come from the world, when he adds to the church of such as shall be saved. Wo regard a desire to absorb the members of any other Christian organization, merely for the purpose of increasing our numbers, as unworthy of such a church as ours ; and, still more, we regard the admission of men who do not sympathize with us in doctrine and church government as the introduction of an element of weakness and disorganization- earnestly to be deplored, and if possible posi- tively to be interdicted.
We do, however, believe that among Southern New School Presbyterians there are thousands who are sound in doctrinal vieAvs and steadfast in attachment to the standards of our church, one v-'ith ns in principle, sentiment, and all that consti- tutes true denominational fellowship and unity. And while we have no overtures to make, we will not permit the fear of being wilfully misrepresented prevent us from taking that dispassion- ate vieAv of their present posture and proper coiu'se for the futiu'e which our independent position happily enables us to do.
Conscious of the purity of our motives, iu this spirit of trans- parent candor and freedom, we have no hesitation in avowing our conviction that a reunion with us, on the proper basis, -\s\Sifor them, be the wisest, safest, and happiest solution of the difficulty into which our New School brethren have been driven by the unrighteous action of their late Northern associates.
We therefore address our correspondent and those who, in his own words, agree with him in preferring a reunion with the Old School church to the formation of a new Assembly, and respect- fully leave for their consideration some of the reasons w^hich have brought us the conviction which we have just expressed as to the true policy of the New School Presbyterians in the South.
First, If you persist in forming a separate denomination, it will be limited to j'our Southern memliers. Your leaders tell you that they expect the adhesion of mam- conservative Noi-th-
VOL. II. — 12.
178 OUR POSITION.
ern brethren, so as to form a national clitircli. June -will leave them sadlj mistaken. If there was such a sympathy for you in the Northern mind, why did not some of it show itself on the test vote ? You told them that to pass this vote was virtu- ally to decide ^-our excision. Did they spare ? Did one single delegate from a free State* fail to vote against you ? That was the time to show it if they had any purpose of good will or friend- ship. And now, after an exhibition of hostility so universal, so deUberate, so excisive, how chimerical is it to expect extensive support at the North ? We have watched the tone of Northern presses ; while Sifeio persons regi'et your excision, a still Smaller number, probably none, will follow you into what they believe to be your exile. Now you say you don't wish to form a sectional denomination. You say, rightly, that it is injurious to the union and to feelings of national fraternity. If your leaders persist, they will inevitably find themselves in that unfortunate position. Should you conclude to join us, you will be, at least for the present, in a national church.
Second, Your denomination will be numerically small and scattered; and this is always a misfortune to any body. Small denominations are liable to be perpetually depleted by the pass- ing over of their most active churches and ministers to that large denomination near them which is most kindred in doctrine. A thousand practical influences ensure this. Eising talents de- mand a wider field of enterprise. If you embark in this enter- prise of a separate denomination, we do trust that no seductions will ever be employed with your ministers or churches by Old School Presbyterians; but you will assuredly lose frequently. You would be surprised to know how many men are now of our denomination, brought among us by the various influences de- scribed, who were educated and ordained among the various secession churches of the Presbyterian family; and they are usually just the men whose activity and talent confer strength. Again, it is impossible for a smaller denomination to hold the same doctrinal and ecclesiastical theories and yet continue a separate denomination, on the same ground with an older and larger one, without incurring mistrust. The public mind wiU ask: "If these men are also Presb^'terians, why are they not one?" Both parties will be injured in public confidence; and, the younger especially, will have an onus to bear, which will be
OUR POSITION. 179
a lieavy incubus before the public. Yoic have already suffered ^"severely from this; do not persuade yourselves that this con- scious difficulty of your position before a Southern public arose hitherto only from your connection with an abolition assembly. The public did not trouble itself about this. It knew that yoic were souiul on this question ; this was all it cared for. The dif- ficulty was that the hard-headed, common-sense public would say to themselves : " If this younger party are also Presbyte- rians, as they avow, why are they not one with the older?" You will experience the same difficulty still.
Third, You have been almost exclusively dependent on the North hitherto for ministers. This supply must now cease. Without ministers your churches must soon die out. Your leaders tell you, "We will have our own college and seminary, and rear our own ministers." Ah ! you will find this, as we know to our cost, no easy thing. You are not numerous ; you are scattered. How much less desirable is a. weak, struggling, poor institution, than one established and strong? Should you prefer to unite with us, you will share the advantages of ours, without money, and without cost. We have enough already established, enough for both, and they are already tolerably en- dowed. We have now, in Union, Columbia and Danville, semi- naries ; and in Washington, Hampden-Sidney, Davidson, Centre, Oglethorpe, Oakland and other colleges, apparatus enough to supply all our churches with ministers. Should you join us they will be equall}^ beneficial to you. Again, in the separate posi- tion proposed, you can hope for no aid beyond your own bor- ders in home missionary operations. The Home Missionary Society has already cut you off. Should the General Assembly (New School) establish a denominational agency for Home Mis- sions, as it assuredly will do some day, their aid will, of course, be limited to their own ecclesiastical connection. There is nothing but the Southern Aid Society to help you ; and this is limited and weak. How long -will it be able to resist the same clamor vmder which the American Board Home Missionary Society, and even the American Tract Society, have succumbed? But associated with us, you would share all the resources of our numerous connection.
Have the body of the Southern Presbyterians known as
180 OUR POSITION.
New School, wlio were born on Southern soil, any feeling or interest to keep them out of the Old School denommation? Have their ruling elders and laity any such feeling or interest? We believe not. Then — and we mean the question to be signifi- cant— for irhose gratification; for whose behoof; for whose in- terest are all these burdens to be assumed, and this difficult, unnatural, disastrous position to be maintained? Who are the men to whose preferences, advantage, prejudices, or pride, all the rank and file, the laity and eldership, are to make these sac- rifices ?
Again, the active leaders of the separation in 1838, on the side known as New School, declared explicitly that Southern Presbyterians separated, not because the action of the Assembly in 1837 injured them one whit, " but out of sympathy with Northern brethren maltreated in that action." Now, we will not urge the consideration, which might be discourteous at present, that tiine has verified most of the arguments which enforced and justified, in the hearts of Old School men, those measures of 1837. We only ask: Has not this duty of sympathizing testimony for Northern brethren been sufficiently performed? Have they not, with a vengeance, requited you in such a way as effectually to liberate you from further obligations of this nature ? Will it not be advantageous to 3^ou to return to that place whence this generous sympathy, so foully misrequited, drew you at first? By returning, you do not endorse the policy, the rightfulness, not even the constitutionality, of those measures of 1837 ; nor do we ask you to do so. Y(iu will only place yourselves where many good and able men have stood all along, who thought with you, l)ut remained with us. TJiey said: "We believe these measures wrong, even unconstitutional ; we testify against their wrong, but we leave the responsibility of them to the majority who enacted them, and whose will must prevail in all republican bodies. Their wrongfulness does not compel us to sejDarate from this, which we believe to be the true church of Jesus Christ, though in this matter erring. We exercise our Christian liberty in testifying against her fault, but we go on as before, to labor for her good ; for though in fault, it is Christ's bride."
This is so obvious, so just, that no attempt is made in the
OUK POSITION. 181
document, or manifesto, proposing tlie course of the Soutliern session, to gainsay it. The only reason there assigned against such a reunion as is proposed is, that the Old School is also so tainted with abolitionism that it is not worth while to go there for peace on that subject. Now let us, brethren, look calmly and practically at this. Consider that the action of our As- sembly against abohtionism was so satisfactory that all secular papers at the South endorsed it; and all Southern Presbyte- rians, Old School, were satisified with it. Consider that this action was adopted by an overwhelming majority, embracing every vote except about thirteen. Consider that from that day to this, during the sessions of twelve Assemblies, not one instance of agitation has occurred in our meetings ; and that in the last Assembly, amidst all the political storms elsewhere over the land, in our Assembly there was yet "perfect peace'' Now, is not this enough ? Your leaders say, we desire to form an organ- ization, national, not sectional. But can any body, formed of slavery and anti-slavery men, promise more than our Assembly has realized ? Your leaders say, the new body will be formed under a pledge against all slavery agitation. But we reply, when did ever a pledge bind the course of free discussion, or chain opinion? And what scriptural warrant have you for such a basis or term of church -fellowship ? No ; you will be as safe from abohtionism in our body as you can be in any national church. Should 3'ou join us with your one hundred and thirty- six ministers and thousands of communicants, our conservative strength, ah-eady immensely preponderant, will be farther in- creased. And if those funereal vaticinations in which a few for special purposes indulge, that we also must ultimately divide on this aboHtion point, should ever be fulfilled — which may God forbid — will not that be time enough for you to secede with us ? Will not one, grand, mighty secession of Southern Presbyterians be better when that day of extremity and woe shall come, than two broken, divided ones, of which one was premature? But bear with our candor ; when your leaders teach you to say, " the Old School church cannot be trusted on this subject," let us ask you to remember who are the men who aflfect this peculiar, excessive sensitiveness for Southern rights ? Where were the most of them born and reared? Does it bear telling, that they
182 OUR POSITION.
cannot be satisfied witli a state of tilings in our denomination, on this point, Avith wliicli all the ten thousands of your Southern Old School brethren, horn here, horn slave-owners, are fully content ?
Should this union be formed, we have no humihations to im- pose on our brethren commonly known as Xew School, no con- cessions to demand of them, but expect to meet them as eqiials. Should the inquiry be made, " What are the precise terms on which such a union would be agreed to by the Old School," we believe we express the general feeling of our denomination when we say, that we would receive any given church, session and minister, into any given Presbytery, in exactly the same way in which one Old School Presbyter}' would receive them from another Old School Presbytery. We would receive you precisely as we would receive each other. Can more be asked of us ? Here is the Old School church A with an Old School pastor B, belonging to the Old School Presbytery C. They wish to be transferred to the Old School Presbytery D. How would we proceed ? We would enroll the church A on the roll of the Presbytery D immediatel}' on its giving us a simple as- surance that its church session — not each of its individual mem- bers— held the doctrines and church order of our books, and the delegate of its session would, without further formality, be ad- mitted to his seat in Presbytery. The Presbytery D would ex- amine the pastor B on his views of personal piety, doctrine and church government, and if they were satisfied, would admit him also to a seat. We would do the same among the brethren known as New School. Is the examination of the minister seek- ing to pass from one Presbytery to another objected to ? How can we be suspected of an}i;hing invidious when we do just the same with our own brethren ? Should Ave do otherwise, it would be our own brethren Avho would have the right to call us invidi- ous. But as to the admission of a church and its session, even this seeming difficulty does not exist. We do not speak by au- thority, but Ave doubt not that all church courts among the Old School will shoAv themseh'es ready, as they have hitherto actu- ally done, cheerfully to proceed as far for a cordial union as reason and fairness can demand. And avc knoAV that Ave can safely give to our brethren of the other connection these tAVO as-
OUR POSITION. 183
suriinces — tlie giving of which will perhaps do all which this article could do — that on the one hand we all feel a respectful friendship, a sympathy with the difficulties which injustice has imposed on them, and a sincere desire for any wholesome and hearty union of our interests ; and on the other hand, that no approbation of a reunion is prompted by any self-interest on our part, or "«iU ever be followed by any annoying soUcita- tions.
MIXISTEEIAL SUPPOET/
Statement of Principles.
IT is believed tlie Syuod accepts the followiug statements as true :
1. The Presbyterian Church in Tirginia has not realized that growth demanded for our wide destitutions, and of whieh the church of God should be capable. The apparent obstacle to an experiment of other means is that a proposal of amendment im- plies criticism, and this implication is likely to be resented. But since God has promised to be with his faithful ministers con- stantly to the end of the world, one of two things must be con- cluded, either that he is as much with us, and our labors are as successful as we are to desire or expect, or that we are not en- tu'ely faithful. Hence, if impatience of criticism is proper for us, we must believe that God's cause ought not to advance faster than it has done among us.
2. Recognizing our dependence for success on sovereign gi'ace, and the supreme imj^ortauce of more zeal and holiness in ministers and people, we account for our disappointment of ful- ler results partly by the fact that our Mliole ministerial force is not actively and continuously emploj'ed. The one hundred and eighty-four ministers and licentiates on our roll probably do not perform the work of ninety-two men continuously employed. And this disastrous loss of efficiency proceeds greatly fi'om de- ficient support Where half a minister's days is consumed by worldly toils, the loss of true efficiency is even greater, because a heart harassed and Tiutuned by secular anxieties and habi- tudes of feeling is less energetically given in the remaining frag- ments of time to the care of souls.
3. But if the inability or injustice of churches lays this neces- sity on pastors, they are by no means to be blamed for making an honest secular caUing supply their wants, after the example
^ TMs paper was presented to the Synod of Virginia, in 1867. as au argument in connection with a report from a committee appointed on that subject iu 1866.
184
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 185
of Paul, the tent-maker. We rather rejoice that, by means of this self-denial of ministers, the destitutions are supplied "wdth partial ministrations "svhich otherwise would be Avholly neglected, while yet we deplore the obstructing of so much spiritual effort which might otherwise be enjoyed by the church.
■A. To reahze the full effect of the pastor's work he must be " free from worldly cares and ayocations," to devote his whole time, not only to Sabbath preaching, but to catechizing, preach- ing the gospel from house to house, and a perpetual and mani- fold oversight of souls. And one great lesson to be taught our laity is their urgent need of all this spiritual labor, and the wis- dom of purchasing and exacting it. Whereas their sense of want is often no more than of the Sabbath sermon and the oc- casional call, which are dispatched in a fragment of the minis- ter's time ; whence the not unnatural feeling that a partial com- pensation therefor is all that justice requires.
5. Our merciful Divine Head still shows us, amidst all our delinquencies, that a true pastoral work is still always rewarded by the sure growth of the charge which enjoj's it. This fact summons us, by the most solemn and pleasing obligation, to make experiment of such full and faithful work in all our field.
6. It is a truth equally clear and important, that Presb^'teries cannot exact of their members this full work while these are neces- sarily engaged in earning otherwise a part of their maintenance. Whence adequate sustentation is an ahsol ate prerequisite for q^ro- qjor Preshyterial government over pastors.
7. It is not unnatural that both Christian parents and their sons should have a feeble sense of the claims of the ministry, while the church fails to emplo}' fulh' the clerical force she already possesses. Hence we shall draw more laborers into Christ's harvest by giving more efficiency to those now in the field.
From all which it appears plain that the two desiderata of our church in this department are :
(1.) Adequate and sure maintenance for her laborers.
(2.) Their entire consecration to the niinistericd ioo7'k. Can these be secui'ed ?
Supposing the first secured, it appears to us that we must de- pend for the second on the removal of all pretexts and obstacles against concentration of heart and labor, on the demands of a
186 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
mere enlightened Christian opinion in the church ; on the more firm oversight of Presbyteries over their own members; and chiefly on the Christian conscience and fidelity of ministers themselves.
But touching the first, adequate maintenance, it seems to us that experience, if it can prove anything, has proved that this result cannot come from our present practice ; for the sad fact is that most of oar pastors are, and always have been, in trouble about this matter; and that the provisions actually made for them are, in most cases, notoriously neither adequate nor trust- worthy, and this, after the most strenuous appeals and injunc- tions in every form, from Assemblies, Synods, Presbyteries and pastors. The records of our own Synod especially will show that this evil has been for years a special subject of legislation, and yet it is not abated, but rather increased.
Causes of our Difficulty. The true causes of this standing difficulty appear to be, first and radically, the natural unbelief, carnality, and deadness of man's heart towards spiritual things. We see men generally neglectful or forgetful of the pecuniary value of instruction in the things of God, precisely because they are indifferent to those things themselves. And as long as men are born sinners this difficulty of support will assuredly continue. The secondary causes are neglect of official functions by elders and deacons, the partial secularization of pastors from this very difficulty, and consequent neglect of pastoral functions by them, so that this plague of our Zion potently operates to propagate its own mis- chiefs ; and probably still more than either of these, the feeling of the laity, that, as they are not enjoying and do not really need the whole time and energy of their preachers, so they are not justly held to pay for more than a fragment.
The Eemedy. From this view of the causes, it is perfectly evident that there is a vis inertlae, permanent and general, in unsanctified, and partially sanctified, human nature, by which we must expect ministerial support to be partially obstructed as long as it is left to the separate iiiomentums of the very bodies in which this inertia inheres. Whence it appears obvious that this function.
MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 187
like that disciplinary one of "general review and control," is precisely one of those -which requires the invigorating force and will of the ruling power of the united church; because that general ruling power is supposed to represent the highest wis- dom, zeal, and spirituality of the whole. I confess that I can- not evade the conviction, that our practice of leaving the ques- tion of each minister's support to his own charge and himself, is not, and never was, either sensible or practicable ; that from its nature it has been, and must be hereafter, inadequate to the end, and ought to be definitely abandoned.
We also believe that it is inconsistent with the true spirit of our time-honored constitution. This gives the Presb;vi;ery dis- cretionary control over the compact between the pastor and his people; so that while, on the one hand, no pastor can be in- truded on a people without their free choice, and no minister can be forced to any field against his will, neither can a pas- toral compact take place without the approval of the Presbytery, and this court remains the umpire and guardian of both parties to the bond. But our usage practically leaves the pastor and his proposed charge to settle terms as they choose, or can. Our system scripturally teaches that God gives ministers to his church as a whole, and that the grand duty of which they are public organs, that of evangelizing the world, is enjoined on the whole church. But our usage treats the pastor as thougli God had given him to his particular charge alone, and thus it alone were responsible for his support. The Scriptiu-es teach both the spiritual and organic unit}' of the church, by which all the pai-ts sympathize together, and they command (2 Cor. viii. 13, 14), not "that other men be eased and we burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time our abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for our want; that there may be equality." They command us (Phil. ii. 1), "to look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." They sa}^ (Gal. vi. 2), " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fvdfil the law of Christ." But our usage practically leaves each congregation to bear its own burdens, notwithstanding a great, and sometimes an enor- mous difference of ability. By our disjointed method of sus- taining this prime agency of the church's work we entail feeble- ness and failure on many of our essays, which are nearly wastes
188 MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
of money and labor, because not directed by tlie best ■oisdorn of tlie cliiirch, or not steadily sustained by lier united means after a beginning is made. The Presbyterian Clinrcli lias much to learn here from that great enemy of Christ's truth, the Papacy. This thoroughly knit system appears always to haye its men at the right point, and money to sustain them there ; because all act in concert, and each priest knows that he depends on the united treasury of the church. So, to do its Avork successfully, our church must realize in action the scriptui'al theory of its unity of spirit and government.
Presbyteeiax Prixciples Must be Carried Out.
To what then shall we look for laomentnm to overcome the partial indifference and inertia of individual congregations? Rehgious establishments by the State and a general religious assessment have been repudiated by the common judgment of our church and community. The law of God expressly leaves Christians free to use their own judgment in the amount of their contributions, saying (2 Cor. ix. 7), "Every man, according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly, or of necessity." There remains, therefore, no other authority save that of the church, and this extends only to enlightening, in- structing and persuading the people, by the love of the " Lord Jesus, who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor ; " and to the wise direction and administration of the contribu- tions of the faithful.
But our system can never exhibit its full vigor until our church courts become Presbyterian in fact as well as in name. The different coiu'ts must actually govern the church, and be the effi- cient media of the power delegated to her by her Divine Head. Ministers and congi*egations must be governed, as well as indi- vidual laymen. For instance. Presbyteries must prevent those arrangements which often virtually sequester and neutralize ministers, where domestic convenience, or some such motive, leads them to settle over feeble churches, which in fact are not able and do not expect to pay for and employ their whole time. The church as a united whole should possess and direct the labor of the whole ministry, as her appointed organ for her gi-and task ; and so the strength of the whole must be concerted foi their support.
ministerial support. 18^
Objections Answered,
The attempt to organize more efficiently tlie service of the church is not seldom met hj doubts of this general kind. We are reminded that the true life of the church is the life of spir- itual religion in the hearts of its ministers and people. It is suggested that the desire for more compact organizations is often the result of the decline of this true life, and is a species of attempt, necessarily vain, to substitute for the life of true re- ligion a sort of " machhie religion ; " that nearly all the corrup- tions of the church in past times have arisen thus, in the well- meaning but ill-judged essays of good men to heal evils of the church Avliieh nothing but true revival can remedy ; that human foresight, when it goes thus rashly to legislating, can never fore- see the ulterior results in which its expedients will eventuate. And just thus, it is said, popery with all its spiritual tyranny, grew up by the human expedients of good men.
Moderator, there is a sense in which these remarks are true — ■ valuable, statesmanlike truths. Especially would I admit that it is beyond the reach of man's foresight to surmise the ulterior workings of human institutions. Nothing but the light of expe- rience, or else the teachings of omniscience, can guide us safely here. Therefore oiir wisdom will be to attempt to invent no- thing, and to apply to the maladies of the church no other ex- pedients but the plans given to us by the precepts and prece- dents of the Bible. For then, and only then, we shall be safe ; because then we have the safe guidance of omniscience. But I also urge that, while the true life and strength of the church are spiritual, our Lord has manifestly decided that certain instru- mentalities are necessary to foster this life. He has ordained the employment of such. He has resolved to work usually through them. Among them are, according to our Confession, " the reading, and especially the preaching, of the Word." There is, then, a true sense in which it is our duty to employ " machiner}'," and to expect success proportioned to its com- pleteness ; that is, God's own machinery. And now my desire to apply this more closely-adjusted system is grounded wholly upon the belief that it is God's expedient, God's machinery ; or, in other words, that it is but a more correct and fuU application of the church government laid down for us in the New Testa-
190 MINISTEKIAL SUPPORT.
meut. This I have endeavored to show. If I am wrong, let it not be adopted ; but if I am right in thisi, we need not fear that it will result either in the substitution of a " machine religion " for life in the heart, or that it will eventuate in an unforeseen perversion of our spiiitual liberties, for we are following an all- seeing guide.
PASTORAL LETTEIJ ON MINISTERIAL SUPPORT/
DEAR BRETHREN: Convinced by many painful facts that the interests of Christ among us are suffering much loss by the inadequate compensation of ministers, we judge it our duty to address to you a word of pastoral instruction and exhortation concerning it. We thankfully recognize the im- provement which has been made, and is noAV making, in this matter, and we commend the exertions of Synods, Presbyteries, and churches, to remedy evils previously existing, bidding them God-speed in their laudable endeavors. Many churches, especially in our densely peopled districts, seem to give as full pecuniary support to their ministers as is needful. But much yet remains to be amended. It appears that the average of the salaries paid to the ministers of our denomination is only about $460 ; and as some receive large sums, there must consequently be a large number whose income sinks far below this moderate sum. Many cases of cruel suffering and destitution exist in the families of men who are faithfully endeavoring to serve God and his church; and the usefulness of our ministers is grievously crippled in a multitude of cases by pecuniary distress.
What is an Adequate Support. The question, What is an adequate pecuniar}^ support ? can- not be answered absolutely, and without regard to sarrounding circumstances. The cost of living, the style prevalent in the community in which the minister labors, and many other things must be considered ; for what would be sufficient to one in one place, might be entirely inadequate to another in another position. And a salary which was formerly liberal may have now become insufficient, because of the gi-eat and general change which has occurred in the value of money, as related to all the means of
' Adopted and issued by the Gen3i-,il Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States to the churches under i''^ care.
191
192 PASTORAL LETTER ON MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
subsistence. Ou this point it sliould be especially considered that money is not an absolute article of value, but only a repre- sentative of value, and that a fluctuating one. The adequacy of the compensation made is not to l)e measured by the absolute amount of money paid, but by the quantity of the means of sub- sistence which that money vriR baj-. The late rise of prices has had just the effect on the interests of ministers of an actual reduction of salary, where their stipends have not been corres- pondingly increased. Consider, we pray you, whether it will not be an abuse and dishonor of God's bounty if his recent liberal blessing on your industry is thus accompanied by an increased stinting of the servants who labor in his sanctuary.
We neither demand nor wish that the means of luxury or of avaricious accumulation shall be bestowed on our ministers. It is our desire that they shall ever be models to their charges of sobriety and Christian moderation. And may the Great Head of the church ever forbid that this service should possess such worldly attractions as to entice into it ungodly or selfish men, actuated by_ the love of lucre. AVhat we demand as the just right of the minister is a decent competence, which will place him on a level in this regard with the respectable classes of his charge, and which will enable him to train his children for stations of usefulness and respectability in Christian society, and to leave his widow above the fear of pauperism.
Why Insufficient S.vlaries are Gm:N. We are persuaded that much of the deficiency in ministers' supx^ort proceeds not from designed injustice, but from miscon- ception. In agricultural communities, where the most frequent instances of hardship occur, there is much error as to the amount necessary for the maintenance of a family. The farmer observes the stipend of the minister, and finding it equal or superior to the sum for which he himself sells all those productions of his farm which are sent to market, he concludes that the pastor is liberally paid. He forgets that the larger part of the mainten- ance of his own family is derived directly from the soil without being converted into money. If he, like the minister, were compelled to pay in money for all those thousand products and comforts which the bounty of his farm confers, he would find that an adequate supj)ort would consume far more than passes
PASTORAL LETTER ON MIXISTERLAL SUPPORT 193
annually tlirougli his OAvn or his minister's hand in the form of money.
Many of our smaller congregations also are content to pay their ministers insufficient salaries, bacause practicall}^ they do not feel that they are paying for all their time. The people misconceive their own spiritual wants, and the nature of that toil which should be expended in their supply. They suppose that if the minister spends a day or two of the week in hurried preparation of one or two sermons, and the Sabbath in their delivery, this, with an occasional attendance at scenes of afflic- tion, is all that need be done. The rest of the week he may devote to his ovru interests. If he engages in teaching a school or cultivating a farm for his own support they do not feel them- selves wronged, for they do not consider his whole time as pur- chased by them. They regard his sacred functions as additional to his secular, and consider themselves consequentl}' as only bound to provide for a part of his support, instead of regarding- his ministry as all in all, as he and they should think it. In this case the deficient support is rather a mistake than an in- justice. But Ave exhort the congregations under our care to dismiss this erroneous and mischievous conception, and to seek the whole of the minister's energies and labors, by rendering for them a just recompense. The increased prosperity of the congre- gations and usefulness of the pastors will soon convince all that it is wise to secure the undi\aded labors of the ministry by a fair and fall compensation. And when such compensation is rendered we shall not complain of, but rather applaud you, if the ministers under our care are strictly required to give their whole time and eflbrts to your service.
Testoioxy of the Scriptures. To commend this subject further to your consciences, we argue, first,' the explicit testimony of the Holy Scriptures to the minister's right to a just maintenance. We enter our solemn rebuke against the unscriptural idea that what is given for min- isterial labors is a charity, which may be bestowed or withheld as generosity dictates, instead of the payment of a just debt. There is probably little need among us to rebuke the ignorant notion that mental and professional services are not true labor, and so are not fairly entitled to a pecuniary equivalent. The
Vol. n.— 13.
194 PASTOK.\L LETTER OX MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
whole sense of inankiud and course of society refute it. That mental labor is, of all kinds, the most arduous, is sufficiently- proved hj the fact that, notwithstanding its greater emoluments, so few are found wdio can endure it and succeed in it, compared with the numbers who pursue manual occupations. We also testify earnestly against the assertion that it is unworthy of the disinterestedness of the Christian minister to receive pay for preaching the gospel. The true minister does not preach Jhr gain; but he is not a disembodied spirit; he must live, or he cannot preach. Sufficient to refute all such views is the word of God. " The laborer is worthy of his hire." Under the Old Testament and the New alike, God has explicitl}" ordained that the ministers of religion shall receive support from those for whom they minister. " Do ye not know that they which miuis- ier about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel." (1 Cor. is. 13, 14.) This positive command of God should be enough for all his servants. And what labor can be so worthy of liberal recompense as that of ihe minister, to the successful performance of which the longest training and the rarest combination of bodily, mental and moral excellences, with temper, experience and social tact are requisite, which concerns the dearest interests of man, both for this life and that which is to come, and which is performed by the faith- ful workman, under the influence of the most sacred sympathies and affections, and the most solemn responsibilities? "If they have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if they shall reap your carnal things?" (1 Cor. ix. 11.)
Hindrance to Ministerial Efficiency. Second, We urge upon you the loss of ministerial efficiency which the church suffers through the neglect of this duty. The great cry of our Zion is for an increase of ministers ; and annu- ally we pray the "Lord of the harvest," in solemn concert, to *'send forth laborers into his harvest." If all the men in our church capable of usefulness were wholly released from the hindrances w^hich proceed, directly or indirectly, from inad- ecpiate support, the efficiency of our ministry would be vastly increased. And this would be equivalent to a proportionable
PASTORAL LETTER OK MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 195
increase of tlieir numbers, vnth. this additional advantage, that the church would enjoy this increased service ■s\ithout the long delay and large expense of training neAV men. Most of our churches are able to give fair compensation to their pastors if they fully understand the duty and put forth their strength. And if the strong would give that help to the weak which Chris- tian charity and unity dictate, the lack of our small churches would be abundantly supplied from the superfluity of the rich. We are ahle to remedy this whole evil at once if we will. What, dear brethren, is the guilt of causing this vast waste of Christian efficiency in such a day of need, and this wide-spread loss of souls by the voluntary neglect of a duty which the bounty of providence has placed easily within our reach ? How can Ave pray to the Searcher of hearts to prosper his cause in our hands while this neglect is unreformed ?
Sufler us to point out the modes in which the usefulness of ministers is herein wasted, in order that you may apprehend your own loss in it, as well as that of Christ's cause at large. It is too obvious to need remark, that when the minister is driven to secular labor for a part of his support, so much of his time is lost to the direct service of his Master. But this is not all. His energies and thoughts are divided, and the remainder of his time is less efficiently employed in his ministry. Too often sec- ular labor, reluctantly begun under a stern necessity, forced upon him by the injustice of his people, results in the loss of studious habits, the chilling of pastoral zeal and the secularizing of the spirit. Does providence bless those secular labors with success ? Do the minister's intelligence and energy make him a prosper- ous teacher or farmer? That success becomes often a snare, and he grows less and less a pastor and more a man of business. Thus, too, often the finest energies have been almost lost to the church, contrary to the early intentions and wishes of the min- ister himself. It has been remarked with much truth, that the pastors of our church are usually found richest in those districts where the salaries are most insufficient. You have an explana- tion above.
The stinted means of the minister limit his usefulness in many other ways. He is unable to make those additions to his little library which are demanded f>)r the improvement of his own mind and the interests of his charge. The pinchings of poverty
196 PASTORAL LETTER OX MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
close against liim a liundred smaller channels of usefulness. But far worse, tlie gnawing cares of a future for which there is no provision consume his spirits, preoccupy his thoughts in the hours of study, and cast a thick shade between his anxious eyes and the page from which he should draw instruction for his people. The mind cannot work when it is bowed down by the load of the heart. Nor is it an answer to this to say, that the sufferer ought to have faith enough cheerfully to cast his worn and wearied wife and his destitute children upon the arm of him who feedeth the young ravens when they cry. It is, indeed, the privilege and duty of all God's people when wronged to cast their burden on the Lord, and it is his glory to sustain them, re- paii'ing with the joys of his salvation the sufferings which man has caused. But does not the very compassion with which he heals their soitows imply in his righteous nature equal indigna- tion against the wi'ong which has inflicted them ? Woe unto that man who thus unfeelingly and profanely invokes the di- vine goodness to repair the injustice which he himself wilfully permits.
Sometimes the pecuniary distress of the minister arises from a cause against which we feel bound to raise our especial and solemn testimony : long continued arrears upon the salary pro- mised in his call. Then, unless he has a pecuhar measure of faith and patience, there is added to his other perplexities the painful sense of injur}^ This cause of irritation, concurring with every other which arises in his intercourse ynth. his charge, works ahenation and bitterness of feeling, and prepares the way for disruption and removal. The warm sympathies of the pas- tor's heart cannot very easily go out towards those from whose thoughtlessness or injustice he is suffering cruel embarrassments and breach of covenant.
In a word, in pleading for the removal of these evils, we do not plead for ministers' personal interest only; we urge your own injury to the cause of Christ.
Third, It is not improper to remind you that your conduct in this matter will vitally affect the cause of your Master through- out the rest of Christendom. Ours is the only country where Christianity has been wholly divorced from the state, and its institutions left to the voluntary support of its followers. It is questioned whether this support can be trusted; and all the
PASTORAL LETTER ON MINISTERIAL SUPPORT. 197
■world now looks iipou the American churches with interested gaze, to see whether the warm hearts and the free gifts of those who love Christ are the best and the sufficient resource of his cause, as the friends of religious liberty have asserted; or whether the arm of the ruler and tax-gatherer must still be invoked to wring a reluctant support for it from the citizens. If we, brethren, leave so many godly and laborious men in that destitution, which is now the opprobrium of the American churches, the verdict of Christendom will be against the cause of freedom, and many generations may not be able to reverse it.
Effects of Increased Secular Prosperity.
In conclusion, permit us to remind you again of that unex- ampled secular prosperity in our land, which, while it has in- creased your gains, has increased the difficulties of your servants in the church, by raising the prices of the means of subsistence. In that prosperity the people of God have fully shared. Bear in mind that while it places in your reach enlarged means of doing good, it also constitutes a new and most treacherous temptation. Sanctify your abundance by a just and generous distribution to the cause and servants of the Giver, and the enjoyment of the remainder will be both sweeter and safer. " If the first fruits be holy, the lump will also be holy." But if you signalize this season of the divine bounty by leaving your brethren who serve you in sacred things under growing priva- tions ; if you only enlarge your plans of self-indulgence or greedy accumulation, a righteous God will suffer your abundance to become your bane. " Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ." (1 Peter i. 18, 19.) Seeing that God is gra- ciously pleased to make your silver and gold means to promote his cause, and seeing that they are at the same time so unspeak- ably cheap compared with the priceless souls for which Christ died, let your enlightened and righteous resolve be, to give nothing, indeed, for the pampering of luxury or pride, or to fos- ter the desire of gain, and to withhold nothing by which the highest efficiency, the most cheerful and healthy exertions of every minister who truly has a mind to the work, may be secured to his Master's cause.
Believing that the inadequate support of ministers arises more
l'J8 PASTOEAL LETTER ON MINISTERIAL SUPPORT.
from the neglect of a proper system, and the fact that no one is properly charged with the duty of its collection, than from inten- tional injustice or unwillingness on the part of the people, we must say to the officers of those churches where the evil exists that the fault is chiefly theirs. And we urgently recommend that the sessions and deaconships make a systematic provision for the pastors' salaries, by a permanent annual subscription or pew rent from the people, which should always be somewhat larger that the sum covenanted in the "call," and that they pro- vide efficient persons for its punctual collection.
ECCLESUSTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES,^
THE Synod first linrriedly adopted, -without inquiry, the fol- lo-^ang preamble and resolution, and then reconsidered it ; viz.:
■ ""Whereas the paper upon the subject of the colored people, adopted bv the last General Assembly, has been eiToneoiisly construed by some as teaching the doctrine that colored men possessing the qualifications required by the standards of our church and the word of God should not be ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry, simply because they belong to the negro race ; therefore,
''Resolved, That the General Assembly be overtured to declare that the church is Christ's universal kingdom ; that its doors are open alike to all those -uho love the Lord Jesus, and that ordin- ation to the work of the gospel ministry is to be given to all those called of God to, and qualified for the work, without respect of persons."
The motion to reconsider having brought up the above on its merits, Eev. R. L. Dabney, who was entitled to the floor, waived his right to speak in favor of a member making a motion for indefinite postponement A\ithout debate. This motion was ruled to be debatable, and on it discussion was continued an hour ; when it was negatived. Rev. Mr. Dabney, regaining the floor, spoke as follows :
Then, Mr. Moderator, it seems this unhappy and mischievous subject must be thrust upon our attention, whether we msh it or not. I therefore beg you to note that its agitation is not of
' A speech delivered in the Synod of Virginia, Nov. 9, 1867. The above is substantially what was spoken in the Synod. But it was delivered without much premeditation or method, and under great haste from the fear of prolixity. Hence some things were probably said which are here omitted, and some things intended were omitted in the speaking. A few sentences have been introduced here and there, in the way of expansion and illustration of points actually made in tha Synod, which were not spoken there. Published in pamphlet form, 18G8.
199
200 ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES.
lUT making. When entitled to the floor, I elieerfullv yielded it for a motion of indefinite postponement without a word upon the merits of the question, although the debate had been exclu- sively by the members of the other side ; and the last thing which the Synod had heard was an earnest and long speech, most forc- ibly deUyered, in advocacy of views which mv whole iudscment opposed. But the house will have discussion ; I therefore beg leave to say a few things, as briefly as I may.
I oppose sending this overture to the General Assembly, be- cause the whole subject is unseasonable. The country, the black people, our own minds, all agitated by unusual passions, are in no state to settle this question wisely or well. It is be- lieved there is not a member on this floor who does not think, with me, that it would have been better had the Memphis As- sembly let this matter alone, although their decision was right in principle. Why then double the evil of imtimely action, and again disturb the subject, possibly to settle it wrong? I have had enough of declarations and manifestations of sj^ecial inter- est in, and love for, the souls of "the freedmen" under existing circumstances. When I see them almost universally banded to make themselves the eager tools of the remorseless enemies of my country, to assail my vital rights, and to threaten the very existence of civil society and the chui'ch at once, I must beg leave to think the time rather '//lal cq^ropos for demanding of me an expression of particular aflection. If I gave it, I should not expect any one to credit it. Were you traveling in Mexico, assailed by bandits, wounded, dragged from your carriage, bound to a tree, and looking with a bleeding pate upon the rifling of your baggage, if you were called on to state, then and there, how exceedingly you desired the spiritual good of the yellow-skinned barbarians who were persecuting you, it is to be presumed that you would beg to be excused, under the circum- stances. So I, for one, make no professions of special love for those who are, even now, attempting against me and mine the most loathsome outrages. If I can only practice the duty of forbearance successfully, and say, " Father, forgive them ; they know not what they do," I shall thank God for his assistance in the hour of cruel provocation.
I oppose this overture, second, because it is both incorrect and ambiguous. It begins, "Whereas the Mem^Dliis Assembly'
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES. 201
tas been eiToneously construed," etc. Mr. Moderator, the ma- lignant slanderers of that Assembly' do not misunderstand it. They know well enough what the Assembly meant. Their ac- cusations are prompted by no zeal for truth or good, l)iit solely by a spiteful pleasure in goading us by the obtrusion of a dis- tasteful and difficult subject. Tell me not that there is any true regard for the negro's good in these people when I haye before me the proof of their cruel indiflerence to both the bodies and souls of their own free blacks, and their recent perpetration upon the Southern negroes of the most enormous crime of the century at the bidding of factious zeal. I, for one, will not so de- grade myself as to truckle to this spiteful hypocrisy, by explana- tions and uncandid retractions. The meaning of the Memphis Assembly is plain ; and it is in the main correct. They say that while the blessings of redemption are free to all, of eyery race or caste, the priyileges of church office may be properly withheld from some, at the dictate of a sound discretion. This is scriptural truth. The Memphis Assembly was right in princi- ple, although wrong in details, and is not misunderstood.
This oyerture demands that the Assembh' shall declare that "ordination shall be giyen to all those called of God to, and qualified for the work, without respect of persons." Now, sir, there is a sense in which eyery one in this house will assent to this as a general proposition. But in which meaning is it to be taken? Does it imply that we may properly decide that the eyidence of God's call and (jucdljicatlon is fatally defective, where an insuperable difference of race, made by God and not by man, and of character and social condition, makes it plainly impossible for a black man to teach and rule white Christians to edification '? If so, I adopt it. Or does it mean that it is right to ordain a black man — if we have any such — possessed of the piety, integrity and learning required h\ our standards, to preach to black Presbyterian congregations, if we have any? Then I adopt it. Or, does it ask the General Assembly to enact, that I shall help to ordain a negro to teach and rule white peo- ple, and make him a co-equal member with myself in West Han- over Presbyter}', to sit in judgment on the affairs of white churches and members '? Is this its end ? I see one and an- other boldly and defiantly nod their assent. On this point gen- tlemen, I am utterl}' opposed to you; and I can onh* account
202 ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES.
for hearing a proposal so astounding from such gentlemen as I know you to be, bj these two motives : an overstrained and quixotic magnanimity, and the stress of a supposed necessity of logical consistency, under which you have fallen by means of a sophism. As the friends of this measure avow that this is its real extent, I shall direct my remarks to this point chiefly.
And third: I oppose the agitation of this whole subject, be- cause it is unpractical. The only appreciable eflect it can have will he to agitate, and so to injure our existing churches. On the basis you profess — that is, to exact impartially, of the black man as of the white, full compliance with the requirements of our standards — the negro is not coming to you. He will none of you. He wholly prefers the Yankee to you. So that this whole zealous discussion presents us in the ridiculous light of two school boys, who after a stiff fight over a bird's nest, ascertain that it is too high or too low for either of them to reach. Per- haps this is the very thought which prompts some to support this scheme; that they may disarm abolitionist criticism by seeming to obey their imperious dictation, and to open the door of our ministry to negroes, while they rely on the negroes' hos- tility to protect us from their entrance, a result which they would no more accept than I do. Thus they hope to " save their man- ners and their meat" at once. Is this candid? Is it manly? Is it Christian honor?
But I warn these gentlemen that they will be deceived by the results. While I greatly doubt whether a single Presbyterian negro will ever be found to como fully up to that high standard of learning, manners, sanctity, prudence, and moral weiglit and acceptability which our constitution requires, and which this overt\\rej)/'ofesses to honor so impartially, I clearly foresee that, no sooner will it be passed than it wiU be made the pretext for a partial and odiou'=. lowering of oiu' standard in favor of negroes. Do not facts prove it? Were not the only black ministers or- dained by our church «ince the war, all three, ordained in fla- grant violation of the constitution? There has broken out among many a sort of morbid craving to ordain negroes — to get their hands on their heads. Indeed, it seems to be a fataUty attending that moral and mental Dialar'ia which infects the age, that when people become interested about this unfortimate race they must take leave of their own good sense, and grow extrav-
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES. 203'
agant, liasty, and inconsiderate. No clearer proof need be asked of the presence of tliis disease here than the case which is made tlie pretext of this overture. The mover of it, and others, have already told yon that the discnssion is not unpractical, because Rappahannock Presbytery has now an actual case pressing, ur- gently pressing, for immediate decision, for which those brethren need the guidance of the Assembly to-day ; that there is a black licentiate of many years' standing, of excellent gifts of character, who should have been ordained already, and whose application for orders is pending. Now, Mr. Moderator, m ill you not be surprised to hear this statement, which I derive from the most unquestionable source, that this colored man, although an ex- cellent man, was undoubtedly licensed without the constitutional qualifications ; that he certainly has not yet acquired them ; that he is not an applicant for ordination at all, but is perfectly sat- isfied with his position ; that there is no colored Presbyterian church to call him as pastor, and that there is not even a Pres- byterian mission field for him, but he is laboring among the colored Methodists. If this statement is disputed, the authority is ready. But I advise the contestant not to demand it, unless he desires to be put to confusion. There is manifestly an un- healthy restlessness about the ordination of black men. Let this overture pass the Assembly, and you will soon see it made the occasion for violating our standards at the prompting of quixotic and romantic generosity towards this unfortunate race, and for introducing some into our ministry as much unfitted for it by attainments and character as by color. My point, then, is this, that if the action proposed is wholly unpractical, it is neither candid nor dignified. But if it is destined to have any practical efiect, its operation will be only mischievous just to the extent it is operative.
Fourth, I oppose the entrusting of the destinies of our church in any degree whatever to black rulers, because that race is not trustworthy for such position. There may be a feio exceptions — I do not believe I have ever seen one, though I have known negroes whom I both respected and loved in their proper posi- tion— but I ask emphatically, Do legislatures frame general laws to meet the rare exceptions ? or do they adjust them to the gen- eral average ? Now, who that knows the negro does not know that his is a subservient race ; that he is made to follow, and not
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to lead ; that his temperamerit, idiosyucrasj and social relation make him untrustworthy as a depository of power ? Esi^ecialh' will we weigh this fact now, unless we are madmen ; now, when the whole management to which he is subjected is so exciting, so unhealthy, so intoxicating to him, and when the whole drift of the social, political and religious influences which now SAvay him bear him with an irresistible tide towards a reUgious faction which is the deadly and determined enemy of every principle we hold dear. Sir, the wisest masters in Israel, a John Newton, an Alexander, a Whitefield, have told us that although grace may save a man's soul, it does not destroy his natural idiosj-n- crasy this side of heaven. If you trust any portion of power over your church to black hands, you will rue it. Have they not done enough recently to teach us how thoroughly they are untrustworthy? They have, in a body, deserted their true friends and natural allies and native land, to follow the beck of the most unmasked and unprincipled set of demagogues on earth, to the most atrocious ends. They have just in a body deserted the churches of their fathers. They have usually been prompt to do these things just in proportion to their religious culture and to our trust in them. Is not this enough to teach us that, if we commit our power to that race, in these times of conflict and stern testimony, possibly of suffering for God's truth, it will jorove the " bruised reed which, when we lean upon it, ■s^•ill break and rend all our side, and cause all our loins to be at a stand?"
Last : I deprecate this action, because, so far as it is to have any success, it is to bring a mischievous element into our church at the expense of driving a multitude of valuable members and ministers out. Sir, it is paying too dear for the indulgence of religious romance, or the propitiating of meddlesome abolition- ists, to rend our Southern Church and drive from us its noblest part. I solemnly caution members of this Synod of the intense, the indignant, the irreconcilable opposition Avliich their measures excite among the great body of our eldership and people. Do they say that they see no striking marks of such opposition ; that the free ventilation of the proposal, in the newspapers and else- where, does not seem to have provoked it ? I reply, I know the temper of the Southern people, at least of Southern Presbyte- rians. The reason they have not spoken out in thunder-tones
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already is two-fold : first, they have hitherto been incredulous of a serious intention to force negroes into ecclesiastical super- riority to themselves, and they have felt a disgust so profound for the whole proposition and the nnseasonableness of its dis- cussion that they have turned aside with loathing from the whole debate. But let this plan be put in practice, and if I know any- thing, I forewarn you, gentlemen, that you will spring a mine which will blow the engineers of negro equality high into the air.
Look, I pray you, at the grounds of this sentiment which yon will outrao;e. For a veneration Southern Christians have seen the negro made the pretext of a malignant and wicked assault upon their fair fame and just rights. At length he has been made the occasion of a frightful war, resulting in the conquest and ruin of the land, and the overthrow of all our civil rights. And now, our conquerors and oppressors, after committing the crime of murder against our noble old commonwealth and tread- ing ns down with the armed heel, are practicing to add to every atrocious injury the loathsome insult of placing the negro's feet npon our necks. This day we are threatened with evils, through negro supremacy and spoliation, to whose atrocity the horrors of the late war were tender mercies. And these ebony pets of this romantic philanthropy this day lend themselves in compact body, with an eager and almost universal willingness, to be the tools of this abhorred project, the scorpion — say rather the rep- tile— lash in the hands of our ruthless tyrants. But our brethren, turning heart-sore and indignant from their secular affairs, Avliere nothing met their eye but a melancholy ruin, polluted by the intrusion of this inferior and hostile race, looked to their beloved church for a little repose. There at least, said they, is one pure, peaceful spot not yet reached by this pollution and tyranny. There, at least, Virginians may meet and act without the disgust of negro politics and the stain of negro domination. Will you, dare you, say to them, JSFo f There too the hated subject and the foul intrusion shall l)e thrust upon you ; thrust npon you by the folly of Southern men, of your own spiritual guides.
And now that every hope of the existence of church and of state, and of civilization itself, hangs upon our arduous effort to defeat the doctrine of negro suffrage, shall the General As- sembly be invoked to go out of its province, and stretch its
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constitution so as to set tlie most significant precedent wliicli ■can be imagined hi favor of this destructive doctrine ?
But this is not all. Thoughtful men see in this pit of tyranny and oppression, to the edge of which the negro and his allies now urge us, " below the lowest depth a lower deep still open- ing wide." It is a result which, we well know, the astute archi- tects of our ruin clearly foresee and intend, and for the procuring of which they provide, when they impose the political equality of the negro, with a cunning inspired by their own master, the devil. They know mankind in its weakness and baseness. They have measured accurately the degrading effects of subjugation, of poverty, of grinding oppression, of despair, upon a people once chivalrous. They know that where the ruling mob is there must be the demagogue, even as the vulture comes where the carcass is, and they know the bottomless subserviency of the demagogue. They understand the ever-increasing assumption of the negro's character, growing by its indulgence. Hence the safe calculation that, when once political equality is confirmed to the blacks, every influence ^^all tend towards that other con- summation, social equality, which they will be so keen to demand, and their demagogues so ready to grant as the price of their votes. Why, sir, the negroes recently elected in my own section to represent in the pretended convention, districts once graced b}' Henry and Randolph are already impudently demanding it. He must be "innocent" indeed who does not see whither all this tends, as it is designed by our oppressors to terminate. It is (shall I pronounce the abhorred Avord ?) to amalgamation ! Yes, sir, these tyrants know that if they can mix the race of Washington and Lee and Jackson with this base herd which they brought from the fens of Africa, if they can taint the blood which hallowed the plains of Manassas with this sordid stream, the adulterous current will never again swell a Yirginiau's heart Avith a throb noble enough to make a despot tremble. But they will then have, for all time, a race supple and grovelling enough for all the purj)oses of oppression. We have before our eyes, in Mexico, the proof and illustration of the satanic wisdom of their plan. There we saw a splendid colonial empire first blighted by abohtion, then a frantic sj^irit of levelling, declaring the equalit}' of the colored races with the Spaniard, and last, the mixture of the Castilian blood — the L,a'andest of all the Gothic —
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES. 207
Tesultinsr m the moiiGrrel rabble wliicli is uov\- tlie shame and plague of that wretched land.
Such is the danger which is now before us. Let no one say- that these fears are visionary. Wise and sober statesmen do not think so. Ask those who know mankind, who know the springs of political action and the power of its passions ; they will tell you that, if such counsels cere to rule as have been insin- uated here, the danger is real and near. Impartial and intelli- gent spectators abroad do not think my warning visionaryo The London Times, in a well-considered leader, declared that a grad- ual mixture of blood was the obvious end to which present in- fluences tended.
In view of this, our Christian people looked fondly to their beloved church as a last bulwark against this tide of shame and misery. But now are they told that this too must be levelled ; levelled by the hands of their own spiritual guides ; that thej must submit, at the dictation of a romantic sophism, to an eccle- siastical amalgamation of which social confusion must be the inevitable result; a result all the surer because the ill-starred precedent is given for it in the highest range of our social life — the sacred.
And now, when they indignantly recoil, shall this high and noble sentiment be stigmatized as "a Avicked prejudice of an evil world?" and shall this Synod be invoked, in the imposing names of principle and moral courage, to trample upon it? Sir, I protest against the slander. In the name of the enlightened and faithful people of God, who profoundly entertain this senti- ment, I protest. By the indignant blush on the cheeks of our Christian wives and sisters, I protest. This is no blind, passion- ate prejudice of caste, but the righteous, rational instinct of pious minds. It is not the prejudice of a wicked world which I would have you respect ; the world's passions and blame are naught to me ; but the conscientious conviction of Christ's own people, who are as God-fearing and honest in this thing as you are. I wish to know by what patent the advocates of this novel and astounding doctrine have received a monopoly of all the consistency and conscientiousness, leaving our laity none?
If, in the presence of all these considerations, any^ leader in our Israel must still feel himself compelled by conscience and principle to demand of his brethren this concession, he should
208 ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGKOES.
feel that he is asking of them the most cruel and hear;;-rending sacrifice ever demanded by duty. We shall make it, if consist- ency requires it, with an anguish akin to that of Jephthah, when his rash yow compelled him to i:nm<:)la':e his yirgin daughter. Has this solemn, sympathizing sense of the sacrifice demanded been exhibited? Xo, sir. And I shall show before I am done that the imagined stress of conscience under which the bitter crucifixion is exacted of us is as baseless and unreasonable as was the superstitious obstinacy of that ancient robber-chief.
And if it shall appear that this Africanizing of our church is not duty, then how wretchedly untimely is the policy of fixing the odium of it on Presbyterianism at this time, of all others, when the whole American people are so manifestly beginning to array themselyes on the issue between the white man's party and the black man's party ; when this one issue is so comijletely absorbing all others ; when the party of the white man's supre- macy is gathering in such resistless might, and is so surely des- tined ultimately to sweep its opponent out of existence? "Why attach our Presbyterianism to a doomed cause, to a type of opinion predestined to be exploded, and to leaye, for all time, naught behind it but a savor of odium and abhorrence, cleaying for generations to all who haye afliliated with it ?
Let it be thoroughly considered how far this yiew must lead us, if squarely followed. Its advocates haye much to say about "following out principles consistently without regarding popular inclinations." The attitude they assume is one of a calm supe- riority to such feelings. They have '"risen above these mere prejudices of caste, as things unworthy of Christians." They deprecate my allusion to the practical consequences of their doctrine, as an unseemly appeal to the passions of a dead con- troversy, and the pride of a social order which has passed away, never to return. When I beseech them not to pervei-t and over- strain ecclesiastical principles in a manner not only needless, but positively erroneous, so as to make Christ's church virtually a tool for the propagation of the political heresies of negro suf- frage and amalgamation, they reply "\^'ith a gi-and dignity, that the church is a spiritual kingdom, and does not concern herself 2):'0 or con -with secular results. To my common sense, the application thus given to a truth most valuable in its jjlace, is virtually this : that if the church has an opportunity, without
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going an inch out of her spiritual sphere, and indeed, by the very lideht}^ with which she adheres to it, to give vahiable sup- port to earthly interests the most fundamental and precious, oh! then she has perverted her character ; she is meddling with sec- ular questions! But if she misunderstands and perverts her own spiritual character, to corrupt at once her own government and peace, and to give, under a spiritual pretext, most direct assistance to the vilest factionists in their assaults upon the dearest rights and interests of the community, it is all perfectly spiritual and legitimate !
NoAV then, gentlemen, come with me, and let us see whither this iron consistency in which you boast will lead us. You say that if a negro appears to have a scriptural call and cpialification, you have no option, but must make him your own co-presbyter and ecclesiastical equal. Thus at once he becomes a joint ruler over white churches ; he must sit, and speak, and vote among you. I shall not permit you to use the quiet hypocrisy of those Yan- kees whom you permit so imperiously to dictate your action in this matter; who after making a negro in pretense their co presbyter and equal, give him a tacit but imperative hint to take himself off to the colored gallery, and thence witness the presbyterial proceedings as a very humble spectator. This will not do in your case ; you are thoroughly consistent. So you must have this negro of yours revieAving and censuring the records of white sessions, and sitting to judge appeals brought before you by white parties, possibly by white ladies!
But this is a small part. After all the negro exodus from our communion, there are still churches which have a large majority of black communicants. After you have ordained your negro, one of these churches may regularly elect him pastor. Consti- tutionally, the white minority cannot here resist the will of the majority, when regularly exercised. Suppose the former come to you for remedy Can you tell them to take dismissions and join a white church elsewhere? Distance may forbid. Besides, you will be bound by that jewel, consistency, to teJl them that such a solution of their trouble would be wholly out of the ques- tion. You made race and color no obstacle to putting this negro equal to yourselves ; how can you encourage these white members in making them a pretext to rend a church roll? Con- sistency will require you to say to them, " Remain and submit."
Vol. II.— 14.
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So there you liave a black jjastor to white families, clothed with official title to ask their experimental, heart secrets ; to visit their sick beds; to celebrate baptisms, marriages and funerals over their children! And this, on 3(mr principle, is no Utopian picture, but what may become a literal fact in a month after you execute your plan.
Now, is any one so fond as to believe still that this can be honestl}^ squarely done, and yet social equality can be denied? Do you tell me that after you have admitted this negro thus to your debates, your votes, your pulpits, your sick and dying beds, your weddings and funerals, you will still exclude him from your parlors and tables? Credat Jadwus AjkUu ! I tell you, sir, this doctrine, if it does not mean nothing, or if it does not mean Yankee hypocrisy, means ultimately, (imalganiation. What more emphatic evidence did ever a traveller bring back to us of the utter confusion of bloods in Spanish America, than to tell us that he there saw black priests to white people? But now, when the negro is grasping political equality, when he is no longer an inferior and in servitude, when his temper is assuming and im- pudent in many cases, when in many sections he out-numbers the whites, it becomes both church and civil society to guard this danger with tenfold as much jealousy as when they were our servants.
Are we then shut up by principle to this most repugnant thing ? Do the Bible and our standards require us in con- sistency to introduce black men into all our church courts as our equals, and as spiritual rulers of the laity of the superior race? This, Moderator, is the cardinal question. If God and duty require any sacrifice, let it he made. Flat jadltla raat coelam. I trust I shall not be behind any of my brethren in temperament or conviction when the true necessit}^ arises for acting upon this severe maxim. But I have desired that you should have fvilly before you the true extent of the concession demanded of you, that if it shall appear the logical exigency is imaginary, and the argument demanding it a transparent sophism, you may be delivered from so cruel an error.
It has been argued here that the gospel is a religion for uni- versal man, and that pai*ticipation in the blessings of redemption is decided, not by any reference to race, class, or social grade, but by the person's faith and repentance alone. This blessed
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truth, it is presumed, every true Christian joyfully believes. "We have been reminded of the apostle Peter, who -was taught by vision not to "call that common which God had cleansed," and was thus forced to overcome his prejudices of caste, and receive Gentiles to an eqiial place in the church with Jews.
And this instance reminds me of a truth, which I beg leave to commend to gentlemen of the other side, that our brother Peter found, very soon, that this consequence was natural and neces- sary, which they so stoutly disclaim ; namely, that the ecclesi- astical equality involved social equality. Peter, after admitting Gentiles to an equal footing in the church, was obliged to admit them' on an equal footing to his table and parlor, and was found " eating M'ith the Gentiles." " But when certain came from Jeru- salem, he dissembled, and Avithdrew himself." So, I predict, will these our brethren be found "dissembling" when they are brought face to face with the awkward consequences of their present position. And I pledge them, that I shall not fail to be their Paul, to rebuke them for their inconsistency, and insist that they face the music of their own levelling doctrine. But this by the way.
They quote for us also such passages as these : that in Christ " there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumci- sion. Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all in all." Hence they jump to the inference, that not only the bless- ings of redemption, but the privileges of church office and rule, are common to all believers, irrespective of caste, class, or con- dition. I shall show, sir, beyond all ^-avil, that there is a vast and an unbridged chasm between this premise and this conclu- sion. The argument is, that because the blessings of redemp- tion are common to all classes and races of true believers, there- fore it follows, of course, that every privilege and grade of church power must be made common to them. But the answer is, that several Bil)le instances themselves show that this consequence does not follow. None here will dispute that the Old Testament church had a gospel ; nor will any deny that its saving blessings were'commou to all Relieving Ilehrew^, though not to all Gentiles. But lo ! the priesthood, the clerical function of the day, was ex- pressly limited to the tribe of Levi ! In Galatians iii. 28 — a pas- sage parallel to the one quoted against me — St. Paul savs : " There is neither Jew nor Greek ; there is neither bond nor free ; there
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is neitlier male nor female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.'* Blessed doctrine! Yet the same ajDOstle says, "I suffer not a woman to teach;" thus excluding from official privilege, on grounds of class, one-half of the "whole Christian world, which he had just declared to be "all one in Christ Jesus." So you see, gentlemen, that the apostle Paul evidently did not beheve in your argument. Miss Antoinette Brown and Mrs. Abby Kelly were precisely with you ; but the apostle Avas not. Again, the ajiostle, in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, rules that no convert who was implicated, before his conversion, in polygamy, must be ordained a presbyter ; for so the best expositors view 1 Timothy iii. 2, and Titus i. 6. Here is another exclusion on grounds of class. Surely no one will argue that these husbands of more than one wife were excluded because they luul heen sin- ners. Had not the apostle himself been a murderer? Or on the grounds that they were stiU living in sin ; for this would also have excluded them from the chxircJi. It is an exclusion on. grounds oj class, and independent of the question of their faith and repentance. Thus we have three instances, confirmed by inspiration itself, showing that the supposed consequence does not hold, and that it is not true that all distinctions of class are abolished as to church office, because they are abolished as to church membership.
But here our opponents resort to an evasion, drawn from the very fact that these instances are confirmed by revelation. They plead: the limitation is right, we admit, in these three cases,, because God made it himself. But man has no right to make any other limitation at all.
Again, I answer, no ; you shall not change your ground. Your argumeiit just now was that an entire community in church office followed from the admitted community in church membership, hy tJie very nature of the case. But I showed you that this did not follow, because God has decided the contrary, in three cases ; and he s-annot do wrong. I claim, therefore, that the argument is mine. I have manifestly taken awaj' your position ; I have removed from under you the very ground on Avhich yoii your- selves placed your conclusion. It is vain to seek another; the case is mine.
I answer, second, that even if it were allowable for you to change your ground, your new ground is not true. It is not
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES. 213
true that tlie cliurcli has no right to place such limitations upon the common claim to church office in cases other than the three which God has made. For she has claimed, and has exercised, this very power on grounds of class, and has been justified in doing so by all the divines and ecclesiastics, certainly hy you. One instance of this was presented by the primitive church, •which, from the very days of the apostles onward, always re- fused to ordain slaves although they freely admitted them to the church. Have you ever heard any one, Mr. Moderator, charge this usage as unscriptural ? Another instance of a hundred and fifty years standing was presented by the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which in all that time never ordained a slave. Yet they were freely admitted to the church member- ship, and during all that time we constantly preached to them that "in Christ Jesus there was neither bond nor free." But we all — ^you, gentlemen, as much as I — exercised and justified the power of limiting the privileges of office from them. Where was then your doctrine, that the universality of the gospel left the church no power to restrain any church office or power from any class ? Where the overtures and demands that the Assem- bly should declare color and race no barrier to ordaining a negro as the spiritual ruler of white men, provided he had the other qualifications ? You did not even demand their ordina- tion as pastors of blacks, and you were right then by the same showing that you are wrong now.
But, Mr. Moderator, there is an evasion at hand here also. It is that the law of the land then gave masters rights over the labor of their servants, and that our allegiance to Ciesar — which is a scriptural duty — then made it obligatory on us not to inter- fere with this secular right. But now Csesar has declared the Africans free. This plea will not do, and for two reasons. All the time, there was a multitude of free negroes in the North and in the South, but no Presbyterian asked that one of. these sliould be made equal to us as teacher and ruler over white men in our church, and south of the Potomac no free black was ordained, so far as I know, even to preach to our servants. The second reason is, that man's spiritual interests are more priceless than his secular ; that the church, the guardian of the former, is in- dependent of all but Christ in caring for them, so that if this right of Christian slaves to preach was sacred and indefeasible
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under the gospel, it was your solemn duty to tell their owners so, and to demand in Christ's name their emancipation, in order that tliey might preach. AVhere then was this high doctrine which is now held up to be so imperative? and where that towering moral courage in defying prejudice and consequences ?
Now, I ask emphatically, what change has taken place in the black race to make them more fit for ruling over white churches than they then were ? Are they any wiser a.ny more religious, any purer, any more enlightened now ? Nay ; the only change is a violent revolution, made by the sword, by which, as every intelligent Virginian knows, they have been only injured in character as in destiny. Hence, I cannot see why an ecclesias- tical policy towards them which was wise and right and scrip- tural then, is not at least as much so now. But it is said, " Then they were by law slaves ; now they are by law free." I reply, does Christ's kingdom wait on the politicians and con- querors of the world, to be told by them how she must adminis- ter her sacred charge ? Where now is that fastidiousness which a little while ago said so loftily that the church was a spiritual commonwealth, and had no concern, jy/Y) or con, with seculars ? I invoke it here ; this is the place for it to assert itself, where I demand for the church the right to carry out still her own scrip- tural polity towards the Africans, as she has practiced it for a hundred and fifty years, justified by all sound Presbyterians North and South, and to pursue the even tenor of her way re- gardless of the decision of the sword and faction ; and not there, where the imposing plea was but a pretext for assailing the dear- est earthly interests of your fellow citizens through a sophistical perversion of our spiritual charter.
The truth is, Mr. Moderator, the doctrine I oppose involves covertly the whole conclusion of the abolitionist. If, as is here argued, membership in Christ's church secures to all, irrespec- tive of class and condition, the indefeasible rio;ht to church of- fice ; and if the civil government imposes on a class of Christians a condition practically inconsistent with their enjoying such spiritual franchise, then that secular order is intrinsically anti- Christian and unrighteous ; for the soul is above the body, eter- nity is more than time, man's spiritual liberties are more inde- feasible than any social relation, and God is above C^Bsar. If this doctrine I opjjose is true now, it was true from 1706 to 1865.
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF XECtROES. 215
The rights of masters, which prevented jou from putting that doctrine in practice, were essentially criminal. The church was continually derelict in not testifying so and preaching abolition. And our holy fathers lived and died in sin. This conclusion is inevitable. Ask Henr}^ "Ward Beecher ; he will tell you that the links of this deduction are adamantine, if 3-our premise, which is his, touching the right of negroes to clerical equality, be granted. Therefore I know that it is false.
But it is urged with great confidence, " If God, by the call of his providence and Spirit, says to a black Christian, Preach, hoT/ can the church dare to forbid him, on the mere ground of the color of his skin?" 7/^ God says to any one, Preach, of course we must not bid him forbear. But not so fast. This short argument assumes several essential things very wide of the truth. In the first place, it is very far from being the same thing, that a given branch of the church, composed of a given people, shall say to an alien whom God may have called to preach, " We do not Avish you to teach and rule us ;" and that they shall say to him, " Preach not at all." Next, it by no means f(;llows that a man, white or black, is called of God because he thinks he is called of God. If I know an^^thing of the doctrine of vocation, as taught by the Scriptures, our constitution, and the great Reformed divines, it includes these truths: that no man's call to preach or rule is valid until the people of God vol- untarily echo it, inviting and electing him to teach and rule them ; that even as the Holy Ghost moves the soul of him whom Christ calls to preach, so the same Spirit moves the hearts of Christ's people to approve and select him ; that the Spirit is as much in the body as in the clergy ; and that his divine voice, as uttered in the two, cannot contradict itself. Now, by what right can any man, l)lack or. white, assume that he is unquestionably commissioned of God to teach and rule in this church, when this church distinctly demvirs that her God, whose Spirit is as much in her heart as in the man most certainly called, has not prompted her to accept and prefer that particular man's teach- ing ? By what right will any man assume that the body of our pious and enlightened laity has rejected God's voice in this thing, and has wickedly mistaken an old caste prejudice for a scriptu- ral disqualification, while the negro — because, I suppose, he has a black skin — shall be assumed as right of course in his aspira-
21G ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGROES
tions ? Tliere is no possible risk, is there, of his mistaiving con- ceit, vanity, hist of power, forwardness, ambition, impudence, for the spiritual impulse to intrude himself upon white Chris- tians ? No one, I ])resunie, will take this ground ; for this would be equivalent to saying that the religious consciousness of a negro, because he is a negro, is a so much truer vehicle of the mind of the Spirit than that of a white man, that the assump- tion of any black candidate for the ministry is better entitled to credit as the voice of the Spirit than the refusal of a whole church of educated, pious, enlightened, white Presbyterians. The force of abolition frenzy could no farther go. No, sir, there is no adequate proof of God's call until the church freely recog- nizes and seconds it. Hence, it is a begging of the question to argue that, when a church intelligently and conscientiously with- holds her call, she forbids him whom God commands to preach.
Let us now briefly review the points established. The uni- versality of gospel blessings to all believers does not carry with it a universal right to church office, as was asserted. God has often restrained the latter on grounds of class or natural dis- tinction where he has conceded the former. God has given to Ms church discretion to restrain it for similar cause in suitable unrevealed instances. The church has in every age exercised this lawful discretion for her own general edification. The case of the negroes among us presents just such an instance where the wise exercise of the scriptural discretion is proper. For, as I have shown, the setting up of l)lack men to rule white Presby- terians is, on every account, not for the church's true edification. Here, it may be added, it would be as mischievous to the souls of the blacks as it is odious to the whites. For instance, how many negroes are there in all the South who would not, in an era of unhealthy excitement and approaching strife of races like this, be utterly spoiled by this elevation ? How many would retain to the end their sobriety, their modesty, their sound discre- tion, under a condition so utterly foreign to their previous ex- periences ?
I am opposed, therefore, to the attempt to establish a clerical equality between the two races, in the same churches and judica- tories, as being bad for us and bad for them. It may be well to attempt an answer to the natural question : "What alternative do you propose ? I reply, that I would first kindly invite and ad-
ECCLESIASTICAL EQUALITY OF NEGKOES. 217
rise the black people to remain as they were, members of our churches and under our instruction and church government; for I am well assured that this would prove best for their true interests. But if they will not be wise enough to agree to this, while I deplore their mistake, I would still attempt to do them all the good possible which can be done without injustice to our church and by righteous means. Then, as the second alterna- tive, I would assist and encourage them to build up a black Presbyterian Church, ecclesiastically independent of, and sepa- rate from, ours, but in relations of friendship and charit}^ To this end I would extend to them ministerial and missionary labor liberally. I would aid them in church building, I would provide schools, separate from our own, for training black men to be pastors of black churches, and I would, if necessary, give ordination to enough men to form a separate presbytery, when enough can be found possessed of constitutional qualifications. But I would make no black man a member of a white session, or Presbytery, or Synod, or Assembly ; nor would I give them any share in the government of our own church, nor any repre- sentation in it. "It is confusion."
PRELACY A BLUNDER/
aEOUXDED ON EEEOXEOUS EXPOSITION.
TWO theories of Christianity prevail iu Christendom which are in fact essentially ojoposite. If one is the gospel of God, then the other cannot be. To him who heartily holds the one, the assertor of the other must be as one who "brings another gospel," and who ought to "be Anathema Maranatha." That the advocates of these incompatible schemes should co-exist, and should have co-existed for three hundred years, in the bosom of the same communion, can only be accounted for by the strin- gency of the political influences which originally dictated the unnatural union, and by the absurdity of that theory of the church which requires its tolerance. The hatred of Queen Elizabeth for the gospel, with what she regarded as her diplo- matic and secular interests, prompted her to coerce the two rehgions into cohal)itation in the state church by the despotic hand of persecution. The blunder of making a visible unity an. essential attribute of the church, where Christ required only a spiritual imity, has betrayed both paiiies into a dread of "the sin of schism," which holds them to the hollow mockery of union. The. one of these plans of salvation may be described "v\T[th sufficient accuracy as the high-prelatic, held by Rome, the Greek Church and the Episcopalian rituahsts. It is often called the theory of "sacramental grace"; not because the other party denies all grace through sacraments, but because the sacrament- arian party makes the sacraments essential to the reception of grace. The dogma of a tactual succession, through prelates, from the apostles, is its corner-stone. This dogma teaches that the apostles transmitted their peculiar office by ordination to the prelatic bishops and metropoUtans ; and with it a pecuhar ydjjcafia of the Holy Ghost, which is conferred in every case of canonical prelatical ordination, by the Lord Jesus Christ, through the
' This article appeared in The SoutJiern Presbyterian Mevietc, January, 1876.
218
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 219
laying on of tlie prelate's hands; making every "priest" tlms ordained a depository of tlie spiritual energy, and every "bishop" (apostle) a "proxy" of the Saviour himself, endued with these gifts, in the same sense in which he was endued with them by his Father. Thus, Dr. Hannnoud, for instance, with the current of prelatists, interprets our Saviour's words, John XX. 21, "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." This ydocaim, transmitted in ordination, includes a sjiiritual superintendence which keeps the clergy orthodox — -and as rep- resented in their head, the Pope, says Rome, infallible — in ex- pounding the gospel to souls. It also enables them to put into the sacraments a supernatural energy of the Spirit, by which they omnipotently work grace, and are not mere means of grace. Rome was accustomed to say in her scholastic nomenclature, that her sacraments wrought saving graces, ex opere operate; by which she seems to have meant, that the manipulation itself effected the gracious result, without any dependence on any state of knowledge, holy desire, penitence, or faith, in the re- cipient ; even as calomel would touch the liver of the patient who supposed that he had taken onlj- a bread pill. The ritualists assert substantially the same view in teaching the baptismal regeneration of an unconscious or sleeping infant by the appli- cation of the water. Rome teaches that her sacraments are so absolutely essential and efficient that no soul can be introduced into a state of grace save by them. The Anglican ritualists say that without the prelatic sacraments the soul is left to the " uncovenanted mercies."
Thus the theory of the gospel dispensation described amounts to this : that Christ's provision for applying his mercy for man consisted simply in his instituting on earth a successive hier- archy as his "proxies," empowered to work, through his sacra- ments, the salvation of submissive participants by a supernatural power, precisely analogous to that by which he enabled Peter to speak in an unknown tongue, and by which Peter and John enabled the lame man to walk.
It is perfectly obvious that if this claim of 'fjunaiia bestowed in prelatic ordination is unfounded; if the only energies of the Holy Spirit now bestowed on men are given to them, not as priests or prelates, but as penitent, believing, praying sinners; if they are given by the Holy Ghost in his own gracious and
220 PKELACY A BLUNDER.
sovereign intercourse Avitli souls, tlirougli no otlier mediator than Christ, and bv tlie means of the word and ordinances in- telligentl}' apprehended and embraced ; if this communion in his grace is as common to the layman as to the clergyman, then the whole scheme of sacramental grace above described is a dream. Then the dependence on that hierarchy and its sacra- ments, working en opere operato, is related to true Christianity precisely as is a fetich or a pagan incantation. It is an attempt to heal the soul by a series of acts of ecclesiastical jugglery. It is not asserted that the transaction carries all this profanity and mischief to every misguided votary. As in so many other in- stances, so here; grace may render men's subjective faith better than their dogmas ; the Holy Spirit may mercifully disarm the destructive points of the evil theory, and turn the soul's atten- tion to the other parts containing an element of truth. We doubt not that many devout minds under this sacramentarian -teaching, embrace, with a true though obscure faith, the saving didatic truths so beautifully taught in the sacraments and in the Scriptures. But they do so in spite of this Gentile error which overlays the doctrine of redemption, not in consequence of it. The theory itself is, essentially, superstition, and not Cliris- uaiiity.
The rival scheme of the application of redemption is that summed up in the words of our Saviour : " Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." The apostle Paul declares it in one word: "It pleased God, by the foolishness oi 2yi"&achliig, to save them that helieve.'" (1 Cor. i. 21.) So in Eom. x. 4-17 : "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, shall be saved. . . . So, then, fcith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." John i. 12 : "As many as received him, to them gave he power [i^o'jalo:^) to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name." EjDh. iii. 17 : Christ "dwells in your hearts hy faith.'" 1 John v. 11, 12 : "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son. He that hath (l'/^-', holds) the Son, hath the life ; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not the life." The pre- vious part of the chapter proves that the holding of the Son is faith on him. But to cite all the proofs of this view would be to repeat nearly the whole of both Testaments. Ps. xix. 7-10 ; cxix. 9, 93, 98, 101, 130; Prov. iv. 13; Isaiah xxxiii. 6, liii. 11;
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 221
Jer. iii. 15 ; Hos. iv. 6 ; Hab. ii. 11 ; 1 John v. 1 ; 1 Pet. i. 23 ; Luke viii. 11; 1 Cor. iv. 15; Joliu viii. 32; James i. IS; John Y. 21 ; XT. 3 ; Acts xiii. 26 ; xx. 32 ; 1 Pet. ii 2. And here, at the ovitset, is an insuperable objection to the scheme of sacra- mental grace, that it is irreconcilable with this universal teaching, repeated in such multifarious forms. Por its constant doctrine is : the Son of God having purchased redemption for his peo- ple b}' his vicarious work, that salvation is actually applied to their souls by the agency of his Spirit, through the means of his word, taught, intelligently apprehended and embraced by faith, without other conditions or media. Hence, all preachers, even inspired evangelists and apostles, instead of being a mediating hierarchy, are "ministers by whom we believed;" themselves par- taking of redemption precisely as the believing layman does. The sacraments are but " means of grace," presenting the truth in symbol, and while greatly instructing and assuring the faith of the believer already in Christ, yet doing it no otherwise than the word also does it. Christ reserves the administration of them to the ministers whom he calls in the church, not on any hierarchical or sacerdotal ground, but simply on grounds of sOza^ca and didactic propriety.
"Which of these theories is the more favorable to priestcraft, priestly assumption, and spiritual tyranny, may be seen without a word. We shall not say that this tendency is the thing which commends the doctrine to all prelatists ; it would be puerile to deny that history shows us a multitude of them using it for a weapon of despotism over souls, and still another multitude of prelatists, less malicious but more romantic, cherishing it at the unconscious promptings of self-importance. It is a line thing when a poor mortal can believe himself the channel of eternal life to his subject fellow-creature — the "proxy" of the Son of God and King of Heaven. The motives which have led the majority of nominal Christians to hold a theory so glaringh^ op- posed to Scripture are complex, but easily detected. On the part of the hierarchy, those motives are lust of power and pride of importance. On the part of the laity, they are the natural tendency to find a concrete object for the instinct of supersti- tious veneration, the terror of the despotism in which the}' have been reared to believe, holding the issues of their salvation or damnation at its option, and, above all, the intense craving of
222 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
the sinful heart, remorseful jet impenitent, for a j^alpable mode of reconciliation to God Avithont the prior necessity of the sin- cere crucifixion of self and sin. As long as men are weak, su- perstitious, depraved, and conscious of guilt, saeramentarianism must have abundant followers. «
This 23relatic theory is founded on the following assumption as its corner-stone : that episcopal ordination confers the sj^irit- Tial gifts, or yanlaimza, of spiritual powers, instead of merely re- cognhlng ministerial qualifications and conferring official title" And this assumption, in its turn, rests upon the false claim that the acts of apostles laying on hands to confer the Holy Ghost' as in Acts viii. 17, 2 Tim. i. 6, are the prelates' j)recedents and warrants for it. The especial object of this discussion is to overthrow this false foundation. If it can be shown that this employment of these passages of Scripture is essential to the prelatic theory of orders and sacramental grace, and that pre- latists do in fact so usurp them, and if it can then be evinced that these Scriptures relate to a wholly different subject when properly understood, and have nothing to do with scriptural ordination to clerical office, then the whole system of prelacy is effectually undermined.
I. Our first position, then, is, that the advocates of sacra- mental grace do in fact usurp those passages in which the ydncaiw. of working supernatural "signs" is conferred or pro- mised as the authority for their false scheme of ordination to their so-called priesthood. If they did not, they would have no show of Scripture proof-texts whatever to support the wondrous fabric. This position must be supported by citations from their own authorities, ancient and modern. But as the j^i'elatic scheme was the gift of Kome to the modern churches, we ^dll begin with her most authoritative standards, the Decrees and Catechism, of the Tridentlne Council. First, In the Catechism, Part II., Chap, vii.. Quest. 25, The administration of the "sacrament of orders" belongs to the bishop, "which it will be easy to demonstrate by the authority of the sacred Scriptures, most certain tradition," etc. The texts cited here (such as Acts vi. 5, 6; xiv. 22; 2 Tim. i. 6) show that Trent asserts this be- cause she holds bishops to be apostles, and because she usurps these texts erroneously. Then, in the decrees concerning the "sacrament of orders," Session 23d, she proceeds thus :
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 223
"1. Sacrifice aud priestlaood are so coujoiued by the ordination of God, that •each has existed under all dispensations .... [This New Testament priesthood] has been instituted bj' the same Lord, our Saviour, and the sacred Scriptures show, as the tradition of the Catholic Church has always taught, that the power of consecrating, sacrificing, and distributing his body and blood, and also of re- mitting sins, has been delivered to the apostles and their successors in the priest- hood. "
"IIL It is plain from the testimony of Scripture, apostolic tradition, and the unanimous couseut of the fathers, that grace is conferred by holy orders, which are solemnized by words and exterior signs, " etc.
"Canon IV. If anybody says that the Eoly Olwst is not fjiven hy lioly orders, and that accordingly the bishops have no ground to say [to the recipient],' i2e- ceive ye tlie Holy Ghost, ' or that the character is not impressed through this sacra- ment, etc., let him be accursed."
Rom. Catechism, De Ordine, Chap. VII., Sec. 28:
"But it is certain that, although the sacrament of orders, as before stated, re- gards very greatlj- the advantage and beauty of the chiarch, yet it also works in the soul of him who is initiated into sacred things, the grace of sanctification, by which he is rendered fit and able for the right performance of his duty, and for the administration of the sacraments, just as a person, bj' the grace of baptism " [baptismal regeneration,] "is fitted for receiving the other sacraments. It is plain that another grace also is ascribed to this sacrament," [ordination,] "viz. : the spe- cial power which relates to the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, which power is in the priest, full and perfect, so that he alone is able to make the body and blood of our Lord, " etc.
Let us pause here to introduce one proof of Rome's misun- derstanding. She expressly teaches that this gift of the Holy Ghost conferred in ordination, and this character impressed, are not the illumination and sanctification ^vhich make men believers and saints. For Rome holds that men can " fall from grace," while they can never lose this gift and character, Rome holds that the ordained man may be all his life unconverted, and still he has the whole gift and character. Now, then, if they are not saving grace, what are they ? The only other kind of ydotfjiia. of the Holy Ghost known in Scripture is that gift of supernatural tongues and signs which Judas had, which was conferred some- times on females and children, and which 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2, de- scribes as compatible with sjiiritual death. But the texts which Rome quotes to sustain her dogma clearly betray the same thing. They are mainly and foremost, John xx. 21, 22 ; 1 Tim. iv. 14 ; 2 Tim. i. 6, with some others not even apparently rele- vant. But on these three she "rings the changes" throughout the chapters, and especially on John xx. 21, 22.
Before we examine these texts more nearly, let us also look at the doctrine of the Anglican Chiirch. In the form for the con- secration of bishops, the following words are addressed to the
224 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
candidate by the presiding bishop, as he and his assessors lay their hands upon his head :
"■Receive the Holy Oliost for the office and -work of a bishop in the church of God, noio committed unto iliee hy the imposition of our hands, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "
Then follows the exact language of 2 Tim. i. 6. And one of the Scriptures directed to be read before the consecration is John XX. 21. The Anglican Church has learned her lesson from Eome accurately in this matter. The same formula of words is also put into the bishop's mouth for ordaining a "priest," along with an alternative which is less unscriptural. Bishop Cum- mins, in ordaining Bishop Cheney, refused to employ the un- scriptural language of Eome, because he had repudiated her theory of sacramental grace. He discloses the interesting fact, that it Avas not until the twelfth century that these superstitious words were finally established in the Romish formularj, and that, to this day, they are not used in that of the Greek Church. It required all the ignorance, superstition, and priestly impos- ture of the dark ages to prepare the way for this usurj^ation of the teachings of Scripture.
Let us now see whether the three texts support the dogma of such a " gift of the Holy Ghost," actually conferred by a pre- late's hands in our day, in ordinary consecration of a minister, or whether they do not belong to wholly another matter. 1 Tim. iv. 14, and 2 Tim. i. 6, are parallel verses in part. The first reads, " Neglect not the gift {'/ji<icao.a) that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, Avitli the laying on {juza k-cOiaeco:;) of i.he hands of the presbytery." The second, "Stir up the gift of God which is in thee, hy the putting on {uc<\ tYj- iTnOsaeojz) of my hands." The interpretation which we shall establish at a more appropriate stage for these verses is, that the latter refers to a time Avhen Paul, by his peculiar, apostolic power, and with the laying on of his hands, conferred on Timothy a ydpcaita of super- natural working, just like that he conferred on the discir)]£s at Ephesus (Acts xix. 6), and that the former contains a double re- ference to this same endowment by Paul and to Timothy's regu- lar presbyterial ordination to office as a minister, the two having probably been near or at the same time.
Let us now look at John xx. 21, 22, whioh prelatists evidently regard as the mainstay of their dogma. Christ is now risen.
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 225
Meeting ten of the apostles at niglit, lie sa3s, " Peace be unto you ; as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Heceiie ye the Holy GJiost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." To the Protestant these words are j^lain enough — Christ is God-man, Redeemer, High Priest, Sacrifice, King and Intercessor to his people. These offices he devolves on nobody, but holds them always. But he condescended for a time to be "sent" by his Father, in the humble office of a preacher in the church. This office he now devolves on his twelve apostles. They, as his heralds and ministers, are to pro- claim and explain to mankind the terms on which sins are par- doned by him, " for who can forgive sins but God only ? " But as they would enjoy the guidance of inspiration, their publica- tion of their Master's forgiveness would be authoritative, and would be ratified by him in heaven. (Compare Matt. xvi. 19.) For thus setting up the new dispensation, the apostles needed supernatural assistance, and it had been promised to them be- fore the crucifixion. (John xvi. 13.) They were, at the proper time, to be inspu'ed. They would also need to be accompanied by some supernatural attestations. These also the Holy Ghost would work by and in them. These gifts Christ now ensures to them by a significant act, while he repeats the promise as near its fulfilment. That the gift of the Holy Ghost which he now bestowed was the very same exercised by the apostles in the day of Pentecost, is made as clear as a sunbeam by Christ's own words as recorded by Luke, Acts i. 4, 5, " Depart not from Je- rusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, ichich ye have Jiecu'd of me. For John truly baptized with water ; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence." When did they hear this promise from him ? Evidently on the night described by John xx. 21, 22. Thus that gift of the Spirit, whose bestowal was then symbolized by the act of breathing upon them, is identified with the effusion of the day of Pente- cost. What that was all know (Acts ii. 2-4), a miraculous in- spiraiion.
Thus when prelatists claim this promise of John xx. 21, 22, as the foundation of their doctrine of orders and supposed power to work sacramental grace, they claim what Christ applied to a
Vol.. U.— 35.
"226 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
totally dijfferent matter from ordination : the bestowal of super- natiiral powers of tlio Holy Ghost. Onr charge is made out by their capital text.
The next proof-text quoted by Kome and by the Anglican ■divines is Acts vi. 3, the appointment of the first recorded dea- cons: "Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among jou seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdon, whom we may appoint over this business." Then (verses 5, 6) the multi- tude chose, and the apostles set them apart by laying on of hands and prayer. To the plain Protestant reader it would seem that this instance is totally irrelevant to prove that ordination con- fers a gift of the Holy Ghost. For the possession of that gift by the seven men w^as the prerequisite qualification for ordina- tion which, because the gift was already possessed, conferred simply the diaconal office. But stay : Rome wishes to imply in spite of this that the apostles' hands conferred the ydjuaim. Chrysostom argues expressly that Stephen is not heard of as ex- ercising that gift until after this laying on of hands, when (verse 8) he " did great wonders and miracles among the people." The interpretation is false, but it none the less establishes the charge v\'ith which we set out, that prelacy erroneously builds uj^on these instances of supernatural gifts, when in fact they belong not to the matter of ordination to the ministry at all as results thereof. It may be added here, that the Pentecostal church being adorned with many instances of these extraordinary gifts among its lay- men, the apostles deemed it proper, for the time, to take the deacons from among these laymen thus honored of God. The occasion of their choice was a threatened faction in the church, and they washed the present appointment to carry universal con- fidence. But wdien we turn to 1 Tim. iii. 8, etc., where we find the regular qualifications for the diaconal office defined for cus- tomary times, the power of tongues and miracles is not heard of among them.
Our next proof that the prelatists have actually built their theory on the mistaken foundation is also historical. Every intelHgeut reader knows the monstrous lengths to which the abuse of purchasing ordination to clerical office went in the Eomish and Anglican churches. It was the glory of the ad- ministration of the great Pope Hildebrand, Gregory YII., to resist this abuse, but it has never been conquered. Now, prelacy
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 227
lias given it a name which exactly and technically separates it from all other sins. That name is simony. It is confessedly taken from Simon the Samaritan, usually known as Simon Magus, in that act which is described in Acts viii. 14-21. Philip the evangelist, though supernaturally qualified for preaching by the ydmaaa which he had before he was appointed deacon, and though comj)etent to convert and baptize people, yet Avas not an apostle ; and hence ha could not confer these extraordinary gifts by laying on hands. Hence, the church newly planted in Sa- maria as yet lacked that honor, Peter and John, apostles, were sent down to confer it. Those on whom they laid their hands received these visible jrt'pz(r/<a'r«'. Doubtless they spake vnih. unknown tongues or prophesied, for the result was obvious to Simon's observation as a spectator (verse 18). The same ambi- tion which has moved so many an assertor of prelacy since to claim this peculiar apostolic power moved him. He proposed to give them money, saying, " Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost." Note the thing Simon craved was not the ability to speak with tongues or work a miraculous sign. Possibly he had received this as a reprobate Judas received similar powers. He desired the ability to confer this poiuer on others. And this criminal proposal, so perfectly defined by Simon's own words, is precisely the thing which Rome and the Anghcan Church have selected to denomi- nate the sin of procuring clerical orders by money. The fact is evinced jei more clearly by another trait. The canon law of Eome declares that an ordination procured by simony is null and void ah initio, and all priestly acts done by the man thus ordained are utterly invalid. The Hildebrands, more righteous than the Ano;lican dignitaries, actuallv enforced this law. The scriptural basis of it is the words of Peter, ^^TJiou hast neither 'part nor lot in this matter.'''
Thus prelacy shows that in its apprehension the imposition of hands by Peter and John on these Samaritan converts, and the consequent possession of the extraordinary japzc/z^ was a precedent and a basis for their doctrine of orders. The dis- closure is complete. Prelacy deems that when a man purchases of the bishops the powers conferred as they claim in Episcopal ordination, he commits the identical sin attempted by Simon. JBut did these apostles then ordain those members of the new
228 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
Samaritan cliureli to clerical office? Obviously tliey did not, but did wholly another thing : conferred on some laymen, and j)os,sibly women, a j<^/)z(r/<a' of supernatural powers. Thus the sheer usvirpation and misconception of the Scripture b}' the prelatist is again disclosed.
Our next testimony is even a more express betrayal of the blunder. It is from the Parainesis of Dr. Hammond, Qnere hth : " Xe!f)ode(Tca is answerable to that imposition of hands in ordination so often mentioned in the New Testament .... as generally when hi/ that laying on of hands it is said they received the Holy Ghost ; where the Holy Ghost contains all the yaoiaft/i.Ta required for the pastoral function, and also signifies power from on high," etc.
Dr. Hammond here betrays the fact that his prelatic error was carried by him through the whole New Testament. Quoth he, " Generally by that laying on of hands," [scilicet, ordination to clerical office,] "it is said they received the Holy Ghost." But it is never said of any ordination to clerical office that the clergyman received the Holy Ghost from his ordination ; never once within the lids of the New Testament. But hear him again : ^'Of this ceremony, thus used'" (meaning imposition of hands for ordination) "several mentions there are. First, Acts viii. 17, where, after Philip the deacon had preached and baptized in Samaria, Peter and John the apostles came from Jerusalem to perfect the work, and laid hands on them [not on all that were baptized, but on some special persons whom they thought meet] and they received the Holy Ghost."
This i^ious Anglican prelatist thus declares expressly the same mistake which his predecessors in error had made when they supposed that the sin of obtaining ordination by a bribe was just the sin which Simon Magus committed.
To show that this was the traditionary and original ground of prelacy, we will now go backwards, and cite two examples of the same false exposition from the most learned of the Greek fathers. Theophylact, on 2 Tim. i. 6, gives as the equivalent of the words, ota iTudkanoz roju yttt>o)v [xo'j, this gloss : 7'oDr iarc, ore CE lyzciJOTovouv irrcaxoTZov. He thus expressly confounds the ap- pointment to clerical office with an apostle's bestowal of spiritual gifts. Chrysostom, on Acts vi. 8, says : " See how one man (Stephen) was preeminent among those seven, and held a pri-
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 229
macy. For although then- ordination was common among them, jet this man derived a larger grace. But before this ordination he wrought no signs, biit only after he was manifested. This was designed to teach them that grace alone was not sufficient, but that ordination is requisite in order that the access of the Spirit may take place."
It is still the same obstinate misconception : that ordination is the bestowal of supernatural gifts, instead of the recognition of gracious qualifications for clerical duties.
The prelatical conception of an application of redemption ■exclusively by sacramental grace has been thus carefully ex- j)lained, and its foimding, by its own architects, upon an imagi- nary scriptural basis has been evinced, because so many, even of Protestants, fail to conceive it aright. We repeat, then, the prelatist supposes that the grace of Christ is applied to the soul, not as the Bible teaches, by the Holy Spirit, through the word rationally apprehended and embraced by faith, but by the Holy Sj)irit working miraculously, without the truth, but through a priestly and sacramental hand, just as when, through a miracle- worker, he casts out a demon or heals a leper. In the eyes of the jDrelatist, ordination is not the conferring of a didactic and ruling ministration j^roceeding on the candidate's previous possession of natural and gracious qualitications, but it is a miracle wrought upon the candidate by the hand of an apostle, enabling him in turn to work certain other miracles. When the priest, clothed with this endowment, consecrates the eucharist, he truly works a miracle, then and there converting bread and wine into the real flesh and blood of Christ, and conveying by them supernatural and spiritual life into the souls of the persons in whose mouths he puts the elements. So, when he applies the water of baptism to an infant, he works another miracle by it ; he quickens the soul thereby which was born dead in sin. In a word, souls are brought into a state of salvation, not by a rational, scriptural, and spiritual faith on the gospel, but by a miracle-working power, deposited with the priest and dispensed by his sacramental forms. And the deposition of that power by the apostle-bishop is precisely a case like that of the com- munication of tongues and powers by the apostles' hands in the book of Acts.
This last point, we repeat, is imi:)erfectly apprehended, even
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by many intelligent opponents of prelacy. They cio not grasp here exactly what prelacy means. One cause of this imperfect apprehension is, that they see these same prelatists claiming these instances of the imposition of hands as precedents for their " sacrament of confirmation," or, as the Episcopalians have it, "rite of confirmation." It seems unlikely to our friends that prelatists should be giiilty of the inconsistency of claiming the same set of cases for two different uses. We reply, first, that if they appreciated the nature of prelatical logic more justly, it would not appear to them at all strange that prelatists should use the same cases in two inconsistent ways. But second, from the prelatists' point of view, if once its error be assumed, the inconsistency is less than at first thought appears. According to them, only a bishop, an actual apostle, can ordain a priest, and he only can confirm a convert. When the first apostles con- ferred ja'pzo'/<a'rn' of spiritual powers by the laying on of hands, those powers were numerous, and varied with the different needs of the recipients. Some received tongues, some the powers of healing, some prophecy, some casting out demons. So when the apostle (bishop) ordains some, and confirms others, he bestows different supernatural powers. To the one he gives the power of regenerating infants with water and of making a mass ; to the other the power of resisting the flesh and the devil. But, in either case, it is a x^P^^^/^^ through the apostolic hands ; a supernatural endowment through the tactual means. This is the common point of union for these paints of their scheme.
In dismissing this point, we may remark, once for all, that if our view of these impositions of hands be sustained, then all scriptural ground for the rite of confirmation will be as com- pletely removed as for prelatic orders and sacramental grace.
Another source of defective apprehension concerning the real natui'e of the prelatic scheme, is the studied intermixture which they make of their real doctrine with certain scriptural truths concerning gracious qualifications for the pastoral office. They so mingle the scriptural and the superstitious as to throw dust into Protestant ejes and to obscure certain plain distinctions. True, the two schemes of a ministerial or a sacerdotal work are incompatible ; but prelatists are not troubled by logical incon- sistencies. Thus, at one time, when descanting on the jo'p/o'- jxara bestowed in orders, they speak in the most edifying way
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of the integrity of spirit, spiritual discernment, and biblical knowledge, Avliicli enter into our Protestant conception of the '■ aptness to teach." To us it seems that the only channels by •which these things come from the Holy Ghost must be study and prayer. We can scarcely 'raise our Protestant minds to the height of the conception that our prelatic brethren should ap- prehend even these as oozing through a prelate's fingers into a priest's skull. We fail to grasp their meaning. Then, to com- plete the confusion of our minds and the intermixture of pastoral qualifications with supernatural, sacerdotal powers, they take us to such passages as 1 Cor. xii. 28, etc., and Rom. xii. 6. We are reminded that the apostolic, prophetic and miracle-working (o'jva/^£^c) offices are here described as "set in the church," alongside of the pastoral, the ruling, and the diaconal. They show us the y^afiiaimro. xo^epvijauo:: side by side with the yaoiaiiMza iatxaroju. They intimate to us that as the latter endowment must have been bestowed through the supernatural power of an apos- tle, so the former, so familiarly associated with it, must have been also. And thus they would have us jump to the prelatical conclusion that the pastoral qualification in our day, as well as the first age, is conferred by the tactual succession.
The trick here is obvious to a little reflection. It consists in assuming that the xocpiffpioc was a specific thing always, namely, some endowment of spiritual power conferred by imposition of the apostles' hands, and distinct always from those " graces of the Holy Spirit " which characterize the saint, whether laj'man or clergyman, as a believer. But in fact, the word yi'iinajia, in the usage of the New Testament, is general, almost as general as its congener, y/j-ii^Z- The common idea of both words is that of gratuity, bestowing without price. The only difierence be- tween them is, that while xo-'n:, denotes the generous and disin- terested affection in God (or his child), yaotntia signifies some- thing bestowed, the expression of that afiection. The latter word is still a general one. In Rom. v. 15, 16, justification through Christ is called a yd(n(Tna. In Rom vi. 23, eternal life is called ydcnffim. In Rom. xi. 29, electing love is called ydocaim. In 1 Cor. i. 7, utterance and knowledge are spoken of as yaolaiw-a. In 1 Cor. vii. 7, Christian continence is called a ydocajw.. 1 Cor. xiii. plainly implies that, in the light of the last verse of the pre- ceding chapter, faith, hope and charity are yaoioimra. Thus^
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anything with which God endues a Christian out of his un- bought kindness is, in this sense, a ^'c^pzcTyuo'. The word is, beyond doubt, used a few times to describe those supernatural endowments, and so is the word ocopsd, as in Acts viii. 20. When, therefore, qualifications for pastoral or diaconal service are called by the apostles yaoiaaaxa, by that term alone nothing is taught as to the channel of their bestowal ; all that is taught is that they have their source in the grace of Christ. To find whether they are attained in any " sacrament of holy orders " or not, we must look elseAvhere in the Scriptures.
Making these obvious discriminations, then, we remove the dust from our eyes. We are able to disembarrass the matter of this question, Whence the pastoral qualifications? whose reality in true ministers and elders we all admit. We separate the question, whether ordination by the modern prelatic bishop confers any power to work sacramental grace. And we detect the hollowness of that claim by tracing it to its genesis in a sheer misconception of the apostohc history.
II. We are thus led to the second department of our discus- sion, for which the wa}^ has designedly been prepared. We have repeatedly stated the postulate in the first branch, that the instances of the apostles' conferring supernatural ja'p/cywara by laying on their hands have nothing w^hatever to do ^ith the substance of ordination to ordinary church ofiices. It remains now to establish that postulate. We have shown that prelacy is compelled to assume the opposite as one of the foundation stones of its theory, so that when our position is established that the- ory is overthrown.
Other lines of argument against it have been successfully fol- lowed. The claim of an " apostolic succession," in the sense of sacramental grace, is utterly demolished by proving that there are no apostles in the world ; that there have been none since the death of the apostle John, as in the nature of the case it is impossible there should be. The apostolic office proper was necessarily temporary, because it could only be filled bv men who enjoyed the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; who possessed the gift of working palpable miracles ; avIio had " seen the Lord Christ ;" who had " companied with the eleven all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up
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from them, and so could be a -vvituess with them of his resurrec- tion."
This figment of " apostolic succession " is destroyed again "by showing that the thing has no existence on earth to whicli they claim to succeed. When we ask the early prelatic church, the Latin, the Greek, and the Anglican Cathohc : To ichat haye your prelates succeeded ? The uniyersal answer is : " To priest- hood and sacrifice"; to the mediating functions of a hierarchy. The succession is that, or it is nothing;. But since Christ's ascension there is neither priest nor sacrifice on earth. The true apostles were not priests in the prelatic sense, and had no atoning sacrifice. There is no altar nor priest on eai-th. This line of refutation has been pursued by Dr. Thomas E. Peck, among others,^ with irresistible perspicuity and force.
Again, the claim of apostolic succession in the Anglican Church has been historically refuted by showing this fatal chasm among almost a score of others : that during the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors, the succession was filled by the crown, and not by the episcopate. And the persons wearing the crown were rebels against the Lord Jesus Christ, liyiug in open sin ; if not infidels, friends rather of popery than of the church of Christ, and uniformly filling the succession on grounds of choice not spiritual or Christian, but wholly secular and usually wicked and selfish. The pretended election of a bishop by his Chapter was under a Conge iTellre, which contained the single name for which the electors were compelled to yote by the yague but urgent terrors of the statute of " Proiinunirer The conse- cration which followed by the hands of three prelates appointed in the same anti-Christian manner was obyionsly, as the pre- tended " creation of a bishop," a farce too hollow to impose on any sane mind. Hildebrand, the great bulwark of Middle Age prelacy, utterly refused to recognize the yalidity of such a farce when attempted by the Emperor of Germany.
Again, the scheme of sacramental grace is refuted by the doc- trine of the gospel in the Old Testament. If the two Testa- ments contain the same coyenant of grace, then salyation under both must be substantially by the same means and agencies. For then the two Testaments contain the same religion and the same salyation. But that this is so is evinced by these among
1 In The Southern Presbyterian Eevieic of July, 1872.
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otlier facts. Botli Testaments have the same Mediator. Both suspend salvation practically npon faith on him. Both promise precisely the same redemption from the same evils. The very ordinances which distinguish the Old Testament from the New foreshadowed the gospel truths, more clearly taught in the latter. But under the Old Testament no sacrament saved souls ex opere oj)enito. There was no regeneration by circumcision parallel to the pretended baptismal regeneration of prelacy ; but if the Jew became a " breaker of the law his circumcision was made uncir- cumcision, and he was a Jew who was one inwardly, and circum- cision was that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter." "All those fathers were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Bock which followed them ; and that Bock was Christ. But with many of them God was not well pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. . . . Now these things weT'e our- examples^ Then no salvation by sacramental grace is promised to us in the New Testament, " Wherefore, let him that thinketh he standeth [upon this prelatic foundation], take heed lest he fall." (1 Cor. X.) "Abraham's faith was imputed to him not in. circumcision but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which, he had yet being uncircumcised." Such was the meaning of an Old Testament sacrament. But he is still the exemplar to us *' who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abra- ham." (Bom. iv. 11, 12). To him therefore who understands aright the relation between the Old Testament and the New, prelacy is impossible.
But our purpose is to pass hastil}^ over these more famihar topics of refutation, and to establish the correct view touching these x^piffj-iara conferred by the apostles' hands, which pre- lacy endeavors unwarrantably to press into its service. We do this because they are less understood, and the doctrine of them needs exphcation, even to many Protestant minds.
We hold, then, that Christ by his Spirit bestowed these super- natural powers on his apostles and cei'tain others for a tempo- rary purpose. That purpose cannot be more accurately stated than in the language of Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 22 ) : " Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that beheve, but to them that
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believe not." Compare Mark xvi. 15-18 : " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. . . . And these signs shall follow them that l>elieve : in my name they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues," etc. (See also 1 Cor. xiv. 14, 19; Acts. iv. 29, 30; v. 12 ; Heb. ii. 4.) The fact of the resurrection is the comer-stone of the whole gospel pro- mise. But the credence of an unbelieving world to that most surprising event was to be gained by the testimony of the apos- tles as eye-witnesses. The world was invited to commit its im- mortal interests to the " say-so " of twelve men, who were but lucojzac, and even unlearned and obscure in the main, asserting a most extraordinary fact ! Manifestly, when they first stood up before an unprepared and unbelieving world, it was absolutely essential that God should sustain their credibility by some su- pernatural attestations. He did this accordingly by enabling them, from the day of Pentecost onward, to exhibit manifesta- tions of divine power, palpable to the senses and of undisputable force. The legitimate effect on men's reason was seen in the conversion of the three thousand.
But twelve men could not preach everywhere. Therefore it was desirable that others should be endued with the power of exhibiting these divine " signs." Notice now the consistency and wisdom of the divine plan here. If any human agency was employed to communicate to others than the twelve these pow- ers, that agency was the twelve themselves, and they were ap- pointed to do it by an obvious, visible action. To this agree the best expositors, ancient and modern, including the prelatic. This, indeed, is their ground for restraining all ordaining and confirming acts to their bishops, whom they deem apostles. And the reason why the power of working " signs " was derived by others only from the twelve w^as, that they xoere the ajpjpo'inted witnesses to the resurrection ichose testimony needed supj^ort, and received support from the signs. Thus, through Peter's agency, the power of speaking with new tongues came to the family of CorneHus. (Acts x. 44.) Let us represent to ourselves a young child of the centurion exercising indisputably before us this su- pernatural gift. It demonstrates the fact that God has here intervened But for what ? That boy is no competent eye-wit- ness to the resurrection ! But he can say that it was throiTgh Peter's agency h^was enabled to exhibit this sign, and Peter is
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one of those eje-wituesses. Thus the endo-oTnerit of the boj re- flects back its evidence upon Peter the witness, whose credibihty is all-important to the propagation of the gospel. Again, let us suppose the young evangehst Timothy endued with this x^P- iGixa by the laying on of Paul's hands, going forth to a heathen village to proclaim the resurrection of Christ and to exhibit his *' signs." The question immediately arises, To wliat does this divine attestation bear relation ? Timoth}- answers. To Christ's resurrection. But was Timothy an authentic eye-witness of the fact ? Xo ; he does not pretend to be. But he can testify that it was Paul who bestowed this power of working " signs," and Paid claimed to have actually seen the Lord in glory after his resurrection. Thus, in a word, it was best that the ability of others to exhibit the " signs " should visibly proceed from the twelve, because it was to sustain tJie testimony of the ticelve that the " signs " were needed.
But the necessity was temporary. By the time that the last of the apostles and their converts had passed off the stage of life the attitude of the new dispensation before the world was greatly changed. The civilized world was now dotted over vnih. churches. See, for instance. Bom. xv. 19. The canon of Scrip- tm-e was complete. The effects of the gospel in the renewal and sanctification of souls were now visible to every nation. When at first the twelve unknown men stood uj5 before a world all un- behevinsf to claim belief for the astoundinsr fact, a miraculous support of their credibihty was absolutely needed. Without it the credence of mankind could not have been reasonably or justly claimed. But now this species of support to the great central facts was no longer necessary. The world now had, in place of the few original eye-witnesses, a countless midtitude of witnesses at second hand, but still honest witnesses. It had the historical attestations of the recent j^ast to a multitude of mira- cles, the authenticity of all of which could not be impugned. Mankind now had the completed Scriptures, with aU their self- evidencing light, and the witness of the Spirit in the called. And above all, they had the divine results of the gospel in paganism overthroAvn and souls sanctified under their own inspection — a kind of evidence whose stream has widened and deej)ened to our day. The same necessity for supernatural " signs " now no longer existed, and God, who is never wasteful in his expedients,
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witlidrew tliem. Henceforward the churcli was to conquer the belief of the world by its example and teachings alone, energized by the illumination of the Holy Ghost.
Finally, miracles, if they became ordinary, would cease to be miracles, and would be referred by men to customary law.
The good sense of both Chrysostom and Augustine led them in some places to teach this view of the matter with remarkable distinctness, although they both, in other places, inconsistently assert the validity of post-apostolic and even contemporary mir- acles.
Chrys., in Acts, Vol. III., 65 : "On thjs account, ;j;n'p/a'/<a'rar were given at the beginning even to the unworthy, for the early church had need of this support for the sake of (sustaining) faith. But now these ja'p/o'/mror are not bestowed even on the worthy." Hom. in Cor. : " The fact that signs do not occur now is no proof at all that they did not occur then, because then they were necessary and now they are not." Aug. De Vera Eelig., c. 47 : *' For since the Catholic Church is spread and founded through the whole globe, those miracles have not been allowed to continue to oiu' times, lest the mind should continu- ally demand something visible, and mankind, who, when the miracles Avere novelties, were all on fire about them, should be- come callous by means of their customariness."
Such being the purpose of these peculiar xapiajxara^ it was reasonable that there should be no regular connection whatever between them and the ministry as an office. They might, in many cases be connected with that office, and in many other cases they might be bestowed upon laymen, as in 1 Cor. xiv. 5, or on a child, as in Acts x. 44, or on women, as in Acts xxi. 9, They might even be exercised by an ungodly man (see 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2), and yet might have their effect as signs. But neither, child, nor female, nor unrenewed man, was allowed to hold any episcopal or presbyterial office known to the New Testament. (See 1 Tim. iii. 6 ; ii. 12 ; iii. 9.) Hence it is manifest that the imposition of hands, conferring these jo'/jzo'/iarr or of signs, could not have been ordination.
The general evidence in favor of this position will be seen to be in its consistency with the whole history of the apostolic church and the teachings of its founders. When the scheme is viewed dispassionately in this light, it will appear satisfying in
238 PEELACY A BLUNDER.
its coherency. Anotlier general evidence in its favor is, that it gives a satisfactory and consistent sohition to the vexed question, when and how miracles ceased out of the primitive church. That all these supernatural signs would vanish while the church was still on earth was clearly predicted by Paul : " AVh ether prophecies, they shall fail " (not fail of fulfilment, but the poAver of uttering them by divine warrant was to be withdrawn, xazajiyicadac) ; " whether tongues, they shall cease." But Jwio long they endured after the apostles' death is still greatly de- bated. Home claims, from her prelatic false premises, that the church still enjoys these j«/)!'o'/<a'r«' of miracles. The intelligent reader is familiar with her " Iving wonders," even in this dav. And Rome is herein far more consistent than the high Anglican prelatist. If the bishops are literal apostles, holding their very office by succession ; if ordination is still that very yiipodiaia to convey supernatural powers ; if the sacramental performances of the priest are, every one of them, exercises of that very power, and every baptism and " sacrifice of the altar " is literally the exertion of the very same vapwixa by which men who had re- ceived this yzciiodza'ta of old spake with tongues and healed dis- eases, which is precisely their theory ; if the very work of the priest for his charge is to make the sacramental application of the ghostly powers of redemption to their souls by his personal power of ydncajia instead of being the rational, didactic minis- ter of their eifectual calling by the word and Spirit ; then this same priest ought to be expected, from time to time, to exhibit this other fruit of his ydncafxa — miracles. The man who has the supernatural power to quicken the dead soul of an infant with water, any hour of the day, and to make a divine sacrifice out of a piece of bread every Sunday and saint's day, ought to be expected to show ns the easier miracles of an inspired pre- diction, and a Tartar or Chinese sermon, and a case of paralysis cured by his word, at least now and then. Why does he not ? It would be very satisfactory ! And the apostle who is able by the touch of his fingers to manufacture us one of those stupen- dous miracle-workers every time he " consecrates a priest," ought to be able to endow us a few holy virgins, like Philip's four daughters, to speak with tongues. Why is he so prodigal of the former sjDecies of manufacture and so sting}' of the latter? We stubborn Protestants are greatly in need of some such "signs"
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i;o establisli our faitli in the prelatic gospel. Why do not the AngUcau Cathohcs give us some, like the French popish clergy ? for somehow the o'jvdav.z "^Tonght hx the ritualists at " the font and the altar" with water and bread and wine seem not to he convincing. The children that are "now regenerated" do not remain regenerate long enough for us to find it out, but go on, fi'om the first, to exhibit the same waywardness, innate love of lies, carnality, and devotion to "the world, the flesh and the devil," with our unfoi-tunate little ones who are ahens fi-om the rituahstic Israel ; and if the former ever become Christians they have to be converted in precisely the same Protestant fashion — " by the foolishness of preaching." The prelatic communicants, who feed on the " real presence " at " the altar," thus literally .eating and drinking spiritual life, as they would have us beheve, go so straight from "the altar" back to "dead works" in so many cases, that our eyes are not quick enough to see the change, and we remain skeptical about the " altar s " working any d'jwla-:^ for them. And we have to ascribe the piety of the many pious rituahsts rather to that onodiciim of " the foohshness of preach- ing " which they still get in spite of the altar. Thus the papists who stand to their error consistently, by giving us all the kinds of d'jud/a::; still, are much wiser than the "Anglican Catholics."
But another emliarrassment is about the reputed miracles of the third and fourth centuries. The " Fathers " gravely detail them in great numbers. The great Augustine, in his sermons on the martyr Stephen, for instance, relates some wonderfid things wrought at his tomb. Ambrose was a stout assertor of miracles wrought by his Milan relics. The learned Jerome was a devout believer in the miracles of his hero, the monk Anthony. What to do with these stories occasioned in the last century a stout debate in the Anglican Church. Dr. Conyers Middleton was rather inclined to treat them all as so much "gammon." The famous Bishop Warburton and the Dodwells, on the other hand, argued that Middleton's spirit, if consistently indulged, would equally impugn the apostolic miracles themselves. For, said they, if the authentic Fathers may not be admitted as suf- ficient, though uninspired, testimony to historical events occurring not long before their day in their own country, it will be hard to show on what plea greater authenticity is to lie claimed for Mark and Luke. The best solution of this difiicultv is suggested
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by our account of these yafnaixaza of supernatural powers. If the twelve could confer them, and nobody else, then they would continue to the end of the second generation of Christians. The apostle John might have conferred them on some favored young convert in the ninth or tenth decade after the Christian era, for to the latter date this apostle lived. The recipient might have lived, like the aged Polycarp, far into the second century ; so that until that time the occurrence of a genuine ar^azlov in the church was possible. But the Christians of that and the next generations, with much of the ignorance and some of the super- stition of their recent paganism cleaving to them, were doubtless very tenacious of this splendid endowment of the chui'xihes just before them. We see traces of this in 1 Cor. xiv. Hence they would naturally close their eyes to the unwelcome fact that this gift of power was dying out. They would catch at anything which wore the appearance of it. They would find here a most alluring field for the exercise of the art of pious frauds which the church was even then learning. Hence the state of opinion and assertion which we have exhibited — the abler men avowing in their better moods that the power was gone, because no longer needed, and the weaker men still passionately asserting its con- tinuance, and persuading themselves that they found instances of it in every startling occurrence — is precisely what we are to expect on our hypothesis. This difficulty may be further ex- plained by the ambiguity of the words employed by the Fathers. The term miracle had probably not then received its exact defi- nition. Miracula meant, by its etymology, " something to be astonished at." In this sense the magnetic telegi'aph, the Great Eastern, the Credit MoVdler at Washington, and the fortiines of " Beast Butler " and " Boss Tweed," are viiracula It is most likely that Augustine intentionally used it in this sense, of strik- ing religious events, and that his great mind did not claim in them the perfect supernatural demonstration which we claim for a strict technical miracle, but only that strong probability of the divine, providential superintendence which every devout mind sees in rare and impressive concurrences. Again, the patristic mind, ai*dent and undiscriminating, often ruslied to the conclusion that a certain event could only be caused by strictly supernatural intervention, which we would account for as an infrequent but natural concurrence of providences. Such may
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haYe been the " miracle " of the Thundering Legion, in the days of M. Antoninus, if it is authentic at alL
But yve have more positive arguments to support our theorj of these yaoiauaza. One will be an examination of a number of Scripture passages, which vriW, as we claim, be successfully shown to maintain it. Others will be drawn from principles recognized in the Scriptures.
These peculiar gifts began for the new dispensation with Pen- tecost. Let us take the aj)Ostle Peter as an example of the Twelve, and examine the relation of the endowment to his Christian experience. Luke tells us (ch. xxii. 62) of one in- stance of Peter's repentance which our Saviour in John xxi. 18, evidently sanctioned as evangeUcal and genuine. For when he affectionately replied to Peter's solemn protestation, " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee ;" " Feed my sheep " — we have the assurance that Peter was then a new- born man. Now, repentance and holy love are fruits of the Spirit. Xo sinner has them until he has the work of the Spirit in him. Yet there was another .sense in which the Spirit was not yet received by Peter. For this same Saviour, on the very day of his ascension, says to Peter along with the others : "Wait for the promise of the Father, which ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." And in verse 8 : " But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you." In one sense Peter had already been "baptized with, the Holy Ghost." In one sense that Agent had akeady " come upon him," and he had " received His power," otherwise he would have been no saint. It must then be in the other sense that he was still to wait for it. And what that was is clearly disclosed in ch. ii. 4 : "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost cmd hegaii to sj^euk ivitk tongues.''' There was therefore one kind of spiritual influence which made sinners Clirlstlans, which wrought effectual calling, faith, repentance, love, and obedience. There was another kind clearly distinguished fi'om it, and here called the power of the Holy Ghost, which made men s'igii-v:orJcers who were already Christians, or which, if it foaud them unrenewed, left them so. The latter was the power especially bestowed at Pentecost.
Which, now, of these tAvo species of power does the church of
Vol. II.— 16.
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Christ profess instrumentally to dispense to sinners ? "Wliich do sinners now need ? All answer : tliat kind wliicli, of sinners, makes them Christians indeed. The terms of the dispensation of the other species, then, have nothing direct to do with those ordinances by which the church proposes to save souls ; it is another matter.
We now proceed to another illustration of this truth. When the multitude at Pentecost was amazed at the sn^^ernatural signs wrought, Peter explained: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel : And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy," etc. ..." This Jesus liath God raised up, wliereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this Avhich ye now see and hear." (Acts ii. 16, 18, and 32, 33.) The apostle's argument is as follows: Your prophet Joel has given you a visible mark by which God will signalize " the last days," or the latter dispensation of his kingdom. That mark was to be the powerful effusion of supernatural signs, just such as are now exhibited before you. Your Scriptures also pre- dicted that your Messiah should be distinguished by rising from the dead. These two signatures of the new dispensation, point- ing to Jesus as that Messiah, precisely concur here and now. Por, we attest the fact that he arose and ascended to his Father ; and as for the other sign, the supernatural prophesyings and tongues, you can hear for yourselves and see for yourselves. The conclusion is, that jovlt Messiah is come, and the latter dis- pensation of the kingdom has come, claiming your allegiance.
The demonstration as put by Peter was perfect. But the reader must observe that to make it hold he must interpret the prediction of Joel, " God will pour out his Spirit on all flesh," as Peter does of the power which made men sign-workers. For in the other sense, of the power wliicli makes men Christians, the out])ouri}ig of God's Sjnrit is not the peculiar mark of the neio dispensation. The Spirit performed his converting and sancti- fying office-work throughout the old dispensation. He who doubts this may examine Gen. vi. 3, Psalm li. 11, 12, Is. xxxii. 15, Zech. iv. 6. Moreover, the silent, gentle, gradual operation of sanctifying grace, while ultimately presenting a powerful evi-
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dence iincler tlie rule, "By theii- fmits ye sliall know tliem," could not constitute siicli a ar^atlov as would fix the new epocli of the church by au outward, palpable, definite, temporal mark. Nor Avould the pouring out of this influence of conversion and sanctification on " all flesh," /. e. on Gentiles and Jews, and on many of all nations alike, present such a mark. This also is probabh' involved in the blessed promise of Joel, but it is not this which answers Peter's purpose of fixing the epoch of the new dispensation by a something which spectators could " now see and hear." AVe are thus compelled by another line of argu- ment to discriminate this "power of the Holy Ghost" fi'om that which the church undertakes to minister for the conversion and sanctification of sinners.
The hearers are by Peter's sermon cut to the heart by con- viction, and cry out, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" In Acts ii. 38 we have the apostle's reply, " Repent and be bap- tized, every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." See the exact correspondence of the latter part of this promise with our Saviour's in Mark xvi. 17. The previous verse had said, " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." (Compare Peter's " Eepent and be baptized for the remission of sins.") "And these a/^niia shall follow them that believe. In my name they shall cast out devils," etc. (Compare Peter s " and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost;" i. e., the gift of working those a/^/jitla.) Here repentance {(xtrdi^oca is the pre- requisite of baptism. In Mark xvi. 16, and Acts viii. 12, we learn that faith is a prerequisite f-u- it. The gift of the Holy Ghost is here mentioned as consequent on baptism. Now, we are taught in both Testaments that faith and repentance are the fruits of the Holy Spirit. No man exercises them sincerely until the Spirit of God has been given to him to enlighten and quicken his dead soul. Hence, when the reception of the gift oi- the Ploly Ghost is here spoken of as a consequence of repent- ance, the apostle evidently has in mind some other phase of that gift than that which converts and sanctifies. T\Tiat is this? Obviously the same phase whose miraculous eftects had filled the hearers with amazement. We may justly explain the apos- tle's promise thus : The penitent and believing sinner professing a saving faith bv the act of baptism, shall receive first, that
244 TEELACY A BLUNDER.
wliicli is liis prime need, reconciliation witli God. But tlie Scriptures of the Jews themselves had just taught the hearers that these supernatural powers the apostles then displayed were the very signatures of that blessing and of its new dispensation. Now, saith he, embrace this gospel wdth penitent faith, and you shall receive the prime blessing of redemption, and in addition shall share v/ith us these miraculous "signs" which are given to attest it infallibly.
This meaning Peter confirms in the 39th verse : " For the promise is unto you," etc. AYhat promise ? Obviously the one cited from Joel, to which their attention had been so recently' and strongly pointed. But, as we have seen, this promise spe- cifically indicated these yapiafia-a. of supernatural signs.
This passage, therefore, correctly understood, contains no inti- mation of baptismal regeneration. The prelatists w^ho so often quote it as a proof-text for their baptismal grace wdioUy miss, the mark. Of these adults this text requires evangelical repent- ance as a prerequisite ; and no man repents save he who ah'eady enjoys the regenerating and saving grace of the Spirit. And that species of spiritual power which is promised as the conse- quence of a sa-sdng change, of baptism, and of forgiveness, is the te;nporary kind exhibited by the inspired twelve at Pentecost.
The next clear teaching concerning this influence is at the appointment of the seven deacons, (Acts vi.) As has been re- marked, no yo^cafia of tongues or miracles is required among the permanent qualifications of deacons in 1 Tim. iii. But as the juncture was critical, the ofiice now newly instituted, and the church in its incipiency very liberally adorned with these extraordinary gifts, the apostles deem it well to make tlie first selection from among men who possessed them in addition to the regular qualifications of wisdom and good character. Hence they were to be also men " full of the Holy Ghost." This im- doubtedly means in this place possessed of the extraordinary gifts. It is explained in vi. 8, and viii. 6 and 13. Stephen, one of the seven " full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the jDCople." Philip, another one of them, did "miracles and signs." But it is certain, against Chrysostom and later prelatists and papists, that ordination to the deacon- ship by the apostles did not confer these mhYiculoiis poi'-ers upon Stephen and Philip. They were, as we have seen, possessed
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before. Tlieir previous possession was tlie very qualification by wbicli tbe people were guided to vote for them. That supposi- tion of Clirysostom, that at any rate they had not exercised them before, is untenable, because when the question is of the pos- session of this kind of gift it can only be known by its visible ex- ercise. All that the apostles do is to confer the diaconal office upon those whom the people select. And the exercise of super- natural powers is not among the duties of that office which is expressly defined as " serving tables." Stephen and Philip, then, both wrought signs and preached, not in virtue of their diaconal ordination, but in virtue of their previous endowment with those Xocpifff^iaTa, at some time and by some means not recorded; and the prelatists may not even surmise that unknown juncture to have been some previous " sacrament of orders," because the deacouship was the lowest order then existing in the church.
The next passsage illustrating the subject is Acts viii. 15, etc. This proves two points. The twelve alone could confer the supernatural powers. Philip could exercise them in his own 2Derson, but he could not confer them. Notwithstanding his splendid success in winning souls and founding a church, it was necessary to send to Jerusalem and secure the presence of two of the original twelve in person to gain for any Samaritan the honor of this gift. So Simon Magus clearly perceives in the 18th verse. The other inference drawn from this instance is that this gift was distinct from that work of the Holy Ghost which makes men true Christians. These Samaritans had "received the word of God." They were "believers." They were full of spiritual joy. They were fit for adult baptism. Yet they still lacked this gift of the Holy Ghost. But the sinner who "receives the word," "believes," rejoices in Christ Jesus, already has the saving powers of the Spirit in him. And finally, when Simon Magus was detected as not a true believer, Peter does not recommend to him the attainment of this yainana as the remedy for his wretched case, but repentance and prayer.
The next instance requiring our attention is that of Saul of Tarsus, Acts ix. 17. He had been awakened partially, even in the midst of his controversial bitterness, by the powerful demon- strations of truth in the discourses of the martyr Stephen. He had been thoroughly convicted by the appearance of the Mes- isiah on the way. The converting Spirit had employed the
216 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
tnitli thus carried home to his mind to bow him in sincere repentance. The renewal of his soul was unmistakablr ex- pressed in the words, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" and in the prayer which noAv occupied his hours. It was after his effectual calling that the pious Ananias, prol)ablY one of the earli- est evangelists among the disciples at Damascus, came to him by the special commission of God, " and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul," thus recognizing by the fraternal title that he was ah'eady reconciled to Christ, " the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me that thoa mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost." The Lord distinctly informs Ananias (verse 15) why it was desirable that Saul should be filled with these pow- ers, " for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel." In this arduous mission Paul would need the support of miraculous signs, if any man could. We pursue here the same line of argu- ment to prove that this endowment of the Spirit was not the converting and sanctifying, but the miracle-working influence. The former he had ah-eady ; that alone was able to awaken him, to convict him, to convert the rebel into a submissive servant, to make him a child of prayer, to make him a " brother '' of the saints, to fit him for adult baptism. The ceremony used by Ananias points the same way — " putting on his hands." Thus far we have seen this form used but for three things : ordaining to ofiice, conferring the gift of working miracles, and the exer- cise of this power by one enjoying it in a particular act of heal- ing. Galatiaus, i. 1, shows us that Ananias certainly did not ordain Paul to his office of apostle. Xeither did he confer the power of working miracles, not being himself an apostle. For what then did he lay hands on Paul ? Simply to heal his blind- ness (vs. 12.) The apostolic endowment which Va\\\ afterwards exercised, not of doing this or that miracle, but of conferring the miracle-working power on others by imposition of hands, he assures us he received through no human channel. Ananias' visit was only instrumental in procuring for Paul the miraculous gift in so far as it supplied the ordinary preliminary baptism. Some probaliility is also found in the accompanying work, the opening of Saul's eyes. This was no doubt an extraordinary cure wrought by God, through the good Ananias. It therefore
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concurs with the belief, that the filling with the Spirit which at- tended it was also extraordinary.
The next case is even more plain. In Acts xix. 2, the apostle Paul for the first time came to Ephesus. That it was his first visit is plain from Acts xvi. 6, and it seems plain that none of the twelve had yet been there. But the eloquent Apollos, and the good Priscilla and Aquila, had been there, and their labors had resulted in the beginning of a church. The apostle Paul found this little band unadorned by any yao'taiia-a of miracles. This led him to ask, " Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" And they said unto him, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. And he said unto them. Unto what, then, were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John's baptism." Paul explained to them that John's, while an evangelical, was yet a preliminary and prospective baptism, and administered Christian baptism proper. "And when Paul had " (then) " laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with tongues and prophesied," (verse 6.)
It is absolutely impossible to explain this singular historj* in any other sense than the one we advocate. Shall we say that these twelve men were now ordained to be clergymen? This is preposterous. One does not see cases where all the males in a Christian community are ordained presbyters or " priests," and that the first day they received Christian baptism. Shall we say that they now, for the first time, received the sanctifying and saving influences of the Holy Ghost? for that the gift they now received was a novel one, is beyond all doubt. But these men were the pupils of the eloquent Apollos, who came from Alexandria, the focus of Hel)rew learning, who was mighty in the Old Testament Scriptures, who had adopted the doctrines of John the Baptist, and recognized his mission as divine. Such a teacher had taught them " diligently," and yet they were ignorant even of the work of the Holy Spirit in eflfectual call- ing and sanctification ! Is the Old Testament, then, such a stranger to that great and blessed truth? This is absurd. When these men said, " We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost," we must understand them as intending. We have not so much as heard anything of those yaoiafxara of miracles. You arc the first apostle we have ever
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seen. We are a little band in the bosom of a great pagan city, one of tlie very centres of superstition. We liave had no privi- leges of communion with other more favored Christians. The only knowledge of the new dispensation we have, is such as our revered teacher, ApoUos, has been enabled to give us from the predictions and promises of his Old Testament Scrip- tures, and from what he was able to hear in Alexandria of the gi*eat forerunner, John, and his preaching and baptism. Until recently this pair of humble mechanics from Rome told us a few things more. So that, so far from possessing any of these supernatural attestations, we never witnessed any of them ; we know nothing of them. We only trust in God's written word, and endeavor to walk in the grace of his promises while we wait for more light. This view of their meaning is confirmed again by their profession of John's baptism. This was a l)aptism unto true repentance. Is it not the doctrine of the Old Testa- ment as much as the New, that only the Holy Ghost produces true repentance ? They are recognized as disciples or professed believers. But it is equally the doctrine of both Testaments that true faith is the implantation of the Holy Ghost. As soon as the apostle learned that they had only received John's bap- tism, the cause of their having no miraculous signs among them was clear to his mind. That peculiar gift of the Holy Spirit was suhsequent to Johi/s whole mission, as John himself knew. " There cometh one aftet' me who shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire," saitli he. But if it had been a question of the illuminating and sanctifying influences of the Spirit, their lack of it woTild have found no explanation in their having re- ceived John's baptism, for those influences were implied in John's baptism as they inspired his preaching. Those influences had been shed upon the saints of all ages before John, from Enoch and Noah, through David, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, to the latest prophets. The preparation for John's baptism, then, should have made them acquainted with the ordinary saving work of God's Spirit. But when we a})ply the question of Paul to his siipeniatural influences in working " signs," we see that the nature of their baptism is the sufficient explanation of their answer, because the church was not fully endowed in that way until Christ's baptism was instituted.
Our view is confirmed, finally, by the result. After these men
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had received Christian baptism, Paul laid liis hands upon them "with the purpose of bestowing the gifts in question, and " they spake with tongues and prophesied." The narrative plainly implies that this was just wliat the apostle designed. He "oislied, it may be presumed, to strengthen the faith of the little band struggling with all the might of Greek paganism by these visible attestations. He was the first of the twelve who had visited Ephesus. He was about to publish his testimony as an eye witness to his risen Lord. He was about to begin a series of labors in Ephesus, to be continued two years and three months. (See 1 Cor. xvi. 9.) "A great and effectual door was opened to him there, anil there were many adversaries." It was every way desirable that the cause of truth should be armed with these incontestable signs, and that connected immediately with his person, so that in the coming debates with unbelief every Christian might point to these miraculous energies, pro- ceeding, notably, from Paul's xjerson, and say : " There God sets his seal to the testimony of his servant."
In the Epistle to the Romans, written before Paul, and as we believe, before any other apostle had ever visited the imperial city, he begins by declaring his eagerness to see them in person. In cli. i. 11, he says : " For I long to see 3'ou, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end ye may be established." It is every way probable that this spiritual gift was the power of miracles. One of the twelve only could impart it, by the lay- ing on of hands. None of them had yet visited the infant church of Eome. Thus far they had contended against Juda- ism and Paganism only by the powers of argument and example. Could an apostle reach them, and clothe even a few of their members with the miracle-working energies, not only would their faith in the testimony to the great Christian facts which thus far they had reposed in witnesses far from them, unseen and unknown by face unto them, be greatly established, but the infant church would attract far more notice and be a more pow- erful witness for Christ in that grand centre of empire and population.
The next passage which seems clearly to treat of this subject is 1 Cor., chaps, xii. to xiv. The discussion of the Y,^(naiMO'a Tivvjtw-r/.d here is so extended and explicit that the necessity of comment is almost superseded. For the same reasons which we
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have just applied to Ephesiis and Rome, the infant cliiircli in the important metropolis of Corinth had also been liberally supplied with supernatural endowments while Paul was with them. But he had learned (chap. i. 11) that in his absence they had been abused. Each possessor of a given ydocaiw., fasci- nated by its splendor, and by the pleasure of exerting it, was exalting his particular jjower as the chief one and depreciating those of his brethren. Hence the church was threatened with parties and strifes. It is to meet this evil that the apostle enters into a detailed explanation of the nature and objects of these gifts. The main truths he inculcates are these: While there are diversities of gifts, the same Spirit gives them aU. None is given for the aggrandizement of its subject, but all for the good of the common body. Hence all should be exercised in their respective places harmoniously and concurrently, even as the several grades of the ministry should be. Of these su- pernatural gifts, tongues, though a more startling and splendid endowment, were less useful than prophec}', inasmuch as the former could but excite attention and convict the unsanctified reason. The most splendid of these supernatural gifts were inferior to the graces of true sanctification, and indeed, without them, worthless to the possessor. It was entirely j)ossible for an unrenewed soid, heir of perdition, to receive these miracu- lous endowments, so that their enjoyment was no sufficient evi- dence of a state of salvation. And all of them were destined to vanish fi'om the church at no remote day, their purpose having been attained, leaving the graces of spiritual life and sanctifica- tion, " faith, hope, love," as inwrought by the Spirit through the truth, to be thenceforward the only al)idiug gifts of the Holy Ghost to Christ's church. Finally, the apostle's discussion implies beyond all dispute that the '/o.iiiaiw.ru of supernatural powers in that church were the endowment, not c i their clergy- men alone, but also of the lay members. Thus we have in this important passage all the points confirmed by which we separate these gifts from ordination and clerical qualifications.
The two parallel passages remain to be noticed in the Epistles to Timoth}-. In 1 Tim. iv. 1-1, the apostle enjoins on the young evangelist : " Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which Avas given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the pres- b\i;ery." In the 2 Ep., i. G: "Wherefore I put thee in remem-
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l">rance tliat thou stir up (kindle up) tho <^ift of God wliicli is in tliee l)y the putting on of my hands." Of these two texts, Rome and her imitators among the ritualists endeavor to make pillars for their favorite doctrine of ordination-grace. Here, argue they, ordination certainly confers a grace of the Holy Spirit. For, say they, when we put the two texts together, we clearly learn, first, that it is Timothy's ordination which is here alluded to, and it is as clearly said that it imparted a gift of Crod. One has even said that this imposition of the apostle's hands imparted all Timothy's qualifications for the work of the ministry.
One insuperable difficulty off'(U"s itself to the prelatic view at first sight. If the texts describe only an ordination to minis- terial office and refer to the same event, then it was a presby- terial ordination. It is as clear that the eldership laid on hands as that Paul did. And this is fatal to the prelatic scheme. The Anglican church seeks to evade this difficulty by allowing three presbyters to join the bishop, as a kind of sub-assessors, in or- daining a "priest." If ordination is a sacrament in which the apostle-bishop, and he alone, imparts the qualification for the priestly work by infusing a yd.inafi.o. of miracle-working ener- gies, then this usage is thoroughly inconsistent. If ordinati<m is a joint, ruling act of presbyters, in which the diocesan acts as merely a presl)yter-president among presbyters, then the usage is most consistent. But the prelatic theory is surrendered and our debate at an end. But to return. If the two verses do not describe the same act, then the proof that ordhiat'ion iniparts gifts of the Holy Ghost is gone. Such gifts were imparted to Timothy, but it may have been the other transaction which im- parted them. Between the horns of this dilemma we hold the prelatist inexorably. If nothing but ordination is here described, then it was Presbyterian ordination. If something else than or- dination is described, then tho spiritual gift may have been im- parted by that something else.
The latter is evidently the correct alternative. Paul here stimulates the conscience of Timothy by recalling two transac- tions which probably occurred at or near the same time. One was his ordination to office, which office he received at tiie hands of his brother presbyters. The other was his endowment with some supernatural gift to fit him further for the missionary work, which he received from the apostle's own hands. This gift
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he received ok). Tzpoipr^ztca:: throxigli prophecy. Doubtless the explanation of this may be found in Acts xiii. 1, 2, where the Holy Ghost moving in the hearts of the prophets and teachers at Antioch as a spirit of prophecy, said, " Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." In like manner some prophet, either Paul himself, or possibly Silas, (see Acts xv. 32), "who was a prophet also himself," and was with the apostle when Timothy was called to the missionary work (Acts XV. 40), received the prophetic injunction that the young disciple of Lystra should be ordained, and clothed also with the power of working signs. Of this transaction w^e have the history in Acts xvi. 2,3: " Timothy was well reported of by the brethren that were at Lystra and Iconiiim. Him would Paul have to go forth with him, and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters, for they knew all that his father was a Greek," /. e., a pagan. Henceforth we find Timothy accompanying Paul, Silas, and Luke, in the mission- ary work in " Phrygia, the region of Galatia," and Macedonia. Although the ordination and the imparting of the jt^pzc/zt^:. are not mentioned in the two verses recited, we can scarcely doubt that it then took place. We read in Acts xiv. 23, that the churches of Derbe, Iconium, and Lygtra had been for some time furnished with ordained elders. We can hardly err in supposing that "the presbytery" which ordained Timothy an evangelist was composed pf presbyters from "Lystra and Iconium," with perhaps Silas and Paul himself (who could say with Peter, " which also am an elder"), as assessors.
Whether the imposition of Paul's hands conferred on Timothy his ministerial qualifications, as the prela lists would have it, or whether his presbyterial ordination proceeded upon his previous possession of the natural and gracious qualifications, as we be- lieve, may now be decided. The brief record in Acts mentions as a ground of Timothy's selection as missionary-companion for Paul, that " he was well reported of by the brethren which were at Lystra and Iconium." Unless Luke intended us to under- stand that Timothy enjoyed a deserved reputation with them for qualities fitting him for this ministry, his statement seems aim- less and unaccountable. Timothy was recognized as having these qualities before his ordination, and his appointment was grounded on this fact. Again, Paul, in 2 Tim. iii. 1-1-17, (com-
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pare also, cli i. 5), evidently refers mucli of Timothy's minis- terial qualification to the work of the pious Lois and Eunice, his grandmother and mother, and to the study of the Old Testa- ment Scriptures. The apostle then proceeds to exalt the vOjlue and sufficiency of those inspired Scriptures, and declares that by their study alone, the man of God, the minister or herald of the gospel, "may be perfect, thoroughly famished unto all good vjorJtsy We are not ignorant that some prelatic expositors would have us take the phrase "man of God," in the sense o| "believer," "servant of God," in order to obliterate this damag- ing argument. But we can show that their rendering is wrong. Neither Paul nor any other New Testament writer employs this jjlirase at all, except in the two places in the Epistles to Timothy: the one under discussion, and 1 Tim. vi. 11. But it is a very common title in the Old Testament, and there it means some distinguished church officer, commissioned prophet or theocratic king. Who can doubt that Paul had this usage in his eye when he called this pious and glorious evangelist "man of God?" Again, the apostle has his own phrases for denomi- nating believers, which he uses so currently and accurately that we are never in uncertainty about them in any other epistles. The established phrases in Paul's mouth for a "believer" are tzktto^, TiKTTu^ di^Oaoj-u:;, dos/.cfo:;, or d.yco^; never once diyOfno-o^ zo~j Oeou. What violence to the apostle's meaning, then, is com- mitted, when this peculiar phrase is here reduced to the mean- ing of simple "believer!" Again, in 1 Tim. vi. 11, the apostle's scope shows very clearly that he designed by the phrase, " O man of God," to address Timothy as a church officer for a par- ticular purpose. In cautioning him against complicity with the corruptions prevailing among some church members at Ephesus, Paul aims to bring the considerations drawn from a clerical ap- pointment and profession to bear upon his conscience. He in- timates that while avarice and its attendant evils are bad enough in a private Christian, they are far more heinous in a "man of God," an ordained leader and teacher of God's host, who ought to be an " ensample to the flock," and that a blameless and zeal- ous Christian warfare is more obligatory on him than on others, as a clergyman. The "man of God," then, in 2 Tim. iii. 17, is a preacher of the gospel, we are willing to say an evangelist. But if prelatists will have it that Timothy was a diocesan bishop,
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SO much the worse for them, for the apostle here declares that the inspired Scriptures are able to make such a preacher ^^quali- fied and tJtoroaghly eqa'ipped''' {(i.oztoc, yju i^r^fina/jiiuo::) unto all good works" incuml)ent ou his office without any ordination graces imparted from a prelate's hands. Of course the apostle here has in view the ordinary duties of the minister's office in the stated condition of the church ; not the extraordinary ener- gies of the miracle-worker in the ages of inspiration, for these he had found it desiral)le to convey to Timothy by the putting on of his hands, after all the latter's scriptural and gracious qualifications had been acquired. If they insist on making Timothy a diocesan bishop, then they only get the damaging declaration, that even the prelate gets all needful qualification for all his work without any "holy orders," by the faithful, be- lieving study of the Scriptures !
After this simple and obvious review of the history of Timothy's case, the meaning of the apostle in the two verses referring to his ordination is easy. Timothy had been inducted into the ministerial office by the laying on of the hands of a presbytery, which transaction proceeded on their knowledge of his ministerial qualifications previously possessed. But in con- nection with that act the apostle had also, by the imposition of his own hands, imparted to him some ydncaaa, (most j^robably of prophesying), which an apootle alone could give, and which was given on suitable occasions to laymen, women, ministers, or even to children, because Timothy would be thereby better fitted for convincing skeptical pagans, among whom he was to labor. It is worth}^ of notice, that when Paul (1 Tim. iv. II) mentions the imposition of the hands of the presbytery in con- nection with this ydoc(Tfjta to Timothy, he does not attribute to them any agency in it, but only an accompanying presence. It is fizTd iTTcdiaeco:; rcbu yj.ipiov zoo jTf)£a§'Jzsinu'j ; but in 2 Tim. i. 6, it is oca. zYj^ iizcdiaeco:; zwv yecpcov jio'j. In the latter place, the apostle omits all reference to Timothy's presbyterial ordination, and speaking of his x^P^^h'-'^ o^ inspiration, assumes to himself all the human agency in conferring it.
We have thus gone over all the clear instances of these x^tpiff- jxara in the New Testament history. The result has been a com- plete discrimination between them and the power of the Holy Spirit in eflectual calling and sanctification on the one hand,
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and ordination on the other hand. These gifts were not the former, because a man might have them in eminent degree, and yet be so utterly devoid of grace as to be " as sounding brass or a tinkhng cymbal," because they were in many cases yet to be enjoyed, or even heard of, by true believers alread}^ effectually called and sanctified. These gifts were not ordination, because we have seen them fall on laymen, women, and children, as well as unrenewed men, because a presbytery can ordain, according to Scripture, while only an apostle could bestow these pow- ers ; and as soon as the original twelve were gone, the influence died out of the world with the next generation, despite the pas- sionate longing of misguided Christians to display them still. The irresistible conclusion is, that they were peculiar powers of exhibiting miraculous " signs," temporarily given to some pro- fessed Christians for the sole purpose of supporting and rein- forcing the testimony'" of the twelve to the cardinal Christian facts by divine attestation until their witnessing work was com- i^leted.
This conclusion is exceedingly profitable and instructive in many directions. It teaches us, first, that the sight of a physi- cal work of suj^ernatural power, however stupendous, is not the immediate instrument of true conversion. Men are truly born again only by the instrumentality of the Word. (1 Peter, i. 23.) We expose here a superstition very current among the igno- rant. Thus, the nominal Christian negroes, and many ignorant white Christians, believe that Saul of Tarsus was converted by the vision on the road to Damascus, whereas, he was converted by gospel truth, and the vision had no nearer connection with the saving work than to establish intellectual conviction of the truth. Had not the Holy Spirit applied that gospel to his soul in the rational, enlightening, renewing work of effectual calling, Saul's godless heart would never have been made one whit bet- ter by all the terrors of ten thousand visions and voices, or of the rising dead and opening hell. This is obvious enough to the intelligent reader. But it is instructive to note the close affinity between this Bceotian superstition and the theor}' of 3'our ritualist, who considers his company the aristocracy of the religious world. He also expects men to be renewed by a j<ip- iGlxa of 2)0Uier instead of a work of rational illumination through the truth. He makes the same confusion between the physical
256 PRELACY A BLUNDER.
o''j\^aij.iZ and saving grace. "Wliereas, the apostle teaches ns that all the former does is to make way for the saving truth, by- attracting the attention and convincing the understanding. ""Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." Here again the self -destructive inconsistency of the prelatic system is displayed. They say that their canonical sacraments impart a yantaiM of saving grace; such a one, viz., as the "priest" receives from the lay- ing on of the apostles' hands. But Paul says, the utility of such yaolaixo-a is only for the unconverted.
Second : The discussion is valuable to refute a cardinal error of the sect of Alexander Campbell. This heresiarch taught, in the interests of his thoroughly Pelagian scheme, that no agency of the Holy Ghost whatever is concerned in the sinner's believ- ing and conversion. But the Scriptures assert so clearly that there is an office-work of the Spirit that he dared not wholly deny it. Hence, his expedient is to say that this work begins after, and only after, baptism and conversion. Now, the texts he quotes are precisely such as we have explained. But when we show that the spiritual gifts which were once the occasional sequel of conversion and baptism were temporary yantauM-a of miracles, his whole argument explodes.
It remains to add the general arguments establishing the other branch of the conclusion, that these yatnaixaxa are en- tirely distinct from ordination. The sacramentarian theory is, that they are conferred in the ordaining act when the bishop (apostle) lays on his lian(l>;. The Protestant and Bible tlieorj^ is, that ordination, which is a presliyterial and not a ghostly act, only 7'ecognizes ministerial qualification inwrought b}- Christ's Spirit, and confers nothing but office-title. Now, we demon- strate our theory by these two arguments: First, The Holy Spirit, legislating by Paul for the ordinary and stated times of the church, has expressly given two lists of the qualifications requisite for all orders of clergy: bishops or pastors, "elders that rule well," and deacons, in 1 Tim. iii., and in Titus, i. So, in Acts XX., he has given to the bishops of Ephesus a detailed injunction as to their official duties. So Christ has left, in the "letters to the seven churches," a number of items of duty and qualification enjoined on their " angels." Hut in. none of these is any poicer of loorking " ^i-gtu " or power of sacramental grace
PRELACY A BLUNDER. 257
required of them. We hear of sincere piety, gra\dty and virtue in example, fidelity in oversight, and aptness to teach, or didac- tic abihty, but we hear not a word of any gift of yapiariaza de- rived or transmitted through apostoHc hands.
The second argument is, that all the clergymen of the primi- tive church were undoubtedly chosen by election of the breth- ren. The apostles fixed this precedent, even for deacons, in the very outset, in Acts vi. The usage of electing all presbyters and bishops prevailed, and the right was claimed by the brotherhood universally, in the ages next the apostles, and every one well- informed in church history knows through what a long train of usurpations and resistances the usage which now prevails in prelatie churches was finally reached. Now, it was to guide the brotherhood in bestowing their votes that the apostle describes the qualifications requisite in a bishop, elder, or deacon, so ac- curately and completely. Biit these quahfications must be pre- existent in order to justify the casting of the votes to their pos- sessor. Hence, indisputably, they are not conferred b}^ the ordaining rite which follows and is predicated on the election. Some attempt to evade this by pleading that these lists of quah- fications given us in the pastoral epistles do not contain all the endowments and qualities of the acting clergyman, but only those which constitute a suitable state of recipiency for the gifts to be bestowed in " holy orders " by the bishop's hands. This evasion will not answer. The apostle in giving the list of quali- fications says expressly: "^1 lisJioj), then, must be blameless;'* not " a candidate for the bishopric." He thus shows that these are the qualifications and gifts the man will exercise after his ordination, in his actual ministry. And again, in ail the de- scriptions and inculcations of the episcopal, or pastoral work, relating to the stated condition of the church and her ministers, there is no whisper of any possession or exercise of any other endowments by ordained men.
We have now gone over the whole teachings of the New Testa- ment on this question of the minister's endowments. We have drawn a clear line of demarcation between those gifts or powers of the Holy Ghost which enabled some men in the Apostolic church to work miraculous signs, and the ministerial gifts and powers of the scriptural clergyman. Removing the prelatie mistakes and errors touching the former, we have not left one
258 PEELACY A BLUNDER,
line or word of Scripture to support the tlieorj of tactual suc- cession and sacramental grace. It stands a mere dream-castle, with no basis except the corruptions of the uninspired and decadent ages of Christendom, the strength of blind and errone- ous prescription, and the superabounding assertions of its advo- cates.
The writer experienced for some time a certain difficulty in realizing to himself the full destructiveness to prelacy of the line of criticism along which he has now attempted to lead the reader. It is to be expected that the latter also will feel some- thing of the same difficulty. This will be, not because the criti- cism is in any point inconclusive, but because it T\-ill appear almost incredible that a great and permanent party in Christen- dom, and especially that a party in a certain sense evangelical, like the High Church Episcopal, should really hold a theory which is obnoxious to so easy a refutation, and which is, to the thoroughly Protestant mind, so intrinsically absurd. Another, and a more seemlv-looking cause of the same difficult^" is in the pious confusions which so-called Protestant prelatists have in- troduced into the subject. No better example of this need be sought than parts of the Anglican liturgy, the ^\Tetched patch- work of churchmen, overruled by the most deceitful, unscrupul- ous and truth-hating politician who ever sat upon the throne of England, acting from motives always purely secular, and often wicked. The doctrine of the Anglican forms — not the Articles — touching "holy orders" is a medley of inconsistencies. Ordina- tion is not a " sacrament," as Pome holds ; and yet, as Pome holds, it confers an invisible grace by a visible sign, which is the very essence of a sacrament. The bishop is authorized to say to the " priest " on whom he lays his hands, " Receive thou the Holy Ghost," etc., and yet the bishop has a little before required the candidate to profess that he has already experienced the pow- ers of that Spirit, c[ualifying him for, and moving him unto, the office. The ritual professes to arm the j^riest with ghostly pow- ers to regenerate the infant in baptism, and tells him and the 23arents in the most solemn form of prayer to God, that He ^'hath regenerated this infant with the Holy Spirit." But as soon as he has come to years of understanding, this same " priest," now a pastor, is sent forth to preach to him as a sin- ner, dead in trespasses and sins, the excellent doctrines of the
PEELACY A BLUNDER. 259
^'Articles and Homilies," exhorting him to receive the apphca- tion of redemption through that effectual calling whose theory is utterly incompatible with that of sacramental grace.
Protestant prelatists, again, obscure the real nature of their theory of sacramental grace, by seeming to concede that the age of miracles is past, and that they claim for their " priests." on whom the bishop has conferred the grace of holy orders, no gift of tongues, or healing, or casting out demons. But they do claim for him a gift of conferring sacramental graces, which is another thing than that ministerial instrumentality which the Protestant pastor claims to exert in inculcating the truths which the Holy Ghost uses as his rational means for working grace. We ask the prelatist : Is this all you claim to do for souls ? Do you, in this thing, put yourself into our class? He stoutly refuses, and he asserts that he can communicate a something which we cannot, who do not boast his tactual succession from the apostles, namely, sacramental grace. But the Scriptiires discriminate the efficacious influences of the Holy Ghost into only two classes: his sanctifying influences through the truth, and his direct, supernatural, physical o'jvdtjts!::, through a mira- cle-worker. If sacramental grace is not the one, it must be the other. Besides, if their sacramental grace is apprehensible at all, it can only be apprehended as the sort of thing which the yaptaiw. was, a power exerted er. ojMve operato, and not merely through the rational means of truth understood and embraced. There is a more crucial question : Why this rigid, inexorable requirement of a tactual succession? Why will not a correct doctrinal succession from the apostles, like that claimed hy Irenieus, answer the pastor's purpose? The true answer is, that this power of working sacramental grace claims to be the ydpcaixa of miracles, the thing, and the only thing, which, in the New Testament, could be received only from the laying on of the apostles' hands. Finally, we have seen the genesis of the theory in the doctrine of Pome, which is avowedly and ex- plicitly built upon her claim of possessing the same miraculous yaf)iaixazo., and all of them, which the apostles wielded. The daughter is of the same species with the mother. We have also quoted some of the more perspicacious and candid prelatists, as Hammond, expressly avowing the mistaken claim and basing it upon the Roman position.
260 PEELACY A BLUNDER.
It is true, that tlie Protestant and prelatic conceptions of tlie application of redemption are incompatible. The one ex- cludes the other. The ultramontane papist is the only con- sistent assertor of sacramental grace. And this is the explana- tion of the characteristics of the Protestant-prelatic logic, with its sophisms, pious confusions, and 7ion-sequ)turs. Those men cannot be expected to build better who condemn themselves to the task of combining the clay with the iron, the gold and the brass.
WALNUT STREET CHimCH DECISION IN THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT/
THE Walnut Street or Third Presbj-terian Cliiu'cli of Louis- ville, Kentucky, dates from 1842. In the spring of 1861 it had the Eev. Mr. McEh'oy as stated supply, Messrs. Watson, Gault, and Avery as elders, and a board of trustees elected bi- ennially by the congregation, who, by a law of Kentucky, were a corporation to hold their house of worship. The attempts of the General Assembly, Old School, to legislate abolition and centralizing poHtics into Christ's kingdom, by a usurj^ed spirit- ual authority, of course produced many divisions in this border church. Messrs. McEboy, Watson and Gault, with half of the congregation, sympathized with the invaded spiritual rights of the people ; Mr. Avery and the rest with the aggressive party. These divisions at length drew the attention of Synod, which, in January, 1866, visited the church by a committee, which called a meeting of the congregation to choose a new stated supply and elect new elders. Messrs. Watson and Gardt, a majority of the session, caused that body to resist this call as irregular, and at the bidding of the session, whom the Kentucky law of incorpo- ration clothed -s^dth that power, the trustees closed the house against the meeting. The ground on which they declared the whole action invalid was, that the Synod had no original juris- diction, and was therefore usurping the functions of the session and congregation. When the Assembly of 1866 meddled in the matter, the session resisted theu' order on the same ground. They were sustained in both positions by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky. But a part of the people organized a meeting
' An article in The Southern Presbyterian Review for January, 1878, review- ing: 1. Wallace's Reports, Vol. XIII., i^p. 650, 8vo. 2. Presbyterian Gkurch Case, Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. 3. McMillan vs. Tlie Free Church of Scotland, Court of Session, 1859. 4. Opinion of the Supreme Court of Appeals of KentucTcy on the Walnut Street Church Case. Kentucky Keports, 1868. 8. Argument of Mr. BuUitt, Counsel for Watsoji and others, before Supreme Court of Kentucky.
261
262 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
upon the side- walk, and went tlirongli the form of installing three new elders. These, admitting the eldership of Messrs. "Watson and Gault, gave the radical party a clear majority in the session. But Messrs. Watson and Gault, with a majority of the trustees, refused to recognize the newly elected as real elders. These began a suit in the Louisville Chancery Court, presided over by a radical judge, for the possession of the house. This court, in May, 1867, made a decision, recognizing both parties as valid elders, and placing the house in the hands of the marshal of the court as receiver, with orders to obey the session, in the use of the building, as dominated by the radical majority of [so-called] elders.
Meantime the famous "Declaration and Testimony" had ap- peared ; and Louisville Presbytery, with Messrs. "Watson, Gault and McElroy, adhered to it. The Old School Assembly of 1866 had passed its notorious '' ij)so facto act," dissolving every court, and virtually deposing every officer who dared to exercise his constitutional right of protest. The Louisville Presbytery and Kentucky Synod had resisted in the only way possible for free- men, by declaring this ruthless act void, for its utter unconstitu- tionality; and they had, first accepting that separate attitude forced on them by the Assembly, at last united themselves with the General Assembly of the Southern Church, in May, 1868. But the other party in the Walnut Street Church, availing them- selves of the ^^ijyso facto act," which pronounced the adhering members to be the church, to the exclusion of the others, claimed .to be the rightful and sole successors to the property, and cleaved to the seceding Presbytery of Louisville and to the Northern Assembly. Thus the legal question became one between two rival congregations, and no longer between two parties in one congregation.
Meantime Messrs. Watson, Gault, and their friends, appealed to the Court of Appeals, or Supreme Court of Kentucky. This tribunal dealt with the case as between two parties in one church. It only decided that the street meeting of January, 1866, had been non-Presbj-terian and void, so that the original session, of which Messrs. Watson and Gault were the majority, was the true session, and so entitled, by civil law, to control the trustees and the house. In reaching this decision, the Suj^reme Court of Kentucky entertained the questions whether the radical proceed-
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 263
ings in the congregation and in the Assembly of 1866 were con- sistent with the Presbyterian constitution, and it claimed the right and necessity to adjudicate those questions, so far as they touched the civil rights of members in ecclesiastical property. The radical party attempted to embarrass the decision by an injunction from the Circuit Court, but this was finally dissolved liy the Supreme Court, in September, 1868, and the house re- mained in the hands of the court's receiver, to be used for the lawful purposes of the congregation, under the direction of the original session.
Biit in July, 1868, the radical party prompted three members of the church to sue, as citizens of Indiana, in the District Court of the United States. These were a Mrs. Lee and a Mr. Jones and wife. The last two were impoverished members of the Walnut Street Church, residing ordinarily and naturally in Louisville, whom that party removed to the village of Jefferson- ville, just across the river, and subsisted at a boarding-house there during the short time needed, according to the laws of Lidiana, to establish a claim of citizenship. In order to make it surer that the Federal court would interfere with a case still pending in a State court, these poor old people were made to swear, in their bill, that the elders and trustees of the Walnut Street Church refused all legal steps in Kentucky courts to pro- tect the rights of them, the plaintiffs, in the propert}-. This part of their bill the new elders and trustees also admitted on oath. Yet the records of the State courts at the time proved the alle- gation false.
The Southern party being speedily defeated, of course, before this Federal tribunal, and forbidden to have any share or use in the property, appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case was argued in Washington, the Chief-Justice not sitting, in December, 1871. T. W. Bullitt, Esq., of Kentucky, appeared for the appellants, the Southern party, and Messrs. B. H. Bristow and J. M. Harlan for the defendants. The reporter of the Supreme Court gives the argument of Mr. Bullitt, as ex- hibiting the one side, and the opinion of the court, drawn by Mr. Justice Miller, adverse to the appellants, as exhibiting the other. The arguments of Messrs. Bristow and Harlan are wholly omitted. But it is well remembered that while the counsel for the appellants discussed the law of the case with a judicial dig-
264 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
nity, learning and cogency worthy of its gravity and of tlie august tribiinal, one at least of liis opponents descended to tlie lowest attempts to prejudice tlie appellants' cause, by ridicule and partisan charges of political disaffection.
The appellants, through their counsel, made two main points. The first was that the Federal courts had no jurisdiction, be- cause the same case was still pending in a State court, which, ac- cording to the constitution and laws, was related to the Federal courts, not as an inferior, but a coordinate tribunal. Both the equity and courtesy, always practiced hitherto, forbade a Federal court to intrude into a cause still imder adjudication in a coor- dinate tribunal of another (the State) sovereignty. This point was overruled by the majority of the Supreme Court on the plea that the cause as apj)ealed, while substantially the same Avitli, was now, in form, somewhat different from the one before the Supreme Court of Kentucky. On this point Justices Davis and Clifford filed their dissenting opinion, supported by an argviment. They then, consistently for them, declined to go into any dis- cussion of the questions of ecclesiastical law brought up. Hence this decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, which has introduced so momentous a revolution in our laws, goes forth unsupported by the sanction of the Chief-Justice and of these two learned associates. Our object is no farther concerned with the first point than to note it as another among the man}- in- stances, since 1865, in which Federal tribunals are engrossing new powers to themselves from the States.
The second point of the appeal raised the main question, with which alone we are now concerned. The appellants held, in accordance with the Supreme Court of Kentucky, that in this country church and state are wholly independent of each other, and the civil law guaranteed to all absolute freedom of religious opinion and of religious action, so far as it does not infringe the law or the civil right of any fellow-citizen. That consequently no civil tribunal has any right to touch spiritual doctrines or rights as such ; that the proper sphere of these civil tribunals is to protect and adjudicate all civil and secular rights, among which are, of course, all rights of property, real and personal; that while all citizens are, of course, free to unite in any species of combinations they please, and for any objects not contrary to law, they cannot, by the mere artifice of such voluntary combi-
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 265
nation, exclude a lawful civil tribunal from its proper jurisdic- tion over persons or property ; that while all citizens have the Inalienable right to combine in any spiiitual or religious socie- ties they may sovereignly please, for ends not contrary to la^v, yet such ecclesiastical societies are known and related to the civil tribunals, just as any other voluntary association for pur- poses of industrial enterprise, charity, art or amusement; that the constitution which such ecclesiastical society may please to elect for itself is of the nature of a voluntary mutual compact as Toetween its members, just as in the case of any industrial copartnership or art union ; that hence, if a member of such ecclesiastical society use his right as a citizen of resorting to a secular tribunal to protect his secular right in and under such association, while such secular right is the only thing the civil tribunal may adjudicate, yet, in adjudicating that right, it may, and often must, claim the prerogative of considering the ecclesi- astical constitution which obtains between the litigants and the question whether it is infringed ; because this ecclesiastical con- stitution being the voluntary compact by which these parties have covenanted to regulate such secular rights between each 'other, the civil tribunal has no other means of exercising its legitimate jurisdiction over the secular rights in question, than to consider for itself the question of the pai-ties' observance or non-observance of their oxnti ecclesiastical compact. But the court's jurisdiction over such question reaches only to the secu- lar rights of a iDarty in the premises, and may not be extended to meddle with his sj)iritual rights, duties or opinions. This, the estabhshed doctrine of the British courts, and the prevalent one of American courts, was overruled by the majority of the Supreme Covu-t of the United States. Their ruling is thus accu- rately summed up in the words of their reporter :
' ' o. Controversies in the civil coixrts, concerning property-rights of religions societies, are generally to be decided by a reference to one or more of three pro- positions :
"(1.) Was the property or fund -nhich is in question devoted, by the express terms of the gift, grant, or sale by which it was acquired, to the support of any specific religious doctrine or belief ; or was it acquired for the general use of the society, for religious purposes, with no other limitation ?
"(2.) Is the society which owned it of the strictly congregational, or indepen- dent form of church government, owning no si;bmission to any organization out- side the congregation ?
"(3.^ Or is it one of a number of such societies, united to form a more general
266 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
boclj' of cbiirclies, with ecclesiastical control iu the general association over the members and societies of which it is comi^osed ?
"6. In the first class of cases, the coiart will, when necessary to j^rotect the trust to which the property has been devoted, inquire into the religious faith or practice of the parties claiming its rise or control, and will see that it shall not be diverted from that trust.
"7. If the property was acquired in the ordinary way of purchase or gift, for the use of a religious societj', the court will inquire who constitiite that society or its legitimate successors, and award to them the use of the property.
"8. In case of the independent order of the congregation, this is to be deter- mined by the majority of the societj', or by such organization of the society as by its own rules constitute its government.
"9. In the class of cases in which the property has been acquired in the same way by a society, which constitutes a subordinate part of a general religious organ- ization with established tribunals for ecclesiastical government, these tribunals must decide all questions of faith, discipline, rule, custom, or ecclesiastical gov- ernment.
"10. In such cases, where the right of jDroperty in the civil court is depen- dent on the question of doctrine, discipline, ecclesiastical law, rule, or custom, or church government, and that has been decided by the highest tribunal within the organization to which it has been carried, the civil court will accept that decision- as conclusive, and be governed by it in its application to the case before it.
" 11. The principles which induced a different rule in the English courts, ex- amined and rejected as inapplicable to the relations of church and state iu this country, and an examination of the American cases found to sustain the principle above stated. "
The tentli paragraph contains the new construction of hx"\v, which we regard, as so ominous to the Hberty of Americans. To this our argument will be confined, and we shall disencumber it of all mere accessory circumstances. We wish neither to debate nor to decide the question whether the old session of the Walnut Street Church acted discreeth^ or piously under the circum- stances. We have nothing to do with the question on which side of that quarrel the most unchristian things were said or done. Still less should the question of law be complicated wdth the political issues then dividing the people of Louisville, or wdth the passions thev excited. We claim, also, that the ques- tion of law and right must not be complicated Mitli the consid- eration whether it is desirable or seemly that bodies of Chris- tians should feel themselves constrained to " go to law before the unbelievers." As individuals we may profoundly deprecate such scandals. As ecclesiastics in a spiritual court, had we a place there, we might even incline to lay on the Christian con- science of brethren the literal construction of the apostle's inhi- bition, " Why do ye not rather suffer the wrong ?" As Christian citizens, we may exceedingly desire some safe policy Avhich
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION, 267
■woulcT discourage tliis species of litigation. But it is not for a tribunal of law to practice such policy. That is a work which belongs to church teachers and rulers, and its happy end can be gained only by inculcating a more vital religion and purer morals on Christians. The court of justice can only adjudicate the rights committed by the laws to its protection with an impartial fidelity. When one said that a Federal court " should lean away from a given jurisdiction," because the occasion for its ex- ercise was to be lamented, Chief- Justice Marshall replied, "Nay, the court tnay have no leanings. As it may not grasp a jurisdic- tion not conferred by the laws, so it may not shun that legally belonging to it."
In discussing this issue between the Supreme Court of Ken- tucky and that of the United States, we shall consider, first, the law of the case, and second the equity and righteousness of the principles in question.
I. In debating the state of the laws we expressly admit :
1. That the main point at issue has never been fixed by any statutory enactment in this country, either State or Federal.
2. That while many State courts have been called to adjudi- cate virtually the point at issue, it had not hitherto been enter- tained expressly by the Supreme Court of .the United States.
3. That the American decisions disclose a certain amount of vacillation, which is naturally accounted for by the novelty of the question ; but the main current of the American decisions is in favor of the Supreme Court of Kentucky.
4. That in such a state of affairs a court of last resort, decid- ing so vital a principle for Americans, should have risen above mere technicalities, even had they been adverse, and should have been guided by the high considerations of equity and the lights of history in free Christian commonwealths, as applicable to the principles of tlie American State.
In arguing the law of the case, we naturally begin with the English decisions, because our equity practice, like our other institutions, is draAATi from our mother country. Since we have here no church establishments like the British, we appeal to their decisions only when they regard the ecclesiastical property of their dissenting churches, for their relation to the British commonwealth is that of independence like ours. The law has been perfectly settled there by the famous case of Craigdallie vs.
268 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
Aikman, which went up from Scotland to the House of Lords, and was decided iu 1813 by Lord Eldou, the Chaucellor. (2 BHgh, 529.) The parties were members of a divided congrega- tion in the Secession body known as the " Burgher Synod," and their case had been twice inadequately and inconsistently adju- dicated in the Scotch " Court of Session " on grounds not unlike those now advanced by Justice Miller. On appeal to the House of Lords, both decisions were overruled b}^ Lord Eldon, and the following principles were emphatically laid down by him : That property conveyed to a dissenting society in Great Britain, for purposes of religious worship, /s a trust, which the court is to enforce for the purpose of maintaining that religious worship for which the property was devoted. And in the event of schism (supposing the deed of gift has made no provision for such case) the uses of the trust are to be enforced, not in behalf of a ma- jority of the congregation, nor yet exclusively in behalf of the party adhering to the general body, but in favor of that part of the society adhering to and maintaining tJie original ])rlnciples, to propagate which it was founded. This decision, recognized and followed in the case of the Attorney General vs. Pearson, 3 Meri- vale, 353, has been adopted in all cases of this nature in Great Britain, and usually in America.
But under this decision the question may still arise, Who shall exercise the trust in the case where the society has changed only its order, not its doctrine, or has gone into another connec- tion? The original constitution of the church itself must decide. Who is to judge whether this constitution has been departed from ? Hitherto the law has given but one answer : It is for the civil court, which is called on to protect the trust, to decide that question. In support of tliis may be consulted the American cases of Gibson vs. Armstrong, 7 B. M., 481 ; Sutter vs. The Re- formed Church, G Wright, 503 ; Smith vs. Nelson, 18 Vermont, 566 ; Kniskern vs. Lutheran Church, 1 Sanford's Chancery, 439 ; and Miller vs. Gable, 2 Denio, 492. The Circuit Court of the United States for Kentucky has been the first to violate this well established principle of British law. This tribunal has ruled, not only that a decision of a question of doctrine or order by the supreme church court is final as to the property trust, when the constitution of the church authorizes such supreme judica- tory so to decide, but that this ecclesiastical decision must be
WALNUT STEEET CHURCH DECISION. 269
final, even -when ^\'liolly unauthorized by the church's own con- stitution, and when violating the real original purpose of the trust. Such is the sweeping extent of the new doctrine.
Subsequent cases in Scotland elucidate and confirm the law as established by these British decisions, even by the slight irregu- larities which have since occurred. The Scotch Judge, Lord Meadowbank, in the case of Galbraith vs. Smith, 15 Shaw, 808, in 1837, did indeed rule, that the last and highest decision of the church court must conclude. But in the next case, Craigie vs. Marshall, A. D. 1850, 12 Dunlop, 523, the Court of Session ex- pressly overruled and reversed this decision as contrary to the doctrine laid down by Lord Eldon. But the most conclusive evidence in our favor, as to the state of the law in Great Britain, is the famous " Cardross Case," or McMillan vs. The Free Church General Assembly, decided by the Court of Session in 1859. The Rev. Mr. McMillan had been charged before his Presbytery, the Free Church Presbytery of Cardross, vnth. immoral conduct on two counts. The Presbytery found him guilty on the second count, declaring the first not proven; and it affixed a certain ecclesiastical censure for that offence. McMillan appealed to Synod against this sentence on the second count; while his prosecutors filed no cross reference, complaint, or appeal as to the justice of the Presbytery's acquittal of him from the first count. The Synod simply affirmed the Presbytery's judgment. McMillan then appealed to the Free Church General Assembly. This body, swayed by Dr. Candlish, convicted McMillan on both counts, overruling his objection that only the count on which the lower courts had convicted him was before the Assembly by appeal, because, according to the church constitution, the As- sembly is not a court of original jurisdiction over the moral conduct of a minister. McMillan then went to the supreme secular court (the Court of Session) and demanded an injunction against the publication of the Assembh-'s censure. That tribunal entertained A(S appeal. The Free Assembly, reMng arrogantly on the claims of their famous " Protest," in which they had aimed, at the Disruption of 1813, guided by the best legal talent, as they supposed, to make sure of a complete independence of their spiritual authority from secular control, while taking the attitude of a separate dissenting body towards the state, refused to plead to the issue before the Court of Session. It has long been set-
270 WALNUT STEEET CHURCH DECISION.
tied that tlie Court of Session, the supreme tribunal of Scotland for all cases of equity and civil laAv, may not interfere Avitli the criminal or justiciary courts, nor with the ecclesiastical courts of the Established Church, so long as they remain within their proper jurisdictions; for the constitution of Great Britain re- gards these last two courts as coordinate, and as equally clothed with their powers by the national legislature. And in the case •of Paterson against the Estaljlished Presbytery of Dunbar, who was dismissed for drunkenness by that Presbytery, confirmed by the Established Assembly in clear violation of church forms, the Court of Session had refused Paterson all relief, holding that an Established Church court had coordinate jurisdiction with theirs so long as they did not exceed their legal scope ; and that irre- gularity of forms in pursuing a spiritual censure did not consti- tute an excess of jurisdiction. The imperious abolitionist divine, Dr. Candlish, supposed that, a fortiori, the Free Church courts must be irresponsible to all secular tribunals. But to their pro- found mortification, the Court of Session ruled that, the Free Church being a vohmtary and dissenting religious society, wholly unconnected with the state, its constitution, as before the civil law, could only be regarded as an optional irrloate contract en- tered into between its members; and that, consequently, any civil court of suitable jurisdiction, when appealed to by a citizen to protect any secular right supposed to be assailed by his brother members in that society, must have the right to construe that private contract, the church constitution, so far as to pro- tect the civil right claimed to be invaded. In this respect the independent or voluntary religious society stood on the same footing with any industrial, benevolent, or aesthetic association. Accordingly, the Court of Session affirmed the exception which McMillan had made before the Free Assembly, and decided that since the constitutional compact which the members of the Free Church had chosen to establish between themselves did not give the Assembly original jurisdiction over the Presbytery's first count against him, and it was not before them by appeal, the Assembly's attempt to issue a censure on that count was void. And that body was restrained, under the civil penalties of libel, from publishing that church censure against McMillan until they had tried him on that count according to the forms of their own church compact. See Innes's Litw of Creeds in Scotland, which
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■will confirm in the most pointed way the principles claimed. So Lord Brougham, in the first Auchterarder case, 1842-'43, ruled, that " when any proceeding of a church court, however strictly ecclesiastical in its own nature, affects a civil right, that pro- ceeding, in its whole extent, falls under the cognizance and control of the courts of law."^
Such is the last decision as to the state of the law in Great Britain. We have no call to claim that the American decisions go to this length of giving an aggrieved member this civil remedy even against a spiritual censure irregularly pronounced by his church. The Illinois case of Chase vs. Cheney, which we shall cite in due time, may stop short of this. But this Cardross case powerfully demonstrates, and by the stronger reason, our posi- tion, that a property right existing under ecclesiastical compacts must bring those compacts under the jurisdiction of the civil court so far as that property right is concerned. The Court of Session decides it is British law, even when aflecting the more shadowy right of a party as to his social repute, a matter lying more immediately beside the spiritual censures which are the church's only weapon. Then, a fortiori, this is law as aflecting a tangible secular right in property. The mistaken hopes of the Free Church men, their relif^nce on their protest of absolute spiritual independence, and the whole history- of the Free Church from 1843, illustrate the force of this remarkable decision.
We hold, then, that the British decisions are for us, and Mr. Justice Miller, in the adverse decision which we criticise, clearly concedes as much when he attempts to argue that they are, for special reasons, inapplicable to our country. His only hope of escaping their conclusive force is in those special reasons. Let us sum up the British law. We have shown :
1. That in Great Britain a dissenting church, as to any civil interests held in it, stands before the law precisely as does ever}' other voluntary association for industrial, literary, aesthetic or philanthropic objects, and is subject to civil jurisdiction precisely in the same manner and to the same extent.
2. That the power of a dissenting church judicatory is de- rived, so far as the civil law knows it, solely from the optional compact of its members, of which the expression is the church
' Buchanan's Ten Years' Conflict, I., 427.
272 AVALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
constitution, which tliey have seen fit to ordain between them- selves.
3. Hence, whenever such church judicatory has exercised an ecclesiastical power modifying a secular right of its members, in accordance with their own agreed compact, their church consti- tution, a civil court cannot interfere, but is bound to give effect to that ecclesiastical action on secular rights of their own vol- untary members, without intruding into any question of motives or ecclesiastical grounds of action. And to that extent the rights of an inferior are as inviol'able as of a superior church court.
4. But when a citizen, otherwise entitled to the protection of the laws, who is a member of such dissenting or independent church, claims the aid of the civil law against a secular wrong, which, he says, emerges out of a wrong ecclesiastical act of his church, whether as to order or doctrine, the civil court must en- quire whether that act is constitutionally valid or void, and in this inquiry the sole standard of judgment must be, next to the deed of gift itself, the constitution of the church.
But Mr. Justice Miller, while conceding the British law, argues that it is not fully applicable here, because in Britain certain churches, among others, are established by law. He urges that the Lord Chancellor is not only a supreme judge in civil law and equity, but also a supreme ecclesiastical judge for the Established Church of England, the dispenser of a large amount of church patronage, and the appointed avenger of cer- tain ecclesiastical sins of heresy and blasphemy. Hence his mind w^ould naturally be swayed to meddle too much in dissent- ing churches. Moreover, in Lord Eldon's time especially, dis- senting churches were not free, in the sense of the American religious liberties, their members being subject to certain penal statutes for ecclesiastical actions or dogmas.
We reply, it is not enough to say that the peculiar circum- stances of an Established church vilgld warp the judgment of a lord chancellor ; it must be shown wherein they have warped it. Again, Mr. Justice Miller has himself defined the relation of an American church to the law, precisely as the British judges did the relation of a Dissenting church to British law. It is pre- cisely with reference to that relation that they have adjudicated the principle we claim. It cannot be made to appear that the
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 273
additional circumstance of the existence of a penal statute for heresy, or a claim for tithes, modifies the application of that principle to a property trust held under the voluntary compact between the members of that church. We assert that quoad such property trust in things freely bestowed on that dissenting church, at least, it is free in England, precisely in the sense in which an American church is free in the United States. Then the principle of the law should apply to the trust in precisely the same way. Indeed, if the points of restriction on religious liberty of dissenters which remained in England had any influ- ence in the question, they should only make the principle apply with the more conclusive force under our American laws, because the principles on which that application was based in England, as stated in the four propositions of the previous page, apply ail the more clearly under such institutions as ours
Again, the Enghsh adjudications concerning trusts might plausibly have countenanced a certain range of license from that " doctrine of uses" technically termed "cy-pres" which has prevailed in the English courts. But the steady current of American law is to restrict that doctrine of uses with a rigid hand. We have wisely retrenched such judicial discretions within severe limits. For instance, where a trust declared by a testator is found void for lack of definiteness, we do not for a moment allow the judicial tribunal to exercise its discretion in inventing an interpretation of the trust, or suggesting a kindred use ; rather than allow this, we invoke the express provision of the statute as upon intestate property. How should this pecu- liarly American principle bear on the adjudication of ecclesiastical trusts ? Evidently it is in favor of our view. It requires the court to construe the trust in strictest accordance with the design of those who created it. It dictates the duty on the court of using the actual historical evidence which defines that original design in the fullest and most exact manner. Where is that evidence found? Chiefly in the church compact under which the trust originated. We claim, then, that if the British rule prevailed, notwithstanding their " doctrine of uses," still more should it prevail here, where we have repudiated that doctrine.
In America, says Justice Miller, " the law knows no heresy, . . . . and is committed to the support of no dogma, the es- tablishment of no sect." This is strictly true, xind for that.
Vol. II.— 18.
274 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
very reason the duty of the court to construe and protect the trust exactly according to its original intent becomes the more stringent. Because the law is neutral to all doctrines ; because the civil tribunal has no right, as such, to favor the one doctrine or the other, therefore there remains for it no other guide, in the performance of its sacred duty of protecting the existing trust, than the historical design of those who, in the exercise of their rights as freemen, saw fit to create it. And to ascertain that the only resort is to the church compact under which it was created, or else the words of the deed of gift itself.
Justice Miller also argues that, because our civil laws leave ■all men free to join any association they please, not illegal, " all who unite themselves to such a body do so with an implied con- sent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. But it ^vould be a vain consent, and would lead to a total subversion of such religious bodies, if any one aggrieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the secular courts and have them re- versed." One answer is, that our principle extends the jurisdic- tion of the civil court only to property rights, so that the whole spiritual and moral jurisdiction of the independent religious so- ciety is left unscathed. And the civil court, even in this low and limited sphere, employs that society's own voluntary constitu- tional compact as the authoritative standard. There is, then, no " subversion " of that free society's lawful ends ; but only a restriction of such unlawful property wa'ongs as might emerge from its freedom when pushed into license. Another answ^er, which is perfectly conclusive as to American Presbyterians, is that they never gave an implied consent to an unlimited and ir- responsible church government. It never was a part of their implied compact with each other that any ecclesiastical act of their church courts whatsoever should bind. The Presbyterian constitution is one of defined powers, and leaves to every in- ferior judicatory and individual member their reserved rights. The thing which they have covenanted is this : to submit to all the church judicatories when acting constitutionally. Their maxim is " Lex, rex j"" while their constitution is their king, they liave never sworn allegiance to " King Majority." If this power violates their spiritual rights, they find their remedy in the ex- ercise of the freeman's right of protest, or, in the last resort.
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secession. If it infringes tlieir secular rights, tliey are entitled to the protection of the civil tribunal, just as all other citizens are.
The function and right of the civil government is to protect civil rights. It claims authority over all property questions be- tween its subjects. It is not reasonable that some subjects should withdraw a part of the property in the commonwealth absolutely beyond the jurisdiction of the civil law merely by the artifice of covenanting in some voluntary agreement of their own. The voluntary society, however religious in its professed objects, can be known to the state as concerns property only as all other associations. None of them are clothed mth any validity by legislative enactment of the state. Their tribunals are not courts, in the eye of the civil tribunal, and with reference to those secular rights the jurisdiction of which belongs svipremely, so far as this world goes, to the state, however they may be courts to the covenanted members concerning the agreed objects of the association. If one such voluntary association may, by its optional compact, extrude the commonwealth fi'om its jiu'is- diction over one segment of property, all others may do the same ; and we should reach this result, that the state would have to stand helpless and witness universal injustice, its hands tied by the circumstance that all the citizens had covenanted with each other to submit to the injuries of other organizations unknown to the law as to any valid power over the common- wealth's own sphere. Such would be the consistent result. But can this be law ? Even in the extreme case, to which the Pres- byterian Church does not pertain, where the members had cov- enanted to make their highest church court supreme and irre- sponsible in all its acts, so unwise a compact of individuals could not rob the commonwealth of its inherent jiu'isdiction over pro- perty rights. A church constitution thus extravagant might be cpioted against the member appealing from it to convict him in- dividually of inconsistency ; it could not be quoted against the commonwealth to estop her from her inahenable right and duty of protecting the property rights of citizens, even when the suf- ferers have been rash and inconsistent.
We come now to the actual state of the law, as determined l>y the American decisions. Mr. Justice Miller cites, as against us,
276 WALNUT STREET CHUECH DECISION.
many cases.^ The reader cannot be dragged tliroiigli the details of all tliese, nor is it necessary. While they disclose some un- certainty in the application of the correct principle — a feature easily accounted for in American courts — none of them seem to have a strict relevailcy to the issue before us, We select two in, order to illustrate this assertion. One of these is the South Carolina case of Plarmon vs. Dreher, decided by the learned Chancellor Jol) Johnstone. Dreher was a Lutheran minister, who was tried and deposed by his Synod for certain offences and anti-Lutheran doctrines. He sued for certain rights in the use of a church property, from which his deposition ousted him. Chancellor Johnstone says, giving the opinion of the court, that by reason of the mutual independence of church and state in South Carohna "the judgments of religious associations bearing on their own members are not examinable here ; and I am not to inquire whether the doctrines attributed to Mr. Dreher were held by him, or whether, if held, they were anti-Lutheran ; or whether his conduct was or was not in accordance with the d-uty he owed to the Synod or to his denomination." "When a civil right depends upon an ecclesiastical matter, it is the civil court, and not the ecclesiastical, which is to decide. But the civil court tries the civil right and no more, taking the ecclesiastical decisions, out of Avhich the civil right arises, as it finds them." The last is the proposition on which Justice Miller seems to found himself. But it is irrelevant, in that it appears Mr. Dreher prayed the court to entertain the motives and justice of the ecclesiastical sentence against him, while he did not charge that his church constitution had been violated in its forms in reaching it. He does not seem to have charged usurpation against the Lutheran constitution on his prosecutors. So that it does not appear that Chancellor Johnstone adjudicated any principle save the one we have already stated in our third pro- position on I3age 272. But had the complainant raised the issue that the ecclesiastical decision, which impHed his ousting from the Lutheran property used by him, was void because violative of the constitutional covenants of the Lutheran Church, we have
1 Shannon vs. Frost, 3 B. Monro, 253 ; Gibson vs. Armstrong, 7 B. Jlonro, 481 ; Harmon vs. Dreher, 2 Speers' Equity, 87 ; Johns Island Ch. Case, 2 Eichardsons Equity, 215; Ferraria vs. Yasconcelles, 23d Illinois, 456; and the recent Illinois case of Chase vs. Chenej-. (January, 1871, Amer. Cases, Vol. XI., 95.)
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 277
no evidence that Chancellor Johnstone would have decided it with Justice Miller.
The case of Chase vs. Cheney (Supreme Court of Illinois, Jan- nary, 1871, American Cases, Vol. XI., 95,) turns out to be on our side. The Kev. Mr. Cheney, now a diocesan of the "Re- formed Episcopal Church," then a popular pastor in Chicago, had declined to obey the Romanizing orders of his diocesan, Chase, in the manner of celebrating divine worship and the sac- raments. The bishop had, for this insubordination, procured his ejection from his charge and its emoluments by a trial before the usual episcopal court provided by their canons. Cheney appealed to the secular court, to retain his manse and salary, charging unfairness in the particulars of his ecclesiastical trial, and injustice in its verdict. Thornton, Justice, delivered the decision of the court against Cheney, saying :
"4. Where there is no right of property involved, except cler- ical office or salary, the spiritual court is the exclusive judge of its own jurisdiction."
Yet the court, while disclaiming the power to inquire into the :spiritual jurisdiction for Mr. Cheney's relief, proceeds to argue ihe very question disclaimed. "Without asserting the power of this court in cases of this character, yet, on account of the earnest, able and elaborate argument of counsel, we will notice the objection that the spiritual court had no authority to adju- dicate upon the alleged offence." But it is more material to note that the court (pp. 102 and 104 of its opinion) bases its refusal to inquire into the justice of the ecclesiastical sentence against Mr. Cheney solely on the doctrine, which the court elaborately argues, that his privilege of preaching and receiv- ing the consequent pastoral emoluments in an episcopal 23arish was not his vested right. And it adds expressly: "The civil <30urts will interfere with churches or religious associations when rights of property or civil rights are involved." Thus, the Su- preme Court of lUinois is found with us on the princijDle of our case.
But Lawrence, Chief Justice, and Sheldon, Justice, dissent even from this qualified opinion, declaring that even in the case where only clerical office and salary are involved, if a citizen pleads before the civil court that he is deposed by an ecclesi- astical court "unlawfully constituted," and thereby loses emolu-
278 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
ments and support, lie may come to the secular courts for pro- tection. They snj, " We coucede that when a spiritual court has been once organized in conformity with the rules of the denomination of which it forms a part, and when it has jurisdic- tion of the parties and the sul)ject-matter, its subsequent action in the administration of spiritual discipline will not be revised by the secular courts." Their argument is, "The association is purely voluntary; and when a person joins it he consents that, for all spiritual offences, he will be tried by a tribunal organized in conformity with the laws of the society. But /id has not con- sented that he will be tried by one not so organized." "We have here the British doctrine precisely as stated in our propositions 3rd and 4th, page 272
The same doctrine is lucidly taught by the New York Court, in the case of Walker vs. Wainwright, 16 Barbour, 486. In this case motion was made by Walker's counsel, that Wainwright, the bishop, be required to show cause why an injunction previ- ously granted, restraining a sentence of the bishop in accordance with the verdict of an ecclesiastical court for a time, should not be made absolute. The learned judge decided :
"The only cognizance whicla the court will take of the case, is to inquire whether there is want of jurisdiction in the defeudaut (the bishop) to do the act which is sought to be restrained. I cannot consent to review the exercise of any discretion on his part, or to inquire whether his judgment, or that of the subordi- nate ecclesiastical tribunal, is sustained by the truth of the case. I cannot draw to myself the duty of revising their action, or of canvassing its manner or founda- tion, any farther than to inquire whether, according to the law of the association to which both the parties belong, they had authority to act at all. In other words, I can inquire only whether the defendant has the power to act, and not whether he is acting justly."
We may actually claim the Chancery Circuit Court of Louis- ville, in whose adverse decision this discussion began, as virtu- ally conceding the law to us. For that tribimal entered fully into the question of the constitutionality, as tried by the Presby- terian Church constitution, of the doings of the Synod's commit- tee in the Walnut Street Church in January, 1866, and of the consequent results. And the conclusion reached is deduced in part from the assumption that the Synod, according to its con- stitution, had the undefined powers then exercised. So that even this court has not adopted th-e doctrine of Mr. Justice Miller. Had it done so, its consistency would have led it, in- stead of entering into that discussion, to rule simply that a
W.VLNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 279
spiritual court, a Synod, having spoken, tlie secular one had nothing to do but to give effect to its ecclesiastical decree.
But there is one American case whose relevancy is so peculiar, and whose importance was so great, that it is unpardonable to omit it in this argument, as Justice Miller has sought to do. This is the Presbyterian Church case in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1838, known as Todd t'.s\ Green et al. The Gen- eral Assembly of 1837 deemed that the " Plan of Union " with Congregationalists in New York and Ohio was corrupting the order and doctrine of the church. Under the influence of an "Old School" majority, this Assembly declared that plan null and void for unconstitutionality, revoked it, and dissolved four Synods which had grown mainly out of it. It directed all true Presbyterians within these four Synods to reorganize themselves legally as parts of the Presbyterian Church, and declared the remainder not to be, and never to have been, valid parts thereof. It was the logical sequel of these decisions that it should charge its permanent officers, in organizing a new Assembly in 1838, to drop from the roll the four Synods. In May, 1838, these officers were proceeding to organize a new Assembly in accordance with this action. When a "New School" member, whose commission was unquestioned, demanded that the names from the four Synods should now be enrolled, the moderator refused. "When the member appealed from his ruling to the house, the modera- tor refused to j)ut the qiiestion, on the ground that there was, as yet, no house organized enough to entertain it. Thereupon, by a preconcerted signal, the New School members, amidst much confusion, professed to depose this moderator for contumacy', to elect a successor, Dr. Fishei-, and to adjourn immediately to an- other jDlace. The Old School members refused to recognize this action by voting, and, on the withdrawal of the other j)arty, pro- ceeded to complete their organization in accordance with the acts of 1837. The New School body claimed to be the Assem- bly of the Presbyterian Church. As soon as possible, according to the law of Pennsylvania incorporating the trustees of the Geneml Assembly, this body elected additional trustees, whom the old board disregarded. One of these New School trustees, Mr. Todd, then brought an action against Dr. Ashbel Green and the remainder of the old board for the whole funds and estate held bv them for the General Assembly, in the Nisi Prius.
2yO V>ALNU'r STllEET CIIUIICII DECISION.
Oourt of Philiidelpliiii, Judge llogors prcKidiiig. The form of the suit was a (j[uo 'warraido, wliich raised tlio issue whether Todd, cf (i/, were trustees, and this, in turn, (h^pended simply on the (piestioH whcthcsr the body eh)ctiiig him was tlie General Assembly of the Pn^sbytcrian Chureh in America. Btsfore the JV'td Pr'iKfi Court Todd and his associates gained their cause, in virtue of a charge of Judgt; llogers instructing the jury in their favor. The case was then carried up to the " Court in Bank," or Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, presided over by the eminent jurist, Chief-Justice Gibson, iind the decision of the lower court was reversed. A new trial was ordered, under instructions and rnlings so explicitly in favor of the Old School that the plaintift's dropped jn-oceedings. Sucli is the outward history of the case. The body known now as the Northern Assembly, in whoso favor Justici^ Miller has attempted to construct the new law, is composed by a fusion of Old School and New School. Each of these ])arties, for a time, rejoiced in a decision of the case in their favor, so that each of them ought to feel itself committed, so far as consistency can commit, to the upholding of the prin- ciple on wliich their victory was founded. But Avhen we come to the examination of the two decisions we find that, while con- trary in ])ra('tical resiilt, tlu^y wore ])erfectly at one in proceed- ing u[)()n the rul(i of law for which we argue. The question whetlu'r Todd iind his comrades wei'(; trustees was held by both courts to turn solely upon the question whc^ther the body elect- ing them was the General Assembly. And both the courts ruled that this in turn d(!pended upon the conformity of this body with, or its discrepancy from, the Constitution and llules of Order of the Presbyterian Church. These questions were en- tertained by both the courts. Both took jurisdiction over and decided upon the validity <n' invalidity of tlie "Plan of Union," of its repeal in 1837, of the consecpient excision of the four Synods, and of the steps taken in the organization of the two rival Assemblies; and the standard by Avhich all were judged was the constitution of the church. Th(>v reacluMl opposite conclusions simply by taking opposite? views of these various ecclesiastical questions, over wliich l)otli alike took jurisdiction so far as to ascertain the property rights. Thus the case is made all the stronger for us by the fact that both the civil tribunals which adjudicated it, while reaching opposite results, proceeded
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 281
on the very principle Avhich Justice Miller now seeks to disclaim. And all shadow of doubt -wlu'thor avo misconstrue them is re- moved l)y those f;icts, th.-it they not only allowed 0(nnisol the fullest del)iito on tho i)()int of jurisdiction from Avhieh the new decision woiild have pnu-luded iliem, and actually adjudicated that pcnnt, l)ut that they, in words, arguo and assert tho pro- priety and necessity of their doing so. The reader may consult the " charge " of Judge Eogers to his jury in tho " Presbyterian Church Case," pages 404, 482, and the opinion of Chief-Justico Oibson, pages 587, 594. The latt-r eminent authority rul<>s, page 587 : The General Assendjly, " having no corporate capacity in itself, is not a subject of our corrective jurisdiction, or of our scrutiny, further than to ascertain how far its organic structiiro may bear on the (piestion of its personal identity or individual- it3\" .... " Unfortunately, a quorum of the General Assembly may be constituted of a very small minority" (of tho whole body), " so that tv.o, or even more, distinct parts may have all the organs of legitimate existence. Hence where, as in this in- stance, the members have formed themselves into distinct bodies numerically sufficient for corporate capacity and organic action, it becomes necessary to ascertain how far either of them was formed in obedience to tho conventional law of the association; which Imo, for that purpose only, '/6' to he treated as a rule of cinl oUigatlony So, on page 501, the court, after arguing that the " exscinding acts " were constitutional according to the constitu- tion of the Presbyterian Church, proceeds thus: "If, then, the Synods in question woro constitutionally dissolved, tho Presby- teries of which th(3y had been composed wer(>, at least for pur- poses of representation, dissolved along with them." .... "It appears, therefore, that tho coniniissloners from the exscinded Synods were not entitled to seats in tho Assembly, and that their names were properly excluded from the roll."
In the argument before the Ccnirt in Bank for a new trial, tho chief part was borne by Mr. Sergeant, of Philadelphia. Although, as counsel, he speaks here e.e jxirte, his age, impartiahty, vast learning, and high personal character gave to his views almost a judicial weight. On pages 545-47 he expounds and asserts our doctrine thus : "What will you appeal to as a ground of argu- ment? I say that the acts of the Assend)ly of I8:j7 were good. Why? Because I think they were right AVhat I think is.
282 "WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
liowever, of no cousequeuce to anybody else. T\'e must liaye some rule. AVliat is it ? ... . Let ns go to the constitution of tlie cliurcli." Again : " If this court can try a question as to the constitutionality of an act of the church, we must be allowed the benefit of these same principles and rules" (by which the validity of a secular law would be tested in a court). " "What are they ? There is one great one, he who complains is bound to show that the act is in conflict with some express pro^s-ision of the constitution " (of the church). But as our principle was adopted and proceeded on by both parties, in lioth courts, there was little occasion to assert it in those trials.
The only apparent eyasion fi'om the force which we claim in this case would be the plea that it is exceptional, liecause there were two riyal bodies, each claiming to be the supreme court of the church. The doctrine of Justice Miller is, that when the supreme church court has spoken, the ciyil tribunal cannot go behind it. But here two bodies, claiming to be such, have spoken ; and therefore he must, in this peculiar case, go behind the dicta of both ; and he would do it consistently with his views. But to this there is a fatal answer. The General Assembly of 1837 was the supreme court of the whole denomination, unques- tioned by either party. This Assembly had spoken decisively, and there was no pretence that the Old School moderator and clerks in 1838 were not proceeding in strict accordance with its dictum, to organize an Old School Assembly in 1838. Hence, had Judcre Eogers and Chief Justice Gibson held the doctrine of Mr. Justice Miller, consistency would have compelled them both to dismiss the suit of Todd and his comrades, on the ground that the secular tribunal was incompetent to scrutinize the su- preme acts, or the logical consequences thereof, which the su- preme court of the church had in 1837 deemed itself entitled to perform.
The Northern General Assembly of 1872, representing a great body constituted by the fusion of New and Old Schools, hastened with eagerness to place this new doctrine of Mr. Justice Miller on its ecclesiastical code, and to make it a part of the law of their church. Both branches have thus signalized their glaring inconsistency. The New School have now condemned the very ground on which they did their utmost, in 1838, to seize the whole estate of the Presbyterian Church in America ; and the
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 283
Old School liave repudiated the Avliole grouud on which they engrossed that estate away from their New School brethren for thirty years.
We conclude this examination of the law, as revealed by the decisions, with two remarks. The utmost that can be claimed, after this review, concerning the current of the American cases, is, that it may be to some degree indecisive. "Were such the case, surely it would be competent to the highest court of law in this American empire, when called to settle this great principle of law for the first time, to rise above the plodding precedents of lower tribunals, if these were found inconsistent with the true equity of the matter, and to fix the unsettled point of jurispru- dence by the broad lights of that equity, as reflected from the history of free commonwealths. But we have sliOAvn that the current of the decisions is virtually on our side. We shall also claim the support of the general equity in the case.
How alien the new decision which we combat is to the law as recognized by jurists, may appear from the fact, that already two Supreme Courts of States have been constrained to dissent from it. The court of Pennsylvania, in the recent case of Geo. H, Stuart against the Reformed (Cameronian) Church, tacitly but distinctly disregarded the new law attempted to be set up. The court of Missouri, in a recent ecclesiastical case, did the same thing overtly, declaring that not even the veneration due to the august tribunal in Washington could prevail to force them to countenance a doctrine so illegal. The enforcement of the new rule is, indeed, impracticable, without the exercise of a tyranny and injustice in particular cases, to which the minds of the American people will not be reconciled until many years of op- pression shall have elapsed.
II. We now consider the equity of the case. We maintain that when an ecclesiastical decision is set up in a civil tribunal as a ground of a civil right, this court must be compentent to entertain the question, so far as the right of property goes, whether the ecclesiastical tribunal acted within its jurisdiction; and that the standard by which this question is to be decided is the ecclesiastical constitution agreed to by the members of that rehgious society. This almost self-evident principle of equity Mr. Justice Miller seeks to evade by saying, that the word "jurisdiction" is a vague one. Should the church court find a
284 WALNUT STEEET CHURCH DECISION.
sentence against any man's life or person, the ci%'il court would, of course, set it aside; the former has exceeded its jurisdiction. So, he admits, should the church court claim to decide against one of its members a property-right not grounded in an ecclesi- astical decision, this claim would be utterly disregarded in any civil court where it might be set up; for there would be a just sense in which the church court "had no jurisdiction." But Justice Miller thinks that in cases where the decision implying the property -right "is strictly and pui'ely ecclesiastical in its character " — " a matter which concerns theological controversy, church disciphne, ecclesiastical government, or the conformity of its members to the standard of morals required of them" — there the church court has exclusive jurisdiction ; and whatever may be the secular injustice alleged, it is incompetent for any civil court to inquire whether or not the church court has con- strued its own organic law aright in assuming this jurisdiction.
But the position is inconsistent with the preA"ious admission. Even Justice Miller limits his position to matters " strictly and purely ecclesiastical in character." But if this ecclesiastical decision invades a property -right, it is not strictly and purely ecclesiastical. The very issue which the complainant raises before the civil coui't to which he resorts for protection is, whether the ecclesiastical court has not exceeded its jurisdic- tion. That issue ine-vdtably makes the ecclesiastical court a2Xirty before the civil tribunal ; and how contrary to ec[uity are aU pro- ceedings which make a party its own judge, no lawyer need be told. Let this be weighed in the mind, and it will be clear that either the justice's point must be relinquished, or the extreme ground must be taken, that all decisions, termed, by the church courts announcing them, ecclesiastical, must stand unquestioned, no matter how iniciuitous. In truth, the difficulty concerning vagueness of jurisdiction does not exist. The civil court has no spiritual jurisdiction ; the church court has none directly secu- lar ; and its indirect power of affecting civil rights by its spirit- ual decisions is defined by its own church constitution.
This clear and simple limit will preserve us, so far as any human institutions in imperfect hands can be expected to work with certainty, from aU the confusions and intrusions which are foreshadowed in such threatening colors by the "opinion" of the Supreme Court. It is not claimed that civil tribunals are
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 285
always enlightened, and just because they are secular; but it is claimed that ecclesiastical courts are not always so because they are spiritual in profession. And we firmly hold that the prin- ciples of our civil government give the citizens the additional safeguard of an appeal from the possible injustice of the fallible church court, wherever vested civil rights are involved. We assert that, in all constitutional States, this safeguard is needed, and will usually be just and beneficial. Mr, Justice Miller's whole practical argument seems to proceed upon the assumption that secular courts, because non-religious, will usually be igno- rant, unjust, or intrusive ; while spiritual courts, because belong- ing by profession to the kingdom of heaven, will always be wise and just. Does history sustain this? It is unnecessary to re- mind the reader of the many instances in which apostate and usurping ecclesiastics have foully perverted their professed alle- giance to the kingdom of righteousness, for perpetrating enor- mous wrong. But the possibility and likelihood that a pure and well-meaning clergy, if unchecked by secular authority, may violate the civil rights of their people, can be truthfully asserted without any libel on their actual character. To hold the scales of justice with an even hand, amidst all the complications of right arising in civilized society, requires not only virtue, but special knowledge, and the judicial habit of thought. 'We concede to the body of our American clergy the virtue ; but they do not usually possess the other acquirements. The scenes often wit- nessed in their ecclesiastical courts betray much want of that forensic experience and judicial skill so necessary in adjudicat- ing civil interests. The tendency of tho clergyman's education and life is to render him over-dogmatic. He is reverenced by his people " for his work's sake." His customary discourse is fi'om a rostrum (the pulpit) where no forensic rival can test or sift his logic. His converse with sacred and divine topics be- trays him into the tendency of sanctifj'ing his own fallible con- clusions, and even his prejudices, until he is prone to resent au attack upon them as impiety.
But Mr. Justice Miller argues that each denomination of Christians has not only its theology, but its digest of church laws, which will probably be found extensive and complicated. Civil lawyers are not likely to be learned and skilful in these; the church lawyers presumably are. Hence, the doctrine he
28G AY.yLXUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
discards makes tlie appeal, as lie thinks, from tlie more learned tribunal to tlie one less learned. We reply, first, that the issue raised by him who is aggrieved in his civil rights in a church court never involves the whole theology and canon law of that church, but only some definite questions, the standard for the settlement of which is the brief organic law of the church itself. Surely it cannot be hard for an intelligent and impartial mind, skilled in general jurisprudence, to decide such questions. But the thing which the complainant wants is not more learned, but more impartial judges. "\Ye reph*, second, that this objection only proves the Avant of a diligent and learned judiciary in a civilized state. The duties falling upon civil judges must often lead them beyond their special science. If this objection were allowed, it would reduce the jurisdiction of the civil courts to a narrow circle indeed. Thus, the jurist has long found himself compelled to annex extensive brandies of the alien science of medicine so closely to his proper studies that it has currently received the name of "Medical Jurisprudence." The jurist may find himself constrained, in order to adjudicate a crime, or a question of inheritance, to explore the mysteries of anatomy, of surgery, of physiology, of obstetrics, of toxicology, of mental pathology. Does he invoke the chamical or medical expert as a sovereign judicial authority on these points, and humbly remit to him the absolute decision of the scientific questions raised ? No ; he calls him to his bar only as a witness, whose testimony is but ancillaiy to the judicial decision. So the judge in a mar- itime court, in order to decide correctly a question of insurance or salvage, may be compelled to inform himsolf of the details of naval architecture and of navigation. Because, unless the court furnishes itself with this knowledge, the aggrieved citizen is de- prived of his right of protection under its shelter. With what consistency can the justice advance his plea from the intricacies of creeds and canons when he knows these facts ? How can the jurist claim to dismiss the branches of theology and ecclesiasti- cal law from his studies when he knows that his noble science is thus continually laying all other arts and all learning under tribute to its beneficent ends ?
The reporter of the Supreme Court correcth- states a part of its decision under his sixth proposition. If the property in trust was given to a Congregational church, which is independent in
^YALN^T STREET CHURCH DECISION. 287
its order, in cas9 of a schism tlie trust is to be bestowed by tlie civil court on '•' the majority of the society." The inadequacy of this principle is disclosed by a very simple question. Suj)- pose this independent society should be found equally divided ? To which of the equal members will the court give the succes- sion ? Hoio, at least, it must unavoidably take jurisdiction of the question, which of the two maintains the doctrine and order which the trust was designed to uphold ? But after doing this, that court could not, in the next case, abdicate the righteous authority it had just exercised, and allow the party which per- verted the trust to enjoy its possession, because merely of the accident that it had the major numbers. To act thus would im- ply that numbers made error true and wrong right.
Under propositions 5th (1) and 6th, the court rided that when a trust had been bestowed upon any ecclesiastical body for the expressed object of " supporting any specific religious doctrine or belief," " the court wiU, when necessary to protect the trust to which the property has been devoted, inquire into the reHgious faith or practice of the parties claiming its use or control, and will see that it shall not be diverted from that trust." Mr, Justice Miller, expounding this correct doctrine, speaks as follows :
"In tlie case thus made, it is the obvious duty of the court to see that the property zo dedicated is not diverted from the trust which is thus attached to its use. So long as there are persons qualified within the meaning of the original dedica- tion, and who are also willing to teach the doctrines or principles prescribed in the act of dedication ; and so long as there is any one so interested in the execution of the trust as to have a standing in court, it must be that they can prevent the diver- sion of the fund or i^roperty to other and different uses. This is the general doc- trine of courts of equity as to charities ; and it seems equally applicable as to ecclesiastical matters." .... "In such case it is not in the power of the majority of that congregation, however jireponderant, by reason of a change of views on re- ligious subjects, to carry the property so confided to them to the support of new and conflicting doctrine." .... "Xor is the principle varied when the organiza- tion to which the trust is confided is of the second or associated form of church government. The in-otectiou which the law throws around the trust is the same. And though the task may be a delicate and difficult one, it will be the duty of the court in such cases, when the doctrine to be taught or the form of worship to be used is clearly laid down, to inquire whether the party accused of violating the trust is holding or teaching a different doctrine, or using a form of worship which is so far variant as to defeat the declared objects of the trust."
Such is the concession to which Justice Miller is constrained by the force of indisputable law and equity. But it concedes om- case. For the Presbyterian Chui'ch is notoriously charac-
288 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
terized by a specific form of religious doctrine and order. It» creed is extended, particular and absolutely definite. Its gov- ernment is regulated by an express constitution of defined and limited powers. Hence, any man declaring a trust for the pro- pagation of Presbyterianism, as existing in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, must be understood by the court as having designed to " devote it to the teaching, spread or sup- port of a specific form of religious doctrine or belief." It is also presumable that a specific church order may have had as real, although not as sacred, a value in the eyes of the donor as a specific doctrine. Therefore the court may be as much bound to protect a trust devoted to the maintenance of a given church order as that devoted to a given doctrine or worship. But since the order of the Presbyterian Church was notorioiisly definite and specific, every property devoted to Presbyterianism must be regarded as coming under the class of specified trusts.
Mr. Justice Miller admits fully that "religious organizations come before us in the same attitude as other associations for benevolent and charitable purjioses, and their rights of property or of contract are equally under the protection of law, and the actions of their members subject to its restraints." .... " The principles on which we are to decide so much of it (the case ap- pealed), as is jjroper for our decision, are those applicable alike to all its class."
This admission again gives us our conclusion. The acknow- ledgment must also be extended to all voluntary combinations of citizens, not illegal, implicating proj)erty-rights. This no judge of law will deny. Nor will it be denied that property be- stowed on a church for religious uses is a trust. Nor will the third step of our argument be denied, that wherever a trust has been created, it may become the dutj- of the courts to protect it, and to take whatever jurisdiction over the working of the asso- ciation is necessary to that end. . A mining company, for exam- ple, has a by-law enacted by its stockholders, that while six of its ten directors shall be a cpiorum for the transaction of ordinary business, no number less than the whole board shall sell any real estate of the company. But a sale has been made, by which a stockholder feels aggrieved. He seeks legal redress. He claims, in his biU, that the sale shall be voided, because actually made by only seven directors. Must not the court entertain
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 289
that question of fact, and, if it be establislied, must they not judge the pretended act by the by-laws of the association itself, and declare it void ? It would be held by all a vain plea to urge that the court had no power to go back of an act of a majority of the directory, or to adjudicate a question under a by-law of a voluntary association. This principle of law is surely too in- contestable to require much defence when we see it regulating a multitude of decisions, and illustrated in a standard work like Bryce's Vltra Yires. It is too late to question the rule that the act of an association or trustee affecting their trust, done tiUra vires, may be declared void. But now, on what ground shall the civil court exempt an ecclesiastical association from the opera- tion of this rule ? It is confidently held that none exists in law or equit^\
Indeed, the plainest principles of common justice are sufficient to make this clear. The citizen who chooses to devote his pro- perty to any person or object, not illegal, is entitled to have his ■«ish and purpose guarded by the law. Thus the main guide for interpreting a will is the design of the testator. Let us sup- pose that there is written in the will, in words, a specific bequest to " John Smith." But there are actually two John Smiths, Then the court will be bound, if necessary, to exhaust every means for ascertaining which is the John Smith that was in the mind of the testator. It will take parole evidence, and inquire into any facts, as to the relations, the afi'ections, and even the words, of the deceased man, which -^dll throw light upon that question. If there were a spurious John Smith who had as- sumed the name of the legatee, still more would it be the duty of the court to scrutinize every fact necessary to estabUsh the identity of the real John Smith. In the Walnut Street Church case there were two churches and two Presbyteries of Louisville. Upon the plain principle of law just stated the court was bound to discriminate for itself the one of the two which answered to the design of the donor of the property, and no consideration of coiirtesy or respect for the asserted identity of either claimant could relieve it of this duty.
A consideration of the history of that great struggle, continued through so man}' centuries, and moistened Avith so much blood- shed, by which the Protestant states of Europe acquired the boon of spiritual liberty, will teach us the true bearings of the
Vol. n.— 19.
290 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
new doctrine concerning cliiircli trusts. We will limit our in- quiries to tlie state from wliicli our commonwealths sprang. The perpetual effort of Borne, in her ambitious struggle to dom- inate over the rights of men, was to make her ecclesiastical courts as independent of the courts of law as possible, and to grasp under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by means of churchly l^retexts, as many secular rights as possible. She aimed to make all clergy amenable for secular crimes, such as robbery or mur- der, only to the spiritual courts. She claimed to adjudicate all cases of ecclesiastical property. Every wise statesman who ever struggled for the welfare of the British people has seen the portentous tendencies of these ecclesiastical usurpations, and has resisted them. Even the early struggles of the Norman monarch, Henry II., against Becket and Pope Alexander III., disclose, in the Constitutions of Clarendon^ a clearer appreciation of this contest than has been exhibited in our Supreme Court. Among the sixteen heads of those wise laws which mark the beginning of the " Beformation " in England, as a movement for secular liberty, we note the first and ninth asserted by the states- men of England, and resisted by Becket and Borne. Ever}' controversy touching a right of advowson or ecclesiastical pat- ronage, even when clergy were parties, was to be tried before the king's courts. Every challenge between a clerk and a lay- man, as to the feudal tenure of the property in dispute, whether a lay or spiritual fee, was to be tried before the-king's court with a jury of laymen. If that jury decided that the fee was spiritual, the question on its merits might go to the ecclesiastical court ; if they decided that it was a lay fee, it must be tried before the secular court. Our laws know neither feudal laws of tenure nor rights of patronage as forms of personal property. But we have in these contested articles substantially the principle of equity for which we argue. The adjudication of secular rights belongs exclusively to the secular courts, and the question whether a given right is ecclesiastical, as soon as it is raised, reduces the ecclesiastical court from the grade of judge to that of party, who must submit his claim to the jurisdiction of the secular court. The able lawyers who guided Henry saw clearly that on no other plan could an effectual barrier be raised against the en- grossment of wealth in ghostly ha:ids. Wealth is power. They saw that just as soon as the spiritual power was armed with
WALNUT STREET CHUKCH DECISION. 291
wealth, whose tenure and use were amenable to its superior jurisdiction only, there was a rival and aggressive imperlum in iviperlo, whose movements must be fatal to liberty. Using their wealth irresponsibly to the secular authority, these ecclesiastical authorities never failed in the end to use it for their own aggran- dizement, and the engrossing to themselves of more exorbitant powers. Such is man's nature.
We come now to the age of Blackstone, when Protestant England had become fully established as a free Christian com- monwealth. In this author (Book III., Chap. YII., p. 87, etc.) we read :
"These eccentrical tribunals, which are principally guided by the rules of the imperial and canon laws, as they subsist and are admitted in England, not by any right of their own, but upon bare svifferance and toleration from the municipal laws, must have recourse to the laws of that country wherein they are thus adopted, to be informed how far their jurisdiction extends, or what causes are permitted, and what forbidden, to be disciissed and drawn in question before them. It matters not, therefore, what the pandects of Justinian, or the decretals of Gregory, have ordained. They are here of no more intrinsic authority than the laws of Solon and Lycurgus. " . . . "In short, the common law of England is the one uniform rule to determine the jurisdiction of our courts. "
Thus does the English law speak of the ecclesiastical tribu- nals, even of that National Church which is, by express law, established in the kingdom. These spiritual tribunals are, after all, only courts by sufferance of the common law, and ca*n take no jurisdiction whatever, save what the secular law allows them. How much more true, then, in this country, where church and state are absolutely separate and independent, is that proposi- tion which we asserted, that church courts are not courts by any valid force of law in their relation to the courts of law of the country. However, they may properly be spiritual courts, in their ghostly jurisdiction and moral penalties, to those persons who have voluntarily joined the religious societies they repre- sent ; in the view of the law, they are no more than voluntary umpires, and stand on the same footing with all the other extra- legal boards of direction or reference created by the optional combination of citizens. The inevitable corollary from this po- sition is, that whenever the decisions of one of these bodies touches a property-right which the constitution and laws have committed to the guardianship of civil courts, such decisions have no validity save that which the law allows and confers.
Thejjroperty of the Anglican Church was derived chiefly from
292 WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION.
lier original endowments in lands and honses and in tithes. Blackstone, in defining tlie jurisdiction of ecclesiastical coui*ts touching this property, requires us to take the following dis- tinction: They "have no jurisdiction to try the r.'^7ii( of tithes unless between spiritual persons ; but in ordinary cases between spiritual men and laymen are only to compel the payment of them when the right is not disputed." . . "If any dispute arises whether such tithes be due and accustomed, this cannot be de- termined in the ecclesiastical court, but before the king's courts of the common law." ('^88.) "For fees also, settled and ac- knowledged to be due to the officers of the ecclesiastical courts, a suit will lie therein ; but not if the r'lglit of the fees is at all dis- putable, for then it must be decided by the common law." ("90.) So, in claims for spoliations or dilapidations of ecclesiastical real properties, "if the right of patronage" (to that property) "comes at all into dispute," . . . "then the ecclesiastical court hath no cognizance, provided the tithes sued for amount to a fourth part of the value of the li^njig." (^91.) Here, again, the ecclesiastical power, even though regularly established by law for its o^NTi sphere, is jealously kept in subordination to the civil courts, w^herever property-rights of citizens are involved in the church's spiritual actions. The same principle of law should be applied, for the stronger reason, in an American State, because here the ecclesiastical tribunal is one unrecognized b}', and other- ■wise irresponsible to the State. In England every bishop, whose diocesan court in ordinary exercises this limited power, is ap- pointed by the crown; as most of the inferior clergy receive their presentations from some secular order in the state. The ParUament, the representative legislature of the state, is the supreme church court. The Lord Chancellor, the supreme judge in civil law and equity, receives his appointment direct from the king ; and that judge is also the judicial head of the church. The last resort, in the question most purely spiritual, is to the Privy Council. But though the subordination of the Estabhshed Church to the civil power, which is her creator, bo so complete and guarded at every point, still the wise and cau- tious spirit of British law restricts her jurisdiction over property- rights, especially of laymen, to the mere execution of undisputed claims. How complete will be the contrast, if Justice Miller's opinion remove from our ecclesiastical courts this last band oi
WALXFT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 293
accoii-^tabilitj, and leave these bodies, unknown as autlioritative tribunals to the law of the land, and otherwise utterly irrespon- sible to it, to adjudicate property-rights at their sovereign option under the plea of their construction of their ecclesiastical con- stitutions !
This new departure receives a supremely ominous coloring when viewed in connection with the rapid growth of the tenures in mortmain in our country, and the melting away of the old restrictions against them. Our revolutionary sires understood the peril to the future j^^^rity of the Christian religion and the future liberties of the people from this source ; not only were they statesmen who had learned wisdom in the study of con- stitutions and histories, instead of the slippery arena of the "caiiciis" and the pohtical ring, but they had been taught by the bitter experience of clerical oppressions and persecutions. They knew that this ghostly and perpetual tenure of property held in Jhe shnple for professed spiritual uses, if allowed its na- tural course, tended to engross more and more to itself. The power of the spiritual physician over the sick and dying sinner is often supreme. The sense of guilt, the desire to testify re- pentance in the near approach of the eternal and tremendous award of divine justice, and to propitiate his favor by gifts of that worldly wealth now slipping from the grasp, become the most influential motives. Or if the dying testator has a more enlightened conscience and ingenuous heart, no disposition of his wealth can seem more noble than the bestowdng of it in per- petuity, to extend to others that gospel which has purified and consoled his own spirit. Zeal for the same holy end will not fail to enlist the most self-denying and disinterested of the clergy in recommending and applauding such bequests, while the more ambitious and greedy of the holy order will have their eagerness whetted by more ignoble motives to seek these pious gifts. Thus, the historv of every Christian state shows, that if these bequests are legalized, they will be sought by the church and will be made to her. If the valves are opened the steam will flow beyond all doubt. It is flowing now in all the American States in con- stantly increasing volume. The churches are becoming rich with real property and endowments in various forms. But when these riches have once come, a new danger emerges to reinforce the perilous tendency. The ecclesiastical riches become the in-
294 WALNUT STKEET CHUKCH DECISION.
evitable objects of avarice. Worldly and greedy men are drawn to seek spiritual offices for the sake of the money and power with which they are now endowed ; and the general character of the clergy undergoes a revolution. Of course this new clergy, greedy, mercenary and ambitious, will not fail to wield every ghostly motive with increasing zeal, to gather in these pious be- quests.
Such is the explanation of the process which at the Reforma- tion had locked up half the real estate of Scotland and one-third of that of England, and which held one-third of that of the French, even down to the great Revolution, in the hands of undying spiritual corporations. True statesmen at once comprehended the result. They saw this tenure in niortinain, where unchecked by law, subtract a third or a half of the wealth of the state from taxation, thus throwing an intolerable burden of taxes on the secular orders. They saw this ill-directed wealth taint and cor- rupt the ministry, until, from the holy messengers of a heavenly religion, they became an order of greedy and luxurious oppres- sors. They saw this professedly consecrated wealth practically breed in the state a new species of aristocracy, self-perpetuating, irresponsible, and separated by caste from the people who should have been their fellow-citizens. Such was the apprehension felt on this head by those great and wise men who founded the in- dependence of Virginia, that they concluded there was no as- sured safety for their children's freedom save in tearing the tenure in mortmain, root and branch, out of their constitution. The laws studiously and totally excluded that form of tenure; and for fifty years there was absolutely no legal recognition of real or personal property-tenure for any spiritual corporation. Every acre of land, and every building, and every endowment they possessed, was held by some e.rtra-\eg?i\ expedient, under which the trust was protected only by the public opinion of an honorable people and the personal conscience of trustees and their heirs-at-law. Let the reader review the history of this tenure in Europe, and he will hesitate in pronouncing even the caution of the Virginians to be extreme.
But now all is changed, and the old danger is forgotten. Our new "progressive" statesmen, ignorant or disdainful of the les- sons of history, and wise only in demagogism and gain, heed- lessly remove every restriction. Ecclesiastical corporations
WALNUT STREET CHURCH DECISION. 295
spring lip by multitudes. The cliurcli grows yearly iu endowed wealth. Already its luoral effects are seen. The church courts of the great denominations obviously begin to feel the arrogance of power, and their atmosphere to saror of ecclesiastical policy rather than humble ministerial devotion. The clergy no longer attracts the unwilling veneration of the world, but is either con- temned or courted as the great men of the world are courted. The line of distinction between Christian morals and worldly conformity becomes more faint. And now comes the Supreme Court of the United States, and gives the last fatal impulse, by making these church courts irresponsible in the use or perver- sion of all the vast wealth they are destined to engross.
For every jiractical mind sees at a glance, that under this new ruling nothing is required of a grasping church court to render it actually irresponsible, but that it shall have the hardihood to say that it deems its decision conformable to the constitution of the church. Does it ever cost anything to ambitious heady men, heated by prejudice and lust of power, to say this ? But they have only to say this as a supreme church court, and, according to Mr. Justice Miller, no power on earth can check their hand from the unjust grasp upon ecclesiastical property. The effect is to make each supreme court a veritable pope, so far as church property goes. Each one is clothed with the power of a practical infallibility, touching all the sacred property in its denomination, and all the property-rights of its members. This suggests a final and crucial test for Justice Miller's doctrine. Let a lay papist appeal to the law for protection in this land of freedom and equal rights, and we shall see how the new law will work. His bishop claims in his own person all the property of the church in his diocese in trust for " holy mother church." This bishop acknowledges no ecclesiastical subordination to any save the pope. He, the pope, is the supreme ecclesiastical court. But, saith our Supreme Court, the ruling of the supreme ecclesi- astical tribunal of the suitor's denomination must be unques- tioned and final. So, when this American citizen appears at the bar of his ov.n country to claim justice, Mr. Justice Miller tells him that a man who is a foreigner, living four thousand miles away, wlio scorns all allegiance to the American government, and who claims indeed to be an independent prince of a separate
29G WALNUT STREET CHUECH DECISION.
and distinct state, lias forbidden liim to liave even a hearing! With this reductlo ad aljsurdisshnam we leave the case.
The least perspicacious may see the bearing of this new law upon the rights and existence of the Southern Presbyterian Church. Its consistent application would rob us of every en- dowment, every printing-house, church, manse, burying-ground and school, and every missionary or evangelistic fund held in the name of the church. Let us suppose that the Northern As- sembly had held on its way consistently in the species of legis- lation w^hich it set on foot in 1865 and 1866 ; that it had persisted in the declaration actually adopted, making the con- stitutional position of the Old School Church touching slavery and civic allegiance to be the sin of heresy ; that it had judicially required all Southern Synods, Presbyteries and sessions to try and censiu-e their members for this sin ; that when these courts treated the injunction wdth neglect, the Assembly had proceeded to deal with them for contumacy, had dissolved them by xi'&fiat, and had pronounced any minorities of negroes or " carpet-bag- gers," however despicable, wdio professed to adhere, the true Southern churches and church courts, entitled to the succession to all the records, endowments and real estate. What is all this more than was actually done by the Assembly of 1866 in its *' ipso facto act" ? Let it be remembered that to that enormous act the Supreme court has given its full sanction in the case of the Walnut Street Church, and that in virtue thereof the present occupants actually hold that property to-day. It is to be pre- sumed that the Supreme Court means to be consistent. The [Northern Assembly, then, has only to extend an enactment pre- cisely identical to all our other churches, and they must expect to see their property follow the fate of the Walnut Street Church. The only tenure by which Southern Presbyterians hold the possessions, bought wdth Southern labor and money, bestowed by the piety of our sainted Southern ancestors, for the purpose of upholding the doctrines and principles which we still maintain, but which the Northern Assembly has in part dis- carded and now assails, is the optionary forbearance, or timidity, or policy of that hostile and accusing body. Does one say, " They do not dream of wielding that power?" For their own credit we hope they do not. But this solace is dashed by two thoughts. The first is, whether a free people can be content to
WALNUT STEEET CHURCH DECISION. 297
liold rights so clear and dear by the mere sufferance cf another association ? The second is the pertinent inquiry, For what end and use did the Northern Assembly so eagerly engross this law of tyranny in its own code, and for tohat j^^t-rj^ose is it now re- tained there f To promote " fraternal relations " ?
SPEECH ON FUSION WITH THE UNITED SYNOD.^
THE argument, Mr, Moderator, before tlie recent adjonm- ment, "svas directed to tlie constitutionality of the proposed act of union, and to the propriety of connecting it with any declar- ation of principles other than the Confession. One main point re- mained, the discussion of which has been sundered from the others, I fear awkwardly, by the arriyal of the hour of adjourn- ment. It has been strongly asserted that, if it were prudent to accompany this act with any declaration of principles, this one prepared by your committee would he inadmissible, because faulty in itself. To this point I will now adyert.
Much has been said of the aniljlguity of the committee's pro- positions. Has not the attempt been made to yerify this charge by those who make it, by their oyer-readiness to profess that they misunderstand it ? Upon this easy way of supporting the charge, no document on earth could escape the rej)roach of be- ing ambiguous. For what one has not been in isrepresented by some captious persons? The question is, not whether an ad- verse ingenuity can 2>'>"ofess some misunderstanding of the com- mittee's meaning, but whether our words can be fairly convicted of being liable to it. Let the same just rule be extended to these propositions which the Confession, Chap. I., Sec. IX., as- serts for the interpretation of the Scriptures, and we shall haye no fear of their being misunderstood.
Much has also been said about the presumption of the attempt to construct on these points "a new creed," which was "yirtu- ally to supersede the Confession ; and the supposed haste and rashness vnih. which the attempt is said to haye been made, is set in contrast with the laborious years spent by the Westmin- ster Assembly. Now, in reply to this, there are two things to be
1 This paper forms only the concluding part of Dr. Dabney's speech, but in- cludes all that related to the doctrinal statements adopted by the committees of conference ou the question of a union with the United Synod. The first part was not reported, though it would have been gratifying had the whole been preserved as a permanent record of the argument.
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said. HoAv do tliese objectors know how mucli of labor, time^ correction and study were devoted by tlie committee to the pre- paration of these few paragraphs, which only profess to touch four points of doctrine ? Next, they repudiate the pui'pose of making a "new creed," or any thing which was "virtually to supersede the Confession." They declare that their purpose was only to put forth a few statements to evince the cordial agreement of those who were supposed to have differed on these points. And for this modest, humble, s]3ecific, temporary pur- pose, I will still assert these sentences may answer, not perhaps absolutely well, but sufficiently well; nor vnVi I lie under the charge of presumption in attempting to draw up a few such statements, the doing of which is obviously within the reach of any respectable Presbyterian minister, with due care, guided, as he would be, not only by the Scriptures, but by the Confes- sion, and by a recent and exhaustive discussion of these points between New and Old School, which, after lasting thirty years, has ceased for want of new matter. Is it not time such a sub- ject should be understood by all well-informed men?
Now, Mr. Moderator, I might fairly avail myself of the course pursued b}* the opponents of this report, to claim an a jjriori conclusion in its favor. After numerous and most confident ob- jections and criticisms, outside the house and in print, they have not attempted on this floor, save in one brief form, to substanti- ate a single one of them in debate. There has been a silence and avoidance of this whole branch of the discussion. I might claim this as my prosecutors' nolle ■prosequi, as their tacit sur- render of their charges, and thus demand of the Assembly a verdict in our favor. But I desii'e to j^ress no technical ad- vantage. Moreover, a memorial has been read as a part of the argument in this discussion from the respected Presbj-tery of I^outh CaroUna, which raises three points against our j^aper. As the other side have seen fit to bring them in this form into the house, I shall avail myself of the right to reply to them, giving thereby evidence of our readiness and ability to defend the whole.
1. The memorial objects to the words that this union is in- tended to " remove the dishonor done to rehgion by former separations." And the charge is here implied, elsewhere broadly stated, that we ask the Assembly, in adopting this language, to
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repudiate and condemn, in a body, the glorious reforms and prin- ciples of 1837. Mr. Moderator, when Martin Yan Buren, in his inaugural, closed by saying he should " endeavor to walk in the steps of his illustrious predecessors," his enemies — of whom he had even more than he deserved, bad as he was — by chopping oif the "s" made him say, "his illustrious predecessor," and they then charged him with a disgusting sycophancy, in those words, to Andrew Jackson, to whose popvilarity he owed his election. This innocent phrase in the report of your committee has met with the same fate. The "s" has been dropped, and the phrase " former separation," which we never used, has been forced to mean the reform of 1837 itself, and our happy release from the corrupt elements of the Northern Church. Restore this phrase as we used it, and it becomes manifest that the re- ference is to all those causeless and mischievous divisions m the South, divisions of hearts, of churches, of schools, as of my native congregation, that of the sainted Wharey, of the College Church, the Richmond Church, the Union Seminary, and a mul- titude of other churches. Did not these dishonor religion ? Did not the Old School Synods in the South declare that these separations here were not demanded by any vital diiierence of principle, and tenderly invite our New School brethren in the South to refrain from them as unnecessary ? Was not some of the blame of them found on both sides ? But, let this last ques- tion be answered as it may, I assert that, meeting our New School brethren for the j^urpose you sent us to them, a gener- ous language of concession was the proper one to use. We met, not to apportion the several measures of guilt upon the culprits, and to avenge it, but to reconcile, to heal, to place that old guilt and its bitter consequences in the road to a happy obli- vion. Men who meet for such a purpose, if they are sincere, will think it much more appropriate to assume a generous share of the blame of former divisions, than enviously to seek to seal it upon former opj)onents, whom they now profess to forgive.
But in tine, these words have illustrious precedents. They are borrowed almost verbatim from the act of union, 1758, be- tween the Synods of New York and Philadelphia. Similar words were used again and again touching the very separations of 1837 by our greatest Old School fathers, and even by that Assembly itself. And that this Assembly, by adopting this act
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of iiiiiou M^tli these words iuclucled, will not repudiate tlie re- forms and principles of 1837, receives its crowning demonstra- tion from this fact, that the United Synod are here requested to join tis upon emphatic assertion of every one of tlie p)rinciples lohich were then contended for, and which we now regard as of living value.
2. The memorial which has been made a part of the argu- ment against its, says that our statements touching the doctrine of "original sin " "saA^ors of New School theology," because we "reject the error of those who assert that the sinner has no power of any kind for the performance of duty ;" and because we say that the "fall has not destroyed in man any capacity of understanding or conscience " necessary to responsibility or to serving God. If we may conceive the meaning of these objec- tions according to the abundant illustrations which have been given in the periodicals of that quarter of the church, their force lies against the words "powers" and "capacities," where we imply that fallen man still has some powers of some kind for the performance of duty, and then more definitely say that he re- tains those rational and moral capacities — so far as man unfalleu had them, and so far as they are essential to free-agency and re- sponsibility— which the fall greatly impaired, but did not de- stroy. The gravamen of the objection, then, is, that this language is, at least, incautious, in that it seems to teach that man's "ina- bility" is not total, and that it revives the ill-expressed dis- tinction between "natural" and "moral" "ability."
Now, is not this objection sufficiently met by the other sen- tences of the paragraph, which, in language borrowed from the Confession, and in other equivalent language also, assert again and again that man's "inability" Is entire? But it is charged that the report is then convicted of inconsistency, because the word "power" and the word "ability" are equivalents; and thus some "ability" is granted in one sentence, -while it is denied in another. Mr. Moderator, I emphatically deny that the two terms, in the well established usage of theology, have ever been equivalents. The persistent misrepresentation of the committee is founded only on a careless inattention. In the language of Calyinistic theology, the word iiiaJnlity has ever had a most sharply defined and specific meaning, as expressive of the lack only of one peculiar kind of power; thus, Hodge, Outlines, Chap.
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XYIII., Ques. 13 : "Ability consists in the power of the agent to change his own subjective state, to make himself prefer what he does not prefer, and to act in a given case in opposition to the coexistent desires and preferences of the agent's own heart." The Confession of Faith, when utterly denying ah'dity to fallen man, defines it as '' alility of ic illy But '' 2)oirer" has always, with even more uniformity, been used in the theology and dia- lectics in the widest and most general sense. Thus, Locke, Book II., Chap. XXI. : Power is "that which is able to mal'e or to receive any change," So wide and universal is the term, it has ever since the days of Aristotle been held to embrace '' jms- sivepoiver" — a phrase which Keid even declared to be self-con- tradictory. By the estabhshed usage of dialectics, then, the word "power" is so broad as to include even onere sicscepti- h'd'ities.
{\'hen, therefore, Pelagians and Arminians charged, and weak, incautious CaMnists admitted, that our doctrine of inability denied to man all2)ov:er of any hind—o. phrase very common in controversy thirty years ago — both were in error. Your com- mittee, therefore, have done well in repudiating the ignorant and unfortunate and false admission. "N^Tien they thus tacitly claim for man some '' poicers " of some kind for the performance of duty, they do not contradict themselves or the Confession where they say man has no " abihty." A given species may be absent, and yet some of the genus present. Some one has indeed been so heedless as to asseit that the committee are in explicit, verbal opposition to the Confession, and to claim the latter as saying in express words that the sinner has "no power" to truly serve God. Mr. Moderator, this is simply untrue ; it is a sheer mis- take. There is no such proposition within the Hds of the book. The Westminster divines were too accurate as dialecticians to say so. They say of man that he is " unable," that he is whoUy "disabled," that he is "made opposite unto," that he has "no abihty of -s^-ill." They never say he "has no power of any kind" for serving God. The sentence under discussion was taken by your committee from Dr. Baxter, as has been akeady explained. The reply was made, that then Dr. Baxter too was incautious. No, Mr. Moderator, it is his critics who are incautious. Dr^ Baxter, one of the ablest of all theologians in America, knew wdiat he was about. His language was chosen in exact ac-
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cordance Avitli tlie established usage of tlieologieul uomencla- ture.
TTliy, tlieu, did be, why did we, introduce tliis sentence ? The answer is obvious to those who are familiar with the Kew and Old School controversj. The former party revived the charge, as old as Pelagianism, that our doctrine of total inahility con- travened the rational and moral intuitions of man; because where there is absolutely no power for dutv, there can be no Tesponsibility. Do not gentlemen remember how uniformly this was the staple of heretical cavils ? How they embarrassed weak minds with it ? How it was the uniform lever ^Nith which they endeavored to turn the Calvinistic theology into an abso- lute monstrosity? Why, sir, v:as not this cavil the stajyle of every one of tlie four propositions which the leaders of that party demanded of us to insert into the doctrinal teachings of the Assembly of 1837? Now, we beheve that if we and the United Synod are at one in belief, we have come to understand each other about this old "bone of contention." The task the com- mittee had to do, then, was to express that agreement in terms sufficiently perspicuous to make it appear whether there was substantial harmony, and at the same time soundness. The phrase proposed by Edwards, " Man has no moral ' ability,' but has sufficient ' natural ability,' " was often used for this intent by orthodox men and in an orthodox sense. This has been fully admitted on the other side ; and I will venture the asser- tion, that there is not a particle of real diflerence between the • committee and a single gentleman on this floor as to that sense ill which sound Calvinists were accustomed to use that bunsflins^ phrase. Yet the phrase has been generally disused by Cah-inists as ambiguous and inaccurate. Therefore the committee care- fully avoided it.
Now, the complete answer to the cavil, that the sinner's total inability would destroy his responsibility, is in the proper ex- planation of what inability is. And here, I repeat, I am per- suaded there is not a particle of real difference between anv gentlemen on this floor. All intelligent Calvinists understand very well that it consists, not in the extinction of any of the powers which constituted man the creature he was before Adam's fall, and which make up his essence as a religious be- ing, but in the thorough moral perversion of them all. The soul's
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essence is not destroyed by tlie fall ; if it were, in any part, man's resjDonsibility would be to that extent modified. But all Lis fac- ulties and susceptibilities now have a decisive and imiform, a native and universal, a perpetual and total moral perversion, by reason of the utter revolt of his will from God and holiness to self-will and sin ; such that it is impossible for him, in his own free will, to choose spiritual good for its own sake. His inabil- ity is "inability of will." This is the doctrine of Calvinists ; and if it be pushed farther than this, so as to deny to man as fallen any of those natural powers, either active or passive, which con- stituted him a proper subject of rehgious responsibility, the effect is only disastrous. Man's reason is outraged, and the guilty conscience is furnished with a mischievous pretext for denying the voluntariness of its sin, and excusing its unbehef. This truth your committee have attempted briefly to express, and they are still persuaded they have done so with sufficient correctness, and in terms justified by good usage.
But it is objected that when the committee say, man still has all his rational and moral " capacities, " impaired indeed, but not destroyed, by the fall, the word "capacities" is objectionable; and the illustration which this point of your memorialists has received in the public prints is, that the word is unauthorized by good usage, and is dangerous as suggesting the semi-Pela- gian idea that man has not only the same powers which made up his essence before his fall, but the same measures of 2>oicer'\\i. them all. It is asked, "Why did not this committee satisfy itself with the word "faculties?"
I will show 'W'liy. Man's essence is constituted — to borrow the old nomenclature — not only of active, but of passive powers. The yfoxdi faculties corresponds only to the former; but the natu- ral susceptihUities are as truly of man's essence, and some at least of them are necessary to his constitution as a religious be- ing. NoAV, no one would think of calling the susceptibility of sympathy, of love, of the ludicrous, of the beautiful, a facility. Yet without these, would not man cease to be man? To say that man still has i\\e faculties which Adam had, impaired in- deed, but not destroyed, does not, then, express the whole truth. The whole truth is, that he still has the facvlties and suscejAi- hilities "on which free agency and responsibility depend." The word "capacities" has been used by the best modern writers to
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express jiist this double idea, in strict conformity with its ety- mology. Sir AVm. Hamilton, while proposing to limit the word to the sense of susceptibilities, acknowledges that he has no au- thority for doing so earlier than Leibnitz. Says Hodge in his Outlines, Chap. XIY., Ques. 1 : "The soul of man is not an or- ganized whole consisting of several parts, and therefore what we call its several faculties are rather the capacity of the agent for discharging successively or concurrently the several functions involved." Sa^'s Hill, p. 404: "This account of the corruption of human nature does not imply that man has lost the natural cajyacity of knoioing God," etc. And again: "In every situation he appears capable of the sentiment of religion."
The Atonement.
3. The third point objected to is our brief statement of th© doctrine of the atonement. And this has been assailed most vehemently of all. Say your memorialists, "We understand the report as representing Christ to be the substitute of all mankind alike." . . . "Thus, according to the Confession, the decree of election would seem to have, in the order of thought, preceded in the divine mind the redemption Avrought out by the Saviour. But the report appears to us to teach, according to the New School view of the subject, that first, the redemption was decreed for all men alike, and then God elected some of these as the re- deemed ones to be saved."
The illustration of these criticisms is, we believe, best to be found in the periodicals which have sustained them. In show- ing how unfounded they are, I would premise by saying that there is among Calvinists, among ourselves, a slight difference in the arrangement of some details concerning the atonement and its application ; yet both classes have always recognized each other as holding the essentials of the doctrine of particular redemption. Thus your memorialists adjust those details in such an order as to represent a sequence of thought in the divine mind itself in forming the decree, and in this sequence place the predestina- tion of the elect first, and the purpose to send Christ to redeem them second. Others, as Amyraut, with whom possibly a few of our brethren still hold, suppose such a sequence only in an inverted order : first, the purpose to send Christ to die for man, and then out of the race to sovereignly elect some, to whom this.
Vol. 11.-20.
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imiversal provision sliould be applied in effectual calling. Now to us it is perfectly clear that the Confession commits itself to neither of these schemes, for the reason that, whatever be their correctness or incorrectness, they contain refinements which go beyond the word of God. I have been taught to think, along with Dr. Baxter, upon this subject of a sequence between the parts of the divine decree, that the human reason can go no farther than this : its infirmity constrains it to think of that vast plan in parts, which in the infinite mind of God has no parts, |but is one, eternal, single, all-embracing purpose. So, in our minds, the apprehension of one part must follow after that of another part. But with God it cannot he so; for that which is one and eternal must be absolutely cotemporaneous. If, then, we impute our sequences to God, we plunge into error. The most we can comprehend is that God, in entertaining from eter- nity one part of this cotemporaneous purpose, has regard to a state of facts as to that part destined by him to result from his same purpose as to other parts of his moral government. I presume to go no farther. And this view I am pleased to find sanctioned by the powerful support of Principal Hill, when he saj-s : " Hence it may be observed how idly they are employed who presume to settle the order of the divine decree, and how insignificant are the controversies upon this subject which in the days of our fathers divided those who were agreed as to the general principles of Calvinism."
Now we suppose that the Westminster divines were guided by precisely the same •svise view in passing over in silence, as they certainly do, the question between supra and infra-lapsarians. And I regard the slight difference between your memorialists and the Westminster divines in precisely the same light. In stating that common basis of Calvinism, touching this doctrine of the atonement, upon which we should invite our brethren of the United Sj'nod to meet us, was it proper to demand of them the admission of refined details, not agreed on among ourselves, not demanded by the Scriptures, nor by the Confession ? To do so would have been preposterous and positively vmjust. The aim of your committee, then, was to state, after the example of the Confession, those features of the doctrine which distinguish Calvinists hereupon from Arminians and the New England school, and to introduce sentences which should clearly and be-
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Tond a peradventure cut up bj tlie root all tlie notions wliich reduce the atonement to a didactic display, a moral drama, an exemplary incident, or a governmental expedient. Hence, we either say, or expressly imply, tliat Christ was our substitute ; that his sufferings were truly "sdcarious ; that they were properly penal; that they were a true satisfaction to justice; that they were necessary to make pardon possible, consistently with the perfections of God. Is not this right ?
But it is objected that the report suggests error concerning the application and extent of the atonement. On this subject there are two aspects which Calrinists have always distinguished. One regards the nature of the atonement ; the other its design ; and we all hold that, in its intrinsic nature, the atonement is in- finite. This is the consequence of the infinite dignity of the Mediatorial Person. Its value is, intrinsically, as suflicient for the sins of all men as of one. Its limitation to the elect is not to be sought, then, in it nature, but in its design ; and this de- sign, as to its actual application to them, is nothing else than the decree. It is not something else, different and separate, but the decree itself. Now the section of our report under remark, in its first sentences, speaks of the nature of the atonement, and in its last of its application. In its first sentences it uses general terms, "man's guilt," "our sins," etc., for it is speaking only of the nature of Christ's atoning work, which has no limits. And in speaking thus, I claim that the report does but imitate the Scriptures — " God so loved the world" etc. ; " Behold the Lamb of God which taketli away the si7is of the world," etc. — and the Confession itself. Why, then, should it be charged with error for using the same sort of language which the Bible itself does in this connection ? But when the report proceeds to speak of the application of redemption, it declares, as I assert, in exact ac- cordance with the spirit of our standards, that God applies it to aU the elect, and to no others ; and that this apphcation is itself through the purchase of Jesus Christ. We do not invent a state- ment to establish a supra-lapsarian order of sequence between the purpose to save the elect and to send Christ to die ; but neither does the Confession. It merely declares that redemption is ap- plied through this work of Christ precisely to those to whom it was God's eternal purpose to apply it ; and that is, his elect. The report speaks the same thing.
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Moreover, tlie committee used tlie word redemption, as tliey believe, in strict accordance with Calviuistic usage, in a sense distinct from tlie word atonement. Eedemption means, not only a provision of a vicarious penalty to satisfy for guilt, but in ad- dition all the gracious gifts, of active obedience to be imputed, of effectual calling, of sanctification, and of glorification, which make up a completed salvation. All this is designed, purchased, and bestowed for the elect in and through Christ. And in this view they may quote, among many Calvinistic authorities, this of old Willison, CatecJiism, Ques. : "How doth Christ redeem his people from their bondage ?" Ans. " Partly by price, or pui'- chase ; partly by power, or conquest."
In a word, the committee intended to express summarily that sound, but not ultra, view of the atonement held by Calvinists, and expressed in the ancient formula, " Christ died sufficiently for the race, efficaciously for the elect."
But the member from New Orleans, Dr. Palmer, insists that the report is, to say the least, "not happily worded," in that its phraseology leaves a loop-hole for the lubricity of the new the- ology. Well, Mr. Moderator, I presume that the committee would at any time have partly assented to this judgment ; for you will bear us witness that our estimate of our labors has been modest. We did not claim that our phraseology was absolutely the best, but only that it wotdd do. We admitted that language is an instrument so flexible that an indefinite improvement may be made in the verbal dress of an}^ thoughts by continued care and criticism. But, sir, the course of this discussion inclines me to place a more self-applauding estimate upon our humble labors ; and I must profess that I think our doctrinal statements are rather happily worded on this point. I have been con\anced of this by the very objections of the critics.
One of these was that the phrase, Christ bore his sufferings " as the penalty " of guilt, was loose and incorrect, because it suggested, by the little word as, not only a substitution of one person for another — Christ for the sinner — but of one penalty for another ; whereas, it was urged, we should have taught that Christ suffered the identical penaltj^ due the sinner. Thus, they complained, the deceitful errorist was enabled to cheat us honest folk by talking about a penal satisfaction for sin, when, after all, he only meant a loose sort of quasi satisfaction. Now I have
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heen made very liappy to fiud tliat our mucli abused little "as" expresses so much truth and so accurately. For the substitution, not only of one person ior another, but of one penalty for another, in the atoning transaction called by theologians satisfaction, is the very thing asserted by the standard authors. It is obvious that if one person is substituted for another, then the penalty substituted cannot be identical with that in the room of which it came, in the sense of a nuiiierical identity, however absolutely conformed it might be in a generic identity. And this distinc- tion the acute Whately points out, in the introduction to his Logic, if I remember aright, in connection with this very subject. But farther, these divines all assert most emphatically, that in a case of penal satisfaction there is not an absolute generic iden- tity between the penalty due and the penalty substituted. Tur- rettin, Hill, Dr. John H. Eice, I find saying, with entire una- nimity, that satisfaction is where something else, not exactly the debt due, but a moral equivalent, is accepted as sufiicient by the injured party. According to those acute critics, the Southern Presbyterian and Southern Presbyterian Pevieio, little "as'' sug- gested this idea. But this, say these great masters, is just the idea of Christ's satisfaction. Is not this rather happy ?
Again : we had defended ourselves against the complaint by pleading that the phrase, bore these sufferings "as the penalty" of guilt, was so natural, so common, and so fairly understood in the oi-thodox sense. Now all this is substantiated by the fact that the member from New Orleans, even in the midst of a pas- sage objecting to it, could not help using the very phrase. In the Southern Presbyterian Pevieio, p. 298, he complains that our "slippery opponents," while pretending to use many words that sound orthodox, will not say that " the sufferings of Christ were inflicted as the penalty threatened to the transgressor," etc. This, then, is wdiat he would have them say, in order to be in- disputably orthodox. But this is just what our committee asks them to say.
On the other hand, the Sotithern Presbyterian says this is not enough ; nor that they shall say Christ's sufferings were vicari- ous, or that they were substitutionary, or that they w^ere a satis- faction for guilt, because they may say all these in a loose sense. No ; he will not be entirely pleased unless they say in express words, without the "as," that Christ "bore the penalty'' of guilt.
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"Well, we tliouglit that this was liftiDg the standard pretty high, when we remembered that good old Dr. Alexander Avas accus- tomed to say, that he who admitted the atonement to be vicari- ous, was substantially sound on that point. But we looked a few lines downward, and perceived that our report, in the article on justification, also used those very words, and said expressly,, without the "as," that Christ "bore the penalty" of guilt. Thus,, our paper has been so happy as to satisfy both these most lynx- eyed sentinels of orthodoxy exactly, even in demands which are, iu appearance, contradictory. The difference between themselves they must settle.
Once more, I am led to believe that our effort to make a brief statement of the substance of this doctrine is rather happy, by noting a remarkable conformity between its structure and the Canons of the great Synod of Dort, on the atonement, and the article in which the National French Synod at Alenc^on caused Amyraut and Testard to recant their rash speculations, and the Heidelberg Catechism, and indeed the standards of the Reform- ers generally. The Heidelberg Catechism, the symbol of the German Reformed Church, which our own Assembly embraced as the very pink of orthodoxy, uses language which goes farther than our report. So that, while we have stated the doctrine in accordance with the belief of the purest Reformed churches, we have been even more guarded than some of them. Thus, Ques. 37 : "What dost thou believe when thou sayest, 'He suffered?'" (in the creed). Ans. "That he bore in his body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the xiniversal human race, during the whole period of his life w^hich he passed in the earth, but especially in its end ; so that by his passion, as the sole propiti- atory sacrifice, he might deliver our body and soul from eternal damnation, and purchase for us the grace of God, righteousness and eternal life."
Mr. Moderator, I have now nearly said what I proposed to say, and shall stop. But I cannot sit down without an apology to this Assembly for my tediousness, and thanks for the patience and unmerited attention with which my protracted remarks have been received. If the manner of them has seemed to any too blunt or dogmatic, I b^g them to believe that this is but an ap- pearance, and th?i I am profoundly actuated by a sentiment of
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reverence for this yenerable body as a ^^•llole, and of affectionate respect for the rights and feehngs of each member in it.
Xor can I reconcile it to my feehngs to omit a reference to the kindness and courtesy expressed for me individually, in this dis- cussion, by those who differ from me, notwithstanding that they are, some of them, zealously opposed to the conclusions I advo- cate. Especially I would notice the undeservedly flattering re- ferences of the gentleman from New Orleans. He has been pleased, after expressing a far more favorable estimate of my powers than I am entitled to, to add an earnest wish that they may not be wasted on mere polemics. I can most heartily say, amen ! for I have no conscious fondness for that work. And if this kind wish means, as it seems to imply, a reference to the polemics which have recently been waged over this question in the periodicals, and intimates that they have been, in the esti- mation of that gentleman, rather a poor affair, it is not for me to dissent fi'om his judgment. He has kindly declared his desire that the return of peace may speedily restore me to the great work of training the young ministers of oiir church for heralding redemption. This also is my prayer, for it is a blessed work. But there is another which is still nobler, and that is the work of preaching the gospel itself. I feel, there- fore, that I am uttering for Dr. Palmer even a more ample and generous wish than he has expressed towards me, and one which I am persuaded is dearest to his heart, when I now pray that God may speedily restore peace to all our bleeding country, that the queen city of the South, which is his home, may soon be cleansed from the polluting steps of the invader, that our brother may soon reassemble that noble congi*egation which was wont to hang with such delight upon his teachings, and during long and prosperous years may minister to that great city the glorious gospel of the Saviour, until the fame of his genius, his sanctified eloquence, and his usefulness, is borne on the white wings of her imperial commerce to the ends of the earth. Mean- time it will be my happiness to return to the quiet shades of Union Seminary, and gathering there, amidst the ragged fields of poor old battle-scared Virginia, a few of her maimed young soldiers with one arm or one leg, to teach them, in my plain way, to preach Christ.
THE REHSED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE:
A DISCUSSION OF SOME OF THE CHANGES PROPOSED BY THE COM- MITTEE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
THE General Assembly of 1857 appointed Drs. Tliorn- well, James Hoge, R. J. Breckinridge, E. P. Swift, A. T. McGill and Charles Hodge, with Judges Sharswood, Allen and Leavitt, a committee to revise the Book of Discipline. This committee met in Philadelphia in August, 1858, Messrs. Leavitt and Allen being absent, and performed their task,' devoting to it four or jive days' labor. The result has for some months been published to the churches in the newspapers ; and the time is fast approaching when the Presbyteries will appoint the com- missioners to that Assembly which must pass upon the proposed changes. Meantime they have evoked little discussion, and that of a fragmentary character, with the exception of an article de- fending most of the proposed amendments in the October num- ber of the Princeton Review. This essay seems purposely to reveal its author as the respected editor of that quarterly, Dr. Hodge, to whom we therefore take the liberty of referring. While our Rules of Disciphne are not of as fundamental import- ance as our Confession, or even as our Book of Government, they greatly concern the comfort and rights of Presbyterians, and the peace of the church. More than this, principles will be seen to be involved in this discussion which touch the funda- mentals of our theory of the church. By thoughtlessly adopting legislative details, which are out of harmony with our theoiy, we greatly endanger the theory itself; we shall gradually undermine it. This must be our justification for feeling, as humble mem- bers of that church, anxious that the thorough examination of the Revised Book shall be made, so as not to allow the subject "to go by default" in the approaching Assembly. After wait- ing for- more experienced hands to undertake this discussion, imtil it will soon be too late, we now venture to occupy the at- tention of our brethren, with much diffidence and respect.
312
THE KEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 313
As Presbyterians, Ave consider that no apology can, in any case, be necessary for the exercise of tliat right of free, but cour- teous, discussion which belongs to the humblest, as well as the first among us, touching every subject of ecclesiastical concern- ment jiropounded to our suffrages. We doubt not that all the members of the Assembly's committee would themselves be the last to wish this right of opposing their own report curtailed. We wish also to express, once for all, our high respect, not only for the persons and characters of those distinguished brethren, but also for their opinions. When, indeed, we conceive of the reader as running his eye over the list of venerated and precious names which we have just recited, vve cannot but feel that he may naturally conclude from that glance alone, that the objec- tions urged against their work must be ungrounded, and inquire, "Who is this that arrays himself against such odds?" We are, indeed, in the account of literature and of fame, in comparison, as nobodies / and it has caused a genuine diffidence to find our- selves differing from such guides. But we remember that we write for Presbyterians — a people least of all addicti in verha ullius inaglstri jarare — and that views maturely considered and honestly offered, from love to the church and a sense of duty, are entitled to a fair hearing. For our remarks we ask no more. If any, or all of them, are ungrounded, let them remain without influence.
We shall take up those amendments upon which we wish to remark in the natural order in which they occur, as we proceed from chapter to chapter. We have only to request of those who may take the trouble to read these lines, that each case may be weighed upon its own merits; and that, if objections advanced against some of the proposed changes should seem to them in- sufficient, or even feeble, this may not prejudice the conclusion concerning other points. On a subject so extensive, great brevity cannot be promised; but it is promised that brevity shall be studied as far as is consistent with thoroughness.
Let the general objection, then, be considered, which lies against the changing of statute law wherever the change is not unavoidable. Language is naturally an imperfect vehicle of meaning; its ambiguities usually pass undiscovered, because no keen and contending interests test its possible or probable meanings. One may frame sentences which seem to him per-
314 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
f ectlj perspicuous ; but no liuman -svisdom can foresee the vary- ing, yet plausible, constructions wbicli the language mav be made to bear. The fact that ambiguities cannot now be pointed out in the new phrases of the Kevised Discipline is nothing. No human skill in writing can avoid them, or foresee what they will be. Nothing but the touch-stones of particular cases, as they arise, can reveal them. Hence the old statutes are better, be- caase their language has already been tested by the adjudication of a multitude of varying cases under them, and fixed by estab- lished precedents. So that the old might be intrinsically worse than the new, and yet it might be most impolitic to exchange it. By altering oui* Book, we at once lose all the advantages result- ing from all the litigation upon the articles amended from the foundation of our government. We have just begun to enjoy the advantages of a good Digest of the Assembly's precedents, fixing the meaning and extent of law, in the work of Mr. Baird. How large a part of this will now be superseded and useless ? It is not that we begrudge the loss of the mere labor expended in comjDiling and printing this useful work ; this, relatively to the church at large, is a trifle. But we lose the knowledge and usage, the costly result of seventy years' history and contest- Does any one dream that all these uncertainties will not have to be gone over again before the intent of the new statutes is " as- certained," to use the legal phrase, by a long series of adjudica- tions? How much uncertainty, how many judicial contests,. how much confusion of right, and how much distress, must be witnessed before the Revised Book shall have reached that com- fortable degree of establishod certainty which was acquired by the old?
The ambiguities of the old have indeed been asserted as a reason for revision ; and it has been said that it is in some parts so faidty as to make church courts forever Uable to uncertainties of construction. But this uncertainty, which is usually witnessed in the General Assembly, is due rather to the constitution of the court, to its unA\T.eldy size and popular character, to the inexperience of its members in judicial processes, and to inat- tention, than to any peculiar vice in the language of our sta- tutes. If our brethren think to eradicate these vexatious and ludicrous confusions from that large body by making new sta- tutes, we forewarn them that "Leviathan is not so tamed."
THE EEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 315
Take the oft-mooted point, as to who are "the original parties" in an appeal, Avhich is most frequently cited in evidence of the imperfection of our present Discipline; it would seem that "the original parties" can be no other than the jyariles to the case at its origbi. The fact that so simple a matter has made so much trouble reveals plainly euough the hopelessness of evading the annoyance by making statutes new, and f^r that very reason of less ascertained meaning. No sooner will these new laws be inaugurated than the rise of litigated points will reveal in them ambiguities to Avhicli we were all blind before, including their very authors ; but which, when once raised, will appear as ob- vious to us all as was the way of making an egg stand upright on its little end to the Spanish savans, after Columbus had shown them how to flatten the shell. Seeing, then, that our present Discipline causes to no one any grievous wi-ong, it would be better for us, on this general ground, to " let well enough alone."
It has been said that the Presbyterian is a conservative church. Mankind often give very inconsistent manifestations of their pro- fessed principles. The past year Ave have seen the conserva- tism of this great church thrown into quite a hubbub by the proposal to correct a ridiculous tyjjographical blunder on one page of its Hymn Book ! But now it seems as though it were ready to commit itself, almost without inquiry, to a sweeping change of an important branch of its constitution. Is not this somcAvhat akin to " straining out the gnat, that we may swallow the camel?"
Chap. I., Sees. 3, 4. The first departure of moment from the language of the old Book, is in the definition of what constitutes a disciplinable offence. The reader is requested to compare the ncAV with the old. The tenor of the old makes the Bible the statute book of our coui"ts, in judging the morals of all our peo- ple. (See Chap, I,, Sees. 3, 4.) In the EeAised Discipline it is proposed to speak as follows :
Sec. 2. "An oftence, the proper object of discipline, is any- thing in the faith or practice of a professed believer which is contrary to the Avord of God ; the Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly being accepted by the Presbyterian Chui'ch in the United States
316
THE EEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
of America as standard expositions of the teachings of Scripture in relation both to faith and practice."
"Nothing, therefor<3, ought to be considered by any judicatory as an offence, or admitted as matter of accusation, which cannot be proved to be such from Scripture, or from the regulations and practice of the church founded on Scripture, and which does not involve those evils which discipline is intended to pre- vent."
The latter paragraph is copied by the committee, without change, from the old Book. The two changes here proposed are to teach that nobody can commit a disciplinable offence ex- cept "professed believers," instead of including all "church members ;" and to introduce the Westminster standards as the rule and measure by which discipline shall be administered. Of the former change, more anon. To the latter we object, in the first place, that here is one of the cases of mischievous ambig- uity which were predicted as likely to attach to any new johrase- ology. Let this chapter become the law of the church, and we fear that we shall be ever debating whether it means that any act may be a disciplinable offence which is reprobated by either the Scriptures or the Westminster standards, or that the prohi- bition of both these must concur to make an offence. The latter meaning would, of course, confine the possible range of disciplinable offences within the things prohibited in our stand- ards. And this is clearly the meaning attached to the whole chapter by the Princeton Review. Surely if anybody should know what the committee means, this author, himself a most able, diligent and influential member, should. He says, pp. 695, 696 : "Among us, as Presbyterians, nothing can be regarded as an offence which is not contrary to the Westminster Confes- sion of Faith or Catechisms." . . "We have agreed to abide by our own standards in the administration of discipline. Outside of that rule, so far as our church standing is concerned, we may think and act as we please." But when the church court comes to interpret this Revised Discipline in the light of its own lan- guage alone, it will probably remain in great doubt whether Section 2 means what the Princeton Peviexo says it does, or whether it only means that the manner in which our standards interpret and apply the prohibitory precepts of Scripture is to be the model and exemplar by which the judicatory ought to
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 317
interpret similar j)arts of Scripture. And tlie paragraph, then appended, standing, as it does, in the very words of the old Book, which is allowed to teach the opposite sense to that of the Princeton Pevieic, will greatly aggravate this doubt. Ac- cording to that paragraph, an offence to be discijjlinable must, in the first place, involve those e%dls which discipline is intended to prevent ; and then it must also contravene Scripture, or the regulations and practice of the church founded thereon. The conjunction is disjunctive. May not the Revised DiscipHne be understood to mean, with the old one, that an offence which contravenes either Scripture or the standards may be disciplin- able?
But let us suppose the Princeton Pevieic is right, and that the Revised Discipline means to teach that nothing shall be a dis- cipHnable offence except what can be proved to be such out of the Westminster standards. Then we object, secondly, that those standards do not profess to be exhaustive in their enumer- ation of disciplinable offences. The circumstances of mankind vary so infinitely, that if a statute book were to enumerate spe- cifically all the offences which will arise in all time, "the world would not hold the books which should be written." A com- plete moral code must therefore speak on this other plan ; it must, within moderate compass, fix such general principles, and so illustrate and define them in concrete cases, that all j)ossible forms of duty or sin may be defined therefrom " by good and necessary consequence." This is what the Bible has done. But this requires infinite wisdom, which the Westminster divines never claimed. Shall we accept the following consequence, that if perchance these fallible men forgot to enumerate, and they themselves not professing to make a complete enumeration, they were incapable of such an absurdity, some wicked act which yet God's word, the acknowledged rule of life to Protestants, clearly describes as such an offence as may be disciplined, therefore, forsooth, the sinner may commit this act as often as he pleases, and retain his church standing, unwhipt of justice? For in- stance, the Larger Catechism, the most comprehensive, does not condemn sivrit Topping, nor lotteries, nor duelling — three preva- lent abominations condemned by God in principle, and most obviously disciplinable. Is it answered that these may be con- demned oiit of the AVestminster standards by inference? We
318 THE liEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
rejoin, tlie expounder of tlie Kevised Discipline in tlie Princeton lievievj lias no riglit to resort to inferential interpretations of tlie standards. He lias objected to just such applications of tlie "word of God ; and "sve think all will agree with us, that if our church franchises are to be suspended on the inferences and interpretations of a judicatory, we would at least as "uillinglj have the blessed Scriptures for the text as the imperfect writ- ings of faUible men, T\"hen the glorious Assembly of 18-45 saved the church, and probably the Union, by refusing to make slaveholding a bar to communion, did it ground its decision on the pettifogging plea that slaveholding was not mentioned as a specific "offence" in the standards? Indeed, no! How would its decree have been shorn of its moral strength and glory if it had done so ? It recurred at once to the sohd rock, by saying, The word of God does not inahe slaveholding '■'■an offence" there- fore cannot ice. May God forbid that anything shall ever be the statute book of Presbyterian Church courts, as to Christian morals, except the Holy Bible.
This leads to the third remark, that there is obvious ground of distinction between adopting a human composition concern- ing theological opinions as the test of official status and privi- lege, and making a human composition concerning Christian ethics the test of church membership. This, for three reasons. The ethical precepts of God's word are vastly less subject to varying and doubtful construction than the doctrinal statements. The theological system may be represented with substantial completeness, or at least in a manner perfectly characteristic and discriminative, in a limited set of propositions ; whereas the forms of moral action are endlessly diversified. And last, when we require our deacons and presbyters to stand or fall of- ficially by a doctrinal composition of human authority, we do not call in question a personal franchise, which is inalienable to the Christian, but only a privilege which the church confers. It is the Christian rigid of the credible believer to enjoy the church communion ; it is not a right of any believer to serve the brother- hood in office when the brotherhood do not want him in office. So that it may be very proper for us to take a human comjDosi- tion as the doctrinal test of qualification for office, while yet we take only God's own precepts as the statute book of Chris- tian ethics.
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 319
The main objection against all tHis is, tliat then uo one would be certain what he had to count upon, because of the contradic- tory opinions of Christians concerning the ethical teachings of the Bible. It is said some Christians think slaveholding, some wine-drinking, a vialuvi per se. The obvious replj is, that no institution administered by imperfect man will ever be perfect in its workings. Let us adoj^t that system which makes the pos- sible imperfections fewest and least mischievous. And this will be to retain the Bible as our statute book in ethical matters. Tor, as has been said, its ethical precepts are so perspicuous, that the serious differences of interpretation are rare. The standards of the church, and the General Assembly, may pro- perly, as the}' have done, fix these disputed points from time to time — a function very different from taking the place of the Bible as a complete ethical code for judicatories. And surely, if the Bible is not a book perspicuous enough to protect the Christian fi'om judicial wrong, when he has three higher courts above the first to which he may appeal for protection, it can scarcely be claimed as a sufficient rule of life for the simplest child of God.
Chap. I., Sec. 6. The Eevised Discipline proposes to change the propositions "srhich here assert that all baptized persons "are members of the church," are "subject to its government and discipline," and when adult are "bound to perform all the duties of church members," in the following respects. For the first proposition it substitutes the words, "are under its govern- ment and training." At the end of the paragraph it proposes to add the following : " Only those, however, who have made a profession of faith in Christ are proper subjects of judicial pro- secution." This change was foreshadowed in the alteration of
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Heb. v. 4
- Acts xx. 28
- 1 Cor. xii. 28
- Rom. x. 14
- Deut. vi. 5
- Matt. xxii. 37
- 1 Cor. vi. 20
- 1 Cor. x. 31
- Titus iii. 1
- Jas. v. 20
- Dan. xii. 3
- Eph. i. 6
- 1 Timothy iii. 1-7
- Titus i. 6-9
- 1 Tim. iii. 1
- 1 Cor. ix. 16
- Matt. ix. 37
- Num. xi. 27-30
- 1 Tim. iii. 15
- Acts xvi. 1-3
- 1 Tim. iv. 14
- 2 Tim. i. 6
- 2 Tim. ii. 2
- 1 Cor. xiii. 8
- Rev. xxii. 17
- Rom. ix. 20
- Matt. vii. 7
- Heb. v. 12
- 1 Cor. xi. 5
- Col. iii. 11
- Gal. iii. 28
- Phil. i. 15
- 1 Tim. ii. 12
- 1 Cor. xi. 3
- Eph. v. 22
- 1 Peter iii. 1
- 1 Tim. v. 17
- 1 Tim. ii. 11-15
- 1 Tim. v. 9-15
- Titus ii. 4
- Gen. iii. 16
- 1 Cor. xiv. 34
- 2 Tim. ii. 9
- John xvi. 13
- Acts xv. 28
- 2 Cor. xiii. 10
- Luke ix. 20
- 1 Cor. xii. 4-11
- Eph. iv. 11
- Acts xiv. 15
- Acts xiv. 23
- Acts xx. 17
- Acts xiii. 1
- Rom. xii. 6-8
- Phil. i. 1
- Rom. xii. 8
- 2 Cor. viii. 13
- Phil. ii. 1
- Gal. vi. 2
- 2 Cor. ix. 7
- 1 Cor. ix. 11
- 1 Peter i. 18
- 1 Timothy iii. 2
- Titus i. 6
- 1 Cor. i. 21
- John i. 12
- 1 John v. 11
- Ps. xix. 7-10
- Prov. iv. 13
- Isaiah xxxiii. 6
- Jer. iii. 15
- Hos. iv. 6
- Hab. ii. 11
- 1 John v. 1
- 1 Pet. i. 23
- Luke viii. 11
- 1 Cor. iv. 15
- Acts xiii. 26
- Acts viii. 17
- 1 Cor. xiii. 1
- John xx. 21
- Acts xix. 6
- Matt. xvi. 19
- Acts i. 4
- Acts ii. 2-4
- Acts vi. 3
- 1 Tim. iii. 8
- Acts viii. 14-21
- Acts vi. 8
- Rom. xii. 6
- Rom. v. 15
- Rom vi. 23
- Rom. xi. 29
- 1 Cor. i. 7
- 1 Cor. vii. 7
- Acts viii. 20
- 1 Cor. xiv. 22
- Mark xvi. 15-18
- 1 Cor. xiv. 14
- Acts. iv. 29
- Heb. ii. 4
- Acts x. 44
- 1 Cor. xiv. 5
- Acts xxi. 9
- 1 Tim. iii. 6
- John xxi. 18
- Acts ii. 16
- Gen. vi. 3
- Psalm li. 11
- Zech. iv. 6
- Acts ii. 38
- Mark xvi. 17
- Mark xvi. 16
- Acts viii. 12
- Acts viii. 15
- Acts ix. 17
- Acts xix. 2
- Acts xvi. 6
- 1 Cor. xvi. 9
- 1 Tim. iv. 1-1
- Acts xv. 32
- Acts XV. 40
- Acts xvi. 2
- 2 Tim. iii. 1-1
- 1 Tim. vi. 11
- 2 Tim. iii. 17
Section 3
We cannot but regard it as both unnecessary and unfortunate. The doctrine of the Bible is, that the object of God in institut- ing the marriage of saints is "to seek a godly seed" (Mai. ii. 15); that God has therefore included and sanctified the family institution of saints within the church institution, that school of Christ, promising to be " a God to us and to our seed " (Gen. xvii. 7) ; that therefore the initiatory sacrament should be adminis- tered to the children of saints as well as to themselves (Gen. xvii. 12 ; Matt, xxviii. 19) ; and that though these imconverted
320 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
children are excluded from certain j^i'ivileges of tlie churcli to •which faith is essential, first by their lack of understanding, and next by their own voluntary impenitency, yet they are as truly and as proj)erly the objects of the moral teaching and govern- ment {ocoaaxoMa, disciplimi) of this spiritual school as the saints themselves, until they wickedly repudiate their church covenant. For both the Scriptures and experience teach that the children of the saints are the main hope of the Christian cause, and that youth is the time to train and form the soul ; so that if the church excluded the children of saints from its discipline, it would be manifestly recreant to its great end and object, which is to pro- pagate the knowledge and service of God in the earth. This has ever been the theory of the church universal, with the pain- ful exception of Anabaptists and Immersionists. To this theory the language of the old Discipline is, to say the least, sufficiently faithful. ^Tiy, then, soften it, when by so doing we give a pre- text to these adversaries to glory, as though we found our theory untenable, and were receding from it? Boasts and taunts have already been provoked by this proposed change, which are not only painful, for this is a trifle, but most injurious to God's truth.
Indeed, it cannot be denied that a desire to soften the old and time-honored phraseology is a significant indication of our departure from the practice of our system. The Presbyterian Church has, alas ! come far short of its duty to impenitent bap- tized persons, in neglecting the pastoral and sessional oversight of their demeanor, faithful private admonition, Bible class and catechetical instruction, and the righteous purging out of the membership by discipline of those who show a persistent inten- tion to repudiate their parents' covenant with God, either by continued unbelief or by overt immoralities. But if we find ourselves recreant to our scriptural theory in our conduct, shall we, therefore, degrade our theory so as to make it tally with our sinful practice ? or shall we not rather, as men that fear God, raise our practice to our theory?
We see no advantage, but only disadvantage, in the substitu- tion of the word training for discipline. " Though both terms have in some respects the same import, we are particularly at- tached to the latter in this connection, because of its immemo- rial use ; and especially because it is more comprehensive, em-
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 321
braciiic^ all that instruction, guidance, care, advice, counsels^ admouition, restraiut, reproof and encouragement, which shoiild be given, as the case may demand, to all who are members of the church and under its care, whether communicants or non- • communicants. We prefer it, moreover, because it is more ex- pressive of the apostolic commission, *Go ye, therefore, and teach {(Jliiciple) all nations.' Now, the church is a school where the disciple is instructed in the lessons there taught." These words of another we can cordially adopt as expressing just views.
Farther, if we roundly assert, as the Revised Discipline does, that ^^ all hapthed persons are members of the church," we see little consistency in then exempting a large class of them from its government. Is it intended to be taught that whenever a baptized person, arriving at the years of understanding, fails to believe, repent and commune, he is by his own act excommuni- cated ? Surely not ; for then all baptized persons would not be members of the church, as the Revised Discipline asserts ; there would be a large class of baptized persons not church members. The article, to be consistent, should have said, " all hipt'ized in- fants are church members." Now, what kind of citizenship is that which does not place the citizen under the government of that commonwealth of which he is a citizen ? We cannot under- stand it. The General Assembly cf 1856 did itself say, in an- swer to an overture, that the relation of impenitent baptized persons to the church is that of minors to a commonwealth. The state of a minor is in general this, that while he is debarred, by reason of some remaining personal disqualifications, from certain of the higher privileges of the citizens, he enjoys the protection and other advantages of the commonwealth, and, if sane, is subject to its laws and penalties in the main, as the other citizens are. A minor may not steal, nor commit arson, nor stab, nor murder ; and if he does, although he has not been allowed to vote, to sit in juries, and to hold office, he will be tried and punished. If, then, the Assembly adopts this Revised Discipline, it should retract its definition of 1856 ; but the truth and good sense which are in it no General Assembly has power to retract. The membership of baptized persons, if once granted, is forever inconsistent with their formal exemption from discipline.
Again, if this doctrine is adopted, our standards will be, in the opinions of the great majority, out of joint at another place.
Vol. n.— 21.
322 THE EEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
The Book of Government, Cliap. XV., Sec. 4, exchides every per- son from voting for pastor " who refuses to submit to the cen- sures of the church, regularly administered, or who does not contribute his just proportion, according to his own engagements, or the rules of that congregation, to its necessary expenses." The more common opinion is, that in these words the book in- tends to describe what non-communing, baptized persons may vote, for it is plausibly urged, if none such may vote, why does the book use a periphrasis ? Why does it not cut the matter short by saying, " In this election only communicants may vote"? Now, if this is correct — a point which we may not here decide — ■ the book clearly contemplates some baptized non-communicants, old enough, too, to -pay and vote, wdio are yet submissive to church censures. Are these church censures inflicted wdthout "judicial prosecution"? Hardly, for then it could not very well be said that they are " regularly administered."
The closing w'ords of this chapter in the Revised Discipline say that no one, except a professed believer, is "subject of judi- cial prosecution." It has been I'emarked that these words need not be objected to, " because a case is never heard of in which a baptized impenitent person is subjected to such prosecution." We are by no means ready to make the admission. Even on the ground asserted in excuse of the proposition, it is liable to the objection that it decides more and broader principles than the case requires, a fault which every intelligent judge would reprobate in secular laws. But we are by no means sure that the church always does right in so totally disusing this power of judicial citation over impenitent persons. The most plausible theory on which our present policy can be excused of leaving the impenitent baptized persons of the church so "at loose ends," would be this, that when a baptized child reaches and j)asses the years of moral responsibility, refusing to believe and repent, he is by this sin of unbelief virtually self-suspended from sealing ordinances. But he is still under the guardianship and teaching of the church, and under its pastoral oversight. Now, we ask, may not a suspended Tnemher be cited and tried for a subsequent offence? May he not be excommunicated for a subsequent offence ? Do we not give him a letter of dismission ns a member suspended to the care of another church when he emigrates ? And this leads us to remark, that a legitimate and
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 323
heueacial use of this power of citation over nou-communicants may easily be imagined. Let us suppose a cliurcli in wliich tlie Bible theory of " the school of Christ " was not so deplorably neglected as it usually is ; in which the baptized children were practically considered by pastor and session a part of their sacred charge, their jurisdiction ; where the children, after due instruction in their tender years, received pastoral admonition as they came to years of understanding, that they were now "bound to perform all the duties of church members," to repent, believe, give Christ their hearts, and thus remember him at his table ; where this first admonition was followed up with occa- sional faithful and tender remonstrances upon their continued irreligion, reminding them again and again of the voluntary nature and sinfulness of their unbelief. Many of these lambs of the flock, we may be sure, would early give their hearts to the Saviour. These become members in full communion. Many others would continue some time impenitent, but regular in their Christian morals, habitual frequenters of church ordi- nances, and in the main docile and respectful towards Christi- anity, so far as natural temper went. These would properly be retained as the citizens in their minority in the Christian com- monwealth, still precluded from the full franchises, but enjoying — we say enjoying, for would they not themselves esteem them privileges? — the public and private admonitions of the presby- ters. But a few would practically repudiate their Christian birthright and cast scorn upon it, by profanely deserting God's house, word and Sabbaths, or by contemptuous repulses of pas- toral instruction and love, or by overt and deliberate crimes. Now, what are these ? Ai'e they still church members ? If it is said. No! we ask, by what process did they cease to be such? Formally, they are still members ; but why sleeps the rod of discipline, which ought to be wielded to cleanse God's house of pollution and scandal ? Shall immersionists point at these blots, these " spots in our feasts of charity," and say that this is the inevitable result of infant church membership ? We reply, that the appropriate solution of these cases ought to be in the exercise of that "judicial prosecution" which the Revised Dis- cipline proposes to exclude. Instead of suftering them to fall by neglect into a virtual excommunication, which yet is not a formal and regular one, a treatment of the case of all others
324 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
most dishonorable to the church, and dangerous to the mis- guided souls themselves, let them be cited by the session. " They would probably contemn the summons." Well, let them do so ; let the citation be repeated, and let them be formally excommunicated for contumacy. Thus the church is rid of the scandal of their membership in the only consistent waj^ and her final testimony is borne against their sin. This, let us say, would be agreeable to the usages of the primitive church, which subjected catechumens to her discipline as well as communicants. If it be urged that men, professedly impenitent, would usually scorn the whole process, and that, therefore, the process would be improper, inasmuch as discipline owes so much of its value to the support of the moral approbation of society, we rejoin by asking how the sentiment of Christian society has become so lax and unsound on this point ? Is it not through this very neglect of pastoral discipline ? We repeat with emphasis, let us not attempt to plead a state of things produced by our own sin as our justification. Let us rather reform. But in fact, this discipline, if righteously administered, would even now be far from contemptible in the eyes of many baptized unbelievers, for they often value their church j)rivileges highly.
When it is said that none are " proper subjects of judicial prosecution except those who have made a profession of faith in Christ," the idea obviously involved is this, that it is unrea- sonable to exercise a church government over a man to which he has not given his own voluntary assent. This squints far too much towards the independent idea, that the church is a volun- tary society. If the act of the parents in bringing the child under the covenant of baptism cannot properly place him under church jurisdiction, except it be confirmed by the child's own assent, why should they perform it in his infancy at all ? Let the baptismal covenant be soriiething or notldng. If it is any thing at all, how can it effect less than we have attributed to it ? As to the necessity of a personal and voluntary consent to con- stitute any one a subject of church government, we remark that our theory does no baptized person wrong, because God has not given to any human soul the right to choose whether he will be- long to his visible kingdom or not. To decide that he shall, in advance of his own assent, robs the child of no privilege, for it is no privilege of a rational and moral soul to be a subject of
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 325
Satan and lieir of damnation, wliicli is usually the only other alternative to a visible church membership. Church govern- ment is as much an " ordinance of God " for man as civil gov- ernment. As our sons are horn citizens and subjects of civil commonwealths, whether they choose it or not, and not consti- tuted subjects by their free assent, so are the children of the people of God baptized into his commonwealth ; they are citi- zens \\\ his ordination.
There is, therefore, no consistent stopping place for us be- tween treating all baptized persons as hona fide members of the visible church, until their membership is legally severed, and accepting the Anabaptist theory of the church. We must either go the whole length, or give up our principles. For these rea- sons we greatly prefer the old phraseology to the new, and de- precate the adoption of the latter, as committing us to grave error, and as placing our disciphne in formal opposition to our creed. Chaps. II., III., IV. These chapters of our present Book are, in the Revised Discipline, somewhat transposed and condensed. The changes in principle are slight, and either unobjectionable, or positively commendable; and something is perhaps gained in perspicuity and naturalness of order. But here we must make one objection. The fourth chapter, of actual process, in the Revised Discipline, concludes the first section, which in other respects is equivalent in substance to Chapter lY., Sec- tion 5, of the present Book, wdth these words : " At the second meeting of the judicatory, the accused shall plead, in writing, to the charges ; and if he fail to do so, at the third meeting of the judicatory they shall be taken as confessed, provided he has been didy cited." The reader is left in doubt of the meaning of this provision, and of the kind of case it is intended to meet. Does the first member of the sentence mean that the accused, after being duly cited to appear in person, and after enjoying his "ten free days," may still remain absent, and answer only in writing? How, then, is the trial to proceed at this second meet- ing, as it ought in due course ? Or does it mean only, that being personally present, he is to answer "guilty" or "not guilty" on paper, instead of uttering his answer in the open court with his lip9, while the clerk records it? Again, what is the sort of case covered by the second member of the sentence ? If it is meant for the case of a man who obeys the citation, who is bodily
326 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
present in the judicatory, and who yet will not open his lips to say either "gnilty" or "not gnilty," we presume this is a case which will never occur. The man who intended to be thus stublwrn would very surely refuse to come at all. "We can hardly suppose that the committee mean this provision for the' case of the man who, when cited, refuses to attend ; for not only is that case distinctly provided for elsewhere, but it is to be dealt with differently. The offence charged, says the Revised Discipline, shall in this case not be taken as confessed, biit shall he examined in the absence of the contumacious accused, the coui-t appointing some one to represent him. (See Sec. 4.) In such a work as this, the smallest uncertainty is an important blemish, for no one knows how much confusion it may cause.
Chap. Y. Of Process against a Muuster. The only alterations proposed by the Revised Discipline in this chapter are of secondary moment. To the fifth section, which provides for placing a minister on his trial at the charge of a personal ac- cuser, or of a persistent common fame, the committee propose to add the following words: "Nevertheless, each church court has the inherent power to demand and receive satisfactory ex- planations from any of its members concerning any matters of evil report." The manner of asserting this power appears at least incautious. It is provided in the present discipline, that where a common fame does not possess the permanency and probability which would make it proper ground of process, the person aggrieved by it may, of his own motion, go before his appropriate judicatory, and demand a judicial investigation, which the court is in such case bound to grant. Now, if it were said that the brethren of a minister, Avhen they believe his char- acter to be suffering under such a common fame, and he still appears unconscious or indifferent to the injmy done his repu- tation, shoiild have leave to advise him to avail himself volunta- rily of an explanation, or of the examination above described, we could heartily approve. And sucli advice might, in a strong case, be enforced by reminding the minister under evil report how the rumors, if neglected, might gather such strength as Avould oblige his brethren to open an actual process against him on common fame. But farther than advice no judicatory should be allowed to go without those regular forms of judicial process which are so necessary to the protection of equal rights. The
THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE, 327
sentence under remark, as it now stands, would seem to give a judicatory power to compel a brotlier, who should be lield inno- cent till lie is proved guilty, but wlio is suffering under the in- fliction of evil tongues, to take his place in the confessional against his own consent. Suppose the suffering brother should say that he, in that discretion which the constitution gives him, has judged it best to let the vile tattle die of its own insignifi- cance and falsity, without notice ; or that the nature of the case is such that explanation would be mortifying or indehcate, while yet no guilt attaches to it ; or that the very act of placing him on the stool of confession, and thus singling him out from all "the brethren, to whose innocency his own is in point of hiio ex- actly equal, is an infliction on his good name and feelings ; and that he therefore regards this explanation which is "demanded" of him as a grievance and a quasi penalty? The plain doctrine of liberty and equal rights is this, that no ruling power shall have leave to impose on any one of its subjects an}i;hi-ng which is of the nature of a discriminating infliction, which is not equally imposed at all times on all the subjects, until he is proA^ed to be deserving of the infliction by a conviction duly reached by course of law. We may not do any pain whatever to one mem- ber of a judicatory, which is not equally done at the same time to all the members, unless he consents, or unless he is^;;'(3wc7 to . deserve it, by being confronted with his witnesses. It is tyranny. No court should be allowed to proceed further in this matter than advice. The annual inquiry held by the Methodist Conferences, in "passing the character" of members, is far less odious than this provision may become, because that inquiry is held as to all the brethren alike. In fine, the provision proposed by the committee is nexo ; let us beware, for we do not know how it may work, until we learn by an experience, which may be a bitter one.
The next objectionable change j)roposod by the committee is the total omission of Section 9, which now ])rovides, that when a minister is under actual process, the judicatory may have discretion to suspend his privilege of acting as a presbyter and member in all matters in which his own rights as a defen- dant are not concerned, until his acquittal. The committee should not have expunged this section unless they meant to take away this discretion absolutely, for tlte silence of the statute book can
328 THE EEYISED BOOK OT DISCIPLINE.
never, with, safety, be allowed to convey anr discretion to the ruling bodies as to the rights of the ruled. Here, at least, the principle of strict construction must be uj^held br any one not almost insanely reckless. The ruler must claim no powers ex- cept those expressly granted, or necessarilj" implied in the law by which he rules ; all other powers must be regarded as inten- tionally reserved from and denied to him. Otherwise, what safety would individuals find in sonstitutions and laM's? We must therefore understand that by suppressing this ninth sec- tion, the committee mean positively to deprive judicatories of this discretionary jDower. Why, then, did they not suppress the parallel 'enactment in Chapter TV., Section 12 (old Book, Sec. IS), in which discretionary power is granted to take away from the layman or ruling elder the right of communing while under process? Why this partiality? It is invidious. If the pro- l)alAe guilt of a layman or elder makes it improper in some cases to allow him to approach the Lord's supper for a time, lest per- haps it be found afterwards that he hath profaned it ; does not ihe j)''obahle truth of some shameful or atrocious charge against a minister make it yet more improper that he should be allowed in the interval of examination to sit and rule in Christ's house, wielding all the high and sacred powers of a governor and ex- emplar to the flock ? Surely the probability of a profane char- acter in a minister is more mischievous, more shocking, than in a layman, and the sanctities of Christ's kingdom should be guarded against such a man with greater, not with less, jealousy. We fear the intelligent laity of our church will be tempted to take note that the committee which proposes this invidious dis- tinction was a committee of preachers, with one exception.
The other noticeable change proposed in this chapter is the entire omission of the fourteenth section. In our present Book this section recommends that " a minister under process for heresy or schism should be treated with Christian and brotherly tenderness," that " frequent conferences ought to be held with him, and proper admonitions administered." All this the com- mittee propose to suppress, leaving no intimation that there is to be any difference between the temper of the prosecution, where we have to separate from us the devout and pure Chris- tian, whose understanding has been unfortunately entangled concerning the perseverance of the saints, or unconditional de-
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 329
•crees, and the wretch who has abused a sacred prof'ission as a cloak for his villauies. But STirely there is a wide diffi-^rence in the kind and degree of the guilt in the two cases. We hold, in- deed, that man is responsible for his belief, and that error is never adopted, as to points adequately taught in the Scriptures, without some element of sinful feeling or volition in the shape of prejudice, haste, egotism, or such like. But yet there is this wide difference, that unless we are ourselves insane, we who sit in judgment on our brother do not ourselves claim theological infallibility. We recognize a multitude of other brethren who hold opinions similar to the ones we are prosecuting in him, supposing that his heresy does not affect the fundamentals of redemption, as members of the true visible church, and we com- mune with them at the Lord's table. Yea, we may probably commune with the heretical brother himself after his condemna- tion, as a true, though erring, brother. Here indeed is the vital difference between the trial for heresy and the trial for crime, that unless the heretic has denied fundamental truths, our con- demnation does not separate him from the visible church of Christ, possibly not even from our own branch, but it only de- prives him of that official character among us which it is now not for edification that he should hold. If he does not choose to remain a Presbyterian layman, he may take a certificate of membership and join the Methodist, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Mennonite, the Moravian, the Episcopal, or some other com- munion, where our principles will still require us to meet him as a brother in Christ. But when a person is disciplined for crim- inal conduct, we condemn him on the principle that there is no evidence he is Christ's servant at all ; when we turn him out of the Presbyterian Church we turn him also out of the church catholic ; we transfer him to the kingdom of Satan. Even were a minister disciplined for heresy in fundamentals, if his morals continued pure, there would still not be that social degradation, that pollution of character as a citizen and neighbor, which at- taches to crime ; and the frailty of the human understanding admonishes us to judge very leniently of the guilt attaching to errors of head where the heart appears sincere. For these rea- sons we conceive that there is a broad distinction between the case of the heretic and that of the moral apostate, and that the Book of Discipline has done most scripturally, most appropri-
330 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
ately, in enjoining a diflferent treatment. Our zeal is so apt, alas! to run into bigotry, and onr love of truth into party spirit, in times of theological schism, that the caution contained in this fourteenth section is eminently wise and seasonable. Let us by all means retain it. Why was it proposed to omit it ? Do we set ourselves up as superior to the framers of our constitution in our righteous abhorrence of error and fidelity to truth ?
Chapter YI. of the Revised Discipline is a short but wholly a new chapter. It is entitled, " Of Cases without Process." The first section enacts that persons who confess, or who committed the offence in the presence of the court, shall be condemned without process. The cases of those who confess their offence seems to be sufliciently provided for in the chapters on " actual process," where it is said that if the party plead guilty judgment shall immediately follow. As to the other case, every delibera- tive body is necessarily clothed with so much of power over its own members as to prevent and redress "breaches of privilege" committed on its floor ; this is essential to self-preservation. But farther than this we cannot perhaps go with safety. When an offence is committed on the floor of a judicatory, and of course usually against itself or one of its members, the body will be in no safe temper to administer justice with wisdom and mercy. We surmise that few of these extempore verdicts, passed as they might be, so far as this chapter goes, within five minutes after the judicatory had been agitated and inflamed by the out- rage, would be satisfactory to their own authors after they had slept upon them. In case of such an offence in open court, calling for any thing heavier than a reprimand, the charge and citation might be immediately made, with propriety, and a suf- ficient number of members or spectators then and there detailed as witnesses; but still, it is far better that the "ten free days" should intervene before the sentence is passed. The judges will have time to cool; perhaps the offender also. The Princetoit Jtev'teio reasons : " That the end of a trial is to ascertain the facts of the case ; if these are patent to all concerned, there can be no use in a trial." Not so ; the trial is to ascertain not only the facts, but also a penalty righteously apportioned to the de- gree of guilt, and for the latter end not only knowledge of facts but deliberation is necessary.
Again : the language of the proposed enactment is general,
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 331
" his ofleiice having been committed in the presence of the court." Does this mean that if a minister, for instance, commit an offence in the presence of a Synod or General Assembly, that body may discipHne him immediately, thus usurping the juris^ diction which the constitution gives to the Presbytery ?
The second section of this chapter will probably strike the reader as somewhat amusing. It provides that if there be an appeal from one of these cxtemjjore judgments, as there doubt- less will be in most cases, as there is no accuser, some com- municating member, subject to the jurisdiction of the same court with the appellant, shall be appointed to defend the sentence, and shall be the appellee in the case. The object of this curious provision evidently is to sustain symmetrically the theory which is carried out in the rest of the Revised Discipline, that when any appeal or complaint is taken up, the court ap- pealed from has no longer any other relation to the case than that shared by all others represented in the superior court. But when a judicatory prosecutes on common fame, through the agency of its "prosecuting committee," or when it pronounces sentence in one of these anomalous " cases without process," it is virtually a party in point of fact. On one side is the con- demned man, and on the other side is the court condemning, and there is nobody else in the affair. The problem, then, was how to avoid having the court appear as a party to the appeal in such cases as these. It is strange that the committee did not see that their expedient is either a mere fiction, or else that it still leaves the lower court in the virtual position of appellee in ' the case. When they have picked up this anybody to appear in the higher court, defend their sentence, and i)lay the role of part}' to the appeal, does he not appear as their representative or counsel? Then they are themselves virtually present as a part}' 2yer aluim, non per se. If not, where is the propriety of making this individual a party to the case, when, in fact he is no more a party than any other communicant in the church? In whose behoof does he appear ? Not in his own, sm-ely, for personally he has no more business there than anybody else ; if he appears properly at all, it must be as counsel for the court appealed from. He is to " defend the sentence ;" that is, their sentence. In doing this he defends them ; so that, after all, the court appealed from appears, by their counsel, as defendant,
332 THE EEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
tliat is, as apjDellee, to answer the appeal. We beg the reader to believe that this is not a " mere strife about words," as we shall see when we come to the chapter on " General Eeview and Control."
The concluding section of this new chapter contains a propo- sition so startling and dangerous that we confess the two points just criticised seem to us in comparison almost trivial. It says, "In cases in which a communicating member of the church shall state in open court that he is persuaded in conscience that he is not converted, and has no right to come to the table of the Lord, and desires to ■withdraw from the communion of the church ; if he has committed no offence which requires process, his name shall be stricken from the roll of communicants, and the fact, if deemed expedient, published in the congregation of which he is a member."
The attempt has been made several times in General Assem- bhes — as in 1848 and 1851 — to establish this most sweeping, mischievous and un-Presbvterian usage, which it is here j)ro- posed to legalize. It has been argued that discipHne cannot be the proper means for getting such a member out of the church, because there is no " offence " for which to discipline him ; that if this unregenerate church member were to come to the com- munion, while conscious that he had not the preparation of heart, he would be gniltv of hjprocrisj and j)rofanity, and we may not discipline, that is, piinish a person for not doing that which would have been a heinous sin if done ; that the candor and honor of such persons, in resigning a name which they feel themselves unworthy to wear, deserves praise rather than cen- sure ; that many young persons are hurried into the church in times of religious excitement, by imprudence of Christian friends, or even church officers, and by their own inexperience, and these ought not now to be j)nuished by an odious brand of church discipHne for an indiscretion involuntary and mainly due to others.
Such are the arguments which have been plausibly and elo- quently urged more than once on the floor of the Assembly- Let it be remembered, also, that the same respected brother who acted as chairman of this committee of revision, when chau'man of the Assembly's Committee of BiUs and Overtures, in 1848, advised the Assembly to adopt the same principle which his
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 333
committee has now souglit to embody iu our Revised Discipline. The Assembly then refused to follow his advice; we devoiitly hope that it will do so again. "We recall this, not to cause odium, but as a piece of history, instructive and appropriate in the premises.
But when we return to the Princeton Iievieic, we are — we must be pardoned for saying it — amazed, both at the arguments ad- vanced and the sJightness with which so important and extensive a revolution is dismissed. The discussion occupies nine lines, and is composed of the following reasons: that "hundreds of such cases are occurring from year to year," as though a bad practice ought to repeal a good rule, instead of the good rule's abolishing the bad practice; "that no man should be coerced to ^•iolate his conscience;" and that "the church is so far a vol- untary society that no one can be required to remain in it against his will" — remarks which woidd have some relevancy, if it was proposed that church sessions should coerce a man to com- mune when he knew himself unfit ; whereas, the duty enjoined is to become Jit by obeying the great command to beheve — and if church sessions wielded for this purpose civil pains and j^eual- ties, instead of merely spiritual means; and that "he should not be "visited with ecclesiastical censure simply for believing that he is not prepared to come to the Lord's table " — a statement which we will correct in due tinie.
On the other hand, it has been solidly argued in the Assembly, that church membership is an enUstment for hfe, and should be an indissoluble tie ; that this 23ermission to throw off the bond at pleasure would teach most low and ruinous concej^tions of the nature of the church, and the sacreduess of the union to her, as though it Avere little more than a debating society or Odd Fel- lows' club ; that the proposed policy places the Presbyterian Church on the same level as the Methodist, in opening a wide " back-door " for the escape of those loose and heterogeneous ac- cessions which the genius of Methodism approves, whereas our in- stitutions repudiate them; that the person desiring dismission to the world might be mistaken in condemning his own spiritual state, becaiise of melancholy or Satanic temptation, as many humble Christians have been ; and that if the consequences of entering the communion of the church unconverted seem mortifying to his pride, that false step was his own, and no one else can so
334 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
jiisth' be held respousible for it. But tliese reasons, while just, do not display the full force of the objections. We argue far- ther :
First, That this permission once granted to church sessions in form, there will be nearly an utter end of church discipline. Backsliding members, who have just committed some disciplin- able offence, will come to the church session before the rumor of their wickedness has become flagrant, state, with a gentle- manly nonchalance, that they have concluded they were mistaken as to their conversion, and demand to be instantly ^^niarl'ed off.'' Oftentimes others, who are conscious of a growing love for sin and purpose to yield to temptation, will take the same step in advance, by way of prejjaration, and thus we shall have the holy and glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ degraded almost to the level of one of those vain temperance societies, which un- principled men join in the summer, and from which they remove their names in December, preliminary to their " Christmas spree." lu many cases transgressors will be allowed to evade disci23line in this wa}-, even after their oflences have become quite flagrant, for cliscipUne is painful and invidious work ; and those who know church sessions know that they will often yield to this strong reluctance, and get rid of the troublesome mem- ber in this short hand way. They will be able to say, " "Well, the man demanded leave to withdraw, and our Revised Discip- line makes it obligatory on us to grant it, where the member says he has no new heart. We did indeed know that there were some rumors of immorality, but we had not such authentic evi- dence as Avould justify the commencing of process in due form ; under these circumstances we did not feel authorized to refuse his demand, and now he is out of our power." Let this ar- ticle be made the public law of our church, and we fearlessly predict that in due time the righteous and sacred fear of the rod of discipUne will be unknown among us, except in rare cases. In all conscience it it is rare enough now, without this new door for laxity.
But secondly, We utterly deny the position on which the whole plausibility of the opposing argument rests, that there is no "offence" for which to discipline such a moral, candid per- son, confessing his unregenerate state. What, is there no sin when he is disobeying that -jommand, "This do in remembrance
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 335
of me?" It is forgotten tliat this person's disqualification for communing is not an involuntary, physical disqualification. Men speak of it as tliougli it were something like a broken leg, or a chain, Avhich kept them away from the Lord's table. But whose fault is it that the unconverted member has not the proper state of heart to approach that sacrament? Whose but his own? Said Christ, "And ye will not come unto me that j-e might have life." That the person has not the proper aft'ections to come is his sin, his great parent sin. And shall one sin be pleaded as justification for another sin? If a man commit the crime of brutifying himself with ardent spirits, shall he plead that sin as apology for the second crime of doing some brutal act while in that state ? Both human and divine laws say, no !
Is there, then, no sin which is disciplinable, because there is no overt immorality, when the man has himself confessed the great, the damning sins of being unwilling to believe and trust Christ, thus making God a liar (1 John v. 10) ; of feeling no gratitude and love to a lovely, dying Saviour, which is equiva- lent to a profession of ingratitude and indifference ; and of enter- taining no desire wdiatever to be released by Christ from his depravity and rebellion, which is the same thing as saying that he would rather be depraved and a rebel than not ? But these feelings of trust, gratitude, love, desire for holiness, are just the feelings which would fit him to commune ; the absence of them is voluntary and active Avickedness towards God. Shall the Book of Discipline teach that unbelief and enmity to Christ are not sins? Not so teach the Scriptures. They say that unbelief is the sin because of which sinners are condemned already by God (John iii. 18); that when the Holy Ghost comes to the heart, he convinces it of sin, because it has not believed on Christ. (John xvi, 9.) This, then, is the great mother sin, *'the head and front of our offending." But perhaps the ground may be taken, that while unbelief, absence of love to Christ, impenitency, are sins, even great sins, they are not of the class of discij)lmal)le offences, but, like various Christian imperfections, ought to be dealt with only from the pulpit and in other teach- ings. We reply, that the church judges it proper to Jceej) out from her communion a whole world of professed transgressors for this very sin ; it were strange if the same sin inside her pale cannot be properly punished by^.'?/^?^!//^^ out the transgressor. The J*/'ince-
336 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
ton Beview, in introducing the Revised Discipline to notice, states and defends, witli eminent propriety, tlie distinction between sins which, are not and sins which are discipliiialjle offences for a church court. In this sense, as it teaches, all sins are not " of- fences ;" and it sums up by saying : " It is only those evils in the faith or practice of a church member which bring disgrace or scandal on the church, as tolerating what the Bible declares to be incompatible with the Christian character, which can be ground of process." Are not avowed impenitence and tinbehef incompatible with Christian character, and does not their tol- erance in communicants " bring disgrace or scandal " on the Romish and other communions, which formally allow it, in the eyes of all enlightened men ? They are, then, a disciplinable offence. But hear Paul (1 Cor. xvi. 22), " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha." Here we have the very formulary of excommunication pronounced, and it is against the man who " loves not the Lord Jesus Christ ;" that is, just the man who, in modern phrase, avows himself as " lacking in the suitable qualifications for the Lord's supper."
The church, we hold, is solemnly bound to teach the same doctrine in her discipline which she preaches from her pulpits,, otherwise she is an un scriptural church. She is bound to tes- tify by her acts, as well as her words, against that destructive and wicked delusion so prevalent in consequence of the wresting of the doctrines of grace, that because grace is sovereign, there- fore the failure to exercise gracious principles is rather man's misfortune than his fault. It is this dire delusion which hides from men the sinfulness of their hearts ; it hath slain its ten thousands. With what consistency can the pulpit proclaim that unbelief is sin, and then send forth the same pastor into the session room to declare to the misguided transgressor, in the tenfold more impressive language of official acts, that it in- volves no censure, and that its bold avowal is rather creditable than blameworthy ? Shall not the blood of souls be found on such a session ?
Now, it is true that to make a hy^jocritical commemoration of the Lord's death, without either faith or repentance, is a greater crime than the open avowal of the sin of unbelief. But this is far from proving the latter no sin. We grant that he who can- didly owns the wicked state of his heart, and refuses to perform
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 337
a liypocritical deed, acts far less criminally tliau lie who simu- lates love aud faith while feeling none, and "eats and drinks
, damnation to himself ;" but this is far from granting that he does rightly. By his own showing he is candid in avoiding pre- tence, but he is also disobedient and unthankful. He is not a secret traitor, but he M-ishes to be an open, armed rebel. He is not indeed a Judas, but he is an unbelieving, hostile Caiaphas. Shall we still be told that we cannot discipline him, because he has done nothing wrong ? Here, then, is the scriptural ground on which to judge his case. He is a member of the visible church and under its jurisdiction, probably by the valid act of his parents, and certainly liy his own voluntary act. It may be he acted heedlessly, indiscreetly, in subjecting himself, yet it was his own fit'ee act. Let him then be dealt with for the sin of utibelief, that great master sin, that parent sin, that sin so purely voluntary, and so decisive of unconverted character. He has avowed it, let him then be treated as a man who confesses a dis- ciplinable offence.
Here it may be objected that whatever the Bible may decide of the voluntariness and sinfulness of unbelief, no unregenerate man thinks thus of it, and therefore the unconverted church member in question, and all other men of the world, will be lilled with indignation at what they conceive to be unreasonable punishment, and thus the session will not be upheld by that "approbation of an impaiiial pubHc" from which their discip- line, a power only moral and spiritual, must derive a large part of its force, according to the Book of Government itself. We reply that it is only an evangelical public opinion which is to be regarded by the church with respect. God forbid that the kingdom of Christ, that sacred and majestic commonwealth which is appointed to be, in all ages, the exemplar and defender of immutable righteousness, should become a truckling trimmer to every wicked caprice of unsanctified opinion and prejudice. Let it be hers rather to control, enhghten and elevate pubhc opinion by the consistency and moral courage of her teachings and acts. But we reply again, that in the case under discussion
the fact that discipline is administered is not at all incompatible
with the making of such differences, in the mild and paternal character of the proceedings, as the true character of the case
justifies. The session, if it is reasonably prudent, will remem-
VoL. 11—22.
338 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
ber that tlie sin of unbelief, in a moral man, implies none of that social degradation wliicli applies to swindling, or falsehood, or unchastity, and they will throughout deal ^^itll the unhappy man so as to relieve his feelings ivoni the bitterness of this mis- apprehension. When they hear that he absents himself from the Lord's table they will indeed cite him. But a citation from a pastoral body is not necessarily a peremptory document, de- nouncing contingent shame and wrath, sent forth to drag the reluctant culprit trembling to their bar. Why may it not be a true citation, and yet say in substance, with pastoral affection, that the session, his true friends, tender and forbearing, see this ground to fear that his soul is not prospering, and therefore, in loving anxiety for him, ask an interview and a candid statement of his feelings ? Then, after all proper care to discover that the person is not one of God's feeble lambs, who is writing bitter thino's ao;ainHt himself because of a morbid conscience or Satanic buffetings, the next step should be to urge on him, Avith all a pastor's loving fidelity, the gospel offer, to show him how the unfitness of the Lord's table which he has avowed, is his sin, which it is his duty to forsake at once, and from which it is his privilege to be at once delivered by the Saviour, if he will only believe. Then at length, if he persists in declining to accept Christ, he should be solemnly, but tenderly, instructed of his guilt and danger, and the session should do judicially, on the ground of his own avowal, what he had requested, except that they should deljar him from the Lord's table until repentance, instead of giving him license to neglect it. But if the person were amiable and moral, it would be proper to spare his feelings the mortification of publishing his suspension from the pulpit, as the Book of Discipline expressly authorizes judicatories to do. Being informed of the issue himself, he might be left to publish it by his visible absence from the Lord's supper. In no case should a church session proceed against such a case to the ex- treme of excommunication unless the person inculpated added to his confession of unregeuerac}- contumacy or crime. As long as his demeanor was moral and respectful to Christianity, he should be only remanded to that condition of religious minority, self-suspended by unbelief from sealing ordinances, in which the Assembly has decided .all impenitent baptized persons stand. Some one may say that a judicial process, thus conducted, comes
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 339
practically to the same thing with the course recommended in the Revised Discipline. We reply, that it is as truly devoid of unrighteous harshness, but that it has this vast difference and advantage, it is faithful to the Bible theory of the church and of the gospel.
The last remark may suggest a further objection to the pro- vision of the Revised Discipline. It says of the impenitent member, " his name shall be stricken from the roll of communi- cants." But such applicants would almost universally consider that the transaction made a final end of their church member- ship, and of the jurisdiction of pastor and session. This, indeed, would usually be their object in making the application. We should be sorry to believe, indeed, that it is the meaning of the committee of revision. Yet surely it is an objection, that this summary dismission from the communion should be misunder- stood by the party himself, as it usually will be, as a dismission from the church. But to what other body can he be dismissed ? There is but one other, the kingdom of Satan. The Revised Book itself says that " all baptized persons are church members," and such they must continue until their membership is severed in a legal way. Now, is it right to take this moral person, who, according to the reasonings of those we oppose, has just signal- ized his candor and his reverential respect for the sacraments in a very pleasing manner, and make this the occasion for giving him up to the jurisdiction of Satan, and of repudiating all that watch and care and pastoral instruction which the church has hitherto exercised towards him ? Is it lawful for the church to do this? Does she not neglect her charge therein? While it is lenient in seeming, it is in fact a far greater severity than regular discipline. In a word, the whole conception of church member- ship, on which the proposition is founded, is incompatible with the Presbyterian theory of the church. It might be in place in the discipline of some society which combined the principles of the Independents and Immersionists.
Chap. yil. — Of Witnesses. The only important change in this chapter is the making of the parties to a judicial process com,pe- tent witnesses, leaving the degree of their crecVihillty to be de- cided by the judicatory. The other alterations are chiefly those of condensation, and seem to be, in the main, improvements, as when the seventeenth section. Revised Discipline, states, in a
340 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
few lines, witli sufficient distinctness, the cases in whicli, r.nd conditions on which, new testimony' niaj be introduced, which in the present book are expanded with unnecessary minuteness into a whole chajDter (the ninth). To return to the point first mentioned, several secular judicatories have introduced of late the usage of allowing parties to testify, and with seeming ad- vantage. The old argument against it must be admitted to have some force ; that it is too severe a test and temptation to be ap- plied to poor human nature, to bear witness in its own behalf. But, on the other hand, it is urged, with solid force, that it seems very unreasonable in a court to go everywhere else hunt- ing up testimony about a transaction except to the two men who knew all about it, meantime silencing them. Two remarks may be made in confirmation of this : First, that the secular courts of equity, or chancery, in England and America, to which a spiritual court ought surely to approach nearest in the spirit of its jiu'isprudence, have, in many cases, adopted this principle from time immemorial. The parties at equity file their declara- tions under oath, because the judge is supposed to allow them some degree of credibility, according to their sincerity, as expo- sitions of the state of facts It is true that these declarations are popularly supposed to bo attended with a good deal of " hard swearing " ; but the tendency of self-interest to falsify is power- fully checked by the knowledge of the fact that the other party is also at liberty to introduce all the testimony he can get, and that, if any part of the declaration is proved false by this evi- dence, the credibility of the whole is damaged.
Secondly : According to our present Book of Discipline, the exclusion of the parties from the witness-stand may sometimes most unreasonably defeat justice, when one of the witnesses is compelled to testify ; for in some cases a man might thus be compelled to act as accuser, so that only one other is left to testify, while the Book requires two. It seems to us improper^ however, to make it the uniform law that all parties shall be com- pelled to testify against themselves, an abuse repudiated by all liberal legislation. The fifteenth section — in j)resent Book six- teenth— provides that a church member summoned to testify may be censured for his refusal to obey. It would be well to intro- duce a clause, here or elsewhere, excepting persons appearing as defendants in a cause from this censure for refusing to testify. Otherwise misunderstanding may arise.
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCirLINE. 341
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- 1 John v. 10
- John iii. 18
- 1 Cor. xvi. 22
Chapter VIII We come now to the eighth chapter, correspond
ing with chapter seventh in onr present Book, which treats of the review and appellate jurisdiction of superior judicatories over inferior. Here we find some important and questionable modifications proposed. As to their importance, we may adopt the estimate of the Princeton Review, which, in defending them, savs : If the third section of this chapter " should be ultimately adopted, it matters comparatively little what becomes of the rest of their recommendations." In the present Book, and the new one, this chapter begins with two prefatory paragraphs ; to these the committee propose to add a third, as follows :
' ' '\^^len a matter is transferred in any of these ways from aii inferior to a su- perior jiidicatory, the inferior jiidicatory shall in no case be considered a partj', nor shall its members lose their right to sit, deliberate and vote in the higher courts. "
This seventh chapter of our present Book of Discipline has been the most common butt of the complaints against our sys- tem. Many strong and eloquent pictures have been drawn, as in the Princeton Peview, p. 717, of the confusions which often arise from appeal cases, of the tedious investigations, compli- cated questions of order, waste of time in the General Assembly, and extrusion of business of more general importance. We are thoroughly convinced that the hope of finding a remedy for this evil in the present, or indeed in any revision of our Book, Avill be found wholly delusive. That evil is due to the popular constitution, and large numbers of our higher judicatories, and to their inexperience of judicial transactions, not to the defec- tive provisions of our statute book. That book is the work of our wisest men, has been already perfected by repeated re- visions, the last of which was performed by a committee em- bracing Drs. Alexander and Miller, and wdiich labored upon it, -ixoi four or five clays, but parts of three years, and is probably as wise as it can be made. The true remedy is probably to be found in an amendment of our Book of Government, constitu- tionally admitting compact judicial commissions in our higher, or at least our highest courts. But much of the evil is inevit- able. We are yet to find the 'place or the court where judicial investigations are not tedious, laborious and intricate, unless where a summary tyranny cuts matters short by disregarding rights and running a fearful risk of injustice. But we proceed to remark :
342 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
In some cases, at least, tlie inferior judicatory is and 'inusi he a party before the superior, when appealed from ; aud iu every case it assvimes necessarily so much of an interested attitude as to make it unfit to sit, deliberate and vote, in the courts above to which the appeal is taken. Suppose the new chapter con- cerning "cases without process" adopted; and suppose an ap- peal or complaint taken against such a sentence ; or suppose an appeal from a conviction on " common fame," who, we pray, is the "other party," unless it is the judicatory pronouncing the sentence? There is no accuser; or, if the prosecution is on " common fame," the accuser is imaginary ; the real accuser is the prosecuting committee, which is nothing at all except as it is the representative of the judicatory that appoints it. There is nobody in the case at all except the defendant and the judicatory; and as there are presumed to be two parties, the latter muiit he one. We have already seen the thin evasion by which this ob- vious truth is attempted to be hidden. The Revised Discipline pro\ades that in these classes of cases, if there is an appeal, the judicatory shall appoint somebody to play the part of "appel- lee ;" but we trust it was made plain, that either this fictitious " appellee " must appear as the representative of the lower court before the higher, or his appearance is wholly absurd. But if the former view is true, then the court appealed from is, in re- ality, a party to the appeal, and appears by its counsel.
The very conception of an appeal or complaint makes the court below, to a certain extent, a party. When the individual who was cast appeals or complains, against whovi, we pray, does he appeal or complain ? Not, surely, against the accuser, where there is a personal accuser. The complaint is against the judicatory which cast him; as, he conceives, unjustl3\ And when his appeal or complaint is "entertained" by the higher court, what is the thing which is investigated? Is it not the sentence iKissed heloic f The body appealed from or complained against, the body whose that sentence was, is surely then a party to the question. This follows inevitably from the nature of an appeal or complaint. If Ave inquire what is the object of the appellant, the nature of the process appears yet more strongly. The whole motive of his process is to remove his cause to the jurisdiction of other judges. He considers the judges of the lower court as incompetent, unfair or prejudiced, to some extent,
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 343
and tlierefore lie appeals to the otlier judges in order tliat lie may avoid the injustice which he conceives himself as sufTering in that lower. Now, what a mockery is it to appoint him in part, perhaps in large part, the same old judges It is an in- trinsic absurdity in the view of common sense. Nor is it re- lieved by the feature which distinguished Luther's course, when he appealed from his holiness the pope ill-in formed to his holi- ness the pope u'ell-in formed. For, according to the provision of the Revised Discipline, as well as the old, these judges judg- ing the appeal against themselves are not conceived of as any bet- ter informed ; they are forbidden to take into the account, at the second hearing, anything additional to the first record. Once more, let us suppose a case cited by the Princeton Hevieio itself, for an opposite purpose, indeed: "A session finds a man guilty. The Presbytery reverses that decision. The session appeals to Synod. Here the session and the Presbytery are the parties. The Synod may reverse the judgment of the Presbytery. Then the Presbytery appeals, and the SjTiod and Presbytery become the parties before the Assembly." This, oljjects the author, would be the case under the present Book. But how can it be otherwise, in fact, we ask, under any book ? When the session appeals against the Presbytery which has reversed its sentence, against whom is its quarrel waged on the floor of the Synod? Against the Presbytery. This is inevitable. And if the Pres- bytery appoints some " appellee " to answer the session's appeal, he answers it In the Presbytery' s defence. This is the fact, blink it as we may by a fictitious arrangement.
The Princeton Pevieio presents four arguments against the present Book, where it treats the court appealed from as a party to a limited extent before the court above, and excludes them from a vote on the readjudicatioUo In briefly discussing these few heads, we shall be able to present the remainder of what we have to say wath sufficient method.
First, It is urged that it is very unfair and unjust to assume, as our present Book does, that a judge must become a partizan by sitting upon a cause ; and secondly, that his having judged it once does not disqualify him, but rather' prepare him better for sitting on it again. If our present Book, we reply, assumed that Presbyterian ruling elders and ministers are usually so wicked that they would sit the second time with hearts con-
344 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
sciously and sinfully prejudiced to reject all amendment of tlieir verdict, tliougli seen bj themselves to be wrong, this would be very harsh. But what the Book assumes is this obvious truth, that good men are infirm, liable to unconscious prejudice and pride of opinion ; and, for whatever reason they may have de- cided once, in a given way, liable for that reason^ to decide the same way a second time when the case is presented on the very same data as at first. But the nature of the appeal, in the Ee- vised Discipline, just as in the old, necessarily requires that no- thing shall be admitted into the discussion but what is in the record of the .lower court. If any man denies this as a true de- scription of human nature, or as too derogatory, he will find very few practical men concurring with him. But again : the very nature of the appeal is, that the party cast desires a new trial hy other judges. In securing the right of appeal the consti- tution grants this desire. See the first paragraph of the chapter, in either the present or revised form. The constitution, there- fore, excludes the lower court from sitting again, not because it would brand them as prejudiced partizans, but because the de- fendant has asked for neio judges, and the constitution has deter- mined to gratify him.
In the third place, the Princeton Iievleio urges that the usage of our present disciphne is, in this respect, contrary to ihat of most secular courts in our country. It is said that, in no secular court of appeal are the judges of the lower court " arraigned before the higher court, and made to defend them- selves for having given a certain judgment." And the appeal, it is asserted, is " often reheard by the same judges associated with others." Of the latter assertion, we remark first, that in the courts of appeals in most commonwealths, and in the courts to which the most of the interests of citizens are referred, the judges of the lower courts appealed from have no seat at all. In some at least of the United States, the judge of the cu'cuit courts of law is expresdy furhidden to sit on the hearing of an appeal from his decision, in the District Court of Appeals, which is composed, for the rest, of circuit judges. Different and superior judges, in the majoi-ity of cases, wholly compose the higher court. This is the rule; the opposite is the ex- ception. Again : in the exceptional cases in which judges assemble from their circuits into a general court, to hear
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE, 345
appeals from one or another of their own body, the court appealed from forms an exeediugly small part of the superior court appealed to. As the Princeton Kevleio remarks, rather suicidally : " Often the appeal is from a single judge to a full bench ;" so that the vote of the judge who has already adjudi- cated the case forms a very small and comparatively unimpor- tant element in the second decision. But, after all, in nearly all civil courts of law and equity it is a jury, and not the judge, that decides upon the issue made up in the case. Let us run the parallel fairly, and we shall make the moderator of the judi- catory correspond to the judge in the secular court, while all the other members of the judicatory correspond to the jury. Who would ever dream, in any civil court in America, of suffering the same jurymen to sit in the new trial of a case ? When a new trial is granted, if there is no change of ven ue, at least a totally new jury is impanelled.' Not one of the old jury is allowed to sit. The judge may be assumed to be dispassionate, for he has been the mere umpire of the debate, he has not passed on the issue at all. Again, when a jury is formed to try a man accused of crime, each man of the venue is questioned solemnly whether he has formed and exjiressed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the accused. If he declares that he has, he is dismissed. The law assumes, most properly, that human nature is such that the mere expression of an opinion, much more its deliberate ut- terance after full examination, creates at once some bar, uncon- sciously, yet truly, to the equal admission into the mind of lights for and lights against the conclusion formed. But the judicial function is a sacred one, and, therefore, perfect disjxisslonateness is the essential qualification of all who sit as judges. From all these facts we argue that the usage of civil courts is against the Princeton Peview, and that, in the general, it expresses the ob- vious principle of common sense, that an appeal should not go to the same judges. But now note, that in every case, accord- ing to our Book of Government, the lower court is represented in the court next above, and in most cases largely represented. Here, then, is the overwhelming, the decisive answer to this whole doctrine of the Revised Discipline, that it is every way probable the IcAver court appealed from would, in many cases, have a controlling majorit}^ in the court appealed to, so that, if they were allowed to sit, the right of appeal would lie virtually
346 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
disappointed, tlie case would be re-adjudicated by the same votes. The author iu the Princeton IievieiL\ with a singular fa- tality for adducing instances destructive to his OAvn argument, lias, on page 710, supplied us "with just such a case. We com- plete his statement a little, so as to make the following supposi- tion : There is a Synod composed of one large and tv.o or three small Presbyteries. In the large Presbytery a case of discipline is adjudicated, and the party cast appeals to S^aiod. The meet- ing of Sj'nod either takes place within the bounds of this large Presbytery or else the interest of its members in this htigation carries the bidk of them to the Synod. A Synod's quorum may he constituted of three members from one Presbytery, three from a second, and one from a third. Suppose iu this case three from the second, one from the third, and c^uite a full representa- tion from the large Presbytery; instead of only the minimum of three. Where now is the appellant's new trial ? It is substan- tially the same court ; the same majority which has already con- demned him is still overwhelming. Let us suppose another case. There is a small Presbytery of few and scattered churches. An appeal goes up against the session of one of its more impor- tant churches. The moderator and delegate of that session sit i'Ci Presbytery, and though there is a constitutional quorum, the only other members may be two ministers, of whom one is moderator, so that the vote in the upper court is two against one. " If the pastor and elder were required to withdraw, no quorum would be left !" True ; but the injustice of this mockery of an issue to the appeal would at least be arrested and sus- pended. It has long been the glory of our republican church discipline that it gives the best possible guarantees to protect its humblest member against injustice. Our intelligent laity will naturally regard this feature of the Revised Book as an in- fringement of their rights, and as the introduction of a new element of power, anti-republican in its nature. Is it so that the minister or layman who conceives himself as unjustly con- demned by a Presbytery is to be deprived of that privilege of a freeman, carrying his rights before different judges, and that this Presbytery shall still, in part, be his masters to the end, whether he consents or not ?
To the plea that no civil court of review arraigns the inferior judge appealed from before it to defend the sentence he had
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 347
pronounced, "ue reply : Xeitlier does our present Book " arritign " tlie lower court before the upper, or treat it as " on tr^aV in the same sense "svitli the culprit it has convicted. This is an exag- gerated statement of the case. The upper court does what common sense requires ; it extends to the lower court, which has already examined the case, the courtesy and the right of explaining and enforcing its grounds of decision, before the final judgment is pronounced which is to affirm or reverse it. Only to this ex- tent is the lower court " a part}-." So obvious is the reasonable- ness of this courtesy, that we presume in those civil courts where "the appeal is from a single judge to a full bench," that judge is, as a matter of politeness, if not of established usage, invited to explain his decision before his brethren vote. But more : the authority of church courts is only spiritual. The only sanctions they administer are moral, and their force is chiefly dependent-on the confidence and approval of a sanctified public opinion. The circuit judge of law cares comparatively little whether his judicial accuracy be often discredited by the adverse decisions of a court of appeals, for he has the strong arm of force, the terrors of jails, whipping-posts and sheriffs, to enforce his authority. But the church court has nothing but the moral support of public opinion. How much more important, then, that the decisions of a lower court should be closely scanned, and yet not rashly discredited by the reversals of a higher court ? Its reputation for fairness is a sensitive and precious thing. Moro than dollars and cents is concerned in it, even the honor of Christ and his cause ; hence the high propriety of allowing the court appealed from to justify their decision to their brethren before they pro- nounce on the case. This right and privilege the Revised Dis- cipline proposes to abolish. Again, according to our present Discipline, the reversal of the higher coui-t nnaxj imply censure on the lower court. (Chap. YII., Sees. 3, 13.) Nobody will dispute that, if this provision is to stand, the court appealed from must be allowed to appear as a party to this extent ; t, e., to defend their own decision before the appeal is " issued." It would be wickedness to refuse it, for it would be judging men unheard. The committee of revision have, indeed, expunged this section, in their zeal to propagate the -pei idea that the lower court is in no sense a party when appealed from ; but in doing so they have exceedingly erred. For all agree in assert-
348 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
ing the general principle of tlte resjyonsihllity of a 2xirt to the icJiole. See this admirably expounded as one of the essential features of Presbjterianism, in Dr. Hodge's discourse on the church be- fore the Presbyterian Historical Society. To deny this is to repudiate Presbyterianism. The superior court may not resign the right and duty of censuring the imjust sentence of the in- ferior court, if it deserves censure. Now, "ne beg the reader to note, that the mode known to the constitution of our church, in which the higher court judicially reaches a judge sitting in the lower court, to censure him for his unrighteous judicial acts, is through this very chapter on General Review, Control and Ap- peals. It has been said that a civil court of appeals does not consider the judge below who is appealed from as arraigned before it, to defend the righteousness of his decisions. We re- ply, No ; for a very good reason, that the civil constitution pro- vides a regular mode of hajyeaclimcnt before a different tribunal for reaching the unrighteous judge. But in our church govern- ment our mode of impeachment is practically to be found in the provisions of General Eeview, x4.ppeal and Complaint. These are our forms of enforcing judicial responsibility. Hence the appeal or complaint ougJit to bring the sentence from below imder a liability to censure, if wrong ; and hence again, the lower court ought to be first heard in defence of it.
The fourth objection of the Princeton JReview is, that "the present plan is cumbrous and almost impracticable." A picture is then drawn — which must be acknowledged to be striking, whatever its justice — of an appeal or complaint, commencing in the church session, and going up ultimately to the General Assembly, where at length it appears with the original accuser and respondent, the session, the Presbytery, and the Synod as parties, all in a general muss and inextricable confusion. To one who has studied our present Book of Discipline, and is familiar with the legitimate routine of appeal cases in our church coiu'ts, this picture so obviously appears as a caricature, that lie can scarcely credit the gravity of its limner. If we look into the pro^dsions of our present Book, we find that, in defining the order of proceedings for issuing an appeal or complaint, and in all other places, the judicatory appealed or complained against is ever mentioned in the singular number. Nowhere is there one v.ord to indicate that any parties appear before the superior
THE KEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 3 19
court, except the two original j^arties and the lower court from which the appeal immediately comes. The result is the same if we search legitimate precedents. There is not a case in Baird's Digest where courts appealed from ever appeared thus in the Assembly " two or three deep." On the contrary, page 138, in the case of Abby Hanna, in 1844, we have the very case pre- dicted by the reviewer, an appeal came all the way from the church session, through Presbytery and Synod, to the Assembly. Yet, while the Assembly had all the proceedings of all the subor- dinate courts read, only the Synod appeared at the fifth step of the proceedings to justify its sentence. The General Assembly en- tertained the appeal only as from the Synod ; the sentence of that body alone was before it immediately; the proceedings below were only read for the history of the case. If a superior court has ever acted otherwise, it was only from comity, or by license, not because of any demand of our Book.
Let us note here, also, that the supposed necessity for this change, in order to clear up the doubt about the " original parties," is wdioUy imaginary. That doubt arises among us again and again, not because the Assembly has not repeatedly cleared it up in the most perspicuous manner, by precedent after j)recedent, decision after decision; not because the lan- guage of the Book itself is ambiguous, but only because, in large and inexperienced judicatories, there always are, and always will be, so many members who are heedless, forgetful, or inattentive to the proper sources of information. If the reader will consult Baird, pp. 138, 139, he will find that the editor has correctly deduced from the precedents of the Assembly the fol- lowing principles, which cover all imaginable questions as to who are "the original pai"ties. '
" There may be
"A responsible j'j>?'05(3f?<?for and the defendant.
"A prosecuting committee and the defendant.
"Upon & fatna clamosa case, the court may itself, without prosecutor or committee, condvict process against the accused.
"A sxd)ordinate court under grievance may enter complaint against a sujjerior court.
"A minority or others may complain against the action of a court.
"A process may be conducted by one court against another.'''
350 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
" Wliatever aspect tlie case may afterwards assume, at every stage of its process to final adjudication before the highest court, the parties above specified are the original parties in the cases severally. Minutts, passhnT
The I^rinceton Review has waxed so emphatic as to style the complications which it describes as "this Upas tree;" an appel- lation at which we fear the dignity of that respectable old rhetori- cal fiction will be somewhat hurt, as being scarcely a nodus vin- dice dlgnxis. But we suggest that a moderate attention to these precedents already existing, and collected so conveniently for use by Mr. Baird, would have been sufficient to cut down the tree, or even to "eradicate it, root and branch," without making such extensive havoc among our good old laws in the effort to come at it.
Chap. VIII., Sec, 3. — This section treats, as in the present Book of Discipline, of the management and effect of appeals. All the modifications of any moment proposed by the committee in this particular are indicated in the first paragraph. In place of the present definition, which describes an appeal as " the re- moval of a cause already decided from an inferior t(^ a superior judicatory by a party aggrieved," the Ke-\ised Book begins thus:
" I. An appeal is the removal of a case already decided from an inferior to a superior judicatory, the peculiar effect of which is to arrest all proceedings under the decision until the matter is finally decided in the last court. It is allowable in two classes of cases : 1st, In all judicial cases, by the party to the cause against whom the decision is made ; 2nd, In all other cases when the action or decision of the judicatory has inflicted an injury or wrong upon any party or persons, he or they may appeal ; and when said decision or action, though not inflicting any personal injury or ■\\Tong, may nevertheless inflict directly, or Ijy its con- sequences, great general injury, any minority of the judicatory may appeal.'
The reader will bear in mind that a complaint, whicli is al- lowed by the present Book to any one who disapproves of any of that class of decisions described under the second of the above heads, does not suspend immediately the operation of the decision complained against, while an appeal does. The practical question, therefore, is. Should we grant the privilege
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 351
of arresting the operation of such decisions as would come under the second head, while the recourse is had to the superior judicatory? The first remark we make hereupon is, that the Princeton Pevieir states the history of this question in a man- ner calculated to prejudice its fair solution. It says, "A cloud of obscurity rests on the present Book, both as to the cases in which an appeal is allowable, and as to the persons authorized to appeal." It then proceeds to state that the uniform usage of the Scotch Church, and of our own, for the first hundred years, together with the necessity of the case, had admitted appeals to lie in other than judicial cases; but that at lengih diflferences of opinion had arisen, and hi one case the Assembly had decided that appeals can only lie in judicial cases, deciding therein con- trary to all usage and necessity. Now, the simjole statement with regard to what is represented as this one false step of the Assembly is the following : various and contradictory opinions and usage prevailed in our inferior judicatories on this point. In 1839 the sense of the Assembly was definitely sought on this point by a complaint from a lower judicatory; and it was de- cided by the Assembly that an appeal can only lie in judicial cases, while in all other kinds of decisions the complaint is the proper proceeding. On this principle the Assembly has uni- formly and consistently acted ever since in a number of cases, as well as all other law-abiding judicatories in our church. This, then, is the one case in which the Pnnceton lievieio considers the Assembly blundered. It has blundered on in the same way, T\dth marvellous persistency, for nineteen years. Let the reader remember that as our Book of Discipline stood prior to 1820, no distinction whatever was indicated by it between appeals and complaints. The great men who then revised it introduced new and discriminative language on this subject — why? unless they intended to establish a distinction — but the confused usage which had been prevailing for two generations retarded the clear practical establishment of the distinction till 1839. Then the attention of the Assembly being invoked, it spoke out in terms so unambiguous that the usage has been uniform ever since. So that, in fact, instead of having "one case" "against all usage," we have nineteen years of usage on each side. It is true that the Princeton Peview did strenuously oppose the Assembly's de-
352 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
cision ; brt we suppose any one will nardly deny to the Assem- bly the right of settling legal precedents to please itself.
The Assembly, then, for nineteen years at least, has not thought that any cloud f obscurity rests on the present Book .n this jDoint. To all, at least, who regard the Assembly's pre- cedents as of force, the meaning of the Book is clear enough. As to an obvious "necessity" for granting appeals in other cases than judicial trials, the Assembly evidently does not consider that it exists ; that is, it is not a necessity founded on natural right, that anybody shall have the power of arresting the effect of any decision whatever for so long a time as a litigious spirit can protract an appeal in its passage through all the higher courts. This claim, now dignified with the name of a moral necessity, the Assembly intended most explicitly to refuse. It has been urged that it would be a sorry remedy for the man condemned to be hung to review his sentence and declare it er- roneous after he had been executed ; and so, that decisions not judicial may result in irreparable wrong, unless the ]3arty in- jured be allowed to arrest their operation hj an appeal, while a higher body examines their justice; because, if allowed to go into force at all, they may produce effects which their reversal cannot repair. We reply, to give to any or every litigious per- son the power to tie up any or every decision by an appeal would much more surely work irreparable mischief. The chariot wheels of the church might be perpetually scotched. No hu- man institution can be made to work so perfectly as to render any resultant wrong impossible. All that the wise legislator hopes, or attempts, is to study the Juste milie^i, by which the probabilities of wrong and loss on either hand ma}'' be most pro- bably reduced to their ^ninimfim. Our Book, to protect oiir rights as well as jDossible, has given us some form of recourse to the highest court, against any and every decision by wiiich we may conceive ourselves or the church injured. To allow us to take this recourse against every sort of decision, in such a form as would arrest its operation for a whole year, might fatally hamper and embarrass important action. On the other hand, there are some decisions of such a nature that, unless they can be held in suspense, their reversal would be a very imperfect remedy of the injustice. The Book, therefore, decides most wisely, that the forms of recourse shall be such that judicial de-
THE EEYISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 353
cisions shall be thus arrested, witli three exceptions (Section 15). But judicial decisions are just those in which personal right and church franchise are concerned. No man's membership, office, or fair standing, can be touched -oithout trial; and if he chooses to appeal, they cannot be definitively injured till his appeal is heard. But these are all the perfect rights which he possesses as a church member. It is therefore proper that the privilege of arresting the decision should cover these, and no others. It has been urged, on the other side, that a pastoral relation might, for instance, be unjustly dissolved ; that in spite of a complaint from the pastor, the pulpit might be declared vacant, and another pastor installed, thus rendering the mischief irre- parable. We accept the instance; Ave reply, that it is not a personal fr'anchise of an individual to labor in one particular charge rather than another, contrary to the discretion of the Presbytery to whom the constitution commits the oversight of that charge.
AgaiD, we must repose some confidence in the wisdom and justice of the lower courts. Brethren argue for this power in individuals to arrest all their decisions, till a higher court is in- voked, as though there was no trust to be placed in them. We assert that, so far from being too rash or harsh, they are almost uniformly too forbearing and considerate, and that the chances of AATong involved in this power are exceedingly small.
And lastly, the most obvious exception may be taken to the generality of the terms in which the Revised Discipline defines the right of appeal. First, in any judicial case the party who is cast may appeal. Next, any j)arty or person who considers himself as directly injured by any kind of decision may appeal. And last, when a minority of a judicatory conceive that any sort of decision causes great general injury, either directly or by its consequences, although it does not in the least injure them, they may appeal. And every such decision is then tied up, often to the irreparable loss of the church, until it is reheard by one, two or three higher courts. We beg the reader to re- member that the effect of the appeal is peremptory. The ap- pellant, and not the judicatory appealed from, is practically the judge of the question whether the appeal is proper, and should lie until the higher court to which the appeal is taken entertains it. To decide that the injury done is not such as to justify an
Vol. 11—23.
354 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
appeal, is tlie prerogative, not of the court appealed from, bat of the court appealed to ; aud this of necessity, for unless we give this power to an appeal, it would be a remedy wholly futile. The court appealed from might say, " We do not consider this a proper case for appeal," which woi^ld be equivalent to giving them the power of saying to the aggrieved party, "You shall not appeal." The lower court must therefore bow to the force of the appeal, and submissively stand in abeyance till the higher court has spoken. Let the exceeding vagueness of the terms in the Revised Discipline be considered, together with their vast comprehension, and the reader will see that practically a com- pletely indefinite extension is given to the right of appeal : "Aiiy hody may appeal from any thing which any church court may decide." Such should have been the words of the article, for then we should least at have had perspicuity. But we foresee that the interpretation of the limits to the right of appeal, as drawn by the Revised Discipline, will produce more confusion and debate than all the mooted points together which remain to be adjudicated by the Assembly in the present Book. Here, in- deed, are " clouds of obscurity," more portentous, bigger with the muttering thunder of tiresome speeches and noisy difference than any which brood over the other.
The remainder of the Book of Discipline has received at the hand of the committee few alterations, and they are either minute or of a beneficial character. AVe propose, therefore, to detain the attention of the reader no longer than to apologize for the demands already made on his patience, and to close by invoking the serious attention of Presbyterians, and especially of the officers of the church, to the subject. It is high time that they were carefully examining the proposed changes. If they are as unsatisfactory to the majority of our brethren as they are to us, they had better be arrested in the General As- sembly. Their recommendation by the Assembly to the Pres- byteries will only prolong the discussion, and at the same time embarrass it, bj- giving a new element of factitious strength to the new articles. If, indeed, they are strong in the preference and approbation of the majority of Presbyterians, as we devoutly hope they are not, then it is proper that they should be recom- mended and adopted. But until that fact is fairly evinced by the final decision, candid discussion is the right and duty of all
THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 355
interested. Let us again express, in concluding, tlie unshaken confidence we entei-tain in the fidelity and integrity of the com- mittee. If any word that .las been \sT.'itten seems to indicate aught else than a respectful and modest, though sometimes de- cided, difference of opinion, it is our wish that it had nover been written, and that we could detect 't to erase it. The course of the discussion has inevitably led us into frequent notice of the reasonings which the Princeton Revievn advances in favor of the Revised Discipline. ^\Tiile candor has compelled us frequently to dissent from the arguments, it also demands our cordial tribute to the dignified, amiable and Christian e in which that article was written. If, in these respects, we have not suc- ceeded in imitating it, we must acknowledge that failure as our error and misfortune.
THE REUSED BOOK OF DISCIPLIXE.^
THE readers of the Presbyterian, we presume, are familiar ^vitll the history of this document ; which is the report of a committee of the General Assembly, presenting for discussion various changes in our Book of Discipline. The committee pubhshed their report to the churches in August, 1858, and laid it before the Assembly in May, 1859. The Assembly re-com- mitted it to the same committee, in order that they might adopt any amendments which their own judgment might sug- gest, and that it might be considered generally by Presbyterians before the Assembly of 1860, at which time it is to be reported back for some decisive action. Occasional discussion has taken place concerning it in newspapers and reviews, and now the October number of the Soxithern Presbyterian Pevieio presents us with a thorough article over the signature of Dr. Thornwell^ the able chairman of the Assembly's committee, in which the principles of the Kevised Book are stated and defended at length, ^^-ith all the author's customary force of language and ingenuity of thought. The church is entitled to take this as an authoritative expression of the committee's views, to a certain extent, and as a formal and definite statement of the grounds on which the proposed changes are to be defended and advo- cated. For this reason, we desire to invite the attention of all Presbyterians to a part of its views. In doing so, we woidd adopt the expressions of sincere respect for the members of the committee and its chairman, which have been uttered by other debaters of this matter. And we woidd claim that the similar admissions of sincerity and pulilic-spirited motives should be made to all courteous critics of the Ee-sdsed Book, which have been unanimously accorded to its authors. "When a committee report their work to the judicatory which employs them, that work ceases to be a private and personal concern to them.
iThe above appeared in a series of articles in the " Presbyteriin," Philadelphia, December 1859-January 1860, in reply to the arguments of Kev. Dr. ThornwelL
356
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 357
It is the propertj of the public for which the judicatory acts. No personal nor private motives should be allowed to enter into its defence and criticism.
Let it be again premised, that in the propriety of many of the minor changes especially, proposed by the committee, we con- cur. But our purpose is not to commend the Revised Book, (this the committee is abundantly able to do,) and hence our notices wdll be limited to such parts of the Book, and of Dr. Thornwell's defence thereof, as seem to us excoptionable. It is not necessary to detain the reader on other points.
I. The Revised Book, in its 5th Chapter, Section 5, gives to church coui'ts what Dr. Thorn well calls the power of " ecclesi- astical inquest," [Review, page 378), in the following words : "Nevertheless, each church court has the inherent power to demand and receive satisfactory explanations from any of its inembers concerning any matters of evil report."
This article was objected to by Dr. Yan Bensselaer and others as dangerous, invidious, and inquisitorial ; and, as we conceive, on very valid grounds. Dr. Thornwell now defends it by assert- ing such a distinction between secular and spiritual courts as makes the great common-law principles of hberty inapplicable to the latter. He asserts that as every Christian is his brother's keeper, church courts ought to have a power of paternal inqui- sition ; that the "v\Tong-doer ought to be made to criminate him- self, for this is the means of repentance, and his repentance is the object of the jurisdiction ; that civil courts are for the pro- tection of rights, while spiritual courts are for edification ; and that the latter can only censure, and not punish. Hence, the corollary is, that subjects of spiritual courts ought not to have the right to be held innocent till proved to be guilty, and ought not to complain of being made to criminate themselves. In a word, it is asserted that this power of inquest is founded on the fact that church rulers are the spiritual guardians of the people : the same relation on which the power to institute judicial pro- cess rests.
Now, our first remark upon this proposed addition is, that if its principle is right at all, it does not go far enough. Only the memljers of each church court are subjected to this fraternal in- quisition. But if it is proper for members of sessions and pres- byteries, it is proper to be extended also to the laity. The ar-
358 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
tide slionld have said : " Eacli church court has inherent power to demand and receive from any jperson snhject to its jurisdic- tion satisfactory exphxnations," etc.
The attempt to justify the exercise of such an inquisition by the hand of power, from the fact that each Christian is the guar- dian of his brother's spiritual state, confounds a very plain dis- tinction. This fraternal oversight, according to the Scriptures, extends only to advice, the receiving or refusing of which must remain a matter of Christian liberty. But the Eevised Book proposes to give church courts " power to demand satisfaction " of the unconvicted brother. Here is the infringement of spirit- ual liberty. "We surmise that Presbyterians, a peoi3le noted for a wise jealousy concerning their rights, will be very slow to ad- mit the contrast which Dr. Thornwell runs (p. 379) between secular and spiritual courts. They have been accustomed to consider that there are religious rights, such as their right to a good name and standing, their right to membership, sacra- ments, and franchises in Christ's church, which are as literal as, and more valuable by far, than their rights to their oxen and horses ; and that spiritual courts are as truly set for the protec- tion of those rights as juries and sheriffs are for the protection of our cattle and our lands. Dr. Thornwell says " Spiritual courts can censure but not punish ; civil courts punish without censuring." True, spiritual courts cannot fine, imprison, and hang ; but we surmise Presbyterians will be slow to admit that public reprimand, suspension and excommunication are not punishmonts. They have all the features of punishments which can justly affect the present discussion ; they terminate rights previously enjoyed, and they inflict suffering. This is the obvi- ous distinction ; church courts, like pastors, parents and friends, have a pastoral care of their spiritual subjects; but the over- sight which they exercise in this function is one of advice and of warning, extending no further than the Christian liberty of their brethren admit it. When once church courts proceed to contravene that voluntary option, their function becomes judi- cial, and not pastoral ; and it should therefore be performed in accordance with judicial principles. Dr. Thornwell intimates a paternal theory of church government, saying: "As a father has a right to interrogate his children in reference to their con- duct, so a church court has a right to institute inquiries," etc.
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 359
We Jo uot like the sound of tliis paternal theory of government ; it is the favorite pretext of tyranny. The governments of Rus- sia, Austria,'aud China are " paternal governments," and they treat their subjects like children, with a vengeance. But the theory of Presbyterianism is republican — it makes the rulers the ser- vants, and not the fathers of the people ; it gives to the mlers only ceiiain representative powers, delegated to them from the people, for the people's good.
Now, since church judicatories deal vriih rights, inflict penal- ties, and do these things in the exercise of delegated power, just Hke civil magistrates, it is obvious that their powers ought to be limited by the same gi-eat principles of natui'al justice, by which the execution of ci^dl law is guarded. Men ought in church courts to be held innocent, and to possess all the rights of the innocent, till they are proved to be guilty. Men ought not to be compelled in church courts to criminate themselves any more than before magistrates. For when this power is granted, the judge or judicatory is thereby empowered to inflict on a man some degi'ees of those pains due only to those proved guilty, in order to compel confession of a crime which may exist only in the prejudiced imagination of the ruler. It is argued in substance that the guilty man ought to be forced to criminate himself, that is, to confess ; for the great object of the church process is to produce repentance, and there can be no repentance without confession. This argument can only be good to one who forgets the old adage, that " catching is before hang- ing." We grant that after the man is legally proved to be guilty, it is proved that self-crimination, that is confession, is his duty. But to assume that this is his duty, and therefore that he ought to be compelled to do it, is to assume his guilt, the very thing which justice forbids the judicatory to assume. Every man is entitled to be treated as innocent till he is proved guilty.
The Review reminds us that a church court, in order to decide whether to institute a process against a man, and how to do it, must make some prehminary investigation. We grant it. Then it is asked, " May a court question, if it chooses, every other man in the community touching a rumor, except the only man who is most deeply concerned in it ? " We give the ob- vious answer : The court may not compel a response from the accused person, because to assume that he is " concerned in
360 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
it," assumes liis guilt, the very tiling tlie court is not entitled to assume before it is proved. Suppose tlie suspected man an- swers, " I know nothing, because I am guilty of nothing ; " and yet the suspicion of his guilt remains fixed in the mind of the judicatory. Then there is no way to enforce the proposed " demand for a satisfactory explanation," except some form of penalty, and then the odious outrage is committed of punishing him on suspicion before he is proved guilty. This simple sup- position evinces that this power, proposed to be given by the Revised Discipline, must either be a practical nullity, or else an injustice abhorrent to all right. The only power which can be safely conferred is the power to invite disclosures from the suspected brother.
But the attempt is made to find a precedent for this danger- ous grant in the powers of the church session. Chap. IX. Sec. 6, of Book of Government. " The church session is charged with maintaining the spiritual government of the congregation, for tohic/i 2)urpose tJieij Juive power to inquire into tlie hioiuledge and Christian conduct of the members of the church." Yes, we reply, they have power to do it judicially, not inquisitorially. This grant of power comes immensely short of giving them " inherent 2)ovjer to demand and receive''' confessions of guilt from those whom they may be pleased to suspect, before they are con- victed of guilt.
In some of the remarks upon the Bevised Discipline made before the last General Assembly, cases were supposed, such as these : A rumor exists unfavorable to a minister. His presby- tery exercise their " inherent power to demand and receive satis- factory explanations." He answers : " Moderator, I judge, in the exercise of my Christian liberty, that it is wisest to go into no explanation of this matter, but to let it die of its own insig- nificance and vileness." Or he may say: "Considerations of delicacy which you have no right to ask me to divulge, make me unmlling to enter upon an explanation." Or: "Pastoral fidelity or delicacy forbid my disclosure of the afiair ; you must take my word for it that there is no guilt." What next? May the presbytery proceed to compel his Christian liberty by some penalty or censure ? Penalty and censure are duo only to the guilty, and this man is innocent in law till he is jsroved guilty. The presbytery has but two alternatives : to admit that such a
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 361
power is a nonentity, or else to perpetrate an injustice. It wonlcT be easy to suppose otlier cases eqnall}'^ embarrassing. The sus- picious rumor grows out of a tMo-sided transaction, in wliicli tlie otlier party is a member of tlie same judicatory. The latter is powerful and popular, while the former is weak and unpopular. How easily might a court, armed with this law, inflict outrageous wrong on the unpopular member, by assuming him to be the party bound to render the " satisfactor}' explanation," while his powerful adversary sat as one of his extra-judicial judges ? Now, all such concrete cases the Beview declines to notice, while it advances general arguments. Common sense, equally "udth good logic, will decide that, if the conclusion of a general or abstract train of reasoning fails, when brought to the touchstone of a particular case properly embraced under it, that conclusion is unsound. We are entitled to assume that the train is faulty, without stopping to detect the fault. How, then, can such cases as we have supj)osed be disposed of ?
In conclusion of this point, we remark that it is of no force to intimate that the proposed grant of power would do no mischief in the hands of wise and holy men. Experience answers : all presbyters are not wise and holy ; and laws and constitutions are designed for the very purpose of preventing rulers from do- ing wrong, should they be unwise, or prejudiced, or unrighteous. If we could only be sure that all church riders would be what they ought to be, we would need no laws at all. They would be " a law unto themselves."
II. Passing over points of minor importance, we note the passage in which Dr. Thornwell seeks to justify the rule (Re- vised Discipline, Chap. IV., Sec. 1) which permits a court to condemn the offender without process when his offence is com- mitted in open court. The objections to this grant of power seem conclusive. That our present Book gives as much power as is safe, in that it permits the offended judicatory, in such a case, to cite the offender, and as many spectators — members of its own body or others — as may be needed for witnesses, on the spot; while the lapse of the "ten free days" will be eminently wholesome in softening exasperation ; that a court outraged by such a public offence will probably be in no safe nor calm mood to ascertain both the fact of the offence committed, and the pen- alty fairly proportioned to it ; and that few of these sudden
362
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
sentences wonld l>e likely to satisfy either the public or tlie judges themselyes after a deliberate review. Dr. ThoruAvell very qneerlj' argnes that there may be " cases in which the judgment ought to be rendered on the spot, in which the language of indignation is the language of justice." We had thought that courts of God's house ought to endeavor to imitate always, as nearly as may be, the calmness of their Master ! The Ee- vised Discipline says that one of the objects of discipline is the repentance of the offender. Now, we presume that any sudden heat of indignation with which the lash may be laid on -will scarcely further that salutary ol^ject. " The -uTath of man work- eth not the righteousness of God." The immediate citation to answer ten days after for the sin, would surely be sufficiently demonstrative to prevent the public from suspecting the outraged judicatory of connivance. It is also remarked by Dr. Thorn- well (yet more queerly), that " if the court finds itself in a con- dition not to pass an impartial judgment, it may postpone the matter until its passions have subsided, and reason resumes her supremacy." It m?;?/ postpone ! But vnll it, when thus heated, ever wish to postpone ? Who that is acquainted with the human heart does not know that one constant effect of excessive re- sentment is to justify itself as not excessive ? If the court is so angry, then assuredly, it will not think itself too angiy to do justice ; its anger will insure its blindness. Otherwise we should have this curious contradiction : the court would be toa much blinded by passion to see the right, and yet so free from th& blindness of passion that they would clearh' see it right not to act at that time ! It will be better to change the " may jDOst- pone " into ^^ must postpone^' or, in other words, to leave the old regulation unaltered.
III. We will also, in this connection, notice the third article of the chapter on cases without process, l)y which church ses- sions are authorized to " strike from the roll of communicants " the names of those who, having committed no overt sin calling for discij)line, yet voluntarily avow that they do not consider themselves converted persons. The reviewer's defence of it may be seen at page 395, etc.
It seems at least surprising that a committee of the General Assembly, raised to do the will and pleasure of that body, shotdd have embodied such a j^rovisiou in their work, when it
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCirLTNE. 363
is SO well known that tlie Assembly has steadily and invariably refused to sanction it in its previous action. A*- least two cases, those of the Assemblies of Baltimore and St. Louis, might have been in the minds of the committee. But this by - the way.
The next point which will strike the well-informed reader, is the total change in the tone and the line of argument assumed by Dr. Thornwell, from that formerly held by the advocates of this sort of withdrawal from communion, on the floor of the Assembly. In former days, the argument there used to be this : That discipline cannot be the proper means for getting such a member out of the church, because there is no " offence " for which to discipline him ; that if this unregenerate church member had continued to commune while conscious of his im- penitence, he would have committed a heinous sin, and we may not discipline a man for not doing what would have been highly criminal if done ; that the ingenuous candor of such persons in avowing their condition deserves praise rather than censure ; and that a censure inflicted for such candor will be unsustained by that moral sense which alone gives force to the spiritual penalties of the church, so that the discipline will do unmin- gled mischief. Hence it was demanded that the unconverted communicant should receive a sort of honorable dismission, without discipline, from the communion roll of the church. [And these are the arguments which we have heard advanced since the publication of the Revised Discipline in advocacy of this article. If, then, the article has been misunderstood, as Dr. Thornwell complains, that misunderstanding has been shared alike by the friends and enemies of the new book!] And among those who have understood it thus must be ranked one of the most experienced and influential members of the very committee which wrote the article. Dr. Hodge. The ground on which the Princeton Reineio briefly defended the article is obviously that which Dr. Thornwell says is a sheer misappre- hension in objectors. For instance, the former argues that the unconverted communicant " should not he visited vnth ecclesiasti- cal censure" simply for believing that he is not prepared to come to the " Lord's table." Such a man, then, according to Dr. Hodge, is not to be gotten out of communion by the way of discipline ; but according to Dr. Thornwell, he is to be dealt
364 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
"witli in that way. Seeing tlie leading members of the Assem- bly's committee thus at points, we may safely wait till they settle between themselves what they mean. And when large masses meet in collision, it is best for small ones to keep away, lest they be crushed between them.
But now the whole ground is changed. Says Dr. Thorn well: "The unconverted offender is distinctly treated as guilty of an offence." ..." The man is convicted u]:)on his o^-n showing." ..." The rule prescribes a penalty to be inflicted by the court." . . . "What is the penalty? It is exclusion, judicial exclusion from the communion of the church for an indefinite time." ..." No evasion of discipline, because discipline is ac- tually exercised," etc.
Now, we will candidly say that the avowal of these principles by the expounder of the new Book, so different from all pre- vious expositions of this article, gives us great pleasure. Could the article only be made to carry this sense explicitly to all the church, it would be greatly relieved of its objectionable charac- ter. But if Dr. Thornwell coiild succeed in this, we are sure that it would resiilt in a total " change of front " in the two par- ties to this discussion. His former advocates would be found his opponents ; for the very thing they demand is that these moral, ingenuous unbelievers shall get out of ch'urch coiwmunion without discipline, and we, his opposers, would be left his only defenders. But we fear that we could still only become the de- fenders of his right intention, and not of the language of the article in question.
Let that remark be distinctly apprehended, which has been so often made, that we do not wish the unbelieving communi- cant in this case disciplined for his candor in avowing his im- penitent condition, nor for his proper desire not to profane the sacrament. It is perpetually represented (as for instance, by Dr. Palmer, in the same number of the Soutliern Presbyterian Jievievj), that this absurdity is the necessary alternative of a re- fusal to dismiss him simph^ from the communion. Ko ; the proper ground of discipline is the unbelief which he professes; for this, according to Christ's words, is sin, voluntary sin, and " the head and front of his offending." That discipline should be inflicted for that sin, because the government of the church should be in accordance with its doctrines ; it is an absurdity
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 365
and wickedness to tell sinners from tlie pulpit that a voluntary avowal of unbelief and impenitence is the sin for which " the wrath of God abideth on them," and from the judgment-seat, that it is nothing disciplinable. We do not wish, as is repre- sented, to compel the unbelieving communicant, by the lash of discipline, to continue his hypocritical approaches to the Lord's table. No ; but we desire, by the lash of discipline, to drive him away from the Lord's table, on account of the sin of im- penitence ; and thus to testify, practically, the truth, that his continuance in impenitence is his fault, and that he ought at once to seek the remedy of it, in C'arist's free grace. Here, in a word, is the contrast between the truth and the error on this subject. The eiToneous view says the ingenuous, unbelieving communicant, as he has done nothing worthy of discipline, must be allowed the privilege of simply loithdrawing from the com- munion. The true view regards coining to the communion as the j^i^'vilege, and being debarred from it as the infliction, and it visits that infliction on the sinner for his unbelief. While the unbeliever demands the privilege of going out unscathed, the church says to him ; " Nay, verily, but you shall be driven out for your sins." There the practical result is the same, in that by either way the unbeliever gets out of the communion ; but it is vastly different as to the truthfulness of the testimony borne concerning the merits of the case. The reviewer says : " If a man has renounced his God and Saviour in his heart, whether the church has a right to interpose, and say you shall not renounce the" profession of your faith, is a very different thing from legitimating either act." If the man is a church member, the church has a right to interpose and prevent his voluntarily hiding off his profession ; she should forbid it, in order that she may exercise immediately her prerogative of stripping it off, in righteous judgment. But there is little need to argue these points now, as we have the powerful aid of Dr. Thornwell to assert this principle.
If his exposition of the article could be substituted in the Revised Discipline in place of the article itself, we should be very well satisfied ; though we suppose his objection to " ser- monizing'''' in a book of mere rules would hardly permit this. But we are compelled to regard the article as highly objection- able, because it will inevitably be misunderstood. Let the
366 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
reader bear in mind that Dr. Thornwell admits the self-deceived communicant should be indefinitely suspended from full com- munion, [as distinctly guilty of an offence, the offence of un- belief], by course of discipHne, and a judicial sentence solemnly pronounced. Why, then, give the unfortunate occasion for misunderstanding ? His own advocates have fallen into it, by segregating this case from all other cases of discipline for of- ience, and making it the subject of a peculiar regulation. Why place it in a chapter entitled, "Of cases without process f' Process here must mean judicial process ; and to make this one of the cases without process, very naturally, if not necessarily, suggests the idea that it is not to be dealt with judicially. Why use novel and peculiar words in describing the result of the case : "His name shall be stricken from the roll of communicants;" instead of saying, as in all other cases deserving the same pen- alty, " He shall be indefinitely suspended fi'om the communion till he repents." In a set of brief laws, judicial language should be used where it is intended that judicial ideas shall be re- tained. But above all, the article is peculiarly unfortunate in describing this unbelieving communicant as one who "has com- mitted no offence which requires process." Will not every one understand by process here, disciplinary process ? Will not every one understand the article as describing this impenitent communicant as one vho does not re(iaire discipline f It is in- evitable. And yet Dr. Thorn well's exposition says he does re- quire discipline, and receives it ; yea, severely, in this very ar- ticle. We will not say that the exposition was an after-thought, to save the article from the overwhelming objections which lay against its doctrine ; but we will say, that the exposition is vastly better than the article ; and that if any legislation must needs be added to meet this class of cases, w^e pray that it may be so modified in its wording as to express, without ambiguity, the correct doctrine.
But w^e hold that no new legislation is needed. It would have been far better, far freer from misapprehension, to leave this class of offences to be dealt with as all other offences are, ac- cording to the chajDter on General Process. These offences con- tain nothing in them so peculiar as to require peculiar treatment, except such as is already provided for by that chapter. Dr. Thornwell does, indeed, point out the fact, that in the chapter
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 367
on Actual Process there is in tlie old book no provision for re- ceiving the confession of a member as evidence against him, and issuing the sentence thereon. Well, perhaps it would be very well to supply that omission in that place ; and yet there is such a provision in the chapter on Process against a Minis- ter, the spirit of which so obviously applies to other cases, that we presume no church court ever felt any embarrassment about receiving the confession of a delinquent as sufficient evidence of the offence confessed. We have known sessions to sentence on that evidence solely ; and we have never yet heard of the pres- bytery that corrected them for so doing. What hinders, then, that a session should do, under the old liook, all the very things which Dr. Thorn well represents his new article as doing ; should, after due private exhortation, bring the unconverted communi- cant before session, receive his voluntary confession of the sin of impenitency, sentence him thereon by a judicial act to an indefinite suspension from the communion, and (not strllxe his name from the roll of communicants ; a most inconsistent act with Dr. Thornwell's interpretation,) tnarh Jiim as susjMnded until repentance, on the church roll? What hinders the ses- sion, with our present laws, to make that difference which the absence of any outward crime socially degrading in such an unbeliever ought to make, so as to affirr no undue obloquy by their sentence ? The way is just as open now to this regular judicial action on such cases as need be. The real difficulty is, as Dr. Thornwell will find, that those brethren who desire change do not desire any judicial action, any discipline, for such cases. And if he can succeed in convincing them that his exposition of this article is the one it must bear, he will soon find them against him, instead of for him. And then we will give him a hearty welcome to our side of the question.
There is a practical objection to the introduction of this ar- ticle into our Book of Discipline, which Dr. Thornwell men- tions, but does not further refute. We believe that time will show it to be a solid objection. It has been suggested that persons conscious of evil doings which are likely to become known, or of a desire to perpetrate such evil doings, will seek to evade the more regular and pninful forms of discipline, by making this profession of impenitence l)efore session, and hav- ing themselves summarily " marked oil'." And church sessions
368 THE KEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
will too often permit this mode of severance fi'om the church con- nection of a troublesome member, even where the offence is already flagrant ; for it is a painful and in^ddious task to ad- minister discipline. Thus, it is to be greatly feared, this new article will become the door of escape for the mass of offenders, and the salutary foar of regular discipline will become almost unknown. It will prove a sort of general ecclesiastical bank- rupt law, by which everybody will get whitewashed who is in debt, so as to defy the sheriff. Let those who best know human nature and the nature of church sessions say whether these prognostications are not well founded ; and let those who may live to see this article generally established mark their fulfil- ment.
lY. In following the order of Dr. Thornwell's remarks we are now led back to the first chapter of the Revised Discipline, and to its definition of what constitutes an " offence " in the dis- ciplinable sense. Where the old Book so defines an offence as to make the Bible the statute-book of the Presb^-terian Church, and to make nothing disciplinable except as the Bible makes it so, the new Book says :
" An offence, the proper object of discipline, is anything in the faith or practice of a professed believer which is contrary to the word of God ; the Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the "Westminster Assembly being ac- cepted by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America as standard expositions of the teachings of Scripture in relation both to faith and practice.
"Xothing, therefore, ought to be considered by any judica- tory an offence, or admitted as matter of accusation, which cannot be proved to be such from Scripture, or from the regu- lations and practice of the church, founded on Scripture, and which does not involve those evils which discipline is intended to prevent."
The last sentence is extracted verbatim from the present Book,, and appended to the definition which the committee have sub- stituted for the old one. It would seem that a writer in the spring number of the Southern Presbyterian Bev'iew objected to this new definition, first, that it was ambiguous ; and second, that oui- standards do not profess to give an exhaustive enum-
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 369
eration of disciplinable offences. Dr. Tliornwell well disclaims any ambiguity in tlie article, and it may be said that here at least lie and Dr. Hodge are agreed in tlieir interpretation, though not in their arguments therefor. They both emphatically de- clare that their article was intended to mean this : that "to us Presbyterians nothing is unlawful which is not repugnant to our standards of practice." Yet it seems clear to us, that when Drs. Hodge and Tliornwell are not present to explain what they meant, the article will inevitably lead to confusion. It lays down one principle in its first member, and then, in its second, adopts the very words of the old Book, which notoriously taught the ojjposite doctrine. In its first member its says, in sub- stance : Nothing is an offence but what can be proved such from our standards ; and in its second it says nothing is an of- fence but what can be proved such from the Scriptures, or our standards. And the conjunction is disjunctive. If this is not saying two different things, we cannot conceive how to say them. Dr. Tliornwell says that, grant this, still no confusion can arise ; it comes to the same thing anyhow, because what- ever the Bible condemns the standards condemn. Why, then, we reply, is there any debate ? How is it that he and Dr. Hodge have both written ably to sustain the projDriety of the difference made, when no difference is made ? It does not come to tlie same thing ; there are two contrasted doctrines, the adoption of either one of which excludes the other, as is obvious in fact. The error by which the reviewer's assertion on this point is sus- tained is simply a conversion of terms. Thus, it is true, there is a sense in which our standards condemn whatever the Bible condemns ; they do this in general terms, inasmuch as they avow the Bible to be the authoritative rule of life. But in the sense necessary to Dr. 'Thornwell's assertion, our standards da not condemn whatever the Bible condemns ; that is, they do not contain all the ethical prohibitions which the Bible con- tains. The two rules are not conterminous and co-extensive with each other. Tlieir relation is not justly " that of original and translation," but rather that of a human abridgment of an inspired work, and that abridgment confessedly not complete. We believe, therefore, that there will be ambiguity, and that it will be mischievous.
Vol. n.— 24.
370 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
But it must be acknowiedged that the sense put on the article hy Dis. Hodge and Thornwell is perspicuous enough, and ob- jectionable enough, inasmuch as it makes the Confession of Faith, a human composition, the exclusive j'ule of life for Pres- byterians, so far as their Christian life is amenable to church authority.
In defending this, Dr. Thornwell endeavors to preclude ob- jection by saying in the outset, that the constitution of the church has been agreed upon among us, as being the whole sense of the church concerning what Ave are to believe, and what Ave are to practice ; and that it is our agreement to this which aof^reorates us to2:ether as a distinct denomination. That this is true as to what church officers are to believe, we admit ; the constitution settles that in requiring us to subscribe our doctrinal standards. And that it aaIII be true as to duties also, when we adopt the Revised Discipline, (should that evil day ever come,) we also admit. But we deny that it is true of our present constitution. Where ? In what chapter does the con- stitution either say or imply it ? This a xrrlori statement of the argument is, therefore, a petitio j^t'incijni. We assert that there is an intrinsic and obAdous difference between making a certain doctrinal epitome the basis of official communion, the circle of essential points in revealed theology being of definite, ascertain- able, and limited number ; and making any ethical epitome of human composition the basis of the Christian life for both offi- cers and people, when the points of Christian practice are so endlessly varied, and varying with CA^ery change of circum- stance. Hence, our present Book is perfectly consistent in recognizing this distinction, and making the Confession the standard for proving heresy, while it makes only the Bible the standard for proving immorality.
The objection to the proposed change seems very obvious, fi'om the acknowledged incompleteness of our standards as an enumeration of all possible offences. Our Confession and two Catechisms do not profess to give a complete classification of sins ; if they did, they would betraj only folly in their authors. Shall then all those sins go impunished by church courts which happen to be omitted in their enumeration ? Dr. Thornwell answers : Neither do the Scriptures give a complete enumera- tion of all possible sins ; for if they did, they Avould be of un-
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 371
limited extent. What, then, do they do ? Why, he says, they hiy dowu aud ilhistrate general principles of morals, Avhicli ap- ply by inference to all possible cases. And now that the Scrip- tures have done this, why, he asks, cannot our standards copy their doing, in an uninspired epitome ? AVe reply : Because their authors were not inspired. Finite man is as truly incapa- ble of making an exact copy of God's works as he is of originat- ing them. If infinite wisdom and infallible skill were required to state and illustrate, in one moderate volume, ethical priuci- l^les so comprehensive as to permit safe and certain application to the innumerable cases which emerge in the endless variety of human circumstances, then plainly infinite wisdom was just as much needed to epitomize that wondrous volume, to know what to omit, to know how to word and state its principles, to know how to fix all the nicer shades of relation, inter se. Nothing short of infinite wisdom could be sure of not leaving out something, or altering something, by which the infinite aj)- 2jlicaljiUty of the divine work would be marred aud lost ; and we fearlessly assert that the Bible is the only book in the world which possesses this boundless scope and flexibility — the only book which will never need additions and amendments. Herein is one evidence of its divine origin. Let it be remembered also, in this connection, that the Bible is a much larger book than our standards ; larger than our standards can conveniently be made. Hence the claim for universal applicability for our standards is seen to be yet more arrogant.
But the reviewer adds: The Scriptures ovUj acquire this uni- versal applicability by availing ourselves of all fair inferences from them. Why not admit all fair inferences from the Con- fession of Faith, and Catechism also, thus securing for them equal reach of application ? We answer, first, this process will not secure for them an equal reach, because they were not con- structed by divine foreknowledge. Let the thing be tried, and some day or other, just so sure as the world stands, some case will emerge to which our standards cannot be lirought to apply, by either express statement or necessary inference, without going behind them to the Bible. But, say Drs. Hodge and Thorn well, we must not go behind them, for henceforth " nothing is to be anlawful which is not repugnant to our standards of practice."
372 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
"We answer, second, we must not condemn a man by infer- ences from tlie standards, because Dr. Hodge argnes tlie valne and justice of this new doctrine mainly on this groiind (and it is obviously the only consistent argument), that we will have our standards instead of our Bibles as the test of our church rights, in order that those rights may be no longer suspended on inferences. Surely it is a most licentious sort of logic, that the committee of revision shall say to us at one time that the Bible must not be our statute book, because there must be no judging of men by mere inferences, and then at another time claim to make inferences by which to judge men, and these in- ferences from a standard less reliable than the old one ! Nay gentlemen, we will not " play fast and loose."
But this leads us to answer, third, that to use fair inferences from God's word in judging men is proper, but Dr. Thornwell, in making our standards the statute book, presents them as such because they are themselves inferences from the Bible. Are we to be judged, then, by inferences from inferences ? The new article says that the Confession and Catechisms are accepted by us " as standard ex])ositions of the teachings of Scripture, both as to faith and practice." Now, are our judges to go to expound- ing tlie expositions f We had thought the nature of an exposi- tion was, that it expresses and applies the meaning of the docu- ment to the case in hand, in such a way as to preclude the need of further explanation. Dr. Hodge told us that the beauty of the new plan would be, we should be done with uncertainties and inferences as to our church rights, and every man would know, from the express words of the constitution, how he stood. But now, it seems, we are to be tried in very many cases, not by fair inferences direct from God's word, but by a human ex- position of a human exposition of God's word ! We fear that after this double distillation, very little of the divine, infallible justice will remain in the residimvi in some cases. We echo the sentiment of the writer whom Dr. Thornwell criticises : " May God forbid that any thing shall ever be the statute book of Presbyterian Church courts, as to Christian morals, except the Holy Bible."
V. The next feature of the Revised Discipline which Dr. Thornwell proceeds to defend, is that which takes away the right of the lower court when appealed from or complained
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 373
against to a special and separate hearing before tlie higher court, to which their decision is carried for review ; and grants them the right to sit again if members of tlie higher court, and vote a second time upon the case. Let the reader see Chapter VIII. of the Kevised Book. Dr. Thornwell properly stated in the Assembly that this change is fundamental. The arguments by which he defends it are of three classes ; that the lower court appealed from is not properly, and therefore should not be made a />«r?!y to the trial of the appeal ; that to take away the right of voting upon the appeal from its members violates the symmetrical, representative character of our system of gov- ernment, according to which all the lower bodies are repre- sented in the higher, next above it ; and that the judicial pro- ceedings in appeal cases will be much simplified by the change. After a careful examination, we feel constrained to dissent from these conclusions.
And the first remark which suggests itself is, that the deba- ters on both sides of this matter seem to have lost sight of the fact that two points, not necessarily connected, are involved here. We might simplify our present mode by no longer ad- mitting the lower court to a special hearing, as a sort of sec- ondary party to the case, and yet not commit the anomaly of giving it a right to vote again in the new decision of the case. Why should the one change necessitate the other ?
But we are persuaded it will be better to venture on neither change. On the one hand it is manifest that when an appeal or complaint is made, the court below is inevitably involved as s, virtual party in the decision of that appeal or complaint. The simple fact that they have decided the case already insures this ; for if this decision is reversed upon the new hearing, there at once is one ground of interest for them in that decision, and there is always a possibility, so far as the nature of the case is concerned, that the grounds of that reversal may imply or ex- press censure on them ; so that there is, in any such case, a liability of the court appealed from to possible censure. These are the stubborn facts of the matter. Therefore our present Book deals according to facts, in regarding the lower court as secondary and collateral parties. Dr. Thornwell condemns what he calls the monstrosity of having two issues up in one case, and asserts that if the decision appealed from is not only mis-
374 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
taken, bvit censurable, " there is a way for trying tlie lower courts," more complete under the new Book ; " but when they are tried, no other issues are mixed up with the process." We should like to see how ! Arrange as we may, the one issue is implicitly involved in the other ; we may refuse to regard the implicit one for the time being, but it is there in spite of us, and we can only ignore it at the risk of injustice and inconsist- ency. Suppose a superior court should conclude that a given sentence of a lower court was so erroneous as to deserve cen- sui'e, would it be possible to avert the mind from the truth, that if so, then the person wronged by that sentence is, ij)so facto, pronounced to be entitled to its reversal ? Would it be possible for a court justly to refuse an appeal for reversal foimded on this argument ? We trow not. There, then, would be one is- sue implicitly determined in determining the other.
But further : it is a great misrepresentation to call our pre- sent mode of hearing an appeal a monstrous complication of two separate issues. In one sense" there are two issues ; that is, in the decision of the one, another is or may be involved as a corollary. But it is only involved as a coroUarj^ The issue, as actually debated in the higher court, is not a double-headed one. It is, " Shall the decision below be sustained or not ? " This is the only point to which the decision, in the first in- stance, looks. And when this main issue draws after itself, in consequence of its ovm inevitahle nature (and not, bear in mind, in consequence of our bunghng mode of trying it), another de- pendent issue, which is, and in spite of us fnll he virtually decided when the main issue is decided, we do affirm that it is neither monstrous, nor unnatural, nor unusual to debate the two together. Things virtually equivalent often occur in secular judicatories, especially in that class nearest akin in spirit to church courts, courts of equity ; and we are astonished that Dr. Thornwell slioulc have been so incautious as to imply the contrary. What else is done, for instance, in every case which decides a negative pregnant f What else are all those multifarious cases in which alternative claims of right are urged by second and third parties against a first party ? When the decision of the immediate issue necessarily carries with it the decision of the implied issue, any judge of equity would rather consider it monstrous to refuse to hear argument for the latter
THE REVISED BOOK OP DISCIPLINE. 375
before pressing to a decision, seeing it would be too late after- wards. It is said that, according to our present mode, tlie ap- pellant (or complainant) "is botli suitor and prosecutor;" that while he is enjoying the new trial of his case the lower court " is also on trial for its character." This surely is a great over- statement. The appellant appears directly only as suitor. That the character of the lower court may possibly be implicated is inevitable, if there is to be any appeal at all ; but he is not pre- sent for the purpose of assailing them ; he comes to defend himself. The attempt is made to show that the court appealed from is not properly a party, by asserting that the sentence of that court is not the thing carried up by the appeal (as it seems the troublesome writer in the April number of the Ihvlew shrewdly asserted), but the same old case. " All that he (the appellant) should be allowed to transfer is the indentical case upon which the lower court sat." Yes, we reply, just so ; but it is that case as decided helov ; and not now a case to be taken up de novo. Superior courts are prohibited from going behind inferior courts, and touching judicial cases, except as cases de- cided. See Eevised Book itself, Chap. YIII. Sec. I. 4, and Sec. III. 1. " The higher tribunal must have before it precisely what the lower had — the same issue, the same testimony, the same circumstances." Precisely, but u-ltJi the sentence jyassed thereon. It is the same case, it is said, which should be brought up. Aye, but the sentence is the issuing of that case ; and this is therefore the cjlst of what is brought up. Says the Eevised Book itself : " An appeal is the removal of a case already de- cided^'' etc. If. is obvious to common sense that the sentence is the thing which our law of appeal allows the appellant to have reviewed. For if the sentence were not adverse to him, he would have no professed grievance, and would be allowed no remedy. We see not, on the whole, how human wit can evade the fact, that the court appealed from is inevitably im- phcated as indirectly a part}', if it is to be present at all. Rule it out altogether, releasing it at the same time from all judicial responsilnlity to the appellate court ; and then only it ceases to be a party. Now those are the ver^' things which are usually done in our civil courts of appeal. The lower court is not pre- sent at all in the appellate court, and has no need nor right to be there, because it is not at aU responsible to the appellate
376 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
court ; [but only to tlie legislature by impeacliment, or in some such way.] That is the reason that appeal cases appear in ci^-il courts of appeal iu the simple and single form which Dr. Thornwell desires to realize in our higher church courts. Well, if he can revolutionize our whole system (the thing he himself reprobates), so as to exclude them bodily, he may justly realize that conception. But if the lower court is to be present as a constituent element of the upper, it is, and must be an implied party ; and this, we repeat, results not from the present forms of our Book, but fi'om the inevitable nature of things. Hence we argue, being in some sense parties, they slioxdd he Jieard in their own cause, and should not vote in their own cause.
Dr. Thornwell's second argument is fi'om the nature of our series of church courts, in which each superior one is com- posed of a representation from all the inferior ones next beneath it embraced in its territory. To j)rohibit the court appealed from to vote on the appeal, he urges, is in violation of the prin- ciple of full representation in this system. We fully admit that it is a partial departure from it. But for this departure there are controlling reasons. Man can never, in his imperfect insti- tutions, apply a set of general principles with perfect symmetry in all their details. And when they clash in their application, his -^-isdom is to make that one which is less important in those circumstances give way to that which is more important. Xow, in judicial cases, the preservation of the representative feature in its completeness is less important than in any other. For a judicial decision creates no law of general application ; it only apphes one already enacted by the general voice. When the lav:-makhig power is exercised by a higher court, to enact what may affect the rights of all generally, then justice requires that all shall be represented in the legislative body. But when the lav^-api^lyhuj power is exercised to affect the rights of one party, justice allows that the universal representation of the whole may be waived, especially if thereby a more impartial dealing can be secured for the party whose rights alone are immediately at stake.
And now the competing principle which demands that this universality of representation shall be waived in such a case of appeal is this : The transcendent importance of impartiality ill the holy transactions of the judgment-seat. Judging is a
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 377
function delegated from God. Yea, we can hardly saj tliat lie delegates it ; for " He standetli in the congregation of the mighty ; he judgeth among the gods." The man who " stands before the judges" "stands before the Lord." (Ps. Ixxxii. 1 ; Deut. xix. 17.,) Unrighteous jvidgment outrages God's dearest attributes, and in- flicts the most aggravated of all human Avrongs on its victims. Hence this sacred function should be guarded against unfairness and partiality with jealous care. And the principle which dictates this safeguard is this : that the human mind, however honest, is an imperfect instrument for discriminating truth and right, and that its impartiality in Aveighing evidence is usually, though unconsciously, affected by the forming and uttering of a delib- erate opinion. This practical truth is attested by the wisdom and experience of all men. The man who should boast that his powers of moral discrimination were incapable of bias by such a cause would only disclose ignorance of his own heart. And this bias is usually unconscious, and therefore, in the case of every honest man, the more dangerous ; for if he suspected its existence, he would contend against it. Now, we have no- ticed with pain a persistent misrepresentation of these obvious facts by the advocates of the changes under debate. They speak as though the rule excluding the former judges from voting on the appeal implied those judges to be intentional knaves, and harborers of wicked, conscious prejudice ; whereas, they assert (in terms more flattering, w^e confess, to their read- ers than the wholesome truth which duty compels us to utter), that Presbyterian ministers and ruling elders are honorable and incapable of injustice. Well, we hope we are incapable of in- tentional injustice ; but not to undertake to speak for our breth- ren, we would profess for ourselves that we have sad reason to know that we are very liable to unintentional mistake and un- conscious infirmity of judgment ; and that, for our part, we should be far from coveting the awful post of ji'dg& in a case upon which our judgment was already committed, aftecting the sacred rights of our brother. Besides, as has been hinted, it is possible that all Presbyterian ministers and ruling elders may not always be honorable men. Have such things never been heard of? And it is precisely f(n- restraining such men from injustice that good laws are made. The good men are a law unto themselves.
378 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCirLINE.
Again, let the reader, to see the force of the facts we now urge, consider how universally good secular legislators have acted on the principle that a committal to a formally expressed opinion disqualifies the mind for impartial investigation. Where is the wise judge Avho Avould admit a juryman to be impanelled after professing that he had formed and uttered a deliberate opinion ? "Where is the case that ever a juryman who had par- ticipated in a verdict was allowed to sit in a new trial of the same cause? (And we surmise that if any of our venerable church doctors should say in such a case that his exclusion was an implied insult, he would only be hugely laughed at by the court-room !) So rigid is the law on this point, that when a practicing attorney is elevated to the jiidge's bench, he is not l^ermitted to preside in the trial of any cause in which he had been even retained as counsel before his elevation, though he had never pleaded it. Again ; does Dr. Thornwell propose to give to the member of our church courts w^ho has acted as ad- vocate for an accused Presbyterian, a vote on the decision of the case he has argued ? We trow not. But on his principles, why not ?
We fearlessly assert again, that in all the judicial usages of this country there cannot be found one single parallel case to countenance the usage which the Revised Book proposes. It has been asserted that in some civil courts of appeal or review, the judges of the courts below sit and vote on appeals from their own decisions. We believe such cases are exceedingly rare. But if there are any (we know of none), they afford no analogy whatever to the case in hand. In those civil courts of inferior jurisdiction, there is a jur]) which pronoimces the verdict ; the judge is the mere umpire between the two parties, and never takes the attitude of decider of the facts. The most he does is to expound the law, so that after all he has never officially pro- nounced on the merits of the case : and should he even sit again on that case in a court of review, might be comparatively impar- tial. Now, in our church courts, the memhers are the jury — only the moderator is the presiding umpire. The members make the verdict on the law and the facts. Therefore, to find a case properly parallel to those which the Revised Book would introduce, we should have to find the unheard of enormity of a juryman sitting in a new trial, and perh:ips deciding the
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 379
second verdict by his vote, wlio had ah'eady pronounced on the case !
Indeed, that an appeal or comphiint should go exclusively to new judges follows from the very nature of those remedies, and from the very object of the constitution in allo^^'ing their use. Why does our Book allow a defendant his appeal ? Because the Book presumes that the sentence may be wrong. The pos- sibility that it may be ■s\T.'ong is the sole ground on which the utility and justice of the appeal rest. Now, shall the same judges help to decide the appeal, who, upon the only supposi- tion on which the appeal is a right and valuable remedy, have already proved that they mil decide it \\T.-ong ? Let it be re- membered that both the old and new Books properlv enjoin that in the hearing of the appeal the same case, with the same testimony, and usually no other testimony, shall be brought into the higher court. These mistaken judges, therefore, will have no other data on which to decide than those on which they have already decided erroneously. Unless they were very heed- less before, or are very fickle now, they will see the same con- clusions from the same data which they saw at first. And it is always possible that they may turn the scale by their votes. Hence, in the very nature of an appeal, if it is to present any certain hope of remedy for wrong, it must take the case to a set of judges wholly new. Dr. Thorn well represents his trouble- some April correspondent as saying that this ought to be so, because this "is what the appellant expects ;" and then rejoins that if the wishes of the appellant are to govern, the problem Avould very soon be solved ; for he desires only such judges as will clear him. We have taken the trouble to look into the passage alluded to ; and to us it appears plain that this writer meant to express the idea that the appeal ought to go to new judges exclusively, because this is w^hat the appellant is entitled to e-q)ect from the nature of the remedy. And it seems to us that in this meaning he is entirely correct.
Dr. Thornwell presents three arguments for the admission of the lower court. His first is, that their decision was probably right. We reply. Yes ; but the whole use and meaning of the appeal is in the fact that it was possibly wrong. So that in the only case where the remedy can do any good it is neutralized. He adds, that if the decision of the lower court was hasty and
380 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
prejudiced, tliis would prove not only that its members were unfit for seats there, but that they were not fit for seats any where. We reply, Well, be this as it may, the Book, even the new Book, does imply tha# some of their decisions may be hasty and prejudiced ; for what else is the meaning of the appeal ? And we find that Dr. Thornwell, in his third argument, says : The members of the lower court had better be in the upper cotu"t as judges, than in its lobby as irresponsible solicitors. It seems, then, he contemplates the existence of such a character in the members, that they shall be capable of being wheedled by lobby-members into the support of an unrighteous decision. Then, by the showing of his first argument, they are not fit for seats there. As to this third reason, it may be added, there lobby-members cannot vote ; it is the votes that do the work. The second reason urged is, that to treat the members of the lower courts as honest men will be the best way to make them honest. The reply is, that the present rule treats them as honest, but fallible, and therefore, possibly lying under an honest mistake. An honest mistake is often the most incorrigible.
It has been very justly urged against the new Book, that un- der its provisions a large presbytery in a sj-nod, or an impor- tant session in a feeble presbytery, might so preponderate as actually to constitute a majority of the court appealed to, so that the outrage on all common justice would be presented, of the party appealed against possessing a controlling power over the decision of the very appeal against themselves. The an- swer attempted is this : that at any rate a remedy for this out- rageous "«Tong may be found by the appellant when he goes to the Assembly with his cause, because no single synod has a preponderating influence in the General Assembly. And yet, on the very same page. Dr. Thornwell himself cites a case in wdiich the Synod of Philadelphia did have a preponderating in- fluence in the Assembly in an appeal case ! The self-refutation seems complete enough, and yet it may be added that one sin- gle interested vote in a bench of judges may be preponderating in a sense, for it may decide the cause unjustly by a majority of one. A counterpoise to this weighty objection is presented by Dr. ThornAvell in that instance, when the Philadelphia Synod being in the house in one case, and oiit of the house m another case in which it was itself appealed from, the Assembly decided
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 381
in contrary ways, where the merits of the cases were the same. "We reply by asking whether Drs. Thoruwell and Hodge believe in the maxim, " that it is better ten guilty men should escape^ than one innocent man suffer unjustly?" Better be inconsis- tent than unjust.
Dr. Thornwell's third main argument for the new rule is, that it vastly simplifies proceedings in appeals, by cutting off all doubts about who are original parties, about the order of hear- ing, about the extent to which the exclusion of the lower coui-t shall be carried, and s;ich like. He repeats the remarks of a minister who said that it seemed to him to be in this respect nearly perfect. To us, a perfect simplicity in all the inevitable and multiform varieties of judicial investigations seems a very questionable comj^liment. The proceedings of a drum-head court martial are very simple, and those of the Grand Turk were simpler still. There was one slight deduction to be made from the beauty thence arising, that quite a number of heads were cut off wrongfully that coidd not be j)ut on again when the mistake was discovered.
But we utterly discredit the assertion that the working of the new Book in this matter will be so much simpler. And to jus- tify this skepticism, we are not bound to suggest or detect the sources of obscurity in it. Every one who knows anything of legislation, knows that all the weak points in the new wording of a new rule cannot be predicted until the severe touchstone of actual cases, arising with their endless shades of difference and complications, reveals the ambiguities. It is too early for the friends and authors of the new Book to boast in this mat- ter. Let them wait tiU their articles have stood the test of some twenty years' practice. Yet it requires no very prophetic eye to see that ambiguities are likely to arise out of them in several places. For instance, does the committee of review mean that lower courts shall vote on the approval of their own records, when brought up in a higher court under their Chap. "VT!II., Sec. 1 ? We hardly suppose they do, although they do not say. It would seem simply preposterous that they should. Yet a con- sistent argument may be made to show that the new Book does intend them to vote on the approval of their own records ; for it gives ihem explicitly a vote on the approval of any and every decision in their records which happens to be brought up by
382 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
appeal or complaint. Therefore, consistency should require that they be allowed to vote on all. There, we surmise, is to be a teterrhna causa helli ! Again, here is another : the new Book says that in all cases of appeal and complaint there shall be but two parties to plead the issue in the higher court, the appellant and appellee. Who is to be appellee in cases not judicial? See new Book, Chap. YIIL, Sec. iii. 8. We are left " all at sea." Who is to be appellee in a case which was pro- secuted on common fame ? The judicatory which so prosecuted the appellant ? If tne answer is affirmative, then how shall that judicatory be both judge and party ? Surely that were a cim- ous amalgam. Or is the committee of prosecution raised by that lower court to appear as appellee ? If so, they virtually appear as the representative, the attorney of the prosecuting court l)elow, for they are its creature. It would Ije a curious scene to behold a party sitting in judgment on his own case, which he was at the time prosecuting through his attorney. But we are not out of the thicket yet. A presbytery has pro- secuted and convicted a member on common fame, employing therefor a prosecuting committee. The condemned member ap- peals to synod. All the presbytery have seats there. Says the Revised Discipline, the appellant and appellee shall be the only parties to the case in all its subsequent stages. Who is the appellee here? We guess— -it is only a guess — that Dr. Thornwell would answer, " The prosecuting committee of pres- bytery." Bat the Revised Book says, all the members of the court appealed from shall sit in judgment on the appeal in synod ; to unseat one single man mars the integrity of our re- presentative system. The prosecuting committee will therefore claim to sit on the case in Synod, and they are also sole defend- ants in the case! Here, then, is another of the startling "an- tinomies" of the new Book. Again, in case of a complaint, who is the other i^arty, the complainee ? (if we may coin a word.) The article [Chap. YIIL, Sec. iv. 5.] is silent. The case may be this : a minority complains against a majority in pres- bytery. Is the majority then the defendant ? May they still sit on their own case as judges while pleading as defendants ? And if so, may the complaining minority sits as judges also ? Again, Dr. Thornwell says the new rule will cut off the tiresome, long speeches. We see not how this fallows, for the members of
THE REVISED BOOK OP DISCIPLINE. 383
the court appealed from are now sitting as judges, and in that capacity they must surely be permitted to state and argue their own decisions. Here also the principles of the new Book leave a troublesome ambiguity ; for it does not appear whether all the members of the lower court are to be permitted to defend their decision, or whether the lower court, when notified of an appeal, is to have the privilege of appointing any special commissioners other than their representatives in the upper court to defend their sentence. Now, of all these doubts one remark may be made. Any neio Book will have its ambiguities ; doubtless our present book had them when it was new. Its advantage is that they are now cleared away by the wise precedents of thirty-nine Assemblies. Its language is "ascertained" by decisions.
Both Dr. Hodge and Dr. Thornwell do indeed assert that perpetually recurring confusions in the Assembly in appeal cases prove that those ambiguities are incorrigible. The last Asseml)ly is referred to, in which the moderator and prominent members differed as to the " original parties," and the extent to which the exclusion of the lower courts must be carried. Yet this is the fact, that a few minutes' search in any digest of the Assembly's actions would have clearly settled all the cases there mooted. Surely the Assembly's previous decisions are prece- dents for itself, at least till they are formally repealed. AYe re- peat, the stubborn fact is, that clear precedents of previous As- semblies presented rules by which every one of the cases which ■we are told so bothered wise heads in Indianapolis last May, might have been promptly and indisputably settled. Now, if "great men are not always wise," if Doctors of Divinity will forget what might be easily learned, if they will get up to speak on a point before they have examined it, shall our poor suffer- ing Book of Discipline be blamed for it? What more can a Book, or a set of precedents founded thereon, do than give clear rules? If men will not read and remember them, it is hard measure to blame the Book for that. Dr. Hodge declares that the fault is not in the Assembl}', but in the Book. This account of the matter is doubtless the more complimentar}- one., and is therefore likely to be the more popular one. But men who are j)ractically acquainted with the natural inaptness of most minds for methodical judicial processes, before they have been trained by experience, know that it is incorrect. The truth is, that a
384 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
natural aptitude for these formal jjrocesses in advance of ex- perience is a very rare trait, even of strong minds. Bj tho blessing of our God, our churcli courts have very rare experi- ence of judicial proceedings, except in tlie Assembly, into which a few of them run every year, as into a common reser- voir. Hence, when called in their inexperience to grapple with such business, they will inevitably blunder somewhat as to forms of proceeding. And yet (another fact which Dr. Hodge does not mention) with all the blunderings of members of the Assembly, there has been a remarkable uniformity, and a re- markable absence of contradictory precedents concerning modes of procedure ! Surely the old Book cannot be so bad after all, since it has uniformly led so many inexperienced followers through the tangled jungle. But it may be very easily reduced to a question of fact, whether it is the Book which is in fault. Its chapters on actual process must be clear and simjjle, for the committee of revision have not substantially changed its processes. But we do testify that the complications which church courts usu- ally experience in attempting to apply those chapters in trials de novo, are just as great, making allowance for the smaller numbers of judges, as those which arise in the Assembly in appeal cases. We do solemnly and emphatically forewarn our brethren, that if they suppose a change of process is to prevent embarrassments as to forms of proceeding in a court so cumbrous and inexperienced as our Assembly, they are doomed to a bitter and mortifying disappointment. And we conclude this part of the discussion with this emphatic question : Has the wit of man ever yet dis- covered a mode which avoids a large degree of intricacy, and expense of time and trouble in judicial investigations, where those investigations are properly guarded against injustice and oppression? Ask our secular judges. Ask experienced law- yers. Our committee of revision, in promising that it shall be otherwise with us, are inviting us to run after the bag of gold which is under the foot of the rainbow.
VI. The sixth and last subject of remark shall be the relation assigned by the proposed revision between unconverted bap- tized persons and the church. "WTiere the old Book says, "AU baptized persons are members of the church, are under its care, and subject to its government and discipline," the new Book proposes to say, " All baptized persons, being members of the
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 385
clmrcli, are under its government and training. . . . Only those, liowever, who have made a profession of faith in Christ are proper subjects of judicial prosecution,"
This change might have passed as being rather non-essential in the minds of many but for the principles on which it has been advocated, for those principles radically affect our church theory. This is the reason that we call serious attention to this point, and consider it justifiable to invoke the patient consider- ation of Presbyterian readers. We are happy to learn that the committee of revision are not unanimous in this change, but that two influential members, Drs. Hoge and McGill, hold the old and scriptural view of the Keformers. "We are happy to have this opportunity to express the pleasure and gratitude ex- cited by the "wdse and logical e.rjyose of this subject given by the former, in the July number of the Princeton Review. It is our devout hope that in this point at least, in which the committee themselves differ, our Saviour's maxim may be found true, and the house di\aded against itself may not stand.
The ground on which this exemption of baptized unbelievers from discipline was first argued by sundry writers (we do not say by Dr. Thornwell) was that it was unreasonable to inflict discipline on them, because they did not become members by their own free choice. Dr. Thornwell now disavows this ground ; his mind is too logical to advance it. The standing analogy of civil commonwealths refutes it, for in them subjection to their jurisdiction does not depend on consent of the subject, but on birth, or mere presence in it. Civil government is the ordinance of God for all human beings. Neither he nor natural justice gives any one an option whether he shall submit to its jurisdic- tion or not, for the alternative would be all the lawlessness of the savage condition. Every man is horn a member of civil society, and subject to its beneficent jurisdiction, whether he chooses or not. His possession of various other privileges of the commonwealth, and his subjection to other grades of re- sponsibility, may depend on certain qualifications of age, sex, property; but he is horn a citizen, and as such born subject to the general jurisdiction which protects the whole community against crime. The object of this temporal ordinance of God, civil government, is to secure man's temporal rights and well- being. Now, it is jiist as much God's ordinance for mankind,
Vol. II.— 25.
38G THE REVISED BOOK 07 DISCIPLINE.
that his people shall live under ecclesiastical government, and that their children shall be subject to ecclesiastical jurisdiction bj birth. Thej have no option allowed them by God, The children of his people (and all parents ought to be his professed people, if they did their duty), are l>or>i subjects to this spiritual commonwealth, which God has ordained for secviring man's sj^iritual well-being. No man is naturally entitled by justice to any option whether he shall be a member of it, because to re- fuse membership would be in all ordinary cases—" Out of the church catholic there is no ordinary possibility of salvation" — - to throw away his soul into everlasting perdition, a thing which no one has a natural right to do. Let the reader look again at this. Since the visible church catholic is God's instituted means for ministering redemption to mankind, no man can claim a natural right to remain out of it if he chooses, unless he can claim a natural right to destroy his soul, and other souls. Hence it is no hardship to him who is l)orn into the church to be held subject to its jurisdiction without Avaiting for his con- sent. As in the civil, so in the ecclesiastical commonwealth, there are different grades of privilege and responsibihty, such as admission to communion, to office, wiiich are not universal to all members, but depend on circiunstances of age, sex, and qualification. But sulijection to the general duties and juris- diction which are common to all is implied in the very idea of membership.
Let us now proceed to Dr. Thornwell's ground. He correctly says that the core of the question is, uilietlier churcJi-meinbersJiip necessarily involves suhject'ton to jiidic'ial 2^1'osecutwn. He cor- rectly remarks that as membership does not of itself imply ad- mission to all grades of privilege, nor subjection to all grades of responsibility, it does not necessarily imply subjection to discipline, unless a particular reason be shown therefor. This is true, and it shall be our business to show that reason. He complains that all the arguments of the other side amount to this faulty syllogism, " All church-memljers are entitled to all privileges ; all baptized persons are church-members, therefore they are under discipline," which, as he justly says, would prove them entitled to admission to communion and office. Now, Ave do profess that A\'e haA-e nowhere seen such an argument used against him. But as we assume no responsibility for the pre-
THE KEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 387
yious debaters, it is enough for us to say that our syllogism is not the above, but this :
" All church-members must be subject to all the responsibili- ties essential to the idea of membership. But discipline is es- sential to the idea of membership ; therefore all members must be subject to discipline."
There will be no dispute about the first, or major proposition, nor is the dispute between us and the advocates of the Revised Book whether all baptized persons are really church-members. The point of debate is upon the second, or minor proposition. If that is true, it is irrelevant to point to the fact that " in every commonwealth there are privileges and disabilities pecuKar to the different classes of citizens," for there are also other privi- leges and liabilities essential to the very character of a citizen, and therefore common to all. Is a liability to judicial prosecu- tion necessarily implied in the idea of membership ? We say, yes.
First, Because the parallel case of the civil commonwealth proves this. In the state, all citizens are not entitled to all grades of privilege, nor liable to all kinds of pubhc duty; but all who can be properly treated as intelligent moral agents, minors, females, slaves, freeholders, magistrates, all are alike subject to those general laws which prosecute crime judicially.
Second, Because to give membership in any body governed by laws or rules, and yet not exact subjection to those rules un- der some penalty, at least so far as expulsion for their breach, is destructive of the very existence of the body. The least pos- sible power consistent Avith the idea of an organism bound to- gether by laws, is the power of expulsion. Thus says Whateley in his .Kingdom of Christ, with obvious truth. For an organism which has no power to enforce the rules by which it subsists is inevitably disintegrated. But now, if the baptized unbeliever is a member of the church and has any rights as such, shall he he liable to expulsion, depriving him of those rights mthout any judicial process ? That he must be liable to expulsion if he breaks laws, is necessary. This Avere strange justice, to punish without trial !
Third, Because, as Dr. Thornwell says, the church is the school of Jesus Christ, into which the children of believers are entered, to learn the way of salvation. And the power to teach.
388 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
possessed hj the cliurcli, must be attended by some power ta enforce attendance on lier teacliings, otherwise it is absurdly nugatory. There is no other school on earth where pupils maj break all rules, and uniformly neglect the instructions, and yet the master have not power to declare their connection ^\dth the school severed.
Fourth. Because both the Scriptures (see Gen. xviii. 19), and the Book of Government say that " a church consists of a num- ber of professing Christians with their offspring, voluntarily as- sociated together for divine w^orship caid godly living, agreeably to the Holy Scriptures." (Chapter II., Sec. 4.) "The universal church consists of all those persons, in every nation, together with their children, who make profession of the holy religion of Christ, and of suhnission to Jus laws,'' (Sec. 2.) " They (Presby- terial judicatories) possess the right of requiring ohedience to the laics of Christ." . . . . " They can call before them ajiy offender against the order and government of the cluirch." (Chapter VIII., Sec. 2.) " The church session . . . have power to inquire into the knowledge and Christian conduct c_^ members of the church, to call before them offenders and wit- nesses, being members of their own congregation." (Chapter IX., Sec. 6.) It is the doctrine of our Book of Government, that not only instruction in saving truth, but also godly living, are the objects of ecclesiastical institutions ; that the children of professors, as well as professors themselves, are associated to- gether for these objects, and consequently that the judicial power to enforce correct conduct by spiritual penalties extends over all members of the church. The committee of revision claim that they have harmonized the Book of Discipline better with the rest of our system. It appears here that they will have to carry their revolutionary hands through the Book of Govern- ment also before there is harmony.
These reasons lead us to conclude that subjection to juris- diction is necessarily implied in membership, and that henco all. members of the church are so subject.
It would seem that Dr. Thornwell felt the irresistible pressure of the obvious thought that a membership in no sense amenable" to authority was an anomaly, and hence in his speech in the Assembly, and in his Bevievj less distinctly, he advances this view: "People are brovight into the church of Christ by fami-
THE REVISED BOOK OP DISCIPLINE.
389
lies, and lience, as the baptized unbeliever obtained his churcli connection through his parents, the chiirch governs him only through the parent." We reply : it was not so in the Israelit- isli church, from which we have derived infant church-member- ship. In that church, and in its synagogue discipline, the youth himself, when come to years of understanding, and not only his parents for him, was held amenaljle to judicial au- thority. Again, at twenty-one years, the baptized unbeliever passes out of the parental authority in this country. What rea- son is there in Scripture or natural justice why he should at that date acquire an ecclesiastical license to sin without judicial penalty, and yet remain a member ? Suppose the parent says to the chiu'ch, "I have done all I can, and done it in vain.'* Because the son is wayward, does the church lose all jurisdic- tion, direct and indirect, while over less wayward children its indirect power remains? In fine, this doctrine is inconsistent with the fact that God's word treats every person who has come to years of discretion, as himself, an intelligent moral agent.
Dr. Thornwell also argues that judicial prosecution is inap- propriate to one who professes no faith in Christ, because its utility is predicated on the possession of spiritual life by his subject. He says, to discipline a baptized unbeliever thus is as unreasonable as to tie a corpse to a whipping post and scourge it. The illustration is striking, but not just. It is incorrect to say that our system of government predicates discipline on the possession of spiritual life in its subject, and that its object is only to reclaim the backslider, and recall to repentance him who is regarded as still a true child of God, though erring. A just excommunication of a church-member proceeds on the sup- position that he has now done something so thoroughly incon- sistent and obdurate, that it shows he is not a true child of God. This is the very ground on which he is excommunicated ; for surely no one should be excluded from the kingdom below whom Christ owns as a member of his family in heaven. Yet one object of this excommunication is the benefit of this dead hranch thus lopped off. (See 1 Cor. v. 5.) How strange is the assertion made by Dr. Thornwell that there is no evidence that church discipline was ever intended to produce conversion! But more, if it may be the means of producing repentance in a
390 THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.
backslidden Christian, wliy may not the Spirit make it the means of producing repentance in a sinner ?
In order to render this part of Dr. Thornwell's argument vahd, he must not only show that disciphne is inappropriate to produce repentance and conversion in a sinner; but he must show that these are the only ends of discipline. Now his own Revised Book says that the ends of discipline " are the rebuke of offences, the removal of scandal, the vindication of the honor of Christ, the promotion of the purity and general edification of the church, and the spiritual good of the offenders themselves." Grant that discipline cannot promote the spiritual good of bap- tized unbelievers themselves ; this does not prove that it is ir- relevant to their condition, for there is the important list of other ends — the rebuke of otfences, the removal of scandal, the j)romotion of godly living — in which discipline is an entirely relevant means. Here we note another surprising assertion : that the bad morals of baptized unbelievers does not scandalize the church, because they do not profess conversion, and there- fore need not be remedied by discipline. Let Dr. Thornwell read any of the arguments of Immersionists, and he will change his assertion. Their great, and alas ! with our loose govern- ment, their plausible argument against infant baptism is, that it brings the unsanctified world into the church, crowding it with members who live as they list, in all sin and uncleanness, so that the line between church and world is obliterated. The only reason why any one does not instinctively feel the scandal arising from the tolerated crimes of an unbelieving church- member is, that in the observer's mind the proper conception of the sinner's real membership is obscured l)y Immersionist misconceptions. Here there is an unanswerable argument for the subjection of l)aptized unbelievers to discipline : that if they are church members in truth, the church must be armed with some instrument by which she may either incite them to that decent and orderly living, in advance of conversion, which is most favorable to their own change of heart, and which is im- peratively demanded by the purity of the church , or else, if they will not hearken, may righteously rid herself of the scandal by lopping them off. This is the anomalous condition to which the doctrine of the Revised Discipline reduces the church : that she must own all hajpthed persons as members, and yet have
THE REVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLI^'E. 391
no sure means for either compelling tliem to live as sucli, or for ridding herself of them !
But it is objected, our view must lead to this consequence : that when baptized unbelievers come to the age of discretion, if they do not commune after being duly admonished, they shall be dragged before the session, and however moral, be punished for their failure by excommunication. This, it is said, will either drive them into a h3'pocritical communion, or will drive them off in indignation and disgust. We know not where such a portentous picture was found. 'SVe see no ground whatever to deduce it from the doctrine of our present Book ; but, doubt- less, the notion that this was the only alternative to the doc- trine of the Revised Book has had vast influence. Let every one, then, candidly consider Avhether the fair application of our system will not be the following : Those unconverted members who walk orderly in the church will be tenderly and faithfully instructed that it is their privilege and dut}" to embrace Christ, and thus pass out of that ecclesiastical minority to which they condemn themselves by their own unbelief. As long as they live morally, and attend the means of grace regularly, the jDriv- ileges of that minor citizenship in Zion will by no means be cut off by expulsion. But there is one here and there who becomes openly profane, or otherwise criminal, or entirely neglectful of the instructions of the church. If he will not reform outwardly upon due admonition, let the chiirch testify against his sins, and endeavor to arouse his slumbering conscience, or at least rid herself of his scandal by expulsion, just as though he were an unconverted communicant. The continued unbelief of those who live moral lives externally is a sin ; but it will not there- fore be visited with expulsion, because the church already tes- tifies against that sin by their exclusion from sealing ordinances — an exclusion concurred in by themselves. [And this is all, we presume, that was meant by those who called such persons self-suspended from communion. Xobody, so far as Ave are aware, has called them self-excommunicated.] Does not the honor of the church require this policy ? Would not a whole- some public sentiment sustain and admire it? If the church- had only consistency and diligence to wield her powers over all Tier members, not to ioxce any one unprepared to the Lord's table, but to incite all members of all Christian families, as well
392 THE EEVISED BOOK OF DISCIPLINE,
as commiiuicants, to a life of outward purity and order, and to a regular attendance on lier instructions ; or else to cut off tlie rebellious members, liow glorious would she appear as the min- ister of virtue and beneficence to man ! How much more uni- formly would the good conduct and church-going habits of her unconverted members prove to them the blessed stepping-stone to a real interest in Christ ! How powerful the impulse which would be given to the heads of Christian famihes, in their ef- forts " to command their children and their households after them to keep the way of the Lord !" How would our Ziou then " become a praise in the earth ! "
But alas ! we fear the strongest practical argument against the doctrine of our present Book is found in the difficulty of at- taining its requirements, Avhich we have created by our omti neglects, inconsistency, and cowardice. Now we would affec- tionately ask our brethren, shall God's truth be degraded in our hands to the level of our corrupt practice ? or shall his glorious truth be upheld by us, even though in doing thus we illustrate our own shortcomings, till its power and light enable us to re- pair that shortcoming ?
The reader has been detained longer than we desired by these discussions. The importance of their subjects must be our apology. We trust we can take our patient friends to "odtness, that long as the discussions have been, we have not wasted time or ink in repetitions or unnecessary amplifications. And in closing, w^e would repeat our expressions of sincere respect for the distinguished men whose work is before the church for ex- amination.
"CHKTSTIANS, PRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY."^
OUR common country is in danger of disunion. It is al- most with trembling that we note it, lest its very publica- tion may tend somehow to familiarize our minds with the dread fact, and thus to precij)itate it. We would fain hope that the danger is not inevitable, but only imminent ; and it is therefore we now invoke the attention of Christians to it. If it is less urgent than some may fear, then there is more encouragement to labor now for its removal ; for after its presence is confessed by all, it will be too late.
Eememlier, then, that this anti-slavery agitation has been growing from its ominous birth, for twenty-five years. What has been its career? It has constantly acquired more and more power ; has overleaj)ed every bar interposed by political sagacity to its extension, has very nigh swallowed up every other political question and party, has ruptured the ties of most of the Christian sects in the land, and has now nearly consum- mated the division of the people into two great parties of that sectional distinction of which the first symptom startled the saga- cious Jefferson "like a fire-bell in the night." Es course has been, thus far, ever onward. It is no longer the narrow and comparatively impotent principle of Abolition, the war cry of a fi-autic fragment ; but the grave, pervading, national question of Free-soil. On the one side stands the majority, saying, " The national domain belongs to the Federal government, of which we hold the effective control ; and wdiile we claim no right to dic- tate in your domestic concerns, we resolve that this common domain shall not be polluted by the encroachments of slavery." On the other side, the large and determined minority retorts : " This common domain was purchased by the money, toil, and blood, of us and our fathers, as well as by 3'ours ; and we will have our share in its enjoyment.' Here are principles con-
'Appeared as an editorial article in the Central Presbyterian of March 29th, 1856.
393
394 CHRISTIANS, PRAY FOR YOUR COrXTRY.
fronting each other of irreconcilable opposition. Meantime the strife is fanned by reckless faction-mongers, and by more guilty fanatics invoking the holy name of Christianity ; and who that knows man's history does not know, that when national jDassions once clothe themselves in the garb of religion, thej are as ungovernable as a storm and as implacable as death? "We are fast tending to this, that the whole North will be ar- rayed against the whole South, on a question which each sup- poses essential to its honor, its religion and its existence.
And meantime, men are debating on both sides the misera- ble and guilty question, which section will be most prepared for a separate existence and for the strife it will have to endure ; thus goading with insult on the one hand, and inflating on the other the arrogance which would precipitate the conflict ; as though it were not sadly evident, that whichever side may be the weakest, it will yet have strength enough to inflict and en- dure miseries which might make angels weep. Already do the low mutterings of the rising cloud of civil war come from our Western border. Let that cloud break forth into the thunder of battle, and before the winds have swept its roar to the At- lantic, the angiy passions now smouldering in magazine will be lit into universal blaze as if by the touch of lightning. Let those weapons, now pointed against each other in angry array be once lifted wp to the nation reeking with fratricidal slaughter, and they will miister the foeman from North and South to the battle, like the fiery, red cross of Clan-Alpine.
And yet, the many wise and good, whose voices would other- wise be firmly raised for forbearance, are not aroused ; because they see that the original agitators of the mischief are moved by principles so hollow and worthless, that they cannot think a great nation will be deluded by them ; and because, seeing that all parties have so much to lose, and so little to gain by the strife, they will not believe thtit men can be so insane as to push on the suicidal contest to an issue. .Has ! they forget that the power of bad men for mischief is out of all proportion to their own importance ; and that when they play successfully on na- tional passions, their own insignificance is lost amidst the might of the influences they arouse. Alas ! they forget how often par- ties and nations have been seen to sacrifice self-interest, safety, existence, to the indulgence of inveterate sentiments. Did net
CHRISTIANS, PRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY. 395
Girondists and Mountain-men wear out each other in France, in deadly strife, while the nation was reeling under the blows of combined Europe? Did not theological hatred cause Saxonj to stand coolly by, while her sister Bohemia was beaten, dis- armed, and trampled down, in the beginning of the thirty years' war, by Popish Austria, the common foe of them both ? Did not the Jewish factions in Jerusalem strew the streets daily with the slaughter of civil battle, while Titus was thundering at the last defences of their last strongholds ? Passion does not reason. Popular phrenzy does not count the cost.
Consider, then, we pray you, how portentous are all things of danger. Here are men urging on aggression with arrogant reck- lessness ; there are others regarding their grievances, real or sup- posed, with the grim and gloomy determination to resist ; here self-seeking demagogues, either blindly or treasonably, tamper with national passions whose awakened might they will be im- potent to allay ; and there men calling themselves ministers of the Prince of Peace invoke his sacred name to sanctify the guilty elements of strife and murder.
Second, if disunion comes, it must be accompanied or followed by war. Let no one fancy that such a rupture can be peacefully effected, and that two republics can quietly arise in place of one, to pursue their course with no rivalry but that of prosperous increase. If all the ties which now bind us together are insuf- ficient to unite our hearts ; if, in spite of them, such hostility has arisen as threatens to break the strong and beneficent bands of laAv and custom, to what heat will not that hatred grow when all these ties are broken ? There will then be no genial meeting and mixing in our common seat of government, at our great watering places, and on the great thoroughfares, in ecclesiastical assemblies, and at our great commercial marts. It will be far easier for two foreign and rival powers to rupture a mere treaty of peace than it had been for sister commonwealths to cast off the dear and time-honored ties of family. Will the j)assions which break the latter respect the former ; and that, too, when exasperated by a thousand new causes ? And, upon a division, there must immediately arise a host of questions so grave, so essential to the very existence of each party, so without precedent or guide for their settlement, that it is only too certain the impa- tient temper of the times will at once huiTy them to the bloody
39G CHRISTIANS, TRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY.
arbitrament of the sword. Whoso shall be the common seat of government, treasures and archives ? Which confederacy shall in- herit our ships of •oar, our armies and munitions ? Where shall be the boundary line •nliicli is to separate into two the parts once intimately welded '? Who shall control the lower course of the Father of rivers, the necessary and common thoroughfare of so many commonM'ealths ? Will the North rehnquish its naviga- tion, and thus condemn themselves to commercial insulation and ruin? Will the South permit a stream which bisects its bosom to be the highwav of rival and unfriendlv foreigners V Who shall divide that vacant domain, the common property of both, which even now threatens to become the fatal subject of strife ?
And above all, the seduction of fugitive slaves and their re- capture, that festering sore of the body politic, will inevitably break out into fatal mischief just as soon as the constitution and the Union are removed. What are its difficulties ? What the anger, bitterness, and agitation which it causes now ? Every one can see to what these things must grow when all restraints of law are removed, when injured masters seek to redress their losses by the strong hand, and these attempts are resisted as invasion. All along our extended frontier, where the very inti- macy of the pre^TLOus union and neighborhood will aggravate the evil, there will be spread the flame of a border warfare. And the strife will extend to every creek, river, and bay of our sea coasts to which our coasting commerce penetrates.
And what a war will that be ? Civil feud has ever been known as the most bitter of all. " A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." The very tenderness of brothers' love makes them more tender to the injury. The strength of the mutual obliga- tions which should have bound them to offices of kindness en- hances the liot indignation of mutual outrage. When the twin lands which now lie so intimately side liy side, parted by a line so long, so faint, so invisible, that it does not separate, begin to strike each other, the very nearness and intimacy make each more naked to the other's blow. How dire, then, will be the con- flagration of battle which will rage along this narrow line across the whole breadth of a continent ! How fatal the blows, when the republican hardihood and chivalry, the giant strength and
CHKISTIANS, TRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY.
597
tlie teeming wealth, Avliicli begin to make the mightiest despots respectful, are turned against each other ! Some among us seem fond of placing the relative prowess and courage of North and South in odious comparison. Brothers! should we not rather weep tears of blood at the wi-etched and wicked thought, that the common prowess, which hath so often made North and South side by side carry dismay and rout into the ranks of com- mon enemies, that terrible prowess, which, in North and South alike, Avithstood all the force of the British lion while we were yet in the gristle of our youth, and which, ever since, has over- thrown and broken and pierced every enemy with the lion's force and the swiftness of the king of birds combined, should hereafter expend its might in fratricidal blows ? And then this vast frontier must be forted and guarded. This hostile neigh- borhood, so dangerous, because so intimate, must be watched on either hand by armies. This giant strength and enterprise, which were covering broad lands and broader seas with the blessings and fruitfulness of industry, must be diverted to the barren, devouring waste of warlike preparation and labor. These teeming fields, whose crops bless the granaries of the fam- ishing nations, and cause their owners' bosoms to run over with wealth, must be sown with dragon's teeth, and rear crops of armed men ! Farewell to the benign career of imperial Peace, by which we hoped the Empire Kepublic would teach the angry nations nobler triumphs than those of war. A long farewell to that dream we had indulged ; dream not unworthy, surely, to have been inspired by the spirit of the Prince of Peace ; that here a nation was to grow up, on this soil which God had kept till " the fulness of time was come," "v\Tapped up in the mysteries of pathless seas, and untainted by the step of ci^iUzed despot or organized crime ; a nation composed of the strong, the free, the bold, the oppressed of all other peoples, and like the Cor- inthian brass, more precious than any that composed it, which should come by the righteous arts of peace to a greatness such as at last to shame and frighten war away from the family of kingdoms, which should work out the great experiment of equal laws and a free conscience for the first time for the imitation of the world, and from whose bosom a free church, unstained by the guilt of persecution, and unburdened with the leaden protection of the state, should send forth her light and sal-
398 CHRISTL^NS, PRAY FOE YOUR COUNTRY.
vation to the ends of the earth to bring the millennial morn- ing. Our future growth will be swallowed by the devouring maw of strife. This cunning machine of law which now regulates our rights will be wrecked amidst the jars of revolution. The stern exigencies of danger will compel both the rivals, perhaps, to substitute the strong but harsh will of the soldier for the mild protection of constitutions. Chris- tianity will sicken and droop amidst the crimes of national convulsion and the license of camps. Despots T\all sing their scornful pneans over the realizing of aU their envious pro- phecies that our liberty would run into license, and our free- dom be used for self-destruction. The world will be remanded to the guardianship of bondage, and the clock of time may be put back again for ages as long as those during which Euroj^e before languished under the night of popery. And meantime the redemption of the race is by so many ages postponed ; and sin and hell pray upon so many more of the teeming genera- tions !
Christians of America, vriW. ye suffer this ? If such a crime against God and man be wrought in this land of thirty thou- sand evangelical ministers and four millions of Christians, how burning the sarcasm which it will contain against your Chris- tianity ! What, was there not enough of the oil of love in all these four millions of the servants of the God of love to soothe the surging billows of party strife ? "W'as there not enough of the majesty of moral weight in these four millions of Christians to say to the angry waters, " Peace, be still ? " Were not all these strong enough to throw the arms of their love around their fellow-citizens, keep down the hands that sought each others' throats, and constrain them by a sweet compulsion to be brethren ? Did this mighty church stand idly l)y and see phrenzy immolate so many of the dearest hopes of man and so much of the glory of God on her helhsh altar, and not rather rush between and receive the sword in its own breast? And this church knew, too, that the fiend had borrowed the torch of discord from the altar of Christianity, and that therefore Chris- tians were doubly bound to arrest her murderous hand before the precious sacrifice was lost in the conflagration ! If this be suffered, then shame on the boasted Christianity of America, and of the nineteenth century! T\'ith all its parade of light
CHRISTIANS, PRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY. 399
and evangelism, wherein will it be less impotent and spurious than the false Christian] tv which permitted and sanctioned the butcheries of the Crusades, the torture of the Inquisition, or any other great iniquity of the dark ages ?
For, brethren, you are able to control this nation, if you please, and will do your duty, Here are four millions of men and women, chiefly adults, among a people of twenty-six mil- lions of men, women, children, and slaves ; four millions who profess to be supremely ruled by principles of righteousness, peace and love, and to be united to each other in the brother- hood of a heavenly birth. If even the voters among these would go together to the polls to uphold the cause of peace, they would turn the scales of every election. Where is the commu- nity, in all our laud, where the male citizens who are professors of Christianity would not give the victory to that party to which they gave their united support ? But alas ! how often do we go on Monday to the hustings, after having appeared on the Sab- bath as servants of the Prince of Peace and brethren of all his servants, and in our political action forget that we are Chris- tians ? Here, then, is our first need, if we would save our coun- try' : that we shall carry our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven everywhere, and make it dominate over every public act. And next, the Christians of this counlry must sternly claim, that wicked men shall no longer hold the helm of state ; that party fidelity shall no longer atone for that worst crime against citi- zenship, a wicked life. But why do we speak of the mere nu- merical weight of Christians ? Let them, embracing so much as they do of moral weight and influence, but speak to public opinion with the calm voice of patriotism and moderation, and their words will be potential. Let every one of our thirtv thousand pulpits echo the accents of that charity which " beareth all things, believcth all things, hopeth all things, en- dureth all things," and let every one of those four million tongues speak to its neighbor the language of forbearance and long-sufi'ering, and lo ! there will be a great calm. Are we not brethren ? What more does any one of us wish to exact of his brother, than that which is just and righteous ? And what one of us desires to withold this ? But since we all know that Jiuman frailty is ever apt to over-estimate its rights, and to ex- aggerate its wrongs, let us each one resolve that, for our conn-
400 CHRISTIANS, PRAY FOR YOUR COUNTRY.
try's sake and our Saviour's, we will forego much of wliat seems to us our due, and endure niuch of what seems to us injury. Let us all resolve thus, and soon our only strife will be which side shall go farthest to meet the other in the magnanimous reparation of wrongs and the generous concession of rights. And, above all, should the guilty churches of all our land hum- ble themselves before a holy God, for our Christian backshdings and our national sins. " Blow the trumpet in Zion. sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly ; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and those that suck the breast ; let the bridegroom go forth out of his chamber and the bride out of her closet. Let the j)riests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say. Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach."
THE CHRISTIAN'S BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM/
"Because of the house of our Lord thy God I will seek thy good." — PsAlM cxxii. 9.
THE true Ckristian feels tlie claims of patriotism as sensibly as any other man, tliough lie liokls tliem subject to the limitations of justice and charity to others. Thus, King David resolves that he will seek the i:)eace of Jerusalem, the capital city of the Hebrew commonwealth ; not only as a patriotic king, but from an additional religious motive. So the Christian has a motive for patriotism far stronger and holier than those of all other men. Additional to theirs, he has this reason to pray for the peace of Jerusalem : for his brethren and companions' sakes, and because of the house of the Lord his God which is in it. The kingdom of Jesus Christ — that blessed kingdom whose sceptre is peace, righteousness, meekness and truth, in whose prosperity the hopes of a suffering race are all involved, which alone can arrest the flood of sins and woes which now sweeps generation after generation into ruin — is committed by its Divine Head to human hands, and is partially dependent on the course
'A sermon preached in the College Church, Hampden-Sidney, Va., Novem- ber 1, 1860, a general fast-day, appointed by the Synod of Virginia, to pray for escape from national convulsions.
Note. — This sermon was delivered to the author's pastoral charge, under the circumstances indicated, and was printed and extensively circulated, precisely as it is now given, through many channels, in both sections of the United States. The preacher endeavored to bear in mind the truths that if we would indeed propitiate God, the appropriate business for us, on a day of humiliation and prayer, is con- fessing our own sins, and not those of other people. He was afterwards mortified to perceive a total failure to appreciate this on the part of many, who circulated and used the sermon, not with a generous emulation in a similar exercise of candor and honesty ; biat only with the design of encouraging aggression, by the hope that Southern Christians would constrain their section to be acquiescent under any ag- gression whatever. It was printed at the unanimous request of the male part of the author's congregation, and may be, therefore, assumed to have been f auiy rep- resentative of their ojiinions. A few months after, nearly every one of these per- sons (who was not beyond military age) was in arms. These, indeed, were, in the beginning of the recent contest, the sentiments of nearly all whom the wrongs of their oj^pouents compelled to become the soldiers of the Confederacy. Hence it may be seen how exceedingly easy it would have been for moderation and justice. in that quarter to have prevented the whole catastrophe. Vol. II.— 26. 401
402 THE christian's best motive for patriotism:,
of human events. Tliis spiritual comnionwcaltli among us, as is projjer, lias no legal ties to the secular, and no other relations than those of mutual good-will and courtesy. But still, inas- much as Christ is pleased to leave to second causes their natural influence over his church, it is largely dependent on our secular governments. Now, there are few things which can affect the interests of Zion so disastrously as political convulsions and war. Let the Christian weigh their influences.
Krst, We are taught, even Ly experience of customary party excitements, that a season of political agitation is most unfavor- al>le to spiritual prosperity. Few experienced pastors expect revivals during excited presidential canvasses. The mind is absorbed by agitating secular topics, angry and unchristian emotions are provoked, and the tender dew of heavenly-minded- ness is speedily evaporated by the hot and dusty tiirmoil of the popular meeting and the hustings. Few men who trafiic habitu- ally in such scenes exhibit nuieh grace. We suspect that the Christian, returning from a day of such excitement, is little in- clined to the place of secret prayer. But how much must all these evil influences be exasperated when the subjects of politi- cal strife assume a violent and convulsive aspect ? When every mind is filled by eager, secular concerns — when angr}^ passions rage in every heart, dividing brother against brother in Zion — when unscrupulous haste precipitates multitiides into words and acts of injustice and wrong, agitating and defiling their own con- sciences, and provoking the hot tumults of resentment on either side — what room is there for the quiet and sacred voice of the Holy Spirit ? It has been remarked by wise historians that a time of political convulsions is a time of giant growth for all forms of vice. And just to that degree it is a time of barren- ness for the Christian graces.
But when political strife proceeds to actual war, then, indeed, do " the ways of Zion mourn," War is the grand and favorite device of him who was a liar and murderer from the beginning, to ol)struct all spiritual good, and to barbarize mankind. To all the above agitations, distractions and evil passions, raised now to actual phrenzy, must be added the interruptions of the Sab- bath rest and of piiblic worship, while the sacred hours are pro- faned with the tumult of preparations, marchings, or actual combats. Domestic life, that most fruitful source of all whole-
THE christian's 15EST MOTIVE FO]t PATRIOTISM. 403
some restraints, is broken up Ijy dangcir, fear, waste of property and separations. The youth hnrry from that peaceful domain of humanizing and pious influenc<!S into th(! rude nois(5 and gross corruptions of camps, wlicnce they return, if tliey return at all, depraved by military liccnise, unused to peaceful industry, and hardened to all evil, to poison society at home. Colleges and schools are scattered, the voice of science is silenctid, the hopes of peac(^ful industry are violently destroyed, till recklessness and resentment turn the very husbandman into a l)andit. And, above all. Death holds his crufd carnival, and not only by the sword, l)ut yet more by destitution, by vice, by pestilence, hur- ries his myriads unprej)ared, from scenes of guilty woe on earth, into everlasting despair below. Need we wondc^r that the heav- enly dove should spread its gentle wings, and fly far from such abhorrent scenes ?
But civil feud has ever been known as the most bitter of all. *' A orother offended is harder to be won than a strong city : and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." Tlie very tenderness of brothers' love makes them more tender to tlie injury. The strength of the niutal ol)ligations, which should have bound them to kindness, enhances the hot indignation at mutual outrage. When the twin lands which now lie so inti- mately side liy side, parted by a line so long, so faint, so in- visible, that it does not separate, begin to strike each other, the very nearness and intimacy make each more naked to the other's blows. How dire, then, would l)e the conflagration of battle which would range along this narrow liin^ across the whole breadth of a continent. How deadly the struggh;, when the republican hardihood and chivalry, the young giant strength and teeming wealth, which begin to make the mightiest despots respectful, are turned against each other. 8ome seem to delight in placing the relative prowess of the North and South in odious comparison. Should we not, my brethren, rather weep tears of blood at the wretched and wicked thought, that the common prowess with which North and South have so often side by sid<i carried dismay and rout into the ranks of common enemies — that terrible prow(!ss which, in North and South alike, withstood the force of the British lion, wliile we Avere j^et in the gristle of our youth, and \. hicli, ever since, has overthrown and broken every enemy, with the lion's f(jrce and the eagle's swiftness
404 THE cheistian's best motive foe pateiotism.
combined — should hereafter be expended in fratricidal blows? And, then, this vast frontier must be forted and guarded. This hostile neighborhood, so dangerous because so intimate, must be watched on either hand by armies ; and these armies become, as among the unhappy and suspicious nations of Europe, as much the machines of internal oppression as of outward defence. Our fviture growth of men and wealth w^ould be swallowed up by the devouring maw of strife. These teeming fields, wdiose increase fills the granaries of the famishing nations, and makes their owners' bosoms to overflow wdtli wealth, must go to feed the barren waste of warlike preparation and labor. The source of half the missionary activities which now gladden the waste places of the earth would be dried up. Farewell to the benign career of imperial Peace, by which we liad hoped the Empire Republic would teach the angry nations nobler triumphs than those of W'ar. A long farewell to that dream we had indulged — • dream not unworthy surely to have been inspired by the Prince of Peace — that here a nation was to grow up on this soil, which God had kept till " the fulness of time was come," wrapped in the mysteries of pathless seas, and untainted by the steps of civilized despots or organized crime ; a nation composed of the strong, the free, the bold, the oppressed of every people, and, like the Corinthian brass, more precious than any that composed it ; which should come, by the righteous arts of peace, to a great- ness such as at last to shame and frighten war away from the family of kingdoms ; which should work out the great experi- ment of equal laws and a free conscience, for the first time^ for the imitation of the world ; and from whose bosom a free church, unstained by the guilt of persecution and unburdened by the leaden protection of the state, should send forth her light and salvation to the ends of the earth to bring the mil- lennial morning. This cunning machine of law, which now regulates our rights, Avould be wrecked amidst the storms of revolution. The stern exigencies of danger w^ould compel both the rivals, perhaps, to substitute the strong, but harsh will of the soldier for the mild protection of constitutions. And the oppressors of soul and body, from every stronghold of absolu- tism throughout the earth, would utter their jubilant and scorn - fid triumph : " Lo ! the vain experiment of man's self-govern- ment has drowned itself in its own blood and ruin I " The
THE christian's BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM. 405
movement of the world's redemption might be put back for ages, and the enthroning of the Prince of Peace over his promised dominion, so long ravaged by sin and Avoe, wonld be postponed, while eternal death preyed upon yet more of the teeming gen- erations.
Now, in view of this picture of possible crime and misery, w^ould to God that I could reach the ear of every professed servant of Jesus Christ in the wdiole land ! I would cry to them : Christians of America — brothers — shall all this be ? Shall this church of thirty thousand evangelical ministers, and four millions of Christian adults — this church, so boastful of its influence and power ; so respected and reverenced by nearly all ; so crowned with the honors of literature, of station, of secular office, of riches ; this church, which moulds the thought of three- fourths of our educated men through her schools, and of all, by lier pulpit and her press ; this church, which glories in having just received a fresh baptism of the Spirit of heaven iu a na- tional revival — permit the tremendous picture to become reality ? Kay, shall they aid in precipitating the dreaded consummation, by traitorously inflaming the animosities which they should have allayed, and thus leave the work of their Master to do the devil's ? Then, how burning the sarcasm which this result 'will contain upon your Christianity in the eyes of posterity ! Why, they will say, was there not enough of the majesty of moral weight in these four millions of Christians to say to the angry v\'aves, " Peace be still " ? Why did not these four millions rise, with a LOVE so Christ-like, so beautiful, so strong, that strife should be paralyzed by it into reverential admiration ? Why did they not speak for their country, and for the house of the Lord their God which was in it, with a wisdom before whose firm mod- eration, righteousness, and clear light, passion and folly should scatter like the mist ? Were not all these strong enough to throw the arms of their loving mediation around their fellow citizens, and keep down the weapons that sought each other's hearts ; or rather to receive them into their own bosoms than permit their mother-country to be slain ? Did this mighty church stand idly by, and see phrenzy immolate so many of the dearest hopes of man, and of the rights of the Redeemer, on her hellish altar ? And this church knew, too, that the fiend had borrowed the torch of discord from the altar of Christianitv, and that there-
406 THE chkistian's best motive for tatriotism.
fore Christians were bound, by a peculiar tie, to arrest lier insane hand before the precious sacrifice was wrapped in flames. Then shame on the boasted Christianity of America, and of the nine- teenth century ! With all its parade of evangelism, power, and light, wherein has it been less impotent and spurious than the effete religion of declining Rome, which betrayed Christendom into the dark ages ; or than the baptized superstitions which in those ages sanctioned the Crusades and the Inquisition ? In the sight of heaven's righteous Judge, I believe that if the Chris- tianity of America now betrays the interests of men and God to the criminal hands which threaten them, its guilt will be second only to that of tlie apostate church which betrayed the Saviour of the world ; and its judgment will be rendered in calamities second only to those which avenged the di\'ine blood invoked by Jerusalem on herself and her children.
How, then, shall Christians seek the good of their country for the church's sake ? This raises the more practical question of present duty, and introduces the more practical part of my dis- course.
And first. Christians should everywhere begin to pray for their country. " Because of the house of the Lord our God, let us seek its good." The guilty churches of all our land should humble themselves before a holy God for their Christian back- slidings and our national sins. " Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly ; gather the people, sanc- tify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts ; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep l)elween the porch and the altar; and let them say. Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy heritage to reproach."
And along with this should go humble confessions of our sins, individual and social. And here let me distinctly warn you, that I am not about to point your attention to sins of fellow- citizens of another quarter of the Confederacy, from whose faults some may suppose the present fear arises. "Whether they have committed faults, or how great, it is not my present concern to say. Our business is to-day Avith our own sins. It will do our hearts no good to confess to God the sins of our fellow-men ; He already knows them, and estimates them more fairly than
THE christian's BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM. 407
perhaps our prejudice wdll permit us to do. It is for our own sins alone that we are responsible to God. It is our oavti sins alone that "we have the means of reforming, by the help of his grace. Let each man, then, consider and forsake his personal transgressions ; for as your persons help to swell the aggregate of this great people, so your individual sins have gone to form that black cloud of guilt which threatens to hide from us the favorable light of our heavenly Father's face But let us remem- ber, and confess also, our social sins : that general worldliness which hath set up the high places of its covetous idolatries all over the good land God hath given us ; that selfish profusion and luxury which have squandered on the pride of life so much of the goods of our stewardship ; that heaven-daring profanity and blasphemy by reason of which the land mourneth. And let me not forget faithfully to protest, on such a day as this, against that peculiar sin of the southern country, the passion for bloody retaliation of personal wrong, which has been so often professed and indulged among us, unwhipped of justice. Ton have allowed too often the man of violence, the duelist, profess- ing his pretended " code of honor " — most hateful and deceitful pretence of that father of lies, who was a murderer from the beginning — to stalk through the land with wrongs upon his angry tongue and blood upon his hand, while his crime was winked at by justice, and almost applauded by a cormpt public opinion. " So ye have polluted the land wherein ye are ; for blood, it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." Let us remember, also, that our innocence or rightfulness in the particular point of present differences and anticipated col- lisions gives no assurance that God may not chastise us for our sins by those very events. Often has his manifold, wise, and righteous providence j)ermitted an unjust aggressor to make himself the instrument wherewith to lash his sinning people, even when he afterwards punished the invader himself.
Second, We would say, with all the earnestness and emphasis which the most solemn feeUng can inspire, let each individual Christian in our land, whether he sits in our liaUs of legislature or rules as a magistrate, or guides public opinion through the press, or merely fills the station of the private citizen, consider his own personal concern in this matter. We would affection-
408 THE christian's best motive for patriotism.
atelj indiyidiialize each man, and sav to him, " My brother, thou art the man. Consider -svhat would God have you to do?" Every Christian man, whether law-maker or law executor or A-oter, should carry his Christian conscience, enlightened by God's word, into his political duty in another manner than we have been accustomed to do. We must ask less what l)arty cau- cuses and leaders dictate, and more what duty dictates ; for the day is at hand when we shall lie brought to an aAvful judgment for the thoughtless manner in which we exercise our civic func- tion. My brethren, the Christians of this land are able to con- trol the selection of reckless and wicked men for places of trust, if they please, and Avill do their duty. Here are four millions of men and women, chiefly adults, among a people of twenty-six millions of men, women, children, and slaves — four millions who profess to be supremely ruled by principles of righteousness, peace, and love, and to be imited to each other in the brother- hood of a heavenly birth. If even the voters among these would go together to the polls to uphold the cause of peace they would turn the scale of every election. "Where is the community in all our land where the male citizens, who are professors of Christianity, would not give the victory to that party to which they gave their united support ? But alas ! how often have we gone on Monday to the hustings, after having appeared on Sab- bath as the servants of the Prince of Peace, and brethren of all his servants, and, in our political heats speedily forgotten that we were Christians ? Let each Christian citizen have his inde- pendent political predilections, and support them with decision, if you please. Let them, if need be, render that enlightened and moderate allegiance to the party of their choice which is supposed to be essential in free governments. But when then* party demands of them that they shall sustain men of corrupt private morals or reckless passions, because of their supposed j^arfy orthodoxy, let all Christians say : " Xay, verily, we would fain yield all reasonable jiarty fidelity ; but we are also partisans in the commonwealth of King Jesus, and our allegiance to him transcends all others. Unless you will present us a man who to party oiihodoxy unites private viiiues, we cannot sustain him." Then would their reasonable demand be potential in ever}- party, and the abuse would be crushed. And this stand, if taken by Christian citizens, we afl&rm, would infi-inge no personal or asso-
THE christian's BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM. 409
ciatecl rights ; for is there any party who would admit that it had uot a single member respectable, virtuous, and sol)er enough to deserve the suffrages of Christian men ? If there is, surely it is time it should slink away from the arena of political competition and hide itself in oblivion ! Here, then, is a prominent duty, if we would save our country, that we shall carry our citizenship in the kingdom of heaven everywhere, and make it dominate over every public act. We must obey the law of God rather than the unrighteous behests of party, to " choose out of all the people cible men, such as fear God, men of irutli, liaihig covetousness, and 2}lace such over them to he riders," or God will assuredly avenge himself for our- violated allegiance to him. The Christians of this country must sternly claim that wicked or reckless men shall no longer hold the helm of state ; that political orthodoxy shall no longer atone for that worst offence against citizenship, a wicked life. And along with rulers I would include the direc- tors of the public press as being of the general class of " leaders of the people." Even while you boast of the potencj- of this engine of the nineteenth century, you have allowed it to fall, in many cases, into most incompetent and dangerous hands. See who have held this responsible lever in our land in these latter days ! Some are honorable and patriotic, butnnore are unreli- able ; some mere half -educated youths, without any stake of family, estate, or reputation in the community ; some fiery de- nouncers ; some touching the springs of public affairs with a drunken hand ; and many the open advocates and practitioners of the duelist's murderous code — these men you have permitted, and even upheld and salaried, in your easy thoughtlessness, to misrepresent, misdirect, and inflame the public sentiment of the nation !
There arc many reasons which demand of every God-fearing citizen that he shall sustain, directl}' or indii'ectly, none but honest and prudent men in places of influence. When you ele- Aate a bad man, you give to him a hundred-fold more power of example to corrupt your sons, and your neighbors' sons, by his evil acts. Those acts are a hundred-fold more conspicuous and more weighty to attract notice and imitation than if you had left him in his deserved obscurity. When you delegate your money, influence or civic power to a bad man, you make his wicked ofiicial acts and influence vour own ; he is vour chosen
410 THE christian's BEST MOTIVE TOT, TATPJOTISM.
agent, and acts for you, and be assured a jealous God will not forget to visit the people for tlie guilt thus contracted.
But especially should you remember, at such a period as this, the boundless mischief -uTOught by the habit of reckless vitupe- ration and the political "saolence in which bad and foolish or inexj^erienced men indulge to further political ends. It is this which chiefly has created our present unhaj)py dangers, by misrepresenting each section to the other. You have heard descriptions of the rei^n of terror in the first French Revolution, and perhaps as you saw the frightful and murderous violence of political factions there displayed, you have exclaimed, " Were these men or devils ? " They were men, my brethren ; " men of like passions with us." Read the narrative of the philosophic Thiers, and you will learn the source of these rivers of blood. Uuscrupulous leaders of parties and presses, in order to carry their favorite projects and overpower political rivals, resorted to the trick of imputing odious and malignant motives to all adver- saries ; democrats denouncing Girondists and royalists as traitor- ous plotters of foreign invasion and national sack ; royalists denouncing democrats as agrarians and robbers, till by dint of bandj'ing the outrageous charges backwards and forwards, all minds w^ere gradually embittered and prepared to believe the worst. Hence the bloody poHtical proscriptions ; hence the frightful butcheries of the Sejytemhriseurs ; because misguided men were taught to believe that no less trenchant remedy would anticipate the treason designed against the country.
Now, I say to you in all faithfulness, that the reckless and incapable men w^hom you have weakly trusted with power or influence, have already led us far on towards similar calamities. They have bandied violent words, those cheap weapons of petu- lant feebleness ; they have justified aggression ; they have mis- represented our temjDers and principles ; answered, alas, by equal misrepresentations and violence in other quai-ters, until multitudes of honest men, who sincerely suppose themselves as patriotic as 3^ou think yourselves, are really persuaded that in resisting your claims they are but rearing a necessary bulwark against lawless and arrogant aggressions. Four years ago an instance of unjust and wicked insolence was avenged on the floor of the Senate of the United States, by an act of ill-judged violence. And now, not so much that rash and sinful act of re-
THE CHKISTIAN's BEST MOTIVE FOR PATRIOTISM. 411
taliation, but the insane, wicked and insulting justification of it generally made by Southern secular prints, directed by reckless boys or professed duelists, a juetification abhorred and con- demned by almost all decent men in our section, is this day carrying myriads of votes, of men who, if not thus outraged, might have remained calm and just towards us, for the cause whose triumph you deprecate. Thus the miserable games goes on, until, at last, blood breaks out, and the exhausted combat- ants are taught in the end, by mutually inflicted miseries, to pause and consider, that they are contending mainly for a mis- understanding of each other.
Now, I well know, my brethren and fellow-citizens, that if I should speak to you in private, you would all concur in my honest reprobation of this folly and injustice ; I know that I have but expressed the common sentiments of all good men among us. Yet, in your dislike to be troubled, in your easy good nature, you let things take their course, under the wretched mismanagement of the hands into which they have fallen ; you. even permit your money and your influence to go, indirectly, in support of these agents of mischief and misrule, who thus mis- represent your characters, and aims, and rights. If the public interests cannot arouse you from this good-natured sin, let me see if I cannot touch you more nearly, Whereunto can all this mutual violence grow ? Do not the increasing anger and preju- dice, which seem so fast ripening on both sides for a fatal col- lision, tell you too plainly ? A.nd when these rash representatives of yours in our halls of legislation and our newspapers shall have sown the wind, who will reap the whirlwind ? When they have scattered the dragon's teeth, who must meet that horrent crop which they will produce ? Not they alone ; but you, your sons, your friends and their sons. So that these misleaders of the people, while you so weakly connivo at their indiscretions, may be indirectly preparing the weapon which is to pierce the bosom of your fair-haired boy, and summoning the birds of prey, which are to pick out those eyes whose joy is now the light of your happy homes, as he lies stark on some lost battle-field. For God's sake, then, for your ovm sakes, for your children's sake, arise, declare that from this day no money, no vote, no influence of yours shall go to the maintenance of any other
412 THE christian's best motive for patriotism.
counsels than those of moderation, righteousness and manly for- bearance.
Last : Every Christian must study the things which make for peace. AU must resolve that they vnll demand of others no- thing more than their necessary rights, and that in the tone of moderation and forbearance. Tea, that they will generously forego all except what duty forbids them to forego, rather than have strife with brethren. We must all be magnanimous enough to forbear the language of threatening and reproach, language Avhich evinces no coui'age, to acknowledge the ex s of our-
selves and oui" friends, and to make reparation for it, whether such reparation be offered on the other side or not. Instead of complaining in vindictive and bitter spirit of the extravagances of misguided men on the opposite side, each man should inquu-e whether there are not sinful extravagances on his own side ; and when it is necessary to remonstrate, do it in the tone of wounded love, rather than of insane threatening. In one word, let each party resolve to grant all that is right, and ask nothing else, " and lo, there vdH be great calm."
A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIAXS/
AX ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY AND LAITY OF THE CHEISTL^ CHURCHES OF THE COUNTRY.
DEAR BEETHEEN: Wlieu evils so great impend over our beloved country every citizen should do liis utmost to avert tliem ; and especially should Christians seek the good of their native land, because of the house of the Lord their God which is in it. We have, therefore, presumed, humbly, but earnestly, to beseech your favorable attention to the following views touching the duties appropriate to the people of God in this day of rebuke :
The great sectional questions which di\'ide the opinions of the North and the South seem at length to have reached their crisis. One State has formally retracted its allegiance to the Union, others are preparing to follow, and a tempest of excite- ment shakes the nation. " We are in the midst of a revolution, only bloodless as yet." But every day the complications as- sume a more angry aspect ; a fatal current seems drifting all parties with fi-ightful rapidity towards the bloody arbitrament of the sword. Daily the public heart stands still, expecting lest the next breeze which sweeps from the South come freighted with the resounding crash of civil war, which may soon be re- echoed from all other quarters. The counsels of our rulers seem to be turned into disappointment, and the lover of his country knows not whither to look for refuge, except to God. But in this extremity a cheering voice reaches us fi'om the great city of New York in the form of a Christian appeal to the people of God in the South, and signed by twenty-six of the most be- loved and venerable names among the clergy of various Chris- tian denominations. A similar aj^peal is also issued by most revered and influential Christians from Chicago, in the great Northwest. The object of both is to summon God's people to
' Appeared in the Central Presbi/terian. March, 1861. 413
414: A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS.
the rescue of their country, and to the blessed work of peace- makers ; to hold out to us the right hand of love and sympathy across the chasm which threatens to divide our country ; to give "US their solemn assurances that sectionalism and fanaticism are not dominant at the North, and to pledge themselves to the noble work of breaking the rising power, and restoring to us our Tights in the Union. Stating the solemn conviction that the yictory of truth and right over error can yet be secured if time and favorable auspices are allowed for the discussion there, they implore the South not to precipitate the rupture of the con- federation before they are allowed to go behind the heated or interested partisans who have misdirected public opinion, and make the appeal to the honest and patriotic people. Every Christian at the South will concur in meeting these fraternal and generous advances in the spirit in which they are made, "^^e know that we may bid our Northern brethren God-speed in their work in behalf of Southern Christians. We joyfully re- ciprocate their affectionate greeting, and pray God that they may be successful in moderating animosities, in removing mis- conceptions, in dispelling fanaticism ; and we entreat them to lose no time in a Avork so urgently needed to allay the just ap- prehensions of our people. But now, does it not become us. Christian brethren of the South, to cooperate in our sphere in the same peaceful work ? Have we no animosities to moderate, no misapprehensions to repudiate, no exaggerations of feeling and language to . confess, and no advances to make toAvards a renewed fraternity ?
All Southern Christians would deplore an unnecessary rup- ture of the Federal Union bequeathed to us by our heroic sires, as marring their glorious work, and showing ourselves unworthy of their inheritance ; as bringing the gorgeous promise of the "Empire Republic" to an early and ignominious close; as plunging the country into the inevitable evils of financial dis- tress, and but too probably into the horrors of frequent wars ; as inaugurating on this hitherto peaceful continent the jealous politi- cal system of Europe, with its balance of power, its enormous standing armies, its crushing taxation, and ultimately, its despotic governments ; as covering the claims of American Christianity and republicanism with failure and disgrace before the world ; as destroying our national weight and glory, and thus our per-
A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS. 415
sonal security abroad ; as disappointing the hopes of self-gov- ernment thoughoiit the nations, and justifying the claims of tyranny ; as bringing innumerable confusions, disruptions, and disaster upon the churches of Christ, and as arresting the bene- ficent labors of one-third of the missionaries and teachers, and drying up a similar portion of the charities which now carry life to the perishing souls of the heathen. Surely he who would risk even the possibilit}- of a result so dire, unless impelled to do it by causes absolute and inexorable, hath not the heart of a Christian, nor even of a man. Do those causes, then, exist ? We would distinctly say, to avoid creating a mischievous mis- take, that if the Southern States of the Union are persistently refused their full rights in the confederation and its common territories and the protection granted by the constitution to their peculiar property, then, in our opinion, the Southern peo- ple must conclude that these causes do exist, and that the catas- trophe, however lamentable, must be met, sorrowfully indeed, and yet with the resolution of freemen. But, on the other hand, we cordially appreciate the honorable sincerity of the revered brethren of the North, who assure us that, in their opinion, the necessity for this ultimate resort does not yet exist ; and as- suredly every motive should prompt us to hope till hope be- comes impossible, that they judge correctly. We rejoice to see grounds for such a hope in the large and patriotic minority, ap- proaching so nearly to half the Northern community, who, in the late presidential election, cast their suffrages with so much manliness in favor of our rights ; in the extensive reaction which has since appeared in public sentiment there ; in the persever- ing hopes and efforts of our ^dsest and most patriotic legislators to conciliate, and in the force of truth and right when fairly pre- sented. Nor can we permit this hope to be extinguished b}- the pertinacity of the leaders of that misguided party which assails our rights ; when their conduct may be so fully explained by the personal exasperations of former political collisions, by their confident expectation that the imprudent haste of some part of the Southern people would compromise the justice of their cause before the nation, and by their full conscioiisness that the peace- ful triumph of constitutional right would be the final downfall of their selfish ambition.
We can easily believe that these considerations may prompt
416 A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHKISTIAXS.
tliem to deny us justice ; and yet tliat their constituents "would be more just to us than these leaders who misrepresent them. Moreover, if sectional differences, so long and so keenly con- tested, had not produced many misconceptions on both sides, ■we should have been more or less than human, and our party history would be different from that of all other free nations. May not j^atience and serious discussion, in the presence of in- terests so solemn and tremendous, dissipate those misconcep- tions ? Is there not still ground to hope that, if the Southern people would carefully avoid complicating their righteous cause by any undue haste, or by impinging upon existing laws, or even prejudices, more than the absolute necessities of self- defence require ; if the great issue were can-ied back from em- bittered party leaders to the body of the citizens, disencumbered of all other questions of a change of administration and of pub- lic wealth which were recently mixed with it ; if the North were asked whether she would yield to us a generous and fair con- struction of our equal rights and in the future punctually observe it, or whether she would force us to an unwilhng but necessary self-defence outside the Union, the answer would be one which would restore peace to an anxious country ?
Now, we would humbly urge upon you, dear brethren of the South, whether it is not due to our country, to our race, to our God, and due especially to the noble men who are entreating us to give them one more opportunity to achieve our rights and our peace for us by the weapons of argument, that we should withhold the irreparable step as long as there is a spark of hope ? And to our brethren of the North and South alike, we would say, when that final step is so solemn and may be so awful, should not every honorable means for avoiding its neces- sity be exhausted by the good man before he takes it ? Tea, even though we were uncertain whether the glimmer of hope were a true living spark, or only an illusion, would it not be better to wait till that uncertainty is decided than to incur the calamities of the extreme remedy, and afterwards be haunted perhaps by the remorseful discovery that we had precipitated them without actiial necessity ? We do not advise that any of the measures truly necessary for self-defence be delayed a single day ; biit Ave would respectfully plead that it would be eminently worthy of you as Christian citizens to seek the suspension of all
A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS. 417
such measures as would cut off or embarrass the appeal from the rulers to the people of the North, as would causelessly em- bitter or complicate the existing differences ; and, above all, such measures as would set on fire the destroying 23assious of civil war. It becomes us, even while we prepare for the worst, to look diligently on all sides for some mediating um- pire, by whose impartial hand "the dogs of war" may be held in leash till the final verdict of the people is given. Surely God has not so given us over to madness, but the issue might still be that they should then be chained up forever, instead of being now let lose to rend our common mother. And futlier, we would humbly appeal to all Christians of the North and the South to exert everywhere the moderating influences appropri- ate to the followers of the Prince of Peace. It cannot but ap- pear to the reasonable mind most unsuitable that Christian men and Christian ministers should be in the extreme front of jparty movements, when all history tells us that such movements never become heated without becoming extreme. In tempering the body-politic together, God has given to the Christian members a function like that of the conscience in the natural man, which regulates and moderates the whole. The movement of the com- mon body is the resultant of many concurring forces, of which, if some are liable to be too sluggish, many are always too im- petuous. The Christian may therefore safely conclude that his duty will be best performed by acting "odth the moderate, in- stead of the vehement. God's people are the regulators of the social machine. Shall they forget this most necessary and wholesome function and throw their whole momentum to hurry that motion which they should regulate ?
Then nothing can be expected but that the machine will wreck itself with its own mad velocity. Let us then all study moderation of political sentiment, of resentments and of language. Let us keep a watch before the door of our lips, lest some needless word issue forth to exasperate what is already too angry. Let us see to it that we do not initiate the sin, nor share the guilt of those who have perverted the sacred influences of Christianity to sanctify their malignant feelings. Let the Sabbath, with its sacred calm, be reserved more jealously than ever for topics truly divine, in order that its recurring sanctities may aid in tempering the excitement of the people. For this is the wise.
VoL.ii-27.
41S A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS.
ordinance of him who " made the Sabbatli for man/' tliat this "weekly breach iu the current of our secular cares, and the sober- ing and elevating contrast of heavenly contemplations, might prevent the flow of earthly passions from becoming morbid and chafing the soul into phrenzy. It is usuallj' found, that where- ever the excitements of our weekly debates are allowed to in- trude into the sanctuar}-, the pulpit and the Sabbath, a feverish exasperation of j)opular feeling results.
The urgency of oiu* country's danger will be our apology for again beseeching you, dear brethren, to remember your Chris- tian responsibilities to God and his church. Every man, whose heart is not harder than the nether mill-stone, will surely count the cost at such a time as this, and view deliberately the terri- ble rfesults which may possibly or probably come from error now committed. Is disunion, is civil war before us, a civil war whose rigor and atrocities may appall the world ? The wisest hearts admit the fear. Let each man then place himself now, before it is too late, in the midst of the possible horrors of that fratricidal war ; let him bring before his mind a country rav- aged ; its fields, late smihng with plenty, stained by battle, and the carnage of fellow-citizens and brethren of a common Chris- tianity ; its cities sacked or deserted ; its peaceful homes deso- lated, and its order displaced by fierce anarcliy ; and let him ask himself whether, as he stands amidst the ruin, he will be able to take heaven to witness that none of its guilt is in his skirts. Let each man remember that he must answer at the judgment seat of Christ for his conduct as a citizen, and see to it that when he meets there the ghost of all that shall be slain, of all the wives that shall be widowed, of all the children that shall be consigned to orphanage and destitution, of all the hoary parents that shall be bereaved of their sons in this quarrel, and of all the ignorant damned through our neglect, Avhile we were waging the work of mutual destruction, he shall be able to ap- peal to the searcher of hearts that none of it was his doing ; that every w^hit of this mountainous aggregate of guilt belongs to his adversaries, and not to himself; that he had exhausted every righteous expedient and exerted every lawful power to avoid it. If, brethren, you can do this, it will be well with you, however ill it may be with our miserable country. But if uot^ who can estimate that guilt ! But, blessed be God, all is not yet
A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS. 419
lost. And if onl}' liis cliurcli shall liave grace given to lier €qnal to lier dnty ; if slie can oulj rise above the vulgar mists of prejudice, false pride and mutual recriminations ; if she shall steadily lift up the calm, loving and potential voice of God's law, speaking peace to the tumults of the people, and even to the incipient din of war ; if the hands of Christian love are noAv made strong to knit again the bands which angry and sel- fish men have rent, how glorious will be this achievement of Christianity to her Lord, and how blessed to his creatures. Pellow Christians, let us arise as one man, and accomplish it
And, finally, that this peaceful victory may be won, we would repeat the call to prayer. ' God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Let us continue daily before the throne of the heavenly grace, those humiliations and entreaties to which we were called by our venerable Chief Magistrate, until God have mercy upon us, and the sword which is stretched out over the land is withdrawn. And we will be your servants, for Christ's sake.
To the foregoing appeal ■were appended the following signatures : Samuel B. Wilson, D. D., Professor and President, Union Theological Semi- naiy, Va.
John M. P. Atkinson, D. D., President Hampden-Siduej^ College.
B. M. Smith, D. D. , Professor Union Theological Seminary, Ya.
RoBEET L. Dabntet, D. D. , Professor Union Theological Seminary, Va.
Rev. T. E. Peck, D. D., Professor Union Theological Seminary, Va.
Eev. Heney Snydee, Professor Hampden-Sidney College.
Hey. Wm. Beown, D. D., Editor of Central Presbyterian.
Rev. Geoege D. Aemstkong, D. D. , Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Va.
Rev. Jacob D. Mitchell, D. D., Second Presbyterian Church, Lynchburg, Va,
Rev. James C. Clopton, Pastor of the African Church, Lynchburg, Va.
Rev. Josiah Clift, Methodist Protestant Church, Lynchburg, Va.
James B. Ramsey, D. D., First Presbyterian Church, Lynchburg, Va.
Deuey Lacy, D. D., late President Davidson College, North Carolina.
At the Univeesity of Vieginia. W. H. McGuFFEY, Professor of Moral Philosophy. John B. Minoe, Professor of Common and Statute Law. H. HowAUD, M. D., Professor of Medicine. S. Maupin, M. D. , Professor of Chemistry. M. Schele De Veee, Professor of Modern Languages.
Lexington, Va., January 14, 1861. We the undersigned cordially concur in the general tone of sentiment and feeling expressed in the foregoing paper :
Rev. Wm. N. Pendleton, D. D., Rector of Grace Church, Eijiscopal. R2V . F. C. Tebbs, Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Wm. S. White, D. D. Presbyterian Church.
420 A PACIFIC APPEAL TO CHRISTIANS.
Eev. Geo. Junkin, D. D., ]
Pkof. J. L. Campbell,
Pkof. A. L. Nelson, |- Faculty of Washington College^ Va,
Pbof. C. J. Hakeis, j
Pkof. James J. White, J
John T. L Preston, Virginia Military Institute.
T. J. Jackson, Professor, Virginia Military Institute.
Eandolph Macon College, Va.
While we love the Union, and deplore the calamities which so seriously threaten. our country, and while we highly appreciate the truly Christian forbearance and sentiments of justice embodied in the foregoing address, we must be allowed to say that we believe that nothing short of the decisive measures now before the people of the Southern States will cause many of our intelligent and calculating, but tardy, yet doubtless true friends at the North to realize the fact that we are in earnest in asserting our rights under the constitution and our beliefs on the moral aspects of the questions involved. And if these remedies fail to save the Union, we are still willing to take them as the least of impending evils, with a firm persuasion that we are not responsible for the ultimate results.
Wm, A. Smith, D. D. , President of Randolph Macon College.
Ph. W. Aechek, Presiding Elder of Eandolph Macon College.
Geokge H. Eay, Chaplain of Randolph Macon College.
ox THE STATE OF THE COOTTRY.^
Apeil 20, 1861. Eev. S. I. Prime, D. D.
Key. and Dear Brother ;
I TOOK occasion, as you will remember, in lifting up my fee- ble voice to my fellow-Cliristians on behalf of what was once our country, to point out the infamy which would attach to the Christianity of America, if, after all its boasts of numbers, power, influence, and spirituality, it were found impotent to save the land from fratricidal war. You have informed your readers more than once that you feared it was now too late to reason. Then I wish, through you, to lay this final testimony before the Christians of the North on behalf of myself and my brethren in Virginia, that the guilt lies not at our door. This mountainous aggregate of enormous crime, of a ruined constitution, of cities sacked, of reeking battle-fields, of scattered churches, of widowed wives and orphaned children , of souls plunged into hell — we roll it from us, taking the Judge to witness, before whom you and we will stand, that the blood is not upon our heads. When the danger first rose threatening in the horizon our cry was, " Chris- tians to the rescue." And nobly did the Christians of Virginia rally to the call. * Did you not see their influence in the patriotic efforts of this old commonwealth to stand in the breach between the angry elements? Yes, it was the Christians of Virginia, combined with her other citizens, who caused her to endure wrongs until endurance ceased to be a virtue ; to hold out the olive branch, even after it had been spurned again and again ;
' The following letter, originallj' published in the Central Presbyterian, of Rich- mond, Va., in 18G1, and addressed to the Eev. S. I. Prime, D. D., one of the editors of the I^ew York Observer, was deemed so pertinent to the then existing relations be- tween the North and the South, that an association of gentlemen were led to re- publish it iu pamjihlet form, with the conviction that, by giving to it a more dif- fusive circulation, they would thereby render it the instrument of accomplishing great good in behalf of religion and patriotism.
421
422 ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTEY.
to study modes of compromise and conciliation, until the very verge of dishonor was touched ; to refuse to despair of the re- public, after almost all else had surrendered all hope, and to decline all acts of self-defence even which might precipitate col- lision, until the cloud had risen over her very head and its light- nings were about to burst. So long-suffering, so reluctant to behold the ruin of that Union to which she contributed so much, lias Virginia been that many of her own sons were disgusted by her delays and driven to fury and despair by the lowering storm and the taunts of her enemies. And those enemies (woe to them for their folly) mistook this generous long-suffering, this magnanimous struggle for peace, as evidence of cowardice! They said the " old mother of states and statemen " was de- crepit ; that her genius was turned to dotage ; that her breasts were dry of that milk which suckled her Henrys and her Wasli- ingtons. They thought her little more than a cowering beldame, whom a timely threat would reduce to utter submissiveness. And thus they dared to stretch over her head the minatory rod of correction. But no sooner was the perilous experiment ap- plied than a result was revealed as unexj^ected and startling as that caused by the touch of Ithuriel's spear. This patient, peaceful, seemingly hesitating paralytic flamed up at the insolent touch, like a pyramid of fire, and Virginia stands forth in her immortal 3'outh, the " unterrified commonwealth " of other days, a Minerva radiant with the terrible glories of policy and war, wielding that sword which has ever flashed before the eyes of aggressors, the " sic semper tyrannis.^'' Yes, the point of farthest endurance has been passed at length. All her demands for con- stitutional redress have been refused ; her magnanimous, her too generous concessions of right have been met by the insolent de- mand for unconditional surrender of honor and dignity ; her for- bearance has been abused to collect armaments and equip for- tresses on her border and on her own soil for her intimidation ;, the infamous alternative has been forced upon her, either to, brave the oppressor's rod or to aid him in the destruction of her sisters and her children, because they are contending nobly, if too rashly, for rights common to them and her ; and, to crown all, the constitution of the United States has been rent in frag- ments by the effort to muster new forces and wage war without authority of law, and to coerce sovereign States into adhesion, in
ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 423
the ntter al3sence of all powers or intentions of tlie federal com- pact to that effect. Hence, there is noAV but one mind and one heart in Virginia ; and from the Ohio to the Atlantic, from the sturdy mountaineers, and her chivalrous lowlanders alike, there is flung back with high disdain the gaunlet of deathless resist- ance. In one week the whole State has been converted into a camp.
Now once more, before the Titantic strife begins, we ask the conservative freemen of the North, For what good end is this strife? AVe do not reason with malignant fanatics, with the mob whose coarse and brutal nature is phrenzied with sectional hatred. But we ask, where is the great conservative party, which polled as many votes against Abraham Lincoln as the whole South ? Where are the good men who, a few weeks ago even, held out the olive branch to us, and assured us that, if we would hold our hands, the aggressive party should be brought to reason ? Where is that Albany convention which pledged itself against war ? If it is too late to reason, even with you, we will at least lay down our last testimony against you before our countrymen, the church, and the righteous heavens.
Consider, then, that this appeal to arms, in such a cause, is as dangerous to your rights as to ours. Let it be carried out, and whatever may have befallen us, it will leave you with a consoli- dated Federal government, with State sovereignty extinguished, with the constitution in ruins, and with your rights and safety a prey to a frightful combination of radicalism and military des- potism. For what thoughtful man does not perceive that the premises of the anti-slavery fanatic are just those of the agra- rian ? The cause of peace then was as much your cause as ours. And if war is thrust upon us, you should be found on our side, contending for the supremac}- of law and constitutional safe- guards, with a courage worthy of the heroes of Saratoga and Trenton.
How horrible is this war to be, of a whole North against a whole South ! Not to dwell on all its incidents of shame and misery, let us ask, who are to fight it out to its bitter issue? Not the tongue- valiant brawlers, who have inflamed the fued by their prating lies about the " barbarism of slavery ;" these piti- ful miscreants are already hiding their cowardly persons from the storm ; and its brunt must be borne by the honest, the mis-
424 ON THE STATE OF THE COUXTKY.
guided, the j^atriotic men of the North Avho iu a moment of madness hare been thrust into this false position.
How iniquitous is its real object — the conquest and subjuga- tion of free and equal States ! We have vainly boasted of the right of freemen to choose their own form of government. This right the Korth now declares the South shall not enjoy. The very tyrants of the Old World are surrendering the unrighteous claim to thrust institutions on an iTn"v\'illing people. Even grasp- ing England, which once endeavored to ruin the colonies she could not retain, stands ready to concede to her dependencies a separate existence, when they determine it is best for their wel- fare ; but the North undertakes to compel its equals to abide under a government which they judge ruinous to their rights I Thus, this free, Christian, repubUcan North urges on the war, while even despotic Europe cries shame on the fratricidal strife, and turns Tvith sickening disgust and loathing from the bloody spectacle !
And what can this war effect, except mischief ? Will it re- store the supremacy of federal laws over the seceded States? Can you conquer the united South ? Can you conquer the seven Confederate States ? And when Tirginia has joined her sisters, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and they have rallied to their sides their stalwart daughters of the West, is there one abolitionist insane enough, in the fury of his sectional hate, to believe that he can conquer them all ? Then what can this war effect, save to shed rivers of treasure and of more pre- cious blood, to plant the seeds of national hatred which are to bear fruits in other wars for centimes, and to rend this Union forever beyond the hope of reconstruction ? Why, then, do you go to war with us ?
Let it not be replied, that it is South Carolina which has first gone to war with you, and that Virginia has made h.evs>e\i j^ai'ti- ceps criininis by refusing to permit her righteous chastisement. This is what clamoring demagogues say ; but before an enhght- ened posterity, as before impartial spectators, it is false. And here let us distinctly understand the ground the conservative North means to occupy as to the independence of the States in their reserved rights. If you do indeed construe the Federal compact so that a ruthless majority may perpetrate unconstitu- tional wrong, may trample on the sacred authority of the Su-
ox THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 425
preme Court, and may jjervert all the powers of the Federal government, instituted for the equal good of all, to the depres- sion of a class of rights as much recognized by the constitution as any other, and the minority have no remedy except submis- sion ; if you mean that sovereign States, tho creators bj their free acts of these Federal authorities, are to be the helpless slaves, in the last resort, of their own servants ; if you mean that one party is to keep or break the compact as his arrogance, interest, or caprice may dictate, and the other is to be held bound by it at the point of the sword ; if you mean that a sovereign State is not to be the jndge of its ovm wrong and its own redress when all constitutional appeals have failed, then we say, that it is high time we understood each other ; then was this much-lauded Federal compact a monstrous fraud, a horrid trap ; and we do well to free ourselves and our children from it at the expense of all the horrors of another revolutionary war. The conservative pai-ty in the North declared, with us, that the platform of the Black Republican party was unconstitutional. On this their opposition to it was based. They proclaimed it in their speeches, they wi'ote it on their banners, they fired it from their cannon, they voted it at the polls, that the Chicago platform was uncon- stitutional. And now that this platform has been fixed on the ruins of the constitution, and its elected exponent has declared from the steps of the Capitol that the last barrier, the Supreme Court, is to be prostrated to the will of a majority ; now that the conservative party of the North has demonstrated itself (as it does this day by its succumbing to this fiendish war-phrenzy), impotent to protect us, themselves, or the constitution (the con- stitution overthrown according to theu' own avowals), are we to be held offenders because we attempted peacefully to exercise the last remaining remedy, and to pluck our liberties and the princi- ples of this constitution from the vandal hands which were rend- ing them all, by a quiet secession ? Nay, verily ! Of all men in the world, the conservative men of the North cannot condemn that act, for they have dedared the constitution broken, and they have^^/'oi'f?^? theinselves incompetent to restore it. And least of all should Virginia be condemned for this act, because she magnanimously forebore it till forbearance was almost her ruin, and until repeated aggressions had left no alternative. Yet more, Tirginia cannot be condemned, because, in the ordinance of
42C ON THE STATE OP THE COUNTRY.
1787, in -wliicli she first accepted tlie coustitutiou, slie erjrresshj reserved to lierself the right to sever its bonds whenever she judged thej were used injuriously to her covenanted rights. It was on this condition she was received into the family of States ; and her reception on this condition was a concession of it by her partners. From that condition she has never for one hour re- ceded. Witness the spirit of the Kesolutions of 1798, 1799. And now, shall she be called a covenant-breaker because she judges that the time has come to exercise her right exj^ressly resented ? Nay, verily.
If, then, we have the right of peaceably severing our connec- tion with the former confederation, and the attempt has been made by force to obstruct that right, they ivlio aUe77ipted the oh- struction are the first aggressors. The first act of war was com- mitted by the Government of "Washington against South Carolina, when fortresses, intended lawfully only for her protection, were armed for her subjugation. That act of war was repeated when armed preparations were twice made to reinforce these means of her oppression. It was repeated when she was formally noti- j&ed that these means of her oppression would be strengthened, "peaceably if they could be, forcibly if they must." And then, at last, after a magnanimous forbearance, little expected of her ardent nature, she proceeded to what was an act of strict self- defence — the reduction of Fort Sumter.
But, it is replied, the seceding States have committed the in- tolerable wrong of seizing Federal ships, posts, property and money, by violence ! And whose fault is this ? Had the right of self-protection outside the Federal constitution been peace- fully allowed us, after our rights had been trampled in the mire within it, not one dollar's worth would have been seized. All would yet be accounted for, to the last shoe-latchet, if the North would hold its hand. The South has not seceded because it wished to commit a robbery. As for the forts within their bor- ders, the only legitimate use the United States could have for them was to protect those States. When we relinquish all claims on that protection, what desire can the Federal govern- ment have to retain them, save as instruments of ojjpression ? But you say they were forcibly seized! And why ? except that the South was well assured (have not events proved the fear "well grounded?) that a jDurpose existed to employ them for her
ox THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 427
ruin. Mv neiglibor aud equal presumes to obstruct me iu tlie prosecution of my rights, and brandishes a dirk before my face ; when I wrench it from his liand to save my own life, shall he then accuse me of unlawfully steahng his dirk? Yet, such is the insulting nonsense which has been everywhere vented, to make the South an offender for acts of self-defence, which the malignant intentions disclosed by the Government of TVashing- ton have justified more aud more every day.
But it is exclaimed : " The South has fired U]:^on the fiag of the Union!" Did this flag of the Uuion wave in the cause of right, when it was unfurled as the signal of oppression ? Spain fired upon the flag of France when Xapcleon laid his iniquitous gi*asp upon her soil and crown. Did this justify the righteous and God-fearing Frenchman in seeking to destroy Spain ? Let the aggressor amend his wrong before he demands a penalty of the innocent party who has only exercised the right of self- defence.
It is urged again : If the Union is not maintained, the inter- ests of the North in the navigation of the Gulf and the Missis- sippi, in the comities of international intercourse, in the moneys expended in the Southern States for fortifications, may be jeop- arded. I reply, it will be time enough to begin to fight when those interests are infringed. May I murder my neighbor be- cause I susjpect that he may defraud me in the division of a com- mon property, which is about to be made, and because I find him now more in my power ? Shall not God avenge for such iniquity as -this ?
But it is said, in fine, " If the right of secession is allowed, then our government is only a rope of sand." I reply demon- stratively, that the government of which Yirginia has been a member has always had this condition in it, as to her ; for her right to go out of it whenever she judged herself injured by it was expressly reserved aud conceded from the first. Her recep- tion on those terms was a concession of it. If you say that the people of the Korth are not aware of this, then the only reply we deign to give is, that it is no one's fault but yours that you have allowed yourself to be misled by rulers ignorant of the funda- mental points in the history of the government. Now my argu- ment, and it is iu^incible, is this : that the connection of Yir- ginia. with the Federal government, although containing always
428 ON THE STATE OP THE COUNTRY.
this riglit of secession for an infringement of the compact, has been an}i;hing else, for eighty years, than a rope of sand. It has bonnd her in a firm loyalty to that government. It has been a bond which nothing Init the most ruthless and murderous des- potism could relax ; a bond which retained its strength even when it was binding the State to her incipient dishonor and de- struction. Surely it is a strange and disgraceful fact, that men Avho call themselves freemen and Christians should assume the position, that no force is a real force except that which is ce- mented by an inexorable physical power ! Do they mean that with them honor, covenants, oaths, enlightened self-interest, affections, are only a rope of sand '^ Shame on the utterance of such an argument ! Do they confess themselves so ignorant that they do not know that the physical jjower of even the most iron despotisms reposes on moral forces ? Even a Presbyterian di- vine has been found to declare, that if our Federal compact has in it any admission of a right of secession, it is but a siitiilacrurji of a government. Whereas, all history teaches us, that if the basis of moral forces be withdrawn from beneath, the most rigid despotism becomes but a siimdacrum, and dissolves at the touch of resistance. Hov/ much more, then, must all republican gov- ernment be founded on moral forces, on the consent, the common interests, and the affections of the governed. "While these re- main, the government is strong, and efficient for good; when they are gone, it is impotent for good, and exists only for evil. As long as the purjDOses and compacts of the Federal institutions were tolerably observed by the IS^orth, that government knit us together ; with moral bands, indeed, yet they were stronger than hooks of steel. The North has severed them by aggression, and they cannot be cemented by blood.
Why then shall war be urged on ? No man is blind enough to believe that it can re-construct the Federal Union on equit- able terms. It is waged for revenge, the gratification of sec- tional hate, to solace mortified pride, to satiate the hist of con- quest. From these fiendish passions let every good man with- draw his countenance. It is a. war which the constitution confers no power to wage, even were the secession of the South for insufficient cause. The debates of the fathers who framed it show that this power was expressly withheld — even the Fede- rahst, Hamilton, concurring strenuously. This war has no jus-
ON THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 429
tification in righteousness, in any reasonable hope of good re- sults, in constitutional law. It is the j^ure impulse of bad pas- sions, Will the good men of the North concur in it ?
I desire, through you, my dear brother, to lay down this last protest on that altar where the peace of the land is so soon to be sacrificed. I claim to be heard. If the reign of terror exer- cised by the mobs of jour cities has indeed made it dangerous for you to laj before jour fellow-Christians the deprecatory cry of one who, like me, has labored only for peace, then tell those mobs that not you, but I, am responsible for whateyer in these lines is obnoxious to their malignant minds, and bid them seek their reyenge of me — not of you — at that frontier where we shall meet them, the northernmost verge of the sacred soil of Vir- ginia. And if you find that the yoice of justice and reason is no longer permitted to be heard in the North, that the friends of the constitution cannot lift their hands there with safety in its defence, then we invite you, and all true men, to come to this sunny land, and help us here to construct and defend another temple, where constitutional hberty may abide secure and untarnished. For you we have open arms and warm hearts ; for our enemies, resistance to the death.
Yours in the bonds of the gospel.
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UXIONt^
r I ^HE di\dsions of Protestantism have been often charged as its 1 op2)robrium. Ko one who is governed by the principles of the gospel can fail to deplore the bitterness and injustice of Chris- tians towards each other, which have too oft(>n attended their unavoidable differences. Every right-minded Christian, accord- iuglv, rejoices in the legitimate means for increasing and evinc- ing the spiritual unity of the whole body of God's people. Where this can be done -svithout compromising conscientious convictions, we hail it as an unmingled blessing to our common Zion.
The Utopian dream of the manifestation of the unity of spirit of the whole body of behevers in a universal church union is, however, just one of the prevalent whims of our day. The mod- ern, and especially the American, mind seems to be prone to such epidemic distempers ; and we now see the Christian world, in certain populous parts of this country, morbidly excited with the claim that Protestantism must manifest its Christian unity as popery does ; or else be justly obnoxious to the charge of schism, and remain weak before its thoroughly organized ad- versary.
That all true followers of a common Lord should be one in aims, in spirit, in affection, no one can doubt. The question is, whether their reduction under a single church government and name is necessary to this Christian unity. Or, to borrow the current phrase of the day, whether an orgariic unity is necessary therefor.
I readily admit, at the outset, that this conclusion is not un- natural for those who regard it from a certain point of view. And a wide and intelhgent survey of the history of the church will convince you that this conviction did actually haunt and pervert the thinking of the Christian world for centuries ; and
'TMs article was printed in the Central Presbyterian, May 11 and 18, 1870.
430
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ? 431
tliat it was one of the most difficult of tasks to make even the Protestant world unlearn it. Through all the ages of the pre- latio fathers, and of poperr, men liot unaturally reasoned thus : "Since there is 'one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' must not the visible church be one f Christ is its head ; the church is his body. Can one head be united to more than one body, except it be a formation as monstrous as the fabled Cerberus ? Is Christ divided ? This cannot be. If, then, any sect exists, it and the body from which it is sundered cannot both be Christ's church. The original body must saj' to its severed branch : Inasmuch as you refuse to be one with us, your claim to be a church of Christ must needs unchurch us. If you are Christ's, we cannot be. If we are Christ's, you must be an anti-Christian body ; and so, guilty of the damning sin of schism." Such arguments received obviously a new enforcement when the patristric doctrine was developed, that the graces of redemption are transmitted onl}' through the church sacraments, and that these cannot be ad- ministered at all save by the men who hold an unbroken official succession from the apostles, and their deputies. It was now urged in addition, that as the one Lord had but one college of apostles, who held the same office, and acted with the perfect unity of a common inspiration, there was but one line of suc- cession, and one body in which the sacraments carried any vital grace. But as these ordinances Avere the only channels, they who had them not in their regular succession could not be of the church.
Now, when such reasoners looked back, it was not surprising that they should think they saw full confirmation of their conclusion. The Old Testament church had been one, in outward form as in principles, throughout the ages of the theocrac}-. The church formed by the apostles had been one, bound together by a cer- tain organic unity, as well as by a common faith and love. The great Q^^cumenical councils, the glory of the clerical orders, had industriously maintained this outward unity. Their creeds and canons claimed the allegiance, not only of the conduct, but of the heart, from the Indus to the Pillars of Hercules, and were rendered into the several tongues of the East and West. To maintain this outward unity was the great object of these pom- pous and costly assemblages, of all the controversies and perse- cutions, the anathemas and the laws of patristic ages. And
432 WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION V
■\vlieu at lengtli tlie bisliop of Rome usurped the title of Univer- sal Bishop aud God xipon earth, it was chiefly to incorporate this visible unity in one ofiice for all time. It is not strange, there- fore, that to men whose minds were blinded by a false postulate, the idea of more than one visible church in one spiritual body should have seemed a self-evident absurdity.
Even the great Reformation failed to disabuse the minds of many Protestants of this delusion, although the precious princi- ples which were its source should have exploded it at once. The notion that Christian unity could not exist unless all Protestant- ism was compressed within one church government, evidently complicated itself with Luther's almost frantic opposition to the Zwdnglians. In 1527 the great Swiss Reformer addressed the German leader in a fraternal exposition of their disputes touch- ing the Lord's supper, sustaining his own views and criticising those of Luther temperately ; and while he intimated that he and his brethren were not prepared to abandon their conscien- tious convictions, he cordially offered a similar right to the Lutherans, and proposed that the two should maintain a Chris- tian unity and peace amidst these lesser diTei^ities. Luther's answer was in these words: "Well, since they thus insult all reason, I will give them a Lutheran tiuirnlng. Cursed be this concord ! Cursed be this charity ! Down, down with it to the bottomless j)it of hell ! If I should murder your father, your mother, your child, and then, wishing to murder you, I should say to you, ' Let us be at peace, my dear friend !' what answer would you make ? It is thus that the enthusiasts who murder Jesus Christ, my Lord, God the Father, and Christendom, my mother, wish to murder me also ; and then they say, 'Let us be friends !' " How many inconsistent and scandalous persecutions Protestants have since employed against brother Protestants, in the vain attempt to enforce outward conformity, I need not re- mind you.
All who hold the scriptural principles of the Reformation, at least, should have remembered that Judaism was a religion for one little nation, while Christianity is for all continents and lan- guages. They should have bethought themselves, yet more, that there was a practical agency existent in the Hebrew Church and in the apostolic for preserving an organic unity consistent with fidelity to truth, the presence, namely, of the infallible Spirit of
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ? 433
revelation, speaking through the TJrhn and Thum^nini, and through the prophets in the one, and through the inspired apos- tles in the other. Then, indeed, there may have been reason for holding that even a diversity' in unity was without excuse, because there was present in the church an infallible umpire, the spirit of prophecy, to which disputants on any point of theology or church order, however subordinate, might appeal, and from w^liich they would receive the answer of God himself, which made farther difference inexcusable. But now that the Spirit of infallible revelation is confessedly withdrawn from the church, and God has seen fit to leave Christendom to the guidance of the Bible alone, enjoining at the same time sincerity of convic- tion and a sacred respect for the spiritual liberty of every soul from every authority in divine things save his own, how inevi- table, how obvious, is it that a diversity in unity must emerge and must be tolerated ? The wish to enforce a universal organic iinity deserts the foundation principles of the Reformation. Does not Rome prove it ? She claims the right to enforce that out- ward oneness ; she holds that it is essential ; her system is pre- cisely the legitimate result of the delusion I combat, and she tacitly admits, by the claim of infallibility, that the presence of this gift in the visible church is the only reasonable foundation of uniformity.
But the history of this delusion is especially instructive, as it shows us that its advocates from the first were chiefly led astray by disregarding the scriptural distinction between the visible and invisible church. In the controversies of the early ages against the Montanist, the Novatian, the Donatist sects, as in the pretensions of Rome noM% this difference is quietly but totally omitted. Those Scriptures wdiich do beyond dispute teach us that the invisible and spiritual church of Christ is one, " even as he and the Father are one"; that it is his body; his spouse and bride; catholic; /. e., the fulness of him that filleth all in all ; that it is holy ; that it is indefectible ; all these Scriptures were quoted as though they applied to one organized, visible body of believers, and thence were drawn the tremendovis and false consequences of the damning sin of all formal diversity, the necessity of outward conformity, the propriety of pains and penalties to enforce it. Search and see ! It is the same false logic which inspires this modern furor for uiiijication.
Vol. n. 28.
434 WHAT IS (CHRISTIAN UNION ?
Now, more attentive inspection of sacred Scripture will show us tliat tlie word " cliurcli " [ixxAYjoio) there bears two meanings, related, but not identical. In its higher, truer sense, the church is the body of the called of the Holy Spirit, the ag- gregate of Christ's redeemed and regenerate people. Its bond of union is not outward, but inward — a living faith and love. Its attributes are not the organic forms and canons and offices whicl: man administers, but the graces which the divine Spirit in- Avorks in the sanctified souls. As the soul of a man is the true man, so this spiritual compau}^, wdiicli cannot be numbered nor bounded by human hands, is the true church of God. But as the intelligent soul, for a time, inhabits and uses a body inferior to itself, animal, even material, characterized by dimension and figure, so it is the divine will that this true church shall inhabit an outward form, a human society, which it makes the rude and inperfect instrument of its corporate functions. And as w'e naturally speak of a corpse as a dead nuai (although, apart from the informing spirit, it is no man, but a clod), so the same word, " cJmrches,'' is also applied to the aggregate of these socie- ties which the church universal and spiritual now on earth inhabits. You may remind me that still, as there is this rela- tion, there should be some resemblance betw^een the visible shell and the spiritual body. I freely concede it. The perfec- tion of any one visible church, or the perfection of the great aggregate of visible churches, is to approach as near as may be to the qualities of the invisible church. They cannot possess these qualities, for reasons similar to those which forbid the shell to he tlie kernel, the body to he the Intelligent spirit within it; but they will properly strive towards those attributes, so far as the body may towards the properties of the soul it contains. As the invisible church is truly holy, the visible will seek, by a scriptural discipline, to be as holy as its outward nature per- mits. As the invisible church is one and catholic, the visible will strive towards the same unity. But as the bond of union in the invisible church is a common faith and love, and no outward organism, so the unity of the visible church will evince itself iu ties of affection and brotherhood rather than iu external con- formity. You will pardon my borrowing from an old book the following words, Avhich express my meaning better than my own :
I. "The catholic or imiversal church, which ii invisible, con-
WHAT IS CHEISTIAN UNION ? 435
sists of tli3 whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one under Christ, the head thereof ; and it is the spouse, the body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all."
II. " The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before, under the law), consists of all those througlaout the world tlicd j)rofess the true religion,'' etc.
But let us not rest this important distinction upon mere as- sertion. I refer to the New Testament to find the meaning of the word church, and I there find clear evidences that, in its true and full sense, the church is the spiritual and invisible company of true believers. The word church is the "out-called" {^xxAr^ato). But the true calling of God is not an outward pro- fession, or the assumption of outward forms, but the work of the Holy Ghost in the heart, bringing men to Christ in true faith. 2 Tim. i. 9 : " God hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purpose and grace." Heb. iii. 1: They are "partakers of the Jieavenly calling^ Bom. viii. 30: "Whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Now, the argument seems almost as plain as a truism that the church {l-/.yJ:r^a\fj) is the body of the called {ylr^zol) ; and as this call is the grace which converts, the church is the company of the converted.
The church is the "the body" of Christ. (Eph. v. 29 and 30 ; Col. i. 24.) Christ is the sourc3 of spiritual life. The influences by which he animates his body are gracious and spiritual. The body must then be a gracious and spiritual one. Who can tol- erate the assertion that any member of this body, united to this divine life-giving Head, is yet dead in trespasses and sins ? Is the sacred whole infected with gangrene ? It would be impiety to think it.
The church is the temple of Christ. 1 Pet. ii. 4, 5 : " To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood," etc. And this figure of speech Peter uses after the example of his Bedeemer. Matt. xvi. 18 : "Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Now, since the church is a spiritual house, and its members living stones, it is plainly
436 AVHAT IS CHKISTIAX UNION?
an inA-isible and spiritual company. It is also here Jeclaretl to be an indefectible body : " The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It is Christ's sheepfold, "wliic.li none is able to pluck out of his Father's hand." But a part, alas! of every visible church, according to our Saviour's own testimony, does perish. Of the ten virgins who outwardly went to meet the bridegroom five were foolish and were shut out. Hence this true church must be the hidden company of the redeemed. See also Acts xx. 28.
Again, this church is the bride and spouse of Christ. Eph. y. 23: "For the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church," etc. Does Christ unite impurity or death to himself in this intimate and spiritual union? Surely this spouse can be none other than the sanctified! But let the apostle settle this, vs. 25-27: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." Now, as there is, and can be, no visible body of professed Christians, on whatsoever theory or- ganized, which is without spot, wrinkle, or blemish upon its holiness, but the purest of such bodies include many men who live and die in sin, this church, which is the spouse of Christ, must be the spiritual company of the regenerate. Let the Apostle John decide this. He witnessed in prophetic vision the day when the "marriage of the Lamb came, and his wife made herself ready. And to her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; and the linen is the rigJiteousness of the saints." (Rev. xix. 7, 8.)
And once more ; the spiritual and invisible nature of this body is proved by the definitions of its character. Luke xvii. 21 : "The kingdom of God is u-ithifi you." Eom. ii. 28 : "He is a Jew who is one inwardly," etc. Rom. xiv. 17: " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
The church of God in its true sense, then, is not a society of men separated from the world by the hands of man, through outward governments and forms, but the hidden company of the regenerate. This is the glorious body, completely visible to
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ? 437
tlie eve of God, partially diseeruililo by tlie eye of man, but im- possible to be strictly separated and defined by any liuman marks; this is tlie clinrcli, wliicli is catholic, -which is one, ■which is holy, which is indefectible ; out of which there is no salvation. • It is by seizing these attributes of the immortal, spiritual body of Christ, and attempting to apply them to the poor earthly shadoAv, a particular visible church, that all the mischievous errors of spiritual despotism have been evolved.
Yet it is of di-\ane ajipointment, as well as of necessary conse- quence, that visible organized societies shall exist, for the gath- ering together and inhabitation of this spiritual company ; and to these societies the same holy name is by accommodation given in the plural number. The Scriptui'es call them chuixJies. As with the true bod}-, of which they are shadows, their highest bond of union is not an outward organism, but a bond of faith and affection. Thev to2;ether constitute the visible church catholic. None of the parts are perfect. Some of them have from time to time become so corrupt as to cease to be true parts of Christ's visible kingdom. The more they approximate the Bil)le standard, the more will they approach each other, not only in communit}- of faith and love, but even in outward form. Meantime, their separate existence beside each other does not mar the catholicity of the visible church as one whole, l)ut is the inevitable and designed result partly of the separa- tion of the liuman race by seas, continents, civil governments and diversity of languages, partly of the excusable limitations of he human understanding, and partly of the sinful prejudices of the heart ; prejudices which, although not justifiable, will assuredly continue to operate as long as man's nature is only partially sanctified. The native good sense of the people has happily expressed the truth here, by calling these different so- cieties, not sects, nor schism, but denmn'inations of Christians. Pounds and guineas, shillings and crowns are all money, the lawful coin of the realm ; these are only different denomina- tions of money. Cavalry, infantry and artillery are but differ- ent denominations of soldiers, making one patriot army. The fact that some fight on foot and some on horseback makes no necessary schism ; but all cooperate. This is the proper con- ception of tlie distinction between us as Episcopalians, Metho- dists, Baptists, Presbyterians, in the one visible church cath-
438 WHAT IS CHRISTIAN l^XION ?
olie. We are hut different denominations of citizens in one kingdom.
And tliis I hold to be the conception of the visible church •which the apostles designed to convey ; this I hold to be the de- velopment of the visible church which they expected and de- signed. The veiy symbols of prophecy confirm it. Under the old dispensation, the candlestick or lamp which symbohzed the church was one. In the Revelation there are seven (i. 20), " And the seven candlesticks which thou sawest- are seven churches "). The nomenclature of the New Testament is signifi- cant of the same truth. So long as the word " church " is em- ploved as the name of the spiritual body of the redeemed, it is always in the singular number ; and when appHed to a visible society of Christians li^-iug in one city, and capable of having actual communion with each other in pulilic worship, the word is also in the singular number. But the moment it is used to denote any wider aggregation of Christians in organized bodies, it always, save Acts ix. 31, becomes plural. We read of the seven churches of Asia, not of the church of Asia; of the churches of Galatia, the chxirches of Macedonia, the churches of Judea ; but the Kew Testament says nothing of an}- visible national church.
But did not the organized bodies of Christians of the same nation and language, soon after the apostolic times, have a more comprehensive bond of outward connection ? They did. And I am not unwilling to admit that the liberal and modest rule of the early synods and councils was a legitimate substitute for the regulative authority of the apostles, now removed by death. But two things are admitted touching these synods : that in the purer ages of the ancient church they neither claimed, nor did the Christian people concede to them, any power of enjoining duties or making moral laws beyond the authority of sacred Scripture, and that each S}Tiod was coordinate with and inde- pendent of all the others. No governmental tie bound them to- gether ; they w^ere united by no other ties than those of mutual respect and affection ; yet members or ministers from one pro- vince received admission to free communion with the Christians of another. It is a striking fact that even after metropohtan powers were generally conceded to the bishops of Eome, An- tioch, and Alexandria, there were large communions, those of
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ? 439
Kortli Africa, Persia, Clialdea, and Britain, for instance, which did not send delegates to the archiepiscopal councils nor pay- allegiance to their canons ; yet were they not regarded as schis- matic, but were considered as parts of the church catholic until a more corrupt age. The associated Christians of different ^irovinces then presented practically very much the aspect which is shown by the evangelical sister denominations of the Protes- tant world. They did not observe a complete outward unifor- mity, but were distinguished by differences in different countries at least as broad as those which separate iis. They did not pre- tend to preserve any organic unity. Yet they never dreamed, during the purer ages of Christianity, of charging each other with schism ; and they considered the aggregate of the whole, united only by Christian courtesy and community of principles, as the visible church catholic. The most learned Christian an- tiquaries will be least inclined to dispute this view of early Christianity.
And this structure of catholic Christianity, I assert, is the de- signed development of the apostolic institutions, because there are causes, beyond the power of man to remove, which render it unavoidable. These causes existing, the attempt to compel an organic unit}^ only results in greater mischiefs. To evince this I only have to compare three facts. One is, that the church has among men no infallible expounder of that Bible which is its sole rule of faith and order. The second is, that God hath left the conscience of his people free from the doctrines and com- mandments of men, and requires of believers that conduct which is dictated by their own intelligent and conscientious convictions. And the third is, that men, being fallible, always have differed, and always will honestly differ in details. How vain is it to ex- pect anything else, when Ave look soberly over the past historj- of opinion ; when we remember that the different races are reared under different climes, languages, political institutions, and social usages, all of which have an unavoidable effect upon their habitudes of thought ; when we consider the limitation and weakness of man's understanding ; and, above all, M'hen we bear in mind that he is at best a sinner, imperfectly sanctified, with passions and prejudices still subsisting. Men cannot be made to think exactly alike, if they think honestly, and this sim- ply because they are men. In those communions which enforce
440 \yHAT IS CHEISTIAN UNION?
an external unity, tlie differences of belief are wider tlian between any two evangelical Christians in this hall, and if those diver- gencies are suppressed, it is only at the cost of a grievous tyranny over the conscieu.ce.
We must remember, also, that each visible church is a wit- nessing hody, " it is a pillar and ground of the truth " (1 Tim iii. 15 ; see also Isa. ii. 3 ; lix. 21 ; Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; Acts xx. 24 ; Ps. Ixxviii. 5 ; Eev. xii. 11, 12, 17 ; xix. 10). The great duty and function is to testify for God, and bear his message to an apostate world. To fail of this is to cease to be a church at all. Biit I ask emphatically, how can men testify for God unless they testify what tney understcaid God to say ? They jnusi speak ; to be silent is treason. And in honesty they can only speak what they honestly believe. Hence it is, to the fair mind, the plainest thing in the world that the only practicable scheme of church association is that which unites in one denomination those who are honestly agreed, while it leaves to all others who differ from them the same liberty of association and testimony. Does a certain separation of the parts of the visible church catholic re- sult ? I answer, it is the least of the possible evils.
Especially would I protest against the remedy for this partial separation which is proposed by that latitudinarian view now called Broad Chtirch'tsm. This is an expedient only less un- principled and mischievous than persecution. " Why," asks this masked infidelity, " may not the same visible church em- brace within its pale me and the man who believes wholly unlike me, allowing us both our equal liberty?" I answer: Because then the church bears no testimony for her God. The great, the sacred, the exalted, I had almost said the sole, organic func- tion for which the visible church exists, witnessing for saving truth, is gone. No man could propose such an expedient seri- ously who had not already imbibed a Sadducean contempt for divine truth and become blind to its preciousness. And no church can commit itself to this dishonest policy without being infested mth a blank and sardonic infidelity. History and com- mon sense have both spoken on this point too plainly to be mis- understood. Commend me for ever to an honest, wrong-headed bigot, with all his faults, rather than to a Broad Churchman. The one has at least reverence and manhood enough in his na- ture to value truth, and when he siqjposes he has fouutl the
WHAT IS CHKISTIAX UXIOX? -l-il
priceless jewel, to do it liearty liomage. The other is so coldly and meauly iudiffereut to its sacred claims that he is as willing to lend his associated power to siistain its foul enemy, falsehood, as truth itself. Broad Churchism delights to hurl the charges of Phariseeism, hypocrisy and malignity against the honest vo- taries of truth. But examine its animus and you will find that it is as hypocritical and bitter as it is cold. Selfish indifference does indeed make it very tolerant of all that which, if it had any sincerity, should excite its moral indignation ; the only thing er- roneous enough in its eyes to arouse its intolerance is honest conviction and zeal for God's truth. And against this it harbors all the gall and bitterness which it imputes to us.
I advance also this consideration : that the advocates of eccle- siastical amalgamations in our day show neither the temper, nor the success to encourage our confidence in them. TTe see no proof that their zeal for organic unity is prompted by true Chris- tian charity. Let it be clearly understood that we except a num- ber of well-meaning Christians, w'hose kindly hearts, more kindly than considerate, are beguiled by the professed cry of peace. But the spirit of the major part appears to be anything else than that moderation, fairness, and gospel afi'ection, which pro- mise a real union among Christians. IV^e see no evidences of that catholic -^-isdom and justice which are large enough to em- brace the whole kingdom of God on earth ; but while the pre- pense is catholicity, the action has sometimes been as fanatical, as full of narrow prejudice, and as divisive as that of any sect which has ever really marred the unity of Christ's body. Thus we saw the gi'eat Evangelical Alliance of Protestant Europe, as it proudly styled itself, while sufficiently latitudinarian to em- brace parts of the Eeformed Church of Fraace, Avhich flout the most sacred principles of the gospel, the divinity and vicarious satisfaction of tho Lord Jesus Christ, the fall of man, the work of the Holy Ghost, spurn American churches, the purest in creed and membership on earth, because they would not declare that relation of domestic servitude criminal in which all the patri- archs and prophets lived, and which Christ and his apostles au- thorized! Such pitiful follies and wrongs as these give little promise that those hands will be the ones to heal the breaches of Protestant Christendom. At a later day we have seen a journal ^liich called itself the Christian ZTmon, circiilated with
442 WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION.
vast zeal and expense, avowedl}^ to advocate tliis cause of peace and love. But its tone was the most truculent and threatening which has ever been heard in America.
The plans likewise of these men do not appear to be the re- sult of devout faith and reliance on God, but of an arrogant worldly wisdom and unbelief. They manifestly have little faith in the power of the truth, unsupported by material power, to subdue the world to Christ. Tliey have forgotten our Saviour's declaration that " the kingdom of God cometh not with obser- vation;" they wish to have men cry, " Lo, here; and lo, there." They are anxious to exchange strict integrity of conviction and purity of doctrine, and the secret but mighty power of the Holy Ghost through his words, for human eclat, numbers, wealth, combination and power. They expect and prepare to convert the world as they built the Pacific railroad, and as they con- quered our country, by a mighty aggregation of money and num- bers. There is, my brethren, more of the lust of power than of disinterested love in these overtures iox fusion.
And this suggests the last point which I propose to urge in this discussion. Pretensions, lohicli so ■j)l(^'(-'nly hetray the cravings of avihltion, are ominous of danger to religious liberty. The em- ployment of force to produce conformity has always been the natural corollary of the principle these men assert. Consider : They say that the visible oneness of church government is neces- sary to realize a Christian unity. Outward conformity, then, becomes an imperative Christian duty. He who refuses it rends the body of Christ. All separation is schism, according to them, and the tendency of their premises is, of course, towards the ex- treme conclusion that schism is a sin that necessarily damns the soul. Kow, the dangerous trait of this creed is that it obviously sets the sin of division, as they term it, in such a light that its forcible prevention and punishment becomes reasonable. For the practical argument against the persecution of errorists, sup- posing them really in error, was not that men are irresponsible for the false opinions they sincerely entertain; they are respon- sible to God. Nor was it that the crime of heterodox belief is not mischievous ; it may be infinitely mischievous. Why, then, supposing the crime of false belief clearly ascertained, why may it not be as reasonably suppressed by force as horse-stealing or mur- der ? The answer which Protestantism gives is this : That the man
WHAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION? 443
of evil belief is responsible, but to God only, and not to man, be- cause God is the exclusive Lord of the conscience, and that a belief which is not intelligent and sincere is worthless to God and man, whereas the stocks, the rack, the scoui'ge, have no tendency' to reconcile the mind and heart of the sufferer to the creed of those who are persecuting him. But now see how the dogma of the necessary unity of the visible church evades all this just logic. It repHes : Yery time, the stocks, the rack, the scourge are not means to produce light in the understanding and love in the heart for a creed before rejected and hated, but they are very proper means to compel acts of outward uniformity. And, according to this system, tliese are as necessary to the sal- vation of souls as faith and sincere conviction. Again, if a visi- ble church claims this 'exclusive and necessary supremacy, ^f/re; divino, who can fail to see how natural will appear to it the claim of authority to enforce it ? Such a church assumes to be, in a certain sense, an earthly redeemer ; it will no longer admit that men are responsible only to their Redeemer in heaven for their opinions.
I beseech you here, my brethren, to ponder well the lessons of your church history; they are most instructive. You will there learn that whenever the church has condescended to argue her right to persecute (many religious persecutions have been the license of mere blind hatred and fury, or of ruthless and un- masked ambition), the claim has always been argued from the lalse postulate that the visil)le church must necessarily have an external and organic unity. Was it not on this plea that the bishops of Home crushed out the primitive churches of Britain and Ireland ? Bvit the most significant fact to my mind in the whole history of religious liberty is this : That the first assumj)- tion of the right to persecute by the Christian church itself was made against the Donatists of Xorth Africa in the fifth century, and on the arguments of the great Augustine. These secta- ries, as they were called, were charged by the Catholic Chris- tians with no error of doctrine ; they held the same creed. They had separated themselves from the rest of the church on points of church government. The division was finally suppressed by j)ersecutions at the advice of the father I have named. He was a man by no means cruel or aiTOgant in temper, and few of any age have doubted his eminent piety. He was also committed
44^ THAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ?
by his own published declarations, as well as by his generous feehngs, against the employment of force in religions disputes. But at length the erroneous principles of the age as to the ne- cessary unity of the visible churcli asserted their natural force over his conclusions, and he convinced himself and the rulers of his day that force was reasonable and useful. From that day to this these arguments of Augustine have been the most plausible pleas of religious tyranny, and all the more mischievous because of the deserved honor attached to his venerable name.
False principles, like leaven in the meal, always tend to work out their logical consequences, and to lead their votaries to all their results. These may be very unexpected ; they may be very un- popular ; they may be bitterly repudiated, even by those who are unconsciously tending towards them. But in due time they come, and are at last boldly avowed. Unless the seminal errors are purged out, this must be so ; because the human mind must reason connectedly from its postulates. Persecution for opin- ion's sake is disavowed in theory by all, in this age and country. Whether the persecuting te)n2)er is not present already, the ob- servant man can judge. But let this project of church union advance to a certain stage, and the claim will be again avowed. The ground on which the work of fusion is urged, remember, i^ that the true church rnaso be visibly one. It will not be hard for the growing party to convince itself that it alone is the true church. It will be equally clear in its eyes that those perverse people who refuse to conform to it are very great sinners, be- cause they obstruct the approaching glorious unification. And now, as the character of this great mass is corrupted, and its arrogance inflated by wealth, numbers and conscious power, it will not fail to persuade itself at last that as it has the might, it has the right to compel our allegiance.
For all these reasons, then, I am convinced that a general or- ganic union is no means to promote Christian union. As I began, so I end by affirming the inestimable value of the latter. A true Christian union, which should make the parts of the visi- ble church catholic " first pure, then peaceable," would indeed increase the moral and spiritual power of God's people for good. I do not look to the mere increase of numbers and wealth as any power whatever for the world's conversion. The true union of principle and love would make Christians holier
WHAT IS CHEISTIAX UNION ? 445
and happier. It would economize mnch effort now expended in the rivahies of Christians against each other which should be directed to aggressions against the common enemv. It would remove the dishonor sometimes done to the gospel, not by the necessary existence of denominations, but by their unnecessary contentions.
How then may this worthy object be now furthered by us? The answer will indicate my \4ews of what is practical and practicable.
First, Where denominations of Christians exist separately in the same regions of the church, which are really agreed in prin- ciples, and are kept asunder only by unessential differences of usage, they should fuse themselves into one organization. In such case the inconveniences of separation are compensated by no gain of peace or of conscientious integrity. The testimony of of the two is the same, and they may properly join in uttering it.
Second, Where the differences are such that there cannot be a jDeaceable and honest fusion into one, each denomination should recognize in the others a valid church character, and concede to them the same right of independent and conscien- tious testimony, within the pale of the visible church, which they claim for themselves.
Do you ask how far this recognition shall be extended ? I answer, to all communions which retain those features ivhlch are the inarks of a visible church — the icorcl, the ministry, and the sacraments of Christ, even to that degree which is fundamental to the great end of the church, the redemption of souls. We all ad- mit that, of the doctrines and instrumentalities of Christ's king- dom, some are fundamental in a sense in which others are not. Some may be unknown, or even disbelieved or disused, without destroying the soul. Others are so essential that Tvdthout them salvation is impracticable. Now, we should receive those com- munions which honestly hold and employ the latter as valid, though imperfect parts of the visible church catholic.
Do you ask again, Who is to decide, in a particular case, which doctrines and ordinances are essential to the being of a true visible church ? I reply, each communion must, as far as its intercourse with others goes, decide this for itself. If it decides too strictly, and refuses to recognize some whom the Scriptures recognize, this is their error. There is no human remedy.
446 WI-IAT IS CHRISTIAN UNION ?
This, tlieir iincliaritableness, tlioiigla their error, does not tin- church them, and should be treated by other communions as other lesser blemishes are treated. And as long as these others refrain from retaliation, and stand prepared to reciprocate the communion of saints as soon as it can be done on equitable terms, the responsibility of the separation thus made rests ex- clusively with the first party. We thus see that it is not the right of conscientious diflerences on the lesser points, and of de- nominations formed thereon, which incurs the guilt of schism ; but rather the refusal of that right on unscriptural and inade- quate grounds.
Third, Each denomination should recognize the validit}^ of the ministry and sacraments of every other evangelical denomina- tion. The intercommunion of their ministers as ministers, and their members as members, should manifest this brotherhood on all suital)le occasions.
Fourth, The disciplinary acts performed by one communion should be held valid by every other. All denominations having agreed on these two prime principles, that the church has no statute book binding the consciences of God's children but tlie Bible, and no penalties for transgressions but the moral and spiritual, a sentence passed on these principles by one denomi- nation upon its unruly member should be respected by all others. Just as a man under censure migrating from one Pres- byterian congregation to another cannot be reinstated by the second against the verdict of the first, but is required to recon- cile himself to the same body which he had offended, so should it be throughout the church catholic.
Last, and chiefly, all Christians should study moderate and charitahle feelings towards others, and should sincerely seek to grovi in the hwidedge of revealed truth. As they approach nearer that infallible standard they will approach nearer to each other. " The wisdom which is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace, of them that make peace," (James iii. 17, 18.) " Let us therefore be thus minded ; and if in anything ye lie otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." (Phil. iii. 15, 16.)
BROAD CHURCHISM/
" Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."— 2 Tim. i. 13.
" Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doc- trine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." — Titus i. 9.
FATHEKS AND BKETHKEN: It lias been hitherto both the characteristic and the boast of our branch of the Re- formed Church that it was a strict advocate of doctrinal correct- ness. Our Confession is one of the longest and most detailed, as it is the most orthodox and judicious, among the symbols of Protestantism. It has been the fixed principle of Presbyterian- ism in all its better days, that its teachers must subscribe its honored standards in the strict sense of the system of doctrine which they embody. The following statement of facts evinces the correctness of my assertion :
I. All the members of the original Synod, except one, adopted in 1729 every doctrine of the Confession, as expressing his own faith, save certain clauses relating to the power of civil magis- istrates in matters of religion. II. The Synod in 1730 declared that they required all "intrants" to receive the standards as strictly as the existing members had done the year before. III. In 1736 the same declaration was made in stronger terms. IV. When the two Synods were united in 1758, after the schism, it was on the following basis as to doctrine : "1. Both Synods hav- ing always approved and received the Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechisms as an orthodox and excellent system of Christian doctrine, founded on the word of God, we do still receive the same as the Confession of our faith, and also adhere to the plan of worship, government and discipline con- tained in the Westminster Directory; strictly enjoining it on all our ministers and ^probationers for the ministry that they preach and teach according to the form of sound words in the said Con- fession and Catechisms, and avoid and oppose all errors contrary thereto. 2. That no Presbytery license or ordain to the work
' A sermon constituting the General Assembly, which met at Huntsville, Ala. , May 18, 1871.
448 BROAD CHUKCHISM.
of the ministry any candidate, until he give them competent satisfaction as to his learning and experimental acquaintance vnth religion and skill in divinity and cases of conscience, and declare his acceptance of the "Westminster Confession and Cate- chisms as the confession of his faith, and promise subjection to the Presbyterian form of government in the Westminster Direc- tory." In 1788, ^vhen the jDresent constitution was adopted, the same ground was taken.
This time-honored principle is, in these latter days, by many misunderstood, and by not a few despised. I propose, there- fore, to invite this venerable Assembly of the guardians of God's chui'ch and truth to a scriptural discussion of it, founded upon the injunctions of the holy apostle to Timothy and Titus.
The introductions to the epistles (1 Tim. i. 3, 4; Titus i. 5,) inform us that the two evangelists had been ah'eady instructed in their duties. Why then did the Holy Ghost move the apostle to write these pastoral epistles, and why has the providence of God preserved them among the canon of Scripture ? The ob- vious answer is, that they are intended to instruct not only the ministers to whom they were first sent, but all the presbyters of the church in all ages. And I shnll assume, what none here will contest, the express application to us, "on whom these ends of the world have come," of every permanent precept and prin- ciple the epistles contain.
The two texts which I have presented speak substantially the same thing.
To Timothy the apostle says : " Hold fast the form of sound words which thoii hast heard of me." It is not necessary for me to assert that this phrase indicates literally a verbal formula enjoined upon Timothy as a fixed "confession of his faith." But " the form of sound (or healthful) words " was a pattern of doctrine which Timothy had heard of Paul, and which the dis- ciple was to preserve jealously, and transmit (2 Tim. ii. 2) to succeeding presbyters and evangelists. The succeeding verse calls it a deposit, or trust, of an excellent and responsible nature, committed to Timothy by God, to be kept by the aid of the Holy Ghost. This description clearly implies that the doc- trinal code was a definite thing, marked by clear characters, and that Timothy had no discretion or license to remit or modify any pai-t of it
BROAD CHURCHISM. 449
So in the parallel injimctiou to Titus (i. 9), the man wlio is appointed presbyter or bishop over a Christian church must " hold fast the faithful word as he had been taught." The most competent expositors agree in construing this to mean th© word which is trustworthy, as of divine authority, being in ac- cordance with Paul's apostolic teaching. The purpose of this orthodox fideHty sufficiently e\inces its nature. That purpose is to exhort and edify Christians, and to confute gainsayers, by " sound (healthful) doctrine."
In both precepts the authorized doctrinal code is called a "word," [pattern of sound words], and notwithstanding the con- cession which was made above, this language does at least au- thorize us to infer that the system committed to the Christian ministry is to be preserved and taught by them with exactness in all its parts. The solemn iterations with which the holy apostle urges this duty may both assure you that we do not misrepresent its nature, and teach you the importance which he attached to it. The minister of Christ is "a steward of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful." (1 Cor. iv. 1, 2.) The heterodox teacher " who consents not to wholesome words, the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, is proud, knowing nothing, but doting," etc. (1 Tim. vi. 3, 4.) The minister must be " a workman approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Tim. ii. 15.) Timothy must " continue in the things which he had learned and been assured of, knowing of whom he learned them." (2 Tim. iii. 14.) Titus must '• show in doctrine uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned." (Titus ii. 7, 8.)
In enforcing upon church teachers and rulers the sacred obli- gations of strict orthodoxy, Presbyterians fully admit that some doctrines of the Christian system are not fundamental to salva- tion. By this we mean that a soul who embraces the funda- mental and necessary points will be saved, notwithstanding his failure, through ignorance or misconception, to embrace the former. We accordingly gladly receive into the body of Christ's church catholic, and into the communion of saints, all such per- sons, although they do not receive sundry truths which we are assured God has revealed. Again, in obedience to Eom. xiv. 1, " Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful
Vol. II.— 29.
450 BKOAD CHURCHISM.
disputatious," we iiuiformlj receive private or lay members to the full communiou of our owu braucli of the church "who pro- fess ouly the jDrimarj rudimeuts of the faith, aud vre require nothiug more of them thau that they coufirm that profession bj a life of repentance. Our Director^-, Chap. IX. Sec. 1, in- structs pastors to inquire only whether the hfe of the applicant be consistent, and if he has knowledge to discern the Lord's body. As to the flock, there is no church under heaven more catholic and liberal than ours, in receiving all, whatever their doctrinal differences from us, provided they truly receive Christ as their Redeemer. We believe, indeed, that of the shepherds who undertake to guide the flock, our divine Head exacts more perfect knowledge aud agreement. But even where they fail of "that doctrinal harmony with us to such an extent that we dare no longer to entrust to them a part of the flock for which God lias made us responsible, we still act with respectful considera- tion for the uncertainties of the human reason, and draw a broad distinction between the misfortune of honest error, and the crimi- nality of wilful transgression. (See Book of DiscipHne, Chap. v., Sec. U).
But with these allowances we are compelled to conclude that our text requires of all church teachers and rulers a strict and harmonious conformity to revealed doctrine.
I. Let the farther proof of this proposition be introduced by some admissions which all are ready to make. Every honest man believes that the individual teacher in the church is abso- lutely bound to declare the " whole counsel of God " as he him- self conscientiously understands it. He is Christ's herald ; the duty of a herald is to convey precisely the message of his king without addition or diminution. He is a steward of the divine mysteries, bearing an office of trust, whose first virtue is fidelity to his charge. He can only claim to be clear of the blood of all men by claiming with the apostles (Acts xx. 27) that he " hath not shunned to declare unto them all the counsel of God." Now, God has set down in his word some truths which are not funda- mental to salvation in the sense we have agreed on above. If he has not, how does any one come to know that there are doctrines which are true and still not fundamental ? Moreover we can point to such in the New Testament, as while Paul tells us (Rom. xiv. 14) that distinctions of meats are no longer obligatory, and yet
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that the believer ignorant or incredulous of this proposition may be redeemed by Christ (verse 15). Now, then, God certainl}' put these doctrines into his word to be preached. "All Scrip- tureis given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doc- trine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Such truths, therefore, are profitable, though not fundamental. The preacher is expressly enjoined to make full proof of his ministry (2 Tim. iv. 5). So that no herald of Christ does his duty who keeps back any known divine truth. Its suppression may ruin some soul, and must mar, to some degree, the sanctifi- cation of all whom he guides.
All Protestants admit the sacred right of private judgment, and most of all must the latitudinarians do so, since their pe- culiarity is to urge it into an excess. Then the meaning of the Scriptures is to each man the Scripture, and this meaning each must deduce for himself. In other words, each man's honest judgment must be his own standard in interpreting what the word contains. There is no infallible umpire, as in the apostle's day, between competing interpretations. The reason, even in renewed men, can be only an imperfect agent, so that good men will sincerely differ to a partial extent. The only honest preach- ing, then, is that in which each man delivers all that which he believes, when, judging in the fear of God, he'intended to deliver in his word.
These admitted truths will be found to contain two inferences, first. That there must be different denominations of Christians, amicably respecting each other's liberty of doctrine not funda- mental, within the visible church catholic. Second, That each denomination is bound to bear a full witness for God according to its agreed understanding of God's message.
But here we are met by a rival conclusion, adopted by those who style themselves " advocates of comprehension," and some- times by a less truthful euphemism, advocates of liberal sub- scription in doctrinal beliefs. They claim that the doctrinal standards of the church shall be so lowered as to embrace in one denomination all whom we recognize as within the church catholic, and as holding the truths fundamental to salvation. Let the advocates of strict doctrine say they preach all their higher creed if their consciences impel them, and let the moderate liave equal liberty to propagate their lower system, all in the same
452 BROAD CHUECHISM.
oommunion. If the more strict are tlie more correct, the truth has thus, they claim, as full opportunitj to assert itself, and to discredit the looser and erroneous code, as it can have, unless men are ready to recur to violence and persecution. By this method charity would, according to them, be much promoted, the scandals and weakness of the divisions of the sects removed, and the unity of Protestant Christianity displayed. In support of such comprehension they attempt also to array Scripture against us. They remind us that when the apostle enjoined ministers, under the penalty of exclusion, to consent " to the doc- trine which is according to godliness," or to " hold fast the form of sound words," it was even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the "pattern received from him." But they urge, the strained hyper-orthodoxy of the sects can claim no "thus saith the Lord" for its peculiarities. To the fair mind the rej)ly to this shalloAV plausibility is clear. 'We think we have a " thus saith the Lord." We are as honestly convinced that every point of our orthodoxy is received from Christ and his apostles, as they are concerning their different creeds, which are alwavs found, by the way, to include at least as many points of detail, and v/hich they assert at least as tenaciously as orthodoxy does its pecuhar features. But our conscientious conviction of what our Lord hath delivered unto us must be our imperative rule, in the absence of an infallible umpire between us and them. And when they seek to enforce their different convictions upon us, who have as much right to judge for ourselves as they for them™ selves, what is this but elevating their latitudinarianism into the starkest spiritual desj)otism ?
These advocates of comprehension also recite very confidently all the precepts of the epistles where Christians are exhorted " to mind the same things," to have no " divisions among them," not to be called by the names of men, and to avoid strife and schisms. The express command of the apostle (Titus iii. 10) "to reject the man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition," is transmuted by a species of exegetical jugglery to an opposite meaning, namely, that every fi-iend of orthodoxy who seeks to " reject " a heretic shall be himself rejected as a heretic for doing so. The only refutation which this needs is the obvious remark that it contradicts itself; the proposition commits a logical "felo de se." Grant that the " heretical man"
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of tlie text is a " sect-maker," rather than a speculative errorist, it is impossible to exclude the fact that it is always the doctrinal error which generates the sect, whence the criminality arises out of the false doctrine as its source.
The issue being thus developed between the scriptural and the latitudiuarian theory of church obUgations to the truth, I proceed, in the second place, to reinforce our views,
II. From the fact that a visible church, in its organic capacity, is as truly a witnessing body as an individual herald of the gos- pel. " For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their chUdi'en, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children." (Ps. Ixxviii. 56.)
" This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord : My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed." (Is. lix. 21.) " Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations .... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matt, xxviii. 19-20.) " The church of the Hving God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. iii. 15.) "The dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war Anth the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus." (Eev. xii. 17.) And hear, above all, that dying testimony which the divine Head of the church sealed Avith his martyrdom : " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." (John xviii. 37.) If these declarations of the Word need any confirmation, it is found in a very short deduction. The end of the church's corporate existence is unquestionably "the gathering and puiiecting of God's elect." But the instru- ment of this work is chiefly gospel truth.
Now, we saw a few moments ago that the individual minister is indisputably bound to declare the whole counsel of God, ac- cording to his honest conviction. His commission is from Christ, but it is through the church. Moreover, the church's organ, through which she officiallj- performs her witnessing func- tion as a body, is her ministry. Their official testimony is her
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testimony. Is not tlie church ordained by her Head to have an organic life and action ? Surely ; and the practical object is as obvious : that the truth may receive all the additional force of associated or combined support. By this divine law all Chris- tians, who would otherwise contend only with the disjointed strength of separated integers, are trained to the might of a dis- ciplined army, multiplying manifold their natural forces.
The church, then, must bear an official witness, which is the act of the body, and not merely of the individual agents. Hence it must follow that the body, and also each ruling part thereof, is responsible to God for the tolerated official acts of each mem- ber. If I, then, a ruler in this body, lend to an officer or mem- ber of it any portion of my official weight or countenance to aid him in proclaiming religious error, contradicting in any point more or less essential that code of redeeming truth which Christ has committed to us, I am, to that extent, recreant to my obli- gations— unfaithful to my Master. I am prostituting power with which he has clothed me for the edification and guardian- ship of his redeemed sheep.
Nor can the force of this conclusion be evaded by saying that, on the theory of comprehension, the public distinctly un- derstands that each minister in the church is alone responsible for the details of his own doctrinal system. Practically it is not so ; it cannot be so. I ask, with emphasis, when a minister of the most latitudinarian communion in the land stands up in her pulpits as her ordained minister, does the public receive his declarations as worth absolutely no more than his individual word? Is he practically no more her representative to them than the unordained lay-preacher, who has no church ties what- ever ? Obviously he is more. The public hears his church in him. Were he not, his office, character, work, and ordination thereto would be an absolute nullity, and the very end of a church organization vanished ! '
Thus is suggested to us a fatal objection to this so-called theory of comprehension : that the church as a body will bear no distinctive testimony for Christ, co-extensive with his com- mission to her. As a body, she arrests her testimony at those fundamental truths which all must adopt in order to hold the Christian name in the judgment of clir.rity. Whenever any such weak brother in the faith takes exception against any of the
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other doctrines, all of -svLicli are profitable for instruction in righteousness, she forthwith drops that from her organic testi- mony, though she mar be convinced that it is a part of Christ's teaching. Then is she, to that extent, recreant to her great end as an associated body. It may be that persons in her pale de- liver a distinctive and full testimony for Christ, but it is also testimony against their OAvn comrades, who claim an equal ecclesiastical right to deliver a testimony against them and against Christ their master. There may be much individual right testimony, but there is no complete church testimony. The tendencies of such a state are either to make the body a " house divided against itself," which " cannot stand," or to re- solve it into a mob of discordant individuals, and thus to termi- nate its visible church character. That this conclusion is just, the latitudinarian himself virtually proves when he is con- strained to repudiate the official declaration of some brother who has come to dispute some article of the short creed which has been adopted as their church covenant. The communion must disavow and exclude that dissentient from the ranks of her ministry, or he ceases to have even the short latitudinarian creed. The principle is conceded. Then if we are right in be- lieving that Christ has given his church a fuller creed to witness, the same principle sustains us.
This demonstration is enhanced by the fact that the truths of redemption are a connected system. To say that it carries evi- dence to the human reason is to admit that its several proposi- tions must have a logical dependence ; for if the reason of man has any methodical law, a corresponding method must appear in that set of affirmations which are to commend themselves to the reason as truths. When, therefore, the advocates of doc- trinal license say, meaning to utter a reproach, that " oi-thodoxy is remorselessly logical," they have in fact spoken the highest praise. That it is logical in the dependence of its propositions is one of the prime signatures of truth. The revealed system is a regidar arch ; the removal of the smallest stone loosens another, and that another, until the very kej'stone is shaken and the whole structvu'e endangered. The surrender of a point of doc- trine not fundamental to salvation endangers others more im- portant than itself. When men once begin to drop out a part of " the testimony of Jesus," " their word will eat as doth a can-
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ker." (2 Tim. ii. 17). What pastor does not know liow original sin and regeneration stand or fall together, or Christ's divinity and justification ? But let us consider an instance less obvious. Does God's foreknowledge of the future generate his purpose concerning it, as in some of the thoughts of his rational crea- tures ? Or is the reverse true of the infinite supreme cause : that his eternal purpose generates his foreknowledge of the fu- ture ? A question this, you ■v\-ill say, nice, abstruse, far remote from the practical issues of faith and redemption. 'SS^ell, I be- lieve that many an imperfect believer who has answered it wrong is now glorified through the mercy of God in Christ. But he who follows the two propositions to their strict conse- quences must at last admit that if it is true that God's fore- knowledge always generates his purpose ; then the " election of grace " is conditioned on some foreseen spiritual good in man. Then the sinner's will must be self-moved, in its first action, to quicken itself to choose God as his spiritual good. And then native depravity is not radical ; and the lost sinner should be taught to look to himself, rather than to Christ, to initiate his salvation and to preserve it. Thus this very remote abstraction will become so practical as to modify every prayer which comes out of the believing sinner's mouth, if he is only sufficiently consistent in his logic.
Thus the rejection of a truth not fundamental may jeopardize those that are. Do you ask : Will not this virtually abolish the distinction, making all error, even the least, necessarily destruc- tive, since the less leads on so logically to the greater heresy? I replv, there is always some liability to such a result, in the man who adopts any substantive error in theology ; but he is not regularly subject to it, because the spirit and providence of God, who loves him if he is a true penitent, guard him against the natural consequences of his error, and maintain in him a principle of holiness whose tendencies are stronger than the logical tendencies of a defective creed. But the herald and teacher of others is expected to be thoroughly informed and to have logical consistency of mind. " Every scribe which is in- structed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." (Matt. xiii. 52.) There are two reasons for not tolerating in them, as teachers, the error which we lament in
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the private Christian whom we yet embrace as a brother. That the miucl of the educated, professional man is more likely to be consistent in its error, and to push it to mischievous results ; and that he who undertakes to guide others, especially where im- mortal souls are the irreparable stakes, is justly required to at- tain unto a fuller accuracy.
Let us now return ; seeing each communion is sacredly bound to deliver some one consistent testimony, which one shall it be? There can be but one answer, that one which is conscientiously believed by its associated teachers ; and the principle of associa- tion must be this, that those who can honestly see eye to eye shall associate into one body or branch of the visible church. Does it necessarily follow hence that there will be several de- nominations of Christians Avithin the church catholic, limiting partially its external unity ? We answer, so be it ; it is the smaller of the unavoidable evils, unless all human minds which imbibe any Christian truth can be rendered infallible, or unless the right of private judgment be destroyed, or else unless an in- spired lunpire in doctrinal differences can be found on earth. The position of the pope is a very expressive avowal of this con- clusion, for in attempting to exact of all Christians a formal unity he professes infallibility.
The former cannot be reasonable without the latter. The re- sult which we have embraced is found as conducive to peace as to puritj' of doctrine. The Presbyterian communion, the strict- est of all in exacting full orthodox}^, according to her standard, of all her ministry, is also the most truly catholic of all the Protestant churches. Her overtures, to other branches of Christ's church, and, whenever they are accepted, her actual relations with them, are of the most fraternal character. But if all these denominations were aggregated, there must be either unfaithful- ness to truth or strife. The debates of denominations over doc- trinal differences are far less bitter than those of earnest men differing within the same pale. Witness the comparative heat of the strifes between the Old and New Schools before their separation, and of the Evangelicals and Puseyites in the Angli- can Church.
So true is this that there is no communion on earth formed in this theory of comprehension that is true to it. None include all who hold the essentials of the faith. None can include all
458 BEOAD CHURCHISM.
who, on tlieir own tlieoiy, are faithful to all the fundamental doctrines ; but they find themselves compelled to make a term of fall ministerial communion of one or another of the lesser points. Suppose two bodies, one of Avhicli heartily admitted lay preaching, and the other as sincerely believed it anti-scriptural and disorganizing. How could they possibly administer a com- mon government in the same church courts ? Pedobaptists and immersionists cannot join in the same spiritual family. Those who hold that prelatic ordination is essential to a valid ministry' cannot work in the same government with us, who hold that presbyterial ordination is not only sufficient, but more scriptural. Now we, at least, are willing to admit that neither lay preaching, nor immersionism nor prelatic ordination is a fundamental error. Yet in a communion of the opposite belief they necessarily ex- clude their advocates. The theory of comprehension, if consist- ently attempted, would be found impossible.
Indeed, as though its advocates were fated to demonstrate its falsehood by the greatest possible absurdities, we find them combining a rejection of some brethren, on grounds not funda- mental, in the teeth of their own theory, with the cordial em- bracing of other false brethren, in spite of differences which are fundamental, in the teeth again of their ov/n theory. The " Church of the Reformers " in our land is avowedly constructed by the founder, Alex. Campbell, on the broadest plan of com- prehension. It glories in having no creed. It began by de- claring that the test for communion should have but one question in it, " Do you receive Jesus as Saviour ?" But let the brother seek admission into its fold who purposes to practice the ami- able weakness of " baby-sprinkling," and he is strictly excluded, notwithstanding every other grace of an eminent Christian. Yet this charity which is too narrow to allow this error so obviously non-essential, if an error, is yet capacious enough to embrace him who discards the whole office work of the Holy Ghost and the very calling of grace by which alone any soul ever became Christian. The time was when for long years the Anglican Church, while glorying in their wide comprehension, refused min- isterial communion to their own brethren in America, like them- selves prelatically ordained and retaining their own standard and ritual, because they were not ordained by Anglican j^relates. But at the same time they willingly extended this ministerial
BROAD CHUIICHISM. 45^
communion to Arminiaus, Arians ami Rationalists, wliom their own articles should have excluded as fundamentally erroneous. Thus did thev violate their own theory of comprehension at once in both its parts. Northern Calvinism, as it styles itself, has no charity for the holiest man in our land who declines to insert the creed of a humanitarian politics into his gospel ; but it has comprehension enough to receive a Pelagianism as out- spoken as was ever condemned by the church of all ages in Celestine or Pope Zosimus. So did the world see that associa- tion which announces its great mission to man to be the patro- nizing of comprehension and fraternity, the " Evangelical AlH- ance," spurn from it the purest church on earth in creed and character, because it was not ready to declare criminal that re- lation of domestic servitude in wdiich all the patriarchs and prophets lived, and which Christ and his apostles authorized. But they could gladly embrace the Reformed Church of France, Avhich tolerates those who flout the central truths of redemption, the divinity and vicarious satisfaction of Christ, the fall of man, and the person and work of the Holy Ghost. Ai"e such hands, I ask, the ones to heal the breaches of Christendom? If a true Protestant unity is ever to exist, it must be the work of a broader wisdom and equity than theirs. If we may learn from these various instances, this theory of comprehension appears to be more a composition of indifference to truth, and factious zeal for human crotchets, than the temper of Christ.
Ill Thus is suggested to us a third argument: A church, whose teachers are not heartily agreed in doctrine, can only have peace wdthin itself at the cost of a Sadducean indifference to truth. Suppose a higher and loAver theology beside each other in the same communion, and the former advocated by men "svho entertain an honest zeal for God's truth. None but men of this stamp are of any value in propagating the truth and making an effective impression upon the kingdom of darkness. Suppose, also, that the erroneous teachers are equally zealous for their false creed. What can result, except the most un- seeml}^ strifes? A part of the testimony of one pulpit is con- tradicted by another ; and both speak by the same ecclesiastical authority! Which shall the laity folloAv? Or shall this dis- graceful contradiction be arrested by a compact, that both parties shall preach only the fundamentals in which both aro
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agreed? Sucli a covenant tlie erroneous are never willing to keep, and the orthodox dare not. For no revealed trutli is valueless. Every doctrine of the Scriptures is a part of the herald's message. Any suppression is liable, though not neces- sarily certain, to mislead a soid. Shall I conceal it, and thus possibly get the blood of souls upon my skirts, when the sword comes and takes them without adequate warning? I dare not, and will not. Thus we should be always liable to that prepos- terous result which a few years ago was presented in the lati- tudinarian Reformed Church of Paris ; in the same pulpit, and by the same authority, A. Monod might be heard, with match- less eloquence, defending that divinity' of Christ which his col- leagues, the next Sabbath, would assail with equal ingenuity.
Indeed, the ends designed by this so-called comprehension can only be gained by indifferentism. The theory has an ob- vious tendency to disparage the importance of truth. What clearer proof is needed that, when even we hear the most pious of its advocates, while asserting their OAvn personal orthodoxy, speak of the points assailed by the opponents of the doc- trines of grace as the "uncertain" points of the Christian sys- tem; while those in which errorists condescend to concur are borrowed as the " certain points " ? Tried by such standards, what precious truth would not be uncertain ; for which one has not, by its very holiness, provoked numerous dissentients ? Such representations are mischievous, as well as unjust to the history of the chui'ch catholic. For when we examine the testimonies of its different branches in the purer ages of the reform, we find that they are unanimous in condemning the errors which this modern latitudinarianism would now fain comprehend, as not being certainly erroneous, as the church has always been in asserting the fundamental doctrines of the faith. These loose statements are not true to the glorious consensus of the true Protestant churches. Are any so ill-informed at this day of the church's history, as not to know that indifference prompts nega- tive preaching, and that this, sooner or later, ripens into posi- tive error? A darker phase of this loose temper appears, when we see men eager to subscribe a creed which they do not believe, and to explain away their unbelief and opposite convictions, as not adverse or new doctrines, but merely new methods of adjust- ing the philosophic relations of the old dogmas. AYliat have we
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not seen cloaked under this glossing pretext! Too often have men been known, under it, to sign an undoubted Calvinistic creed, while advancing, "as explanation of it," a false philoso- phy, which every intelligent Pelagian and even Socinian hailed as his own, and which every candid student of history recog- nized as the traditionary and utter opposite of Calvinism.
So benumbing is the spirit of indifferency begotten by this comprehension, that its tendency is to extinguish all true life in the church Avliich practices it. Nothing except a prevalent secular motive has usually been able to restrain this tendency; and that motive has usually -been presented in the form of a state establishment, or a common political project. An estab- lished and endowed church has indeed been seen to survive this spirit of moderatism more than once, and to survive it long. In those cases the power of honest conviction and attachment, knitting kindred minds around a common centre of precious truth, has been so far substituted by the carnal desire for the " loaves and fishes " of preferment, as to keep a heterogeneous body peaceable and numerous. But where this cohesive power of money and place is lacking, the only permanent bond of union, the only effective energizer of concerted action, is a sincere community of convictions. Experience presents us two results from this policy of comprehension, where it has been attempted by unendowed churches : either peace is banished by intestine struggles, which, operating like a harsh medicine, remove the danger of spiritual torpor by separating the discordant ele- ments ; or else peace is preserved at the expense of life, and the motley body dies in the stupor of its own indifference. The lat- ter seems to have been the issue of the alliance of 1691, between the Presbyterians of England and a part of the Independents. In that " plan of union," it was covenanted that the diversities in the testimonies of the two should be suppressed for the sake of outward unity. The bargain was kept ; and the result was, that, despite the presence of a Watts aud a Doddridge, English Presbyterianism was at the end of the eighteenth century vir- tually dead, asphyxiated by this dishonest peace, into Socin- ianism.
IVo But the advocates of comprehension plead that if the laxer theologians in this mixed communion do preach negative truth or partial error, the more orthodox have equal liberty to
4G2 BROAD CHUKCHISM.
preach the whole truth. Thus, say they, The remedy may go aloug with the contagion, if contagion it be, as fully as any other system. I reply, Not so ; the application of this remed}' is fa- tally obstructed by the complication of dissimilar elements. And this is my final plea against the system : that the effectual defence of orthodoxy is excluded by it. There is, first, a homely maxim which substantiates this objection, " An ounce of pre- yention is worth a pound of cure." It is much easier to keep out error than to conquer it after it is in. How imprudent is this plan of campaign, which brings the enemy into your own camp and arms him from the resources of your own power be- fore you begin to contend against him ! Again, the friends of truth have found, to their cost, that as one cannot fight his ad- versary until he gets him at arm's length, so an effective testi- mony against error can never be borne until the struggling ele- ments separate themselves. Either the internal strife against error tends directly to that separation, or it is futile. "Witness the abortive struggles of the evangelicals in the Anglican church. They have had on their side numbers, learning, zeal, orthodoxy, honesty of purpose. But they were resolved, at the outset, that the glorious comprehension and unity of the church should in no case be sunk for the interests of doctrinal truth. Consequently their very anxious testimony has mainly gone for nothing. Their adversaries advance steadily Homeward, regarding their protests only as impertinence, carrying, it is to be feared, the body of churchmen with them. So in Scotland, the only men who did anything to rebuke "moderatism" and "patronage" were the Gillespies, Erskine, and Chalmers, who did it by se- ceding. The reasons of this are plain. In such a communion the orthodox Protestant is borne down by a practical conscious- ness that he cannot assail his oa^ti brethren and equals. They would raise against him the cry that he is disturbing the peace of the church. The temptation is thus powerful to suppress all reference to disputed dogmas and usages, and the testimony of the whole body becomes merely negative. Again, according to the constitution of such a church, the laxer creed is as fully au- thorized by her as the better. The testimony which denies the distinctive points of orthodoxy is the church's testimony also. The world, which holds a Pelagian creed by natural inheritance, finds, of course, the lower testimony more acceptable than the
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fitricter. As no fortress is stronger than its weakest bastion, so the doctrinal weight of a denomination never goes for more with the outside world than that of the lowest doctrine which that communion teaches. A church may have a decided Calvinistic creed and many Calvinistic ministers ; but I appeal to the sense of every intelHgent hearer, if she tolerates Arminiauism, does she ever, as a body, make a Calvinistic impression upon Christ- endom ?
We conclude, then, that if we would be faithful to our charge and our Master, we must, like the apostle, require all our minis- ters " to hold fast the faithful word as they have been taught, that they may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince gainsay ers." Should it be that our little Zion will re- main the last advocate of faithful subscription and a strict ad- herence to doctrinal purity in this land, and possibly in the Protestant world, then how solemn yet illustrious is the mission to which Christ calls us ! In strict fidelity to that mission will be our very existence as a church. Forfeit that, and the world will judge, may we not say that Christ himself will conclude that the gi'ound of our useful existence as a denomination is gone.
But let us not forget that this testimony for tlie " form of sound words which we have heard of " the apostles must be borne " in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Unhallowed is that 2eal for the truth which is animated merely by rivalry, or the spirit of party, which is not founded in solemn convic- tion, the result of faithful study and earnest prayer, which con- tends for wrath, and not for conscience's sake. The apostle here teaches us, in two words, what is that spirit of orthodoxy which God requires. It values revealed truth because it has humbly received it with adoring reverence, as the gift and trust of infinite wisdom and love, and because it sees in those doc- trines the instruments of glory to God and endless blessing to lilind, eiTing man ; yea, to our enemies and opposers. Let us, then, while we hold fast to the pattern of sound words, ever study to do it in faith and love.
FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE/
CERTAIN Northern Presbyterian prints are still bent upon persuading us to consort with their church, b}^ arguing that we are involved as deeply as themselves in the sin of political usurpations. Their argument seems to be, that we should come together, because we are alike bad ! To this " soft impeach- ment" we beg leave to demur. But the continuance of this pertinacious effort evinces the importance of reminding our peo- ple of the real issue of principle between ours and the Northern Presbyterian Church. It is often misconceived. The true na- ture of the usurpation committed by that Assembly was this : The Federal administration at Washington had created a politi- cal issue against the Southern States, which, in the dispensa- tion of an offended providence, became irreconcilable. With this issue the Southern Presbyterian Church, as a chiirch, had nothing to do, save anxiously to deprecate it ; and individuals of our church, even when engaged in the civil service of their fellow-citizens, usually did the same, standing, as the South did, upon the defensive, and earn.^stly desirous to escape aggression. But the providential result, precipitated chiefly by the ruthless refusal of the triumphant faction to listen to any terms except abject submission, was, that a personal question between two competing allegiances, that between the claim of the Federal government — the creature of the States — -and the claim of the original States themselves, was forced on individual Southern Christians. AVe had no option about meeting the question. But when this imperative claim was forced on us, nearly all honest Christians here decided that the right of their States to their allegiance was the prior and superior one. That their de- cision was at least not consciously wicked may be argued from the historical facts, that Virginia, the oldest of the Southern States, and their leader, had expressly reserved this right in 1788, in the sovereign act in which she acceded to the Federal
1 Appeared in the Southern Presbyterian, May, 1876. 464
FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE. 465
compact, and had been cheerfully hailed as a member on these express terms ; that Mr. Jefferson, the founder of the Republi- can party, and Mr. Madison, '•' the father of the constitution,'* both expressly taught it ; that this superior claim of the States as against the Federal government to the allegiance of their own citizens was also admitted by the Adams party, the oppo- nents of the old Republican party, by the mouth of their elected exponent, Gen. Harry Lee (Light-Horse), the father of Gen. R. E. Lee ; that it was expressly claimed by the ablest of the New England statesmen in 1814 ; that it was the avowed doctrine of both the political parties, and of nearly all the States, in the in- terval between 1815 and 1860 ; that it w-as expressly taught by Mr. Wirt, the legal member of Gen. Jackson's cabinet, even in the midst of the heated opposition of that administration to Mr. Calhoun ; that it had been roundly asserted by Chief Justice Chase, w'hile governor of Ohio ; and especially, that it was enounced almost unamimously as the right doctrine by all that was virtuous, learned, patriotic and prudent, in the Southern bench and bar.
Well; in April, 1861, by the dispensation of divine provi- dence, and by no act of ni}' own, this inexorable issue was forced on me for my personal decision. Mr. Lincoln claimed my al- legiance and aid against my own State. Virginia declared him a usurper, and claimed my allegiance and aid against him. I had to decide between them, as conscientiously as I might. This w^as evidently a case for the exercise of the right of private judgment, so far as ecclesiastical control was concerned. The question did not turn on any spiritual principle of duty to Christ, but on historical and political facts. The question was not at all one between lawlessness and subordination, between rebellion or obedience to " the powers that might be." No Southern Christian dreamed of electing lawlessness and insubor- dination to constituted human authority. The sole question was between two rival authorities, which had come in a very peculiar and complicated form of government into competition : the older and prior sovereign-State authority, and the newer and derived Federal authority. This was precisely the point : Which must I, a Virginian, obey ? I decided as the fathers of the Federal constitution, as New England, as Chief Justice Chase, had decided : I obeyed my State.
Vol. II.— 30.
4:C)C) FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE,
Well ; in May, 1861, the Presbyterian General Assembly in Pliiladelpliia took npon itself to decide that this my Christian act, so anxiously, prayerfully, and piously performed, Avas tlie sbi of refjelUon, prohibited by the apostle in Romans xiii, and 1 Peter ii. They did this, though warned expressly that, in order to reach such a conclusion logically, the Assembly "was bound to entertain ecclesiastically, to examine and adjudicate, this prior historical and political question — if it dared to say it had a right to do so. For obviously, the whole decision turned upon it. But the Assendjly tyrannically refused to have this vital question argued ; refused to hear evidence upon it ; cut off -every word of defence ; and the well-known penalty upon any Southern member for exercising his sacred constitutional right in this behalf would have been to be torn in pieces by a frantic mob of those Philadelphians, who are now busy going through the sham of celebrating the centennial anniversary of the prin- ciples which they hate and have trampled down in mire and blood. Here was a usurpation, equalling in bald and ruthless spiritual tyranny, and in mischievous perversion of moral order, righteousness, and liljorty, anything ever done by the Popes Gregory VII. or Innocent III.
Of course, all of that Assembly, except the ignoi'amuses, knew better. They knew that, ecclesiastically and spiritually, they had nothing to do with the question, unless they had had the righteousness and moral courage, in the exercise of their pas- toral function, to speak up for the rights of conscience, and ad- Tise moderation and conciliation to their own aggressive j)eo- ple. Even Dr. Hodge instructed them, timidly, of their usur- pation. But they would not hearken. What was their motive? It was to grasp that influence which, they supposed, the edicts of a powerful spiritual court so hmg venerated would exert over the consciences of Presbyterians, to aid and strengthen the greedy political faction to which these usurping ecclesiastics happened to be attached by their passions and supposed in- terests. Such was the real nature of the war legislation from 1861 to 1866.
Now, the Southern church, in fidelity to Christ, had no op- tion but to resist. And as the radical Assemblies had i)erpe- trated the wrong by invading the sphere of political rights, our church could meet and resist the usurpation only by following
FEATERNiL CORRESPONDENCE. 467
iliem, for defensive purposes, into the same sphere. This is very simple. But hence has arisen a miserable quibhle, which seems to have deluded the whole North, and to have emlnir- rassed not a little many Southern minds. It has been argued that, if the radical Assemblies went out of their sphere in pro- nouncing the decision of Southern patriots to be the sin of re- bellion, the Southern Assembly has gone equally out of its sphere, in pronouncing that it was not the sin of rebellion. " You," say thoy, " are as deep in the mire as we are in the mud." To a fair mind the answer is ver}^ clear. The one in- truded into the secular sphere for tJie purpose of invading a right of private judgment, which is one of the rights all churches are bound to protect. The other only followed them, as far as their invasion necessitated, for the j^^'^pose of defending this sacred right. In fact, this clear distinction was faithfully ob- served by the Southern church. Never once did \\vx Asseml)ly say to any one : You shall go with the Southern patriots into the support of the Confederacy, or be adjudged guilty of the sin of rel)ellion. This would have been the exact, formal counter- part of the usurpation of the Northern Assembly. But the Southern Assemblies steadily held that the decision of this political question was a right of each Christian's privat(! judg- ment ; involving, of course, the inference, that he who d(;cided for his own State could not be charged with ecclesiastical offence, •vrhere the same immunity was guaranteed to him who decided against his own State. This distinction has received a thou- sand illustrations. But there happens to be one so just that we cannot do better than present it. In the Old School As- sembly of 1859, some enthusiasts memorialized the body to adopt the precept that the temperate use of anything alcoholic is sin per se, and to make total abstinence therefore a term of communion. The Assembly wisely, and almost unanimously, refused to do it. But in order to groimd this refusal logically, the Assembly was obliged to hold and teach, that the temperate drinking of any alcoholic liquid is not sin per se. Of course. Now, did the Assembly mean, that it was one of her legitimate spiritual functions to countenance temperate drinking ? Not at all. Let us suppose that some fanatic had said : " This decision carries an incidental encouragement to temperate drinking, in its implied sanction ; it will Vje gleefully quoted by distillers and
468 FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE.
whisky-sellers. This Assembly has therefore, to say the least, gone out of her sphere on one side, as far as the Delavan-Chris- tian has gone on the other. If he is wrong, she is wrong." This nonsense would have embarrassed nobody; the answer would have been j^lain : that the Assembly was legislating aright, not in the positive interests of temperate drinking ; but in the interests of Christian liberty, which it was her proper spiritual function to define and protect. The aggression attempted by the Delavan fanatic had made it necessary for the Assembly to follow him into the social question, for defensive purposes.
But your radical is a pertinacious animal ; and this "v\T.'etched sophism, thoroughh' stiick to, and continually repeated to this day (see Preshyterian and Princeton Quarterly, Aj)ril, 1876), seems to have confused some men's minds among us, until ihej are almost afraid to stand to the truth. For myself, as an ecclesiastical ruler, I clearly saw my duties to Christ and the spiritual rights of his people ; and as a private citizen, I was not ashamed of that secular cause which was made glorious by the most intelhgent, disinterested and heroic devotion to princi- ple and liberty ever displayed b}- any people, and by such blood as that of Sidney Johnson, Jackson, and Polk. This clear dis- tinction between the aggressive attitude of the Northern, and the defensive attitude of the Southern church, also justifies me in my references to the history of the pohtical question, in what I design for an ecclesiastical discussion.
But again : as the Confederate struggle went on, slavery hap- j)ening to be the incidental occasion i^not the cmise!) of the col- lision, the same usurpers in the Eadical Assemblies bethought themselves of the expedient to strengthen their political faction still more, and to inflame the horrors of war against their " Southern brethren," by declaring slavery a sin per se, and the justifying of the relation of master and bondsman a " heresy " and a " blasphemy." True, they thus contradicted at once the word of God, the law of their own church as settled for all parts of it by their own Assembly of 1845, and the constitution whose integrity alone could give the North any pretext of right to rule or judge in the South. But these were no obstacles, when they saw this opportunity to heat up the declining fires of hatred and warfare. To these two usurpation.?, and to this heresy, and to this libel against our fathers and us, they still adhere in this
FRATEENAL CORRESPONDENCE. 469
year of gi-ace, 1876, while busily pretending to celebrate the centennial of those acts of the fathers embodying precisely the principles of State sovereignty, secession and libei-ty, ^^hich these men fiercely destroyed in 1865. These are the grounds not for our malice and revenge, but for our conscientious tes- timony and resistance. As to the civil government which has for eleven years, under the solemn and chastening ordinance of God, been permitted to establish its usurped authority irresisti- bly over my State, I submit peaceably, as to the " ordinance of God," just as Paul and Peter and Christ commanded private Christians to submit, in all things not unlawful, to conquering pagan Eome. I know what the chastising will of God is, in this particular, and bow to it. But as to the rights of conscience of my brethren and my childrer, I have no option to concede any- thing, any more than Peter and John had to concede when commanded "not to preach in the name of Jesus." The prin- ciples of Christ's kingdom are sacred and unchangeable — they are not antiquated -u-ith the lapse of eleven, or eleven hundred years.
But there seems to be an impression, that the true meaning of this issue has somehow passed away for us ; that the over- throw of the constitution and the revolution in the government are complete and irrevocable ; that these usurpations by the Radical Assemblies upon our rights of conscience, provoked by the dead Confederacy and dead slavery are wholly things of the past ; and that therefore it is time for us to drop our testimony, and "let by-gones be by-gones." The answer to this feeble talk is that, unfortunately, the aggressors will not let by-gones be by-gones. Wliat has happened since 1866, and what is now happening ? We saw how the usurping ecclesiastics greatly in- flamed and aggravated the horrors of war, hounding on the fiercest spirits of the invaders. They have steadily supported and encouraged the acts of oppression which are now filling many parts of the South ^\'iih. misery and destitution, and crush- ing several States under their o^ti slaves. The}' are to-day "^-ielding their whole influence in support of a system which destroys the liberties of the South, and which will probably de- stroy American institutions both North and South. I see these ecclesiastics, after eleven years, still glorying in all these iniqui- ties, revelling in the spoils of the invasion, just as they did in
470 FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE.
the hour of the first spoliation, and to this hour refusing to re- tract a single libel upon our sainted fathers and ourselves, "whom they pronounced heretics, sinners, and blasphemers, for daring to defend the relation in "^'hich the " Father of the faithful" lived and died. It is by their sanction and eager advocacy that our widows and orphans, who in many cases were incapable of exercising even an active sympathy as non-combatants with what these men are pleased to call " rebellion," have been sub- jected, and are to-day suhjected, eleven years after the end of the war, to spoliations and oppressions of murderous cruelty. I speak dehberately : these helpless victims, absolutely innocent even from the conquerors' point of view, have hterally perished, and are now perishing under these cruelties. In all this I fail to see any ground for silencing our righteous protest. But espe- cially is this false cry of peace pre^iosterous in view of the dis- tinct and clear declaration of the Radical Assembly at this time, that they do not mean to retract the usurpations of 1861-66. They expressly retain the claims. Doubtless this is done for a purpose intensely practical ; and if there is to be any healthy struggle in American politics, not for State sovereignty, but for a return to sounder and better usages in the newly formed, con- solidated empire, it will be found that these poj)ish claims are reserved ^/br tJie purpose ofheing used in the service of a pohtical faction. Let us suppose a case, that may very naturally arise. Every honest and intelligent person. North and South, believes that universal negro-suifrage was a deplorable blunder, and is an experiment fi-aught at this time with peril to the whole country. Nine out of ten of the freedmen are wholly unqualified for the trust. Experience has given us a complete demonstration, that they abuse it to the advancement of men utterly unfit for pubHc trust, selfish, unpatriotic, and designing. Who doubts it? Thoughtful men everywhere were greatly misdoubting whether universal white suffrage had not already extended the privilege of voting into too many incompetent hands : and the integrity of American politics was staggering under that load. But now the addition of hundreds of thousands of barbarous, alien, ig- norant voters, where the case was already hazardous, makes the experiment fearful. Such is the state of this matter. Now let lis suppose that many secular leaders at the North, far less rabid than these ecclesiasti:-al factionists, should concur with many public men at the South, who, notwithstanding their enormous
FRATERNAL CORRESPONDENCE. 471
^NTongs, truly seek the best possible future for the whole of the consolidated empire, in inquiring after a remedy for this fearful jjeril. The only practical or practicable remedy would be what is known as "impartial suffrage." Nothing in the terms im- posed by the conquerors of the South, or in the last so called " amendments " to the constitution, forbids our thinking of this. "Impartial suffrage" would make no difference between the negro and his former master, on the score of "race, color, or previous condition of bondage." Whatever were the qualilica- tions enacted, it would exclude the unqualified white as much as the unqualified black. But let us suppose that when this remedy was proposed, it should suit the views and plans of your Mortons, Colfaxes and Blaines, to raise the howl, that the ascendency of the Radical party was imperilled by " impartial suffrage," and to raise the cry : " Parsons, to the rescue ! " Is it not everyway likely that the Radical Presbyterian Assembly would again draw the sword of this popish usurpation, which they are preserving so carefully for future use ? We should probably have them at their next meeting telling all the good people, by authority of the divine Head of the church, that " manhood suffrage " was involved in the Christian creed, and that this "rebel" invention of "impartial siiffrage " was clear " sin, heresy, and blasphemy." It is not the least uncharitable to surmise this. For did they not deal just thus with the equally secular questions of AboHtion, Free-soil, and State- rights, in past years ? And has not a Radical Assembly, sitting in the name of Christ and speaking by his authority, already decided that righteousness demands the universal extension of suffrage to the freedmen ? " That which hath been is that which shall be." Indeed, in the view of sagacious men, this Radical Presbyterian Church, with the Northern Methodist Church, are the two most serious and dangerous obstacles to the ascertainment of some safe and tolerably equitable basis for the government of the new empire ; and if the formidable mis- chiefs which are now threatening the freedom and civilization of both sections alike remain unremedied, and finally work out their catastrophe, these two perverted religious bodies will be more guilty for it than any avowedly secular party in the ct)un- try. It thus appears that, both in the spiritual and the civil aspect, their usurpation is a " living issue," as real as it is dan- gerous.
FRATERNAL RELATIONS.^
IF we are able to -unclerstaud and appreciate tlie feeling to- day prevalent in our cliiircli, it is similar to our own, that the last Assembly lias unintentionally managed to leave our re- lations with the " Omnibus " Presbyterian Church in a greater muddle than ever. Having watched this matter intelligently and earnestly from its inception, at our Louisville Assembly, in 1870, until now, we cannot but feel that our management of it has been blundering. It is not charged that any action of our side has been dishonest, unrighteous, or aggressive. The truth would sustain us in all of them. But they have often been in- expedient, and the result has been that we have continually been over-reached, or have over-reached ourselves. Conse- quently our interests in this matter have now drifted into an exceedingly untoward condition.
Historical Review. A brief historical review of the diplomacy concerning " Fra- ternal Relations," " so-called," will be useful. We would refer to the statement of the original usurpations, which compelled us into an attitude of ecclesiastical independence, published by Dr. Dabney in the Southern Presbyterian Hevieio, in May last. He has presented the case, as it lies before us, justly. Our first grievance, then, was this : that wdien a providential current of secular events had imposed on Southern Prebyterians the ne- cessity of deciding, in the exercise of their own Christian lib- erty, a secular, legal, and political question, viz. : whether the Federal or State government had the prior claim to their civil allegiance ; the Philadelphia Assembly, in 1861, did assume to decide that our deciding for the State was the " sin of rebellion " forbidden in the sacred Scriptures, and that thus the constitu- tion of the church was outraged and a visurpation, prompted by
' The above appeared in the Southioestern Presbyterian, as a series of articles, January 4th to February 15th, 1877.
472
FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
473
factioiis, worldly motives, attempted over tlie conseieuees of God's people, of an essentially popish nature. And the cruel and monstrous tyranny was illustrated by this fact : that while the right of the Assemlily to pass any such act depended solely upon its right and alnlity to entertain and decide the historical question, "Which was the prior allegiance, the State, or the Federal ? " that Assembly did refuse to permit that foundation question to be entertained ; and Southern members were estop- ped of their just right to have it entertained by the threatened penalty of being murdered by a Philadelphia mob ! The usur- pation was further illustrated by tho temper and acts of subse- quent Assemblies, New and Old School, annually repeating this tyrannical assumption over free consciences ; first inventing and urging upon the civil authorities the theory not before as- sumed by political partisans, that " secession is treason," and thirstily clamoring for the blood of Southern patriots as " traitors." By their hounding on of the already frantic coercion party of the Xorth to a more atrocious war, by their inciting the civil magistrate to that usurpation, the robbing us of the labor of and property in our servants, which had been declared by Mr. Lincoln, and the solemn joint resolution of his own Congress, to be beyond the constitutional power of the Federal government, either in peace or war. Such, we sorrowfully repeat, were the acts, not of Presbyterian persons only, infected with the popular madness, but of formal Assemblies, sitting as spiritual courts of the Prince of Peace, yet perverting his kingdom to ends unhal- lowed in tomper and utterly unconstitutional in character. Then followed the famous acts of 186o-'6, declaring the doctrine of the Bible as established by their own predecessors in 1845, con- cerning the lawfulness of slaveholding, to be heresy, and de- nouncing us as " traitors," " rebels," " miserable sinners," and "blasphemers;" excommunicating us from the pale of the visi- ble church cathohc (for such was the obvious effect of their i-e- solves discarding our denominational rights and existence, and pro^dding, as the only mode, for our entering Christ's church by repentance and confession, like other profane persons), and punishing their equals, the signers of the Declaration and Testi- mony, for exercising their constitutional right of dissent and re- monstrance. This review is absolutely necessary for the under- standing of the remarks which are to follow.
474 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
Against these monstrous proceedings, Sontiiern Presbyterians defended themselves iu the only righteous way left them, by withdrawing and assuming their ecclesiastical independence. This they did with the utmost diguit}' and Christian forbear- ance. The Assemblies abstained from all denunciation and re- taliation, and scrupulously allowed and respected all the church- rights of, and all the obligations of charity towards, their violent assailants and detractors.
The Louisvelle Assembly.
"Well, after the lapse of a few years, the Xorthern Assembly, moved by policy, and undeceived by the cpiiet firmness of the Southern people, retracted so much of their own action as had sought to exclude us from the pale of the catholic church, and made a grudging recognition of our denominational existence and church-rights. But they still practiced and encouraged all the annoyances they could, by gras2'>ing our church-property, dividing our congregations and egging on the minorities therein, iisually contemptibly small, to seek to govern the majorities. It must also be remembered that the Assembly itself has since formally committed itself to the partisan, illegal and unconstitu- tional decision of a faction in the Supreme Court, designed to provide for the unlimited plunder of the weaker party.
Cut still, all the factions in the ornuihvs church eagerh' craved to absorb or reconcile the Southern church. They all desired to silence our testimony against their usurpations. As the temper of the American people remained, after all the stim- ulants applied by clerical zealots, adverse to persecution and violent suppression, the only way to effect that end left them was to absorb us. The strict Old School men desired to gain the support of the Southern chiu'ches, known to be soundly orthodox, to their side in the coming doctrinal strife. The " progressives " longed to carry out their ambitious, carnal pas- sion for an e-2)lurihiis-unuin church, "national" in its material grandeur, and yielding to them, the conscious majority, all its revenues of power, wealth and distinction, from all parts of the continent. This party, conscious of their irresistible ascen- dency in the omnihis body, and of the timidity and real help- lessness of the Old School x^artj-, and confident of their own ability to neutralize and silence our Old Schoolism, as they had
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SO tlironglily done tliat of the Northern orthodox, were Dot the least rehictaut to see the latter receive the apparent accession of Southern Presbyterians known to be Old School. Then, there was a multitude of pious people carried away by the sen- timental and goodisfi cry for " union of Christians." And last, there were doubtless some people who cherished an honest re- spect for us, and an honest desire to do us justice, and to have a more intimate Christian communion with us. This last class we gladly recognize ; for we rejoice to believe that true piety is not extinct in those bodies, so unfortunately dominated by cleri- cal radicals.
In 1870, the omnibus Assembly sent to our Assembly in Louisville an able and dignified committee, requesting that we should appoint a number of commissioners, to meet similar ones on their part, for the adjustment of grievances, in order to the resumption of seemly relations, not discreditable to Chris- tian charity and the honor of Christ. The writer was a member of that Assembly, and thoroughly conversant with its feelings. The almost universal sentiment prevalent in our Assembly, as in our church, was this : that Southern Presbyterians did not de- sire amalgamation, or mixture with this onmibus church. There was an ocean of blood between them ; and they and their coun- try was (and is) still writhing and bleeding under wrongs of in- genious and exquisite cruelty, Avhich were (and are) ardently abetted by the most of Northern Presbyterians, They had re- pudiated the noble doctrinal testimonies of 1837-'38 ; allowed themselves to be absorbed by the New School ; to be abolition- ized ; to be made a " Broad-church." Their doctrinal and ec- clesiastical tendencies were manifestly unsafe. Thus we felt that all entangling alliances with them would be as unwise and perilous as distasteful ; and that, as we were entitled to protect our own self-respect and comfort, so we were solemnly bound to God to protect his truth, by maintaining our separation. But, then, it was felt that this move from the omn'ihus Assem- bly was most adroitly planned to put us seemingly in the wrong. They, although the real and only aggressors, designed still to appropriate the credit of taking the initiative step towards peace \ They would have the eclat of tendering the olive branch ! They fully " calculated " (to use the Yankee provincialism) that our feelings and principles would both compel us to decline it. And
■4 4 0 FRATEENAL EELATIONS.
tlien they could turn to tlie Christian ^vorhl, and say, " See, now, these unchristian rebels, how they spurn even the olive branch !" We surmised correctly, that the ignorance and con- tempt of a prejudiced world, always misjudging Southern prin- ciples, would be sure to concur. The embarrassment imposed by this adroit measure was acutely felt by our Assembly. They saw the snare ; they did not see very clearly how to escape it, and yet escape the designed odiia/i.
At the first blush, many in the Assemblj' inclined to yield, though reluctantly, and appoint the commissioners requested. Another party, led by the manly and vigorous spirit of Dr. Palmer, inclined to refuse, and to re-assert the grounds of our independence boldly ; that is, to " save our meat," and let the manners take care of themselves. As chairman of the Commit- tee on Foreign Kelations, he drew^ up his own views in writing, at the request of his committee, as a suggestion for their con- sideration. In this noble paper he roundly re-stated the griev- ances of Christ's cause, and told the omnihiis Assembly that there was our ground for declining more intimate correspondence with them, until they undid their misdoings. But it was impos- sible to carry either his committee or the timid Assembly with him. The result was an awkward coniprcvaiise, in which our Assembly agreed to send commissioners, and 3et appended Dr. Palmer's statement of grievances, as published instructions to them wdiat to demand of the other side. This compromise, like so many others, forfeited all the advantages, and incurred all the disadvantages. The ovin ihiis Assembly had just what the " wire pullers " plotted for — a pretext to say, " Lo ! these rebels spurn the olive branch." They cried out that we, while pretending a wdllingness to treat, had flung a new indictment in their faces — a calculated insult. So that our ^answer, while really sustained by truth and righteousness, pleased neither our own people nor our enemies. This was the beginning of our regular series of blunders, repeated ever since.
Another Plan.
There was not wanting, in the Louisville Assembly, a clearer perception of the w^ay " to save both our manners and our meat." The advocates of that way proposed it in conference, and even formulated it in writing ; but, being insignificant in influence,
FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 477
gaiuecl no effective liearing. Their plan ■uoiilcl have expressed itself substantially thus, replying to the committee of the ouutl- hus Assembly :
That an overture made professedly in the interests of peace, and in decent terms, should of course receive from us a consid- eration and reply thoroughly courteous. That, therefore, ■v\-e noAV even allude to " grievances " only because the overture al- ludes to them, and only to the extent of the virtual inquiry raised by that reference of the other side. Xow, therefore, whereas they invite us to send commissioners to discuss and settle those grievances, with a view to instituting closer rela- tions, less discreditable to Christian charity than noAV prevail, we say that our view of those grievances is already stated, (see acts of the Southern Assembly, December, 1861, etc., etc.), as perspicuously as words of ours can state them. That we wish especially to say that we have no prosecution nor persecution to wage against their church for its past actions. That while we cannot but believe the amendment of whatever has been er- roneous will do themselves much honor, we recognize in full the duties of Christian forgiveness and charity, and the wrongful- ness of any retaliatory measures on our part. Hence we have no demands to make in order to the exercise of due Christian charity towards others. That the attitude we now hold, and pur- pose to hold, is best illustrated by the facts of oiir past, which facts are historically and literally these, viz.: that ice have all along heen conceding and noio concede to their churches everything v:hich goes to make up reed fraterncd relcd'wns Iteticeen the distinct branches of the catholic hodj of Christ, without stopping to ask whether the like rights and courtesies have been equitably con- ceded to us, namely : Full recognition of their church-character as a part of the visible church ; of their orders and sacraments ; of their church rights, properties and endowments, in every con- gregation or school voluntarily adhering ; the offer of ministerial and Christian communion to their individual ministers and members among us, according to the merits of each personal case, and last, the offices of hospitality and mercy to all per- sons of theirs who are in need or distress in our reach. So that we now and here do for them inore, and viore lilerally, than they ask through their respected committee. Whereas, they ask us to extend these fraternal relations on conditio?i of certain
478 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
difficult preliminaries, we say : " You shall have thein vnthout any jyyeliminary as in fact you have them, and have had them, on our part, all along. That in view of all the above, and of the fact that attempted explanations often resnlt in inflaming old differences, we, acting in the interests of peace as sinceroly as thcj, deem it wholly unnecessary to send commissioners for the proposed debates, inasmuch as we have already all along granted what is 2:)roposed, so far as is consistent with our distinct inde- pendence as a denomination. For we must respectfully say, that this independent attitude, assumed under conscientious convic- tion, we propose to maintain from the same sacred motives. And any complimentary exchanges, other than those subsisting between us and all other liranches of the true church, we shall continue to regard both as not convenient nor edifying to us, nor at all needful to the maintenance of substantial "fraternal relations." But we say in fine, that as their overture refers to the discredit done religion by our " going to law before the un- believers," we do cheerfully agree to appoint commissioners to meet Northern commissioners, ^/v^?' tire express and s'lngle j^^f^^'pose of taking all such controversies from those about a house or manse, up to those for a seminary-endowment, out of court ; by referring them to impartial and Christian arbiters, binding our- selves irrevocalily to stand by the award, provided the other side does the same.
This view, embodied in words as Dr. Palmer would have so well known how, would have been the best possilile. So far as the Northern overture expresses r3al and honest Christian de- sires for charity, as it doubtless did on the part of some, it would have met them in the like spirit. And so far as this overture was the plan of diplomatists to put us seemingly in the wrong, it would have been perfectly " checkmated " by this answer. "Without seeming to meet a pretended friendly ad- vance with the language of accusation, it would have unmasked the fact, all-important to the question, that all the aggression was on their side. Their game of " making capital " would have been effectually spoiled ; and that without our compro- mising our " manners " in the judgment of the most captious. The profession of a desire for jiist peace would have been brought to the touchstone, by proposing to settle all the pro- perty-claims justly : the very thing the plotters among them
FRATEKNAL RELATIONS. 479
never meant to do. Thus " the tables would have been turned." Last and chiefly, this answer would have been strictly and his- torically true; and would have set in a glorious light the won- derful forbearance, charity and justice maintained by our church under the fiercest provocations.
Our next blunder was to go into regular complimentary in- tercourse with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And our next was the closer alliance with the Reformed (Dutch) Church. These annual interchanges are impractical, useless, fulsome, and often insincere, in bad taste, unnecessary to the real main- tenance of Christian relations, and increasingly obnoxious to sober minds. But our special point is : that it was very rash in us to be thus needlessly complicating our external relations toith aiiyhocly, when we had before us a dangerous and trouble- some question of relations with our former associates. The next and worse blunder was the appointment of commissioners to the Baltimore Conference, as it was foreshadowed. Then, at least, we should have given the answer which we have de- scribed, and should have refused to send any commissioners, save for the purpose of taking all property-suits out of court. The worst blunder of all was the pledge given by our Assembly of 1875, at St Louis, that we would enter into the annual ex- change of complimentary delegates with the omnihiis Assem- bly as soon as they should do one thing — retract their libels on us as schismatics, heretics and blasphemers, in "a few plain words." This pledge our Assembly gave in sanctioning a state- ment to that amount, made by our commissioners at Baltimore. These had divided our gravamina against the omnihus body into two groups : the one containing all those terrible usurpa- tions by which they had violated the constitution of Christ's church and crushed the liberty of conscience ; the other con- taining all the insults and slanders heaped upon Southern Christians. Our commission argued that, were the question one of fusion, it would be necessary to require as a prerequisite the amendment of those usurpations ; but while the question was one of fraternal correspondence, it was proper for us to re- quire only the retraction of the slanders. This is a grave mis- take. It appears thus from this thought : Historically, the meaning of this " {maternal correspondence " is to express a special harmony of doctrine and order, and a special confi-
480 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
deuce and approval, singling out the beloved object even from among tlie rest of our brethren of tlie visible body of Christ. Now, then, this position of our commissioners places us in this most unhandsome attitude, viz.: that while a wrong done to our personal good name and feelings is an insuperable obstacle, the gravest wrongs done to the rights and honor of Jesus Christ our Lord are not regarded by us as any obstacle at all to our pro- fessing special harmony of sentiment, confidence and approba- tion for the doers. Let only the libel that galls us personally be withdrawn, and then we seem to have no objection to testify, by these historiccil, typical and solemn formalities, our especial love and approval for those who thus wound our Master, sing- ling them out, even among the rest of his servants, thus to honor them while they dishonor their and our Lord ! That is, we seem to care much for our own, little for Christ's, credit.
Secondly, We ought never to have made such a pledge, be- cause common foresight would have taught us that it would be sure to be entangling. The past should have taught us what use our omnibus Presbyterians icoidd make of it, just the use they have made of it. It was certain that they would pass some deceptive action, seeming to make us amends, and yet not doing it, which would " keep the word of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope." And thus it was certain that our dis- cussion of vital principles would be degraded into pitiful logo- machies and word-splittings, which would soon become sapless and void of interest to manly, serious minds among us, and would throw the apple of discord among ourselves. All this has been verified, and it shows that it was on an ill-starred day our Assembly made this conditional pledge.
But, thirdly. The main reason against it is this : ^Ve ought to he luithheld hy solemn, conscientious ohligations to Christ and his people, from going into any special correspondence icith those Pres- lyterians, on any terms ivhatsoever, or at any time. Hence we ought candidly to have told them so at first and ever after. But our third point is the one which will meet most dissent, and hence it must be fully sustained.
If we are not much mistaken, every intelligent Southern man secretly sympathizes with the sentiment we here candidly avow> that we ought to have as little as possible to do with Yankee Presbyterians, except rendering them good for evil in the offices
FEATEENAL EELATIONS. 481
of mercy toward siitfering. But many are still hag-ridden by tlie feeling that they cannot "save their manners and their meat."' They feel that, somehow, Christian decencies must force them into this distasteful and perilous connection. They are timid, and afraid to "face the music" of a one-sided and arrosrant opinion, in the unfriendly Christian world. Now, the drift of our argument shall be to re-assure and undeceive all such minds, and to lift this question up to the height of the grand moral obligations on which it should be decided.
Good men are deceiving themselves "wdth this view : that past grievances ought not to prevent "fraternal relations" with those whom we recognize as, notwithstanding the wrongs they have done us, Christian brethren. This seems almost self-evi- dent : that we should not be iinfniternal towards admitted fratres ! But we ask: What are "fraternal relations"? It is a singular fact, that in all this tedious debate, we have never had that question carefully answered ; fraternal relations have never heen defined ! And here has been another of our blunders. "We have allowed the Northern Presbyterians, without question, to beg the whole question ; and to assume that " fraternal rela- tions " are nothing elso than a certain very questionable, useless and fulsome custom of interchanging annual compliments and flatteries by dignified delegates. Thus, wa permit them to pre- pare the way for charging us with unchristian conduct, should our convenience, taste or safety prompt us to decline that en- snaring usage. It has been a shrewd trick on their part ; and we have sufiered it, with a simplicity singular to behold. The spectacle will appear the more amazing when it apjjears, as we shall show, that the true fraternal relations Jiave all along heen maintained on our side, and are already in full force on our side, notwithstanding intense provocations. The trul}' catholic doc- trine concerning Christian unity and charity is this : that the catholic church of Christ exists in several denominations, ne- cessitated by geographical, national, linguistic, and social dis- tinctions, and the unavoidable infirmities of human thought; that no other general unity exists, or is possible, between these parts, than a sphitual unity of behefs and sentiments and obe- dience to a common Head, Christ; that each denomination, while managing its own afl'airs independently, should respect
Vol. U,— 29.
482 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
the rights of other cieuomiuations, and recognize their valid ex- istence.
Hence, fraternal relations between distinct churches consist in this recognition ; in admitting the validity of each others' or- dination, sacraments and disciplinary verdicts ; in respecting each others' church-rights, institutions, property and enterprises for evangelizing the world ; in holding ministerial and Christian communion in individual cases, according to the individual merits thereof ; and in suitable acts of Christian hospitality and alms-giving, wdien needed by persons journeying from home, or destitute, or afflicted. These are fraternal relations. When high prelatists scout our ordination as invalid ; when immer- sionists ignore our baptism and exclude us as unbaptized from the Lord's supper ; when either proselyte our members and treat our disciplinary acts against offenders as null and void, tliey violate fraternal relations. But that very questiorable and sycophantic usage, the mutual interchange of compliments, is not fraternal relations. In importance, it does not bear a larger ratio to the real and the important fraternal relations than the paring of a man's finger-nail does to his living body. Now, the important fact is, that loe have tncdntaiyied these real fraternal relations (and are maintaining them now), towards the omnibus Presbyterian Church, during all the times when they were un- churching us, usurping our spiritual liberties, hounding on a civil faction to seek our blood, anathematizing us, arrogantly nullifying our church rights and existence, grasping our pro- perty, and dividing our congregations. And is it not a cool proceeding that they, the only parties who have ever inter- rupted fi-aternal relations at all, should, in the face of these facts, come to us and pertinaciously exact of us that we shall restore fraternal relations or else be charged as uncharitable? Terily, it is enough to take a plain man's breath awa}' ! And is it not a strange thing that Ave should have endured this with an amiable verdancy unsurpassed among victims ? Verily it is a match for Ahab's coolness in charging that Elijah was "troub- ling Israel." It is high time for us to assert what is the truth, that we have done all, and more than all, which charity and fra- ternity rec^uire. It is high time we had the candor and clearness to say to our accusing wooers : " Amend \o\\x own aggressions, and then fraternal relations will be perfect, without oar doing anything at all.
fraternal relations. 483
Dangerous Alliances.
Some brethren lioodwink themselves with this argumeut : " these Presbyterians were formerly our associates ; they bear "the same name with us ; they profess fo hold the same doc- trines and constitution. Hence, as soon as they make the amends required by our self-respect, we shall be obliged, for decency's sake, to enter into relations or special intimacy with them.
The proper inference to be drawn from their premises is ex- actly the opposite. Because they do bear the same name, pro- fess the same creed, and were lately our associates, therefore they are the very people whose intimacy would most endanger our doctrinal and moral purity ; and for that very reason, we should have least to do with them. It is not from Yankee Con- gregationalism, or Methodism, or Immersionism, or even North- ern Popery, that the present danger to our orthodoxy, moral purity, and Presbyterian order arises ! How many of our mem- bers ever read their journals, or frequent their institutions of learning, or, indeed, hear or care anything special about those parties ? No ; the peril of having our principles sophisticated — an imminent peril — is from these former associates ; and it is because of the former intimacy that the peril rises thence. A very plain parallel will evince this. A parent, returning from a journey, learns that small-pox is somewhat prevalent in his city. "Where ? Well, more in certain remote suburbs, where it is quite prevalent and deadly ; but it has also infected the family of a near neighbor, equal and intimate. Does not this parent then say : " I do not regard the disease in those distant suburbs, for my children never frequent them ; but the point of danger is this friend's family near me, because his children and mine have mixed so familiarly." As a sensible man, he saj-s little or nothing about the distant infection, but he straitly charges his family to maintain an absolute non-intercourse with their late neighbor. Now let us suppose that this neighbor had lately outraged him by sundry gratuitous insults and injuries ; and that this parent, therefore, begins to reason : " I profess to be a Christian. Christians ought to be forgiving. My late intimate, now my very uncharitable injurer, stands ready to brand me as being uncharitable, if I betraj' even a just resentment. Tliere- iore it will be necessary for me to abstain from every appear-
484 FRATEKNAL RELATIONS.
auce of coolness towards liim, and to have mj children keep up all their former intimacies, even if they do catch the pestilence." Is this Christian charit}', or quixotry ?
For, in fact, Southern Christianity is in imminent peril from any and every association mth this omnihus church. Again, we find ourselves under a necessity to make room for a fair hearing, by putting in a caveat against the quixotic charity, and fear of compromising our manners, in our own brethren. Some of them will recoil from the idea of grounding a line of policy on an assumed superiority of our own. They will ask, is not this too much like the Pharisee who says, " Stand by thyself ; come not nigh me, for I am holier than thou?" Our reply shall be stubborn facts. We can easily hold our position, with- out arrogance. We may put the matter thus : we are a set of miserable sinners, we Southern Presb}i;erians, so that we have so many spiritual diseases and corruptions, that, for that very reason, we cannot stand the addition of the few others we shall imbibe from those excellent people, the omnihus Presbyterians. So leaky a ship as ours cannot afford to risk any more lading. But more seriously : if God, in his sovereign grace, and by means, in large part, profoundly afflictive and humbling, has indeed honored our unworthy church with a knowledge of and value for orthodoxy, scriptural church order, and moral purity, dare we proceed, under the pretence of a lazy, cowardly, sham humility, to compromise that sacred charge by groundless al- liances with those wdio have betrayed those gifts and will cor- rupt them in us ? We ask this question with a solemn emphasis ; we lay it on our brethren's consciences. We challenge them as guardians of the " church of God which he hath purchased wdth his own blood," to gainsay or evade these facts : that South- ern Presbyterianism, with all its faults (and they are many), yet has some things peculiar to it : a simpler and purer social morality, not yet so corrupted by enormous aggregations of commercial and manufacturing wealth ; a secular periodical literature less tinctured with evolutionism, materialism, and athe- ism ; a more scriptual and earnest style of preaching ; a sounder orthodoxy, and a more Presbyterian church order ; and that these things are worth preserving . That the whole drift and aim, inten- tional and unintentional, of Northern effort, is to Yankee'tze the South / in which process, if effectual, the South, while it may gain
FEATERNAL RELATIONS. 485
certain secular advantages of money-getting, must lose these re- ligious blessings ; and while we, as guardians of the church of Ohrist, have no business either with procuring or hindering, these secular changes, it is our right and solemn duty to watch over and preserve these spiritual advantages. That since the overthrow of the States and their independence, there remains no other bulwark against the flood of Yankee innovations in re- ligion and morals, save our ecclesiastical separation and inde- pendence. Hence it appears, that it is not a matter of privilege and preference, but a matter of solemn duty and responsibility, that we m^^st preserve our separation and independence jeal- ously, for Christ's sake, and especially against our former as- sociates.
For, we repeat, it is in part the fact that they were our for- mer associates which makes their intimacy especially dangerous to us. And now that we may know what sort of intimacy this would be, it becomes our positive duty to inquire dispassion- ately, but faithfully, into the present status and tendencies of this omnihns church. Let us "nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." First, then, must be considered the at- titude of the church as to its usurping, tyrannical and popish claims, from the " Spring resolutions " of 1861 onward, to legislate against the secular rights of opinion of its own members, and coerce their consciences in matters not ordained of God. This resolution against Presbyterianism is to-day asserted and held by them, as witness their absolute refusal to disclaim it, their embodiment of the tyrannical decision of the supreme secular court in their Digest, and the declarations of all their leading men. Next comes the thorough abohtionizing of the whole body. It now stands, on this matter, precisely in that false doctrine which, in 1837, helped to decide our fathers and us to separate from them ; and which, in 1858, constrained the "Uni- ted Synod" (now a part of ourselves) to shake off the dust of their feet against them. This Abolitionism, born of French Jacobinism, Socinianism and infidelity, with its deadly conse- quences of denying the Mosaic inspiration and the integrity and morality of the apostles, the omnibus church has ex- pressly made its own. Next came the reversal of all the glori- ous doctrinal testimonies of 1837-'38, and the embracing again of the New School errors, which our fathers then condemned
486 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
and cast out ; by their unconditioual fusion with the Xew School. The attempt is yainly made to cover this defection, by saying that they received the New School on precisly the same terms on which the Southern Assembly received the United Synod. But " circumstances alter cases." We did, indeed, re- ceive the United Synod on "the Confession pure and simplo;" but it Avas because, upon express examination and comparison of doctrinal views, it was ascertained that the United Sj'nod and we understood the Confession in the same sense. The omnibus Assembly fused itself with the New School notwithstanding, al- though it had made a similar comjxii'ison of doctrinal views, and had ascertained that the Confession was not held in the same sense. We and the United Synod met on the old Confession, because we knew we were agreed ; these parties did it when they knew they were not agreed. It was the New School Assembly, sitting at Harrisburg, Pa., which expressly triumphed, compelling the other to surrender its Old Schoolism in order to fusion. It was virtuall}^ stipulated thcd every ])hase of doctrine which the New ^cliool had tolerated should he accredited in the omnibus church. For instance. Dr. Hatfield loudly and ostentatiously announced this as the claim he meant to stand by, and the omnibus As- sembl}- rewarded him by making him its stated clerk, as he to- day continues to be.
This fusion manifestly makes it a broad church. Let the fol- lowing symptoms of a diffusive and all-penetrating license of doctrine be noted. A few years ago, Mr. H. W. Beecher, by invitation, delivered the commencement address to the divinity students of Princeton Seminary, at the close of which Dr. Charles Hodge extended to him a formal handshaking on the public rostrum. To understand the significance of this transac- tion, let it be set over against a previous one at the same place. In the ante-belluvi days of old Dr. Alexander, when Princeton was still Princeton, the students proposed to extend an invita- tion to the Eev. George Bush, to deliver a similar address to them. He was an cdumnus of Princeton, once a prime favorite and j^rofey'/ of Dr. Alexander, and then tinctured with some Swe- denborgian crotchets about the resurrection and prophecy ; but stiU a man of blameless sanctity, of a devout life, and of true erudition. But when Dr. Alexander heard of the proposal he sent for the students and forbade it, saying that the Seminary
FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 487
was a eliurch-school, and an exponent of licr doctrinal purity ; and lie therefore could not permit sucli an honor to be paid to a man of defective theology, lest the reputation of the Seminary for orthodoxy should be tarnished. Let the two pictures be compared.
Another evidence of latitudinarianism is seen in the preaching of laymen and women in that communion. The performances of the Eev, Miss Smiley in the church of T. L. Cuyler will be recalled, and the great difficulty Avitli which his presbytery par- tially restrained the innovation for a brief season. Since then we have seen the " church papers " ostentatiously parading ap- pointments of women, including a negress, who aspired to be preachers. The public appearances of officers (females) in the women's mission societies tends in the same way. Of the ex- tent to which the ministers of that church commit themselves to encouraging the innovation of lay-preaching, nothing need be said.
Another symptom may be found in the invitation of a Socin- ian, Dr^ Peabody, to give formal instruction in a branch of the- ology to its students, by the Union Seminary in New York cit}^ What else can any one expect but that every young minister of that church will feel himself authorized by that precedent to invite Socinians into his jDulpit ? It will be impossible for the authorities to object. Thus, the worst abuses of New England's looseness are transplanted into a church calling itself Presby- terian.
Another thing, which was not done in a corner, was the elec- tion of Dr. Patterson to a chair in their theological seminary near Chicago. In the famous " Swing trial," where an attempt was made to curb a heretic who audaciously flouted almost every characteristic of our creed, Dr. Patterson both spoke and voted for his acquittal. He was soon after promoted to the re- sponsible post of an instructor of the future pastors of the church. It is said that when some Old School members of the oiniiihus body indicated a reluctance to confirm such an ap- jDointment, they were challenged by the latitudinarians in the Assembly to refuse, with the threat, that if they dared to with- hold confirmation on this ground, it should be a casus helU in " the happy family ; " whereupon the valiant defenders of ortho- doxy recoiled, and availed themselves of an indirection to avoid
488 FEATERNAI. RELATIONS.
the collision. Dr. Patterson, the jnstifier of Swing, is now a teacher of the teachers of this church.
Once more, a Mr. McCune, near Cincinnati, in regular mem- bership in that presljvterT, took in hand to form a new, creed- less, broad church, upon the precise theory of the great here- siarch, Alexander Campbell, iea^-ing out the immersion. In or- ganizing his project, he committed flagrant iri'egularities, ac- tually enrolhng in his unlawful assemblage members of the Presbyterian Churches of his own presbytery. At his instal- ment. Dr. Moms, professor of the Lane Seminary, and modera- tor of the omn'Jnis Assembly, presided and preached the ser- mon, and bade good speed to the enterprise. He has never been called to account for this extraordinary act by the church. The attempt of Dr. Thomas Skinner, his co-presbyter, to do so, was rejected in a disorderly and tyrannical manner, and a storm of obloquy plucked down on the head of the defender of right- eousness.
These things have been done in high places. Time would fail to tell of the unhealthy signs manifesting themselves in a multitude of churches of less note ; o" the flood of negative preaching in which the unpalatable, old fashioned truths of de- pravity, predestination, eternal punishments, are silently but systematically pretermitted ; of ruling elders who never read the Confession they swore to uphold, and who flout its distinc- tive doctrines with disdain ; of the torrent of worldly conformi- ties, lascivious dances, theatre-goings, and often dissipations which have come into nominally Christian families.
The most ominous feature of that church is a general one ; the fearful neutralizing and solvent power which its ecclesiasti- cal radicalism has over the conservative men in it. They go in seemingly orthodox, Old School, staunch : they proclaim as they enter, that they are going in to combat for orthodoxy. But somehow, after a little, theu' orthodoxy is practically si- lenced, and their influence for truth somehow neutralized. This radical giant easily carries, in its all-digesting maw, the most solid and refractory lumps of Old-Schoolism, and goes gaily on its path of radicalism and innovation, with scarcely an intestinal qualm. It is evidently its consciousness of this well tried power which makes it so willing to swallow Southern orthodoxy also.
Now our point is, that such company is not safe for those
FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 489
who love God's truth ; and that if we mean to be faithful to our charge, we must avoid eutangliug alliances with it.
The Reason Why.
Two cavils will be raised against this our statement. Nobody can gainsay the facts, any more than he can dispute their omi- nous gravity. But it will be said that it is uncharitable to parade the faults of our neighbor when he is making friendly overtiu'es. We reph*, that it is his indelicate forwardness in pressing those overtures which justifies and necessitates the statement. If he is exposed in a way he does not like, he has himself to blame for it. Let us suppose that there was a vir- tuous father of daughters, who had a very fussy and obtrusive neighbor of worse than doubtful morals. The father knows his discreditable antecedents, but, like a charitable Christian, covers them with the vail of silence. Meantime his neighbor fre- quently demands the privileges of a social intimate and equal in the father's house, and is met with a civil but firm reserve. At length the fellow has the folly to insist, in the presence of the neighborhood, on admission to intimacy, and to demand the reason wliy he is not entitled to it. Can he complain, then, if the father, thus driven to the wall, speaks in self-defence, and says, " I am justified in declining 3-our intimacy, because I know your habits are ^'icious. That is my reason, if you will have it" ?
The other ca-sdl will be this : Good brethren will say, " All these statements and charges would be very timely if we were proposing * organic union ' with Korthern Presbyterians. But we only propose 'fraternal relations.'" To this, there are two crushing answers : this complimentary intercourse, erroneously named " fraternal relations," will lead to that calamitous fusion. It will be as distinct a complicity with the errors and corrup- tions charged, though not so criminal, as fusion itself. Let the latter proposition be illustrated first. The reader cannot be too often reminded of the historical significance of this usage in our church. It was a very emphatic type and pledge of an especial harmony of doctrinal and ecclesiastical views, of especial confi- dence, and especial aftection. Thus, the Old Assembly never extended those compliments to any, however evangelical, except the orthodox. Congregationahsts, in a day when they were wholly
490 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
Calvinistic and semi-Presbyterian, and to tlie strict Presby- terian bodies, like tlie Associate [Reformed and the Keformed Dutch. The Cumberhind Presbyterians departed from our creed, retaining our government. The Old Assembly did not maintain this correspondence with them. The New School de- parted from us in 1838. The Old Assembly never consented to this species of intercourse. [And it is worthy of the most seri- ous reflection that when it did begin, since the \f2iV,fasioii came close on its heels /] Now, if we extend this complimentary inter- course to the omnibus Presbyterians, wo shall be understood by the Christian world, by them, and by our own people, as professing just what the usage always meant — especial appro- bation, harmony of views and unity. Is it not obvious, then, that to enter into this relation will stultify our conscientious tes- timony against their errors, and involve us in a guilty compli- city? It is proposed that we shall extend to these people a mark of intimacy which we do not extend to the Southern. Methodist Church. Yet the latter has never bowed to Csesar, nor defiled its records with murderous war — resolves aimed against our throats. It is in theory Armiuian ; and yet is there heard in its pulpits more gospel, and more distinctively sound doctrine, than is uttered by the eflfete Calvinism of the Northern Presbyterian bod}-. And it is, finally, virtually Presbyterian in its present church order. Yet, by this fulsome intercourse with the omnihus Assembly, we should solemnly declare to all that we are in fuller harmony with its principles than with our Southern Methodist brethren, of whom so miich good can be truthfully said.
And, second, because the former charge is true ; therefore such an intercouse will be the harbinger and the sure means of our disastrous fusion with this corrupt body of nominal Presby- terians. It is sufficient proof that these intending allies and devourers are candid enough, for once, to tell us, " out aloud, ' that they design to nse the intercourse to effect a fusion, and that this is the only use they have for it. Witness the declaration of Dr. Talmage : " We don't mean to stop at fraternal relations ; we mean to have conjugal relations^ Witness the testimony given in the Southern Presbyterian newspaper. Now, is it not almost fatuity, in view of this declared purpose, and of the end- less pertinacity and obtrusiveness of the Yankee nature for a
FKATEENAL RELATIONS. 491
Soutliem man, professing not to desire fusion, to crave this in- tercourse ? Solomon said, " In vain is tlie net spread in the sight of any hirdr He also tlioiiglit there was nothing new un- der the sun. But is not this a novel verdancy with which the Southern birds walk into the nets, while the very fowler shows them how he expects to snare them ! And here, an independent mind cannot but see the indecency of this urgency for such in- tercourse on the part of Northern men, after we have told them, in solemn legislative acts, that we wish to preserve our inde- pendence. Still to press this intimacy, and to persist with the avowed design of undermining that independence which we have told them we cherish, comes very near to an affront. It does not mend matters that the pressure is veiled as a courtesy.
But these men are " wise in their generation ; " they know how they expect this intimacy to work. First, they will per- petually ply the argument : " this fraternal intercourse is a con- fession of Southern Presbyterians that they are one with us in principles. So, then, there is nothing between us but a rem- nant of anger ; and it is clearly the duty of Christians to quench that." This pretended argument will mislead thousands, and paralyze our defence. Second, these astute schemers know that the intercourse will work thus : on the one hand, it will gain, annually, for two or three of their most plausible men an excellent opening for a week's electioneering among the members of oiir Assemblies^ which these commissioners will not fail to use dili- gently. And on the other hand, it will enable them annually to propitiate two or three leading Southern men attending their Assemblies, by glowing professions of love, hospitalities in their palatial mansions, nice hack-rides, sumptuous dinners with a temperate display of champagne, compliments, and gifts. These leading men will be expected to come back and Avork at home. But, third, the diplomatists " calculate " that each batch of delegates will, of course be restrained by the courtesies due to hosts, in their public addresses, to such topics and allusions as are complimentary. All differences and un- complimentary charges must be sunk out of sight on such occa- sions : it is very bad manners for an invited guest to allude to his host's " skeleton in the closet" while sitting at his board. The annual speeches will be spread through the whole land in the papers. The consequence will be, that all our younger
492 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
members will be so fed on this flattering jxchdum of mntual laudations, that in five years there will not be a suspicion among them that the Southern Assembly thinks any less of the omnibus Assembly's principles than it does of its own. For do not they meet, at considerable expense annually, for the express purpose of telling what exceedingly pretty fellows they think each other? How far off will fusion then be ?
And let those who wish to tamper with these risks consider what this fusion will practically mean. Even though every ■darker trait of Northern doctrine and order be denied, and the poison of doctrinal and moral corruption wdiich we fear be only a. dream, yet every sober mind must know that fusion would mean this : the convulsing and rending of our churches upon the question of negro equahty in our church courts — a question lately so critical among us, though now happily settled by us for ourselves — and by the oinmhns Assembly in exactly an op- posite perilous sense; the crippling of our periodicals by the intrusion of Northern religious papers, pressed by large capital, cheap prices, and all invading agents ; supplanting our worthy editors among their own home patrons ; the successful candi- dating of Northern ministers in all our lucrative and promi- nent congregations and professorships — successful, because our Southern people, in their generosity, are so prone to believe that other people's wares are better than the home article, be- cause they come from afar, and supplanting our most promising men in their own legitimate career ; the partial emptying and crippling of our seminaries and other schools, by the attractive offers of the Northern seminaries ; the collapse of our publish- ing agency, \\'ith all the fruits of the money and toil expended to build it up ; and the unchecked influx into our Sunday- schools and families of a semi-infidel, abolition, poHtical litera- ture, which will mingle insults of our dead patriots and our sainted fathers with pious platitudes ; the crippling of our Mis- sion and Sustentation works, now such a blessing to our Zion, by misconception, neglect and financial difficulties in Northern Boards, so that the fair, reviving, blossoming fields of our church, now so fast ripening to a glorious harvest, will shrivel again, as under a blighting frost. So far as human sagacity, reading the lessons of experience, can see, the Southern church, in compromising her independence now, would occasion the loss
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of thousands of souls whom she may reasonably hope, while in- dependent, to bring to Christ. We plead the cogent argument of facts. Her separation and independence haye inspired her Avitli new energy, purity, peace, and efficiency for good. Must not the sacrifice of that independence be at the cost' of all this increase ? If there be any who would tamper with this danger, we would solemnly lay upon their consciences the blood of all the souls, in all the succeeding generations, whom this collapse in our actiyities will cast out into Satan's empire.
Significance.
" But if we stand out stiffly, the Christian world, and the world's world, and the secular editors, and the poHte poUticians, will reyile us as uncharitable, and will say that we, pretended folloAvers of the ' Prince of Peace,' persist in keeping strife aliye after eyerybody else is reconciled. The commercial people are reconciled, and radicals and ex-Confederates traffic together. The yery politicians are reconciled, and radical and conserya- tiye congressmen can take their juleps, and crack their jokes, and gamble together, with perfect harmony. All the fault- finders will cry shame upon us, for that we are the last to stand aloof." Such is the plea.
To this cowardly argument, one answer is to ask whether it becomes guardians of God's truth and of the interests of immor- tal souls to truckle to the clamors of an unfriendly or a sordid worldly opinion. Dare we sacrifice duty thus to timidity ? And it does not miTch become us, who are contending for the sacred principle of the independence of Christ's spiritual kingdom, us who refused to let the legislation of that spiritual commonwealth be tampered with in the interests either of Federal Government or Confederacy, now to subordinate the purity and peace of Christ's church, and the safety of immortal souls, to the inter- ests of a political combination. Christ's church has no mission to look to the making or unmaking of a president, or of a successful political combination ; her biisiness is to watch for souls.
Another answer is to point to the contrasted principles and aims of worldly associations and of spiritual communion. The objects of traders and politicians are selfish and sordid. They only ask, touching their commercial alliances, "Will it pay?"
494 FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
Of proposed commercial allies they only ask, "Are they solvent? Ai-e they in trading credit ? Can money be made out of tlioni ? " If so, the ends of the alliance are gained. So, the only ques- tions asked with a view to a political alliance are similar. But the meaning and end of church communion are wholly ditierent. This spiritual alliance, if it is not an unholy hypocrisy, is a de- claration of conscientious, moral unity and approbation in high and holr principles and character, and of a community of holy piu'jDOse to glorify God and bless souls, through the manifesta- tion of these pure and sacred truths. It is, therefore, right and intelligible, and an imperative duty, that Christians shall refuse this pretended alhance of unity where the harmony of princi- ples does not really exist ; refuse it to the people to whom we extend Christian forbearance and charity. This result was pre- dicted and justified at the beginning of the war, in a very apt il- lustration, by one who may possibly be loath now to hear his own argument repeated. In May, 1861, when the " Spring resolutions " had jiast been passed by the Northern Assembly, Dr. Nathan L. Eice, then pastor in New York, was talking with Dr. William J. Hoge, then also associate pastor with Dr. Spring in the Brick chiirch. Both of them deplored the resolutions ; and Dr. Bice lamented them especially, because he foresaw that thev laid the foundation of a separation more permanent than the political disunion. " Nations," said he, " cannot fight always ; this war must end, after some campaigns, either b}' some com- position or the conquest of one party by the other. Then con- venience, self-interest, vnll speedily bring the people of the bel- lif^erent sections into peaceable business relations. But this church division, so mischievously made by these resolutions, will continue because it will involve a question of unchange- able principle. It will be as when some earthquake has rent a ya-miing fissure across a tract of country, cleaving alike the soil of the meadow and the rocks of the hill. One of those geologic ' subsidences ' then conies on of which scientific men tell us, and brings the edges of the chasm into contact again. The earth of the meadow easily adheres, and obliterates the cleft, because it is earth, dirt, yielding, unsteady, sordid. The granite of the hills cannot weld, even when the parts are brought to- gether, because it is rock, solid, imperishable." The analogy is just. Traders, politicians and bankers can easily homologate
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"U'itli the men wlio, a little while ago, were seeking their throats, because their motives are only selfish or sordid. All they want in the association is gain or serviceableness. No approbation or confidence is involved. The sordid, ductile mud can easily weld. But Christian unity and association must be founded in genuine confidence, moral approval, and a heartfelt sympathy in the sar.ie holy affections, and love for the same holy princi- ples. If they are not thus founded, they are a hypocrisy, all the more odious to a God of truth, because they deceitfully ape affections so sacred and amiable.
If the actions of a part of the visible church catholic are such that we cannot justly feel this approval and moral confidence, what is our duty towards it ? The scriptural reply is clear ; ovr duty is forhearcmce ; not an oily and odious pretence of af- fections which are neither real, nor possil)le, nor right, in the case. This duty, we firmly assert, the Southern church has been enabled to fulfil towards her persecutors and detractors to an admirable degree. To God's grace be all the praise ! We have been graciously restrained from every act which overpassed "the judgment of charity" — from unchurching, anathematizing or assailing them — from invading their rights, intruding into their congregations, or grasping their property. We have not made any slimy pretence of unconsciousness of the frightful wrongs we have had to endure — a pretence which usually be- trays, not charity, but the intensest malice ; but we have virtually said, like David to the persecuting Saul, " The Lord judge be- tween me and thee, and the Lord avenge me of thee ; but my hand shall not be upon thee." We repeat, the duty of Chris- tians towards grievous injuries is not an affectation of fellow- ship and confidence, but forbearance and forgiveness. The Scriptures, which usually give us both precepts and precedents exactly suited to every emergency, furnish us a guide here ex- actly fitted to our case. When the persecutor Saul of Tarsus, after his reported conversion, came to Jerusalem (Acts ix. 26- 28), and assayed to join himself to the disciples, they strictly declined his communion. We do not read that they sought in any way to retaliate on him the blood he had shed. But they withheld their confidence. And it was not until his profession of repentance was attested by the good Barnabas that they re- ceived him into their fellowship. We do not read that the
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widow of tlie murdered Stephen felt herself constrained hj Christian charity to enter into " fraternal relations " with Saul the pharisee. Had she affected this, we surmise that the ro- bust and healthy Christian conscience of that apostolic church would only have disapproved her deceit. Saul had professed repentance, however. But this did not satisfy the good sense of those primitive saints. They waited for evidence that Saul's profession was sincere. The omnihis Presbyterians have never even professed repentance. When they have done that, and have also evinced the sincerity of their repentance in a sufficient manner, it will be time enough to talk of " fraternal relations." We freely say that we are not concerned to be more charitable than Christ's inspired apostles and the flock they guided ; their example is good enough for us.
Sincerity. This discussion cannot properly close without some notice of the unjust and sophistical and uncharitable charges which some among us have made against this righteous Christian sentiment in the Southern people. It has been most unjustly confounded with malice and revenge. Their steadfast attitude of disappro- bation towards wrong has been set in an insulting contrast with the professed love of these gentlemen for our iujurers — a pro- fession which is an index either of a lack of candor, or of an immoral indifference to wrong-doing. The}' have declared that they have no patience with a church whose separated attitude " is founded only in spite." They represent the duties of charity are such as to require, because we happen to be the sufferers under enormous injuries, the stultification of our consciences, and the confounding of good and evil, light and darkness. They say that they should be ashamed of themselves if they could not concede to these Presbyterian destroyers of the South " as much sincerity in their political course as they claim for them- selves in theirs." They so work on the generosity and suscepti- bility of Southern Christians as to produce almost the feeling that they must outrage every moral instinct of their hearts, to escape a petulant charge of " sore-headedness " from insolent oppressors. And by a climax of logical confusion, they would have us conclude that we must not estimate the greatest breaches of Christian obligation as reprehensible, because, forsooth, they
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happen to have beeu perpetrated, in so large part, in the sphere of onr pohtical rights, lest we should be found guilty of de- parting from that " non-political character of the church " for which we contend so stoutly. These perversions cannot be tolerated.
As to the last point, we wonder whether these persons ever apprehended the difference between aggressive and defensive action ? By this wondrous logic it may also be argued, that because it is unchristian to assail the hfe of a neighbor, there- fore it is equally unchristian to make forcible resistance against that neighbor. And because it is very unclerical for one of those ministerial swindlers, with whom the North has been blessed, to steal our money from the bank, therefore it is un- ecclesiastical for us to pursue him at the law to get back our own. The boldest cheat put upon us by a professed brother in a horse-trade could not justify us, on this logic, in either withdrawing our Christian confidence, or bringing charges against him before his church-session, for horse-flesh is non- ecclesiastical. No rogue could ever be disciplined for theft, because a session is not a county court, unless he stole a pulpit Bible, or something of that sort ! The answer to these absurdi- ties is very easy. The church has no commission to make moral rules ; but it is expressly her commission to administer the moral rules God has made, whether the breach of God's rule be in a matter ecclesiastical or secular. However secular the thing may be which was the subject of the transgression, the transgression itself is within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction if it breaks a law which God has enjoined on Christians. The horse-flesh was most thoroughly non-ecclesiastical, yet the dis- cipline of a theft of horse-flesh is most thoroughly ecclesiastical, if the theft Avas committed by a church member. Had it been true that God enacted that the secession of a sovereign common- wealth from a confederation to which it had sovereignly acceded was the sin of rebellion, then, notwithstanding that confedera- tions of commonwealths are secular things, it would have been competent to the Assembly of 1861 to declare us rebels. In short, this miserable sophism is precisely the counterpart of that by which papal Bome suj^ported her licentious and wicked claim to exempt the clergy from civil jurisdiction, even when thej broke civil laws.
Vol. II. -32.
498 PRATEKNAL EELATIONS.
SecoDcllj, we expose tlie misrepresentation of Southern feeling by the practical question : '\\"hat manner of Christians are those among us who feel these sentiments of moral disapprobation for our injurers most profoundly, and who are most reluctant to enter a fellowship which their consciences do not sustain ? Are they the captious, the spiteful, the worldly ? No ; it is well known that these sentiments prevail most profoundly among our best Christians — our piirest, most unselfish, most beneficent Christian women, whose lives are a ministration of self-denying love, and who have borne with angelic patience a long discipline of affliction and injmy ; among that home-eldership who are the true bulwark of our ecclesiastical structure ; among the most steadfast and the least sophisticated of our people. We pro- test against the injustice which paints this righteous principle as mere spite and stubbornness. It is a libel against those of whom " the world is not worthy." In fact, the reason why this best class of our people feel these sentiments most strongly is this : that they have the firmest principles of right, the most honest consciences, and clear, healthy, moral discrimination, unsophisticated by worldly policy and latitudinarian indifference.
Is it said that our injurers were as sincere in their political course as we in ours, and therefore we should extend the same charity to them we claim for ourselves. The first answer is : that toe do not claim from them- a charity which is to emhrace ns i?i " fraternal relations" they meantime "sincerely'''' helieving us to he " rebels" " traitors" " miserable simiei^s" " heretics," and "blasphemers." The claim would be preposterous. "We want no such charity on such terms. The offer of it to us on such terms is an inevitable hypocrisy, or else a criminal indifferent- ism to truth and righteousness. Were the Northern Presby- terians entitled to hold us as such, it would be impudence in us to ask of them any other charity than forbearance and mercy.
Our memory goes back far enough to be aware what comes of this unnatural mingling of imputations of crime and profes- sions of love in the same breath. Instead of seeming to us amiable, it has an air of ghastly unwholesomeness ; it smells of blood. The old Assembly once sent a venerable minister from our Synod of Georgia iipon one of these " fraternal " missions to the abolitionized Congregational Association of Vermont. He made it known that he held slaves. But the meeting still
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rung with denunciations of slavery ; and tlie favorite illustration of the orators was to equal it to the sin of polygamy, which, as they said, was also legahzed by Moses. When our venerable brother was invited to speak he made this point, with the straightforwardness of a man of sense and honesty : " You say slaveholding is like the sin of polygamy. I told you that I hold live slaves. Yet me you call ' brother,' and you invite me into the bosom of your families, and you heap kindnesses upon me (for which I am very thankful.) Now, were I a Mormon mis- sionar}' with. Jive uiives in Deseret, instead of five slaves in Geor- gia, you would not thus countenance me. Hence I am obliged to see that there is insincerity, either in your condemnations or in your civilities. The two contradict each other. And I be- seech you, cease this language of extravagance before it results in mischief."
This plain dealing was very offensive. The clerical dema- gogues wished to ventilate their zeal in these fiery invectives ; but were willing that our good brother should take it all in a " Pickwickian " sense on that occasion. The result of this nauseous compound of hypocritical love and hypocritical indig- nation we have seen in a soa of blood and woe. We have had enough of it ! The " fraternal relations " so courteously main- tained did not at all prevent the libels and slanders of aboli- tionists against their " very dear brethren" from educating a generation of invaders to cut our throats.
But the second answer is, that this sophism overlooks the fact that there are two kinds of sincerities. One is that of the murderer, Saul of Tarsus, when " he verily thought that he did God service " by persecuting his saints ; the other is that of the Apostle Paul, who, enlightened and sanctified " as of sincerity, as of God, in the sight of God," spake in Christ. We believe that the difference between " mercy, judgment and truth " on the one hand, and flagrant wrong, usurpation, cruelty, bad faith, on the other, is not ambiguous. We cannot so blaspheme that God, who wrote his law in men's hearts, in the form of con- science, as to admit that Christian men can innocently mistake the one for the other with God's Bible in their hands.
We shall be asked again : " What, then, is to be the end of this difference ? Are Northern and Southern Christians to quar- rel forever ? We reply : first, the question implies a libel ; for
500 FRATEEXAL RELATIONS.
in fact, Southern Christians have not sought to quarrel for a day. Had tliey been let alone, the " quarreling " would liaye been all on one side, and even tlie one-sided quarrel would have ended as soon as our oppressors satisfied their desires of usurpation. We should have suffered in silence. But, second, the honest attitude we recommend would lead at once, not to an endless quarrel, but to immediate forhearance, with separate indepen- dence ; and this is the only righteous, and the least unseemly attitude possible where such differences exist and are irrecon- cilable. And, thirdly, if we have reason to suspect that we are the original criminals in this opposition, then the one and only way for us to end it is by repentance and public confession. But if we have no such reason, then the terminating of the dif- ference is no concern of oiu's. That is God's prerogative. He must end it when and as he chooses ; our part only is to see to it that we do not iufiame it by " rendering evil for evil."
In conclusion, we assert, that our attitude oi forhearing separa- tion, instead of being unchristian or uncharitable, is precisely the one which the Christian sense of every good man, and every prudent church coiirt, provides for the peace of the visible church, and the personal comfort and edification of injured Christians. Here, for instance, are two men, formerly Chris- tian brethren, the one of whom is fixedly convinced that he has been cruelly injured by the other. Let us suppose that the session is either unable or unwilling to right the •v\-rong effec- tuall}-. Let us suppose, also, that the injured man is a thor- oughly good, conscientious and charitable man. He will go to his pastor and speak substantially thus : " I feel that I am cruelly injured, and my injurer will give me no adequate redi*ess. I do not desire to avenge myself. I have no wish to blazon his wrong-doing. But I cannot, without stultifying myself, feel or profess the former pleasing confidence. Now, then, I claim that the sessioa should do one of two things — either right this wrons themselves, or else allow me to consult mv own comfort, and the peace of the congregation, by giving me a letter of dis- mission to another Presbyterian church convenient to me, where I can worship God A^dthout this unpleasant contact with a man to whom it is impossible to exercise cordial confidence." We surmise that there is not a pastor, nor a session, nor a presby- tery, in all the land, who would resist so reasonable and Chris-
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tian a claim. Bat this is just tohat v:e tcish to do as to oitr Presbyterian oppressors.
Keturning now to the point from which we set out, ^\e find that this desirable course is beset with entanglements, by means of the false moves already made by our own Assemblies. How may these mistakes be retrieved ? This is a difficult question ; for it is much easier to make blunders than to repair them. \\& seem to stand committed by the promise of our Baltimore Com- missioners to send the comphmentary delegates, provided the omnibus Assembly will retract their slanders. There is no likeli- hood that they will really retract them. But our peril is here : that they will make pretended amends, and thus introduce a quibbling, pettifogging contention into our own Assembhes; where some will contend that the amends proposed are virtually satisfying, and others will say that they are not ; and the two parties will bandy verbal distinctions between each other. For our part, we stand prepared to assume the admitted Presby- terian position — that a mere administrative resolve of a previous Assembly does not bind a subsequent one. We would candidly say, next spring, that we have thought better of our position, and that we toltJidraw the conditional promise made hy the A.s- eemhly of 1875, es2)ecially as our overture was not frankly met by their cotemporaneous and their next Assembly. This change should be explained as not implying any belligerent policy on our part, or any purpose to refuse a reasonable overture for ad- justment of property questions, which are the only ones, after all, where any adjustment is, humanly speaking, likely to occur, T\^e should accompany our change with the manly declaration that it infringes no vested right of anybody, and that we are en- titled to consult our own peace, comfort and self-respect, by making it. Another legitimate policy would be quietl}' to abide the result of the pending overtures between the two Assemblies of 187G, and — if the omnibus Assembly does, in good faith, re- tract their accusations — appoint delegates to exchange saluta- tions, and instruct them to require explicitly that the newly in- stituted fi'aternal intercourse shall at once be utilized to settle all propei'ty questions between the two denominations, and all their congregations and schools, by amicable reference. For it is these, and these alone, which really mar the Christian rela- tions, and do discredit to religion. If they accede fairly, the
502 PRATEENAL EELATIONS.
intercourse may be continued until all such adjustments are complete, and then terminate itself with mutual civilities, on the ground that all its practical ends are realized. If they refuse, the hollowness of their overtures will be manifest to all, and our emancipation from the whole entanglement easy and plain. There is a third solution, which would be eminently acceptable lo us, and, we are persuaded, to many of our people. This would be courteously, but firmly, to discontinue all our annual interchannes of delegates with all other denominations, as a usage inconvenient, entangling, unnecessary to the maintenance of true fraternal relations, in bad taste, sycophantic and whoUy fruitless of any useful results justifying the outlay of time and money. This is the solution we should altogether prefer. We should then await the result of pending overtures ; and if they lead to a square retraction of the accusations against us, we should re- spond by sending, for the once, a single set of special commis- sioners, to attempt a settlement of the property questions. These adjusted, the intercourse should at once cease ; and the tact that we had ceased to maintain it with any would take away the very pretext of offence.
THE ATLA^sTTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS/
To the Editor of the Souths- Western Presbyterian :
I DESIRE to review calmly, but firmly, tlie proceedings of our late General Assembly at Atlanta in instituting new and more intimate intercourse with the Northern Assembly. This review I must preface with a few points :
1. To the plea that " it is an impropriety for any one to re- open this question after the Assembly has settled it, and unaiii- inoKsly,^^ " I give place by subjection," no, not for a moment. "With what face can those use this plea who have themselves just unsettled and reversed the more unanimous position of every Assembly since 1870 ? I say, " more unanimous," for the unani- mity of the last action was only on the surface ; and, as I shall show, was not a real consent to the action taken, but a sort of helpless accord in the conviction that the Assembly had en- tangled itself in the meshes of its own indiscretions. The mem- bers who voted for the action are not satisfied with it. Dr. Brown, its defender, is not ; certainly the church is not : as is evinced by the fact, that of our six weeklies, four, without con- cert, promptly dissented. To assume, in the face of this fact, and of the great, broad, solemn ground-swell of disapprobation now pervading our church, that he who respectfully dissents is a disturber of the peace of our Zion, is a statement I cannot assent to.
2. To stigmatize old and honest servants of the church as " wranglers," because they choose to do their duty to her in the advocacy of her vital principles, is a trick rather too stale, and too frequently connected with the tactics of deserters of their own principles, to deter such as me. Nor do I permit any one to represent my position as one of unforgiving hate, in contrast Antli their new departure as Christian love and charity. With what seemliness can this come from men who, some years ago,
' A letter to the Editor of the South- Western Presbyterian, -which appeared iu that paper August 3, 1882.
503
504 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
professed to stand by lis in defending the independence, the principles, and the honor of our church? They may if they choose paint themselves as then acting from mere spite ; they must not paint me so. I then made the distinction clear be- tween the resentment naturally awakened by Yankee persons and civil powers, assailing my personal property, civil rights, life and family — and their ourages did j ustify the highest resent- ment— and the moral opposition, required by duty, to the at- tacl's made hy their church courts on Chjisfs truth and church. The former sentiment we sought to suppress, in the exercise of the duty of Christian forbearance. The latter resistance we neither had, nor have novj, any more right to suppress than we have to expunge a precept out of the Decalogue. Let this be remembered !
3. Nor shall I, for one, be deterred by the indecency of being called one of the " old war horses," as though the quarrel were ours only. If age, if a fidelity to the Southern church, which has imposed many toils, cares and sorrows ; if long experience in her history and service, have deprived us of those common rights of free speech and argument possessed by all elders, and even members, then this taunt may be proper.
4. In view of the high principles involved, the argument that " since the politicians have come together, and the business men coalesced, it is high time the churches came together," is almost too thin to require answer. It overlooks several essen- tial points. Our subjection to the same government with our former assailants is tho result of force ; our religious affiliations must be voluntary, or else are worthless. Business relations imply no sanction of, or responsibility for, the other party's theological or moral principles. In arranging with Brown or Jones to sell boots, or tallow, or calico, I should not endorse either his politics, or his theology. The kind of affiliation now required of us with Northern Christians does imply such en- dorsement of their doctrine and ecclesiastical principles ; and without this, is dishonest.
5. Our Assembly and Presbyteries ought not to have taken the initiative. It was derogatory to their own self-respect, con- sistency, and good name. Take Dr. Brown's constant showing^ which is that on which the Assembly professed to act : that the Northern Assembly had foully libelled us ; that ours, acting with
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 505
tlie extreme of Christian forbearance, had disclaimed retaliation, but made an amende for the libel the sole condition of restored confidence, and had said, whenever you are ready with this, here is our hand. That the defamer should distinctly refuse this simple amende and abide stubbornly in this refusal ; all this leaves for us one only attitude, which is to wait, and be silent. For us to go farther, and initiate another request for the amende so insultingly withheld, is more worthy of a spaniel than of a Christian. It implies a falsehood, as though, it were we, the in- jured, who icere responsible for the scandal, instead of them, the injurers. It converts our position, before so Christian and manly, at once into one cowardly and cringing. It was in the worst possible taste and judgment for any Presbytery to overture the Assembly to this step ; and it was a great faux ])as in the As- sembly to take it.
But a greater one was the " concurrent resolution," so-called, Avhicli makes our church hypothetically confess a sin which she never committed, and which she has always held she never com- mitted. She is made to say that, i^^'oirlded, she has defamed and libelled the Northern church, she withdraws it ; provided the Northern church, if it has defamed us, will withdraw her slan- ders. One thing is plain to any honest mind, that a manly individual, in the parallel case, would scorn such a basis of adjustment. The parable is analogous. For Dr. Brown says emphatically that our assertions of wrong action against the Northern church were true, and not libellous. He quotes Dr. Humphrey as declaring that we have never libelled or reviled his Assembly. It is vain for one to attempt to cover the crook- edness of this action by pleading that our " //" does not specifi- cate any particular libel of which our Assembly was guilty. If it does not imply some sin of that sort in our Assembly, it is insincere. If it does, it is a sinful libel of our past Assemblies. This pretended brotherly reconciliation is vaunted as very Chris- tian and lovely. What sort of a reconciliation is that to which insincerity and false accusation of our own brethren is the es- sential step? The apostle's plea was, " First j'>?/r6', then peace- able." This new-fangled love makes itself impure, in order to be peaceable.
6. It was my privilege and honor to oppose the deceitful en- tanglement of our church in the '' Pan Alliance." The events
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at Atlanta show that I was right ; for it is very plain to the- clear-headed observer, that all those who were involved in that affair have found themselves embarrassed and "handicapped" now, in their efforts to adjust the new relations with this slan- dering " ally." But this by the way.
Fraternal Eelations.
Approaching now the centre of the suljject, let us disentan- gle "fraternal relations" from the confusion designedly thrown around it by our Northern assailant?. For twelve years they have been pleading for the " restoration of fraternal relations." The plea is deluding ; because fraternal 7'elations have Jjeen all the thne existing on our 2)'trt towards tlienx, except as ruptured by them. What are "fraternal relations?" The relations ex- isting Ijetv'een Christian brethren not in the same denomination — as between us and Lutherans, us and Southern Methodists, etc. These we have never withdrawn from Northern Presb^'terians. They consist in ministerial and Christian communion, Christian charities and hospitalities, recognition of their sacraments, and, in general, of their standing as a valid branch of the church catholic. Hence the reply we should have made to the demand, " Restore fraternal relations," ought constantly to have been : " Y^ou have them already, vnless you ^j/c^f^sd to riqyture them on your side." And in restoring fraternal relations, in full form, to the Northern Presbyterians, without any amends or reparation, the moment they stopped cursing us, our Southern Assemblies showed a Christian forbearance and Christ-like spirit never sur- passed on this earth ; a spirit which I, for one, shall never hear disparaged without protest ; a charity which, with any fair mind, Avould forever acquit them of the charge of spite in maintaining their righteous attitude on a wholly different point.
Correspondence by Delegates. That other point, ■v\Tapped up under the foreign name of ■'fraternal relations," is the demand that we shall enter into a special intercourse vith the J^orth, hy annual delegates. This is wholly another matter. It has a perfectly distinct, historical meaning. The Old School Assembhes, before the war, main- tained fraternal relations with every valid, however imperfect, branch of the visible church. It ke])t up the particular inter-
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course by annual delegates with very few — oi;ly the most or thodox Calvinistic Congregationalists, the Dutch Reformed, and the Secession churches. And the recognized meaning of the intercourse w^as this : it testified to a special harmony of doctrine and ecclesiastlccd jprmclples hetioeen tJud church and ours. It was a Ijadge of vlrtucd unity of principle. Thus, for instance, w^hen the New School Assembly seceded in 183S, our Old School As- sembly, while recognizing her valid church character and all the duties of fraternal charity toward her and her people, absolutely refused to keep up this special intercourse by delegates wdth her. To do so would have traversed our righteous and obHga- tory testimony against the partial eiTors of New Schoolism. It would have been a criminal self-contradiction, or else betrayal of the position of truth in debate between us and them. So now. This special intercourse by delegates if not deceitful and dishonest, should mean virtual unity of principles.
But the Northern church chose to destroy that unity, both in doctrine and church order. By the Spring resolutions of 1861, she saw fit to introduce into her church government a principle of spiritual despotism essentially popish — the invasion of the right of members to follow their own consciences in questions wholly extra-scriptural and merely political. (Thus defined by Dr. Hodge himself). This was dreadfully aggravated by the cir- cumstances, which showed it an attempt to pervert the sacred powers of Christ's church for dragooning free citizens into the support of what history will stigmatize as an aggressive, revolu- tionary, partisan faction, with the most lawless and mischievous aims. This popish element of church order w^as signalized, moreover, by such mournful events as the persecution of the sainted McPheeters ; the virtual sanction of the invasion of their own St. Louis Presbytery by a provost marshal ; the ipso facto orders, this invasion of the rights of the Kentucky Synod. And the fundamental departure fi"om Presbyteriauism is jeal- ously retained and asserted by them to-day, as we shall see.
Nest came the corrupting of their doctrinal record, by their fusion with the New School. The amount of this mixtui'e was, that the Wesminster standards, while held as the symbols of the amalgamated body, might be so explained in it as they had been actually explained in either body. The meaning of this is, that any New Schoolism, which was countenanced or permitted in
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the NeAV School body, should be entitled to tolerance in the mixed body. So Dr. Hatfield construed it at once, and the Fusion-Assembly at once endorsed him by making him one of its most important officers. This has made the mixed church Tesj>onslljle for all the doctrinal errors for which our Avise fathers of 1838 sej)arated themselves from the other branch, and for which they inexorably refused the special recognition of cor- respondence by delegates for thirty years. So that I now stand precisely where the Old School fathers — Miller, Alexander, Bax- ter, Hodge, Breckinridge, Plumer, Thoniwell — stood on this matter. It was of this surrender of doctrinal purity that Di-. Hodge said, " If the truth be lost, all is lost." " But," one will sa}', "Dr. Hodge stayed with them !" Yes ; inconsistently he did ; he felt he had nowhere else to go. But we are in possession of a precious and blessed independence, given by the special favor of Providence. We have somewhere else to stay than in this " broad church." Does an}- one dream that Dr. Hodge would have left sueh a position as ours to go into a mixed body of which he intimated that, in losing pure truth, she had lost all ? But, it is said, this mixed church has become marvelously Old School and orthodox. See how it disciplined Prof. Swing, and Dr. John Miller, and Mr. F. Moore, etc., etc.! True ; be- cause these bold, candid men compelled the result, by attacking propositions held as fundamental to their theology by New School men as by Old School men. That means nothing. Is there a Presbytery in that mixed church which will dare to do what a Presbytery in the Southern church (Columbia Presby- tery) has just done — mark the Weio School theory of effectual calling with judicial censure ? They would as soon blow up their Assembly hall with dynamite ! When I see pronounced New School men professors in their seminaries ; when I see a known Socinian lecturing on doctrine by the invitation of another ; when I hear the prevalence of merely negative preach- ing in their churches, I cannot stultify myself by according them orthodoxy. No ! their body exists by the tolerance of doctrinal errors, which our fathers could not tolerate. Hence, it cannot be righteous for us, under a pretext of fraternity, to make that special recognition of them which, if it means anything histori- cally, means, we avouch, unity of doctrinal and ecclesiastical principle.
the atlanta assembly and frateenal relations. 509
Iniquitous Legislation.
Once more. Their assemblies — not individuals only — formally legislated against us libels, than which none more extreme, ma- licious and unfounded were ever uttered against Christians innocent of them ; of rebellion and treason against our most honored members ; and of heresy, schism and blasphemy against our church itself.
"Oh! but these are virtually matters of the past," it is said. "The Northern church does not now believe any of these libels, nor hold these tyrannical principles in earnest. They were the incidents of a" time of intense excitement — excitement which made us Southern men say pretty hot things too." And when we reply, "Then let them simply withdraw and disclaim," the answer is : " Oh ! it isn't Christian and generous to insist so stubbornly on their openly eating their humble pie ; since we know that in their hearts these violences are disclaimed, we shoiild not stickle."
To this I reply : there is no man w'ho would more cordially assent to this than I would, if there were a word of truth in it. Were there any secret sorrow for the libels, or rectification of the uupresbyterian theory of church power, no one would be further from stickling for a mere form of amende. But while there may be, as we hope, a great softening of anger, there is no change of theory and tyrannical jpr'incijyle. And this is the saddest part of the history — the one most solemnly necessitating our continued testimony against their error of principle, that now, seventeen years after the end of the war, now, amidst the calm- ness of assuaged passion, this powerful church stands to its obnoxious principles more unanimously than in May, 1861, when these principles compelled our separation. This I prove, 1, Bj' their cautious, tenacious refusal of any disavowal, when pointed to it. 2, By their embodying in their own Church Digest, as a rule, of the popish and tyrannical decision of the United States Svipreme Court in the famous "Walnut Street Church case. The amount of this decision was, that all lay Christians shall, like lay papists in popish countries, hold their rights in ecclesiastical property at the mere will of a usurping ecclesiastical head authority, without any appeal to the courts of justice in their countr}'. This ruling, so essentially popish that the very civil courts of the country have refused to conform
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to it, tlie Northern Assembly greedily embodied it, and it dtouls to-day as tlieir chureli-law. 3. Their recent Assembly at Spring- field vnanhnously declaimed, that the usurping principles of the Spring resolutions, and their successors, must stand. The usurping Assembly of 1861, whose action necessitated our pro- test, lacked sixty-six of being unanimous. Here, now, are the plain, stubborn facts. Let no man attempt to pooh! pooh! them away. It is little short of moral obliquity to do this. Do we ourselves adoj)t the tyrannies, the virtual union of church and state, enacted in the Spring resolutions? Do we now ap- prove them ? Or have we become simply fatigued with the duty of defending God's truth and the church's rights ? There is no other explanation. Let no one say, "Oh! this is raking up an antiquated dead issue." The Springfield Assembly unanimously assiu'es us of their purpose to keep it alive! Let no one say: "Oh! but the Confederacy is dead, and this doctrine, though tyrannical, can never again have a practical application." T reply, first, who knows whether it cannot, except the Omniscient ? All church history teaches us that it is not for man to say, " This truth of God, henceforth, has no more practical use." It is pro- fane ; the church's only duty is to testify, and keep on testifying, for all the truth God has given her.
But, again, there is no truth more likely to have a burning application again — not probably is the south, but in some other part of the United States — at an early day, than the truth over- thrown by the Spring resolutions. He is a shallow man indeed who deludes himself with the thought, that political revolutions are completed and settled here, when everything shows that we have but passed the first act of the tragedy ; that in seventeen years two Presidents have been violently murdered in time of peace; one forcible cotq) cTetat has been carried through, setting aside the elective will of the nation; chronic corruptions of suffrage and administration exist all the time, absolutely incon- sistent with settled, constitutional government. Why, a revolu- tion is liable to blaze out any day, and, then, the true conserva- tives w^ho wish to stand by the constitution are liable at once to be coerced by another General Assembly, which shall again choose to assume that the new usurper is "the power of God to us for good." For instance, at the late cnvj) d'etat alluded to, Northwestern (not Southern) Democrats were within a hair's
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l^readtli of assei-ting their right to uphold the people's election against force. Suppose tliej had done so ? Then the General Assembly of the day would, -vve presume, have declared, in their infallibility, that for free citizens of sovereign States to resist the covj) cTetat, though in defence of the people's rights in a legal elec- tion, was the "wicked rebellion" prohibited by the apostles. And, then, the Northwestern Presbyterians would have been com- pelled, like us, to preserve their rights, and we should have had a third Presbyterian Assembly, and a third division ; and the fiery contributions of bitterness, hate, and bloodshed made again, by Christ's usurping church, to another unfortunate civil war. And all this the country actually "grazed" sis years ago; missing it by a hair's breadth ! A dead issue ? It is the most living issue that exists, and the most pregnant ^ith mischief and woe, and the loss of the spiritual liberty of Americans.
I sum up my position, then, as being exactly what the posi- tion of the Old School fathers, Alexander, Miller, Plumer, et at., was from 1838 and onward; e-rcepf, that where they had one valid and imperative reason for declining this special coiTes- pondence by delegates I have three. I have, first, the same ground of doctrinal discrepancy they had, viz. : the connivance at New Schoolism. I have, second, the departure of the North- ern Assembly from spiritual liberty by the popish usurpation of the Si')ring resolutions and their sequels, which I have shown to be of the gravest and most fundamental character. I have, third, a fearful indictment of rebellion and treason, unjustly hurled at our Assembly. And now, let it be noted, that this reasoning disconnects itself wholly from the rise and fall of the late Confederacy and all its interests and passions. It was the rise of the Confederacy — with which our church, as a church, had nothing to do — which was made the occasion and pretext of the usurpation of spiritual power by the Northern Assembly. That was all. Whether the Confederacy was a good or a bad thing, it does not here concern us to argue. It was an earthly institution, with only secular interests and concernments. It is Avith the spiritiial rights of Christ's people in his sj)iritual king- dom that we here have to do. It is the invasion of them we have to resist conscientiously. This duty has no connection with the institiition, whose rise hajjpened to be the mere pretext and circumstance of the usurpation.
512 the atlanta assembly and feateknal relations.
Usurpation Maintained. It has been argued by our recent innovators : " We find tTi& sentiment of onr cliurcli lias correctly settled down on this posi- tion : that, when once the obloquies thrown at us have been "withdrawn, diiferences of doctrinal and ecclesiastical j^nnciples, conscientiously held by the Northern church, ought to be no bar to the resumption of these closer and more special rela- tions by interchange of delegates." This is supposed to be very clear, Christian and conclusive. I assert that it is utterly erroneous and illogical. The fact that the erroneous pidnciples against which we conscientiously feel compelled to testify are sincerely liehJ by the other party, is the very reason for refusing, instead of granting, this special intercourse. If his assertion of them were a mere whiff cf petulance, this would render the as- sertion of them comparatively trivial ; we could the better toler- ate it. But it is because this powerful church does seriously, earnestly, conscientiously ("ftdth misguided conscience), calmly, assert these grave departures from Presbyterianism as we de- voutly hold it ; it is for this very reason the case assumes the gravity, solemnly necessitating o\ir denominational protest and testimony. That is the common sense of it. And this is con- firmed hy the trlwle historical attitude of the Old School church. Thus, with the German Eeformed, the Lutheran, the Moravian, the Protestant Episcopal, the Methodist, the Immersionist branches of the visible church catholic, our Assemblies always maintained fraternal relations ; but they never did, and never would have maintained with them that special intercourse by annual delegates which they kept up with, for instance, the Dutch Eeformed Church. Now, did we decUne this inter- change with the great Methodist churches, for instance, because we held that they were not sincere in holding that modified Ar- minianism which separated them partially from us ? What an infinite absurdity is this? Did Ave thus statedly insult our Methodist brethren with the innuendo, that their honest doctrinal testimony was a pretence ? No ; it was because we knew that their modified Ai-minianism was, and is, honestly held by them, with all the sincerity of a pious — though, as we beheve, errone- ous— conviction ; it was for this very reason we felt, and now feel, bound to keep up our testimony by withholding from them this special intercourse. And they understand this. And they honor
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"US for it. And they are too much Christian gentlemen to be guilty of teasing and worrying our Assembles to enter into a special intercourse which would express a falsehood, in symbo- lizing a doctrinal unity which both parties know has no exis- tence. But is this any rupture of real fraternal relations be- tween us and the Methodist brethren ? None whatever. We bear our testimony in this mild, forbearing form. They bear theirs against what they, with equal honesty, believe to be our hyper-Calvinism. But on all other points we are brethren ; and we can press our congregational enterprises side by side, in the same towns and neighborhoods, without strife, each doing good in our own way. Why cannot Northern Presbyterians, near or among ns, if they still feel bound in conscience to maintain, their anti-Presbyterian principles on these grave and momen- tous points dividing us, behave in the same way, and let us alone ? That would be good manners. In a word, they have chosen, they say conscientiously, to disrupt and destroy that U7iity of doctrine and order of which the interchange of delegates is the emblem. Then we can't help it ; only we have our duty to perform as a witnessing church, which we propose to do in the mildest form possible. To destroy the unity by their own de- liberate action, and then ask the badge of it, is neither good manners nor morals.
Another argument for changing the righteous attitude of our Assemblies has struck me with astonishment. It is in substance, "that the old men who were actors in the separation of 1861 are nearly all dead and gone ; that the new men who will soon gov- ern the church were not actors in that division ; and, therefore^ it is time, or will soon be time, to drop the old testimony." I ask myself, What absurdity is this I hear? Does truth grow old? Do vital principles become antiquated? If these men would come out and say out aloud, that the popery of the Spring resolutions, the semi-pelagianism of New Haven theo- logy, the legislated slander of an innocent church, are all sound Presbyterianism ; that the men of 1861 were Avroug in testifying against these vital departures, then I could understand. But when our opponents assure us unanimously that their church asserts two out of these three departures to-day, just as before, I see not what on earth the coming of a new and the going of an old generation of the friends of truth have to do with the
Vol. II.— 33.
514 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
cessation of our testimony. I thought that God's Word pro- mised, "In place of the fathers shall be the children;" that the performance of the interesting duty was a part of the sacred inheritance of believers, until God is pleased to terminate the witness-bearing bj converting the errorists. According to this notable argument, as soon as Luther and Calvin, on one side, and Eck and Leo X., on the other, were dead, the Protestants and Papists ought to have gone into "fraternal relations." As soon as John Wesley on the one side, and Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon on the other, were dead, all the Evangelicals m England ought to have flowed together and declared that Armin- ianism and Calvinism came to the same thing. The truths at issue were Whitefield's truths, forsooth, instead of God's truths! Equally absurd is the argument now.
The Assembly of 1875.
My next remark is^ that our Assembly is now realizing the bad consequences of its erroneous position assumed in 1875. It then, under the guidance of its commissioners to the Baltimore Conference, compromised the two stronger thirds of its basis of action, when it declared that the errors of doctrine and order perpetuated by the Spring resolutions and their sequels, and by the unguarded recognition of New Haven theology, should be no bariier to the resumption of the more intimate relations, but only the unretracted libel on our church. The sophistical argu- ment for this unfortunate position was as follows : that for any betrayal of the jorinciples of Christ's kingdom the Northern church was not responsible to us, but only to Christ ; that they were responsible to us onh' for their libel of us ; that hence, if they would only withdraw that, it was no business of ours to deal with them about the other defections.
But it is the simplest solution in the world, that this is the true statement: "Both Northern and Southern churches are re- sponsible, in all things, to Christ their Lord, and not to each other; we, as a witnessing church, are responsible to Christ for bearing our testimony, in appropriate wajs, against all error ; just as they are responsible to him, not to us, for teaching any error." The argument I criticise is refuted by every usage and act of the older and sounder Assemblies. Why did they always withhold correspondence by delegates from the Lutheran, the
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FEATEEXAL EELATIONS. 515
MetliocUst, the Immersionist clinrclies? Because tliey liad li- belled the Assembly? Not at all. But because tbej marred, in some particulars, Christ's truth. Again, the position of our Assembly in 1875 had an aspect of great unseemliness about it. It seemed to say, that we cared much about our personal repute and little about the honor and ]3riuciples of Christ's kingdom and the spiritual lilierty of his children. We said to the assail- ants of Christ's rights, we will condone all that, without an}- reparation or rectification at all, provided you will restore our personal good name. This was unseemly and unfaithful to our Master. We are now reaping the deserved chastisement in the pitiable entanglements of the hour. For once more, we ought to have foreseen that, by waiving our two clearer and more dis- interested bases of action, we were exposing oru'selves to be entrapped at any time by a partial or deceitful -vs-ithdrawal of personal obloquies. I warned my brethren, from my obscui'e position, of these dangers, but nobody listened to the warning. Our church might have been solidly placed like a man on a good three-legged stool; our Assembly of 1875 saw fit to throw away two of the legs, and leave the church in an unstable equihbrium, like a man attempting to poise himself on one leg; just as I foresaw, this subsequent Assembly, acting on this partial, so- j)histical basis, has met this cruel embarrassment. It finds itself seemingly committed, pledged in advance, to accept any sort of amende for the personal obloquies that professes to be sincere, and to restore the special intercourse by delegates. But yet the personal obloquies are, and always were, so logically re- lated to the ecclesiastical usurpations of principle that the two must inevitably go together. If the Spring resolutions are Pres- byterianism, then General T. J. Jackson and I are rebels. The tAvo are inseparable, premise and conclusion. Hence it was always a logical solecism for our Assembly of 1875 to saj': The Northern Assembly may hold the former, if she will dis- claim the latter, and we are satisfied. She cannot hold the former and disclaim the latter without falsehood. Thus our Assembly prepared for itself the pitfall in which it is now writhing ; pledging itself to accept an amende which was necessi- tated to he deceitful as an amende. Thus the way was prepared for all the tortuous involutions of the "concuiTent" and the "explanatory" resolutions. Wo are taught by this experience
516 THE ATLAXTA ASSEMBLY AND FBATEnXAL EELATIONS.
that we slionld have stood squarely ou the three bases, Avhere the Assembly of 1870 placed our church. It was, in substance, this: no injuries of our persons, however real, justify in us any retaliation or revenge. That is all out of the debate. We, of coru'se, extend fraternal relations to all branches of the chui'ch which can be recognized as valid branches of Christ's catholic^ visible church. As such we hold the Northern Presbyterian. Church ; for though we are sorrowfully necessitated to regard it as an erring, we do not hold it as an apostate church. But as to this special correspondence b}^ delegates, historically expres- sive of substantial unity of principle, we cannot go into ii,for three reasons / of which the two foremost and more weighty ones are, that the chiu'ch has admitted some serious doctrinal license, and has invaded the spiritual liberty of Christ's people in a vital point ; and the third, less cardinal, but still sufficient reason, is., that she has formall}' slandered the good name of our church, ■which it is our duty and right to defend — at least by this the mildest form of protest. That was the sound, consistent, Chris- tian position where the Assembly of 1870, through the able hanJ of Dr. Palmer, placed our church. Well would it have been for her had she stayed there, until God's Spirit and providence had blessed her testimony, as the means of teaching all American Presbyterians to come sincerely back to the right. That was the mission given her by the orderings of Pro^ddence and the Word of God.
WHAT IT MEANS.
And this leads us to the well-known manner of the amendey wherein the Northern Assembly first agreed to call itself a slan- derer— which it had been — on condition we would call ourselves hj'pothetically slanderers — which she and we knew Ave had not been. And this avowal, thus purchased, was then modified by an "explanation" which did not "modify;" that whereas five separate charges — disloyalty, treason, schism, heresy, blasphemy, had been first laid against us, the amende shall extend to the last three, but shall not extend to the first two ! Now, there are sundry unhandsome traits of this action, which, were our people clear-eyed, would render it entirely nugatory. JFirst, It was to be "concurrent action," saying the same thing for us, miitati-j mutandis, which we had said for them. But our Assembly had appended no pendant. Second, This Assembly made official
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND EKATERNaL RELATIONS. 517
communication only of tlie first resolution, wliicli, witliout its fatal pendant, sounded satisfactory ; tlius leaving our Assembly, so far as they went, ignorant of what followed, and liable to act generously, and adjourn in ignorance of what they had really done and really pledged to us. It was to the chance action of a person, action unofficial and unauthorizetl, that our escape from that trap was due. TJmrl, In withdrawing the withdrawal they really left the grievance of the unrestricted libel substan- tially unmitigated. It will be said, the charge of " blasphemy," for instance, is and remains squarely retracted. Yes ; but that was a part of their railing which never did mean anything — which nobody believed to be true when uttered — which always was harmless to our reputation. Everybody knew that it was the mere foam on the angry lip. It was the charges of rebellion and treason — which had meaning and practicality in them — which really had (false) power to shade our good name — which endangered our necks and our estates, and our franchises ; which those Assemblies " explained without modifying," by the amia- ble recommendation to the Federal government to hang us. And it is these charges, which we are now informed, in the good year 1882, are not withdrawn ! Let us state a little parallel. My Christian neighbor gets angry with me, and publishes two charges on me : one, that I, being an officer of that institution, had embezzled a trust fund belonging to Union Seminary ; the other that I had, witch-like, ridden to Presbytery on a broom- stick above the moon. I have been for years dealing with him precisely as our Saviour directs in Matt, xviii., but he has always refused any amende. At last he sends word that he is ready to join me in a general, square retraxit and reconciliation. After I have honestly shaken hands on this, he says, by way of " ex- planation without modification," "Now rmnd, vary retraxit is to be understood as extending only to that tale about the broom- stick." Well, this practically ruins it all ; for the charge left against me Avas the damaging, and the only damaging one. Un- fortunately it has not been found impossible for a parson to em- bezzle trust funds, and the charge that I had done so is not intrin- sically incredible, apart from my known reputation. But the charge of riding on a broomstick nobody had ever credited ; it had always gone for nothing and been understood as meaning nothing more than that my neighbor was " blind-mad " when he
518 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AXD FKATEENAL RELATIONS.
said it. In just sucli a state this Springfield action leaves us : the charges of heresy and blasphemy never ^vere nor could be credited. The men Avho made the charges ■v\ere all along con- currin<T with the rest of the Presbyterian world, to which they made them, in saying, that " Southern Presbyterians are well known to be the mo*st conservative doctrinally, and most exem- plary and strict, of the Presbyterian family of churches." But it was their representation of us as rebellious, insubordinate fac- tions which had power of damaging our good name. It is these which aro, expressly, not vnthdraicn. Fourth, The saddest part of the story is the obvious mot'tre which caused the Springfield Assembly to attach the fatal pendant to their amende. It was very clear that the motive was secular and political ; the fear to offend the political sentiments of their constituents at home by even seeming to surrender or modify \\\e tyrannical and popish principle of the Spring resolutions. And now the Neio York Observer teUs tlie plain truth, though by the use of those eu- phemisms which the Ohservcr so weU imderstands. In plain. English, that Assembly passed the "Herrick Johnson resolu- tion " because it believed that the home people of their church, still hold that deadly usurpation so passionately as to be in- dignant with even a seeming relaxation of it, even to gain the coveted reconciUation. And that Assembly passed it unani- moushj ! This tells the sad story — that politics still mle in that church ; that really the breach of principle is not healed at all ; that the very central eiTor which disrupted the chru-ch at first is still unanimously held in that Assembly ; that the same reason exists for our maintaining our conscientious testimony, and our ecclesiastical independence. Well, it is sorrowful ; but it is not our fault. The last way in the world to remedy this state of things is for us to weaver in our right position, and thus sophis- ticate and mix the truth with the error.
Mr. Calhoun once said to a brother senator, when the Senate was proposing to act on a statement made known only by a dis- patch, "Never act on a mere telegram; it gives only the central fact, without any background by which to construe it." Well would it have been for our Assembly if it had observed this wise caution! The unhealthy animus which prevailed in the Assem- bly is betrayed by the fact that it did so unhesitatingly tak© this critical action on a short telegram I
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATEr.NAL RELATIONS. 519
Much lias been said of the marvelous unanimity of the As- sembly. If we may believe the statements "we hear, the real amount of this unanimity was, that the members were, indeed, nearly unanimous in the conviction that they were hopelessly entangled in their own indiscretions, and so saw no way to help themselves. But very few seem to be really satisfied ivitJi the
result.
The Pecunlyey Question.
"\Ve are told that much was also said about the necessity of our conciliating the help of Xorthern Presbyterians, to overtake the work of meeting the incoming immigration into the South with our Presbyterian gospel. Glowing references were made to the influx into Texas, the mushroom growth of mining and manufacturing towns in the South, and to the prospect of a larger influx in the near future. Then, it was exclaimed, that here was a huge work for our weak, ]30or, Southern church to do; that it was utterly Utopian, hojyeless, impossible, for her to do it unaided ; that she must gain the help of Northern Presbyte- rianism, in men and money, or make a disastrous failure in the task; and that, in order to get these, we must establish these intimate relations. One writer exclaims: "We have but one seminary open, with forty-five students and eleven or twelve Hcentiates for the year. It is simph* out of the question for us to do it unaided."
Let us look intelligently at this. If Presliyterianism is to be built up in our fields with Northern resources, the first ques- tion to be asked is, Which Presbyterianism ? Do we ask our "Noi"thern brethren" to give all this money, and these men to build up the Presbyterianism which they persistently and con- scientiously denounce as rebelHous and treasonable (now no longer blasphemous) ? They are a shrewd generation. This it seems is the hope, that the "miller will turn the water off his own mill-wheel." The emptiness of that hope is sufficiently ob- vious, and, indeed, the impertinence of our pressing it. " Good Brother, Northern Miller! our wheel grinds for a different con- cern from you ; our aim is to get all the grist in this part of the neighborhood away from your mill. So, good brother, turn your water off your mill-wheel on ours! "
But again, this plan of engaging the Northern help professes to approach that church in the equitable and loving, instead of
520 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND EEATEKNAL EELATIOX.".
the rival spirit. Then it is impertinent and tinfraternal, in de- manding of them that they shall do all their own work and a part of ours ; while, in fact, we are letter able to do all of ours than they are to do all tJieirs. We are indulging a lazy halluci- nation here, unjust to them, degrading to ourselves. We have talked about the impoverished South and the "great and rich Korth" until we are blind to plain facts. The Northern churcli is more powerfiil than ours, in number of ministers, churches and communicants, and in wealth — perhaps five or six times more powerful. But she has/ar more than four times the influx of new ^population to evangelize on her hands. Has she not eight times as much ? If she, with sixfold strength, is able to do her sixfold — or eightfold — work, why cannot we, with our smaller strength, do our smaller work? If she is not able, then, in call- ing her to do ours, we are causing her to neglect her own, which is a sin. This is the healthy view to take of our duty, to imitate the energy of the Northern church, if indeed she does overtake her vast work; and not to seek, in this lazy, cowardl}'" way, to divert her resources from the places they are so needed, to supplement our stinginess and laziness. The singing of this song is the sure way to emasculate our church. Experience has also proved, as I shall show, that just in proportion to our inde- pendence of Northern help and control has been the fruitfulness of our church in doing its own woik. We are in danger of cheating ourselves into a criminal apathy, by thus talking as if the North had everything and we were helpless beggars. Here are two sons, one four times as large and strong as the other. The father has given the small one, because he is small, twenty pounds to carry. But he has also given the other more than one hundred and twenty j)ou7ids. And now the Httle fellow cries that he is so little he cannot carry his twenty pounds, but must have his big brother to "tote" for him, "because he is so big." What he needs is a sharp taste of the birch, to make him do his work and stop whining. For shame ! Let the Southern church reopen her seminaries, and give her sons to the ministry, and give the money for her Home Missions. She is more able to do it this day than the Northern church is to do all the larger work God lays on her hands.
In this connection, it is instructive to note how this paralysis of our own resources and lagging behind our own tasks synchro-
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FKATEKNAl. TiELATIONS. 521
nizes witli this relaxation of tlie spirit of honest independence in our church. When was it that the promising impulse and progress of our work received its first check ? Precisely at the time when Ave began to "let down" our testimony, to tamper with entangling "alliances," and to "bill and coo" with our un- relenting accusers. It is precisely since then that our number of candidates began to decline, and the expansion of our tasks to outgrow our energies. What else would any one expect who understands human nature? To cry, "Oh, we ccuit do it;" " Oh ! the work is too large for us ; " " Oh ! we must have North- ern help ! "-^this is the sure way to drug the consciences of our own people, and to enervate their Christianity, by encouraging them to lean on other people's crutches.
Fusion.
One more topic remains : the tendency of this special inter- course to undermine the very existence of our church, and pre- pare the way for a fusion wdtli the Northern Presbyterians. Some (as Dr. Brown) exclaim that this apprehension is vision- ary ; he does not know of even a " scouting-party " in favor of it. Others cry, " Sh— sh ! The subject is too ticklish to handle. The very way to precipitate fusion is to talk about it." Now, I reply : is the loyalty of our ministers to their otnti church, is its independence and existence, thus precarious? Then is this head of my argument more fearfully true than any, even the most apprehensive, had argued ! But I mean to speak, on this head, the words of truth and soberness ; tlie trnth can never be mischievous.
First, Our late accusers, now comrades, all cry, with confi- dence, that a long step toward fusion has been taken ; that the last step is now near and easy. See the Interior, Neio York Ob- server, etc., etc. They are shrewd people ; they are " cute."
Second, They make no bones of saying " out aloud " that they intend to use this new intercourse diligently and solely as a means to bring al)out fusion. When Dr. Brown says, " No ! it is merely the establishment of decent, pacific relations between two churches, which are, and are to remain, independent," our " Northern brethren " utterly flout and fleer this. They snap their fingers at him. They assure him that they will show him the other result, and that very soon. Now, I do not remark on
522 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATEKNAL RELATIONS.
tlie manners or morals of this declaration. I merely ask, what is the infatuation, in view of the known pertinacit}' of these peo- ple, of our estabhshing this intercourse, of our opening to them this door, unless we desire and design fusion ? I had, let us suppose, a neighbor, whose character I never considered safe. He has been teasing me for a social access to my family, to which he is not entitled. He has kept up a complaint that I am a bad neighbor in this matter. At last I give way weakly, and estabHsh the social interchanges, as I say, " solely to show good neighborhood ; nothing more. Oh no ! " Yet I know that the fellow habitually and openly boasts of his purpose to marry my chaste, innocent daughter ; declares to his boon-companions that this is his sole end in demanding social relations with my family ; and that he designs to use them for this alone ! And yet, knowing all this, I give him the chances he desires. And, by way of explanation, I publish to my neighbors this resolve of myself and family : " Resolved^ That Blank is not to be allowed, in any event, to marry our daughter." Certain it is, my neigh- bors would only judge me in my dotage.
Third, This intercourse may, honestly, not have been intended to lead to such fusion ; and j-et its logical result is fusion. So the Northern papers have already expounded it. I have shown that the historical usage and meaning of correspondence of delegates is a recognition of virtual niuty of doctrinal and ecclesiastical principles. If this unity does not exist, the intercourse is dis- honest. If it does, why not fuse? That is their argument. Grant the premise, and the inference will tell, even on reluctant minds. It is the premise which is erroneous and perilous, and should not have been granted.
Eesltlts of Fusion. Thus this matter derives its gravity, not from its intrinsic im- portance, but from its tendencies and consequences. In itself it would be trivial, and would merit little discussion. If this interchange of delegates was what Dr. Brown understands it to be, only " for the nonce," to be followed by no usage, to be done as an end of debate, and not repeated, then it would remain trivial, and I should not have troubled the church with any cau- tion. But knowing perfectly well that Dr. Brown is " reckoning without his host" in this thing, that the Northern Presbyterians,
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 523
and his own brethren, who have pressed him to this acquiescence^ mean it otherwise, I am bound to ntter that caution. I must, then, beg every thoughtful friend of Christ's cause and truth, and of the salvation of souls in the Southern half of the United States, to pause, and remember what fusion would mean.
It means, then, in the first place, the division, of our once happy and harmonious church. For, let every man rest assured, that there will be a large body of our eldership and membership, clear-eyed, self-respecting, loyal to Old School Presb}i:erianism, immovable, who are never going to he traded off to the corrupters of American Presbyterian ism and slanderers of their fathers' vii-- tues. [And this suggests the crowning argument against this Atlanta movement ; that, under pretence of ending contention with the en'orists — whom it is our dvity to contend with — it makes strife with our o^ti brethren, "v^-ith whom we should be at one as we profess.]
It means the unobstructed triumph, among American Presby- terians, of the Tii-tually popish and tyrannical principle of the Spring resolutions, and consequent usurpations, with the mis- chievous and inflaming applications it is likely to receive in fu- ture political collisions.
It means that we suiTender our tenure in all our church-pro- perty to that new, popish rule, devised by a radical Supreme Court, and greedily embodied in the Digest of the church.
It means that we acquiesce in becoming doctrinally a " Broad Church," to the extent of tolerating, in the same communion, both the extremes of strict Calvinism and New Havenism, to such extent as the two " branches " of the Northern church tolerated either, between 1838 and 1869.
It means that we siuTender our new Book of Church Order, with all its improvements, and go back to the old book which we had so resolutely discarded.
It means that we surrender our well-considered committee system of evangelism, and go back to that old board-system, which Dr. Thoi'nwell refuted in 1860 at the Kochester As- sembly.
It means that we admit a " rotary eldership," thus surren- dering our scriptural doctrine of the qualification and call of the ruling elder by the Holy Ghost, and his true ordination by his Presbytery, and placing ourselves at this half-way house of Congregationalism.
524 THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
It means the immediate collajjse of our seminaries and evan- gelistic agencies, under the ahen management of a great omnihus church ; so that, in place of the $75,000 for Foreign Missions, and 158,000 for Home Missions, etc., which we gave last year to these enterprises, in the trusted and beloved hands of Drs. Wilson and Mcllwaine, we should give the year after the fusion, to the mistrusted, alien, abolitionized, sectional agencies in New York, about $20,000 and $15,000 respectively^ with a tendency towards a farther annual decline. In 1860 the Presb^-teries now enrolled in the Southern church are credited by the As- embly's Minutes as having contributed to Domestic Missions $48,264, and to Foreign Missions, $39,348. In comparing these amounts with the present contributions to these objects, two things must be remembered. One, that the Southern churches, now generally poor, yet contributing $75,000 to Foreign Missions, were then exceedingly rich. The other is, that many churches, as in Kentucky, East Tennessee, etc., then connected with the South, are now Northern Presbj-terian. These figures illustrate the progress made by the Southern church in virtue of its independence.
It means, of course, that we must imitate the church which absorbs us, in the ecclesiastical amalgamation with negroes ; ac- cepting negro presbyters to rule white churches and judge white ladies ; a step which would seal the moral and doctrinal corruption of our church in the South, and be a direct step to- wards that final perdition of Southern society, domestic amal- gamation. And the time would come in the South — yea, in the North also, as it found itself encumbered with this gangrened limb — a mulatto South, when all who had lent a hand, under tne prompting of a puling sentimentalism, to this result, would incur the reprobation of all the wise and good, in terms as just, and as bitter, as those visited on Benedict Ai-nold.
For, let any man look on the negro character calmly, and he will see that the introduction of any, the smallest, element of negro rule into our chiirch, means 'moral and doctrinal relaxa- tion, and ecclesiastical corruption, poisoning the life-blood of our churches, just in degree as it is extended. The sentimen- tahst may exclaim ; Why cannot a negro be converted ? Can- not a negro become learned ? Yes ; possibly he may ; Ijut, if converted, he loill not he perfect; and as sure as nature, one of
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 525
his remaining imperfections Avill be liis race feelings. Senti- mentalists may slioiit tliat " Christianity knows no castes ;" that " all caste-distinctions are unchristian " — which I here denounce as scripturally and historically false — l3ut whether we will or not, the negro is going to keep himself a caste, as to Southern Pres- byterians. And in every issue where the rival and opponent of white Southern Presbyterianism is going to attack principles dear to us, the negro is going to side Avith that assailant. Wit- ness the fact that, in all secular issues, he infallibly sides with the assailant of all vital Southern interests, even when the ne- gro is thereby hurting his own interest. And this he does, usu- ally, with a regularity exactly proportioned to his professed " culture." Once more, negro Christianity may foster in them personal virtues in individual actions ; but I observe that never yet has negro religion elevated the best of them to that stage of conscience so vital for a ruler in a free, constitutional, spiritual commonwealth like our church, which lyrevents uirong-doing hi associated actions, where the responsibility is veiled by forms of law and combination of many agents. I know some very good Christians among them — sincerely dovout, prayerful, diligent, chaste, charitable, educated, intelligent, wholly above individual larceny. But I have invariably seen the best of these, as par- tisans, concur actively, without qualm of conscience, in the foulest and most putrescent party actions by which the South has been disgraced. Such is the average, Christianized intelli- gence and conscience of that race at this time. Merge our churches with the North, and at once we poison the noble Synods of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia with the infusion of the black " Synod of Atlantic ;" with the prospect of the simi- lar corruption of our whole Southern church.
Once more, fusion with the North would mean our betrayal of our righteous testimony against the rationalistic and skeptical features of modern abolitionism — a testimony which is now faith- fully sustained by our church alone in Protestant Christendom. This abolitionism the Holy Spirit has expressly condemned iu 1 Timothy vi. 1-5, characterizing it in the sternest language as arrogant, perverse, mercenary, slanderous and false ; and he has exjwessly legislated, "From such withdraw thyself." Many, if not the majority, in that Assembly defiantly profess that aboli- tionism ; and the only legislation the Assembly itself has taken
52C THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS.
about them was to denounce %is for protesting agaiust it as Paiil required us, as " heretics and blasphemers." So that such fu- sion would be a flying in the face of God's express command.
A Suggestion.
What plan, then, do I propose? I say, first. Hold fast to our indejjendence, as our sheet-anctor from ecclesiastical ship- wreck. And, to this end, repudiate every entangling alliance that endangers that independence. Next, let Dr. Brown, as he has been appointed to go, go to the next Northern Assembly. But let him first stop at our Assembly in Lexington, and fortify himself with strong instructions. And let these instructions be such as these: that ho is to say to tho Northern Assembly, "I am here according to the agreement of 1882, not to estahlish that intimate annual intercourse by delegates, wdiich historically sig- nifies a unity of principles which you have yourselves disrupted, but to signify, what has been true ever since 1865, that there is an end of strife between us, except as you make it ; that we have no revenges ; that we recognize you as a church of Christ ; that as such we wish to observe fraternal relations ; wldich are, the exercise of Christian charities, the interchange of ministerial and Christian communion, and the recognition of your church order. That this declaration made for the nonce suffices, and will not be followed by annual delegates." Dr. Brown might also very well intimate to them that we perceive the crooked- ness of their Springfield action; but that, desiring to give the above testimony, we have chosen, in a spirit of magnanimity, to pass it by for this time. But hy 7io 'means let Dr. Brown asJh fur an explanation of their ejc^planatioyi. The only result of this would be confusion twice confounded. For these skilled adepts at the art of " explaining without modifying," retracting and then taking back their retraxit, would be sure to find words which would plunge Dr. Brown and us into a perplexity worse even than his present. No, we have had enough of that; we have been badly enough bitten ; we had better not try to find out whether the animal meant to bite, by putting our hand into his mouth again.
Then, for the rest, Ave should go on our way, minding our own business. "We should observe precisel}' the same relations we do towards the Southern Methodists or Lutherans. If any
THE ATLANTA ASSEMBLY AND FRATERNAL RELATIONS. 527
Northern Presbyterian ministers or elders -vvisli to come to us, ■u'lio personally hold that sound position held by Dr. Charles Hodge as to the usurpations of their Assemblies, and as to New School defects of doctrine, we should receive them, though in their secular opinions anti-Confederates like Dr. Hodge. If their laity choose to come to us, even uninstructed and blinded as to these defects of Northern Presbyterianism, we should charitably receive them, provided they will cooperate peaceably ; just as we would receive a laj'man with Arminian opinions, uji- der the apostolic rule : "Them that are weak in the faith receive ye ; " hoping to win them to our truer Presbyterianism. If some, ministers or laymen, who are ex animo dissentients from our truer Presbyterianism, go about organizing churches on South- ern soil, of their faith, let them do it. The responsibility is theirs. We have no more mission, as true Presb^y'terians, to prevent it than we have to prevent semi-Arminians from organ- izing Methodist churches beside ours. We are sorry the}^ do not see and teach the whole truth. But it is no business oi ours to prevent their proceedings. That belongs to God.
Thus I have "shown mine opinion." It is onl}^ the judgment of one single presbyter, with no right of dictation to his breth- ren ; but it is honest. And I am confident ever}' impartial reader will see that it is logically consistent, scriptural, and therefore safe.
THE PM-PRESBYTERTAN ALLIANCE/
THE writer once inquired of General K. E. Lee whether it was his purpose to attend the meeting of the Education Associa- tion of the Teachers of Virginia. He replied : " If I could see that they were going to eifect anything except talk, I might think of attending." This seems, to the plain mind, the most obvious ob- jection to the project of a Pan-Presbyterian Alliance. In order to avoid being dangerous, it finds itself comj)elled to limit its functions to "talk." Such pious reunions may be as pleasant as- Dr. Robinson seems to have found the tentative meeting in Lon- don ; but if this is all, evidently the churches have more urgent and useful applications to make of their time and money than to these ostentatious and costly prayer meetings.
But are there not more serious difficulties in the way of South- ern Presbyterians mingling in these meetings ? The writer can- not forget an event, of which present advocates of this Alliance seem strangely oblivious, that advances from us were, at a very recent date, repelled by the very people with whom we are now invited to associate ourselves. Do gentlemen recall the appoint- ment of Drs. Palmer, Girardeau, and Hoge, by the Memphis Assembly, to go abroad as its commissioners, to explain the position of our church to the Presbyterians of Great Britain, and conciliate some moral support in the day of our need and insulation ? But these commissioners, fortunately, were so dis- creet as to write letters of inquiry before they went, whether they would be received in a manner consistent with their self- respect. The answer they received was, that they xoould not. Be- cause they were the representatives of a church which refused to array itself upon an anti-scriptural abolition ground, they were informed that they would not be received as equals ; and they at once concluded that respect for themselves and the As- sembly absolutely forbade their going. Like sensible men, they
'Tliis article appeared iu the Soutliern Presbyterian Review for January, 1876
528
THE PAN-PRESBYTEEIAX .VLLI.\XCE. 529
stayed at home. Have our brethren also forgotten that the "Evangelical Alliance," so called, also excluded ministers from the American Presbyterian Chiu'ch, because it had not placed itself upon their abolition platform ? But these are the churches on whose fraternal embraces we are now asked to throw our- selves ! If the self-respect of Drs. Palmer, Girardeau, and Hoge forbade such an act then, why does it not forbid it now ? Which of the parties has changed ? Have the Southern Presbyterians .it length adopted the infidel abolition creed ? Or have the North- ern and the European churches forsaken and repented it ? It is very well understood that the latter are now more mad on this idol than at any previous time. It is equally well understood that the entrance of our church into their fraternity is permitted only as it is construed as a tacit siirrender of onv position, and a silent acceptance of theirs. The proof of this is very easy. Let our commissioners simply remind the next Assembly that we still stand immovably upon the position of our Assembly in 1845, and that if they embrace us, it must be on this express understanding. Candor will, indeed, requires no less of us. T^ e shall see a tempest of fanatical excitement, which will effectually estop our entrance. Dr. McCosh is usually regarded as the au- thor of this Pan-Presbj-terian movement. Preaching in the Central Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, he said that South- ern Christians, once justly excluded from the Evangelical Al- liance for slave-holding, might now be admitted, because slavery had been removed by Providence ! But has the question been settled ? The institution has been unlawfully and violently ovei-thrown. True. Does that remove the question from be- tween honest men? An invitation to us to a fraternity from which we were once excluded for slave-holding, now tendered on this ground, can only mean one of two h^'pocrisies : either that we shall consent to be constmed as forsaking and repenting and confessing acts which we have neither forsaken nor repented, or that Dr. McCosh shall feign satisfaction with sins in us unre- pented, which his conscience abhors, because its overt perpetra- tion is prevented by force. At neither of these hypocrisies can we connive. The pickpocket shall be held, forsooth, a very proper gentleman, not because he has repented his thefts, but because there are iron bars between his fingers and other j^eo- ple's pockets, and because he is sufficiently a sneak to be silent
Vol. II.— 34.
530 THE PAN-PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
now about liis former exploits ! If Dr. McCosli is satisfied witk such a basis of fraternity, we presume Soutlierii Presbyterians are not. We scarcely think they are ready to be construed into a desertion of tlie time-honored testimony of their fathers, and into the concession that these holy and venerated men were men-stealers.
But, proceeding in our inquiries, we ask —
1. Whether our representation in this Alliance will not be a step towards a dishonest compromise with the Northern Presby- terian Church ? We haye charged upon them that, in a critical time, they abandoned their covenanted constitution, and usurped popish powers of perverting the spiritual authorit}- of the church io override the secular rights and liberties of its members ; thus assisting to precipitate upon us and our neighbors the hor- rors of invasion, rapine, bloodshed, and subjugation. We have charged upon them a foul slander of our good name, which has been industriously published to the very churches with which we are asked to ally ourselves. If these charges are erroneous, we cannot too soon retract and repent them. If they are just, then we have done right in requiring the disavowal of the slan- ders, and a return to the sacred principles of the constitution, before we can, with any respect for truth or for ourselves, enter into fraternal relations with them. They Avill neither retract the slander, nor repair the disastrous usurpation. Meantime, it is now proposed that we shall meet them abroad, on the very footing on which we refused to meet them at home ! If this is not a stultification of our testimony, it is hard to see what would be ! We say to their glozing invitations : " No. We can wish you well ; we can forbear retaliation ; we can render, not railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing ; we can endeavor faith- fully to exercise all the graces of Christian charity towards those who injure us; but with tliio slander and this usurpation unre- dressed, duty forbids us to meet you in fraternal correspon- dence." And then we go incontinently across the water, and meet them in fraternal corres])oyidence ! When we enter the as- semblage of those whom they made the sympathising auditors of their burning slander against us, what do we see ? The re- presentatives of the slanderers sitting " in the chief seats of the synagogue," most numerous of any delegation, and most honored.
THE TAN-PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 531
Let it be noted liere, also, tliat tlie advocates of this measure among ns greatly misrepresent tlie true position of our cliurcL. They now say that the popish usurpation and violation of the constitution committed by the Northern Church would be no just barrier to fraternal correspondence, if they would only re- tract their slander against us. Tills is not xohat our Assemhly of 1870 said. That Assembly expressly declared that both Avrongs must be amended before fraternal correspondence would be possible. It declared that while this fatal usurpation stood Tinconfessed, we could not break the force of our obligatory and righteous protest against it, by any fraternal correspondence. But now, these brethren would have us recede from half of our stronghold.
Is it not very clear to any plain mind, that this will soon lead to the betrayal of the other half ? If we go into the fraternal correspondence across the water with the Northern Presbyte- rians, with whom we refuse to correspond on this side of it, will not the stultification of ourselves be so complete that the loss of our position must follow ? In a few years the absurdity will become irksome to us, and we shall be betrayed into a dishonest compromise and a forsaking of the testimony which Providence has called us to bear. Dr. Girardeau foresaw this, and with his clear, honest, good sense, pointed it out to the last Assembly ; but amidst the special pleadings which prevailed, he was un- heeded.
But Dr. Robinson does not think that such will be the result. He thinks our position will be rather strengthened by meeting the representatives of our usurpers and slanderers on that com- mon ground. It is hard for a plain man to see how we can strengthen our position by inconsistency, by " blowing hot and cold " on the same parties. He says that if a neighbor in a city has wronged a sensible man of business, he does not exclude himself from the bank or exchange to which his business and his rights lead hhn, because he meets the injurer there. This illus- tration presents a false analogy. The scenes to which our busi- ness and our duties call us are our own pulpits and charges. These are our banks and counting-houses. Well wiU it be for us if we stick to them. If the slanderer intrudes there, we will meet and 7'esist him as we may. The just analogy to our posi- tion would be the case where a wealthy host invited us to a social
532 THE PAX-PEESEYTEEIAX ALLIANCE.
entertainment, such as a dinner-party, and also invited tlie man •\vlio had injured and shindered us ; to whom ^ve had sent word that honor forbade our social recognition of him until he made amends. Now, could that invitation be accepted by an honor- able man ? He would not seek to make a disagreeable parade of the unfortunate quarrel at the table of the host, who probably designed the invitation, however ill-considered, as a kindness. He would not endeavor to implicate the host or the other guests. He would keep his grievance to himself, Avitli diguitied quiet. But he would certainly not accept the invitation. He would feel that to accept it would be as senseless an outrage upon the host as upon his own self-respect, for he could not extend social recog- nition to that slanderer as he met him at the host's table with- out degrading and stultifying himself, and he could not refuse it without a discoiu'tesy to the host and the other guests. So, if he were a man, he would politely, but firmly, decline the invita- tion. In the Assembly Dr. Robinson urged that, since we had the true Presbyterianism, we should go to the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance to proclaim it. The answer is, that this was the very place where he could not proclaim it. He found himself in the very position in which the injured citizen of the parable just drawn would have been, had he been so un-«dse as to accept the invitation to the feast. Dr. Piobinson found himself an " invited guest" of European Presbyterianism. He also found present, as in-sited and especially honored guests, the very men whom our proclamation of our pm-e Presbyterianism would have assailed and indicted. Consequently his mouth was sealed. It was no place to bear his testimony, because the courtesies of the occa- sion forbade. So it tcill ever he.
2. It has been argued that, if we stay out of this Alliance, we shaU be considered "sore-heads," "sulky," etc. AU we can say to this plea is, that it seems to betray an astonishing oblivion oi our true position as witnesses for righteous principles ; and that if the argument should ever be verified by any act of the outside Christian world, the sensible Southern Presbyterian wiU regard it with the contempt due to a low insult. These terms, if they mean anything, suggest the idea of a wrong-headed person, sulking over an imaginary injury, or of a perverse school-boy, who has gotten a part of the drubbing which he deserved, and is still too insubordinate to submit to it. Do those who use this
THE rAX-rKESBYTEKIAN ALLIANCE. Oo6
argument intend to present this as the attitude of the Southern Presbyterian Church? Were our wrongs imaginary? Are we hke the insolent boy who has only gotten a part of the drubbing he deserves, and whom the other part, soundly laid on, would prol>ably bring to his good humor? If this is their appreciation of the position of the Southern Presbyterian Church, then we think their proper place is not only in the Pan-Presbyterian Al- liance, but in the bosom of the radical church. If their estimate of our position were the just one, then the thing we ought to do is to confess our evil temper, and to ask pardon of those who have -vn-onged and slandered us, before we presume to ask ad- mission to the Presbyterian fraternity. To any one who has the head and heart to appreciate the height of the great argument to which God has been pleased to call the Southern church, this charge is unspeakably grovelling. Have these gentlemen no other conception of fidelity to right trampled down by unjust violence, than " sulking ?" It is to be presumed that, in their eyes, the "\\'itnesses for the truth" throughout the middle ages were but "sore-heads," because they stood aloof from the corrupt church whose errors they were called by God to oppose ! Yea, the apostles were '-sore-heads" when they separated themselves from the opposers of God's truth! In a day when truth has fallen in the streets, it becomes her friends to have sore hearts, which shall be too full of righteous gi'ief for the wrongs done to her, to truckle and compromise.
3. It has been argued that we must go into this promiscuous Alliance in order to get out of our insulation, in order to be bet- ter understood and appreciated by Christians abroad. But sup- pose it should be that this insulation is the very position assigned us by the Head of the church, in which to perform the high duty laid on us. Then to get out of it is a sin. If he has as- signed us a particular testimony, in which other churches will not join us, in respect of which they are misunderstanding and neglecting their du^ty, then a state of insulation is precisely the one we should occupy. There is something else far more essen- tial than "appreciation" by foreigners, and this is the apprecia- tion of our Almighty Head. But so far as we may legitimately desire just appreciation from others, the wa}- to win is "to mind our own business." Let us preach a pure gospel, purify our own charges, extend the gospel with power, present the fruits of
534 THE PAN-PKESBYTERIAN .VLLIA'NCE.
rigliteoiisness ; aud tlieu, if these outside Christians have any- thing of the mind of Christ, they will appreciate ns as mticli as "will be good for ns.
4. We would also request brethren to consider whether an- other very serious objection to our entering this Alliance will not emerge from the nature of the representation which we shall unavoidably have in it. The meetings will usiiall}- be at a dis- tance, and often across the ocean. Attendance nmst always be expensive, and often lavishly so. Such a journe}' to and from Europe as a delegate Avould wish to make must cost between $700 and $1,000. The Alliance proposes to allow us twenty- eight representatives. Has our Assembly between $20,000 and $28,000 to expend upon sending delegates to this useless con- vention? But it will be said, "All the twenty-eight need not go." "We remark, j&rst : Then what will our ratio of representa- tion avail us? But second : If six or eight go, has the Assembly the $7,000 to waste in this useless journey? Has it even $2,000? Though it is obvious that the good sense of the Assembly will never consent to the abstraction of even this smaller sum from the urgent aud sacred uses of our missions aud otli:;r works for such a mere waste ; and the church would cry shame upon the Assembly if it did commit the perversion. Then the commis- sioners will have to furnish their own expenses. But it is very well known that, to the great bulk of our ministers and elders, such an expense is about as much out of the question as a jour- ney to the moon. The result, then, must be this : that when a selection of delegates is to be made, the Assembly, instead of electing the representative men of the church, the men who are worthy to be trusted Avith her honor, must appoint a committee who Avill seek out the men who have a trip to Eiu'ope in view on their own account, or who have private fortunes, or bad throats, coupled Avith rich and generous congregations. In other words, the selections will be determined, not by fitness, nor wisdom, nor experience, but by some mere irrelevant accident or advantage of money or leisure. This point alone is enough to betray the unsuitableness of the whole scheme for iis and the impossibility of our deriving mij good fruits from it.
5. Another fatal objection is, that this Alhance will only ex- pose our church to additional peril from that which is the great evil of t!ie times, the spread of a latitudinarian spirit. The
THE rAN-PEESBYTERIAN ALLIANCI;. 535
leailiiig bodies "witli ■\vliicli Ave are invited to ally ourselves are all tainted v'lth hi'oad-churchism. That this charge is true as to the radical Presbyterian Church in America none among us can deny. The fusion of the two branches made it avowedly a broad church, as was demonstrated, not by our writers, but by the Rev. Drs. Hodge and Van Dyke and the Rev. Samuel Miller. As to another leading denomination represented in the Presby- terian Alliance, it was the fortune of the writer to hear the fol- lowing sentiments publicly uttered by one of its prominent min- isters, and applauded to the echo : " We have no right to require uniformity of doctrine or ritual within any of our own borders. We are bound to recognize all the variety in our oion c?iurc7i that we recognize i?i others." That the same latitudinarian spirit is leavening the Presbyterian Churches of Great Britain is but too plain from their church journals. They no longer have the true ring of orthodoxy. The Presbyterian Church of France has lately been rent into two bodies. One is Rationalistic and So- cinian ; the other, the comparatively sound one, did not dare to readopt the Galilean Confession and enforce its teachings upon all its officers, but only adopted, in general terms, an evangelical creed. The broad-churchism of the Alliance itself is clearly disclosed by its ambiguous doctrinal basis. This is the "con- sensus of the Reformed Churches." Who shall state this co/i- sensus? Does it include the sense in which Drs. Beman and Barnes professed to hold the Westminster Confession ? This is to be supposed. Again, according to the uniform classification of church history, the Congregational Churches of New England belong to the reformed branch of Protestant Christendom. Lately the highest convention known to this body of Christians formally cast away their doctrinal standards. Drs. N. Taylor and Busiinell are probably the accepted exponents of the larger part of their ministers. We presume that this consensus may embrace this t^-pe of i\\Q reformed theology also. We repeat, the associations into wdiich this Alliance Avill introduce us wiU be found broad-church. Now, as long as the words of Scripture hold true, that "evil communications corrupt good manners," the association will inevitably be found unwholesome to our own soundness in the faith and doctrinal unity. But that watchman upon the Avails of Zion, who "has knowledge of the times, to know what Israel ought to do," is aware that the peril
536 THE P.VN-PKESBYTEKIAN ALLIANCE.
io truth and rigliteoiisness, from this latitudinarian spirit, is so fearful, that to expose our beloved church to it causelessly, is little short of madness.
Dr. Palmer, in his unanswerable argument at St. Louis, fore- shadowed another influence which must make this Alliance a broad-church one. Its creed, as to doctrine and order, must be the result of concessions. Whatever is obnoxious to the convictions of any of the constituent bodies, must be eliminated from the common platform. One point must be conceded to one pai*ty, and another to another, until there is left, as the common doctrine taught by the Alliance, only the most emascu- lated Presbyterianism.
6. But there are more grave objections to this movement than those already unfolded. It contains the egg of a monster. The principle on which it is demanded is anti-Protestant and anti-Presbyterian. The first development may appear but harm- less and trivial ; indeed, the first organization is so trivial as to be nugatory and useless ; but the principle which di^-tates the aUiance will be sure to unfold itself with logical consistency, and the "King Log," which is now tendered to us silly frogs by this Jupiter Tonans of Xassau Hall, will in due time be replaced by the "King Stork."' Dr. Blaikie, of Scotland, may be accepted as a good exponent of the movement. He tells us that the need of this Alhance is to supply a defect of Presbyterianism, which is an ecumenical presbyterial court at the cqiex of our constitu- tional system of Presbyteries and Synods. He declares that without such a visible centre of unity, our system is incomplete and weak ; that Christ evidently did not design it to remain so ; and that the true significance of this Alliance is, that it is the germ of that ecumenical court ha^dng supreme jurisdiction over all the churches in the earth. Do they propose to claim such jurisdiction for it? Oh! no ; not now. This, says Dr. Blaikie, "would wreck the whole scheme." But yet he is discontented with the Evangehcal Alhance, because its meetings "have avow- edly been meetings, not of church representatives, but of indi- viduals associated only in a private capacity." He desires that the delegates to the Pan-Presbyterian Council shall be repre- sentatives appointed by the Assemblies of the several churches, either directly or through committees. He says that we are as yet " unripe," indeed, for such a council as would have authori-
THE PAN-PliESBYTElilAN ALLIANCE. 537
tative jurisdiction. "But the idea is of course not excluded." " AVhetlier the council proposed will work towards such a result," is a question which he does not decide. But that it ought to work towards it, he very obviously believes and expects; since he declares it the "natural crown of an edifice which has never yet been brought to completion."
Such are the desires and theories which underlie and prompt this Alliance. They involve one of tJie es,sential elements of 2)02)enj. The cardinal doctrine of the Reformers concerning the church was, that only the sj^iritual and invisible church could be catholic or ecumenical. They taught that the only unity designed by Christ among the several branches of his people on this earth was the spiritual unity. It was only on these pre- mises that they were able to refute the pretensions of popery. If the edifice "is not brought to completion" until this visible ecumenical bond is provided, then it is still incomplete until a universal unity of the Avhole visible church. Reformed, Lutheran, and Episcopal, is formed ; that is to say, a pope, either singular or plural. That such a papal head will need infallibility, and all other papal attributes, to decide correctly all the multifarious interests and difi^erences of the Christian world, is A'ery evident. Citations might easily be made from the soundest Reformed divines proving this point. Turrettiu denies that such an ex- ternal unity in a visible centre is any mark cf the true church. Principal Cunningham [Hist. TheoL, p. 24:, of Yol. I.,) saj^s there is "no warrant in Scripture for alleging that the unity there predicated of the church of Christ necessarily implies that all the societies claiming to be regarded as churches of Christ must be included in one external visible communion, and sub- ject to one external visible government." And in other places he intimates pretty clearly that this demand contains, in his view, the foundation principle of poper}'. Let the notions which the advocates of this Pan-Presbyterian Alliance desire, through it, to propagate, once become current, and we shall soon learn practically that there is little difference between a pope in the singular and in the plural number. The essential doctrines of popery will reappear : the necessity of outward uni- formity; the damning nature of outw^ard schism (so-called); the confounding of the attributes of the visible and invisible churches. Again, the same argument which demands that the
538 THE PAN-PKESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
Presbyterian cliurclies must be nuified in a visible centre, will necessarily be extended to all others recognized as true cliurclies, though non-Presbyterian — such as the "Wesley an, Lutheran, Con- gregational. Thus will come about a still wider confederation, not Pan-Presbyterian, but Pan-Protestant ; and the necessary conditions of its existence will be precisely that combination of loose, unfaithful, doctriaal broad-churchism, with tyrannical en- forcement of outward union and uniformity, which now charac- terizes popery. The Protestant world will be soon educated to set inordinate store by that of which God makes least account — formal union; at the exjMnse of that which he regards as of supreme value — doctrinal fidelit}'. He who does not see that the Evangelical Alliance has already begun to produce this dis- astrous result must be blind indeed. It is obviously the "tidal w^ave" of modern sentiment, the "zeliffeist" of our day, as truly as it was of the days of Leo the Great ; and it is as vital to the life of Christianity now as it was then, that it be exposed and resisted.
The theory of real Presbyterianism is as plain as it is scriptu- ral. It recognizes the subordination of courts and of a smaller part of one communion to the whole thereof (in the Lord), as represented in the higher or highest church court. It proposes to extend the communion thus united, so far as hearty and tJiorotigh agreement iqjon the doctrines and chnrcli order extends, and no farther. This subordination, affected beyond this, can lean only to tyranny or latitudinarianism, or both. Our fathers gave a notable illustration of this scriptural view in 1837. Find- ing under the nominal jurisdiction of our Assembly two schools of conviction as to both doctrine and order, they persistently destroyed the pretended unity and comj^elled a separation into two communions. Did they attempt to exclude the new school from the pale of the \T.sible church catholic ? Not at all. They continued to recognize their ordination, sacraments and church- rights. But they insisted that it must be a sepande church order — so separate that they would not even enter into a " fra- ternal correspondence." This was the Presbyterianism of the Bible — of the Beformers. Now, so far as a real and hearty unity of doctrinal belief and church order extends, so far may a su- preme presbyterial court extend its common jurisdiction. Does such a real unity exist among the Presbyterian Churches of the
THE PAN-rEESBYTERIAX ALLIANCE. 539>
world? Will it ever exist this side the millennium? DiflFer- ences of race, language, geograpliical position, national cnstoms and interests will inevitably j)erpetnate sucli differences as will render it impossible to unite tliem all in one jurisdiction until "there shall be no more sea" and until the curse of Babel shall be repaired. "Would the old Assembly, in the glorious da^s of 1845, have permitted the Presbyterian Churches of Scotland and Ireland, then so much sounder than they are now, to legislate for us, or even to claim the moral force of their recommenda- tions over us ? Nay, verily ! Even to the latter our Assemblies sternly demurred — and rightly. They refused to allow the abol- ition diatribes of the Scotch and Irish to be obtruded on our people, knowing that the local and national differences of Great Britain disqualified them from understanding or handling our rights and duties in this matter. Our Assemblies did right. Slavery has been violently and wickedly abolished, partly through the mischievous influences of those ver}^ diatribes. Have all the grounds of social and national difference in the future heen abol- ished? He must be a soft and childish Utopian indeed who flatters his hopes with this. "That which hath been is that which shall be." But men exclaim : Is not Christianity to make these things better ? We reply : Yes ; in that unknown future day when Christ shall, by his own secret power, by that kingdom which is within us, and not by men's exclaiming, "Lo here, and lo there," have made the churches "first pure, then peaceable." But the waiter, for one, confesses that he fails to see a single hopeful sign that this blessing is to be brought to man by the hands of a generation of Christians who are now generally domi- nated by a truculent and infidel abolitionism; who confound with the Protestant theory of constitutional republican right the insane leveller's theory of the frantic Lilburn of Cromwell's day or the atheistic radicalism of the Eeign of Terror, and impu- dently call them by the same name; who immerse modern soci- ety in the most lavish and luxurious sensuous indulgences ever known to any age ; who revel everywhere in an atmosphere of ritualism and will-worship, and whose evangelical reign is sig- nalized by this modern outbreak of social and political corrup- tion, threatening, according to their own confession, to dissolve our social order in general moral putrescence.
7. The crowning objection to our representation in this Alii-
640 THE PAN-PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
ance is, that our own constitution forbids it. We hold that, according to that constitution, our Assembly had precisely as much right to appoint commissioners to such a body as to ap- point a Grand Lama for Thibet. " The Assembly only appointed a committee, -^-ith poAvers to appoint delegates." This evasion serves no pui-pose ; for what the Assembly did by its committee, it virtually did _per se; and if the connection between us and the Alliance is to subsist, future appointments must, of course, bo made on the floor of the Assembly, or confirmed there. Now, ■either these councils are to be judicatories exorcising church- power over the Assembly, or they are not. If they are, then representation in them is substantially a new feature, outside of our constitution. That instrument calls our Assembly our su- joreme court. In it all appeals and references stop ; from it ema- nate the highest-instructions, under Christ. But here is a higher court, and another source of authority. It is difficult to see how any moral truth can be plainer than this : that, if it is right for us to be represented in these councils, then the imperative step for us to take beforehand is to procure an amendment (or rather a revolution) in our own constitution, by an orderly reference to the Presbyteries. But gentlemen will take the other horn of the dilemma : they say the councils of this Alliance are not to be church courts. Yery well ; then they are private and voluntary meetings of Christians. From this point of view, the Assembly has neither power nor business touching an appointment to them. And precedents show that the Assembly has always un- derstood its powers, as well as the proprieties of the matter, thus. The Assembly approves the Temperance cause. Has she ever condescended to appoint a commissioner to represent her in a Temperance convention ? If such a thing were moved, any Assembly would rise up as one man and resist. But we have a case still more in point : The Assembly never consented by her authority to appoint a commissioner to the Evangelical Alliance. If any of her ministers went, they went on their own responsi- bility as private individuals. When the Alliance was about to meet in New York, and the Yankee heavens and earth were moved about it, our Assembly at Little Bock was not jostled from its course one minute — not a vote was cast in favor of its prostituting its authority to such an appointment. Noav, this case is exactly parallel — this Presbyterian Alliance, according to
THE PAN-PRESBYTEEIAN ALLIANCE. 541
this second brancli of tlie dilemma, is precisely an Evangelical Alliance of smaller extent.
We may be reminded of the clause in the Form of Government •u'liich clothes the Assembly with the power of " corresponding with foreign churches on such terms as may be agreed upon by the Assembly and the corresponding body," and of our Assem- bly delegates annually sent to the (Dutch) Keformed and the Associate Reformed Churches in America. We reply with the question : Is this Pan-Presbjiieriau Alliance a cJitirch f Has it ecclesiastical powers ? If so, let it be spoken out. Again, the correspondence to be lawful must be between the Assembly and the cliurclies represented in the Alliance. Is this so, or not? When Dr. Girardeau charged that our appearance in this Alli- ance brought us into correspondence with our detractors and injurers, the radical American Church, with whom we had so solemnly said we would not correspond, gentlemen said, Oh, noj Now, which is it ? If we do not, in this Alliance, correspond with the churches represented in it, and that directly, in- cluding this one with which we refuse to correspond, this article gives our Assembly no right. Once more, the terms are to be arranged heticeen the churches corresponding — not with a non- descript tert'ium quid. When Alexander of Macedon was asked to run a race at the Olympian games, he answered : " Yes, jDro- vided kings are my competitors." So, our Assembly deigns to treat, provided spiritual queens treat with her : she does not stoop to place herself on a level with any voluntary association of private persons which offers itself. Her acts are and must be authoritative and responsible. She demands a responsible party to treat with, and that not a superior, but an equal. Fi- nally, who dreams that, under the modest word, " correspon- dence," the framers of our constitution ever designed to confer all these vague legislative powers ? Their meaning in the con- stitution is the constitution. They doubtless chose the word correspondence, because correspondence is not alliance. My cor- respondent is not my business partner. The relation which our Assembly assigned to itself as to " foreign churches," was care- fully chosen so as to repudiate that common visible centre of unity at which this Alliance aims, and to leave the manifesta- tion of Christian unity, where the Bible leaves it, in community of principles, spirit, and ati'ectious.
542 THE PAN-PKESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
It was A\'itli good reason, then, that Dr. Palmer -svarned Dr. Kobinson, in the last Assembly, that in going into this Alliance he was launching into a disastrous revolution. The step which the Assembly has been betrayed into is but as " the letting out of waters." If the chasm be not speedily closed, we shall find ourselves upon a flood, which will strand us far from our proper moorings, and amidst the wi'eck of the precious interests which the Head of the Church has committed to our care.
"PAN-PRESBYTERIAX ALLIANCE." ^
THE smoke of the coujflict has now had time to clear awar fi-om the debates of our last Assembly upon its external relations sufficiently to allow a moderate spectator to estimate the conditions and results fairly. This the writer would beg leave to attempt as to the proposed "Alliance " of all Presbyte- rians. The numbers and vigor of the opponents to this 23roject in all the earlier debates gave evident promise that the Alliance^ in its first posture, would either have been rejected by a ma- jority or relinquished by its friends out of respect to the minor- ity. The seeming unanimity reached at last was procured by apparent concessions near the close of the meeting. One of these was the resolution adopted, that the funds of the Assembly shall in no case be taxed with any expenses of its commission- ers to the Alliance. The other was Dr. Hoge's resolution that ''the Alliance is not to be regarded as another and a higher court, but as an assemblage of committees, for the purpose of joint conference and joint report," etc. As for the rest, it can- not be said that the debate in the Assembly had modified the jioints of objection so strongly made by the opponents before and during the discussions. All that had been effected by the advocates up to this time was to predict some supj)osed possible gains from the Alliance, which remained uncertain and indefi- nite in their nature, and to stimulate an enthusiasm of taste in those whose temperaments were of a kind to be fascinated by this species of pious junketings. The great constitutional argu- ment was virtually admitted by the majority in their adoption of Dr. Hoge's explanatory resolution.
To the argument that the Alliance must be broad-church, unless it is to be unfair and one-sided, because it had so much broad-church constituency, no effective answer was made, and the attempted answer was nugatory.
The point so clearly put by Dr. Dabney, in the interests of
^ Appeared iu The Southwestern Preishyterian, December 14, 1876.
S43
544 PAN-PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
our own self-respect, was not even mentioned by the majority^ so far as the reports of debate show. They seem to have adopted the only discreet course — a prudent silence ; for, in fact, that point is, to the calm and indepeiident mind, unanswerable. Every constituent body to the Alliance, save one or two of the smaller, have bitterly, and even contemptuovisly denounced the position actually and still held liy the Southern church as to slave-holding, and have made it a ground for refusing to us communion and alliance. Meanwhile slavery in the United States has been destroyed by violence, so that no Christian among us is now formally a slaveholder. But, as a matter of doctrine and morals, our church reall}^ holds identically the po- sition these proposing allies have always anathematized. Thus both candor and common honesty towards them and decent respect for ourselves and our fathers obviously require that we shall come to an understanding with our new comrades how it is that they now propose to embrace us, whom they lately re- jected. "Will any one say. No ! because slavery is now a thing of the past? The resistless answer is that with us, as a church, IT IS NOT, for we to-day refuse to confess and retract as to our doctrine ; and it is for this doctrine touching slavery we are, as a church, responsible. The only solution of this knot which had ever been spoken ''out aloud" was one of so offensive a nature that it seemed amazing any gentleman in the South could fail to regard it as a positive affront. It was that proposed by Dr. McCosh, the actual inventor and main promoter of this Alli- ance, in 1866, in the Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore. Dr. Dabney stated it thus : "That Dr. McCosh, then speaking for the ' Evano-elical Alliance,' said the American churches had been properly excluded for their complicity with slavery ; but that that Alliance was now willing to receive them, because slavery in America had been abolished." This extraordinary statement raised, to every Southern mind, these questions : Are we, then, to be "whitewashed before the Christian world from this asserted black and damning stain by the mere fact that material force keeps back our hands from the act — our principles remaining the same avowedly? And if this is the idea, does it not reveal, first, a moral profligacy and deceit in the inviters, such as to cure us effectually of all desire for their embraces? And, second, are Southern gentlemen, conscious of rectitude in this matter and
PAN-PRESBYTEEIAN ALLIANCE. 545'
jnstl}^ aggrieved by a long train of gratuitous libels and insults about it, to accept this as amends sufficiently full for tlieir self- respect and the good name of sainted fathers? Now, the atti- tude of Dr. McCosh, and of most of the Northern, British and Continental churches, is to-day such as to renew the point of these questions, as to this second Alliance, with irresistible force. We do not see how the majority could have looked each other in the face and attempted to argue these questions without blushing. They did well to be silent about them — well for their w^eak cause ! It was all they could do. The Central Presbyte- rian did, indeed, make a sort of vacillating attempt to break the fatal point of the questions by professing to doubt the authen- ticity of the incident in Baltimore. But there are here two remarks : one is, that if Dr. McCosh did not put it thus, it does not seriously modify the case, for the essential facts remain. The other is that we understand Dr. Dabuey cites Dr. Thomas E. Peck as express eye-witness of the facts stated, and that h© considers himself warranted to refer publicly, if needful, to his authority.
In the second place, the concession which the Assembly made touching the travelling expenses really concedes the argument founded by the opponents upon the unwarrantable cost. The Assembly resolves that she will not pay a penny of the expenses for her own commissioners. But why not ? If it is right for her to send them, it is right for her to pay. If she actually does dele- gate the duty of representing her to certain brethren, then she is morally and scripturally bound to pay their expenses. Who " goeth a warfare at his own charges ? " Why, then, does the Assembly claim the right to send, and yet shirk her dutj' to pay ? It is because her conscience tells her, that this is not an errand on which it would be righteous to expend God's revenues. Then it follows, that it is not an errand on which she can right- eously expend the time of God's servants. The plea is put in, that if it does not suit the feelings of the commissioners to pay their own expenses, some liberal persons or churches will pro- duce the money. But the objection is : that these commission- ers should not represent these liberal persons, as they virtually do on this indirection ; they should represent the church, and be paid l)y the church. And again : The Assembly ought to instruct these liberal persons that it is their duty to feel concern-
546 PAN-PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
ing their money devoted to pious uses just as the Assembly feels about liers, viz.: tbat tliis " religious pic-nic " is not an ob- ject to wliicli God's revenues may be righteously perverted. TTe are compelled, with pain, to admit that the unanswerable force of this argument against the Alliance has been the occa- sion of the Assembly's taking an attitude j ust such as our British neighbors characterize by the word " shabby."
But the main argument against the Alliance is the constitu- tional one. If it is a new court, our adhesion is a revolution of our constitution. If it is not, it is a " voluntary " association ; a human invention which our church has always refused to med- dle with in any official capacity, regarding all such recognition as both unconstitutional and un-Presbyterian. This inexorable demonstration the Central Presbyterian endeavored to evade by a pleasant story, whose fun was veiy good, but whose logic was very bad : An Irishman heard a debate, whether a given ad- jective was to be pronounced " JS^eether " or " JSrytJier'^ He, de- murring to both proposals, said it was '^ J^ayther.'' So saith the Central Presbyterian. The Alliance is neither a new court, nor a voluntary association ; but a bundle of committees. This was the resort adopted by the Assembly, under the guidance of Dr. Hoge. Such a vieAv could never have prevailed in an As- sembly of ours, had time and circumstances allowed its thorough examination. But the Assembly had, on the motion of Mr. Grattan, of Yirgiuia, already committed the anomalous disorder, of allowing Dr. Hoge to sj)enh ad VJAtum and to amend, after it liad passed, v:Jiat was, as to all other members, the j)>'<i'^'lous (juestion ! So that the real discussion of this comin'tttee-j^lea is yet to be undertaken.
The very word sufficiently shows the nature of " committee." It is the passive past participle of an old French verb (mod- ernized). It is the set of members of a legislative body, to whom is coianiitted some matter by the body. The essential, the rudimental idea of a committee then is, that it discusses only what is committed to it by the body which appoints it. And it only reports back the results it has reached to the same body. In Jefferson s Manual, Sec. 11, are the following princi- ples: "Nor can a committee receive a petition but through the house." "As soon as the house sits .... the chairman (of the committee) is in duty bound to rise instantly." In Sec. 26:
PAN-PEESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 547
"No bill sliall be committed (referred to a committee) until it sliall have been twice read." " The report being made, the committee is dissolved, and can act no more without a new j^ower." In our Assembly, all the " standing committees," the number and importance of Avhose duties require something of a constitution, have their rules and by-laws always framed for them by the house. Thus, the true nature of a committee, as a mere creature of the Assembly, is distinctly maintained.
But how does this Alliance appear fore us? Did it origi- nate in a free action of our Assembly Or, indeed, of any As- sembly? No; it is the handiwork of irresponsible persons; who having first developed tliG creation in all but its details, bring it to sundry supreme courts — ours among others — and demand their adhesion. The Alliance makes its own constitu- tion ; made it last July in London ; and then comes to our As- sembly, saying in substance, " If you like it, you may adhere ; and if you don't like it, you may let us alone." Does this won- derful cluster of " committees " wait to have business committed to it? Not at all. It assumes its own lines of business, of its own discretion. It has been demonstrated in the most literal manner that it is not committees. The whole precedent is utterly revolutionary and pregnant with danger and usurpation. Are we consoled with the plea that its determinations will " carry only a moral power?" This is the only kind of power carried by the Assembly itself; yet is the Assembly a spiritual court, and, if uncontrolled by a constitution, capable of fearful aggres- sions on Christian liberty. The truth is, that this Alliance, in the mode of its inception a voluntary association, must be, in its virtual working, a church court, or else a nullity. The most practical hope of the friends of Southern Presbyterianism is that the good sense and native independence of our people will defend them from the usurpation implied in the former charac- ter, and that the Alliance will therefore become the latter — a serious but useless farce. The action of our Assembly, in claim- ing to treat the Alliance as a mere cluster of committees, is so clear a change and rejection of the real character which it has selected for itself that the natural result would be our exclusion. The Alliance, if consistent in its adhesion to its principles, should say to our commissioners : " The thing to which ynur Assembly proposes to accede is wholly another thing from what we pro-
548 PAN-PEESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
pose. We cannot submit to have our whole structure tlius coolly transmuted at the bidding of one of the lesser applicants. You cannot enter on your terms." "So mote it be!" But we appre- hend that no such consistency rules in the Alliance. Their appetite is for accessions and eclat on any terms, consistent or inconsistent. Provided they can get numbers, names and a vir- tual power unknown to our constitution, they will not boggle at an inconsequent action or an impertinence.
THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AXD THE PRESBYTERM
ALLIMCE/
I HAVE good a reason for wishing that your paper were read by every Presbyterian in the Southern States. It is this : I \sash to reach them with a few plain \dews touching that "pas- sage" in the last General Assembly at KnoxAdlle, in which the majority refused to define the presence of our church in the Presbyterian Alliance at Edinburgh. If I may judge by ap- pearances at Kuoxville and since, I have little chance of being allowed to speak to my brethren on this subject, except through the columns of our newspapers. At least, that chance appears so "slim" that I do not intend to run the risk of refusal by ask- ing for it.
The facts of the case are contained in the Minutes of the Assembly of 1878. This is the outline of them : That the churches composing virtually the body and weight of the Pres- byterian Alliance, namely, the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, the Established Presbj-te- rian Church of Scotland, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scot- land, the New School Presbyterian Church of America and the •Old School Presbyterian Church of America (now fused into the great omnibus church of the North), had at different times re- viled and condemned us for having slaves as virtual "men-steal- ers," as worthy to be classed with "murderers of fathers," as having on us a "dark and deadly stain," as being morally bound to the immediate duty of emancipation in all cases and as being guilty of "heresy and blasphemy" in our doctrine about slavery. To these the two Noiihern Presbyterian Churches added the accusations of "treason" against the best and noblest of our brethren, because they exercised their right of conscience in obeying their State governments as to the Confederac}- ; and
'Appeared in letters to the Editor of The Southwestern Pre^yterian, March 21st aud 28th, 1879
549
550 THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
those churches formally and earnestly demanded of the con- querors the murder of these beloved brethren of ours on the- gallows.
The next important fact is : that the Assembly of 1848, then in- cluding all the Old School Presbyterians in the North itself, al- most unanimously resolved that these libels were so unjust and unscriptural that our church never should, and never could, have anything more to do with the bodies making them, until they were withdrawn. The Assembly of 184-5 — two-thirds of it in the North — had meantime made that decision, which will for- ever remain impregnable truth, that while the church has no business to legislate either for or against civil institutions not sin j)er se, and while it should always rebuke the abuse of any relation by cruelty or injustice, it could not scripturally make mere slave-holding a sin j^'J/' se, or a bar to communion, because God allowed it to his people in the Bible.
The next important fact is : that our Assembly in 1865, after the fall of the Confederacy, declared that, while on the one hand it was the duty of Southern Christians to submit peaceably to- the act of the conquerors, in depriving them of their lawful property in the labor of their bondsmen ; yet, on the other hand, the success of violence could not affect in the least the right or the wrong of the relation, and that the truth was just what it was before.
The next important fact is : that in 1866, the Northern Pres- byterians in their Assemblies, while fiercely renewing their li- bels, expressly touched upon the declaration of our Assembly \ declared that this made our position just as wicked as if we still had the slaves ; that our being kept from holding them merely by Federal bayonets did not make us one whit less wicked ; and that consequently we are not to be forgiven until we had taken this position back, and professed repentance for uttering it. Now, had the relation ever been sinful, the Northern Presby- terians would have been obviously right in this ; for a church is a spiritual commonwealth ; has concern with opinions and prin- ciples as well as overt acts ; and ought to require sinfid men ta give up the love of sin in their hearts, as well as hold back their hands from it when compelled.
The next and all important fact is : that our Assemblies did, from 1870 to 1876, in various ways, and with the most perfect
THE SOUTHEKN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 551
uniformity and unanimity, declare that, while we ought to try to be forbearing, patient and forgiving under wrong, our duty to truth and to ourselves made it impossible for us to enter into formal relations with these accusing church-courts until these dreadful libels were withdrawn. Is there a man in the South, worthy of the name of a man, who did not say that our Assem- blies were right in this ?
But between 1875 and 1877, the project of a Pan-Alliance of Presbyterians was ripened, and its projectors, and its authori- ties, as soon as it came to have any, volunteered an invitation to our church to enter. It saw fit to do so in July 1877, through the Assembly's appointed commissioners, in the first council of the Alliance in Edinburgh. But the churches, so lately our ac- cusers, did not retract their charges of " men-stealing," "heresy," etc., nor did they make any allusion to them.
Remembering that the invitations to us to enter the Alliance came from them, I could only see two possible construc- tions of their conduct : they extended this invitation with a perfect knowledge of our unchanged defensive position ; hence, the construction honorable to them and to us is, that in doing so they tacitly, but by distinct inference, withdrew so much of their former denunciations as attacked our fair name and de- cent reputation as a body of Christians.
The onl}' other construction of their unsought advances to us is so insulting to them that I am unwilling to ascril^e it to any body of Christians. It would be to charge them with embracing, for mere policy, men whom they believed they had hitherto righteously rejected for odious sins, only because force had estopped the further perpetration of them, while the sinners* hearts were as foul as ever. Hence I believe that our church is fairly entitled to assume the more charitable and honorable construction, and thus improve a happy juncture to reinstate our good name and heal a lamentable scandal and schism. Hence, I ventured to move the Assembly to declare, in most courteous terms, that it was upon this construction, honorable to all parties, it appears as a meml3er of the Alliance. And whilst I drew up a statement and resolution, I expressly said to the members that this was only done as an expedient for pre- senting the case distinctly, and was in place of a speech, (for I made almost none). I invited them to consider the proposal.
552 THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
to disregard my statement of it, and to shape any action Avliicb. woiild be just to the truth and our church in their OAvn ^vAy, and not in mine.
The Minutes of the x4.ssembly ^\-i\\ sho^v the result. The majority determined that they would not listen to our proposal, would not confer with us about this point of our common church's right and good name, would not debate it and would not permit the Assembly to act upon it. Hence, when we, with generous courtesy, waived all debate in order to get a simple expression of the Assembly's mind on the proposal, the majority choked the request Avith the undebatable motion to "lay on the table" by a vote of 69 to 41. We, of course, protested. The majority first raised a committee to prepare an answer to this protest, and then, by formal motion and vote, actually forbade it to attempt to answer the argument of the protest, except upon a trivial technical point ! It is surmised that this is the first time in the history of our Assemblies that such a wonderful ihincj ^vas done.
• The plain reader will doubtless have this obvious question in his mind : If the arguments of the paper and protest were so unanswerable that the majority had actually to forbid their own able committee from attempting the perilous task, would it not have been better to accept them? If personal triumph had been the object of the protestants, instead of the honor of the church, they certainly had enough to satisfy them in thus reduc- ing the majority to the helpless condition of the Israelites before the expostulation of Elijah, "x\.nd they answered him not a word."
Now, what I affirm is that this majority erred; that the next Assembly ought to retrace the fatal misstep, and that the church ought to speak so as to jDut necessary nerve into the commis- sioners of the next Assembly to ensure their doing so.
1. I assert this, first, becaiise that majority sacrificed their friends to their recent enemies and slanderers. The only motive which could be gleaned from their unfraternal refusal even to advise with us about the honor of our beloved Zion, was the fear of giving offence to their newly formed allies in the churches so lately reviling us. But they were willing to wound our most loyal and sensitive affections for the truth and good name of the church, and to refuse us a precious right of self-defence —
THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 553
US, who arc their brethren, who have been for long and weary years standing shoulder to shoulder with them, in defence of what they profess to hold as true and right.
2. I assert it, because their action involves an insult to these new allies of theirs, such as I, no friend to this Alliance from the first, could not find it in my conscience to fling at those ac- cusers of my beloved church. It is this : the only ground of objection which could be extracted from the majority was, that our Assembly's adoption of any such action would certainly pro- voke the anti-slavery churches, now quiescent, to flame out again into denunciations of us as bitter as the old ones, and thus the present " happy " f i-aternization would be all spoiled. That is to sa}- : the majority think so much more meanly than I do of these new allies of theirs — whose feelings they consult in prefer- ence to their own old friends — that they believe all their advances and their courtesies at Edinburgh to be hollow ; they believe that those new allies, for policy's sake, were guilty of the moral obliquity of doing honor to men lately " men-stealers, heretics," etc., under the disgraceful pretext that just now we are forcibly estopped from overt men-stealing ! A " happy " fraternization this, indeed ! which its own artificers suspect to be thus hollow.
3. I assert that the majority did wrong by this ad Tionunem argument. That if this uncharitable suspicion of theirs were just, then our affiliation with such hollow allies would be degrading to our church, inconsistent with its whole past testimony, and a criminal betrayal of truth. We resolve invariably, ever since 1848, that we cannot lie under such a libel, and then we go to Edinburgh in 1877, and lie down beside the men who, as the majority suppose, have the same libel in their hearts.
4. I object to this action, because it forfeits a happy oppor- tunity to assert the good name of our afflicted church, so long slandered, and of settling, honorably to all parties, a long-pend- ing schism in Presbyterian Christendom. I do not think so ill of our recent accusers as to ascribe to them the animus imputed to them by the majority. In 184S, when the Scotch and Irish churches so foully slandered Southern Christianity, they knew nothing about it. Now they know us better. In 18G6 our Northern accusers were burning with passion, and had sectional ends to win by blackening us. That passion has subsided; those ends are secured. Neither the European nor the North-
554 THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE
em anti-slavery men really think of ns as tliey once did. Time- is a great teacher. This potent teacher is rapidly opening their eyes to the deadly affinity between abolitionism and communism. They are rapidly learning how absolute a failure their own once- boasted hireling society is as an organization of labor. "We have, therefore, no call now to cower before this once-arro- gant Pharisaism. The time is rapidly approaching for truth to assert its victory and our vindication. Our timidity at such a time is gratuitous; it is short-sighted. Our wisdom, as Avell as our duty is, at this day especially, to stand boldly to our colors, renew the assertion of our good name, and thus aid the triumph of truth. Hence I lament this action, because it de- prives our church of an easy vindication. The Alliance will not be so blind as overtly to reject the construction I tender them, so honorable alike to us and them, when the alternative is the avowal of a moral obliquity disgraceful to themselves. The Alliance will tacitly allow our construction, and that will be our vindication. They will not profess to like slavery; they will still say they think it a bad system, liable to many abuses ; they will say that the British and New England governments never ought to have forced either Africans or slavery upon Virginia against her perpetual protest (so say I) ; they will still denounce all cruelties upon the helpless, committed by evil masters. Let them do so; no Southern man objects. But they will not repeat the charge that the mere holding of bondsmen is malum per se, for they know it is in the teeth of the Bible ; or that Southern Christianity was polluted with a " dark and deadly stain," for they know that it was and is as creditable as any other Chris- tianity. We have an impregnable vantage ground in now as- suming the position I advised, that they tendered the invitation to us to enter the Alliance. They tendered it knowing our po- sition and unchanging testimony. This entitles us to assume that they proposed to meet us at length as equals, and n(jt a?> polluted with a "dark and deadly stain." They cannot gainsay it without disgracing themselves.
5. I lament this action, because it is unjust to our honored commissioners in the first council. The present attitude of the Assembly leaves their presence in Edinburgh ambiguous, and exposes them to the charge — which is actually made — that by appearing there, they did virtually utter a ^' peccavhmis" un-
THE SOUTHEIIX CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 555
authorized, and tliiis subjected us to all tliose enormous accu- sations.
Xow, if our commissioners did this, they did a great wrong ; one which should justly excite the hot indignation of Southern Presbyterians. Let the reader notice. It is not I who say they did us this foul wrong ; but the Assembly would not let them SAY THEY DID NOT, and this, when adversaries are publicly charging that they did ! In this the Assembly is unjust and cruel to their own commissioners, who tried to serve them faithfulh-.
6. I object that the present attitude of the Assembly is wrong,, because our accusers are perverting it to our defamation. I forewarned them in Knoxville that their course would be thus interpreted, and that to all hostile minds the intei-pretation would appear forcible. Thus, the Assembly is respectfully asked to say, by those who have a right to ask, whether or not it sent commissioners to Edinburgh to make an implied confes- sion of judgment to the foul charges of their Edinburgh allies- against their o^ti constituency. The Assembly is silent — -re- fuses to answer. Thereupon hostile minds will of course con- clude " silence gives consent." They will infer the Assembly is silent, because it knows that the appearance of its commis- sioners was a confession of judgment ; but it is ashamed to say so " out aloud " as yet. " We abolitionists must not be too hard on the sinners, but give them time to eat dirt."
Two newspapers among us said they thought the declaration needless, because they presumed the attitude of our church in the Alliance was not misunderstood. But the answer is de- molishing— IT IS MisuNTDERSTOOD. The Construction shameful to us is publicly assei-ted. Before I had finished reading my pro- phetic protest in the house, a fulfilment appeared in the morn- ing papers of the town, expressly and insolently asserting that construction. As soon as the JS'eio York Evangelist s reporter could get home, that paper pubhshed the same construction boasting over faithful consistent supporters of the Southern church. It actually argued that the Assembly's position was unquestionably a surrender and confession of judgment, because otherwise " Dr. Dabney's paper Avas unanswerable." The same construction has been taken up by other Northern papers (I know not how many), with insolent expressions of triumph, and a hurling of obloquy against the faithfid defenders of the As-
556 THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
sembly's professed principles — obloqti}' from wliicli a just gov- ernment is bound to defend its own servants.
Here is a literal statement of tlie position into wliicli tlie repu- tation of us and our forefathers is tlius thrust : I had a vene- rable father and mother, whose good name was as " ointment poured forth" among all, white and black, who knew them. They are now "with the Lord." They were born, lived and died slaveholders. Accusers charged that they were "men- stealers, worthy to be classed with murderers of fathers and mothers, heretics, profane, making a dark and deadly stain" on their profession. The Assembly of 1848, composed of a ma- jorit}' of Northern men, know that the slander was so wicked that they felt it their duty to protect my father's and mother's good name, and Bilile truth, and did it by declaring that they would not hold ecclesiastical intercourse with the slanderers. Our Southern Assemblies all did the same up to 1874. But now the Assembly pursues a certain course, which some of the accusers say means a sanction of the charge. That is, these men publicly say that they understand our Assembly as virtually saying, with them, that my j^arents were men-stealers, etc. And with this assertion ringing in the pul^lic prints, the Assembly proposes to remain obstinately silent ! How near does this come to allowing themselves to be made voluntary accessories to these foul slanders on my sainted parents ? It is not becoming, perhaps, for me to give the answer. This view of the position is so iigly that an effort will, of course, be made to say, " There is exaggeration in it." Wherein? I challenge correction ! Ko; it is the plain and unvarnished statement of fact. Instead of brethren indolently saying, "Oh! there must be exaggeration!" they had better open their eyes, brush away the cTust of preju- dice and timidity, and look their position honestly in the face. And now, here is the strength of this view : not that these slan- dered saints, " of whom the world was not worthy," were my parents, but that the honor and good name of the humblest man's parents in the Southern church are justly as dear to him as mine are to me. Mine were not the great of this world, but they were not blots on Christianity. No. And never shall this voice be silenced, by Assembly or abolitionist, from their right- eous defence, and the defence of their Southern equals, until they and their slanderers appear with me before that unerring bar to M'hich I appeal.
THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE TRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 557
7. I object to tliis position of the Assembly, because tlie charge iiuder which our church has been lying is not one about ■which men can honestly " agree to differ." There are accusa- tions such as to necessitate, not strife indeed, but righteous self- defence. Henry YIII. charged that his Queen, Anne Boleyn, was guilty of infidelity to him. She asserted her innocence. In such an issue it would have been criminal for them to " agree to differ" and continue together. If the charge was true, he ought not to have remained a party to the infamous union. If it was false, it would have been treason to her good name and the honor of her sex to remain jDassive under it, and reward the criminal slanderer with her love. This difference between our anti-slavery acciisers and us is equally inexorable, and there are but two ways to solve it without sin : one is our conviction, confession and reformation, if we are guilty of the charge ; tlie other is its withdrawal, if we are innocent. There ought not to be a middle way ; there cannot be, without criminaHty on one side or the other. If those churches were correct in formally charging me with "men-stealing," etc., and I am still unrepent- ant and uureformed, then they ought not to admit me to their communion. But I have declared that I am not repentant. The forcible confiscation of my property by others does not change my guilt. Were I left to myself, I should doubtless be holding my servants to-day (and a blessed thing it would be for them if I were). If this charge is not just, then it is a slander inflicted on me under the most formal and aggravated circum- stances ; and I cannot surrender my own vindication without treason to my good name and the credit ci Christ's people among whom I am numbered. The issue is inexorable. The obligation of charity does indeed require me to forbear retalia- tion and revenge, and to render "good for their evil ;" but to make it a pretext for betraying truth and righteousness merely because I happen to be one of the persons in whom they are assailed, is worse than confused logic ; it is moral obliquity.
Last: I solemnly declare to the brethren of the majority that, in thus throwing away this critical and fortunate juncture for asserting our good name before the Presbyterian world, our chiu"ch will be apprehended in all future history as having vir- tually fallen from its testimony, fatigued with the labor and insulation, and as having submitted to the foul charge fixed
568 THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE.
on it by the major number of voices. The verdict of liistory vnlL doulitless be that the loud and arrogant majority have triumphed ; that our voice has been silenced by a tardilv- awaking conscience, our testimony surrendered, and the infa- mous sentence of abolitionists submitted to. If we are silent now, we shall never again have a hearing at the bar of his- tory. The protest against the unjust condemnation which I would have the church perpetuate is not only the rninirmirii of defensive action which truth and manliness in us ought to tolerate, but it is the only protest which can be effectively ut- tered at all. While we sit silent, the traducers of us and our noble dead are still filling the ear of the world with their enor- mous slander. At the very hour when the representatives of these accusing churches were " wining and dining," psalm-sing- ing and speechifying so unctuously with our commissioners in Edinburgh, their abolition partisans were still telling the world, in every iorm, in newspapers- and political speeches, in histories and philosophies, in theological treatises and commentaries, in geographies and school histories, in novels and tales, in dramas and farces, in translations in thirteen languages, of the lies of Uncle Tom's Cabin ; that Southern society was barbarous. Southern Christianity a blot, Southern Christians men-stealers, and our Lees, Davises and Johnstons indebted only to the mag- nanimous mercy of abolition Christianity for not ending their ignominious career on a righteous gibbet, Who is to speak effectively for us if our o^ti church, "the pillar and ground of the truth," is silent ? They say : " Let individuals of Dr. Dab- ney's sentiments write in reply." Have I not written ? There ■stands my "Defence of Virginia and the South," whose argu- ments, foimded on Scripture and facts, are as impregnable as the everlasting hills. But who reads it? The self-satisfied in- solence of the pharisaic slanderers makes them disdain it — they never condescend to hear of it. I have no audience. But when our church appears in that Alliance, she has Christendom for her audience. Her circumstances compel the ear of the Christian world. It is her duty to her dead, to her children, to God, to speak. Her long-suffering dignity may forbid her to wrangle. It may even prompt her to appeal her cause to a higher judgment. But she is bound still to remind the accus- ers that she does not admit the infamous indictment nor confess
THE SOUTHERN CHURCH AND THE PRESBYTERIAN ALLIANCE. 559
judgment. This is the least that self-respect or duty permits. Less than this will be the occasion of helping to fix on us and the men who died for our defence a historical estimate similar to that which we form of the Druse and Koordish masters and Arab slave-hunters.
But the error of the majority of Knoxville need not be like the law of the Medes and Persians, which changeth not. There is ■still time to save our duty and credit. Let the people at home, the eldership, all whose plain honest sense is not debauched, •speak out, and say to the next Assembly : " Our good name is not to be betrayed by its own guardians." The next Assembly may " say, in a few plain words," to Presbyterian Christendom, what is true and right, and our honor is still saved. Let the Assembly say it in its own words : not in mine.
I do not conceive that in giving this advice, I am estopping myself at all from exercising my independent judgment touching the Alliance, of which our Assembly has made itself a member. I did not approve of it. I did not believe it was constitutional or safe, or useful, or prudent. But I am not factious. The As- sembly resolved b}' a majority to go into it, and far be it from me to seek to obstruct their rights as a majority. An honest subaltern, present in a council of war, advised against a pro- jected expedition. He argued that it was neither lawful, nor strategically wise ; but he was overruled. He did not become factious, nor did he desert. He stood faithfully in his obscure lot ; and when he saw his countrymen entangled in the conse- quences of their misadventure, he pointed out the best way to extricate themselves, and to gain, even from the unwise expedi- tion, the best results for his country which righteousness permit- ted. Having done this, must he therefore suppress his honest judgment that the adventure should never have been made ? I think not.
THE DAXCOG QUESTION/
MODERN society, while condemning sternly many things which the ancients tolerated or even applauded, counte- nances some things which they utterly rejected. It is very pleas- ant and natural for us quietly to assume that ours is the advanced and civilized age. But when men reason thus, "A given usage can- not be improper, because Christian opinion and society allow it among us," they reason in a circle. If the propriety of the usage is in question, then there are two hypotheses to be exam- ined, of which one is, "Ours is a pure state, and therefore what w^e tolerate must be pure;" but the other is, "This tolerated usage being impure, it proves our state corrupt." Now, the de- cision between the tAvo hypotheses cannot be made by a self- sufficient assumption. Oriental, Greek and Papal Christianit}- justifies many things wdiich we think excessive corruptions by just such an assumption. It is no more valid in our case than in theirs. Indeed, the very tendenc}^ to such self-sufficiency is, according to the Bible, one of the strongest symptoms of cor- ruption. The matter must be settled by a fair appeal to Biljle morals. These remarks are made because many relaxed Chris- tians now virtually settle the dancing question by this short and easy sophism. They see numerous persons who claim Christian character tolerate or advocate dancing. They assume that all these are a very proper kind of Christians. Thus they "jump to the conclusion" that, in spite of the opinions of the "old fogies," dancing must be a very proper thing. Now, in opposi- tion, no charge is here made as to the character of our fashion- able Christianity, but this obvious thesis is asserted that, should the dancing usages of fashionable Christian society be found in fact corrupt, then their easy tolerance among us is a sign, not of their innocence, but of a fearful and unsuspected corruption of our state.
'An article -whicli appeared in the Soutliern Presbyterian Review for April, 1S79.
560
THE D.^JJCING QUESTION. 561
Circumstances now give this matter a peculiar importance. The discussion involves not onlj the wrong or right of dancing, but many other vital questions, such as the extent of church power, the nature of the church's didactic function. Christian liberty, with its "metes and bounds," the obligation of Chris- tian charity to avoid causeless offence, and the social morality proper for God's people. These all-important questions need exposition and reassertion from time to time. It is evident that such a need now exists.
It is expressly admitted in the outset that there are acts which are sinful, and yet are not such offences as are properly reached by church discipline. (Book of Discipline, Chap. I., Sec. 5.) Hence the proof that dancing is sinful would not suffice to de- monstrate that it is disciplinable, and each proposition requires a separate discussion.
On the question whether dancing is an innocent recreation for Christians, it must be remarked that the act must be considered in the concrete, with its usual circumstances, adjuncts and con- sequences. Practically, these determine the question of moral propriety. No one affirms that there is sin per se merely in the rhythmical motion of human members to music. Just as some killing is the sin of murder and some is not, some beating is the sin of assault and battery and some is not, so the attendant cir- cumstances give the moral character to this form of motion. It is proposed first to state the judgment of past ages. The classic heathens of antiquity ever regarded dancing for amusement, even of a male solus, or of males with males, as contemptible in a free- born adult, and inconsistent with manly dignity and self-respect. In a religious ceremonial, the afflatus of the divinity was sup- posed to authorize this extravagance of motion, and make it ex- cusable at least, if not compatible with a freeman's dignity. The dancing of females with males for social amusement would have been regarded as an act so inconsistent with decency that an instance can scarcely be heard of in reputable society-. Gi'eek and Roman gentlemen, whose amusements in their symposia and coeace, with no lady present, were certainly far from strict, found much interest in the evolutions and pantomimes of professional dancers, male and female. But the actors were usually slaves, and the profession was regarded as worse than menial. Such is a fair digest of the testimony of antiquity. The earliest witness
FoL. II.— 36.
562 THE DANCING QUESTION.
cited is tliat of Herodotus, the " father of histor}'." Iii Book TI., 139, he relates that Kleisthenes, the chief magistrate of Sicvon, having a marriageable daughter, collected many of the chief men of Greece as her suitors. Among these, the favored suitor was Hippocleides, son of Tisandros, from Athens. At a male entertainment, after the drinking had proceeded far, this young man, calling on the auleies to play for him, danced first some Laconian and then some Attic figures. Herodotus pro- ceeds: "Kleisthenes, while he was dancing these, though loath- ing the thought of having Hij^pocleiues as his son-in-law, by reason of his dancing and indecency, still constrained himself, not wishing to break out on him. But when he saw him ges- turing with his legs, he was no longer able to hold in, but said : ' Well, son of Tisandros, thou hast danced away thy bride.' The daughter was given to another."
The eminent and accurate Greek scholar, Becker, in his Char'i- -cles, says (p. 103) : " Though the art of dancing was so highly prized, though it served to give eclat to the festivals and shows, and though the guests of the syinjwsia delighted to see the feats of a skilful artist ; still, in private life it was little practiced, and there seems to have arisen almost a prejudice against it. . . . it seems to have been considered incompatible with the dignity of a man. . . . Indeed, it was usually looked upon as a preliminar}' symptom of intoxication."
As to the opinion of the Romans, Dr. Wm. Bmitli {Diction- ary of Greek and Bovicui Antiquities, p. 852), conchides thus : " Dancing, however, was not performed by any Roman citizens except in connection with religion ; and it is only in reference to such dancing that we are to understand the statements that the ancient Romans did not consider dancing disgraceful, and that not only freemen, but the sons of senators, and noble matrons practiced it. In the later times of tl:e Republic we knoAV tliat it was considered highly disgraceful for a freeman to dance ; Cicero reproaches Cato for calling Murania a 'dancer.'" Dr. Smith then quotes a part of the famous passage in the Oratio pro Mxl- rrpjia, c. 6 : " Saltatorem appellat L. Murtienam Cato. Maledic- tum est, si vere olijicitur, vehementis accusatoris ; sin falso,
maledici conviciatorl Non debes .... temere consulem
Populi Romani saltatorem vocare ; sed conspicere quibus pr;e- terea vitiis affectum esse necesse sit eum, cui vere istud objici
THE DANCING QUESTION. 563
-po^sit. Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit, neque in solitudine, neque in convivio moderato," etc. " Tu milii arripis idy quod necesse est oDinixivi vit'ionini esse extixmuvi." The Ora- tlo in Pisonem, c. 10, 22, may be compared. Forcellini and Facciolati, in tlieir Latin Thesaurus, define thus : Saltator : viollis artifex et 2)i"obrosiis. To one who knows antiquity this statement will appear perfectly moderate and reasonable : that had the daughter, not only of a rigid Cato, but of a flexible Ci- cero or Julius, done precisely the thing which is currently done by Christian females at modern dancing parties, Roman opinion would have such a sense of the disgrace that on the following morning the father would have consulted the leading parents of his " Gens," and, with their full moral support, would have exerted his autocratic domestic authority to consign the disgrace of his house to an imprisonment, which she would have not a little reason to submit to thankfully, as the alternative of a capital penalty. Roman opinion was not an infallible ethical standard ? No. But it gives us the e&timate of one civilized age. And if Roman morals were in many points deplorably relaxed, and jet judged this amusement thus, there is yet room for the question, whether a sounder standard of morals might not condemn it even more clearly.
But let us now look at the verdict of Christian antiquity. Chrysostom (court preacher at Byzantium), expounding the his- tory of Herodias' daughter in Matthew, says : " Where dancing is, there is the devil. For God did not give us our feet for this end, that we might demean ourselves indecently ; but that we might walk decently, not prance like a parcel of camels ; but that we may exult with the angels. If even the body is dis- graced, which perpetrates this indecency, much more the soul. . . . Dancing is the devil's invention."
The councils of the early Church frequently condemned the practice. The fifty-third Canon of the Synod of Laodicea enacts, " Christians when coming to weddings must not caper or dance ; but dine or sup decently as becomes Christian people." The same synod forbids clergymen when attending marriages even to witness dancing exhibitions. The Synod of Agatho says (A. D. 450) : " Dancing to songs or music of an amatory or loose character are absolutely inhibited to all Christians." So enacts •the council of Illerda, A. D. 515. The eighth universal Council
564 THE DANCING QUESTION.
of tlie clmrcli {hi Trullo) (A. D. 692) enacts : " We also forbid and expel all 2>ublic dances of women, as producing mncli in- jury and ruin."
"We now hasten to modern Christian judgment and legislation. Presbyterianism lias uttered no uncertain sound. Calyin in- sisted on the discipline of dancing in Geneva. The AYestminster Assembly Larger Catechism, Question 139, declai'es " lascivious dancing and stage-j)lajs " breaches of the Seventh Command- ment. The Scotch Assembly of 1649, " finding the scandal and abuse that arises through -promiscuous dancing, do therefore in- hihit and discharge the same, and do refer the censure thereof io the several presbyteries," etc. So the Scotch Assembly of 1701, " do revive the acts of the General Assembly of 1648, discharg- ing promiscuous dancing," etc. If recent use has allowed these acts to fall into such desuetude as to justify the assertion that Scotch Presbyterianism does not now discipline for dancing, the comment made on the neglect, by its manifest influence on the morals of the Scotch peasantry, is the best demonstration of eiTor.
Let us now hear the testimony of American Presbyterianism. The Assembly of 1818 pronounced dancing iu "its highest ex- tremes" as admitted by all to be of "fatal consequences." (Pound dances were then unkno\\Ti in America.) The Assembly "apprehends danger from its incipient stages;" and requii'es church members to "heed on this subject the admonitions of those whom you have chosen to watch for your souls." The Assembly of 1827 virtually repeats this action. In 1789 the Synod of North CaroUna, iu reply to an overture, requires that persons guilty of dancing, horse-racing, etc., must be "dealt with by theii- spii-itual rulers." This action, being allowed tacitly by the Assembhes which reviewed the Synod's proceedings, be- comes of authority as expounding the lav>-.
The existence, and consequently the action on this subject, of oui- Soiithern Assembly, are recent, and should be familiar to us. Hence only the main points are recalled. In 1865 our Assembly decided, 1st, That while no church court " has a right to make any new rules of church membership, diflerent from those con- tained in the constitution," all courts, including church sessions, have the undoubted right "to make deliverances affirming their rnise of ichat is ' an offence ' in the meaning of the Book of Dis-
THE DANCING QUESTION. 565
cipline, Cliap. I., Sec. 3." 2nd, That our clmrcli courts have liitlierto "probably been too tolerant of dancing," etc. 3rd, That "it is the duty of every judicatory to enforce the teachings of our standards on this and other fashionable amusements." Those teachings "repeatedly" uttered by the supreme judicatory andnoAV reaffirmed at large, are that dancing is " in direct oppo- sition to the Scriptures and our standards," is indisputably a " worldly conformity," and is liable to " excesses." What species of "enforcement" this Assembly enjoins the church courts to employ is thus explained at the end of the enactment : "Instruc- tion from the pulpit," prudent " admonition " ; but when all other means fail, then "such methods of discipline as shall separate from the church those who love the world and whose practices conform thereto."
In 1869 the Assembly "heartily responds" to a similar ques- tion by " earnestly and solemnly enjoining upon all sessions and presbyteries under its care the ahsolute necessity of enforcing discij^line . . . against offences ; under the word offences includ- ing . . . theatrical exhibitions and performances and lyromiscu- ous dancings^
In 1877 the Presbytery of Atlanta asked the Assembly to interpret the law of the church, as set forth in 1865 and 1869, as to these points : whether it forbade dancing, or only " promis- cuous dancing." And if the latter, to what accident of the dance the word "promiscuous" referred. The answer of the Assembl}' is in these words :
''1. The Assembly has uniformly discouraged and condemned the modern, dance, in all its forms, as tending to evil, whether practiced in public balls, or in private parlors.
' ' 2. Some forms of this amusement are more mischievous than others — the round dance than the square, the public ball than the private parlor ; but all are evil and should be discountenanced.
"3. The extent of the mischief done depends largely ujion circumstances. The church session is therefore the only court competent to judge what remedy to apply; but the Assembly, being persuaded that in most cases it is the result of thoughtlessness or ignorance, recommends great patience in dealing with those who offend iu this way. "
When this is viewed in connection with the previous enact- ments— which are not repealed here, but virtually reaffirmed — its meaning is obvious : that while all dancing is against the law of the church, yet, as some forms are more mischievous than others, and attendant circumstances largely qualify the mischiefs, church,
566 THE BXSCISG QUESTION.
sessions sIioitIJ use great patience in dealing \\-ith. offenders.. But the law of tlie cliurcli clothes the sessions with discretion as to "what remedy" should be applied, mere remonstrance or judicial discipline. That the Assembly, notwithstanding its ten- derness towards offenders, clothes the sessions ^yith the power of judicial disciiiline, and designs its exercise in all the worse cases, is manifest. "WTiy else do they authorize sessions to "judge what remedy to apply," and speak of their "deahng" with offenders ? Again, the body clothed by the Assembly with the discretionary power is not the didactic agency, the pastor, nor eyen the indiyidual elder, but the judicial hxly, the session. The Assembl}* indisputably authorizes judicial action in all such cases as are " mischieyous " and cannot be curbed by didactic means, and that at the discretion of sessions.
The yiews and law of the great Wesleyan body may be gath- ered, first, from Wesley's own worils. In his works, Yol. YII., p. 22-i, he says of square dances (I'ound dances were then un- known in England) : It seems God himself has abeady decided the question concerning dancing. If dancing be not eyil in it- self, yet it leads young women to numberless eyils." So in Yol. II., p. 271, sermon on "The More Excellent way." "So (eyil tendencies) undoubtedly haye aU pubHc dancings. And the same tendency they must haye, unless the same caution obtained among Christians which was obseiwed among the ancient hea- thens. With them men and women neyer danced together, but always in separate rooms. This was always observed in ancient Greece and for several ages at Home, where a woman dancing in company with men would have been at once set down as a
." Wesle}'s classical attainments authorized him to speak
of the ancient usage and opinion. So Adam Clarke : "Let them plead for it who will; I know it to be evil, aud that only." Let the enactment of the Methodist Church South be taken as a specimen of Methodist laio on this subject. The General Con- ference of 1874 added to then- Book of Discipline, as an appen- dix, the Pastoral Letter of the Bishops. This, speaking of worldly amusements, says:
' ' Their multiplied auil insidious forms are a source of perpetual temptation and damage, and are denounced by the vr.ord of God and by thr.t part of our gene- ral rules -which forbids ' the taking of such diversions as cannot be used in the name of Jesus.' This denunciation is explicit and comprehensive. 'The name of the Lord Jesus' in this connection is a decisive test; and we are content to
THE DANCING QUESTION. 367
leave the issue to its sovereign arbitrameut. Amongst those indulgences which cannot stand this solemn test is the modern dance, both in its private and public exhibitions, as utterly opposed to the genius of Christianity as taught by us. "When persisted in, it is a justifiable ground of judicial action by the church autltorities."
The Protestant Episcopal Church has been sometimes unjustly called a "dancing church," But the tenor of its verdict against dancing may be seen in the following :
Bishop Hopkins, speaking only of square dances : " No inge- nuity can make it consistent with the covenant of baptism." Bishop Meade : " Social dancing is not aniorig the neutral things which, wdthin certain limits, we may do at pleasure, and it is not even among the things lawful but not expedient ; but it is in. Z^- self ivrong,\nr^YOY>er, and of bad effect." This Bishop Meade spoke of "social dancing"; what would he have said of round dances? The latter, Bishop Cox pronounces "enormities" and "lascivious." Bishop Johns calls round dances "lascivious" and a "demoralizing dissipation." "This scandal is not to be tolerated in the church of Christ." "If all such efforts (as re- monstrances and instructions) prove unavailing, . . . and it be- comes necessar}' to resort to the exercise of decided discipline, it must be done."
It may be said that these opinions, though the views of bish- ops, are not Episcopalian law. Let us then to the law. The general canons of the " General Convention," enjoining discip- line for irregular living, in the hands of the minister, subject to an appeal to the bishop, remits the providing of detailed rules to the different diocesan conventions. (Digest of Canons, 1878.) The canons of the Yirginia Diocese may be taken as a fair speci- men. Canon nineteenth, after authorizing the minister of the parish to repel from the Lord's table any professed Christian "conducting himself in a manner unworthy of a Christian," adds: "And gaming, attendance on horse-racing or theatrical amuse- ments, witnessing immodest and licentious exhibitions of shows, attending public balls, etc., . . . are offences for which dlsc'qjlhie should he exe7'cisecl."
But Bishop Whittle, of Yirginia, wishing for still more stringent and imperative legislation against round dancing, speaks of it thus: "I adopt his" (Bishop Johns') "language as my own." Bound dancing is a "dreadful evil." '"Judging the tree by its fruit, our wisest and best people, ministers and laymen, have become alarmed lest its effect shall not only be to injure pure and unde-
568 THE DAXCIXG QUESTION.
filed religion in the elivu'ch, hut even to sap the very foundations of all social virtue and morality. I will not discuss its character and consequences. For while St. Paul wrote to the chiu'ch in Ephesus that it was a shame even to speak of those things which were done br some in secret, I should feel ashamed even to speak, as the truth would require, of this thing which is done openly hefore all.''
The council of 1878, in response to the bishop's request, unanimously resolved that it is the " solemn duty of every com- municant to abstain from round dancing ; and that every minis- ter be requested to use every effort to arrest the practice of round dancing hy admonition and disciplDvE." Legislation, ren- dering this absolute by an additional " canon," is now on foot and referred to the next council.
The Papal body has not had the character of being at all a strict guardian of morals. But even American popery cannot away with the abuse. The pastoral letter of the Poman Cath- olic archbishops and bishops in council in Baltimore in 1866 speaks thus : They consider it " their duty to warn their people, .... especially against the fashionable dances, which, as at present carried on, «re revolting to every feeling of delicacy and propriety, and are fraugld vjith the greatest danger to moi'als."
The same council adopted the following Canon C. Chorefe dictpe " round dances " in scholis nee tolerandie nee docendse. " Cum PP. Cone. Bait. Plenarii II. in Literis Pastoralibus ad Populum, omniuo improbariut choreas, quse Aiilgo nomine * Waltzes ' et ' round dances ' veniunt : statuimus illas non esse docendas et ne tolerandas quidem, in Collegiis, Academiis, et Schohs hujus Diocoeseos, etiamsi recreatiouis tantum causa inter personas ejusdem sexus habeantur."
And the archbishop, "s^dth a nerve which shames the timidity of many a prostestant, ordered the parochial clergy to wkhhold absolution from all such as refused to forsake these amusements.
It may be rejoined, that all the witnesses cited are human, and therefore none of them is Lord of the Christian's conscience. Let this be granted. But what shall be the presumptiA'e estimate of the humility, modesty, and docility of that temper which sets itself up arrogantly against this, concursus of all religions, all ages, all civilizations, to decide, in its ignorance and inexperi- ence, in favor of what the wise and good of the ancient and
THE DANCING QUESTION. 569
moclern world liave condemned ? In the face of this array, the charge that the condemnation of dancing is only puritanical or self-righteons is simply sill}-. Whether this opinion of the vir- tuons of all asres be sonnd or not, it is clear that the self-suffi- ciency and arrogance of mind which rejects it under the plea of asserting its Christian liberty, is the farthest possible from that righteous and reverent, God-fearing, and humble temper which should animate the champion of the holy rights of conscience, especially when constrained to contend against God's own church.
But it is by no means conceded that this condemnation of public dancing is without scriptural warrant, and sustained only by ecclesiastical opinion. Few practices, which have become current since Bible days, are so fully and expressly condemned by the Bible as is this. No competent archaeologist will risk his credit by denying the following facts : tliat modern dancing, i. e., the dancing of free males and females together for amuse- ment, was unknown in the decent society of the Jews (as of the ancient heathen) ; that the only dancing mentioned with allow- ance in the Bible was religious, choral movements, in which the sexes always danced alone, and that the dancing of females for amusement in a male presence, like that of Herodias' daughter, was uniformly recognized as too notoriously indecent to need any new condemnation. Hence all attempted use of the Bible cases as precedents for modern dancing are simply preposterous. And that the canon of Scripture should close without any addi- tional prohibition, in express words, of our modern dancing, is exactly according to that plan by which God has legislated for his church in all other points of modern sin. Why is it that no church session, if called to discipline a man for the trespass of wantonly cutting a telegraph wire, or the crime of displacing a raih'oad bar in front of a passenger train, would expect to find a prohibition in express words against these forms of sin ? Every child knows the ansAver : because telegraphs and railroads had not then been invented, and God's uniform plan is not to place on the page of the Bible, in Bible times, precepts which must be wholly unintelligible to the generation to which the Bible was given. But his plan was, so to prohibit sins which were current in those generations as to furnish all honest minds parallels and precedents which would safely guide them in classing the sins
570 THE DA^XIXG QUESTION.
of later inyention. The position here assumed is, tliat the Bihle has conde'inned the modern dance as expressly as tlie plan of its revelation made possible for it. For —
1. The Bible enjoins on Christians sobriety; the dance is an act of pronounced levity. The Bible morality is not ascetic, but it is distinctly sedate. It summons us to regard ourselves and our fellow-men as invested -u-itli the dignity of immortality ; as engaged in a momentous struggle for our own salvation and for the rescue of a perishing generation of fellow-men ; as bought for God with divine blood ; as at strife with spiritual adversaries of mighty power ; as waging this warfare in the presence of a world of men, of angels, and of God. The Bible commends cheerful- ness, but forbids frivolity and levity. It allows recreations, but it limits them to such bounds as refit the powers for the serious duties of life, or such as are compatible with the solemn warfare we wage. Let any obedient mind, from this point of view, com- ]iare the numeroiis places Avhere this acocooaWq is positively en- joined.^ To appreciate the meaning which the Spirit meant to put into this precept, we must consider the meaning which the usage of the age attached to the quality. According to that usage, all such levities as the dancing of a Adrtuous free-born man for amusement were outrages on that aloco-, that sense of dignity and decency of person, the absence of which was a shame and disgrace.
2. The Bilile enjoins on Christians strict economy. They are stewards of their riches for God. They must use their suj^er- fluity to do good in the spirit of that Redeemer " who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor."^ But the modern dance is a wasteful and expensive amusement, wasteful of time, of money, of dress, of equipage and furniture, and most mis- chievously hindering industrial pursuits. Is it said that modern Christian society indulges in many other expensive amusements besides the ball ? This is deploralily true ; lint the answer is that "two -uTongs do not make a right." All of those expensive amusements are unscriptural and unchristian ; God calls for the retrenchment of all. But it would be a sorry method to pursue that important result by sanctioning one of the most obstritsive and fruitful sources of this sinful waste. He who looks around and comprehends the vast destitutions appealing to Christian
■ 1 Tim. ii. 9, I.J ; iii. 2 ; 2 Tim. i. 7 ; Titus ii. 12 ; 1 Peter iv. 7. -Luke xi. 41 ; xii. 33 ; 2 Cor. viii. 7 ; ix. 6 ; 1 Tim. vi. 17, 18.
THE DANCING QUESTION. 571
charity, lie who sees our young missionaries detained from the open doors God has set before them among the perishing heathen, he who hears the imploring but yain appeals of our committees for aid, and then sees God's money, in the hands of his stewards^ lavished on the mischieyous prodigaUties of balls and other fash- ionable pomps, can appreciate somewhat the greatness of this element of sin. It is as expressly anti-scriptural as the word of God can make it.
3. It has been already remarked that a practice must be vie wed in the concrete and with its usual adjuncts in order to make a just moral appraisement of it. The modern dance is anti-scrip- tural again, because it dictates usually a mode of dress in fe- males which the word condemns. PauP expressly requires Christian females to " adorn themselves in modest apparel " (iv xaraarohj xoa/jiuo). How much this meant, this raiment seemly and decent for woman, must be learned from a proper un- derstanding of the meaning which virtuous opinion in Paul's day attached to the words. The unlearned Bible reader may sec what this was from 1 Cor. xi. 4-10. We there see that, accord- ing to that standard which is enjoined on the Christian female, she who appeared in public unveiled — not to say with parts of her person exposed which delicacy should have most jealously guarded — disparaged the honor of her sex by an unnatural transgression.
4. The Scriptures expressly forbid the modern dance, in that they enjoin the strictest purity in the intercourse of the sexes. ^ Here we approach very delicate ground. But as our citations showed, it is one which the church and its pastors have always and everywhere felt constrained by duty to assume in resisting the sin. Its defenders not seldom resent this objection to their practice as an indelicate and libellous assault. They endeavor to cry shame upon the construction which experience places on their indulgences. But one thing is clear ; if the candid and plain description of the adjuncts of the modern dance would de- mand words whose utterance would be an outrage to the decen- cies of debate, then this is the strongest 230ssible proof that t/te doing is still more an outrage upon the decencies of Christian morals. We have seen above a Christian, as pure as he is brave, confess that the personal modesty he cherished as a man dis- qualified him for expressing in words the adjuncts of the fash-
1 1 Tim. ii. 9 ; 1 Peter iii. 3-5. « 1 Tim. v. 2.
572 THE DANCING QUESTION.
ionable dances. He could have selected no words which implied so severe and just a ceusiire of them. The Christian physician is sometimes obliged to nucover a fatal idcer in order to exscind it. But he may do it with a hand as chaste as that which lays his benediction on an infant's brow. So the spiritual surgeon may be under obligation to probe, and in probing expose, the moral impurity which his sanctity would fain hide. But the duty may be performed with sanctity. It may be modestly claimed that if any place is suitable for such exposure, it is especially the page of a professional journal which is designed for the teachers and rulers of the church, and not for the popu- lar assemblage of families.
The attempt has been often made to break the force of the precedents cited from sacred and secular antiquity, by saying ihat the usages of those days were dictated by that jealous seclu- sion of women Avliich Christianity has banished as a remnant of barbarism. And we are reminded that, as there is a legitimate union of the sexes, there may be a legitimate scope in social in- tercourse for the disclosure of the emotions which approximate them to each other. Such is the intimated plea. Xow it is con- ceded that Christianity has elevated woman, in freeing her from that ancient state in which she was, while unmarried, half a slave and half a prisoner. It is concedod that the intercourse of the sexes in domestic society refines both, as long as it is re- tained within scriptural bounds ; and that it is necessary to found Christian marriage in the mutual knowledge, respect, and friendship of the parties. It is admitted that God, in his laws, always assigns somewhere a legitimate scope to those affections which, in his creative handiwork, he made constitutive of our nature. But since man's fall he teaches us that every one of these affections miTst be restrained. Now it is the clear teaching of Scripture that the special emotions which approximate the sexes can have no innocent or lawful existence, except between those who desire to be united l^y them in that sacred union which makes of the twain one flesh. That union is the institu- tion ordained by God in paradise as the means of " seeking a godly seed," consecrated to the high and holy purpose of sui'- rounding j'oung immortals with the safeguards which will fit them for heaven. It is the selected type of the eternal union of Christ to his ransomed Church. Hence its affections must re-
THE DANCING QUESTION. 573
main unique, and must be sacredlj directed towards or confined to the enclosure of the consecrated type. Anything else than this is pollution. From this scriptural position it follows, that in the common social intercourse of the unmarried everything is to be retrenched which has a regular tendency to develop, promis- cuously, sentiments which can have lawfully but one single di- rection. Clear as this deduction is, we are not left to deduction, but have the sure word of Scripture. The rule enjoined on Timothy, 1 Epistle, v. 2, is : "Treat the younger women as sis- ters, with all purity." Now, first, while it is conceded that a breach of propriety by a young minister would carry heavier ag- gravations of guilt, it is false and al)surd to allow to the young layman a diiferent rule of morals. The rule then is, that young Christian males and females are, in their general social inter- course, to exclude all the ijecuUar sentiments of the sexes, just as coin])letely as they are excluded Ijetween v'lrtxious 'brothers and sis- ters. The apostle teaches us the stimulation of those sentiments towards the common female acquaintance is, while less criminal, as distinctly unlawful. See also for confirmation, Prov. v. 17-18 ; 1 Tim. ii. 9 ; 1 Pet. iii. 2-5 ; Matt. v. 28.
Does any one exclaim that our Christian society is exceeding far below this standard in many other things besides dancing : in modes of dress, in manners and intercourse ? And that there- fore we cannot justly condemn dancing while we allow the other departures ? If the statement is true, then it proves, not that we are to legitimate dancing, but that we are to reform all the other Kcenses along with it. Our Saviour's word concerning such re- form of a prominent abuse is clear : " This ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others imdone." Again, should the averment be true, then the state of facts proves, not that the standard laid down above from the Scriptures is unreasonable, but perhaps it may prove that we are, indeed, far gone from that high Christian state on which it is so pleasant to plume om*- selves, and that we may be, in God's eyes, in a deplorable state of decadence and corruption. What way is there for safelj- set- tling this question except a comparison of our wavs with God's word ?
The impulses of human acts are usually complex. To the less objectionable dances of a former generation, young people may have been prompted in part by the mere animal love of
574 THE DANCING QUESTION.
motion wliicli leads the lamb to skip and the school-bo}- to leap. Some found another impulse in the love of music. Manj were impelled by the tjrann}- of fashion, by the fear of being taunted as " wall flowers," or of being reproached as puritans. Many moved under a love of excitement which they did not stop to analyze. In some at least, less innocent emotions prompted the exercise. In the modern dances it. is simple folly to deny the presence of a stronger tendency towards the evil elements of at- traction. Now, the complexity of the impulse could not but de- ceive, especially the inconsiderate and inexperienced dancer, as to the nature of his own emotions. He felt, but did not analj-ze. This admission may on the one hand greatly palliate the error of the inconsiderate dancer, and may give us the pleasing ability to exculpate him personally from conscious corruption. But on the other hand, it only places the practice in a more ohjectionahle light hy so mtich as it shoios it deceitful and treacherous as a stim- ulus of evil. From this point of view, one easily sees how futile it is to quote the declarations of a few inexperienced dancers as to their innocency'of evil sensations, in proof of the lawfvil- ness of the amusement. Over against this partial testimony must be placed a fearful array. It is notorious that the intro- duction of the waltz, less objectionable than the more recent round dances, excited in England and America the general con- demnation of the world and the universal reprehension of the church. To those who are old enough to remember the verdict of the healthier sentiment, it is self-evident that any change in that verdict since is due to the sophisticating of the general con- science by the tolerance in society of the evil. Those whose ex- perience is more recent ma}- see a fair picture of the earlier and healthier disapprobation in Byron's poem, " The Waltz." It is replete with his keenest and bitterest satire. The amusement is by innuendo charged with the worst possible tendecies. He in- timates that nothing but the deplorable relaxation in the fash- ionable world, resulting from the example of the fourth George when Prince Regent, and the force of his personal example, could have made it possible to domesticate the abominable inno- vation in British society. In his view the waltzer had tar- nished all the purity and delicacy which make woman attractive :
" At once love's most enduring thouglit resign, To press the hand so pressed bv none bnt thine j To gaze upon that eye which never met
THE DANCING QUESTION. 575
Another's ardent look -without regret. Api^roach the lip -which all, ^Yitho^t restraint, Come near enough — if not to touch — to taint ! If such thou lovest, love her then no more. "
B^Ton, it is well known, was far from a saint. If even liis
gross mind was thus impressed, hy the new amusement, what is
the judgment which Christian purity miTst pass upon it ? And
if we may receive these verses of Goethe as an expression of
German sentiment, the waltz was no more justified in the land
of its origin than here :
' ' "What ? The girl of my heart by another embraced ?
"What ? The balm of her lips shall another man taste ?
What ? Touched in the whirl by another man's knee ?
"\Miat ? Panting recline on another than me ?
Sir, she is yours : from the plum you have brushed the soft blue ;
From the rose you have shaken its tremulous dew —
Yrhat you touched you may take ; pretty waltzer, adieu ! "
He must be verdant indeed who can defend the round dance fi'om the charge of impurity, after he is made aware of the feel- ings avowed by its unblushing male votaries. Let the partici- pants of the other sex be as innocent as a vestal of the infection, that innocency does not remove the loathing which the delicate mind should feel for the unconscious association. Nor, in view of the fact that God forbids our making ourselves unnecessarily the occasions of sin to others, does it remove the guilt. Again, it is well known that men v/ho join in these dances with females for whom they care nothing, usually express the greatest repug- nance to seeing their own sisters imitate their example, ^'hy is this ? Because these men know the true nature of the amuse- ment. The argument is trite but jiist, that the real secret source of the excitement is disclosed by the fact that round dances of men with men, and women with women, possess no attraction. In view of these stubborn facts, and the fearful testimony of the police of our large cities as to the sources whence the denizens of the house of her whose " feet go down to death and whose steps take hold on heU" are recruited, the denial of evil ten- dency in this practice can appear as only the blindness of pre- judice and folh". Should any reputable father detect a man, who had no other rights than those of a stranger or at most of a common acquaintance, in such relations to the person of his daughter in the parlor as attend the round dance, he would un- questionably regard it as an outrage upon the honor of his house,
576 THE DANCING QUESTION.
wliicli, if Christian forbearance did not hold his hand, Avonld h& ■washed out in blood.
But now we ask, first, how does publicity modif}' an inde- cent act except by aggravating it ? Second, can such an act, intrinsically immoral, be changed in its character by the attach- ment of any frivolous adjunct ? Would a judge at law, for in- stance, in a commonwealth Avhich made duelling by its laws a crime, dream of justifying the duellist because the perpetration of his murder was accompanied with a graceful Pji-rhic dance ? With what scorn would the righteous magistrate dismiss so im- pudent a plea ! Why then shall the Christian moralist modify his reprobation of that which, when done without accessories, would be condemned by all as -unchaste ; because, forsooth, ty- rannical fashion has attached to it her frivolous adjuncts of music and rhythmical motion ? The demand is an insolence.
It is therefore without a shadow of ground that a lack of ex- press law for applying the corrective of discipline is asserted either of the Bible or of our constitution. Let any church ses- sion bring charges, not against the music and motion, but against the postures of the round dance, and they would find express au- thority in the Larger Catechism, Questions 138, 139. The im- propriety which would be admitted by all, if perpetrated wdthout those adjuncts, cannot be excused by them. Hence if the court should, in tenderness to the offender, refrain from stating its charge in terms fully equal to the grossness of the real act, and speak of it as " round dancing," it is hard to see how a culprit otherwise clearly condemned by our law can acquire any rights- of justification from this undeserved forbearance.
5. The Scripture has virtually included the modern dance in an express prohibition in three places, Rom. xiii. 13, Gal. v. 21, 1 Peter iv. 3, where it sternly inhibits the ■/.cotj.oc of the heathen. In the first text it is rendered " rioting," and in the other two " revellings." These words now fail to convey to the Englisli reader the real nature of the sin. " Rioting " suggests some sucK Adolent insurrection against law as is put down l)y reading the riot act, or by an armed police ; while " revellings " suggest lavish and intemperate amounts of eating. The yMaoii of the Greeks was wholly another matter : the comissatio of the Latins. This was a general frolic or jollification, follo-ning the Oj?->''v or crvna, usually pursued within the house of the host. Its spirit and na-
THE DANCING QUESTION. 577
ture may be inferred from tlie "walking honestly," vjayj^u.ovio:^^ of E-om. xiii. 13, witli wliicli the yMUMZ, is contrasted. Eua-^rj jiuau'^rj was that sedate dignity and seemliness which the gospel requires of the Lord's freedmen, the same dignity, exalted and spiritual- ized, Avhich the Greek ethics exacted of the free-born citizen. The xojfjto^ was condemned, partly because it was in contrast with this dignity. Cicero, in the place cited, describes the comissatio as an excess considerably short of dancing, and a milder preliminary usually preceding, before dissolute people got to the dancing pitch. His defence of Muroena against the infamous charge of being a dancer is that Cato could not catch him in any of these previous excesses, which alone could lead a freeman down to the final shame of dancing for social amuse- ment. " Tu mihi arripis id, quod necesse est omnium vitiorum esse postremum : relinquis ilia, quibus remotis hoc vitium om- nino esse non potest. Nullum turpe convivivim, non amor, non comissatio, non libido, non sumptus ostenditur." Now if Paul and Peter sternly inhibit the x(otj.o^ or comissatio, a priori they inhibited the dancing which contemporary opinion regarded as still more unworthy. No female was usually present in these jollities. But their presence and participation, had it occurred, would unquestionably have made the condemnation of the apos- tles just so much the sterner, because it would have outraged their moral sense in another point. But add to the ancient comissatio the presence of women participating as agents in the frolic, and we have precisely the modern ball, as it appears in its full fledged dissipation. The conclusion of the whole is, that in forbidding XMijioc the Scriptures did still more forbid the modern dance.
None will be so hardy as to deny that the light of experience may properly be invoked in interpreting the preceptive princi- ples of Scripture and applying them to existing practices. For instance, it is agreed that the Sixth Commandment forbids sui- cide as truly as the murder of a fellow-man ; and that therefore practices destructive of mental and bodily health are criminal- (Larger Catechism, Question 136). But now the modern drug "chloral" is introduced, and it is found to be a fascinating se- dative and nervine. May we then indulge in it causelessh^ — - when not really necessary as an anaesthetic — for our gratification ? It is said, that when habitually used it fatally impairs the brain- tissue, tending to induce mental imbecility and premature death.
70L II.— 37.
578 THE DANCING QUESTION.
If this he true, its causeless, habitual use is clearly a siu under the Sixth Commandment. TiTiat is to settle the question ? Xovn-, every one will say in this case, tlie I'lgld of experience 'must settle it : and the experience must be chiefly that of medical observa- tion. Now, should some caviUer in this case object : " Xo ; for that would be to clothe the doctors with power over my con- science, which is a species of popery ; " it would cost no person of common sense any trouble to explode the cavil by saying : GoiTs v:ord has decided the principle of the duty of abstinence ; the doctors are merely referred to as to a question of fact. And if what they state is a fact, then the rash fool who persists in saving, against the Hght of a sufficient experience, " I don't be- lieve that any amount of chloral wiU. hurt me ; these doctors shall not make my conscience for me," must even bear the penalty of his own sinful obstinacy. This parallel receives an easy apph- cation. There is no question but experience proves the tenden- cies of modern dancing to be, not in every case, but in ordinary cases, unhealthy for body and soid. Medical experience has lately been cited, from the over-pampered and luxui'ious society of one of our cities, to testify that it was not unhealthy. Of such subjects this may be relatively true, that is, even so ill- judged an exercise as that of the ball-room may be found not as bad for the health as the pampered indolence in which such people would otherwise exist. But this admission does not at all detract from the truth that the practice is of unhealthv ten- dency. Other and more trustworthy medical authority testilies that modern dancing is most deleterious. Unseasonable hours, an atmosphere over-heated and vitiated, the glare of lights, the imprudent and unseasonable raiment, the unhealthy food, the excessive social excitement prompting over-exertion, all indis- putably concur to make it anything but a safe recreation. An old physician, looking on a gay dance, said : " This will be worth
dollars to me." The prediction was exactly verified, with
the addition of the death of two young people from pneumonia. It is a vain attempt, in the presence of experiences like these, for thoughtlessness to dismiss the warning of prudence.
Experience proves the tendency of the modern dance to be yet more unhealthy for the soul. Is one and another " dancing Christian " obtruded as an instance of lively religious zeal ? The answer is : " One swallow does not make a summer." These
THE DANCING QUESTION, 579
facts are well kno-\vu : tliat it is not usually the spiritually-minded people vrho are the dancing members ; that a dancing minister would shock even the most worldly sentiment ; that at the ap- proach of a revival dancing always ceases ; that the world claims the amusement as its own. What is the meaning of these facts ? The familiar association with the ungodly on their own ground, the levity, the intoxicating excitement, the bustle and glare, can- not but quench the holy and silent motions of God's Spirit and exhale the dew of his graces.
It has been conceded that all evil acts are not properly dis- ciplinable by the visible church. Advantage is taken of this ad- mission to argue that dancing should be disapproved, reasoned against, and admonished, but not disciplined. One plea for "this untenable position is, that it is admitted that there are forms of dancing which are innocent, and since the different kinds shade off into each other by nice gradations, and since the Bible has not drawn a line between the tolerated and the dis- ciplinable forms of the practice, all the church can rightfully do is to remonstrate and instruct. The answer is, that by the same logic one might prove that no breach of any commandment is disciplinable. The lesser and greater breaches of all of them shade off into each other. Who doubts that a plain breach of the Third Commandment by cursing or swearing should be dis- <3ipnned ? But there are expletives and exclamations heedlessly uttered by tridy good people, which are against the spirit of that commandment in that they depart from our Saviour's law : "Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, for whatsoever is more than these Cometh of evil." Breaches of the Ninth Commandment are certainly disciplinable. But a Christian youth might, in a thoughtless moment, utter a quiz. Now to make these faults grounds of judicial censure, without other provocation, might be neither wise nor just. Shall we argue thence that the rod of dis- ■ciphne cannot reach lying and profanity ? No one claims this. Then the existence of such gradatio:is in dancing cannot pi'ove that the grosser forms of the practice may not be disciplined.
The reader has a right to ask this objector, who says he wholly disapproves dancing but does not deem it disciplinable, how he iound out that it is to be disa]3proved. May not a church ses- sion ascertain its evil in the same valid way in which he has ? He stickles much for the principle that none but God can make
580 THE DANCING QUESTION.
an act a siu. How then did the objector convince himself so clearly that dancing is to be disapproved ? Has he committed the error which he is so jealous of in the church court, that of judging his fellow-creature's conduct by some merely human standard ?
When men plead that there are other sinful amusements than this, and that a pharisaic professor may not dance, and yet may commit much greater sin by tattling, censoriousness, covetous- ness, the answer is too plain to need restatement. The conscien- tious Christian should forsake dancing and also these other forms of evil. If it be charged that church courts arc partial, oven though dancing be conceded to be evil, in directing their dis- cipline so exclusively against this, while much greater sins go unwhipped of justice, then all that can be inferred is, not that the court erred in exerting its authority in the one case, but that it erred in failing to exert it in the many other cases. It needs to go, not backward, but forward; not to begin conniving at this one form of evil, but to cease conniving at all the other forms.
But there is a truth usually overlooked which justifies special watchfulness and jealousy touching these worldly and sinful conformities. It is that they practically lie so near the dividing line between the penitent and the ungodly. "When two rival kingdoms touch each other geographically, the boundary line is but a mark. A portion of the territory of the one, although as really foreign soil to the other as though it were in the centre of its own realm, must be within a single inch of the Hne, and so within an inch of the other's ground. However sharply the boundary may be defined and established, this remains true. One result is that the king of either side takes much more pains to defend his frontier than his interior ; his fortresses are built and his guards paraded almost exclusively along the outer edge, next his foreign and hostile neighbor's territory. By the samo reason, it is unavoidable and right that in Christ's kingdom the frontier ground which borders upon the territory of Satan's king- dom, the sinful world, should be more jealously guarded. Prac- tically, that is the region where the citizens of the spiritual king- dom suffer incursions and are exposed to danger. The officers of that kingdom would be derelict to their duty if they did not be- stow special watch at these points. Thoughtless people suppose
THE DANCING QUESTION. 581
that the noise made by presbyters of the church against cards and dancing is prompted by nothing but their puritanical pre- judice ; that being determined from censoriousness and pride to be '^ righteous overmuch," they pitch on these practices as their " pet horrors." But that this is entirely short-sighted ap- pears from the simple view just given. Since the rival kingdoms are both together in this one world, this nearness of the conter- minous domains must always exist, it matters not what may be the practices prevalent. It must be so in all ages and states of manners. Were the world to agree so utterly to desert cards and dancing that its votaries and worldly Christians should both forget them, the general truth would recur. The contest would inevitably revive about other questionable worldly practices, and the same jealousy and watch would become obligatory upon the guardians of the church.
Another truth follows from this view : that however sharply the boundary line may be drawn between the hostile kingdoms, practically, the belt of land next the frontier must be " debata- ble land" as to its perils. Hence the man who desires to pay a righteous regard to his own safety will avoid occupying the space very near the boundary, even though he may believe that it belongs to his own king. His actual peril is about as great as though he were over the line. Let us suppose that a western cattle farmer should insist that he knew exactly where the line between the territories of the United States and Mexico ran, even to an inch ; that he was legally entitled to " preempt " any United States lands ; and that therefore he should claim his rights and place his farm-house within an inch of the Mexican line. All this might be very true ; and yet when the lawless Comanches harried his home, he would become convinced that he had been very foolish and criminal. The analogy is just. The Christian who is successfully assaulted by Satan is the one who causelessly ventures near his boundary line. Usually men do not backslide by suddenly falling into some large and clearly acknowledged crime. Nemo repente turplssivins. To change the figure : Satan does not attempt to rend a soul away from Christ by inserting the blunt of his wedge between them first. The thin edge is insinuated. It is hecause it is thin, because the crevice first made by its introduction is very narrow, that it is adapted to do its deadly work. Because this is generally true,
582 THE DANCING QUESTION.
Christians are morally boiind to guard themselves most against the smaller sins lying next the debatable zone ; and those who ■watch for souls are bound to be most wakeful and strict in the same points.
This conclusive argument woiild hold thoroughly upon the ground asserted by the palliators of dancing, that it is a slight sin. But that ground is b}^ no means admitted, as to all forma of the practice. We believe that round dancing, at least, is a sin of a very grave character, and a flagrant breach of morals, such as cannot but rapidly debauch the conscience and choke the spiritual life.
The reasonable inquirer will now be ready to concede that if some forms of dancing have been j)roved sinful by the former part of this discussion, then such dancings are clearly disciplina- ble offences. They have every mark by which disciplinable sins are discriminated from the undisciplinable. They are public sins. Their commission is overt. The acts may be clearly defined. They are, notoriously, attended by scandal. They have regular tendencies to other sins. Above all, if the testimony of pastors and elders may be believed, the milder measures of instruction and remonstrance fail to restrain the irregularity of many. In such a state of the case, when the purity and authority of the church are wantonly provoked and defied by the continuance of a practice confessedly needless and non-obligatorj^, in spite of her solemn and tender entreaties, the claim, that the offenders may not be touched with the rod of discipline, savors more of sinful audacity than of righteous zeal for freedom of conscience. Our Assembhes, in 1869 and 1877, have distinctly declared that some forms of dancing are not only reprehensible, but disciplin- able. We have seen that the authorities of all the other denomi- nations, even those farthest from puritanism, treat the practice as disciplinable.
It has been argued that a session may not discipline any form of dancing, no matter how gross, because the records of our church courts contain no precedents of such cases. Is it demon- strated that they do not ? When the statute law exists, as in the decisions of 1869 and 1877, no precedents are necessary. The demand for a precedent is absurd. The first precedent could only arise by the legitimate exercise, by some church court, of the power to discipline in some first case. But this.
THE DANCING QUESTION. 583
preposterous argument would require a precedeut before the first precedent to justify the use of the power ! Let us suppose that when railroads were first constructed, our Assemblies had seen a stolidity and perversity of conscience among the people, such as required a declarative enactment to this effect, viz., that the displacement of a rail for the purpose of throwing a passen- ger train off the track is a breach of the Sixth Commandment, and must be disciplined as such. According to this notable ar- gument, this most clear and righteous rule must remain a dead letter until after a precedent had arisen, which, on the terms of the argument, could never arise. Shoidd it then prove the case, that the declarative enactments of Assemblies have made gross forms of dancing disciplinable ? that such forms do prevail, and yet no precedent of their discipline exists? the only reasonable inference is, that our church courts have been too long derelict to solemn duty, and that they should reform their delinquency at once.
It has been supposed that the rights of conscience are in- volved in this discipline. Some have taken the ground that nothing can be justly disciplined except what is expressly con- demned by God ; others, assuming a less extravagant ground, say, that the interpretative powers of church courts can never inhibit any practice, under any circumstances, which cannot be proved by Scripture to be forever and under all circumstances malum j^er se. And it is further claimed, that whenever an in- dividual judges that his own church courts have in any thing ex- ceeded these restrictions, it is his right and duty to assert his freedom of conscience by doing the thing inhibited. To separ- ate the error mingled with the truth here, let this series of state- ments be considered, which all Presbyterians will accept with- out cavil :
"God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from tlie doctrine and commandments of men which are in anything coutrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. "
' ' All church power ... is only ministerial and declarative ; . . . and all decisions should be founded upon the revealed will of God." (Gov., Chap. 1, Sees. I. and VII.)
"The whole counsel of God concerning . . . man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence m&Y he deduced from ^CTxpixixe." (Conf. of Faith, Chap. 1, Sec. VI.)
"Every Christian church is entitled to declare the terms of admission to its own communion," etc. "In the exercise of this right they may, notwithstanding, err.
584 THE DANCING QUESTION.
in making the terms of commi;nion too lax or too narrow ; yet even in this case they do not infrinr/e uj}on the liberty or the rights of others, but only make an im-
PEOPEB USE OF THEIE OWN. "
If the erroneous term of communion forbids a positive perma- nent duty, or commands an act which is sin per se, then the con- scientious dissentient has no discretion : he must resist it at once and utterly. But if the act in question is only " beside " and not " against Scripture," then his course is to be modified by circumstances.
The adult member seeking admission to a Christian church is responsible for informing himself as to that understanding of scriptural terms of communion on which its previous members have expressly agreed among themselves as their known consti- tution ; and he is justly presumed, wdien he voluntarily applies for membership therein, to have approved those terms, and to covenant with his brethren to keep them. He is therefore bound, as for himself, by his own act to keep all those rules, unless he afterwards discovers an}^ of them to be uuscriptural in such sense that he may not righteously comply with them. But in this case also, his voluntary covenant binds him to vindi- cate his conscience, not by remaining in the communion and disobeying its agreed rules, but by peacefully withdrawing to some other church, whose terms he believes scriptural. Should he wish to exercise his right of seeking, inside the church of his first choice, the amendment of the rule which he once cove- nanted to observe, but now finds to be uuscriptural, common honesty requires him to promote that amendment, not by the breach of the rulo while it yet subsists, wdiich is factious and of bad faith, but by moving and arguing for the change in the ways provided by the church constitution. If the dissentient is an officer in the church, such factious conduct is a still more inde- cent breach of faith.
Each man must be his own judge, in the fear of God, on every question, w^hether a church rule is scriptural or not ; and on that question the courts of the church must not come between his conscience and God by assuming to decide for him that the rule is scriptural.
But neither has this dissentient a rigid to come Jjetioeen the con- sciences of the majority and God, when they decide that the rule he regards as uuscriptural is scriptural, and that it shall there-
THE DANCING QUESTION. 585
fore remain tlie rule of their communion. He has his inaliena- ble right of withdrawal ; but he has no more right to dictate his judgment to them, against their conscientious judgment, than they ha,Ye to punish his conscientious dissent with fine or im- prisonment. In this case, even if it be conceded for illustra- tion's sake, that he is right and the majority wrong, " they have not infringed upon " his rights, " but only made an improper use of their own."
In such case, where the majority make a term of communion, though not sinful yet too strict, and insist on its observance by those who voluntarily join them, they do not commit the sin of popery, neither do they make a papal assaiilt on liberty of con- science. This appears from two differences : they do not claim any right to coerce acquiescence in what they judge according to the mind of God, l)y civil pains and penalties ; neither do they declare submission to and communion with them essential to salvation. The nature of their error is only this : that they blunder in their interpretation of God's will on the point in- volved in their rule, and impair causelessly the comfort or edi- fication of their brethren vrlio judge with and adhere to them.
Actions which the Scripture does not make sins per se, either by expressly setting them down as such, or by good and neces- sary consequence, may, by reason of circumstances, be not for edification. Then the law of love should prompt every Chris- tian to forego those actions for his weak brethren's sake. But of the duty of foregoing these acts, or of the call uttered by the law of love, each one must judge, in the fear of God, in his own Christian liberty. For, were the church court to usurp that de- cision, and enforce their view of it by cliTirch discipline, as a universal obligatory rule on their members, they would thus indirectly attain that power of making a thing to be sin which God did not make sin ; which Christ has inhibited to all human, authorities.
But once more : the maxim, that " circumstances alter cases," has an ethical application. That is, actions which, under cer- tain circumstances, were morally neutral, may, by a change of circumstances, become truly sins. Seth's marriage to his own sister must have been allowable. In the days of Moses the changed conditions of the human race made such a marriage the sin of incest. Under the Mosaic manners, a"l)ill of divorce-
586 THE DA^XI^■G question.
ment " to a newly es])oiised -svife was iu a certain case allowable ; ia our Saviours and onr times, it would be tlie sin of adultery. If tliis is so, then for a Cliristian to claim Lis liberty of con- science to continue that act, now become actually sinful, would be license, and not spiritual liberty.
May a church then, after the completion of the canon of Scrij)ture, assume to declare that cii'cumstances have now made some act sinful in itself which Christ or his apostles had left allowable ? No ; this would be a violation of spiritual liberty, and a claim of an uninspired and fallible body to change his in- fallible legislation. That a church may justly prohibit a prac- tice as evil by reason of newh' arising circumstances, it must be able to prove from Scripture, either b}- express declaration of good and necessary consequence, that God regards the j)ractice thus circumstanced as evil. An instance in point may be im- agined. Our Assemblies, while scripturally condemning drunk- enness, have script urall}- refused to make temperate drinking an offence. Hence, no presbytery may enforce total abstinence on its ministers, by the plea that their temperate drinking ruay he- come a temptation to excess to others. But here is a town, in which is a driukmg-hell that is proved to be a regular occasion of drunkenness to many. A Presbyterian minister residing in that town habitually exercises his right of temperate drinking in pubhc in that drinking-hell ; and it is duly proved that this his example does occasion the fall of unwary persons into the sin of drunkenness, and the name of Christ into scandal. Can the presbytery restrain that minister by its ecclesiastical au- thority? Every man's common sense answers at once that it can. By what rule ? Xot by enacting that temperate drinking, which Christ had left allowable, has now become sin ; but by enforcing Christ's o^vn rule, that Christians must not "let their good be evil spoken of." The presbytery would leave him his Chi'istian Uberty of temperate drinking under other circum- stances, but it would teach him to distinguish between this right and the sin of causelessly misleading souls. (See Conf. of Faith, Chap. XX., Sec. 4.)
But the Scripture furnishes us with a better instance. About the fifty-second year of Christ, Jewish Christians felt themselves scandalized by several things which were seen among some Gen- tile converts to Christ. One was, that they entered the chiu'ch
THE DANCING QUESTION. 587
without circumcision ; anotlier, tliat they ate articles of food which had before been offered to idols ; anotlier was, that they ate flesh with the blood, as things strangled ; and another, that some continued to practice unchastities which pagan morals had long justified. The apostles and elders met to settle the dis- pute. See Acts xv., xvi. -i ; Eom. xiv. 2, 17 ; 1 Cor. viii. 8, x. 25 ; Titus i. 15. They decided, with the authority of the Holy Ghost (Acts XT. 28), that circumcision was not incumbent on the Gentile believers ; that all forms of fornication must be jealously avoided ; and that two practices, in themselves indifferent (see Eom. xiv. 14; 1 Cor. viii. 4, x. 25) — eating things which had been before offered to false gods, and eating the flesh with the blood — must be temporarily forbidden and forborne. The pro- priety of this latter part of the rule is grounded on these cir- cumstances (see Acts xv. 21) : that Gentiles were almost every- where united in Christian communion with belie^dng Jews ; that these Jewish Christians were still observing the Mosaic ritual and synagogue worship of the seventh day, just as they had for ages ; that during the transition stage from the old to the new dispensation this was legitimate for Jewish believers (see Acts xxi. 20-24) ; that according to the Mosaic point of view, blood was sacredly set apart from all common uses to the sacrificial, and whoever " ate of a sacrifice [1 Cor. x. 18] was partaker of the altar;" whence the indulgence of Gentile brethren in these must unavoidably scandalize Hebrew Christians, and break the peace of the church. For this reason it was necessarj" to en- force the two prohibitions temporarily, so long as the transition stage lasted.
It has been attempted to argue, that these two points were not enjoined by apostolic and presbyterial authority-, but only recommended. The plea is, that Paul, notwithstanding the de- cision, circumcised Timothy ; and that in the Epistles he gave the Gentile converts full liberty to eat if they saw fit. Of the latter, w^e shall enquire anon. To the former, it is a sufficient re- ply to distinguish betw^een enforcing circumcision on Gentiles and permitting the circumcision of one who was half a Jew by blood, and who had been reared as an orthodox member of the old dispensation in all else than circumcision. When Pharisaic men demanded the circumcision of Titus, a Gentile — the very thing forbidden by the synod at Jerusalem — Paul had scrupu-
588 THE DANCING QUESTION.
lously anticipated the Synod's subsequent decree, and refused the exaction. But to grant circumcision to Timothy, from pru- dential reasons, was not a transgression of the synod's decree. They had only forbidden the exacting of it of Gentiles. The attentiye reader of the history will hardly doubt liut that these other points of duty were positiyely enjoined. The Apostle James says (Actsxy. 19), "My sentence is" (iyco xor^oj) ; 28, "It seemed good (loo^sv) to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay \ipoii you^ this ^'hurdeny The biu'den is "these necessary things." Acts x^'i. 4: Paul himself "deliyered them" (the Gentiles) "the decrees/br to keep, that were ordained of the apostles and elders" {z<i doyaaza. r« xtxpetiiija). Acts xxi. 25 : The apostles remind Paul — after the Epistles to the Romans and First Corinthians had been written, in A. D. 60 — "As touching the Gentiles which believe, we have vnntten and concluded^'' etc., (''/"^^C i-za-i'.laazv xo'v^avczz, etc)". How could more authoritatiye terms be used? It is incredible that Paul should haye set himself to infringe a rule which was thus legislated by the apostles, in his presence, with his concurrence, and to meet a state of facts reported by himself as brought about chiefly by his OA\'n labors. Hence the exegesis of the Epistles must be erroneous which represents him as authorizing his converts to disregard a doyna -/•■/.ocutuoi,, a '"necessary" obligation "laid on them" by God's Holy Spirit, Avith his own concurrence.
From the historical point of view, the true exposition of those passages is very obvious. It is not necessary to detain the reader wdth citations and verbal criticisms ; he can compare the three passages (Pom. xiv., 1 Cor. viii. and x.) for himself. He will see that the apostle, in thorough consistency with the Synod of Jerusalem and with himself, asserts all along these points : that the Jewish law of meats being positive and ritual, any food was, pe)' se, indiflerent; that idols, being nonentities, no real effect could be wrought on the flesh which had been on their altars, so that to the believer who understood this fact, it was, per se, as any other meat ; that yet, if a man indulged his appe- tite, while himself doubtful of the lawfulness of his indulgence, it would be sin to him, not because the meat was defiled, but because his act was a tampering with possible sin according to his own judgment ; that if the man's o^ti mind were clear, and no scandal arose, such eating would be lawful. But if such
THE DAXCIXG QUESTION. 589
eating were attended with scandal, tlieu it Ijecame unlawful, not because the food was defiled, or the act sin _per se, hut because self-indulgence in a needless gratification was preferred to a brother's safety and salvation. On this last point Paul dwells. It is evidently the turning-point of the duty of abstinence. It is evidently on this point that he justifies the Synod of Jerusa- lem— whose "dogma" he had himself given to the churches "fa I'eej?" — in forbidding, under certain circumstances, what they admitted to be indifferent. Rom. xiv. 20 : " But it is evil to that man who eateth with offence" (xaxou). 1 Cor. viii. 12: "But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak con- science, ye sin against Christ;'' x. 32, "Give none offence." It is the ~o6(TxoaiJ.a attending the act, otherwise indifferent, which makes it sinful. It should be observed that the " offence " arose in this way : the " weak brother " who witnessed the eating, not comprehending the eater's more enlightened view, really re- garded him as in the act doing homage to an idol. Had the " weak brother " understood that the eater only considered him- self as doing the allowable act of satisfj-ing hunger, the former could not have seen in it a just occasion of oft'ence. When that result is experimentally ascertained, the precept is as positively " Eat not," as any other Christian precept. But this scandal is precisely the ground assigned by the Apostle James for his vote in the Synod.
We thus have an unquestionable instance of a church court which, under the teachings of the Holy Spirit, declared that the moral character of a concrete act, the form of which mio-ht be, l)er se, indifferent, may be changed, at least for a time, by cir- cumstances. It may be said, the canon was not then closed ; and they had the infallible guidance of inspiration in thus de- claring. The just reply is, that a supreme church court still has the infallible guidance of the Bible principle — •" It is evil to that man who doeth the indifferent act with offence" — to direct it iu parallel declarations ; and unless that principle clearly sustains it, it should not venture on them.
But, supposing a well-informed behever had persisted in eat- ing, and had declared that he did so regarding an idol " as nothing," and had urged the question: "Why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience ? " Would Paul have dis- ciphned him for this act alone ? We suppose not ; the man
590 THE DANCING QUESTION.
■would have been left to liis oa\-u conscience, with the warning, "Kow walkest tlion not charitably." He is clearly sinning ; but there are clear sins which yet are not proper subjects for human discipline. Should that man prosecute his selfish act under cir- cumstances which proved demonstrably that he was not defend- ing his conscience, but acting selfishly and mischievously of deliberate purpose, then he would come under discipline, not merely for eating, but for wantonly doing mischief.
The establishment of these views is not really necessary to prove round dances unlawfid and disciphnable in Christ's church. For they are never j)er se indifferent, but essentially contrary to the permanent precepts of Scripture, as has been shown. But it was judged best to settle these points of exposi- tion, because the misconception of them has tempted some to push the claim of Christian liberty much farther than Scri^Dture allows.
To one who places himself in the point of view of the "West- minster Assembly, and of the American General Assembly which adopted our constitution, there is no doubt whatever, but that they would have included the modern round dances under the forbidden term " lascivioiis dances." But " the meaning of the law is the law." In their day, the society which these holy men considered worldly and unchristian had not gone farther than minuets, reels, and quadrilles. "When the round dances were at last introduced, in our generation, the estimate of a worldly opinion even was that they were lascivious. If the decent part of the world now wavers in that judgment, it is only be- cause the abuse, " unwhipped of justice," and weakly connived at by Christian tribunals, has already had such disastrous power to debauch jaublic opinion. The claim that these dances shall be acquitted of prurient tendency on the testimony of some females that they do indulge without any such consciousness, is preposterous. For, in the first place, we have shown that when the impulse is so complex, consciousness will probably fail, amidst the haste and excitement, to detect the prurient element. And second, such ambiguous testimony is fatally counterpoised by the candid declaration of the coarser sex, avowing the prurient excitement as the prime attraction to them. There is no offence against decency, save the most extreme, which might not be cleared of blame by so absui'd a plea, because it is supposable
THE DANCING QUESTION. 591
lliat a rash and reckless person might still aver, without con- scious falsehood, that in his own case his mind was preoccupied in the perpetration of it, by the fun, or the novelty, or some ac- cessory excitement. No ; church courts are both entitled and bound to judge practices by their overt forms, and by the ten- dencies which experience shows usually inhering in them. Tried in this way, round dancing certainly falls under the ban, both of the principles of Scripture and the express words of our con- stitution, by which we have all voluntarily covenanted to walk.
Seeing that the practice of our sessions is still timid, we are persuaded that it would be well for our next Assembly to speak out still more explicitly, and order categorically the discipline of all church members who are found contumacious in round danc- ing as practiced between men and women, or who dance in pub- lic and promiscuous balls, after any fashion of the mixture of the sexes. The latter prohibition should rest on the facts that, as the world now goes, round dances do prevail at all public balls ; and also, that the free access to them of persons disreputable, profane, intemperate, or utterly frivolous, renders them sinful places for Christians ; unless, like their Saviour, they go thither to carry the warnings of the gospel. And this declarative legis- lation the Assembly should rest squarely on the words of our Catechism, and the principles of the "Bible. As to the milder forms of domestic and social dancing, we would have the pres- byters of the church rely, for the present at least, on dissua- sions and instructions.
No man is fit to be a presbyter in Christ's church who is ca- pable of being intimidated from the performance of covenanted judicial duties by the strength and rampancy of an abuse. No presbyter should need to be reminded that, as a question of mere policy, it is far wiser to have a small church expurgated of worldly corruptions and clad in the beauty of holiness, than a large one weakened and crippled by dead members. But there is, we fear, reason that we should all have " searchings of heart " for our moral cowardice, in the presence of the worldly conformities which now so deface our Zion,
It is justly remarked, that a merely repressive policy, where no innocent substitute for vicious amusements is offered, may more probably repel than reform the youth of our church. There is a trait of human nature which the wise pastor should study.
592 THE DA^XI^'G question.
"We iisuallj speak of a man as " a social being." Tlie mass of liuman beings scarcely deserve so elevated a description, and slionld ratlier be termed gregarious. Tlie gi*egarious instinct in them is potent. Thej shun solitude, and earnestly crave the 2)resence of their kind ; but not converse with their kind. For, in fact, ordinary people have not intellectual resources enough to furnish anything that deserves the name of conversation, ex- cept for a small fraction of the hours they crave to spend together. To be compelled to keep up intelligible conversation the whole time would be to them more irksome than the solitude from which they flee. Here is the true source — so far as the impulse is not vicious — of all the non-intellectual amusements. People need something which does not tax their ill-furnished minds, which they may do together, so as to provide for the instincts of crregariousness. This solution is verified in the case of the old housewives, who spend a long summer's day in each other's pre- sence, with Httle social communion save the community of their occupation of knitting. It was verified around the planter's fire- side in former days, when children and servants pleasantly spent the long winter evening in the common task of " picking cotton." It is verified in the long scderunts of whist-playing old ladies and gentlemen. The communion in the mild excitement of their game gives play to the gi-egarious appetency, without taxing their vacant minds for any other contribution to the miitual iuter- coui'se. The same solution accounts for a large part of the in- terest in the more decent dances of our fathers. Often have we seen young fellows, at social gatherings, with minds too unfur- nished for sustained converse, detained in the parlors in pai-t by good manners, and in part by the unsatisfied gregarious instinct, yet insufi'erably " bored." But at last the music enters, and they are immediately revived. Here now is something which they can do in cominon ; a social occupation which brings them into a gregarious union, to which their heels are competent, if their heads were not.
The problem for the wise parent then should be, not overlook- ing this trait, to find social occupations which may satisfy it, and yet may be innocent ; and which, instead of aggravating the inca- pacity, and leading downwards, hke the dance, to deeper mental vacuity and positively vicious sentiments, may instruct while they please and unite. Might not a holy ingenuity find a suf-
THE DANCING QUESTION. 593
ficient variety of sucla gregarious occupations ? One suggestion is that of parlor vocal music, both social and sacred. Another is the time-honored usage of reading aloud. Let the selections vary from " grave to gay," while never coarse or demoralising ; and let " them who are strong bear the infirmities of the weak," by yielding their attention in turn to the simple matter which may interest without fatiguing even the juvenile and the vacant mind. Thus the temptation to less safe amusements may be obviated, and the social hours of the young be made enjoyable, without being made dangerous.
Vol. II.— 3&.
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.^
THIS infidel association has been for three years vexing the pubHc horizon as an evil portent. The publications noted below are its authoritative exponents. The moral and religious conplexion of the society may be seen in these facts : that Col. Hobert Ingersoll, of Illinois, is the manifest coryphaeus of the whole crew ; that D. M. Bennett, the chosen publisher of these and all their other documents, is at this time in prison, under a conviction of the not too scrupuloas courts of the United States, for violating their statutes against sending blasphemies and oli- scenities through the United States mails ; that the most impious and blatant atheists in the country are members ; that the foulest impieties seem always to have been most applauded in their "congresses"; and that their first professed object is to drive the Bible and the Sabbath out of the land.
Another instructive feature of this agitation is, that the survi- vors of the original anti-slavery society, of Garrison and that ilk, now reappear in this atheistic movement, like uneasy corpses airing their unsavory persons from the grave. These, like Parker PiUsbury, and the President, Elizur "Wright, expressly connect the present movement with the past, and claim for it the same success by the same means, thus verifying the truth that the abolition movement was and is essentially infidel and disorganiz- ing. This "League" scarcely disguises its communism and its assault on property. Its arguments are the very same by which the original abolitionists assaulted the constitution and laws which protected the property of the South. Thus again is illus- trated the fact that abolitionism is virtual agrariauism. The new progeny of the old heresy will, in due time, convince the anti- slavery plutocracy of New England and Britain of their folly,
1 This article appeared in The Southern Presbyterian Review for January, 1880, revie-wing Circular of the " National Liberal League." 1878. 12mo., pp. 44. D. M. Bennett, N. Y. Third Annual Congress of the National Liberal League. Cin- cinnati. 1879 Pp. 115, 12mo. D. M. Bennett, N. Y.
594
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 595
by showing tliem tliat the same arguments which were suited to overthrow our right to the labor of our lawful bondsmen, are equally good to destroy their rights to theii* lands, factories, mines, ships, warehouses, and incomes.
Another lesson impressively taught by the new movement is the perilous and destructive nature of the political philosophy now in the ascendant in this country. The philosophy of this iitheists' league is ]3recisely that briefly described in the number of this Itevieio for October, 1879, as underlying the demand for the ecclesiastical and social equality of women. It seeks author- ity by perverting those "glittering generalities" to which the Declaration of Independence has familiarized the American ear, that " all men are by nature equal, and inalienably entitled to liberty," etc. ; that " all just government is founded in the con- sent of the governed"; and that taxation and representation should go together. In our last number the distinction was drawn between the sense in which these propositions are true — in which they were held by the founders of our republic — and that in which they are false. There is a sense in which men are naturally entitled to liberty ; that is to say, to the privilege of doing, unimpeded by civil laM', all those things which they have a moral right to do. But in the sense of these radicals, with whom "liberty" means absolute independence of will to do whatever they please, no creature of God is "born free"; but all are by nature subject to his sovereign will, and to the civil, domestic and ecclesiastical authorities under which his provi- dence has placed them. There is a sense in which all rational men are equal, which is, that, however different the specific per- sonal rights assigned by God and the laws to the superior and inferior ranks in civil society, the inferior has an ethical title to his smallei circle of privileges, identical with the title of the superior to his larger privileges. But it is not true that, in the sense of these radicals, men are by nature equal ; but they are made by God endlessly unequal in their strength, aliility, energy, sex, providential position, and consequently in their natural rights. All just government is founded in the consent of the governed, in this sense, that the commonwealth as a whole has an inalienable right to choose its own political connections, rulers, and forms of administration; that when these are im- posed against the "v\dll of the commonwealth in all its orders and
596 THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
forms of expression, tliis is conclusive of their injustice. But the radical notion is, that allegiance originates in a "social con- tract" of individuals, so that it is unjust for a ruler to govern any soul who has not had an opportunity to vote for him. Whereas the simple fact is, that every soul is put under civil government by the ordinance of a sovereign God, Avithout any option of his own. Radicalism holds that no one can be right- eously taxed who does not vote. The founders of our states only asserted that maxim of the British constitution, that a par- liament in London ought not to tax commonwealths in America which were unrepresented in it in any form.
Now, the two facts deserving of solemn attention from every thinking man are these : such is precisely the political philoso- phy which this "League" lays down as the basis of their whole structure, and on which they logically rear conclusions, the es- tablishment of which would imply the utter and anarchical over- throw of American institutions ; but such is also identically the philosophy of abolitionism, the philosophy implicitly held by the editors and politicians and party which have been dominant in the country for nineteen years, and which is everywhere ex- pounded as the doctrine of Republicanism. It is the philoso- phy of the frantic "leveller" Lilburn, whom the enlightened founders of English liberty in the days of the Commonwealth themselves put in the pillory and the prison, while they had his book burned by the common hangman, which is now everywhere preached and accepted in this country under the name of liberty. "VVTiat can come of such inculcations ? Whither must the people drift who receive them without question ? This radical league tells us. From this philosophy they deduce women's suffrage, agrarianism and an atheistic social order.
Another observation will strike the reader of these documents : that these abolitionists now with one mouth declare the condi- tion of the Northern hirehng laborer as far more oppressive than that of domestic slaves. Thus, p. 85, their condition is that of a " wages' slavery," under which they are " poor and down-trod- den." P. 88. "The laboring classes are working under a des- potism far more tyrannical than that of the slaves of the South." " The Republican party was grand enough to unshackle four millions of negro slaves ; but now it is cruel enough to put these working classes under chains far more torturing than those borne
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 597
by tlie blacks." P. 99, " Ou the one hand, the bonanza or rail- road king of six milHons of dollars a year, bribes corrupt politi- cians to keep his twenty or thirty thousand white slaves in sub- jection by the aid of unjust laws and bayonets ; and on the other, the half-starved wage-slaves exist on an average of one hun- dred and fifty to three hundred dollars a year." If, then, the special friends of hireling labor and apostles of abolition may be believed, all the truths uttered by Southern defenders are confirmed : that our system of labor was more humane than the hireling system substituted for it, and more promotive of the laborer's welfare ; that domestic slavery was not the only form for subjecting the laborer to the will of his employer, but only one form among many, and perhaps the most philanthropic ; and that the overthrow of Southern institutions would prove to be verv fiir short of the I'eal abolition of bondao-e.
But, in justice, it should be added, that the laboring classes in the United States have doubtless real grievances. Not only is it inevitable that human nature, being what it is, greedy and sel- fish, shall view the enormous disproportion of conditions which has grown up in this country with discontent : it is, in a certain sense, just that it should. In an ethical point of view, the dis- parity is illegitimate. The gains of the great capitalists are in- ordinate, and the luxury and waste of their living mischievous and wicked. Legislation ought not to be so framed as to make these enormous accumulations, and this more than regal luxury easy. Certain it is, that this condition of extreme inequality is not consistent with a permanent republican constitution of so- ciety. The communistic remedy will doubtless prove more fatal than the disease, especially to the poor, for whom it is pretended to be offered. But none the less does the fearful truth remain, that the present organization of society and business is impossi- ble as a permanency, and that this vast, festering, suffering pro- letariat, sinking ever deeper and deeper into vice, hatred, and destitution, and sundered more and more widely from every do- mestic tie with the employing class, by the hireling system, is not going to coexist peaceably beside this ruthless plutocracy, ever wresting the legislation of the country to pile up their in- vidious wealth higher, and to lavish it before greedy, starving eyes, more selfishly. The wealthy class in the North will be wise to read the handwriting on the wall, to moderate their aims,
598 THE SABBATH OF THE STATE
and to use the wealtli already acquired more wisely and liumbly. Else the reign of terror will come. It will not stay, indeed ; for riches and intelligence, though cautious, and in appearance cowardly, while the deadly issue is forming itself, yet always defend themselves successfully and conquer, when once it is in- exorably joined. But Tiov:; shall the fever-fit of communism pass ? By the bayonet hired by riches ? Or by a Christian, patriotic use of wealth, and a return to honest, equitable legisla- tion and administration ? History answers : probably not by the latter way. Then it must be ended by the former ; and that means also the end of free and equal institutions, not only for the crushed proletariat, but for the whole society.
The Liberal League, while cocpietting with the most outrageous communists, yet announce their "general object to be the total separation of church and state.'"' They ground their movement in these facts: that the Constitution of the ITnited States for- mally neither names nor recognizes any God or religion as its basis of right, and tha,t it forbids any establishment by the government of any religion ; that the most of the state constitu- tions are similar in this respect ; and that the spirit of American institutions makes men of all religions and of no religion per- fectly equal before the law. Hence they demand — •
That all church property shall be taxed like other property.
That education shall be committed to the state's control, shall be comjjulsory and universal, and shall be absolutely secularized ; and every species of religious worship and inculcation excluded from all state schools, high and low.
That the religious oath shall be utterly banished, and replaced by a simple affirmation under the penalties of perjury.
That all Saliliath laws shall be absolutely repealed, and that no restriction shall exist preventing any act of government or secu- lar pursuit of citizens on the holy day as on any other day. And the League ostentatiously employs Sunday as the day of its most noisy meetings.
That no government, state or federal, shall concur in any religious act whatsoever, recognizing anj' divine government, nor have any chaplaincy, nor appropriate any money to any pious use.
That the right of free utterance, by speech and publication, and through the United States mails, shall be restored to atheists
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 599
and blasphemers, nncler the plea of liberty of speech and the press.
That -^'omen be invested vnih. all the rights of voting and hold- ing office possessed bv men.
The League asserts, as its fundamental principle, that natural morals are a sufficient basis for secular society, and guarantee of public order, prosperity, and righteousness ; that is to say, it proposes to reconstruct society on a merely atheistic has'is ; and claims that the sacred name of religious Viberty authorizes their doing so.
It is evident that the issue will be practically joined "with this atheistic party, first upon these two points : the secularization of all state schools, and the repeal of all Sunday laws. Our subse- quent discussion will be limited, for lack of space, to the Sunday question. This, however, will raise the main principles as to the nature of free civil government, upon which the whole movement turns. The public has been familiar mth the infidel argument against Sunday laws of the state. Its whole force is in the as- sumption that Sunday is solely a Christian institution, and should therefore be left, like baptism and church-going, to the conscience and optional preference of those who desire to ob- serve it. They say that as the state is a purely secular and non- Christian organism, and as state and church are declared inde- pendent, and the Constitutions of the United States and the States forbid that any citizen shall be prejudiced in any way, in person or estate, on account of his religion or his non-religion, it is as unjust for the state to prevent any man's amusements or work on the Sabbath, when he believes in no Sabbath, as to fine or persecute him for his religious opinions.
This audacious argument has aroused a multitude of answers fi'om the Christian side, some of which have not been either dis- creet or logical. It is obvious, at a glance, that with the atheist, the rationalistic Jew, the German infidel, and sometimes even the European Lutheran, any pious declamation concerning the rever- ence of our Christian fathers for the Lord's day and its supposed glories and sanctities count for nothing. If these assailants are to be silenced, it must be by other arguments than these. Some have reasoned, that the majority is entitled to ride ; and because Sabbatarians are in the majority in the United States, the}^ are entitled to make the minority respect their Sabbath. On this
600 TEE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
ground, wlienever a state shall show a majority of atheists, it •will be right for that government to abolish the Sabbath. Sometimes it is argued, that there is no injustice, because the Sabbath laws lay no restriction on the doings of the infidel but such as are laid on all the citizens. If the Protestants who use this sophism lived in a popish state, •where the laws compelled them to desist fi'om legitimate labors and amusements on all those "saints' days" which we Protestants thoroughly disbelieve and despise, they would see little solace in the fact that their superstitious popish neighbors all were idle on the same days. These Protestants would find the intrinsic injustice in this, that thf-religious super- stitions of others were made a pretext to restrain them, who be- lieved them false and groundless, from acts to w^hich they were naturally and morally entitled. This is precisely the ground assumed by our infidels against Sabbath laws of the state. We hear the argument, again, put thus : although church and state are independent, yet the American is a Christian people. The country was settled by Christians. The great majority are Chris- tians now. Hence it is right that the dissentient or the immigrant should submit to the Christian features of the society whose hos- pitality he receives. If he does not like them, let him go away. But unfortunately for this argument, it is the state which en- forces these Sunday laws ; and the state declares itself non- Christian, and it invites these dissentients to become citizens, covenanting -with them solemnly that as citizens they shall incur no inequality or loss of civil right by reason of their rehgious ^■iews. Xow, if a man has a natural and secular right to live without a Sabbath, this objection is formidable. Once more : it is argiied, Christians have a civic right to observe the Lord's day, if they believe it their duty ; and hence it is a merely secular duty of the state to stop all such employments and amusements of the unbelievers as w^ould disturb the Christian observances. The infidel answers, that it is at least as much the business of the worshipper to take his pious assembly out of the way of the worldly one, the military band, or the clanging factory, as it is the business of the worldling to take his baud or factory out of the way of the pious assembly. And this the more, because the infidel believes that the Sunday work and amusement are reasonable and useful, and the worship foolish and vain.
A more tenable plea is found in the laws of nature, as exem-
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 601
plified from social experience. It can be experimeutally proved tliat the bodies of men and domestic animals, and tlie social af- fections, habits, mental health, virtue and domestic welfare of human beings, call for a hebdomadal rest. Hence, even if we take the restricted view of the commonwealth which makes it the institute for realizing only secular order and justice, this truth authorizes the state to enforce a Sabbath rest and secure its blessings for the dependent classes of human beings and the helpless beasts. It is a prerogative as proper and righteous as when a state abates a nuisance hostile to hygiene, or forbids the working of mincji- children and servants beyond a humane num- ber of hours per day. But this step brings us, in fact, to the threshold of what is the true argument for Sunday laws by the state.
While the American state is not positively Christian, no state can rightfully be atheistic. The doctrines of redemption aro not the necessary basis of the validity of a state : witness the fact that the Bible recognized the validity of the authority of Home, a pagan empire ; and that every sound jurist in Christen- dom recognizes the vaHdity of Mohammedan states. But theism is essential as the basis of civil government. Atheism, if preva- lent, would leave civic authority logically baseless. The legiti- mate state exists only by virtue of the will of God as Maker and and providential Ruler ; and therefore can ground its authority only in its recognition of him. But the Sabbath, while in its special aspect a commemorative institution of redemption to the believer, is also, in its priui' and general aspect, an ordinance for man, as a moral creature, instituted for the race in cdl times hy God, as Maker and Buler. The truth which is overlooked by both parties, and which is vital to our argument, is this : that the Sabbath now serves two j^urposes ; with the believing part of the race included in Christ's spiritual kingdom, it is a gospel means of grace ; but none the less is it to mankind at large what it was first given for, an essential institute of that natural theism and that 2>&fsonal, social, and domestic righteousness, on which civil society rests as its foundations. How fair and consistent this view is wiU appear when we show that the Sabbath was or- dained for man before he needed any redemption. This pur- pose of its original institution remains immutable, through all ages and dispensation^. After man fell, and God in his mercy
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set up tlie spiritual kingdom of redemption, the other use of the Sabbath, as a redemptive ordinance, was superadded. Hence it ■v\all follow, that no human being has a natural or civic right either to atheism or to live vs'ithout a Sabbath. These are sim- ply natural iniquities, subversive of social morals as really as incest or murder, though not so greatly. Here, then, is the car- dinal sophism of the infidel plea against Sabbath laws, that he^ has assumed the privilege of neglecting the Sabbath to be, so long as he professes no Christian conscience, his natural right, unjustly restricted by another's erroneous conscience, like the natural right to labor and to recreation ; whereas it ^^dll be shown that Sabbath observance is, for every human being, a moral obU- gation of natural theism and social order.
First, then, it is to be shown that theism is essential to the grounding of the state as a valid authority over men. Here wo come directly into collision with the tzomto'^ ifazbooz of the infidel partv: that natural morality and intelligence are the "basis of secular government, and the adequate guarantee of public order, prosperity and righteousness." This is expressly denied. It is asserted, on the contrary, that the fear of God and the san was of his law are the only adequate basis and guarantee.
The first proof advanced is one which carries little weight with men who glory in despising the lights of history and experience, but which all sensible men appraise at a prime value. There never has been a permanent civilized order in the world foimded on atheism. The only notable experiment was that made during the French Revolution, when for a short time, at the darkest period of the " Reign of Terror," atheism was in the ascendant. The result is too well known for comment. It was too bad even for Robespierre, who found it necessary to cut oft' his atheistic comrades' heads. ^Ul the thinking men of all ages and schools, pagan and Christian, have usually judged atheistic principles in- consistent with any moral order. All the best ethical writers, of all ages and schools, have grounded their moral systems in man's responsibility to God. So essential is religious belief to any moral order, that erroneous beUef has always been better than none ; theism, under the form of polytheism, was always a corner- stone of such heathen commonwealths as ever became civilized or great, like Egypt, Tyre, Rome, Athens ; and in these, when belief declined, the national virtue and greatness went down with
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 603
it. If our modern destructives Avould find actual instances of societies founded according; to their ideal, tliev must look amoncj tlie miserable human herds of the Hottentots or Australians. Experience offers no other verification of their theory.
Secondly. Civil government cannot be safely based without theism, because there is no explanation of the origin of the civil ruler's moral right, or of the moral obligation of allegiance, or of the right of property, without a God and his ordinance. Let the jurist begin without a God, with any theory of "a social contract," or any such invention as prevailed from Hobbes to Rousseau, his logical structure proves an absurd card castle, de- molished by the first touch of reason. There is no way in which the duty of allegiance and obedience to the civil magistrate can receive a moral foundation, save from the ordinance of God, the Maker and Sovereign Proprietor, instituting it. There is no tenable account of the right of property, except in God's gift of the earth and its goods to man as his rational tenant. For the well-informed reader there is no need of repeating the proof. He will recall, for instance, Paley's demolition of tlie theory of social contract.
Thirdly. A practical argument is found in our experience of human nature. It is corrupted from its origin. Man is naturally a sinner, selfish, unjust, heedless and passionate. It requires all possible restraints to prevent his breaking out into such disorders as are destructive of social well-being. Take away the restraints of the divine authority, the fear of future penalty, the hope of reward, and the average man becomes an uncontrollable rebel against duty. There have been self-controlled virtuous atheists ? Perhaps. Still the principle holds that " one swallow does not make a summer." The exception does not destroy the rule. Your average atheist, from the Hottentot up to Tom Paine, is not noted for morals. The decent atheists are usually men who are shielded from temptation by a careful rearing, comfortable wealth, and wholesome surroundings. But the majority of hu- man beings for whom governments legislate, are exposed to poverty and strong temptations ; and the general result is, that then moral principles, unsustained by religious convictions, give way.
Fourthly, and chiefly. The species of atheism which prevails in our day involves also materialism. In this it is consistent.
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The argument wliicli banishes spirit from the human person must also, if carried out, banish the infinite Spirit from the uni- verse. The history of human opinion shows that this is a true maxim : JYuIlus spiritus in onicr'ocosmo, nullns Deus in macrocosino. But it is simply impossible that materialism can sustain any theory of real moral obligation, virtue, or merit. The popular and practical argument for this assertion — than which there is none more conclusive — is, that beasts have no ethics, and can have none ; and materialism makes man an improved beast. The sound philosopher reaches the same conclusion iu a more analytic way, b}" observing that if all of man is material, then no motives in man can be generically different from animal instinct. Rational free agency is impossible, because man acts only from animal impulse ; and there is consequently no room for a true moral responsibility. The history of opinion proves the same fact; for materialists, when they attempt to write ethics, alwavs resolve the moral motive into selfishness, desire of applause, or some lower appetency-. If there is no God, then of course there can be no responsibilit}- higher than the social ; for there is no one to whom responsibility can bind. There can be no imjDer- ative standard of duty or obligation asser<:ing any moral supre- macy over the individual will, because the only other intelligent will is that of the fellow-creature, which is no higher than, and just as fallible as, the will to be regulated by it. Of course there can be no future responsibility, and every moral restraint arising from it is broken. There can be no sacredness about the human person or life ; but the murder of a man would be as the killing of a beast. It is indisputable that the apostle expresses the legitimate ethics of atheism: "Let us eat and drink, for to-mor- row we die." Is not this precisely the philosophy of Elizur Wright, the president of the League ? P. 83 :
' ' The perfection of human nature is when the spiritual in man has the pro- f oundest reverence for the physical ; ^vorships it in fact with every offering that can contribute to its highest health and the jierfect development, in their due time and order, of all its marvellous faculties and functions. Every such act of wor- ship reacts on the conscious mind itself, and fills it to overflowing with good will. This is virtue ; this is the highest happiness. There is no charity which does not begin at home. Charity is like gravity, which acts inversely as the square of the distance. "Who wi-ongs his own body ■^•ill wrong everything and everybody else. "
It has been said by Christian moralists that even the atheist, if he would make a correct analysis of the facts of consciousness,
THE SABBATH OP THE STATE. 605
•would be led to recognize the moral distinctions and obligation. This may be admitted conditionally. If it could be that the atheist should so analyze the functions of conscience as to recog- nize these truths : that the simple judgments of right and wrong are primary and necessary intuitions ; that they are rational ; that they are immutable ; that the judgment of obligation attending this intuition is no mere modification of association, or of self- love, or of the love of applause, or of sympathetic harmony, but is itself an integral part of the necessarj' truth, then indeed he might be both atheist and recognizer of morality. Biit it is^ certain that no consistent atheist will ever make this correct analysis of the moral consciousness ; there is an inevitable reason in his theory why he will not. Ohligathn imjAies cm ohligator. "Who; where is he? The shortest and simplest examination shows that it cannot be merely the fellow-creature, nor civil government. Let a man deny that there is a God, and he finds no obligator. Then, it is logically impossible he should construe obligation aright. It is unavoidable that in his blind analysis he shall pervert this intuition of obligation, which points essentially to a God, into some imagined modification of some lower feeling. And let it be repeated, the consistent atheist is alwaj's a mate- rialist. If man is only material, then this other feeling which is transmuted to simulate what the atheist calls judgment of ob- ligation, be it what it may, cannot be anything higher than an animal sensibility. Thus the very possibility of moral, rational obligation is gone. AtJielsni cannot he moral, save by an utter inconsistency. Our writers, when asserting that even the atheist would find a basis for morals if he would analyze consciousness correctly, supposed that they were thereby paying an honorable cribute to the value of these moral intuitions. Their motive was good, but their words were none the less misleading ; they gave us but an imaginary, hypothetical dictum, whose condition is impossible to be realized.
Much of the unbelief of our age is pantheistic. The same charge must be made against the pantheism which now prevails : that it is virtual atheism, and cannot have a consistent morality. One reason is, that it denies a personal God. But man's com- mon sense always views obligation as binding to a personal will. To say that there is no personal God is practically to say that there is no obligator. And secondly, if pantheism is true, then
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it is idle to talk of any standard of right and T\Tong controlling any human will from evil, for that evil will is God's will. The divine will, being identified with all other wills, embraces and sanctions all the evil, as truly as the good. In this form also, atheism cannot be moral.
Thus the prime error of these infidels is refuted which asserts that " natural morality," unsustained by either natural or re- vealed religion, is adequate for the purposes of society. This is positively false, as is proved by experience and reason. But the state is a moral institute. Its law professes to be a rule of moral right. Its legitimate ends are to protect the well-being of society, by upholding moral right between men. Hence the state cannot be atheistic and exist safely. It must seek its foundation in theism, with its doctrines of responsibility to God and divine rewards and punishments. It must derive its war- rants from God, or else it retains no valid power over the con- science.
It follows from this truth, that he who assails the being and moral government of God thereby attacks the \erj existence of the state. He should no more have the privilege of doing his atheistic work than of attacking the family, which is the secular (^r earthly foundation of civil society. Both state and federal governments claim the right to ordain monogamy as the only wholesome condition of the family institute, and to uphold it by punishing bigamy with pains and penalties. In doing this, the government rightly scorns the pretext of the Mormon, that poly- gamy is one of his religious tenets, and that, therefore, his religious liberty is infringed if he is restrained by corporeal penalties from practicing it. The state has an equal right to restrain the pub- lic propagation of atheism and the blasphemy of Almighty God. Of course, we all recognize the inviolability of the rights of conscience, and the irrelevancy of corporeal pains as an agency to propagate truth in the love of it. But while assigning the widest possible scope to liberty of thought, and removing the limit of it to the outermost place consistent with beneficial ex- istence of society, we can say no less than this : that the right of the state to exist must imply its right to preserve the essen- tial conditions of its own existence ; and that to this the nar- rower claims of individuals must, so far, give place. For in- stance : private creditors of a commonwealth have a right to be
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607
paid the jiist amounts of tlie debts due tliem. Few personal rights can be plainer. But if circumstances arise, as foreign in- vasion or domestic insurrection, in which the whole possible revenues of the state are necessary to maintain its own organic existence, then the jurist says that the right of the private credi- tor to payment must lie in abeyance. Because, if the state be- trays its own existence, for want of those revenues, the creditor loses his right forever by the annihilation of the very person- .ality of his debtor. In like manner, if the propagation of atheism destroys the foundation of the state's existence, this pretended right to freedom of thought in teaching atheism is superseded by the state's right to exist. She has the civil right, as a secular institute, to suppress this personal license. Hence it appears : so far from the Federal government's being guilty of any oppres- sion, in refusing to permit her mails to be used to carry blas- phemous or atheistic documents, or attacks upon the purity of domestic life, this is the ^ninhnuiii of duty she owes to herself and her constituents. The only debatable question is, whether she ought not to do more. But, they cry, the government may, Tinder pretext of this duty, carry her intrusions farther, and in- vade the proper liberty of thought of the citizens. If she does so, she ^vill go wrong ; and that will be the proper time to pro- test. If jast and necessary powers are to be withheld because they may be abused, then no power whatever could be conferred on the state.
It has thus been shown that the maintenance of theism is the essential foundation of civil government. The constitution of the Cnited States was, therefore, wrong, in that it omitted all Teference to Almighty God as the source of its powers ; and that of the late Confederate States was right in doing so. The reader is now at a i^oint of view whence he can understand the concern of the commonwealth with Sunday laws. The observation de- serves to be repeated : that the Sabbath was first given to man before he needed any redemption, by God as his natural Creator and Ruler. As such, it is an institution of God's natural do- minion over mankind, an institution of natural theism and social morals. In this aspect the Sabbath belongs to the race, under all ages and dispensations, and is as obligatory on Pagan and Moslem as on Jews and Christians. Man fell : and God was pleased to institute, in the hand of his Son our Messiah, a spirit-
608 THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
iial kingdom of redemption, for the justification and santifica- tion of believers : a kingdom independent, under the new dis- pensation, of civil governments ; and lie was pleased also to em- ploy the Lord's day, in this spiritual kingdom, as an ordinance of grace and redemption to saints. This latter application has in no sense superseded the p)rbneval one. This is the truth which the assailants of Sunday laws, and even the Lutheran theology, overlook. The whole plausibility of their argument comes from this omission. If, then, it can be repaired by the establishment of our thesis, their sophism is exploded.
This error has, unfortunately, borrowed no little strength from the mistake made by the early Reformers, and especially the Lutheran, concerning the Lord's day. They taught (see Augs- burg Confession) that the Sabbath had never been anything more than a Jewish, positive, and typical command ; whence it passed away, of course, at the vanishing of the old dispensation, like all other Jewish shadows. The Lord's day therefore, if ob- served under the new dispensation, can have no other basis of authority than the ecclesiastical recommending a seemly holy day, and the secular law ordering a wholesome police regulation. It is easy to foresee how infidels, attacking the divine authority of the day, would avail themselves of this theological error. In fact, a mass meeting of infidel anti-Sabbatarians in one of the great American cities, exhibited the monstrous alliance of a Lutheran minister of the gospel joining his false exegesis with their license to overthrow God's day. Now the proof of our thesis corrects this theological error as well as the infidel argu- ment. By proving that the Sabbath command was anti-Leviti- cal, was moral, was universal, and was perpetual, we effectually dispose of the false position, that it was abrogated with the shadows of the old dispensation. This Review (Oct. 1857) con- tained an exhaustive discussion of this phase of the question. Referring our readers to that number, we shall now touch the heads of the argument as briefly as our object permits. And our thesis as to the original institution of the Salibath mil be established by three proofs: ancient tradition, sacred history, and the physiologic and psychologic testimony of man's nature itself.
The oldest of the traditionary testimonies is that latest dis- covered by Assyrian research. The cuneiform writings, along
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"with tlieir liistoiy of tlie flood, distinctly testify tliat primeval men observed the seventh day as sacred time and by divine ap- pointmento The oldest of the Greek poetic theologians is Hesiod. He is quoted as saying [Dieruni, line 6th) : " The first, the fourth also, and the seventh is a sacred day." And again : " The seventh day once more, the splendid dawn of the sun." And Homer : " The seventh day then arrived, the sacred day." Again : " The seventh was sacred." " The seventh da^-u was at hand, and with this all the series is completed." Thus also writes Callimachus the poet : " It was now the Sabbath day, and with this all was aceomjalished." Again : " Yea, the seventh is the parent-day." Again : " The seventh day is first, and the seventh day is the complement." The elegies of Solon, the Athen- ian legislator, also proclaimed the seventh day as more sacred than the rest. Josephus against Apion (II. 40), says : " There is not any city of the Grecians, nor any of the Barliarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of resting on the seventh day hath not come." Allowing for the exaggeration of the controversialist, we still find evidence hero of a widely spread usage. It must have been rather the remaining effect of prime- val custom and law than recent imitation of the despised Jews. Philo, the learned Jew, nearly contemporary with the Christian era, calls the Sabbath lo/^rvj -fv^dr^ixo^. To such testimonies as these should, in justice, be added the numerous proofs of the observance of stated holy days, such as the new moons, among the most ancient pagans. These, though not in all cases coinci- dent with the Old Testament Sabbath, still confirm its original authority in two ways : they are evidently inaccurate imitations of it lingering among the growing twiUght of pohtheism ; they are practical admissions of the truth that, in order to continue such a creature as man religious, he must have a stated re- ligious day.
Let it be understood that we, of course, do not advance this traditionary proof as sufficient, by itself, to establish the divine authority of the Sabbath. But it raises a strong probabiHty. Taken with the proof that follows, it shows that God, in creating man, apj^ointed him a sacred day. The appointment was for a long time observed as a world-wide institution. The separation of apostate parts of the race from the church in the lineage of the " sons of God " did not by any means terminate their ob-
VOL. 11.— 39.
61C THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
servance of tlie day. But the decline iu the projjei* observance of the da J evidently hastened the spread of idolatry. And when the observance of the sacred day was totally lost in any tribe, then monotheism and the knowledge of the true God were also lost. The necessity of Sabbath observance, as the great school of natural theism, is thus illustrated by the state of the whole pagan world in this historical fact. Wherever there has been no weekly sacred day, there has been neither 2)'>"'e nnonotheisin, nor a single instance of a civic order combining cioilization and constitutional liberty. Let the instance be produced. Paganism lias presented us a certain degi'ee of ci^T-lizatiou, with despotism ; or a certain rude freedom, with savagery, as among our Teuton ancestors described in Tacitus' Germania : that is all. Our modern infidels vainly flatter themselves, that if they can banish the Sabbath, they will have a reign of rational atheism. They know very well, that by banishing the Sabbath they will destroy Christianit}'. But they are utterly mistaken. " That which liath been is that which shall be." Human nature is still human nature. The condition they will inevitably have, will be, not rational infidehty enthroned, but rank superstition, fetichism, 23olvtheism, pagan heirarchy ; and their Sabbathless society will prove itself capable, not of repubhcau freedom, but only of the sj^ecies of gigantic despotism which raled in Egypt and Chaldea, and which cemented the stones of the pyi-amids and the hanging gardens of Xebuchadnezzar with the blood of the " proletariat." The commonwealth taught by history claims that she has a right to maintain the Saljbath, because she has the primary right of self-preservation, and God and his Sabbath are the comer-stones of her being. She sees that constitutional libei-ty has only been made possible for modem ages, as reformed Christianity has given back to the European races the theism and the holy day which God gave the race at its beginning.
The ci^-il legislator, in appeahng to the Bible as his second witness to this fact, uses the book, not as the gospel of redemp- tion, but as the authentic and inspired history of God's original constitution of human society. It is not forgotten that it is the trick of our opponents to set this witness aside with the easy assertion that the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, is mythical. This is no place to go into the full argument for its authenticity, nor is it necessary. The assaults upon its historical
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credit vre simply denounce as impertinences. That battle lias been long ago fought and decided. The true history of the race^ the real scholarship, the intelligent virtue, are with the Bible. These renewed pretences, that it is discredited by any later re- searches, are shallow and unwarrantable. They are especially unworthy of respectful treatment at this day, when the marvel- lous results of Egyptology and the Assyrian explorations have shed a flood of confirmatory light on the sacred history, and when the proud waves of skeptical physical science are retreat- ing from its bulwarks of truth in confessed defeat.
Authentic history is the chief guide of legislation, next to the eternal principles of right and wrong. The Old Testament i-s the most authentic of ancient histories, and it is, for the legis- lator, of most fundamental importance ; because it is the only history in the world that gives the foundation facts of God's or- ganization of human society. No commonwealth can be safely reared, save on these foundations. If it be built on others, it must fall, because the very laws of nature and Providence are against it. Now, the sacred history tells us that the Maker founded human society on ohedie?ice to Jihnself; and he bei>ng essential righteousness, this was to found it on righteousness. He raised two buttresses for it in Paradise, the family and the Sabbath ; and man's lapse from that first state did not supersede, l)ut only enhance, the necessity of these two supports. The family was to provide moral nurture for the members of society ; the Sabbath was to perpetuate that theism and knowledge and fear of God which are the essential condition of all social wel- fare, as well as future salvation for sinners. Thus, the Sabbath was originally no Jewish or Levitical ceremony ; but the institu- tion of the race, given to them in their first parents, even before their need of redemption had emerged. " The Sabbath was made for man." (Gen. ii. 2, 3.) God blessed and sanctified the seventh day, at the end of the very first Aveek. For whom did he sanctify it ? Evidently, for Adam and Eve. (Gen. iv. 3, mar- gin.) The seventh day was evidently observed for religious wor- ship and oblation by the human family, when we next hear of them as sinners. (Gen. vii. 2, 10, margin.) God enabled Noah, even in the awful crisis of the approaching deluge, to complete his entrance into the ark against the sacred day. (Gen. viii. 10, 12.) Noah observes the seventh day's division of time, while
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still shut up iu tlie ark. (Gen. xvii. 12.) The male child must Ije circumcised oue week after its Ijirth ; showing that this divi- sion of time bj the sacred day still prevailed in Abraham's time. (Gen, sxix. 27.) The usual length of a wedding-feast in the davs of Jacob was a week, which shows that the Sabbath was still in use, at least as a division of time, in Mesopotamia, after it was becoming idolatrous. In Gen. 1. 10, we find that a week was the diiration of a funeral mourning in the days of Joseph ; and that for the Egyptians, as well as the Hebrews, Exod. xii. 15 teaches us that before the Sabbath commandment had been given on Sinai, a week was the length proper for a solemn re- ligious festival. In Exod. xvi. 25, still before the gi'^'ing of the Decalogue, two supernatural exceptions weekly were made to the regular ordering of the manna, to insure Israel's keeping the Sabbath. It fell on six days regularly ; but none fell on the seventh. That which was kept over for a day, uniformly putre- fied ; but that which was kept over from the sixth for the food of the seventh, did not putrefy.
So, when we come to the Mosaic legislation proper — Exod. xx. 8-11 — the command to sanctify the Sabbath begins : " Remem- ber the Sabbath day," showing that it was no new institute, but an old one, only requiring more faithful oliservance. So, while the ritual commands have often a reason assigned for them from some particular event in the Hebrews' OAvn history, as the Pass- over, from the sparing of their first-born in Egypt, the reason assisrned for the Sabbath is as universal as the race of man. But the conclusive evidence is, that foreigners and pagans being among the Hebrews were required also to observe the day. In- deed, it was made the Hebrew magistrate's duty to enforce the observance of it on the " strangers that were within his gates." See also Neh. xiii. 16 and 21. This is most significant, be- cause foreigners were not only not required to observe the ritual ceremonies peculiar to the Hebrew religion, but were forbidden. Xo pagan could participate in the paschal feast until he had be- come a Jew. Thus God teaches his church to teach the world that the Sabbath is not only obhgatory on believers, as members of the kingdom of redemption, but also on men simply as sub- jects of the kingdom of nature. This evidence of sacred history is crowned by the fact that when the coming and sacrifice of Christ has superseded all the merely ceremonial reasons for the
THE SABBATH OP THE STATE. 613
observance of the Sabbath as a t^'pe, still the apostolic Chris- tians did not cease to sanctify the holy day. It was, indeed, moved forward to the first day, the commemoration of the resur- rection and Pentecost ; but the whole moral obligation of the Sabbath was, b}' inspired precedent, transferred to the " Lord's day." And the authority of the last of the apostles, John (Rev. i. 10), consecrated this as the sacred day of the Redeemer of the world.
Now, a cavil may be attempted from this change, thus : the Sabbatarians have conceded that the spiritual kingdom of re- demption and the secular commonwealth are independent. Then this cardinal event in redemption should have no effect in chang- ing the usage of the state. The latter, if it retains any Sabbath, ought to cleave to the seventh day. Indeed, since the Chris- tian church beHeves that the completion of Christ's sacrifice has superseded the typical reasons for the seventh day, the correct conclusion would be that the state also should cease to regard the seventh without taking up the first. This is the answer : that typical reasons for sanctifying the seventh, even during the typical period of the church's history, were only a part of the reasons. Hence, though these were satisfied, the others re- mained, and men in all ages still have the same reasons to keep God's original Sabbath which the man in paradise had, and which the men before Abraham and Moses had. Hence, all that could be fairly inferred would be this : that while the church moved over its observance to t;he first day, the state should retain its original day. But why should this discrepancy be kept up ? Why embarrass the obligatory observance of all Christian citizens, by making that first day secular which their Redeemer compels them to make sacred ? Church and state are independent, but tlioy are not hostile. The state, the organ of earthly righteousness, need not be so jealous of the church, the organ of spiritual salvation, as to refuse to act T\dtli her in this one non-essential point, when that God, who is both Creator and Ruler, and also " the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," honored his risen Son by transferring the original Sabbath to his resurrection-day.
The third proof of our proposition is that presented by man's body and spirit themselves. The experimental science of physi- ology has evinced that man's body and nerves were created by
61-4 THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
tlieir Maker n, sereu-day clock. To secure tlieir best endnrance and working, tliev must be " "wound up " weekly by tlie Sabbatli rest. Tea, God lias written tlie same law on the constitution of the very brutes which he has given to man for servants. The wayfarer who rests one day in seven progresses farther than he who presses on seven days. The army which rests on the Lord's day marches faiiher, in the long run, than the one which moves seven days in the week. The team which does its task on the Sunday is worn and broken down, while that which is permitted to keep the Sabbath rest continues fresh and health}-. The body of the human being who observes the rest is, other things being equal, more healthy, efficient, and long-lived than that of the Sabbath -breaker. The same rules hold of the health of the spirit. Let the tension of worldly care and business, of study, or of executive tasks, be continued through the seventh day as well as all the six, and the poise of the faculties is lost, the spirit becomes feverish, the emotions are exasperated, the soul wears itself out by its own friction. For the intelligent and candid reader these facts need only be intimated. He knows that they are too numerous and authentic to be disputed. It is thus seen that he who " made the Sabbath for man," made man for tha Sabbath. The creature and the institiition are fitted to each other. This is a j)erfect proof that our thesis is correct in as- serting the Sabbath rest to be an institution coeval with the race, and designed for a whole race, under all dispensations.
But when we come to the moral argument, we find it yet more conclusive. Let the reader again be reminded that we claim it, not as it might be constructed on the higher ground of man's redemption and sanctification, but only from the position of man the rational, moral member of the secular but moral institute, the commonwealth. Let us resume the points established, that civil government is moral, and founded in moral obligation ; that the only basis of morals and obligation is theism, the knowledge and fear of the true God of creation and providence, of his wUl as the prime rule of right, and of his righteous rewards and punishments ; that a holy day reserved to him is the only suffi- cient means to preserve among men, especially as fallen, that knowledge and fear. The last point might be powerfully argued from experience alone. Where has there ever been a people who, after wholly deserting the Sabbath, have retained (not to
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 615
sav Cliristianity, but even) a healtliy mouotlieism ? History- tells of none. Islam is monotheistic, and lience the Moslems have ever been more effective, civilized, and triumphant than the polytheists near them ; but this is because Islam has a quasi Sabbath, its Holy Friday recurring weekly, and devoted to the worship of God and the study of the Koran. Again do we remind our destructive "progressives " that there is no safe guide for legislation outside the law of righteousness, save experience. The experience of all ages is against them. Man's nature re- mains the same. " Like causes produce like effects." Hence, when they demand that we shall discard the sure light of experi- ence, and plunge into their perilous novelties, they are guilty of an impertinence whose arrogancy can only be equalled by its in- justice.
But the least modicuni of practical wisdom shows us that our proposition cannot but be true. Man is a finite creature and a creature of habits. Hence he never does anything effechtallyy save as he has stated times for doing it. Life is full of homely instances of this rule. Savages eat such food as chance brings them at irregular times. But it is presumed that no people ever dined well who did not have a regular dinner hour. Courts of justice must have their court days. Merchants must have their hours of exchange. Banks must have their " discount days." So, if there is to be any instrumentality to keep alive the know- ledge of God, it must have its stated season allotted to it, or it will be forgotten. Thus it comes about that, when the Sabbath is lost, true religion is lost. There is also a vital connection be- tween the family, that other bulwark of society, and the Sabbath. A day of rest from secular pursuits is necessary to enable the parental and domestic influences to come into effectual phi}-. While the working-day world flows on, it absorlis parents and children in its stream, and, indeed, usually separates them by their avocations, so that they are almost strangers to each other. In every ci-ilized community the majority of the people must be toilers. But the wealthy and self-indulgent are in most cases equally absorbed by the equally exacting demands of pleasure. To bring parents and children together, this turmoil of work and amusement must be bidden to cease. A sacred leisure must be provided and protected from the temptations of gain and plea- sure, in order that parents and children may be truly reunited
616 THE SABBATH OF THE STATE.
around tlie hearth, the true altar of well-ordered society. There the sacred iuflueuces of parental love may play effectually, and the virtues of a moral and pious home be diffused. Nowhere is there a better and more truthful statement of this connection than in the " Cotter's Saturday Night " of Burns. Without a Sunday there would have been no such Saturday night, -with its blessed humanizing and restraining influences.
To sum up, then : it is admited that every man ought to enjoy the fullest liberty of thought compatible with the ends of gov- ernment, and that the secular state ought to be separate from, and independent of, the church, pursuing as its proper object the protection of the earthly rights of the people. If the Chris- tian Sabbath were nothing but an ordinance of the spiritual kingdom and means of redemption, then the state should leave its enforcement, as it properly does that of the Christian wor- ship and sacraments, to the persuasions of the church. But while the day is this, it is also another thing : the necessary sup- j)ort of that natural theism, domestic virtue, and popiilar mo- rality, which are the foundations of the state. The state is from God, exists by his ordinance, holds its powers by delegation from him, and has no other basis for the righteousness it seeks to enforce between man and man than his will. On the basis of atheism there can be no stable structure, either of ethics or gov- ernment. Hence the state's right to exist includes her right to protect these essential conditions of her existence, and to en- force that outward observance of the Sabbath rest which alone makes the inculcation of God's fear and of public and private virtue practicable, through those distinct, but friendly, coopera- tive agencies which God has ordained to keep men in his fear, the family and the church. Every true statesman knows that, unless the suitable conditions of public and private mo- rality exist in the people, no statecraft, no constitution-mak- ing, can create or preserve a prosperous free commonwealth. In this sense, the statesman alone cannot make a state. Divine providence must contribute its essential cooperation, through those other institutes which are as truly ordained of God, as original a-ud as independent as the state itself, the family and the church. Wise statesmen have learned from experience that the state's tinkering with these, in the way of persecutions of heresies, state endowments, and such like expedients, only crip-
THE SABBATH OF THE STATE. 617
pies their ability for good. But this is no reason why the state should rashly overlook or deny the vital valiio of their training work to its ends, or should so wield its secular power as to de- prive them of the suitable means and opportunities for doing their all-important functions. On the contrary, the state is bound so to enforce outward rest and quiet, and the cessation of secular labors and public amusements, as to honor God's natural ordinance, and to give the allied institutes, the family and the chui'ch, their proper opportunity for doing their work on the people-
THE GEXERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881/
THIS Assembly, it is surmised, lias left an extremely pleas- ant impression upon the minds of its members. The httle " Mountain City " of Staunton, Ya., as its inhabitants love to call it, is at all times a pleasant place to visit. Situated in the mid- dle of the " Great Valley," midway between the Blue Eidge and North Mountain, it presents the tourist, in its bold and rounded hills, endless undulating surface and distant but majestic moun- tain-ramparts, a landscape to whose perfect beauty nothing is lacking, except the contrast of the level azure of a Swiss lake. As though to greet the great convocation with a cheerful wel- come, the countrj' clothed itself in all the glorj of summer ver- dui-e, combining the gi-eenness of the North of England ^^-ith the brilliancy of an Italian sky. Nor were the good people behind their country, in the hospitable reception extended to the visi- tors. The doors of the beautiful homes of all denominations AYere thrown open without distinction. All that a cordial, but imj)retending, hospitality could do, was combined with moun- tain air and propitious weather to make the season of the As- sembly's sittings enjoyable.
A representation absolutely full would have given one hun- dred and forty-eight commissioners. Of these there were pre- sent on the first day one hundred and sixteen ; and during the whole sessions, one hundred and thirty. Precisely at 11 a. m. of May 19th, the Moderator, Dr. Thomas A. Hoyt, of Nashville, ascended the pulpit. A gi*eat audience filled the spacious and commanding church. The text of the opening sermon was Gal- atians, i. 6, 7, and its subject was the duty of preaching only that system of truth known as the " doctrines of grace," as the only one revealed in the gospel. This glorious system was unfolded, in constant contrast, as the text suggested, with the other schemes of religion erroneously deduced from the gospel. The
1 This article appeared in the Southern Presbyterian Review, July, 1881
618
THE GENEEAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 61^
" doctrines of grace " exhibit tlieir supreme excellence in tlieso four respects :
I. In tliat they alone do full honor to the Holy Scriptures, asserting their full inspiration in consistency with the person- ality of their writers ; and thus claiming for them supreme and absolute authority ; while admitting the beautiful adaptation of their humanity to the human soul. The " doctrines of grace " also recognize the distinction between natural and revealed re- ligion, and between the general contents of Scripture, all of which are authoritative, and the special truths of redemption ; while they alone recognize all the declarations of the word, and successfully combine them into a compact and logical system.
II. The " doctrines of grace " cohere fully with the revelation God has made of his own essence and personality. They con- vert the mystery of his Trinity in Unity from an abstraction into a glorious practical truth, by connecting man's redemption essentially with the several persons and their relations and func- tions. And while all lower theories of redemption must needs mutilate God in some of his perfections in order to permit man's escape from his doom, the gospel plan not only permits, but re- quires, the highest exercise of all the attributes which make up God's infinite essence.
III. The " doctrines of grace " portray our fallen nature in colors exactly conformable to human history, and the convic- tions of man's guilty conscience. And they propose to deal Avith the fallen soul in the way most conducive to its true sanctifica- tion and salvation, by enforcing the holy law, in all its extent, as the rule of the Christian's living ; while they quicken into action the noisiest motives of love and gratitude, by bestowing an un- bought justification.
Thus, IV. These doctrines embody the only salvation suited to man's wants and worthy of God's perfections. It is a salva- tion righteous, holy, honorable to God, which yet bestows on sinners an assured, ineffable, rational, and everlasting blessed- ness. Hence the high and holy duty, enforced as much from the tremendous necessities of lost souls as from the rights of Jehovah, to know no other gospel than this, and to preach it always and everwhere.
The preacher, evidently furnished with the advantages of a thorough preparation and untrammelled by notes, delivered this
620 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
great body of vital truth in langiiap;e elevated, classic, and per- spicuous, supporting his words by an utterance and action of graceful dignity. As he expanded side after side of the glories of the true gospel, the hearer's soul was raised higher and higher towards the level of the angelic anthem, " Glory to God in the highest ; and on earth peace, good will to men !" Our Redeem- er-God was brought near in his fuU-orlied glory ; his severer attributes harmonized, but undimmed, by his benevolence and mercy. Man fallen was j^laced in the dust and ashes of humility. Man redeemed w^as lifted to a hope and bliss as honorable to God, the giver, as precious to the receiver. " Mercy and truth met together ; righteousness and peace kissed each other."
The new Assembly then proceeded to organize itself, by the unanimous election of Dr. Robt. P. Farris, of St. Louis, Mo., as Moderator, an honor well earned and skilfully and worthily borne, and of the Rev. Geo. A. Trenholm, of South Carolina, as Temporary Clerk.
The body quickly gave an earnest of its purpose of work, by resolving to proceed at once, in the afternoon, to hear the re- ports of the Executive Committees, These exhibited advance- ment, except in that work of fundamental importance. Home Missions. It is safe to take the money given by the churches to these evangelical agencies as an index of the interest and prayer expended on them. Instead of the $40,000 which the previous Assembly found to be the least measure of the urgent wants of the Home Missions' work, and which it asked the churches to bestow, the committee receive for this cause $18,526. If the contribution to the kindred work of the Evangelist's Fund,
),958, to the Invalid Fund, $10,248, and the sum of about $4,000 supposed to be spent in Home Mission work by Presby- teries not in connection, be added, we get, as the aggregate de- voted in our church to home work and charities, . . $43,732 The gifts to Foreign Missions were 59,215
An encouraging increase of $11,000.
The gifts to the Publication Committee, 8,009
The gifts to candidates for the ministry, 10,335
The gifts to the Colored Institute, 2,000
And those to colored evangehsts, 597
Thus the total of these contributions was .... $123,888
THE GENEEAL ASSEMBLY OF 1$81. 621
Tliis is less tlian an average of one dollar from each of our reported communicants.
For some years past, the General Assembly of the Northern. Presbyterian Church, which also meets by precedent on the third Thursday of May, has sent to ours a simple greeting in the form of a telegram. To this our Assembly has usually responded in the same terms. On the second day of the recent sessions, Dr. Adger, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Correspon- dence, proposed that our Assembly should take the initiative, by ' sending, without delay, the usual message. This, to his surprise, evoked one of the most animated debates of the session. No opposition seemed to be made to the intercourse itself, while kept within the bounds of a simple recognition and expression of good wishes. Bat it was argued that the injuries and de- tractions put upon Southern Presliyterians by that Assembly, and never jei withdrawn or repaired, made it improper for us to take the initiative in such messages. Our commissioners to the Baltimore Conference in 1874, sustained by our Assemblies, had declared that the withdrawal of false accusations was an absolute prerecjuisite to the resumption of any fraternal rela- tions. But the action proposed to-day was a departure from that righteous and self-respecting resolution. Moreover, it would be misunderstood as indicating a purpose in us, of which it is presumed no Southern Presbyterian could for a moment dream, to retreat from that position, and to approach a dishon- orable and deceitful reunion made at the expense of truth and our own good name. It was urged that the separate indepen- dence of the Southern church was a great boon, mercifully be- stowed on her by God at an opportune time, when that laxity of discipline and doctrine now so prevalent began to invade the Presbyterian Church of the North and of Scotland. This inde- pendence, then, is not to be regarded as an expression of our pique or revenge ; but as a holy trust, in a solemn and unex- pected way bestowed on us ])y the divine Head of the church, as a necessary bulwark for his vital truth among us. Its jeal- ous maintenance by us, therefore, is not to be treated as a prompting of ill-tempe]- ; for this is an odious and slanderous travesty of the facts. The line of action hitherto pursued by our church is, rather, the simple performance of a solemn duty to God and his church and truth. And the slightest ten-
622 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
dency towards tlie betrayal of this iudependence is to be de- precated.
It was replied by the other side : that our Assemblies had never, on account of the unatoned injuries of the other church, refused all official intercourse with it ; but from the first had responded to such civilities as might pass between us and any other denomination ; that the ground taken in 1870, when an exchange of delegates was asked, was, that this especial mark of -community of church-order and affection could never be ex- tended, until false accusations against us were withdrawn ; that the only question here raised, whether our Assembly shall send the first telegram, instead of answering theirs, is really a very trivial one, having no significance except that which would be given it by a refusal under existing circumstances ; that our church's separate independence was indeed a priceless trust be- stowed on her at an opj^ortuno time, as the protestants have well said ; and that we and they are altogether at one in not tolerat- ing the slightest thought of its surrender. Our church stands now where she has always stood ; we take no step forwards, and none backwards.
The latter views prevailed, and the Assembly authorized the Committee on Foreign Correspondence to send the usual formal greeting to the Northern Assembly sitting in Buffalo, N. Y., only thirteen dissenting. In due time, the usual response came from the other body , and so the mattter ended. But Dr. Mullally, of Lexington Presbytery, and a few others, entered their pro- test, stating in substance the above arguments ; to which the Assembly replied with the views advanced by the majority.
The transaction for which this Assembly will probably be most remembered was the final disposition made of the two counter- reports on " Betrenchment and Beform " in the Assembly's com- mittee. On the third day these were taken up, and the Bev. A. C. Hopkins, from Winchester Presbytery, chairman of the committee, was heard on this and a subsequent day, at great length, in defence of the majority report. The Bev. S. T. Mar- tin, the author of the minority report, also spoke in defence of his suggestions, in an excellent spirit and with great ingenuity and force. That he had prejudiced the success of the few prac- tical amendments in our methods, which he really urged, by taking too wide a range of discussion, and by asserting other
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 623
doctrines and changes whicli the great body of the church dread as revohitiouary — this had now become obvious to the amiable speaker, as it had all along been obvious to his friends. He now attempted to parry this adverse effect, by pleading that, when called by the Assembly to lay his whole mind before the churches for their discussion, he had but acted conscientiously, in speaking out the whole system of thought on our church-work, which honestly commended itself to his judgment. But now, when he was come to proposing amendments in that work for the church's adoption, he should limit himself to those few changes which were generally obvious and confessedly feasible. And he claimed that members ought now to weigh each of these proposals on its own merits, and unprejudiced by other unpopu- lar speculations — as others might deem them — in which he might be nearly singular. This claim evidently was no more than just. But it '\\as equally evident that members were unable to rise to the dispassionate level of this equity, and that the hearing of Mr. Martin was prejudiced by the previous opposition to his more extreme views, even when he urged his most reasonable proposals.
These he now limited to two : 1, As to aiding education for the ministry, he proposed that an Assembly's Committee of Educa- tion should be continued, but that it should perform its brief duties without a paid secretary. These duties should be only to receive remittances from the stronger Presbyteries, and distribute them among the candidates of the poorer and weaker. As for the rest, the selection of candidates suitable to be aided, and the raising of money to aid them, should be left, where the con- stitution places it, with each Presbj'tery. But the Assembly should advise Presbyteries which have, for the time, no candi- dates, and those which have wealth, to contribute to the weak Presbyteries, through the Assembly's committee.
2. As to the work of Evangelism and Home Missions : that there shall be, as now, a committee and secretary of Home Missions. But each Presbytery shall collect its own funds, and manage its o\^ti Evangelistic and Home Missions' work. The Assembly, however, shall enjoin all the older and stronger Pres- byteries to send to the central committee a given (juota of all their collections for this work — sa}^ one-tenth, or one-fifth— that this agency may have abundant means to aid and push the work
624 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
of cliurcli-extension and missions in the weaker and tlie mis- sionary Presbyteries.
The chaii'man, Mr. Hopkins, on the contrary, moved the As- sembly to resolve, that the present system was substantially perfect, and needed no modification, except in slight details of exact responsibility. After long debate, resumed for several days, the Assembly finally voted under the previous question against all amendments by a great majority — only eight adher- ing to Mr. Mai-tin.
The current discussion on this matter has been made so fa- mihar to Presbyterians through their newspapers that it will not be again detailed here. Another gi-eat question was una- voidably mingled in this discussion, by the report of Dr. Girar- deau's committee on the Diaconate, also made, by order of a previous Assemlily, on the morning of this third day. The whole contents of that thorough report will not be stated here ; the readers of the Revieio have ah-eady seen the substance of it in the articles of Dr. Girardeau, in our January and April num- bers. Of course, all in the Assembly were ready to admit that the deacon is a scriptural officer ; that every fully organized congi'egation should have deacons ; that his office is distin- guished from the presbyter's by its fimctious, which are, not spiritual teaching and rale, but collection and distribution of the church's oblations. But the positions of Dr. Girardeau's com- mittee excited the opposition of many on these following points, which are the points especially involved in the discussion on " Eetrenchment and Reform": The committee held that, in the fully organized church, the distinct separation between pres- byterial and diaconal functions was obhgatory and proper, not indeed for the true being, but for the best being, health, and ulterior safety of the church. Many others held, that presby- ters are also en officio deacons, and may always assume, in addi- tion to their proper teaching and ruling functions, diaconal func- tions, if convenience and policy seem to dictate it. But espe- cially, the committee held that diaconal functions extend beyond the concerns of a single congregation, when many congregations are acting concurrently in matters of oblation and distribution ; even as the local presbyter assumes rule over the church at large when he sits in a superior court. But the opponents of the committee held that the functions of the diacouate can never extend bevoud
THE GENEKAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 625
the local concerns of a particular congregation. Hence it fol- lows, tliat wlien many congregations, or the Avholo church, en- gage jointly in oblation and distribution, not a deacon, but a minister, shall perform this general diaconal work. Of course, the doctrine of the committee contains the corollary, that these treasuryships and distributions also should be, like the congre- gational, in diaconal hands, where the church is fully and cor- rectly organized. Then, qualifications and functions will be properly connected. Presbyters, supposed to be qualified and called of God to spiritual fvinctions, will not be diverted and perverted from their proper duties to financial affairs — for which they are notoriously often disqualified. Financial affairs will be put into the hands of men not called of God to the higher and heterogeneous work of preaching or ruling, but specially selected for their experience in handling money. This is the point of connection between Dr. Girardeau's report and the views of the minority on Reform ; for one of the strong points of the latter had been, that the treasuryships of the Assembly's Committees ought to be committed to deacons.
The Assemlily, moved by pressure of business and an evident distaste for the discussion, resolved formally to postpone the consideration of the diaconate to next year ; but none the less, the argument on these points w^as unavoidably mingled wdth that on Mr. Martin's resolutions. Dr. Girardeau, finding his positions assailed by high authority with the most technical weapons of logic, deemed it necessary to defend them techni- cally, as well as poprdarly and scripturally, in his report. He did both with eminent success. But as his ^vritten argument will be given to the church, and as w^e now only attempt a brief re- view of the Assembly's own debates, w-e shall not follow Drs. Lefevre and Girardeau in their formal printed arguments. The opponents of the report placed much stress on' the fact that the apostles continued to perform diaconal functions (as Paul, Rom. XV. 25, 26), after the appointment of deacons in Acts vi. A ven- erable member amused the house by saying that Judas, an apostle, was treasurer of the apostolic family by the Sa\aour's own appointment, and denominating him " St. Judas," he asked why he was not as well entitled at that time to the prrenomen as St. Matthew ? If we ascribe to this citation of Judas's treasurer- ship the value to which alone it was entitled, that of a pleasant
Vol. II.— 40.
€26 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
jest, then its sufficient repartee would be in saving, tliat tlii^ jumbling of spiritual and diacoual functions turned out wretcli- edh' ; as the money was stolen, and the officer disgraced. So that the example weighs on Dr. Girardeau's side. But if the instance be advanced as a serious argument from precedent, then the answer will be, that Judas, when treasurer of the Saviour's family, v'-is not an apostle, but onlv an apostle-elect. He was onlv in training for that high office.
In arguing from the example of Paul, that the minister's office includes the right to diaconal functions in the settled state of the church, it Avas strangely forgotten that the apostles were purely extraordinary officers of the church ; they could not have any successors. The very reason for the temporary existence of such extraordinary offices was, that the frame of the new dis- j^ensation might be by them instituted when as yet it Avas not. !From this simple fact follow two consequences. One is, that these founding officers must, initially, exercise all the organic functions of all necessary church officers. The other is, that when they had once established the full organism, no other of- ficers could regidarly claim to do the same from their example. Thus, in order that there might be a regular order of priests in the church under the dispensation of Sinai, Moses, the great prophet, must for the nonce exercise the priest's office in conse- crating Aaron and his sons. But after Aaron and his sons were consecrated, Moses never presumed to sacrifice again. Nor did David. And when King Saul dared to imitate the argument of our brethren, by engrossing the inferior office of priest, he Avas cursed of God for the intrusion. (1 Sam. xiii. 8-1 -i.)
Again, Avhen it is argued that the presbyterial office is still in- clusiA'e of the diaconal, there is a strange obliA'ion of the third chapter of 1st Timothy. There the apostle is, plainly, ordering the frame of the church for post-apostolic times. He provides for equipping the church with tAvo distinct orders of officers, elders and deacons. As the qualifications are distinct, so the functions. There is no more eA'idence here that in a fiilly de- veloped church an elder may usurp diaconal functions because he has been made an elder, than that a deacon may usurp pres- bAterial functions because he has been made a deacon. The result of a scriptural A-iew is, then : that in the forming state of a given church, the officers who are properly commissioned to
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 627
initiate the organization must for tlie time combine in themselves their own and the lower functions. But the very ohject of their instituting the lower organs is, that in due time the functions may be separated, and the anomalous minghng may cease ; that the church may have its orderly and safe ulterior growth. Thus, an evangelist, preaching the gospel inparti7jus infidelium, must, at first, exercise the function of examining and admitting adult •converts as full members in the visible church. Strictly, this is a sessional, not a ministerial, function. But there cannot be a ^session until after there is a membership ; so that the evangehst is obliged to do it. But now, does it follow that every pastor, who has a session, may properly usurp this sessional function? By no means. There is not an intelligent session m the land which would tolerate such systematic intrusions.
In the next place, that Christ and the apostles designed dia- conal officers not only for the local, but the combined functions of oblation and distribution of larger parts of the church, fol- loAvs naturally from the truths conceded to us. The apostles did institute the diaconal office. They did assign especially to them the official management of oblation and distribution. They did assign to the presbyters the distinct functions of spiritual teaching and rule. They did command the churches to exercise the " grace ot giving " statedly. And it is admitted that when- ever a given congregation, as a body, exercised this grace, the receiving and distribution went naturally into the deacons' offi- cial hands. But now, both Scripture and pro^'idence call the many congregations to joint exercises of this grace of giving. Why does it not follow, that the receiving and distribution should still fall into diaconal hands, representatives of the joint congre- gations ? How does the circumstance that many congregations, instead of one, are now exercising this grace, make it right to break across the distinction of offices, which was so proper in the single congregation, and to jumble functions which were there so properly separated ?
But this is not a human inference. The New Testament un- questionably gives instances of general deacons, other than the twelve, who managed this duty of oblation and distribution, not for one church, but for many. A member did, indeed, attempt during this debate to argue from 2 Corinthians, viii. 18-23, ihat a preacher of the word was intrusted Avitli the diaconal
628 THE GENEEAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
function as soon as the oblation was a general one of many cliurclies ; but liis argument was a mere begging of the question. He assumed that this " brother . . . chosen of the churches to travel with " Paul and Titus, " with this grace," was a preacher. This was the very point he should have pi^oved. But no man can prove it. On the contrary, it is obvious that this " brother" was a general deacon. Not a single trait or title of evangelistic or preaching office is given him by Paul. He is " chosen of the churches " for the express purpose of " travelling with this grace /" that is to say, to collect and disburse the general oblations. He is not a presbyter, but (vs. 23) a " messenger " of the churches (a commissioner, d-6aroXoz.) The use of this title catches our brethren in the jaws of this sharp dilemma : either they must hold with us that d-oarolo:: is here used of these general dea- cons in the lower and modified sense of financial commissioners of the churches ; or else they must open wide the door to the prelatic argument, hy admitting many apostles (in the full sense) besides and after the Twelve. The Twelve are always " apostles of Christ ;" these general deacons are " apostles (commissioners) of the churches." We have another examj)le in Epaj^hroditus, Philippians ii. 25, and iv. 18, unquestionably a deacon of that church, and called their " apostle " and Utzooojbq, to Paul's ne- cessities. We also have probable cases in the Romans, Audroni- cus and Junia (or Junius), Romans xvi. 7. Thus, the fact that this alms-receiver-general for the churches enjoyed " a praise throughout all the churches," instead of proving that he must have, been a noted preacher, only shows how much better the primitive churches understood and honored the general deacon than the Christians of our day do.
The form remissional of the discussion of Dr. Girardeau's re- port to a future Assembly produced one result which it would be discourteous to charge as premeditated. His powerful voice was silenced in this debate, inasmuch as he was not a regular member of the Assembly. Hence but little of the truth was heard on his side, which, if advanced with clearness, would have given a very different aspect to the debate.
It would be exceedingly erroneous to suppose that the vote of almost the whole Assembly against a minority of eight, is an index and measure of the unanimity of our church in the posi- -tion that our methods of committee action need and admit no
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 629
amendment. Many side influences concuiTed particularly against Mr. Martin and Lis propositions at this time. The discussion of desirable betterments is by no means ended, as time will show. This was made perfectly obvious to the observer by such facts as these : that some of Mr. Maiiin's principles were and are openly advocated by many men of the widest experience and in- fluence ; that after the vote, very many who voted with the ma- jority were heard to admit that there Is room for amendments, and that the}' should and must be introduced in due time, and each upon its own merits.
Dr. Adger, for instance, announced himself, not as a revolu- tionist, biit as one who desired to conserve and hnjyrove. He disclaimed all sympathy with the cry for retrenclnnent ; he wanted more liberal expenditures. Our church can give and ought to give every year one milhon of dollars. His position was equally removed from that of the rash innovator and from the arrogant and fulsome assumption that all our present methods are too near perfection to be amended. Against adopting that egotistical position, there rise in protest these great, solemn, and sad facts : that by present methods we only succeed in drawing from all our churches $123,000 for all the Lord's work, outside of pastoral and church support, which is less than one dollar for each member ; and that our present agencies yearly afiiict our hearts with the complaint that half our congregations neglect all cooperation ! Is this so satisfactory ? Is this to remain our best attainment ? And whereas all criticism has been deprecated, as tending to destroy confidence and utterly cripple existing agen- cies, it turns out that this year of sharp criticism has shown a considerable, though still an inadequate progress ! Xo ; fi-ee discussion is the healthy atmosphere of a free church. The surest way to arrest effort and paralyze confidence is to choke down the honest questionings of Presbyterians by a species of bureaucratic dictation, and to leave an angry mistrust brooding in -silence. But our churches cannot be so dealt with ; they will think and speak independently.
Power conferred on our agencies is not a subject of dread. Power is efficienc}-. Power is life. Power is work. But the thing always to be vatched is combination, or centralization of }iower. Our present methods, not\ntlistanding all the safeguards of our former wisdom, suggest grounds of caution in these three
630 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
particulars : First, Tliat they transfer so mucli of the church's home work (Education, Home Missions, etc.,) to the Assembly. It is the Assembly's agencies which must do eyerything. True, they are, by their rules, all required to act in concert with the Presbyteries ; yet they are the Assembly's agencies ; to the As- sembly they are responsible ; from it they deriye their existence ; to the extension of its prerogatives they instinctiyely lend all their practical weight. Hence, the Assembly has rolled oyer upon it too many of the functions which the constitution assigns to Presbyteries. There is too much blood in the head, and not enough in the members. Financial and executive work, which should be left to its proper local agencies, when thus drawn into the Assembly disquialifies this supreme court for its higher and more spiritual duties of conserving the doctrinal and moral j)urity and spiritual life of the church. So preoccupied is the Assembh' with these engrossments of executive detail, that it has no time nor taste for other questions touching the very life of the souls of its people. But if our system hinders the ef- ficiency of the Assembly, it likewise damages all self-develop- ment in our lower courts. The work of the Presbyteries being assumed by the Assembly, those bodies will not and cannot be expected to take its responsibility on them. Why need the Presbyter}' bestir itself to raise funds for its candidates or its own Domestic Missions, when there is a great central committee of the Assembly anxious to do all that for the Presb^-teries which cooperate, and ready to its power, and almost beyond its power, to meet every call properly made upon it ?
But secondly, the fellow-feeling natural to these executive agencies, as children of a common mother, results in a combina- tion of influence for each other and to resist criticism. It is not meant to charge the conscious formation of any corrupt " ring- power." The honorable disclaimers of secretaries and commit- tee-men are fully allowed, when they declare that they have made no overt compact to defend each other. Doubtless this is perfectly true ; but the tendenc}- to coml)iuation is uncalculated and unconscious; and therefore the more a subject of solicitude. It is not the fault of the men ; they are good men and true, honorable and incapable of calculated usurpations ; it is the fault of the system. Yes, you have an established system of central agencies, all of which have a common life, and when 3'ou touch
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 631
one of them, all of tliem feel and resent it, Wliat is tliere in the nature of the case to make it certain that jour Education work, for example, is arranged in the best possible way ? And yet, if it is proposed to make any changes therein, your Secretary of Foreign Missions, and every other secretary, will be found quick to come forward in defence of the established system.
But thirdly, while power is good, and while our powers might be acknowledged to be all right in themselves considered, surely it cannot be maintained that it is well to concentrate so many of them in one corner of the church. Last year at Charleston a strong effort was made to separate two of them ; but to every observant eye there was a rallying oi the forces which effectually prevented it. Now, do you imagine that the church is satisfied, or going to be satisfied, about this ? Let this Assembly vote that all shall remain as it is, and will that prevent the church from repeating, in due time, her dissatisfaction with this concentra- tion of so much power in so few hands, or in one corner of our ten-itory ?
The history of the discussion against " Boards " in the old Assembl}^ (at Rochester, in 1860, and previously), might be in- structive to us now. All of us admit that the old Board system was vicious ; even unconstitutional. Yet all amendment Avas re- sisted, when urged by Dr. Thoruwell and others, by just such arguments as "v\ e hear to-day, against admitting even the smaller modifications prompted by the lights of exjDerience. Dr. Thorn- well was voted down, as we shall be to-day, by a very large ma- jority. But only a few years elapsed, when lo ! the Northern Church adopted his very principles. The old Boards of one hundred members were swept away, and Executive Committees of fifteen put into their places, but wearing still the name of Boards. The vanquished became the victors. It may be so, to some ex- tent, again ; For our present methods still retain some of the evils which Dr. Thorn well then objected against the old ones: too much tendency to centralization ; the atrophy, through disuse, of those smtiller limbs of the spiritual body, the lower courts ; and the transfer of diaconal functions out of diaconal hands. Dr. Adger then advocated the two measures moved by Mr. Martin-
The Eev. Mr. Quarles, of Missouri, in a long and able speech, also urged, in addition, these points : That it seems almost far- cical to send a Presbytery's Home Missions money to Baltimore,
032 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
in order to send it back, at tiiat Presbytery's demand, to pav its home-missionary ; and to expend the church's money in pro- adding for this useless migration of money checks, and in paying treasurers to do such business as this. But unless the Presby- tery's w-ill, which the rules of the Home Missions' Committee seems so fully to recognize, is to be resisted, such seems to be the useless nature of our proceeding on our present plan. Ne- liemiah, when he would arouse the householders in his defence- less to^Ti of Jerusalem to contribute to the building of a com- mon wall, combined general patriotism with personal affections, by calling each man " to build oyer against his own dwelling." The Assembly should imitate his wisdom. The way to do this is to leave local enterprises more to local agencies and affections. Christians will giye more to help tJiis Jcnov:ii destitute church, in their own Presbytery, than the}' will giye for that vague imper- sonal thing, "the general destitution," a thousand miles off. Hence, it was claimed that Presbyteries acting for themselyes have usually acted with more vigor, and raised more money, than those connected with the Assembly's Committee ; while they have been prompt to contribute a certain portion to that committee for its frontier work.
The advocates of the majority were frequent in characterizing Mr. Martin's motions as visionary, as grounded in mere theory, and as unsupported by experience ; while they claimed that theirs were sustained by the experience of seventeen years' suc- cess. This boast laid them open to a pungent rejoinder, from the damaging effect of which they seem to have been spared mainly by the forbearance of their respondents. It might have been answered : that the desire for these betterments was in the full- est sense practical and experimental, being grounded, namely, in very melancholy and pointed experiences. For instance : under the present boasted system, contributions to Education had fal- len from fourteen or fifteen thousand dollars, gathered under another system, and that in the days of the church's poverty, to nine or ten thousand now. Last year the Assembly solemnly told the churches that Home Missions omist liave not less than $40,000 this year, or most critical losses would result. The ex- cellent secretary afflicted us by telling us that the churches only gave him $18,000 for Home Missions. But these same churches have given $59,250 for Foreign Missions. It is impossible to
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. G33
ascribe to oar people an ignorance of the plain trutli, so elo- quently put by Dr. Hoge in his Home Missions address : "That this cause cannot be second to any other, because the home work is the xerj fulcrum of the levers by which all other agen- cies seek to work for the world's salvation." Hence, their fail- ure to respond, their seeming depreciation of the home work under the foreign in the ratio of 18 to 69, must be ascribed to tlio defects of oui present method. And especially did the his- tory of the Publication Committee give us a most awakening ex- perience. For there we saw an important and costly interest committed precisely to our present boasted methods, and utterly ^\Tecked. An eminent divine was called to usurp the diaconal functions of an accountant and distributer, for which events proved him wholh' unfitted, while he sunk into abeyance those preaching duties for which he was so richly fitted, called, and ordained. The result was the total insolvency of an agency which should have been profitable and prosperous, an insolvency which was only prevented from becoming flagrant by renewed and onerous special contributions exacted from the churches. And the most significant part of this experience is in the fact that, while our present methods, claimed to be too near perfection for criticism, were maturing for us this astounding calamity, the voice of faithful warning, uttered for instance by the excellent elder, Mr. Kennedy, of Clarksville, was rebuked by precisely the arguments appealed to by the majority .of to-day! "Oh! fault-findings were mischievous. They repressed contributions. They hampered meritorious officers. They impaired confidence. They should be rebuked by the actual censure of the Assembly." One would think that such an experience, so recent, should have inculcated more modesty in the majority.
Til ore are a fsw more instructive thoughts bearing upon our present modes of aiding candidates for the ministry, which were not uttered in the Assembly. The Education collection is con- fessedly the unpopular collection with the churches. This every pastor experiences ; and the scantiness of the returns attests iL. But, on the other hand, we find that there is no object of philan- thropy for which it is so easy to elicit liberal aid as to edu- cate a given and known deserving youth for usefulness to his gen- eration. The two facts, when coupled together, show that we have not yet gotten hold of the wisest method. Our present
634 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OP 1881.
metliocl makes it hard to do what, supposing our candidates to be really meritorious, the generous Christian heart of our men of wealth would make exceedingly easy. Tho money which, in all proper individual instances, comes easiest, we now make to come hardest. The mistake is obvious. Instead of presenting to the Christian heart the known concrete case of the highly deserving young brother, we present that impersonal and sus- pected abstraction, the unknown body of " indigent candidates." In fine, the aid rendered should, in each case, be grounded, not on the candidate's in digence, but on his rnerit. It should be given him as the well-earned reward of diligence, self-improvement, and self-devotion. It would then stimulate and ennoble the benefi- ciary, instead of galling him.
We venture to predict that the church will finally concur in these conclusions, as to the various subjects agitated :
1. That unpaid committees without paid secretaries can never maintain in their vigor our various agencies for the world's conversion. There will be too strong an application of the old maxim : " What is everybody's business will be nobody's busi- ness." Such an attempt would be too wide a departure from that ordering of human nature and providence which fits the energetic few to lead and the many to follow.
2. To direct and energize one of these works as executive head of its committee, is a work neither prelatic in its claims, nor de- rogator}^ to the ordination-vows of a preacher of the word. But the mere diaconal functions attending these agencies should be transferred, as fast as practicable, to the more suitable hands of deacons and deaconesses ; the latter furnishing the church the most quick, intelligent, and economical service, probably, in this direction. Thus the secretaries will be released from pursuits heterogeneous from their calling, to devote their energies to their j)roper evangelistic tasks in organizing the spread of the gospel by tongue and pen and press.
3. Some of these works, as that of Foreign Missions, will always be mainly iinder the control of the Assembly, by its committees. Biit those home enterprises in which the Presby- teries can act directly should be remitted to them. This will economise expenze, prevent undue centralization, and leave the hands of the secretaries, who will still be needed, free to do
THE GENERAL ASSE3IBLY OF 1881. 635
Moik more useful to tlie church thun the engrossment of func- tions belonging to the Presbyteries.
4. An economy which would prove " penny wise and pound foolish " would be the poorest economy. Yet, it is a sacred duty of the Assembly to see that working-expenses are reduced to the lowest safe 7rdio, because the money handled is sacred, in most cases the gift of poverty and self-denial, to God, and every dollar needlessly diverted to the mere expenses of ad- ministration is so much taken from the salvation of perishing souls.
The Assembly of 1881 was happy in having but one judicial case before it. This was the appeal of Mr. Turner, of the Cen- tral Church in Atlanta, against the Synod of Georgia. He had been cited by his session to answer to charges of fraud and un- truthfulness in the prosecution of his secular business. The tes- timony adduced did not substantiate these charo;es. But the session deemed that there was such proof of heedlessness as justified a serious admonition. In this admonition Mr. Turner acquiesced. A few days after he asked his dismission to join the Methodist communion. The session refused this, on the ground that he was not " in good standing," inasmuch as ad- monition leaves the admonished member somehow in a species of probation with the session as to his standing, to be continued virtually at the session's option ; and that even a member in good standing cannot demand dismission to another communion as a right, but must ask it of the option and courtesy of the session. These were the points raised by the appeal. In both the Assembly properly decided against the lower courts. It held that a mere admonition is a species of church censure which completes and exhausts itself when administered, if re- ceived with docilit}'. To hold the contrary virtually raises it to a higher grade of censure, that of indefinite suspension, at the option of the session. But this is a distinct and a graver censure. To construe an admonition thus would punish the culprit twice under the same indictment, and the second time without trial. As to the second point, the Assembly decided, with those of 1839 and 1851, that no member of the Presby- terian Church can claim, as of right, a " letter of dismission " to another communion ; but a member who is " in good standing,'*
636 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
is ahvars entitled to a " certificate of good standing," wlienever he asks it. If he is found to have used it to institute member- ship in another denomination, then his name is simply to be re- moved from our rolls. And this is not an act of resentment or censure ; but simplv the logical sequel, with us, of his o'vrn exercise of inahenablo private judgment, in electing another church connection.
The interests of Columbia Seminary filled a large place in the attention, and a larger in the heart, of the Assembly. The im- portant points in the Directors' report were :
1. The request that the immediate goyemment of the Semi- narj be remanded to the Synods of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the Assembly retaining its right of review over its pro- ceedings, and a veto over the election of professors and teachers. This was unanimously conceded.
2. The Dii'ectors propose to reopen the Seminary in the autumn, with at least three professors. They brought the grati- fpng news, that a large part of the endangered or suspended in- vestments have been regained, that thirty thousand dollars have been actually paid in for new investments, besides numerous subscriptions still outstanding ; so that the institution -uill have the use of a cash endowment of 8 from this date ; which, besides the Perkins foundation, will liberally support three other professors. The Assembly, of course, cordially encoui*aged the Board to go forward, and reopen the institution at once.
3. The Directors, in conjunction with the Presbyterian Church in Columbia, now vacant, have formed and do now submit to the Assembly the purpose of recalling Dr. B. M. Palmer from the First church in New Orleans, to the professorship) of Practical Divinity in the Seminary, and the pastorate of his old charge. The Board regards these as essential parts of their own jjlan. Ever3^;hing, in the first place, cries aloud for the immediate re- opening of the Seminary, chiefly the great and gi'owing destitu- tion of ministers in the South and West especially ; but also the progressive loss of influence for the Seminary as long as it remains closed ; the dispersion of the students of di^-inity of those sections, and thek resort to institutions %vithout the bounds of our Church ; the e^ddent use made of this season of suspension to undermine the independence of our beloved
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. o37
Cliiircli. It is, therefore, vital that the Semiuary be restored, to activity.
But, in the second phxce, the same considerations demand. that it be restored to a vigorous activit3\ A feeble existence would prove wholly inadequate to gain the vital ends in vieAv. Hence it is for the highest interests of the church, that her best men and best talents be devoted to rehabilitating this school of pastors. But from this point of view, every eye and every hand points naturally to Dr. Palmer, the former professor, the ex- pastor of the Columbia Church, as the one man who is able to give the necessary impulse to the Seminary. He has labored long and hard in the most onerous pastoral positions ; his ex- perience is ripe ; his age has reached that stage when his bodily vigor, adequate to many more years of efficiency in the more quiet academic walks, may be expected to flag under the enor- mous strains of a metropolitan charge such as his. This con- sideration goes far to counterpoise our sense of his great im- portance to New Orleans and the Southwest, and our symjaathy with the grief of a bereaved charge there.
These views, eloquently advanced by the representatives of the Seminar}-, Drs. Girardeau and Mack, proved so influential that the Assembly approved the action of the Board in electing Dr. Palmer, by a large majority; the dissentients being the im- mediate representatives of the city and Synods which would lose him. But while the Assembly cordially sanctioned Dr. Palmer's return to the Seminarj-, should his own sense of duty lead him thither, its courtesy towards his church and immediate associates in the Southwest prevented it from applying any ur- gency to his mind.
Two other topics claimed the attention of the Assembly, in connection with theological education, which were despatched diu-iug the later sessions of the Assembly. One was the report Ijrought to that body by the representatives of Columbia Semi- uary, touching the resort of many of the candidates to semina- ries without our bounds. Drs. Girardeau and Mack stated that, when compelled to close the Seminary for a time, they had ur- gently exhorted their pupils to resort to Union Seminary in Yir- ginia, as their natural and proper place, and as offering them the most efficient instruction, until their own school was reopened. Six had done so, but fifteen had resorted to Princeton Seminarv.
638 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
Indeed, adding those in other Northern and Scotch institutions, we find this anomalous state of affairs : that about one-third of all our candidates in their theological course received last \\-inter their tuition from institutions of the denominations ■which have chosen to take the positions of accusers of our church and op- posers of its cherished principles !
It appeared also, that in every case, so far as known, induce- ments had been held out to these candidates, in the form of money assistance, to leave their own institutions. A very spe- cious explanation was given, indeed, of this measui'e. It was said that several of the scholarships in Princeton Seminary had been endowed, in more prosperous times, by Southern donors, and that it seemed magnanimous for the North, rich and pow- erful, to offer the incomes of these foundations to the children of the South, in their poverty. This offer was coupled vriili no condition whatever, nor requirement of adhesion to the Northern Church.
Of the latter fact there can be no doubt ; the managers of this measure are too adroit to commit so useless a blunder. They understand too well the force of Solomon's maxim, that " a gift blindeth the eyes of the wise." They appreciate the silent, steady, l)ut potent influence of association on mind and character, and expect that the yotmg, ill-informed, as the A'oung men and wo- men of the South already are, of the historical facts, the rights, the injuries, and the true position of Southern Christians, will surely absorb all the contempt for those principles they desii'e, during a three years' immersion in a sea of unfair and erroneous literature, preaching, and conversation. It is a safe calculation that, if we are stupid enough to allow the enemies of our church to train its leaders, we must be soon undermined and destroyed. Some who have acted in this matter may warmly disclaim such views ; and their disclaimer may be candid. We are far from surmising: that there are no men in the church of our assailants and conquerors really generous and magnanimous towards us. But various shades of motive may mingle. A professor naturally desires the eclat of numbers. Princeton naturally desires to re- trieve her prime position in her own church, now echpsed by her New School rival. Union Seminary in New York ; and as Princeton's commanding numbers were largely recruited, in the days of the Alexander-^, fi'om the South, she desii'es to gain the
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 639
land no^v, by drawing students from the same fields. But tliat Kortliern Presbyterians do approve and practice these seductions of our candidates from the more insidious motives, we should be silly indeed to doubt, in the face of such proofs as these : that "\ve find officers of our own church, disaffected to us, furnished in advance with these bids for our candidates, and authorized to buy, in the open market, any comer; that we hear Northern ministers openly profess the purpose, and boast that five years of such success as the last will seal the overthrow of the South- ern Church ; that those who are laboring to reinstate Columbia Seminary have actually met opposition to their pious and holy enterprise, inspired from this source, and by the undoubted mo- tive of undermining our church through the final destruction of this institution. The insolence of this latter tactic, especially, inspires in every right mind nothing but indignation ; and we profess none of that unchristian hypocrisy which pretends to make a -sartue of suppressing its honest, manly expression.
Now it might appear at the first view that there is a remedy for this counterplotting, which is of the easiest possible applica- tion. This wovdd be to advertise all our candidates that they have no earthly occasion to go abroad in order to receive any such assistance as they ought to desire in paying for a theological course. Their own institutions are abundantly able to give this assistance to all comers. No young man who deserves to be helped has ever found it necessary to leave a Southern seminary for lack of suitable pecuniary assistance. The boards and facul- ties stand pledged that none such shall ever go away from this cause. If, then, money is the inducement, the church might say to all its candidates who need this species of help : "Here is the money ready for you at home ; there is no occasion to go abroad for it."
Why does not this suffice? For two reasons: our church ■wisely places a limit upon the amount of aid given to each one ; because, regarding the candidate's exercise of personal energj-, independence, and self-help, as essential criteria of fitness for the ministry, she ordains that her candidates shall be assisted and encouraged, but not Ijod'dy carried. Her ow^n officers, pro- fessors, and directors are bound to obey this excellent rule. But these bidders for our candidates from without disregard it, and offer larger pecuniary inducements. Thus the double injury and
640 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
insult is -wrought of breaking down a rule whicli our churcli Las wisely established, and of interfering between lier and lier o^^-n children. The other reason is suggested bj the whisper that the student who goes abroad also gains a much easier time ; he reads easier text-books ; less research is exacted of him ; slighter ex- aminations await him ; looser scholastic and ecclesiastical re- straints are held over him. Thus, after a course of light and superficial study, he can return to his mother-church — unless a fatter salary and more distinguished position invite him to desert her wholly — and still pass for a learned theologian, in virtue of that peculiarly Southern tendency to esteem " ovme ignotuin 2>ro mlr'tfico^'' Now, we avow that, to our mind, the latter induce- ment appears more degrading and mischievous than the former. Thorough study, diligent labor in the theological coiu'se, right- eous responsibilities — -these mean, simply, more efficiency in the pastoral work and in saving souls. The man who has a desire to evade these in order to secui'e an easier life \\ith more super- ficial results, proves by that desire that lie is not fit to preach Christ s gospel. The man who really desires to glorify him, de- sires to glorify him much ; and he will never pause to barter away a j^ortion of his Saviour's honor for this ignoble self-in- dulgence.
It was, therefore, with a timely wisdom that the Assemljly took action on this matter. It did not advocate the narrow spirit which, pronouncing our own culture in every case all-suf- ficient for ourselves, refuses the aid of the learning of other j)eoples and countries altogether. But it declared that, as to those who may properly go abroad to complete their culture, the suitable time is after they have grounded themselves in the principles and scholarship of their own land. The Assembly therefore urgently requested the Presbyteries not to allow any candidates to go abroad into the schools of other denominations •until they have completed the course ofiered them in their own Seminaries.
A' most important modification in our theological education was also proposed in a strong memorial from Bethel Presby- tery, S. C. This proposed, in substance, that while the present curriculum of preparation should be retained, and even extended, for such students as desire and have time for it, an English course of theology, exposition, and history, shall be taught for
THE GENEKAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. . 641
others, witliont requiring either Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. This, of course, coutemphxted the licensing and ordaining of ministers upon this EngHsh course. The main plea urged was from the extent of the harvest and fewness of reapers. The comparatively- slow growth and small numbers of the Presbyterian body were ascribed to the difficulties our system imposes on the multiplica- tion of ministers ; while the rapid growth of the Immersionists, Methodists, and others, was accounted for by the facility with which pious and efficient men can rise to the ministry in those communions. It was urged also, that such an English course, added to piety, zeal, and good sense, would suffice to give us thoroughly respectable and efficient pastors. There was even a virtual attack upon the more learned training ; where it was charged that it led the students rather around about than into the Bible, which should be the pastor's great text-book, and that our classical candidates, while well posted in the languages, were often found by their Presbyteries more ignorant of their English Bibles than intelUgent laymen.
The committee on Seminaries, to whom this overture was sent, could not but find that it proposed a virtual change in the con- stitution. It therefore recommended the Assembly to answer, that the oliject of Bethel Presbytery could only be gained by moving the Presbyteries, in the orderly way, to change the con- stitutional rules for trying candidates for licensure and ordina- tion. The friends of the overture, in order to evade this fatal objection, then moved the Assembly in due form to send down the proposition to the Presbyteries for their vote. This the Assembly, after debate, declined to do, by a vote of 55 to 37.
To the aspiration for a more rapid way to multiply ministers no jdIous heart can fail to respond ; it is but the echo of our Saviour's words ; " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest." But to multiply them b}- encouraging those who feel the call to content themselves with an inefficient and shallow preparation is another thing. In making a comparison between the growth of our church and of those who permit an uneducated ministry, large allowances must be made for the instability of a very large part of the accessions counted, and even of the congregations organized ; the heterogeneous nature of those large communion rolls ; and the mixture and incorrectness of the doctrinal views held. If these deductions were made, it would not appear so
Vol. U.—41.
642 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
plain tliat the solid growth of these clenominatious is so much more rapid than of our own. Again, the change proposed would place us siibstautiallj in the attitude, as to a learned ministry, held by the Cumberland Presbyterians. It is, then, the plainest dictate of practical wisdom, that we shall ask ourselves whether we should gain by exchanging our present condition for theirs. Again, the standard of devotion set up by Christ for every Christian, and especially every minister, is that he shall not only purpose to serve his Lord, but serve him Jus hest. Hence, the jDrehminarj' question for every man called of God must be whether the classical and biblical training prescribed in oxir con- stitution is really promotive of a minister's hest efficiency. If it is, the same devotion which prompts him to preach at all must prompt him to desire this furniture for preaching better ; and if it is attainable, must prompt him to acquire it. But the posi- tion taken b}' our church is, that to ever}' man called of God to preach it shall he attainahle. She will help all who are worthy of help. Nor has her pledge to do so been yet dishonored. Here, then, is the ideal -which we would present, in place of the one so graphically painted in the Bethel overture : that aspira- tions of good men to preach should be as frequent and as readily multiplied among us as among Immersionists or Methodists ; but that the teeming crowd of aspirants should be led, not to a rash and ill-furnished entrance on their public work, but to this best preparation ; while the unstinted sympathy and help of their brethren should make their entrance into a learned minis- try just as practicable for every one of them, as the entrance into an unlearned ministry is to the Immersionist ; that is, sup- posing in all the aspirants a true zeal and devotion ; and with- out these, their aspirations would prove deceptive under every system.
The contrast between the candidate pretending classical train- ing, but ignorant of his Bible, and the plain man of God, mighty in his English Scriptures, contains an illusion. How comes that classical scholar to leave the seminary ignorant of his Bible ? Is a knowledge of the languages of inspiration, in its nature, ol)- structive of Bible knowledge? Surely not! Then the imperfect result must be due to the fact that this classical man has indo- lently neglected his better opportunities to know his Bible. Now, will the offering of another man worse opportunities ensure
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 643
hiiu against indolence ? Suppose the student of this two years' Enghsh course infected with a simihir negligence to that detected in the classical student, where will the former's line of ac- quirement be ? When his indolence shall have sunk him rela- tively as far below his lower standard, will not his acquirements be contemptible ? In a word, the expectation claimed is founded on a tacit assumption that, while many candidates pursuing the learned course are unfaithful to their better opportunities, and so exhibit inferior results, all the candidates pursuing the lower course wdll be models of exemplary fidelity and industry. Does the church see any guarantee of such superior spiritual princi- ples in these men, in the fact that they have deliberately elected a less perfect way of serving Christ in the pulpit ? We confess w^e do not.
A similar illusion harbors in the argument so often drawn from the primitive preachers ordained by the Apostles. These, it is said, wei'e but plain, sensible, business men, soundly converted, taught of the Holy Ghost, and set apart to preach without other qualifications than these, with Christian experience and " aptness to teach." They were required to study no foreign language, no cuTriculum of science We grant it. Let us represent to our- selves such a good plain man, in Ephesus, ordained during Tim- othy's days there ; probably like Alexander, a mere coppersmith. But this plain good man had as his vernacular the Greek lan- guage, one of the languages of inspiration. He was, by his own experience, practically conversant with that whole set of events, of miracles, of religious ideas and institutions, pagan and Jewish, which are perpetually involved in the explication and illustration of gospel truths in the Scriptures. Here, with his long experi- ence of divine grace in his own heart, his reputation for devout piety and integrity, and his forcible gift of utterance, was his sufficient furniture for the pastoral office.
But now, let us remember that to us of this nineteenth century that Greek language is a dead, a learned language. All those facts and ideas which constituted that man's practical, popular intelligence, are to us now arcJueology ! They are the science of antiquity. How much study of the classics and history will it require to place a sprightly American youth simply on a level, in these respects, with that plain Ephesian? We may find an answer by asking, were that Ephesian raised from the dead
6-44:' THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OP 1881.
ainong us to-day, only fnrnislied witli liis Greek language and ideas, how much study would lie have to undergo to become equal to this American youth in his mastery of the EngUsh lan- guage and our contemporary knowledge? Does the most thor- ough seminary course put its graduate on a level with that good Ephesian brass-smith, in his Greek and his Asiatic archaeology ? "We wish it did. We devoutly wish we could reach tliat level.
But does the apostolic example, in ordaining a plain Greek artisan, permit us to fall below it?
One of the most responsible tasks of the Assembly was to re- ceive and digest the remarks of the Presbyteries upon the Re- vised Directory for Worship. It was found that sixtj'-six Pres- byteries had complied with the last Assembly's order to examine and amend it. A few had expressed their wish that the work should be dropped, and their preference for the old Directory. Evidence appeared that some of the sixty-six judged the same, but examined and amended the revision only out of courtesy to the Assembly. All the reports of Presbyteries having been re- ferred to the Pevising Committee, that body, with commendable diligence, immediately digested them, and made the following report :
' ' The Committee appointed to revise the Directory of Worship hope that they are able now to present the Eevision in a much improved form. Their effort last year was, of course, only tentative. They were well aware that all they could produce of themselves must only serve as a basis on which it must be for the Presbyteries to build — a skeleton into which they must breathe life, and which they must cover with flesh and clothe with beauty. A number of the Presbyteries have devoted themselves with zeal and ability to this business ; and the work under their skilful manipulations will be found, the Committee trust, much more acceptable to the church.
"The changes made at the suggestion of the Presbyteries are numerous. The chief ones are an alteration in the order of the last four chapters, and the omission of all forms, except the one prepared for a funeral occasion where no minister ia present. All forms having been omitted, your Committee do not think it neces- sary to retain the Note about forms, which many Presbyteries desired to have in- serted in the body of the Directory. As the Committee has left out the forms, it lias left out the note.
' ' We have to report that a copy of the Kevision, as it now stands, is ready 'for the Assembly to dispose of as it may judge best. The Committee very respectfully suggests that if this body can afford the time necessary, and consider it advisable, the Eevision in its present form be now read aloud, that the Assembly may judge of the improvement. But if, on the other hand, this be not the pleasure of the .body, your Committee would then suggest that the Eevision be recommitted to be printed, and one copy sent to every minister, one to every session, and two copies
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 645
to every clerk of Presbytery ; and that the Presbyteries be directed to take up the work again for a fresh examination, and report the results to the next Assembly. (Signed) JOHN B. ADGER, Chairman.
B. il. PALMER, THOS. E. PECK. J. A. LEFEVRE, G. D. ARMSTRONG, W. \V. HENRY."
The Assembly gave the Revision this direction.
The Committee of Foreign Correspondence reported :
1. An overture from Holston Presbytery asking that appoint- ments to the General Presbyterian Council be distributed more equally through the church, at least one to each Synod; and that Synods make the nominations.
The committee recommended the Assembly to answer that it liad no power to regulate the action of the Assembly of 1883 which has to make these appointments ; but might express the opinion that they should be distributed so as to represent our church, and that Synods might be invited to nominate.
2. A request from the Council aforesaid for a small standing committee, with which clerks of the Council could correspond. The Assembly appointed its two clerks.
3. An overture from the Synod of Texas asking the Assembly to Appoint a committee to confer with a similar committee of the "Northern Assembly so that the two churches might avoid con- flicts in their labors in Texas.
The committee recommended that the Assembly' express its •earnest desire that brethren of the Northern and Southern churches in Texas should endeavor to avoid such conflicts, and cultivate peace ; but refer all such questions back to our Pres- byteries in Texas, to whom they properly belong ; at the same time recommending the Synod of Texas, in a way merely ad- visory, to seek to promote the ends of charity and edification.
4. The committee nominated for principal delegate to the General Synod of the Reformed Church the Rev. Miles Saun- ders, and for alternate delegate the Rev. John A. Scott.
5. A telegi-am being committed to this committee from the Young Men's Christian Association of the United States and British Provinces conveying Christian greeting to the Assembly, and referring to Ephesians i. 3, the committee reported an an- swer conveying to the Association the Assembly's Christian
646 THE GENEKAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
salutations and referring the Association to EjDliesians i. 4 and 5. Objection was made to tlie answer, as likely to prove offen- sive, and it was recommitted. Subsequently tlie committee re- ported, tliat on furtlier reflection, it liad grave doubts whether the Assembly ought to exchange formal salutations with any other than ecclesiastical bodies ; but that as in this particlar case, the matter had gone so far, it recommended that the Asssembly should reply liy " commending the Young Men's Association to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Upon the subject let us remark : 1. That the doubts of the committee appear to us to have a good foundation. If we are to go outside of ecclesiastical bodies with this exchange of salu- tations, where is it to stop ?
2. It seems to us that if an answer were to be given to the greetings of the Association, none could have lieen more ajf^o^^os than what the committee prepared at first. The objection to it was, that a Cahdnistic passage of Scripture could not be quoted to a body in which there might be some Arminiaus without offence. To this the answer is pertinent : 1, That the Associa- tion is not a body of Methodists ; 2, That Methodists receive that passage of Scripture as not contradicting any doctrine held by them, having their own way of expounding it, and that in fact, for the Assembly to signify by its action that a Methodist body could not tolerate two verses of one of Paul's epistles, was to be indeed offensive to those Christian brethren ; (3), That if the committee of correspondence had gone about to hunt up that passage, the objections made might have applied ; but that, as the young men had quoted only the first verse of the pas- sage, stopping short where there was no period, there could be fairly found no ground of complaint for our merely completing the quotation, and returning them the remainder of the passage, •^ith our salutations.
We must add, however, that this whole business of shooting off passages of Scripture at one another is not to our taste.
Our readers know that certain deliverances of the Louisville and Charleston Assemblies, respecting cases hi thesl, led to some discussion in the Synod of South Carolina, out of which grew an overture to the Assembly. This asked the supreme court, sub- stantially, to declare that propositions drawn "by good and
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 64T
necessary consequence " from the constitutional law of tlie cliureli by our supreme court have the binding force of law until constitutionall}' repealed. On this overture, the Committee on BiUs and Ovei-tures made a report on Friday night. On Sat- urday morning the Rev. Dr. Palmer offered the following paper in place of that acted upon by the Assembly the previous night, regarding the overture from the Synod of Sontli Carolina. It was fully discussed by Rev. Drs. Lefe\Te, Mnllally, Hoyt, Pratt, Molloy, Armstrong, Davies, and Shanks, and was adopted by an almost unanimous vote. The paper reads as follows, viz. :
"To the overture from the Syaod of Soiith Carolina the Assembly returns answer that all just and necessEiry consequences from the law of the chiirch are part of the same in the logical sense of being implicitly contained therein. The authority of this law is, however, twofold. It binds all those who profess to live under it as a covenant by which they are united in one communion, so that there is no escape from its control, except by renouncing its jurisdiction ; and it binds because it has been accepted as a true expression of what is revealed in the Holy Scriptures as inf alible truth.
' ' The consequences deduced from it cannot, therefore, be equal in authority with the law itself, unless they be necessarily contained within it, as shown by their agreement also with the Divine Word. "
This debate showed that harmony of opinion has not yet been reached on this vexed question. The paper finally adopted is a compromise, and is still ambiguous. It says, consequences de- duced from the constitution must be shown to be necessarily contained in it, by their also agreeing with the Divine Word. But the question whether the deductions so agree is itself a question of construction. The difficulty reappears. Its obsti- nate reappearance, after the almost unanimous compromise, in- dicates that a church government at once free and Presbyterian, as opposed to the mere advisory action of congregational asso- ciations, cannot be excogitated without admitting the principle claimed by the South Carolina Synod. Let us, however, glance at the debate. The side opposed to the overture cannot be bet- ter set forth than in the remarks of Dr. Lefevre.
Dr. Lefevre, in several short speeches, fully admitted that a just inference from given propositions was truly involved in the propositions themselves, but denied that logical inferences fi'om the laws of the church, as contained in our standards, were them- selves laAvs, and binding on the ecclesiastical conscience with the authority of the standards themselves. He affirmed that it isi
648 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
the doctrine of our Confession, and of all Protestant cliurclies, that nothing can be made law in the church but the Scriptures themselves, and immediate consequences jiistly derived from them. He contended that our standards were indeed a system of propositions justly derived from Scripture, and adequate for their purpose — that is, to be a bond of ecclesiastical union — and therefore binding the consciences of all those who have cove- nanted together on this basis, so that their only escape from the obligation is by withdrawal from our communion. But he con- tended that the standards were, by universal concession, not pure and complete truth, like Holy Scri]:)ture, but necessarily somewhat deficient and disproportionate, and therefore unfitted to serve, in turn, as satisfactory- premises for new conclusions having the authority of laio. These new conclusions not only might be, but in many cases would be, more deficient and dis- 23roportionate and far less conformable to Scripture than the propositions from wliich they were drawn. The full and strict authority of the law must stop Avitli the law itself, or we shall have an endless concatenation of logical inferences, at each suc- cessive step farther and farther removed from Scripture, until at last we are as* far from the Bible as Rome herself.
In this there is unquestionable force. This right of constru- ing a constitutional covenant may he alnised ; it may be so exer- cised as to infringe the spiritual liberty of members. But the compromise admits, even Dr. Lefevre admits, that the power to construe is unavoidable, to some extent. Where, then, is the remedy ? Where the ultimate protection for the member's rights and freedom ? In his privilege of seceding whenever he feels himself vitally aggrieved, seceding without molestation or per- secution. This is the principle, too much neglected in the discussion. The principles of our constitution are : that we acknowledge our Synods and Assemblies, like all others, to be uninspired and fallible ; that each man's entrance into our par- ticular branch of the church-catholic is his free act, and that he has an inalienable right to go out of ours into some other branch, at the dictate of his own conscience ; for we never held that our branch is the only valid one ; that when a member exercises this right of secession, we have no right to restrain him b}- any civil pain or penalty whatsoever, nor to revenge his departure by any excommunication from the church catholic, nor by any deuun-
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881. 049
elation even. Hence, if a cliurcli, in the exercise of its unavoid- able po^\-er to enact and interpret its own constitutional compact, should " err in making the terms of communion too narrow ; yet, even in this case, they w^ould not infringe upon the liberty or the rights of others, but only make an improper use of their own."
That the safeguard of the member's liberty is liere, and not in the denial of a right of construction to the supreme court, ap- pears very simply from this fact. All admit that the express propositions of our constitution have the binding force of law on us, while we remain Presbyterians. But it is just as possible for a fallible church court to err in enacting a proposition as in stating an obvious corollary. This is indisputable. Suppose the former error committed, where is the shield of the member's liberty ? Ultimately, only in his right of unmolested secession.
But that the supreme court mud j^ossess a power of construc- tion of the articles of the constitutional compact, w^hether liable to abuse or not, may be made exceedingly clear. The only al- ternative is Congregationalism. The constitution itself gives this power : " to clechle questions of doctrine and order regularly brought before it." The strictest opponents of the validity of " in tliesi declarations " admit it ; for they concede that when the Assembly sits judicially and interprets an article of the consti- tution hi hypothesi, its decision is law. But surely, the Assem- bly's passing into its judicial functions has no influence to make its logical inferences infallible. It may also err in Jujpotliesl ; yet, it is admitted its conclusions in Jiyjyothesi are law. This granted, the admission that the Assembly may err in thesi is not sufficient to prove that such conclusions cannot be law. Again, it is an admitted maxim, that " the meaning of an instru- ment is the instrument." "Who shall deduce that meaning? Each one for himself, or that court Avliich the constitutional com- pact has set up as the common umpire ? Again, that the As- sembly must have some such power of construction appears thus : the propositions set down expressly in any constitution, however detailed, must be limited in number. But the concrete cases of human action to l)e judged thereby are almost infinite in number, and endlessly diversified in their particular condi- tions. Hence there must be a process of construction, to be per- formed by some court, in order to show whether these varied cases come under the principle of the law. Again, in point of
650 THE GENEEAL ASSEMBLY OF 1881.
fact, our constitution, in tlie fullest details of the Larger Cate- cliism, fails to mention many actions which no church court in Christendom woiild now hesitate about disciplining. Under the Sixth Command, it does not prohibit duelling nor obstructing the passage of a railroad car. (The Westminster Assembly had never dreamed there would be railroads.) Under the Eighth, it does not mention forging bank checks, nor trafficking in " fu- tiires " in a stock or cotton exchange, under the head of " waste- ful gaming." Yet rumor says, that in one of our church courts a member was censured for buying " cotton futures." But our book does mention " usury " as against the Eighth Command- ment ; and every church court allows its members to take iisury up to six _^dr cent.! Now, it may be replied, that in all these cases it is perfectly clear to every mind the actions named are or are not breaches of the principles of the commands. This is true. Yet tJiey are not expressed in our constitution ; whence it is clear that some constructive process of logic is employed to bring them under it. It is a constructive process which is obvious and conclusive ; and therefore it gives a valid law. Just so. But every court, exercising its power of construction, will hold that its process is equally logical. So that we come again to the inexorable issues : that this right of construction mnd he conceded to the supreme court, and j-et that H may l>e abused. Well, what does this mean ? Simply, that no institu- tion, not even our Presliyterianism, can become a perfect ma- chine in human hands ; but that tliis Presbyterianism, liable to possible perversion, is better than Congregationalism ; and that, if the " worst comes to the Avorst," the scriptural safeguard for our spiritual liberty is to be found, not in the corrupting license of Congregationalism, but in the individual right of withdrawal.
The Assembly signalized its clo«e by creating a new Synod, that of Florida. Let us hope that this measure will give all of that impulse to the cause of Christ in the " flowery land " which its advocates hope from it.
At ^\ o'clock p. M. Satiirday, the sessions were finally closed, and the members began to disperse to their homes. The next Assembly meets in Atlanta, Ga.
A THOROUGHT.Y EDUCATED MIMSTRY.
AT first thought we are surprised to find that the best estab- Hshed principles should need reconsideration and reset- tling in ever}' age. Yet the explanation is not difficult. Some new pressure of circumstances, or some trait of mind in a part of the new generation, gives renewed prominence to the old objec- tions against the settled principle, and temporarily overshadows the more weighty reasons for it. For every practical question has two sides, contras as well as j'jros. Then, it is forgotten that those objections were as maturely considered as they now are by us, when our fathers determined the system for us, and were pro- perly overborne by the affirmative considerations. We are tempted to think that the contrarj^ reasons have never been re- garded as they deserve to be, and that we have a new light on the subject, until our innovating experiments, by their failure, teach us again that our predecessors had really looked more thoroughly around the subject than we had. Such a process has been for some Hionths engaging a part of our church, as to the general requirement of a thorough and classical education of our ministers. The two awakening essays which appeared in the October and January numbers of this lievieiv, entitled "An In- quiry into the Aggressiveness of Presbyterianism," are not the only outgivings of this movement. The overture of the Bethel Presbytery, pleading for a ministry vrithout any classical acquire- ments, and other declarations, evince the unsettled mind of many. Our discussion, therefore, does not derive its whole importance from the wide attention which the brilliancy, force and plausibil- ity of those essays are exciting.
The most of the points, so well made in them, we concede. Aggressiveness ought to be a prime trait of every church, and test of its fidelity ; for what else is her great commission from her
' The above appeared in The Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1883, and was written in reply to an article in the same periodical for October, 1882, and January, 1883, entitled "An Inquiry into the Aggressiveness of Presbyterianism."
651
652 A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
Lord, except a command to be aggressive until slie lias conquered tlie wlaole world? She ought to be able to reaeli the poorest and lowest. Presbyterial supervision ought to be wiser and more effective. There is a startling lack of ministers, calling in tram- pet tones upon Christian men. Looseness in examining candi- dates, false and deceptive verdicts of a scholarshijj which does not exist, and literary indolence in the applicants, are painfully inconsistent with our rules and professions. The practical rela- tions of our seminaries to our Presbyteries are most anomalous and mischievous. Our constitution, though of well proved wis- dom, is not inspired, and therefore its betterment is not impossi- ble. In our author's j^ungent presentation of these points, we heartily rejoice. The one point on which we take issue with him is his proposal to revolutionize our system of training ministers, in order to overtake our aggressive work more rapidl}'.
The argument for this proposal is drawn from a comparison of our numbers in the four Southern Atlantic States with the num- bers of the Baptist and Methodist Chui'ches in the same regions. The allegation is that they, no older than we on this ground, liave each made fivefold progress over us, in number of ministers and members. This fivefold growth is ascribed mainly to the facility and speed with which they multiply ministers and cheapen their labor, by reason of their not requiring classical education of them. The inference is, that we must imitate those denomina- tions, so far as to cease to require — though we shall still in^'ite — such training of our candidates. The author thinks that we need ministers whose grades shall differ in this sense, to perform the different kinds of missionary and pastoral work.
First, the fact assumed needs inquiry. Is it true that each of these denominations has done five times as much real work for Christ and souls as our ovm ? Our author claims this, and rather dogmatically forbids us to go behind their statistics, or to dediict any more from them than from our own, for inaccuracies. It is impossible for sensible men, acquainted vdth stubborn facts, to submit here. Our own statistics may be loose ; but theirs are doubtless far looser. This could not but result from the inde- pendency of the Immersionist churches, and from the notorious facility with which the Methodists demit or resume their church membership. Are all the hundreds of their "local preachers," in any continuous sense, laboring in the ministry ? Is not the
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 653
country riotorionslj sprinkled over with members who have not "been to the Lord's table for years, whose families frequent no church or Sabbath-school?
But both denominations have become far more numerous than ours. We freely admit it ; yet we do not admit that this has been the result of the inferiority of our system of rearing our ministry. Twenty other solutions of their success are listed; and but little influence seems to be assigned to any of them — none at all to the most — by our author. The really influential causes of their comparative numerical growth do not appear in his list.
One is, the broad scriptural catholicity of the Presbyterian Church. It is the most liberal of all churches, receiving all true penitents to membership, of all shades of doctrinal opinion, hav- ing no sMhholetJi, communing with all, unchurching none, who teach the essential rudiments of salvation. Now, everybody con- demns other people's liyotry ; yet every carnal man is naturally a bigot as soon as he ceases to be a mere indifferentist. Hence, this wide catholicity of our church is an obstacle to her popularity with the carnal, because she firmly refuses to give them this gratification of pride and dogmatism, or to allure them by any partisan bait ; but holds out only the pure and enlightened love of the holy truth of the gosj)el. It is well known, indeed, that this adverse world is in the habit of calling the Presbyterian the most bigoted church, at least next to the Popish. People think so, because she sternly refuses to cater to their secret bigotry.
But a second influence is more potent : our church presents to the world the humbling doctrines of the gospel with faithful can- dor : man's death in sin and inability for all spiritual good ; his entire dependence on efficacious grace ; the demands of a perfect law; God's eternal and essential punitive justice; the worthless- ness of man's works and sentiments for his justification ; the everlasting doom of contumacious sin. These are the doctrines which carnal man hates. He also dreads perdition. Yes, with a selfish dread. And therefore is he charmed with any theory of redemption which takes off any j^art of the edge of these hated truths, and yet makes plausible promise of escape. The Meth- odist church is avowedly Armiuian, and the Immersionists are j)artially so ; the independency of the latter has borne its usual fruit, the artial relaxation of the old Calvinism of the denomina-
654: A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
tion. Arminianism is semi-Pelagianism, repolislied and recon- structed. There are a few modern improvements. These were probably intended bj Mr. Wesley to make a compromise between the Arminianism of Episcopius, Grotius, and Whitby, and Cal- vinism. But there is no compromise. The attempt to patch the old garment with new cloth only results in a lack of consis- tent juncture in the Wesleyan theology, which gives occasion, in that church, for all the shades of preaching, from moderate Cal- vinism down to almost blank Pelagianism, according to the per- sonal impulses of the ministers.
Again, in competition with the Immersiouist churches, Pres- byterianism meets a capital disadvantage in scripturally refusing to countenance any shade of ritualism. She does not permit her sacraments to be misunderstood on that point by any one. Everybody comprehends, as to her, that she sternly rejects every plan for manipulating sinners into a state of salvation by a cere- mony; that she refuses to allow any process less arduous than that of a living faith, a deep repentance, including " the full pur- pose of and endeavor after new obedience," and a holy striving in duty and life-long watchfulness. It is true that all better Ini- mersionists profess to discard ritualism also in their dipping; but in spite of their disclaimers, the inordinate importance given to that form, with their close communion, practically encourage both a ritualistic and an exclusive temper. To the carnal, and €ven the partiall}' sanctified heart, it is very sedvictive to find one's self exalted by a s/t (Ijljoleth and a ceremony into a spiritual aristocracy, sitting nearer God's throne than other Christians. This powerful attraction Presbyteriauism will not and cannot use.
But doubtless the chief cause of the numerical spread of the other churches, and especially among the ruder classes, is the employment of "new measures." These, the anxious-seat, the altar of penitents, and others, known as "revival measures," have hitherto been almost universally used by Methodists, and generally by Immersionists. They are as influential as they are deleterious. They cater to the strongest passions of the sinful heart. By parading in public the ^'ivid, and often the hysterical, emotions of penitents, and especially of females, they offer to the populace that spectacular excitement which is as fascinating to them as bodily intoxication, and draws the gaping crowd as powerfully as a hanging, a horse-race, or a pugilistic battle.
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 655
Tliese measures also engage the passion of symj^atliy, a passion as universal as it is misunderstood. They allure the awakened carnal mind, by flattering it with the permission, yea, the direct encouragement, to adopt a gust of sympathetic excitement, a fit of carnal remorse, with the calm of the natural collapse which succeeds it, and a shallow, spurious hope, in lieu of that thorough work of mortifying sin and crucifying self along with Christ, which, we teach, alone evidences a title to heaven. No wonder that these " measures " have been found a prime enginery for re- ligious self-deception ; the patent process for building wood, hay, and stubble into the fabric of the visible church, instead of pre- cious metals and stones. If our consciences would permit us to resort to these measures, we could burn over wide surfaces, as others do, leaving them, as they do, l)lighted and barren for all more scriptural methods. Thus this unhealthy system Avorks against us, not only by sweeping the midtitudes, by unsound means, into these other communions, but by searing and harden- ing what is left, so as to unfit them for our sober but safer methods. These are the differences which account, so far as merely na- tural means are concerned, for the greater facility with which these denominations gain popular accessions. It may be said that, in urging these points, we are guilty of making " odious comparisons," and of insinuating, at least, disparagement of sis- ter chui'ches. If our reasonings on these points are untrue, then we are thus guilty. But if we are correct, then loyalty to truth requires us, in studying the comparison of results to which we are challenged, to state the true solutions. But we state them in no spirit of arrogance or insolence towards others ; for we ac- company these points with deep and sorrowful confessions of the imperfections of our own household. The nominal member- ship of all the churches, including our own, is, doubtless, de- jilorably mixed. T\'itness the prevalent worldly conformities; the incursions of dissipating amusements ; the decline of family religion and discipline ; the Sabbath-breaking by communicants, and even ministers ; the loose and unscrupulous methods of " making money ; " the indifi'erence of multitudes to the obliga- tions of old debts ; the practical prayerlessness of countless fami- lies and individuals. The correct inferences to draw from all these corruptions are : that any conclusions whatever from these hollow numbers, as to the methods of a real and spiritual effici-
G5G A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MENISTKY.
encj in God's work, are maiiilv out of place, and untrnstwortliv ; that the number of cotinterfeit coins among our supposed gains are too large to leave much place for prudent counting up ; that the church of Christ at this time is called to stndy gen tn'/iefiess much more than numerical increase.
If the question be raised, "vvhr (he church does not grow faster ? we are persuaded that the real answer, which most needs looking at, is the one which our author dismisses most hastily : that the fault is not ecclesiastical, but si:)iritual. The real desideratuni is not new methods, but fidelity to the old, a true revival in the hearts of ministers and Christians themselves, a faith that " feels the power of the world to come," a solemn and deep love for souls. AVliat we most need is repentance, and not innovation.
We are persuaded, however, that the Southern Presbyterian Church is contributing to the general advancement of Christ's cause, along with sister denominations, in ways of her own, which are not to l)e measured by numerical results ; and it is not arrogance, but truth, to view these contributions. In the natural " body there are many members, yet one body, but all the mem- bers have not the same office ; " and it is so in the ecclesiastical body of the visible church-catholic. Presbyterianism is provi- dentially fashioned and employed to do for Christendom her own peculiar part. It is the conservative branch of the family of churches, checking the departures of all the others from sound doctrine. It is the exemplar of scriptural organization. It is the sustainer of the more thorough education of both min- istry and laity. And we assert that, constituted as poor human nature now is, it is entirel}' reasonable to expect that Presby- terianism cannot, in the nature of the case, both perform all these her peculiar precious functions, and also compete success- fully for the largest and most promiscuous numbers. The two results may be now incompatibles. And hence it may be justi- fiable that Presb}iierianism should make the practical election^ and pursue these vital results which are peculiarly assigned to her in providence, though at the cost of resigning the more promiscu- ous numerical greatness. The normal school cannot have as many pupils as the popular school ; to do so it must cease to be normal.
The issue raised, then, is this : whether it is not now our duty to give up our constitutional requirement of a classically learned
A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED JIIMISTRY. 657
ministry, and j^rovide another grade of ministers, equipped only with piety, zeal, and an English training, in order to gain these numerical accessions, like our Immersionist and Methodist neighbors. It is not proposed that we shall lower the standard of learning in our Seminaries, or discourage such as have taste for it from acquiring classical training ; but that there shall be another wide door into our ministry, by which a large number of ministers of another grado shall be permitted to enter, with only an English education. On the other hand, we hold that our present theory of preparation should be left unchanged, and only more faithfully executed. The extent of this is, not to make classical learning so essential to the being of a ministry as to refuse the character of a valid minister to those who are mth- out our training, but to assert that it is a true source of increased efficiency; and hence, inasmuch as every one who avouches the obligation to serve Christ ought to feel obliged to serve him the most and the best possible, we conclude it to be our duty to gain that increase of capacity for service.
The first reason we urge against innovation is, that it opposes the dehberate judgment of the wisest and best of our fathers, when vie^ving and deciding the very same problem. Is it said that the tremendous emergency arising out of our growth of population has put a new face on the question, in the presence of which they would have decided otherwise ? No. Dr. John H. Rice, for instance, foresaw precisely this increase and this emergency. He looked full in the face the figures disclosing the slow relative growth of Tirginia Presbyteries. And in the pres- ence of these express facts this is what he did in 1825 : he devoted his great powers to pressing these two points, the evils of an uneducated ministry, and the equipment of Union Semi- nary. Never, for one moment, did the facts sway him and his co-workers to favor the hurrying of a single partially educated man into the field ; their only idea of the remed}' was, to pro- vide means as speedily as possible to give the most thorough education to the largest number of ministers. The same thing was true of the fathers who began the creation of Princeton Seminary in 1811, Ashbel Green, Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and their comrades. The same was true also of Moses Stuart in New England, and the men who created the Congre- gational (American) Education Society. They saw the solemn
Vol. II.— 42.
658 A THOP.OUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
emergeucv ; tliev appreciated tlie churcTi's slow progress iu over- taking it ; thev refused all other remedy for it tliau tlie one to wliicli they devoted their energies ; means for the thorough ed- ucation of more numerous men to reap the perishing harvest.
But it is suggested that there is substantial difference in the case now, because we now have a rich and profuse literature in English, covering all the departments of theological learning, whereas, "when the Presbyterian constitution was first de-s-ised (say 1649-1651), all was locked up in Latin. We are told that, even at the day of Albert Barnes, he had nothing in English to begin with, save Doddridge's Family Expositor.
This greatly misrepresents the facts. TTe must remind read- ers, first, that the dates of the creation of our constitution, as an American church, are not those of the "Westminster Assembly, but are 1729, 1758, 1789, and especially 1820. At the last date, which marks the real establishment of our poHty, the English -works on all the branches of divinity bore as large a ratio to the Latin then accessible to American scholar;^, both in quantity and value, as at this day. To make it much otherwise, indeed, at the epoch of the Westminster Assemlily, one must strangely forget the works of the great English Reformers a centray be- fore, fi'om Cranmer onward, many of which were in English. He must forget that the age of the Westminster Assembly was adorned by such writers as Lightfoot, Eichard Baxter, Manton, John Owen, the prince of expositors, Joseph Caryl, Sir Eobert Boyle, Bishop Hall, Matthew Poole, the Scotchmen Baillie, Henderson, and Eutherford, the evangelical prelates Usher and Leighton, the x^oet and divine John Milton, and a multitude of others. These men illustrated every part of biblical learning by -works which, to this day, are mines of knowledge for the more pretentious moderns, and that, not only in Latin dress, as Poole's " tS^nojJsis Critkorum,'' but also in English, as the same author's " Annotations."
Now, when we add to this noble catalogue of English biblical lore of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the yet more profuse works of the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth, how much is the trivial assertion of Barnes worth ? Not to dwell on the profound works of the scholars of the An- glican Church, such as Dean Prideaux, Bishops Hammond, Bull, Stillingfleet, Warbiu'ton, Waterland, Pearson, we remember that
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 059
age witnessed the critical labors of a Bentley and a Mill, the He- brew Grammars (in English) of Bayley, Fitzgerald, Joseph Frey ; the Lexicons of Parkhurst and Frey, the publication of Dr. George Campbell's Gospels, the vast and unsurpassed work of Dr. Lardner {Credih'dlty), the prophetic studies of Sir Isaac Kewton ami of Bishop Newton and Dr. Faber; ministers had possessed Doddridge from 1740 ; McKnight from 175G ; Dr. Benson from 1735 ; Palej-'s Horae Paulinae from 1790 ; Blair on the Canon from 1785 ; Lowth's critical works fi-om 1787; Whitby from 1761 ; Dr. Gill from 1763, unsurpassed, perhaps unequal- led, by any commentator since, who wrote on the whole Bible ; Matthew Henry from 1706 ; Scott from 1790 ; not to dwell on the long line of American divines from Drs. John Cotton and Cotton Mather down to Jonathan Edwards. No, the framers of our constitution did not require learning of their ministry because the stores of information were then locked up in Latin, but because they knew that knowledge of the originals of the Bible was essential to make a competent teacher in the church. Nor are the EngHsh books of this age on diyinity more learned, or accurate, or useful, than the former ; they are more fi'equently feebler rehashes of the very materials akeadj^ gathered by those admirable old scholars.
We have, then, the battle to fight over again for the utility of thorough education, and a knowledge of the " dead languages," to the pastor. Let us again define the ground we assume. It is not that the Christian ignorant of the classics may not get the rudiments of redemption out of English books, or may not so teach them to another as to save his soul. It is not that this plain man's ministry is invalid, because he is no classic. It is not that such a man, if greatly gifted by nature and grace, may not do more good than many Aveaker good men with their classi- cal training. But we assert that this training will be, to any man, gifted above his fellows or not, an important means of still greater effi^ciency, correctnetis, authority, and irisdoni, in saving souls, and that the lack of it will entail on any pastor a con- siderable (comparative) liability to partial error, mistakes, and injury of the church and of souls. Now it is each minister's duty to love God, not with a part, but with all of his heart ; and to serve him, not only as well as some weaker brother is doing, but with the fullest effectiveness possible for him, he being such
660 A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
a man and iu sucli circumstance as lie is. It sliould be with eacli minister as with the faithful and devoted bondsman. He may be gifted by natiu'e with a giant frame, so that with a dull and inferior axe he cuts more wood for the master in the day than another with his natural feeblness who has the keenest axe. By " putting to more strength," he may even cat the average day's task. But if, by grinding his axe thoroughly, he is ena- bled to cut even two da3-s' task in one, if he loves the master he will grind it. And even if his day is advanced towards the middle of the forenoon, if he finds that an hour devoted even then to a thorough gi-inding, -will result in a larger heap of wood well cut by nightfall, he will stop at that late hour to grind.
Xow, as to the high utility of classic culture to the educated man, the arguments which have convinced the majority of well- informed men for three centui'ies, have by no means been re- futed by the multiplication of books in English. Latin and Greek are large sources of our mother tongue. No man has full mas- tery of it until he knows the sources. Translation from lan- guage to language is the prime means for training men to dis- crimination in using words, and thus, in thought. There is no discipline in practical logic so suitable for a pupil as those reasonings from principles of syntax, by processes of logical ex- clusion and synthesis, to the correct way of construing sentences. As a mental discipline, this construing of a language, other than our vernacular, has no rival and no substitute in any other stiidy. And if the language to be construed is idiomatically different from the vernacular, with its own genius, collocating thoughts and words in its own peculiar order, as is the case with the " dead languages," this fits them best of all to be implements of this discipline. It is the best way for teaching the young mind to think. We do not dwell on the culture of true taste, and the value of the fine models presented in the classics. It may be retoi-ted that there is fine Miiting in English too ; why may not this cultivate the taste ? We reply ; these English models are moulded after the classic, if they are really fine. Is it not better to take our inspiration from the prime source than the secondary ? Moreover, they are usually so imbued with classic allusion and imagery that only a classic scholar can understand them. True, Milton ^\Tote in English ; but the reader needs to
A THOKOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 661
be as much a Latin and Greek scholar fully to comprehend him as to read Yirgil and Sophocles.
But the prime fact which determines the question is, that the Bible was given by God in Greek and Hebrew. The Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament alone are God's word. No translation or commentary is infallible. No man who must needs " pin his faith " as to the interpretation of a given phrase upon the " say so " of an expositor that " this is just what the Greek means," can be always certain that he is not deceived. Does one say, this is all the laity have ? Just so ; and therefore no such layman is entitled to become the author- ized teacher of others. " The analogy of the faith " may give the intelligent English reader practically a certainty that his translators and expositors do give him the more fundamental and obvious truths of redemption without any substantial error, and that he may be sure of his own salvation. But it ought to be the aim of the religious teacher, who undertakes to lead others, to attain accuracy also on the lesser points. No atom of revealed truth is useless to souls. The lesser error may per- chance be the means of leading some soul to the greater, even to the destructive, mistake. The duty of the pastor to go him- self to the fountain head of the exposition may be illustrated thus : an author offers to him his English commentary on Scrip- ture designed for the English reader. The pastor receives it and says, " That is well. But, Mr. Expositor, you yourself tested your own expositions by the Hght of the original Greek?" "No," he answers, "writing only for Enghsli readers, I myself stopped at the English version ! " That pastor would throw the commentary from him with indignation. But the pastor is the commentary of his charge ; they have the same right to require of him that he shall not stop short of testing his expositions to them until he gets to the infallible standard.
Again, it is often the pastor's duty to defend the correct ex- position of the truth against impugners. How can he do this successfully unless he is able to argue for the translation he as- sumes, when he is always liable to be assailed with the asser- tion: "I deny that the original means what you say." Shall he meet assertion only with bald assertion, while confessing that he himself is not qualified to judge whereof he affirms ? This would be a sorry polemic indeed. For instance, the pastor
662 A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
ignorant of Greek has declared that the word rendered in the Scripture " ju'jt[fy" does not signify an inward and spiritual change, but only a forensic and declarative act of God in favor of the believing sinner. The Roman priest rises and says : " Holy Mother Church teaches the opposite ; how do you know wdiat die word signifies'/" "I read what I asserted in Dr. Hodge's Enghsh Commentary on Romans. He says so." " But Holy Mother Church is inspired. Is your Dr. Hodge in- spired?" "No." "Do you know Greek, so as to assure us, yourself, that he may not be mistaken?" "No." "But," the priest adds, " the church is not only infallible, but knows Greek perfectly ; and she asserts, of her knowledge, that you and your Dr. Hodge are mistaken." In what a pitiful attitude is this " defender of the faith " left, although he is, in fact, on the right side, with nothing but an a,ssertiou and a confession of ignor- ance to oifset a more confident assertion.
It is woith remarking also, that an incomplete knowledge of the original languages is not to be despised in the pastor. A tolerable knowledge of the rudiments, which would not suffice him to originate independent criticism, may enable him to judge intelligently of another's criticism of the original. Or it may furnish him with the weapons to overthrow completely the arrogant assailant who knows no more than he does and yet boasts much. A young pastor in Virginia was once debating, during a series of days, the " Thomasite " creed with its founder, a man of boundless dogmatifc^m and pretension. He, like the Anabaptists of Luther's age, denied the conscious existence of the soul apart from the body after death. He boldly asserted that he knew Hebrew ; that the Hebrew Scripture gave no coun- tenance to the idea of separate spirit in man ; for that the Avord currently translated soul in the English version meant only a smelling l>ottlc ! The 3'oung pastor related that when Dr. Thomas began to parade his Hebrew he began to tremble, for he had the guilty consciousness that the dust had been gathering on his own HebreAV books ever since he left the Seminar3^ But the inter- vening night gave him an opportunity to examine them, and his Lexicon at once cleared uj) the source of the impudent assertion, b}' giving him under l^*«J3 ("breath," "soul") the phrase from Isaiah iii. 20 : l^'t^^ ''^3 " smelhng bottle " (bottles of odors). All, therefore, that was necessary was to take this Lexicon to
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 663
tlie cliurcli next morning, read the extract, challenge all compe- tent persons — of whom there happened t(i be none present — to in- spect his citation, aod show the absurdity of reading "smelling bottle" wherever l^^'i^w occurred. Thus, as he humorously stated, he hewed Dr. Thomas to pieces with his own smelliug bottle. Here a small tincture of Hebrew answered a valuable purpose : without it, our advocate would have had nothing but assertion to oppose to assertion. It should also be admitted that a critical knowledge of the Hebrew tongue is less essential to the pastor than of the Greek, and its lack less blamable. For the New Testament resumes and restates all the doctrines of redemption contained in the Old Testament. Hence, he Avho can be sure that he construes all the declarations of the New Testament aright, cannot go amiss as to any of the doctrinal statements of the Old Testament, though he has only the English version. But even this admission cannot be extended to the historical statements of the Old Testament ; and as they have an interest- ing, though subordinate, value for illustrating the plan of re- demption, the minister who knows Greek but not Hebrew can- not be fully on the level of him who knows both. For, in gen- eral, there is a sense in Avhicli the best translation cannot fully represent its original. Pope's Homer shows us Pope rather than Homer ; Dryden's Virgil, Dryden fully as much as Virgil. There are shades of thought, connections of words and ideas, idiomatic beauties and aptitudes of expression, which a mere translation does not reproduce. These points, lost in any modern version, are not essential to the getting of the funda- mentals of redemption ; but they clothe the teachings of revela- tion in a light and consistency which he that undertakes to teach. others ought not to slight.
There is a practical testimony to this argument. It is found in the example of some of the best of those excellent and useful men who have found themselves in the Baptist or Methodist ministry without classical knowledge. They, seeing its vital ne- cessity to the guide of souls, have given themselves no rest until they have acquired, often by unassisted study, a competent know- ledge of the New Testament Greek at least ; many also of the Hebrew. Their consciences would not suffer them to remain "without it.
This position is also sustained Ijy this vcny simple and natural
664: A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
view. 1 Timothy iii. 2, requires of tlie presb^-ter-bisliop " apt- ness to teach." This cannot mean less than didactic alnhty to explain the gospel correctly ; and we may grant that this would be sufficiently conferred by fair general intelligence, perspicuous good sense, the gift of utterance, familiarity with the Scriptures of the New Testament, and a personal experience of gospel grace. The intelligent tradesman or mechanic in Ephesus might pos- sess these. But ought not the modern pastor to possess this ininhnuvi qualification ? Should he not be abreast, at least, of the Ephesian mechanic ? Let it be remembered that this Greek, now the classic "dead " language, was then the vernacular. The educated Englishman must be no mean Greek scholar to have that practical mastery of the idiom which this mechanic had, granting that the mechanic had not the knowledge of the ele- gancies of Greek which the modern student may have sought out. But more than this : the events, the history, the geogra- phy, the usages, the modes of thought, the opinions, which con- stituted the human environment of the Xew Testament M-riters, the accurate understanding of which is so necessary to grasp the real scope of what they wrote, all these were the familiar, popu- lar, contemporaneous knowledge of that intelligent mechanic in Ephesus. He had imbibed it in his daily observation, reading, and talk, as easily and naturally as the mechanic in Charleston has imbiljed the daily facts about current politics, cotton ship- ments, familiar modern machinery, or domestic usages. But to US now all this expository knowledge is archseologic I It is gained accurately only by learned researches into antiquity. This imaginary picture may help to put us in the j)oint of view for understanding our argument. We may suppose that the chasm of eighteen centuries is crossed, so that an Ephesine scholar — not mere mechanic — appears in Charleston now, audit is made his dut}' to instruct his Greek fellow-colonists in the municipal and state laws. But they are printed in English, r. tongue strange to him, antipodal to Greek in idiom. Well, this difficulty may be surmounted by learning English, or, as our opponents think, simply by purchasing a translation of South Carolina laws into Greek ; though how this translation is to en- able him to guarantee his clients against error in their legal steps passes our wit to see. But this olistruction out of the way, he begins to read. He finds enactments about property in " cot-
A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTEY. 665
ton"! What is cotton? The wool which old Herodotns re- ported grew on trees in Nubia ? And property in steam en- gines ! And in steamships ! And in steam cotton-compress engines ; and in stocks of railroads, and in banks, and in gov- ernment securities ! And of buying and selling cotton futures ! And of valuable phosphate works, etc., etc. What a crowd of surprises, of mysteries, of astonishments ! How much to be learned, after the knotty, sibilant, guttural English is learned, before the book has any light to his mind !
We thus see that the plain Ephesine mechanic elder had im- mense advantages over us, inuring directly from his epoch, con- temporary with the events of redemption, from his vernacular, from his providential position for understanding the sacred books. But we again urge the question, Are we " apt to teach," unless we make up our deficiencies to a level somewhere near his? The modern who has become a learned Greek scholar and archaeologist has not done more than reach the level of this Ephesine elder. It were well for us if we had reached it.
Only one other point in this wide field of argument can be touched. The great apostasy of prelacy and popery was wrought precisely on that j^lau of a partially educated ministry which is now urged on us. As time rolled on, autiquating the language and the facts and opinions of the apostolic age, the church for- got the argument illustrated above, and vainly fancied that she would find the requisite " aptness to teach," as Timothy found it, in pious men taken from the mass of society. Men read church history now under an illusion. When they hear of the pastors and fathers of the early church as writing and preaching in Latin or Greek, because these are the learned languages now, these must have been learned men ! But it was not so ; these lan- guages were their vernaculars. True learning was not the requi- site for the ministerial office in the patristic ages. A few, like Jerome, had biblical learning ; the most were chosen without it, precisely on the plan now recommended to us. The Latin pas- tor knew no Greek nor Hebrew, but read his Bible from a trans- lation, precisely as our author wishes his new evangelist to do now. The Greek pastor knew no Latin nor Hebrew. The re- sult of that experiment is indelibly written in church history, the result Avas the gradual development of popery ; the " dark ages;" the reintroductiou of idolatry; the mass, bloody per-
6Q6 A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTltY.
secutious, and the corrnption of Cliristiaiiitj. This lesson is enough for us ; we do not desire to witness the repetition of the experiment. It was b}" just such expositions, founded on v. trans- lation, for instance, that the great Augustine, ignorant of He- brew, and nearly ignorant of Greek, but energetic, eloquent, and confident, introduced into the theology of the Latin church those definitions which it took all the throes and labors of the Heformation to expunge ; which made juzdi^oca mean penance (^pcenitentia); dr/M.iwa:^ mean conversion, and faith [Jides) a de- rivative of the verl^ jlf, "it is done/' tlnis representing faith as a work. Shall we be told that Protestants have now learned that lesson so well that there will he no danger of their being again misled on those points, even by uneducated guides '? Perhaps not on those points. But who can foresee on what other unex- j^ected points ? The ingenuity of error is abounding.
lieference is made to a literary revolution which is to extrude the study of the classics from their place, and substitute other (modern) languages for them, or modern sciences; and it is claimed that this revolution has gone so far, and is so irrevoca- ble, that in making the classics a requisite for preaching we narrow our field of choice to one-fifth of the fully educated young men of the country. We see no evidences of such a revolution as permanent. T\'e see, indeed, a plenty of rash in- novation ; but there is no sign that the educated mind of Chris- tendom will submit to such a change in the methods of liberal culture. The business school is relied on, indeed, to make architects, engineers, and clerks ; but real education, in ils higher sense, still resorts to the classics as the foundation. Germany, for instance, " the school-mistress of the nations," has her " real-schulen " for the training of the men who are ex- pected to devote themselves to the " bread and butter sciences;" but her (jyinnasia, where her youth are prepared for the profes- sions, hold fast to the most thorough teaching of the dead lan- guages. The ]jlea that we limit ourselves away from four-fifths of our young men by requiring classical training, is refuted by this simple view. The educated, In any mode or form, are a small fraction of any population. Suppose, now, we retort, that by requiring that sound English education in divinity, wliich is described to us as so desiral>le and srifficient, we preclude our- Belves from the whole field ol choice, except that small fraction ;
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 667
wlierefore we slioiild require no education, classical nor English, but ordain tlie common mass-ignorance. The reply to tliis our sophism would be patent : that while the church will not ordain ignorance, she does not preclude even the most ignorant, be- cause she proposes to educate (in English) and then ordain all worthy applicants. But if classical training is essential to the minister's best usefulness, as we have shown, the very same re- ply avails for us. The church does not exclude the four-fifths of the cultivated English scholars, by requiring of all classical knowledge ; because her call is to come forward and accept a classical education, and then be ordained. The man who is fit for a minister will not refuse the additional labor for Christ, when he learns that it is requisite for his more efficient service of Christ. But it is said, the man whose heart God hath touched, may have no Latin, and may be middle-aged, and may have, moreover, a family on his hands. The classical process is too long for him to attempt. To this the answers are two. Yery few men at middle age ought to be encouraged to take up the clerical ^^rofession. They must be men of peculiarly good en- dowments of nature and grace, or both they and the church will have to repent the unseasonable change of profession. And se- cond, for those peculiar cases our system already makes full provision. To any fit man's plea, that the preparation required of him by the church is hopelessly long, she has this answer : no such man, however behindhand in his training, ever fails to receive, among us, the aid and encouragement to carry him through the desirable training, Her answer is, to point to that noble and honored class of her ministers represented by the ex- planter, James Turner of Bedford ; the ex-carpenter, Dr. J. D. Matthews ; the ex-ship captain, Dr. Harding ; and to say to all like-minded men, if Christ gives you the imll, we pledge our- selves to give the way.
It is urged that, by our requirements, we actually limit God's sovereignty. He may have elected the devout man without Latin, while we practically refuse to have him. That this is a "begging of the question," appears from one remark: suppose it should be that God's election and call are to a thorough edu- cation, and then to preaching. But whether this is God's j)ur- pose is the very question in debate. To assume the negative is to beg that question. Should the aflirmative be true, then
668 A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
our requirements are not across, but in the very line of God's purpose.
We are pointed to the inconsistent execution of our system, to the perfunctory examinations of Presbyteries, the shameful ignorance of some candidates, the practical setting at naught of our own constitution ; and we are told that we have just enough of the old system, in name, to drive off from us the good men who make no pretence of classical knowledge, and yet not enough to keep out other men as ignorant, and less honest. Now, on this we remark, first, that this charge is not brought by us, but by others ; and it is not our mission at this time to af- firm it. But, secondly, if it be true, the inference drawn from it, that our slow growth and small success mainly are caused by a lack of this class of less educated ministers, will find its com- plete refutation in the facts charged. For surely no other so- lution of our scanty success need be sought, if those discredita- ble facts are true. If courts of Christ's church thus trample on their own profession and their own rules ; if they thus dishon- estly certificate ignorance as scholarship, assisting such imposi- tions on society ; if the young men who become our pastors have no more conscience than to contemn and waste the precious opportunities for learning provided them by the church, so as to come forth from them pretentious dunces ; if such grovelling laziness in the season of preparation is the measure of these young men's energy and devotion in their ministry, there is a mass of sin at once abundantly sufficient to insult our God, grieve his Spirit, and effectually alienate his help. Oiu' quest is ended. There is no need for our looking one step farther to find out what is the matter. Such a ministry cannot be blessed of a truthful God, and cannot succeed. The one work which remains for us is, not to change our constitution, but, with deep repentance and loathing delinquencies so shameful, to return to it, and live up to it. Let us try that first. If these charges are true — which it is no task of ours to affirm — let us execute our righteous rules in examining and licensing in such a way that God's truth shall be honored, real merit recognized, and dis- honest indolence shamed and banished from among us. Then, perhaps, we shall find that our ministry will be efficient, without innovating on the wisdom of our laws, approved by the experi- ence of centui'ies.
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 669
It is argued tlint since society includes various grades of taste, culture, and possessions, oiu' cliurcli is suffering for the lack of different grades of ministers. But we thought that the ixuit]/ of the viinistry was one of the corner-stones of our constitution. Methodists, or prelatists, can consistently have different grades : for they retain some features of hierarchy. Our church, in its very essence, is not a hierarchy, but a republic, Now, there is one sense in which, with an equally thorough education, we shall have, not grades, but sorts of ministers endlessly varioris, and adapted to all the various parts of our work. No two minds are exactly alike ; no two temperaments. God, who bestows the dif- ferent shades of nature, provides for this variety ; that is enough. All we need is to do as our author so well inculcates in his Janu- ary number — allot the right man to the right work by our Pres- byterial supervision. This is entirely compatible with parity. " There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." But when we begin to make a substantive difference in the educational privileges of ministers, to train them for different grades, these will soon be Airtually marked as higher and lower grades. Ul- timately, the forms will be moulded to the virtual facts, and we shall have, like the Methodists, the beginnings of a hierarchy. And whereas it is supposed that the more cheaply trained preachers will be specially adapted to the plainer and poorer congregations, our knowledge of Presbyterian human nature makes us surmise that these will be the very charges to insist most upon having the fully trained minister, and to resent the allotment of the less learned to them as a stigma and a disparage- ment. It is much to be feared that the new gi-ade will be ob- stinately rejected by the very grade of hearers for whom they will have been devised.
The desideratutn claimed is, that there shall be a way, like the Methodist mode, for giving many ministers their adequate train- ing without the expense and delay of segregating them for years in scholastic institutions, along with a useful occupation in paro- chial labors. Now, we are struck with the thought that our constitution provides expressly for just this way. It nt)where makes a college or a seminary an essential. All that it stipulates for, in the way of means, is a two years' training under " some approved divine." This, of course, throws the door wide open to the incoming of the very ideal i^ainted. The young man may
670 A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
join any experienced pastor, assist him within or without his field of labor, piusue his studies under his guidance, in connec- tion with these evangelistic labors, present himself before Pres- bytery, and, if his " parts of trial " are adequate, demand his Hcensure with the full sanction of the present constitution. Kow, if such a mode of training is so desirable, is so strongly a ■*'felt want," how comes it that none enter into this open door? 'SSh.j has there been such a rarity of such cases in our church since 1825 ? Why are not many learned and wise pastors — of whom we have so many — thus bringing on many godly candi- dates ? The obvious reply is, that the good sense of the church tacitly preceives this training unsuited to the times. Pastors practicallj' feel this, churches feel it, and the young men feel it. It is the same feeling which is to-day operating in the Method- ist Church to make them substitute this method of training, long so peculiarly their own, by one more nearly like ours. In a word, the door is already open. If the Christian commu- nity felt its need of this way, it would use it. It does not use it ; and the inference is that really it does not want it.
We have been told that by this way we should get a cheaper ministry for our new fields. Men thus trained, not having sjient so much in their training, would work on smaller salaries. Now, the only experience we have does not supj)ort this hope. Most of the Methodist evangehsts were trained thus ; but they really receive better salaries than the Presbyterian. When the various allowances are added up, theii's is found a better paid ministry than ours.
The urgent comparisons made between our method and that of Methodists and Baptists cannot but suggest another thought : that we, if we make the proposed change, shall be in danger of "putting on their old shoes just when they are throwing them away." If these denominations are good exemplars for us, then it is to be presumed that they understand their own interests ; their fine results indicate wise management. Kow, it is sig- nificant that both these denominations are now expending great efibi-t in making certain changes in their methods of rearing ministers, and that these changes are in the direction of the way we are now advised to forsake. They have tried, and are try- ing, two different ways. They are in a transition state. Before we make their way our guide, it will be well to wait and see
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MESflSTET. 671
wliicli of tlieir two ways tliey are going to approve finally for tlieniselves. If we are correctly informed by those wlio are in. closest intelligence with their influential men, these are yearly less and less satisfied with their old species of training, and more and more desirous to have all their ministry improve the advantages of the excellent seminaries of theology which they have founded. Hear, for instance, the testimony of Mr. Price in the Suutheim Prediyterlan :
" Aud, iu proof of this view, it is a remarkable fact, that those very causes to ■which this writer ascribes their more rapid growth, are becoming more unpopular every day with those denominations. "While he and others in our church are ad- vocating a lower standard of ministerial qualification, that we may keep pace with the Baptists and Methodists, these denominations are directing the most intelligent energies of their respective churches to raising their grade of scholarship ; their uneducated men are losing caste and influence ; the ministers coming forth from their theological schools are establishing a public sentiment and a more rigid rule of systematic theology, and of clear and accurate statement in doctrine, before which the loose and extravagant discourses of a class of preachers that once exercised a powerful influence fall under sharp censure, and are even occasionally exposed to ridicule.
' ' There are unlearned men in these churches, and such may be licensed and ordained in ours, under our provisions for extraordinary cases, whom the most in- telligent are bound to respect as called of God, and whose usefulness none can deny ; but when our Baptist and Methodist brethren are casting off certain methods, which they have weighed in the balance and found wanting, it becomes us to consider well before we take up that which they throw away, especiallj' when thej'' are free to confess that our example, and the evident fruits of our more thorough training, have powerfully impelled them towards change.
"The writer in the Review has heard of the Cumberland Presbyterians. If he has been correctly^ informed, he will find that no branch of the Presbyterian Church has, in proportion to its numbers and resources, more colleges, universities, and theological schools. If he attends their General Assembly-, he will be impressed by the distinct and painful line of demarcation between their learned and their un- learned men. And when he sees and hears some of the latter, though he may find much to admire iu the vigor of their speech and the vigor of their labors, he will not wonder that, as a people, our Cumberland brethren are making, perhaps, more vigorous effort-; than any other Presbyterian body to educate their ministry, and thus obliterate one of the distinctive features upon which they went out from us. When the Eev. Dr. Lyon brought into our General Assembly, some years ago. a report against certain proposals of union with the Cumberland Presbyterians, he did not hesitate to present, as one of the arguments of the committee that he re- presented, that, by such a union, our church will be brought under the control of an overwhelming majority of uneducated men. If some of the theories now in vo"ue among us are put into practice, we may reach this alternative without uniting with the Cumberlands ; and thej', in turn, by raising their standard, as they now seem determined to do, may be in a position, by and by, to raise the same objection to a union with us.
672 A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
^'e are reminded that our systen now requires a longer and more expensive preparation tlian the other liberal professions. And Avhy should it not, when our professional tasks are infinitely more responsible ? But facts here argue on our side again, in that society is steadily demanding a raised standard of prepara- tion from lawyers and physicians. Is this the time to lower ours ? The well-furnished young physician, for instance, gets, in his youth, a pretty fair classical education ; then he reads medicine a year with some doctor ; then, if he graduates in one year (most have to spend two) in a good school of theoretic medicine, like that in the University of Virginia, he does re- markably well ; then he goes into a New York or Baltimore hospital one or two years, to get the clinic instruction. And even the plainer country neighborhoods are now requiring so much of training of their doctors ! The other professions are advancing largely ; it is no time for ours to go back.
It has been often and justly remarked that it requires more mature training and ability to teach unenlightened minds accu- rately than cultivated ones. It was considered by discerning pei'sons the crowning manifestation of Dr. John H. Kice's trained capacity, that he could not only preach to the edifica- tion of General Assemblies in Philadelphia, but could go then to the Bethel Seamen's chapel and preach with equal effect to the rough sailors. If we are to bring poor and rude communi- ties into our denomination, then they will need the best trained, not the inferior, minds, to inculcate on them our logical and profound system. And as regards the frontier communities, there is no greater mistake than that of concluding that, because their exteriors are rough, the ill-furnished minister will suffice to in- struct them. The testimon}" of Dr. N. L. Eice, for instance, in the Assembly of 1857, Avas M'liolh^ the opposite ; and he spoke of his own knowledge. Said he : " The garb of the frontiers- men may be rough ; their dwellings may be cabins ; but they include the most independent, active, inquiring minds any- where to be found in America. It is the fact that their minds and temperaments are such which has made them emigrants ; the plodding, the slow, the minds that like to lean on precedent and prescription, and are content to be led — these stay in the old neighborhoods. It is the adventurous minds who seek new fortunes. A very large portion of them are men of thorough
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 673
education. The educated emigrant is most often a ' free-tliinker,' so-called ; for one main impulse wliicli pushes the man of cul- ture to brave the roughnesses of the frontier is, that he has broken all intellectvTal trammels, if not all sound restraints of orthodox thinking. Hence we find these frontier societies seething with most eager speculation, questioning all old foundations. To suppose that the good man of slim intellectual resources can control these minds is the most fatal mistake. The man who is to command them needs to have the most mature resources of learning at the readiest possible command. He needs to be a walking library, of the most advanced learning, not only in di- vinity, but in all connected studies." This witness is also true of our Southern frontiers. You shall see the " cow-boy " of Western Texas, sometimes reclining on his greasy blanket to read a pocket edition of Horace or Moliere. In their " shanties," alongside of the whiskey-jug, will be found the writings of Huxley, Bradlaugh, and Buchner, with the Westminster HevieWy and the works of Renan. Our evangelists confirm Dr. Bice's testimony, and tell us to send none but thoroughly furnished men to the frontiers.
It has been supposed that great gain would result from the alternative of an " English course " in our seminaries for such candidates for the ministry as could not find time or means for mastering the original languages of Scripture. A manual of church history might be taught, it is supposed, without involv- ing Latin or Greek ; and the exegetical and doctrinal studies would be founded on the English version alone. Were the teachers in these seminaries entitled to any consideration in this discussion, their friends might perhaps raise an embarrassing question on their behalf. Their time seems to be already fully occupied in the teaching of the fuller course to their classical students and the exposition of the Greek and Hebrew Scrip- tures, which alone are the ipsisshna verha of God. Shall they cease to give this course, in order to do justice to the other class of their students ? Or shall they give the latter class a light, perfunctory. Sabbath-school course, such as they will have time for? Would such a little sketch be a worthy training for a Presbyterian minister?
It will behoove the advocates of this system to consider three consequences which are very distinctly involved in it.
Vol. II.— 43.
67-i A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
One is, tliat it will admit tlie imperfect educatiou of a great manj more men tlian sliould be entitled, according to tlie new plan itself, to enter tlie ministry upon it. Men's over-liaste, or indolence, or ill-considered zeal, or self-confidence, will prompt many of the candidates to plead that they also are poor enough, or old enough, or gifted enough, or married enough, to claim to enter through the English door, of Avhom the judgment of our innovators themselves would be, that they had no grounds for claiming that easier way. The pressure of churches and Pres- byteries for more laborers to be speedily gotten will assuredly second their pleas. The result will be the general breaking down of our standard. The majority of our ministry will be the uneducated, the minority the educated, as it was in the other denominations in those old ways from which they are striving so hard to escape.
The second Avill be, that the students of the English course will be much at the mercy of the professor for their doctrinal and exegetical opinions. "^^Tien the teacher gives his construc- tion of the text, if the English pupils attempt to say that the Eughsh version, or the commentaries thereon, seem to sustain another meaning, he has only to reply : "I assure you, young gentlemen, that the original supports only my construction ; and if you understood that language, you would see it to be so." That is, to those students, an end of debate. Or else they must learn to hold their teacher in suspicion and disesteem, as a man capable of imposing on their ignorance. There will be one caste of minds which will resent this mental domination, the self-sufficient and crotchety. The consequence will be, that to this class their teacher will be no guide ; but this is the class to -R-hom influential guidance will be most necessary. Now, we surmise that this sweeping power in the professors of our sem- inaries will not be very agreeable to that large class of our pres- byters who cherish along with us a well-grounded jealousy of seminary dictation, and all other forms of centralization. It may be said, our present professors may all be trusted. But they cannot remain always. "Unhappily, such things have been known in seminaries as heretical professors, and yet oftener as crotchety professors, fond of riding exegetical hobbies. Shall we arm these with this dangerous power of leading off the En- ghsh students after their error ?
A THOROUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 675
The third consideration is, that if the new plan of training ig to be carried on to any successful extent, we must reconcile our minds to become a "broad church." We must lose our doc- trinal unity. Again, we advance the experimental evidence as the most solid. All the denominations which practice the meth- ods of training ministers proposed become broad churches. The Immersionists are a broad church ; we have ourselves heard Calvinism and Arminianism preached in it from the same pul- pit. The Cumberland Presbyterian is a broad church. The Methodist is a broad church. As we remarked, the "Wesleyan theology receives from Methodist ministers various interpreta- tions, from moderate Calvinism down to Pelagianism. There are ministers and presiding elders who hold the perseverance of the saints, just as we do. The church of Alexander Campbell is a broad church ; he himself declared that in it " all sorts of doctrine were preached by all sorts of men." In this we are not reproaching these denominations. We use the phrase " broad church " in no sense offensive to them, but as a ready and familiar phrase to describe a condition of things among them on which they congratulate themselves, namely, a toler- ance in the ministry of the same bod}- of different schools of theological opinion, within the scope of the fundamental doc- trines of salvation. But we only point to the fact that it has been the conscientious fixed policy of us Presbyterians not to have these doctrinal diversities and contrarieties among our official teachers. We receive all shades of opinion, compatible with true repentance, to our communion ; but we require the the voice of our official body to give one sound as to revealed theology.
Now, the experience cited above proves that if we are willing to lose this doctrinal harmony and unity, the chief glory of a church of Christ, we have only to imitate these other denomi- nations in their method of training ministers. The explanation of the result is easy. Human minds are imperfect instruments of thought, and their opinions naturally tend to variety and di- versity. Again, the religious world teems with competing clash- ing doctrines, each striving for recognition and pressing itself on others with its utmost ingenuity of argument The pro- posed method of training, by reason of its comparative brevity and imperfection, must leave its pupils more pervious to the in-
676 A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY.
jiuions religious errors wliicli obtiiisiyelv meet them. These diflferent " grades " of preachers will not have the unifying bond "with each other of a complete esprit de coops. The result wiR be doctrinal divergence ; and our chin*ch must either submit to become a " broad " one, or be again rent by schism. We are aware that there is no patent infallible process, in fallible men's hands, for transmitting a doctrinal homogeneity from age to age. But the means which comes nearest, the only means of any tolerable efficiency is, under the grace and light of God's Spirit, the thorough education of ministers in an orthodox theo- logy, and that by similar methods for all. Thus not only is the competent knowledge of the divine science acquired by all, and the practical skill in moral reasoning and exposition, which de- tect error and sophism in false doctrines, but all imbibe, so to speak, the Presbyterian and orthodox idiosyncrasy of mind. The doctrinal affinity in the correct creed is propagated through the whole body. Xow, he who really doubts whether the Pres- byterian theology is right, may also doubt whether it is proper to employ these influences for unifying and stereotyping men's belief in it. But those who, with us, are sure that our theology is right, will also feel that it is not only allowable, but our duty to wield those influences for making our theology permanent in our ministers' minds. It is the only human way to avoid the tendencies to " broad chiu'chism."
In conclusion, we most emphatically affirm all the regrets ex- pressed at our lack of a hoi}' aggressiveness, and every ardent aspiration for a remedy. But this remedy is not to be found by innovation upon our system, but in the reformation of the per- sons who work the system. What we need is not a class of imperfectly educated ministers, but repentance, holy yearnings for souls, prayer, and more abounding labor by educated min- isters ; more family religion and ti*ue Christian training in house- holds, which is, after all, the Presbyterian's main lever ; more self-consecration in oui* laj^men ; and especially our employment of the " dead capital " now lying unused in our eldership. The elder need not be a " local preacher," after the pattern of the Methodist " local," but the intelligent elder ought to be some- thing much better ; active in spheres of work which the church needs much more than sermonizing or formal "preachments," viz., catechetical instruction, teaching the gospel from house to
A THOEOUGHLY EDUCATED MINISTRY. 677
house, oversight, social meetings, exhortations, Sabbath-schools. Do we feel a " crying need " in our out-lying destitutions for such work as this, and for laborers to do it more cheaply than the educated evangelist ? This is precisely the work which in- telligent ruling elders ought to do. All the elders in Scripture, ruling and teaching, were required to be " apt to teach." Our conception of the New Testament organization of the congrega- tion Avould not ^ndl down a part of the ministers to an unedu- cated level, but I'ift up all the elders, including the ruling elders, to the level of official teachers. Each congregation was governed and taught, not by a one-man power, a sort of local prelate, but by a board, a plurality of elders, all of whom were teachers, though not all of equal teaching authority, learning, or gifts. But, to ensure full intelligence and permanent orthodoxy, we should require the presiding elder in this board to have the full equipment of well attested theological learning. One such man, thoroughly furnished, presiding over the board, and regulating and harmonizing their joint instructions, would give a sufficient guarantee of soundness in the faith. The others under him, in their less authoritative teaching sphere, would safely fill in the details of the work. The ruling elder would not act as cate- chist as though he were an independent integer, but as a mem- ber of the board, under its direction, and especially under the direction of the president, who is fully trained and tried ; even as he, in his public work as authoritative herald of salvation, does not act independently, but under the control of his presbyterial board, the Presbytery. Thus the didactic work of each con- gregation would assume a largeness, occupying several men's hands ; while the thorough theological furniture of the one man at the head would guarantee doctrinal safety in the whole. Such was evidently the apostle's conception in the pastoral epistles
INDEX.
Ability, meaning of moral, and natural. 301, 303 ; distinguished from power, 301 ; relation to responsibility, 304.
Abolition, 393; and the British Presbyterians, 528 ; and providence, 529.
Abolitionism. 214 ; allied to communiBm, 554 ; modern, 525.
Acts vi. 3 examiner!, 22G, 244 ; viii. 15, 24£ ; ix. 17, 245 ; xix. 2, 247.
Aggressiveness, an inquiry into, 651 ; true causes for paucity of our numbers, 653 ; real need, (>56.
Alexander, Addison, on beneficiary education, 69.
Allegheny Seminary, 54.
Amalgaiuatiou. threatened, 206.
Amusements, proper, 592.
Amyraut, on the sequence of the plan ef re- demption, 305 ; on the nature and design of, 307 ; distinguishes from redemption, 308.
"Ansel of the Congregation," meaning of, 128.
Anglican Church, view of ordination, 223.
Anti-slavery agitation, 393.
Apostasy accounted for, 665.
Apostolic succession, relation to prelacy, 218 ; theory disproved, 232, by the fact that there are no apostles iu the world, 232 ; by the fact that the thing to which it claims to succeed, priesthood and sacriflcp. does not exist, 233 ; by the fatal chasms which have broken it, 233 : by the gospel of the Old Testament, 234.
Appellate courts, their relation to inferior courts, 341. et seq.
Aptness to teach, 35.
Arminianism. its origin, 14,
Assembly at Louisville, 472, 474.
Assembly, General, power of correspondence defined, 541.
Atheism and materialism, G03.
Atlanta Assembly, the, and fraternal relations, 503.
Atonement, the statement of the doctrine of in basis of union with the United Synod, 305 ; the doctrine of in canons of Synod of Dort, 310 ; in the Heidelburg Catechism, 310.
Baptized non-communicants, their relation to
the church, 319, 384. Beneficence, gifts of, in 1881, 620. Beneficiary education, 68, 639 ; arguments
against, 69, et scq. Bethel Presbytery's overture on an English
course of theological education, 639. Biography of criminals. 164. Blackstone on ecclesiastical tribunals, 291. Blaikie's, Dr., view of the Pan-Presbyterian Al- liance, 536. Board question, the, 120, 124, 6.31. British law touching church's secular rights,
265, 267, et .«y,. British Presby tprians, treatment of our church,
528 ; our relation to, 528. Broad church, resulting from fusion of Old
and New Schools, 4«6. Broad-churchism, 440, 447 ; in the Northern
Church, 535 ; in the Pan-Alliance, 535. Brougham, Lord, on ci\'il rights of churches or
church members, 271.
679
Call to the ministry, what is a, 26.
Calvin, on dancing, 564.
Campbellism, its theory of grace disproved, 256.
Candidates for the ministry, how to multiply, 641.
Cardross Case, the, 269.
Catechism, Larger, on dancing. 564.
CathoUc Church, what it embraces and means, 434.
Catholicity, not inconsistent with denomina- tionalism, 451 ; of the Presbyterian Church, 653.
Charisms, special, 218 ; distinguished from work of the Spirit in bestowing faith, peni- tence, etc., 219; not necessarily an endow- ment of believers, 231 : correct view of , 234, 237. 240 ; the object of, 234, 236 ; apostoHc history, misconception of, 232 ; not an imme- diate instrument of true conversion, 255 ; distinguished from ordination, 256.
Chase vs. Cheney, case of, 277.
Cheney, case of Bishop, 271.
Christian liberty, 561.
Christians of America, the influence they should exert, 398, 405.
Chrysostom, false interpretation by, 228 ; on charisms, 237 ; on dancing, 563.
Church, the, a bulwark against tide of shame and misery, i07 ; the history of a study of heaven, 25 ; the meaning of, 434 ; the visible, 435 : and secular government, 402.
Church history, uses and resiilts of, 5.
Church and state, separation of, 598.
Civil courts. Christian's relation to and use of, 266,
Civil rights of churches, cases involving, 268, et seq., 275.
Civa war, the, bitterness of, 396, 403, 423.
Classical education of ministers, 642 ; need and value, 643, 659. 660.
Clive, Lord, God"s purpose in his life, 24.
Clergy, meaning of the term, 151.
Coercion party, 473.
Columbia Seminary, 50, 636.
Committees, nature of. 546.
Communion, terms of. 584.
Conimunism of the Liberal League, 595.
Comprehension, the theory of, 451 ; the argu- ment for considered. 452 ; method of evading duty of church bearing witness, 454 ; an ob- jection to, 454. 455 : theory of, never carried out practically, 457 ; an impossibility, 458 ; an absurdity, 458 ; and inconsistent, 458 ; ends gained only by indifferentism, 460 ; dis- parages truth, 460 ; extinguishes true life in the church, 461 ; a plea, 461.
Concurrent resolution of the Atlanta and Springfield Assembhes. 505,515 ; meaning of, 516 ; not a proper nwrmlr, 517.
Confirmation. Episconal theory of, 23(i.
Congregationaliets ana the Reformed theology, 535.
Constitution, governmental, can be made to order, 19 ; attempt at, 20 ; disastrous, 21.
Constitution of the church, the civil courts witnes^s of compact. 265,
Corinthians, First, xii.-xiv. examined. 249.
680
INDEX.
Correspondence, fraternal, 464 : by delegates deprecated, 502 ; history aud object, 506 ; General Assembly's power nf, 541 ; with Northern Church forbidden by its uurepented usurpations, 531 ; telegraphic, 621 ; defended, 622.
Councils, early, on dancing, 563.
Country, prayer for our, 393 ; the state of our, 421.
Courts, secular, wherein they have jurisdiction in ecslesiastical matters, 265.
Dancing, modern society's relation to, 560 ; a.i uttempted justification, 560 : the im- portance of the question, 661 ; to be con- sidered in the concrete, 561 ; in religious ex- ercises. 561 ; in Greek and Roman society, 561, 562 : testimony of Herodotus, 562 ; of Christian antiquity, 563 ; of early councils, 563 ; of modern Christian judgment and leg- islation, 504 ; duty of sessions, 566 ; testimony of Wesleyans, 566 : of Protestant Episcopal Church, 567 ; of papacy, 568 ; the argutnea; from this con?e(i.<»v, 568 : testim'^ny of the Scriiotures. 583 : an act of levity, 570 ; waste- fulness, 579 : improprieties in female dress, 571 ; a violation of purity in relations te- tween the sexes. 571 ; publicity no mitiga- tion of the evil, 576 ; warrant for discipline, 576, 579, 582 ; expressly prohibited. 576 ; evil tendency, 578 ; debatible ground, 581 ; rights of conscience, 583 ; Scripture illustrations of discipline, 580; what the church should do, 591.
Danville Seminary. 55,
Davidson, Dr., on the eldership, 137.
Dead languages, need and value ol. 659.
Declaration and Testimony, the, 262.
Denominations, different, in a Cathoiic church, 451.
DeQuincey, Thomas, on history, 6.
Diaconate, Dr. Girardeau's report on the, 624 ; its functions, 626 ; may be upon an enlarge j scale, 627 ; proved from Scripture, 628.
Directory of Worship, the Bevisel, 644.
Discipline, Revised Book of, 312 : history of, 312 ; ob.iection to on grouu 1 of danger of changing statute law, 313 : ambiguities, 314 : on ground of change in definition of an of- fence, 315 ; on ground of statement of rela- tions of baptized persons to the church. 319 ; on ground of ambiguity as to "actLal pro- cess,'' 325 ; on ground of incautiou in state- ment aa to process against a minister, 326 ; on ground of omission of provision for tem- porary suspension of privileges, 327 ; of omission of provision for tender treatment, conferences, etc., in special cases, 328 ; of ad- dition of certain provisions in " cases without process," 330-333 ; of making parties wit- nesses, 339 : of modiflca;ion, or statements, of review aud appellate jurisdiction of supe- rior judicatories, 341 ; of relation of appeals and complaints, 350, et seq.; Thornwell on, 356; some features commended, 357; cb- jection to its doctrine of ecclesiastical in- quest, 357 ; to its permission of condem- nation without process, 361 ; to its provision for removing unconverted members without process, 302 : to its definition of an " offence.'' 368 ; to its doctrine of relation of lower court when appealed from to court appealed to, 372 ; to the relation it assigns to baptized non-aommuuicant'--, 384 ; of baptized non- communicants. 384 ; for dancing, .566, 576, 589, 582 ; for thing.s not mala per se, 536.
Distinctive doctrines of Southern Presbyteiian- ism, 4('.4, 466.
Divine warrant for eldership. 120.
Division of ihe church. Southern Christiars not responsible for, 500.
Doctrinal faithfulness of Presbyterian Church. 653.
Dogmatism of ministers explained, 285. Dort, Synod of, on atonement, 310. Duelling. 317.
Ecclesiastical equality of negroes, 199.
Ecclesiastical history, uses of, 5.
Education, theological, memorial on, 47 ; shall it be subject to collegiate rules, 59 ; bene- ficiary, 68, 639 , co-operation in, 170 : unpopu- larity of the cause accounted for, 633 ; of the ministry, a thorough, 651 : lowering of stan- dard, 652 : reasons against lowering, 657.
Eldad and Medad no warranc for lay preach- ing, 76.
Elders preaching, 82.
Eldership, theori 'sof the. 119 , renewed discus- sion of principles natural, 119, 120: subject connected \vith that of Boards. 120; the /(« dimmiiii, 120 ; accep.ed general princiijles, 121 ; divergent views as to extent of botm- daries fixed by divine legislation, 121 ; the Repertory's statement of the jus divinum in- accurate and ambiguous, 12'2 ; the true doc- trine, 122 ; and the application of it, 123 : its relation to the Boara question, 123 : things not commanded are forbidden. 124 ; tlda proved, 125 : applied to theories of eldership, 126 ; the theory of the Repertory, 127 ; the question stated, 128 ; ruling elders true i—cTxii^oi proved by the government of the Hebrew Church, 123 ; by the meaning and usage of words, 130 ; by the fact that a plu- rality were found in single small cburches, 135 ; by direct Scripture proofs, 138 ; by the fact that unless they are true i—'.ft/.u—di there is no warrant for the office at all, 141 ; objection answered, 144 ; historical testimony and corollaries, 148 ; the Book of Govern- ment, 1.50 ; the ruling elder's functions sacred, 151, and essential, 154; human substitutes, 156.
Eldon, Lord, decision of. 268.
Klizabeth, Queen, relation to the church, 218.
Emotions, improper, excited by dancing. 572.
Eaglish course in our seminaries, 641.
Episcopal Church, on dancing, 567 ; the Re- formed, 224.
irzia/.onoi, meaning and usage of the word, 130.
Equality, radical view of, 595 ; negro ecclesias- tical, 199.
Equity, vnolated in the Walnut Street Church case, 283.
Evangelical Alliance, inconsistency of, 459 ; iti treatment of our chtirch, 529.
Executive agencies discussed, C22-629 ; the evils attendant upon, 630, 631 ; reforms needed and likely, 634.
Faculties, distinguished from susceptibilities, 304.
Farris, R. P., elected moderator, 620.
Federal allegiance '-. State, 473.
Federal courts, jurisdiction of, 264.
Fictiun. its difficulty. 158.
Fictitiotis writings evil, 15^, because they are rarely true a= delineations of nature, 158 ; because they afford morbid cultivation of feelin:.'9 and sensibilities, 160 ; and injure the moral character and affect mental in- dustry, 100 ; because they are rarely pure in sentiment and description, 162 ; because they insinuate error, 163 ; because of the insidi- ousness of the evil, 166 ; a warning against, 167.
Fidelity to the church, test of. 651.
Forbearance, the Christian duty of, 495-500.
France and Protestantism, 18.
Fraternal relatione, with the alliance churches, 530 ; with the Northern Church, 297, 472 ; his- tory of, 472 : a compromise, 475 ; blunders.
INDEX.
681
479 ; meaning of, 479. 481, 482 ; objections to. 479, flf.; dangers of, 483; answers to cavils, 489 ; the risks involved, 492 ; commercial and political amity no argument for, 493, 504 ; views of N. L. Rice, 494 ; not justified by apos- tolic example, 495 ; resistance towards, not malice or revenue, or " sore-headedness." 496. 503 ; the sincerity of the Northern Church in its evil deliverances no mitigation of the evil, 498; the question beset with entangle- metite, 501, 505 ; three solutions proposed, 501, 502 ; the Atlanta Assembly, 503 ; resist- ance not wrangling, 503 ; the Pan-Alliance. 505 ; the qiiestion cleared, 500 : New and Old School fusion forbids, 508 ; tyrannical legis- lation, 509 : doctrines do not change as men die, 512 ; pecimiary considerations no argu- ment for, 519 ; tendency to fusion, 521.
Freesfflilism, 393.
French Revolution, the, 410.
Fusion with the Northern Church, its meaning, 492 ; fraternal relations tend towards, 521 ; the object of its Northern advocates, 521 ; results of, 522.
General Assembly, proper relation to theolo- gical seminaries, 48-50.
General Assembly of 1837, Old School, 300 ; principles reaffirmed, 301.
General Assembly of 1861. its usurpations, 466.
Genr ral Assembly of 1881. 618 ; its meeting place, 618 ; the opening sermon, 619 ; organi- zation, 020 ; reports on beneficence. 620 : tel- egraphic correspondence, 621 ; retrenchment and reform, 622 ; the diaconate, 024 ; and its functions and scope, (izir-iiW evils of our executive system. 6-30 ; education cause, 633 ; reforms needed, 634 ; case of Mr. Turner, 635; Columbia Seminary, 636 , theological stu- dents allured to the North, 637 ; Bethel Pres- bytery's overture on Englisl course, 639 ; the classical education of ministers. 642 ; Kevi'^e I Directory of Worship, 644 ; foreign corres- pondence, 64.5 ; y. Bl. C. A., 616 ; in tlusi de- liverances, 647-650.
Gibson, Chief -Justice, decision of, 280, 281.
Government, limitations of a constitutional, ]25, 144 ; its object, 595 ; founded on theism, 602.
Hamilton, SirWm., use of the term suscepti- bilities, 305
Hammond's Paraitiesis. 228.
Harmon vs. Dreher, case of. 276.
Hebrew Church organization, 128.
Heidelberg Catechism, on atonement, 310,
Henry IV,, history's verdict upon, 18 ; the de- fection of, 17.
Herodotus, on dancing. 562.
Hildebrand, Gregory VII., 226.
Historical knowledge, progress in the result of labor. 8 ; not comparatively barren and un- fruitful. 8.
Historical theology compared with dogmatic, 15.
History, digesting of, beset with difficulties, 9 ; the philosophy of, 8 ; many of the facts in- tangible aad invisible, 9 ; conditions of di- verse, 9 ; the facts may not be correctly de- livered to us, 9 ; true color and proportions of surroundings may not be well understood, 10 ; recnrils no longer remain, 10 ; our de- ductions may be warped or prejudiced, 11 ; yft not a fruitless study, 11 ; a complete arsenal, 14 ; a school of experience, 13, 19 ; and of wisdom, 19 ; aad revelation, 23 ; in- fluence of its study upon legislators, 21 ; need of illustrated, 22 ; to what it points, 24 ; universal, the evolution of God's purpose, 23; is a unit, 23 ; revelation the true key to un- lock its mysteries, 23 ; what is required of the student of, 6 ; value, 160 ; practical re- sults of its study to the statesman, 11 ; to the ecclesiastic, 12 ; to the student of human
nature. 12 ; and of human institutions or devices. 13.
History, church, uses and results of, 5 ; quali- fications for the study of, 6 ; relation to philosophy, 7 ; dignity and importance. 8 ; fruitfuluess, 8 ; difficulties, 9 ; arising from intangibility, 9 ; from diversity of conditions, 9 ; from uncertainty of the record, 8, from iguorance of the proportions and color of past tr.-insactions, 10 ; absence of records, 10; surface facts of valuable, 11 ; gives know- ledge of human nature, 12 ; condemns bad institutions, 13 ; refutes errors, 14 ; gives fulness, maturity and symmetry to theologi- cal knowledge, 15 ; warns and purifies moral judgments. 16 ; this illustrated, 17 ; teaches true political wisdom, 18 ; enlightens legis- lation, 21 ; is the unfolding of the divine purpose, 23 ; lessons of, 443.
History, ecclesiastical, uses and results of, .5-14.
Hodge, Charles, on Revised Discipline, 31S ; on definition of an '• offence," 369.
Hoyt, Thomas A., sermon of, 618.
Huguenots and Henry IV. , 17.
Inability, total. .303 ; what it is, 304.
Inaugural address in Union Seminary, 5.
Independence of the Southern Church, it» good results. 493. 521 ; to be maintained, 526.
Infra, and sujiralapsarianism, distinction ig- nored by Westminster divines, 306.
Ingersoll, Robt., connection vrith the Liberal League, 594.
Inquest, ecclesiastical, 357 ; objections to, 357.
In thesi deliverances, their effect, 646-650.
Ipso facto act of the Assembly, 262.
Jackson, T. J., (Stonewall) appeal for peace 420.
John XX. 21, 22, examined. 224.
Johnstone, Chancellor Job, decision of touch- ing church's relation to property, 276.
Judicial procedure, who are proper subjects of, m2.et scq.
Jurisdiction, of Federal courts, 264.
Jus dnu'mim, the. 122 ; its umits and applica- tion, 122-124; apphcation to eldership ques- tion, 126.
King, Dr., of Scotland, on the eldership, 137. Knoxville Assembly of 1878, its action criticised, 549 ; objections to its action, 552.
Laboring classes in the North, worse than slaves, 596 ; their real grievances, 597.
Lascivious dances, 590.
Latitudinarianisiii, and private judgment, 451 ; in the Northern Church, 34; evidences of, 487 ; in the Pan-Alliance, 535.
Layman, the ruling elder not a simple, 150.
Lay-preaching, 76 ; charitable judgment of, 77; what it teaches, 77 ; Eldad and Medad mis- quoted in support of, 76 ; success not a guaran:ee of soundness, 78 ; Christ has i r- daiued the mode of preaching, 78 ; lacks sanction, 80 ; lacks responsibility, 80 ; tends to broad-churchi-ni, 80; evil imitators of good men, 81 ; solution of the difficulty. 84 ; results as a measure, 86 ; plea of undenomi- nationalism wor.hltss, 91 ; u.eof singing and abuse, 94.
Liberal League, the, 594 ; its first professed ob- ject, 594 ; its communism. 594 ; its philosophy, 595, 596 ; demands of, 598.
Liberty, radical interpretation of, 595 ; religious, threatened, 442.
Locke's, John, attempt at framing a govern- ment, 20.
Lotteries, 317.
Louisville Assembly, 472. 474.
Louisville, Chancery Circuit Court of, 262, 278.
682
INDEX.
Lotusvjlle PreBbytery, 262.
Luther's reply to Zwingle, appeal for unity, 432.
Macaulay's defence of Sir J. Maeintosli, 16.
Macintosh, Sir J., Macaulay's defence of, 16.
McCosh, James, and slavery, 544.
McCune case, 487.
McGutfey's, W. H., appeal for peace, 419.
McMillan's, Rev. air., before Presbytery of Car- dross and Assembly, 269.
McPheeters. S. B.,507.
Marshall, Chief -Justice, quoted, 267.
Martin, S. T., in advocacy of reform measures, 622 : views not visionar?, 632.
Materialism and atheism, 603.
Membership, short road out of, 332 ; proved wrong. 3.34. etseq.
Middleton, Dr. Couyers, view of late miracles, 239.
Miller, Dr. Samuel, on th3 eldership. 126 ; views of not borrowed from Neander, 132.
Ministerial support, 184 ; principles involved, 184 ; desiderata in connection with, 185 ; causes of difficulty. 186 ; remedy, 186 ; objec- tions answered, 189 ; pastoral letter on, 191 ; what is an adequate, 191 ; why insufficient salaries are given, 192; testimony of Scrip- ture, 193 ; hindrances to ministerial efficiency, 194 ; effects of increased secular ijrosperity, 197.
Ministers of the early church elected by the brethren, 257 ; their endowments, 257 ; pro- cess against, 320 : are heralds. 450, 460 ; mes- sage received through the church, 453.
Ministr>% what is a call to the, 20 : not a special call like that to projihets and priests, 26 ; texts that have been misquoted, 26 ; not a mystical call, some voice, etc., 26 ; it is to be found in God's word, 27 ; the expression of the divine will, 27 ; expressed through the Bible, the candidate's judgment, and the church's recognition, 27; the complete self - consecration required of believers, 28 ; the qualifications, 29 ; call determined by out- ward circumstances and qualifications, 29 ; the leadings of providence, 30 ; a call to, af- fected by considerations of health, voice,know- ledge, 30 ; yet a temporary absence of these often a test rather than disqualification. ,30 ; piety, 31, 32 ; the relation of strong de=ire.
33 ; absence of desire not a disproof of duty,
34 ; but a sin, 34 ; a fair reputation, 35 ; re- spectable force of character. 35 ; some Chris- tian exijerience, 35 ; aptness to teach, 35 : supposed absence of talents, 36 ; the scholar- ship required, 36 ; physical disqualifications, 37 ; the demand for ministers. 38 ; the indif- ference to tlie claims of. 39 ; especially in Virginia, 40 ; other ijrofessions better sup- pUed, 41 ; relation to other callings, and rel- ative need, 42 ; Holy Sxiirit operates through the reason, conscience, sanctified affections, 43 ; fervent prayer to be made, 44.
Ministry, a thoroughly educated, 651 ; shall
there be a lowering of the standard 656 ; rea- I sons against lowering. 657. etseq., 674; shall
there be gradations, 052, 6.56. Miracles, the need for, 234, 237 ; of the third
and foui'th centiu-ies, 239 ; ambiguity of the
term as used by the fathers, 240. Mohammedanism, Sod's use of, 24. Moody, D. L., 77 ; errors of, 86, etseq. Moral rules, the church may not make, 497. Mormonism, 499. Mortmain in America, 293.
Natural morality, inadequate. 606.
Negro equality, 199 ; ecclesiastical o\erturepn,
unseasonable, 200, 208 ; unpractical, 202 ;
tends to division, 204; practical results, 206, 209 ; abolitionism, 214.
Kegroes, the ecclesiastical equality of, 199 ; un- '• taniBtworthiness for position, 203 ; sentiment
towards. 205 ; suffrage. 205 : equality, 206, 210<
amalgamation, 200, 208 ; suttrage, negro. 205. New England Theology, historical argument
against, 14. ' ' New measures " account for swollen numbers,
654. New School Assembly, organization of, 279. New School Presbyterians in the South, 298: an
appeal to, 176 ; their soundness. 177 ; reason
for union with the Old School church, 177. New Schoolism accepted, 485 ; and endorsed by
the Northern Church. 508. Novel reading, 158. {Hee Fictitious Writings.)
Offence, what constitutes an, 315, 317, 318, 368.
Officers of the church, the number of, 142.
Old School, Assembly, its exscinding acts, 279 ; party in the North, its desire for support, 474 ; its absorption, 485.
Ordination, to whom shall it be administered, 201 ; danger of, 492, 624 ; does not confer, but recognizes ministerial qualifications, 222, 229 ; view of Anglican Church, 223 ; the pur- chase of. 226 ; of negroes, see }>eijro Bcclesias- tical Equal, til.
Original languages, knowledge of needful on part of the ministry, 661, 659.
Onginal parties, who are. 315, 349, 3S1.
Original sin, the statement of the doctrine in: the basis of union with United Synod. 301.
Orthodoxy and fundamental doctrines, 449.
Palmer, B. M,, tribute to, 311; on fraternal rela- tions. 470 ; on the Pau-AlUance, 536 : elected to Columbia Seminary and church, 637.
Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, 528 ; ineffective, 528 ; alUes us with those who treated us with con- tumely, 529 ; involves a dishonest compro- mise, 530 ; objection to it is not sulkiness or sore-headedness but principle, 532 ; not needed to prevent insulation, 533; a needless ex- pense, 5/>4 ; exposes to the dangers of lati- tudinarianism, 534 ; contains an anti-Protest- ant germ, 530 ; opposed to true Presbyterian- ism, 552 ; and is unconstitutional, 540 ; an en- tangleaient, 505 ; and is not of the nature cf correspondence, 541 ; its concessions, 643 ; no answer to charge of broad churchism, 643 ; relation to those who held to slavery, 514 : expensiveness, 545 : unconstitutionality, 546 ; an Irresponsible organization, the handiwork of irresponsible persons, 547 ; seeks numbers, rather than consistency, 548 : relation to the Southern Church, 549 ; action of the Knox^^llo Assembly, 549 ; meaning of the invitation to eater. .551 ; objection to KuoxviUe Assemblj^'s action, .552 ; iavolves an insult to our accusers, 553 ; degradation, inconsistency and criminal betrayalof truth, 553 ; forfeits an opportunity of asserting our good name, and settling a di- vision, 553 : unjust to our commissioners, 554 ; opens the way to perversion, 555 : illustrated, 556 ; makes light of a fundamental ground for separation, 557 : imphes a falling away from our testimony, 557 ; an error that may be cor- rected, 559.
Pantheism in modem unbelief, 605.
Parochial duties during seminary life, 66.
Pastor, who may vote for, 321.
Pastoral qualifications misapplied, 230.
Paterson, case of. before Presbytery of Punbar, of Estabhshed Church of Scotland, 270.
Patriotism, the best motive for, 401 ; indi%-idual relation and duty, 407.
Peace, the Christian's duty to study the things that make for, 412 ; appeal to Christians in be- half of, 113 ; various signers of appeal for, 419, 420 ; if secured without agreement in doctrine, it is at the cost of indifference, 459.
Pelagianism revived in the New England The- ology, 14.
Penalty of guilt. 308.
Pentecost, 225 ; Peter's sermon at, 242.
IHDEX.
683
Philadelphia Assembly, its usurpations, 472, 473.
Philosophy, history of, 7.
Piety, as related to a call to the ministry, 32, and political excitement, 402.
Political agitation, effect upon spiritual life, 402.
Political philosophy, the prevalent, and its perilous nature, 595.
PoUticians and Rome, 22.
Popery, historical argument against, 13 ; and the politicians, 22 ; involved in the Pam-Alli- ance, 537.
Prayer for our country, 393.
Preach, the call to, 2U.
Preaching, the divine ordination of, 78 ; by wo- men, see Women, jnthlic preaching of; by negroes ; see Segro Ecclesiastical Equality.
Prelacy, a blunder, 218 ; by whom held, 218 : tactual succession its corner stone, 218 ; the theory explained, 219 ; claim of a charisma vmfounded, 219 ; it is a system of ecclesias- tical jugglery, 220 : the rival scheme, 220, and its basis, 221 ; prelacy favorable to priest craft and spiritual tyranny, 221 ; based upon the theory that ordination confers gifts, 222 ; falsely claims the Scriptures in which special gifts were promised, 222 ; Kome declares the gifts of the Spirit in ordination not to be the illumination and e a notification, 223 ; the doc- trine of the Anglican, 223 ; the texts quoted do not support the dogma, 2J4-226 ; historical proof of prelatists' false foundation, 226 ; the traditionary and original ground of prelacy,
228 ; relation to dogma of sacramental grace,
229 ; defective apprehension of the doctrine, 229, 230 ; the apostles' conferring supernatu- ral gifts no proof of continuance of this gift or any special grace in ordination, 232 ; there are now no apostles. 232 ; no priesthood, 233 ; a break ia the succession, 233 ; succession re- futed by Old Testament gospel, 234 ; the correct view of special gifts, 234 ; temporary. 234 ;for " signs," 235 ; miracles, if continued, would not be miracles, 237 ; proof of (he fore- going, 237-239, 241-251 ; fourth century mira- cle, 239 ; Peter's case, 241 ; Pentecost, 242 ; the appointment of deacons, 244 : Philip, Simon Magus, 245 ; Saul of Tarsus, 246 ; the disciples of John at Ephesus, 247 ; Paul, 249 ; the Cor- inthian church. 249 ; Timothy's case, 250-254 ; advantages of the discussion, 255.
Presbyterianism, 119,123, 157,538; Catholicity of, 653 ; soundness in doctrine, 653 ; repudi- ates ritualism. 654.
Presbyterians, their orthodoxy, 447; reasons for, 447, 448 ; of Virginia, need for co-operation among, 170.
Presbyteries at fault in giving cursory examina- tion, 64, 668.
Priestcraft, encouraged by prelacy, 221.
Prime, S. I. , letter to, 421.
Princiton Review, on Revised Discipline, 312, 316, 317, 333, 336, 341, 343.
Principles, abstract study, and benefit of, 120.
Process, against a minister, 326 ; cases without, 330.
Prohibited, things not expressly commanded are. 124.
Property rights of churches, 264.
Providence, determining a call to the ministry, 30 ; misinterpreted, 31.
Heading, on dangerous, 158 ; see Fictitious Writ- ings.
Rebellion, the sin of, 472.
Redemption, true scheme of its application, 220.
Reformation, the. and organic unity, 432.
Beformers, the mistakes of the early, concern- ing the Sabbath, 608.
Eeforms in executive agencies needed. 634.
Repertory, articles in, on eldership, 121.
Republic. Plato's, 19.
Responsibility, relation to ability, 304,
" Retrenchment and Reform " in the Assembly of 1881, 622 ; Dr. .\dger on, 629.
Revelation and history, 23.
Revised Book of DiscipUne (se^ Discipline).
Rice. Nathan L., on the " Spring ResolutionB," 494.
Rights, of North as well as South inrolved in the fight for secession. 423.
Ritualism repudiated by Presbyterian Church, 654.
Robinson, Stuart, and the Pan-Alliance, 531, 532.
Roman Catholic testimony as to dancing, 568.
Romanism checked by Mohammedanism, 24 ; by conquest of Quebec, 24.
Ruling elders, Fee Eldership ; are they " bish- ops ?" 128 ; not all preachers, 135 ; qualifica- tions of, 144-148 ; not simple laymen, 150 ; of- fice sacred, 151 ; essential, 154 ; human sub- stitutes for, 156 ; Scotch Book of Government, 149.
Sabbath, of the State, the, 594 ; traditionary testimony, 609 ; not disproved by the change of day to be observed, 613; traditionary proofs of its early observance. 609 ; the Scriptural proofs, 610 ; authentic history's proof, 611 ; the change in the day, 613 ; proof from man's physical, moral need, 614.
Sacramental grace, 218 ; Rome's view, 219 ; Anglican view, 219 ; its advocates usurp pas- sages of Scripture, 222; a false conception, 229 ; disproved by the gospel of the Old Testa- ment, 233 ; theory of obscured by Protestant prelatists themselves, 259.
Science and theological education, 72.
Scientific education in theological seminaries, 72 ; objectionable, because necessarily shal- low, 72 ; has mischievous tendencies, 73 ; in- duces contentions, 73. 74.
Scotch " Court of Session," decision of touching churches' civil ri'hts. 268.
Scripture teaching respecting a call to the minis- try, 28.
Secession, 423 ; right of, reserved ,by Virginia, 426.
Secular things, church's relation to, 208, 213, 530.
Seminaries, theological, proper form of control, 47 ; one or many, 48 ; relation of General As- sembly, 49 ; details of management, 52 ; pro- per source of support. 53 ; need of, 669,
Sensibilities, morbid cultivation of, 160.
Sessions, duty as to dancing, 566.
Simon Magus, 245.
Simony, origin and meaning, 227.
Simplicity of style. 159.
Sincerity in an evil course no extenuation, 498, 499.
Singing, in connection with evangelism, 94.
Slave-holding, action of Assemblies cf 1848, 1845, 1865 and 1866, 549.
Slavery, 468, d,nd Morraonism, 499 ; views of British and Northern Presbyterians, 529, and the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, 544.
Southern Church, the. and the Presbyterian Al- liance, 549 ; on dancinjj. 5i34.
Southern Presbyterian Review, 121 ; on Revised Discipline, 356.
Southwestern Presbyterian, letter to 503.
Sovereignty, God's, in relation to ministerial qualifications. 667.
Spirit-rappinp, 317.
Spring resolutions of 1861, the, 485, 494, 507, 514, 515.
Students of theology and parochial duties, 66.
Sumter, Fort, capture of, 426.
Sunday laws, repeal of, demanded, 599 ; some of the arguments against indiscreet or illog- ical, 599 ; true arguments against, 601.
Supra, and infralapsarianism, distinction ig- nored by the Westminster divines, 306.
Supreme Court of the United States, 261 ; of Kentucky, 262, 264 ; of Pennsylvania, 280 ; de- cision incorporated into law of the Northern.
6S-i
IXDEX.
church, 2S2 ; the disastrous effect if applied to the Southern church, 296 ; opposed by later decisions, 283 ; an unrighteous decision, 474.
Susceptibilities distinguished from faculties, 304.
Swing case, 487.
Synagogue, the, a model of the Christian church, 128.
Synod of Kentucky, 262.
Talmage, on fraternal relations, 490.
Temperance, deliverance on, misunderstood, 467.
Terms of union with the TJnited Synod, 298 ; objections to, 299.
Theism essential to grounding of state author- ity, 602 ; proof from history, 6ii2 : from moral obligation, 603 ; experience of human nature, 603.
Theological education. 47 ; proper control, 47 ; election of professors, 52 ; support, 63 ; "schools" vs. cun-iciihim. 57; literary res- ponsibilities and collegiate rules. 59; parochial duties in combination with, 66 ; length of session, 67 ; beneficiary, 68 ; scientific, 72 ; shall it be under collegiate rules, 59 ; the evils of a low standard, 60-63.
Theological opinions, history of, 14.
Theological professors, election of, 54 ; relation to Presbyteries, 64.
Theological seminaries, proper form of control, 47 ; shall there be one or many, 48 ; relation of General Assembly, 49 ; details of govern-
' ment, 52 ; proper source of support, 53 ; plan and constitution of, 57 ; a curriculum or sej)- arate schools ? 57 ; the latter advocated, 58 ; length of term, 67 ; teaching science, 72.
Theological students allured to Northern insti- tutions, 637.
Theology, dogmatic and historical. 13.
Theopliylact. false interpretation by, 22S.
Thorn well, J. H., colloquy with Hodge, 140; on the Ee%ised Discipline. 356.
Timothy, First, iv. 14. aud Seco-d, i. 6, es- amined. 250 ; iii. 17, examined, 252.
Todd vs. Green, case of, 279.
Treason, the accusation of, 549.
Trent, Council of, on the "sacrament of orders,"' 222.
Trust, the nature of a, 268 : how protected, 237.
Turner, judicial case of, 633.
Tyranny of the Northern church, 509 ; reas- serted, 510 ; may be revived, 510.
Unbelief, the crowning sin, 337, 338.
Union, Christian. 4.30 ; desirability of a proper, 431 ; organic a Utopian dream, 430 ; its his- tory, 431 : relation of Protestantism to, 432 ; Luther and Zwingle on, 432 ; in the early
post-apostolic dayp, 438 ; broad churchism, 440 ; bad temjjerof its advocates. 441 ; born of wrong motive, 442 : ominous to religious lib- erty, 442 ; lessons of chiu'ch history. 443 ; the kind that is practicable, 443 ; the cry for, 475. Union, the federal, 393, 414 ; who responsible for breaking, 415, 421 ; e\'ils which would fol- low, 414.
Union of New and Old School, in the South, reasons for, 177.
Union Seminarj", Inaugural address in, 5.
United Synnd, on fusion with. 29s.
Unity, visible, not essential to the church, 537 ; practical manifestations of Christian, 445 ; see I'll km.
Usurpation exercised and maintained by the Northern chtirch, 511, 530 ; a baiTier to frater- nal correspondence, 531.
Virginia's right to secede from the Union, 464. Visible church, need for, 437 ; relation to the in- visible, 438.
Walker vs. Wainwright, 278.
Walnut Street Church decision, 261 ; the law of the case, 267 ; the equity of it, 383.
War, to follow disimion, 395 ; its e^^ls. 39G, 423.
Warburton"s, Bp., view of miracles, 339.
Wesleyans on dancing, 566.
Will, the confession on the ability of, 305.
Witness, the function of the church, 453, 454.
Woman's condition under barbarism, 572.
Women, pu'olic preaching of, 96, 487 ; the ordi- nary arguments for, rationalistic, 96 ; a few examples claimed, 96 ; the answer to these, 96 ; dangerous inference, 97 ; the argument from 1 Cor. xi, 5 answered, 97 ; the plea that some women possess all the gifts of men, and therefore should preach, 98 ; that some have the spiritual impulse to preach, 93:thatmany women preachers have the seal of God's ap- proval in the success following their preach- ing, 9'^, 99 : the answers to these arguments, 99, 101 ; does the Bible prohibit, 102 ; Old Testament and synagogue organization, 102 ; New Testament, 102-107 ; atten;pted evasions, 107, 108 ; answered, lOS-110 ; argtmients against from prudence and experience, 111- 114 : the practice not necessarily connected with " women's rights " movement, 114; but practically so, 115 ; the e^"ils of prevalence, 117 ; a warning, 118.
Woman's rights, 114 ; demanded by the Liberal League, 599.
Young Men's Christian Association not a church, 646.
Zwingle's appeal to Luther for unity, 432.
Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library
1 1012 01081 7544
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Deut. xix. 17
- Gen. xviii. 19
- 1 Cor. v. 5
- PsAlM cxxii. 9
- 2 Tim. i. 9
- Heb. iii. 1
- Eph. v. 29
- Col. i. 24
- 1 Pet. ii. 4
- Matt. xvi. 18
- Acts xx. 28
- Rev. xix. 7
- Luke xvii. 21
- Rom. xiv. 17
- Acts ix. 31
- Isa. ii. 3
- Acts xx. 24
- James iii. 17
- 2 Tim. i. 13
- Titus i. 9
- 1 Tim. i. 3
- Titus i. 5
- 2 Tim. ii. 2
- 1 Cor. iv. 1
- 1 Tim. vi. 3
- 2 Tim. ii. 15
- 2 Tim. iii. 14
- Titus ii. 7
- Acts xx. 27
- 2 Tim. iv. 5
- Titus iii. 10
- 1 Tim. iii. 15
- John xviii. 37
- 2 Tim. ii. 17
- Matt. xiii. 52
- Acts ix. 26
- 1 Timothy vi. 1-5
- 1 Tim. ii. 9
- 2 Tim. i. 7
- Titus ii. 12
- 1 Peter iv. 7
- Luke xi. 41
- 2 Cor. viii. 7
- 1 Tim. vi. 17
- 1 Cor. xi. 4-10
- 1 Peter iii. 3-5
- 1 Tim. v. 2
- Prov. v. 17-18
- 1 Pet. iii. 2-5
- Matt. v. 28
- Rom. xiii. 13
- Gal. v. 21
- 1 Peter iv. 3
- 1 Cor. viii. 8
- Titus i. 15
- 1 Cor. viii. 4
- Acts xv. 21
- 1 Cor. x. 18
- Acts xxi. 25
- Rom. xiv. 20
- 1 Cor. viii. 12
- Gen. ii. 2
- Gen. iv. 3
- Gen. vii. 2
- Gen. viii. 10
- Gen. xvii. 12
- Gen. 1. 10
- Exod. xii. 15
- Exod. xvi. 25
- Neh. xiii. 16
- 1 Sam. xiii. 8-1
- Philippians ii. 25
- Romans xvi. 7
- Ephesians i. 3
- Isaiah iii. 20
- 1 Timothy iii. 2
- Acts vi. 3
- John XX. 21
Volume III Discussions
Introduction
^W OF PRWCf^
'^fitOGICAL StW^!^
BX 8915 .D:5 1890 v . J5
Dabnev, Robert Lewis,
1820-
1898\
Discussions
DISCUSSIONS
UOKERT L DaBNEY, D.D., LL.D.,
PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNI\'ERSITY OF TEXAS,
AND FOR MANY YEARS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN UNION
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN VIRGINIA.
EDITED BY
C. R. VAUGHAN, D. D.,
Pastor of the PbesbTlTerian Church of New Providence, Va,
VOL III. PHILOSOPHICAL.
RICHMOND VA.:
Pkesbyteeian CoMjnxTEE OF Publication. 1892.
COPTBIGHT BY
James K. Hazen, Secretary of Publication. 189 2.
Pbinted by
Whittet & Shepperson.
Richmond, Va.
CONTE?(TS.
Morality of the Legax Profession,
Positivism in Engl.\nd,
Liberty and Sla^'eey,
Popish Literature and Education,
Simplicity of Pulpit Style,
Geology and the Bible, .
A Caution Against Anti-Christian Science,
The Philosophy of Dr. Bledsoe,
The Philosophy of Volition,
The Emotions, ......
Ci\TL Ethics, ......
The Philosophy Regulating Private Corporations, Inductive Logic Discussed, Nature of Physical Causes, Applications of Induction and Analogy. Spurious Religious Excitements, Final C.\use, ....
Anti-Biblical Theories of Rights, Monism, .....
The Faculty Discourse, . The Standard of Ordination, The Immortality of the Soul, .
1 22 61
70 80 91 116 182 211 271 302 329 349 376 412 456 476 497 523 536 551 569
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
TIHE promiueut influence wliicli lawyers exert in tlie commii- . nitj makes it a question of vital interest wliat are the ethi- cal principles upon which the profession habitually regulate the performance of their professional duties. Their social standing is usually that of leaders in every society. As a class, they are almost uniformly men of education, and their studies of the science of the law, which is a great moral science, with their converse with all conditions of men, and all sorts of secular transactions, give them an intelligence and knowledge of the jiuman heart which cannot but make them leaders of opinion. It is from this class that the most of our legislators and rulers, and all our judicial officers, must be taken. They are the agents by whose hands are managed nearly all the complicated transac- tions which involve secular rights, and interest the thoughts and moral judgments of men most warmly. But more ; they are the stated and official expounders of those rights, and not the mere protectors of the possessions or material values about which our rights are concerned. In every district, town or county of our land, wo may say with virtual accuracy, monthly, or yet more frequent, schools are held in which the ethical doctrines govern- ing man's conduct to his fellow man are publicly and orally taught to the whole body of the citizens, with accessory circum- stances, giving the liveliest possible interest, vividness and pun- gency to the exposition. Of these schools the lawyers are the teachers. Their lessons are presented, not in the abstract, like so many heard from the pulpit, but in the concrete, exemplified in cases which arouse the whole community to a living interest. Their lessons are endlessly varied, touching every human right and duty summed up in the second table of the law. They are usually intensely practical, and thus admit of an immediate and easy application. They are always deHvered with animation, and often with an impressive eloquence. It is, therefore, obvious
Vgl. III.— 1. 1
"A MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
that this profession must have fearful influence in forming the moral opinions of the community. The concern which the coun- try has in their professional integrity, and in their righteous and truthful exercise of these vast powers, is analogous to that which the church has in the oiihodoxy of her ministers. Kor are these influences of the legal profession limited to things secular ; for the domains of morals and religion so intermingle that the moral condition of a people, as to the duties of righteousness between man and man, greatly influences their state towards God. It may well be doubted whether an acute and unprincipled bar does not do more to corrupt and ruin many communities than the pulpit does to sanctify and save them. These things at once justify the introduction of the topic into these discussions, and challenge the attention of Christian lawyers and readers to its great importance.
In describing what is believed to be the prevalent, though not universal, theory and usage of the bar, we would by no means compose our description out of those base arts which are de- spised and repudiated as much by honorable lawyers as by all other honest men. There is no need to debate the morahty or immorality of the various tricks ; the subornation of witnesses ; the bribing of jurymen ; the falsification of evidence in its recital ; the misquotation or garbling of authorities ; the bullying of truth- ful and modest persons placed in the witness' stand by no choice of their own ; the shaving of the claims of clients in advance of a verdict by their own counsel, by which some lawyers disgrace their fraternity. This class are beyond the reach of moral con- siderations ; and, concerning their vile iniquity, all honest men are already agreed. Nor, on the other hand, can we take the principles of that honorable but small minority as a fair exam- pier of the theory of the profession, who defend in the bar no act or doctrine which their consciences would not justify in the sight of God, and who say and do nothing officially which they would not maintain as private gentlemen. This class, we fear, are regarded by their own fi'aternity rather as the puritans of the profession. It is believed that the theory of the great mass of reputable lawyers is about this: "that the advocate, in rep- resenting his client's interest, acts officially, and not personally, and, therefore, has no business to entertain, even as an advocate,.
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 3
anj opinion of the true merits of the case, for this is the func- tion of the judge and jury ; that the advocate's office, to perform which faithfully he is even sworn, is to present his client's cause in the most favorable light which his skill and knowledge of law will enable him to throw around it ; and that if this should be more favorable than truth and justice approve, this is no concern of his, but of the advocate of the opposite party, who has equal obligation and opportunity to correct the picture ; that not the advocate himself, but the judge and jury who sit as umpires, are responsible for the righteousness of the final verdict ; that, ac- cording to the conception of the EngHsh law, a court is but a debating society, in which the advocates of plaintiflfs and defen- dants are but the counterpoises, whose only function is the al- most mechanical, or, at least, the merely intellectual one of pressing down each one his own scale, while an impartial judge holds the balance ; that this artificial scheme is found by a sound experience to be — not, indeed, perfect — but, on the whole, the most accurate way to secure just verdicts in the main, and that this fact is the sufficient moral defence of the system."
Now, it is not our intention, in impugning the morality of this theory, to charge the profession with immorality and dis- honor, as compared with other professions. ^Vhile the bar ex- hibits, like all other classes, evidences of man's sinful nature, it deserves, and should receive, the credit of ranking among the foremost of secular classes in honorable and generous traits. Lawyers may urge with much justice^ that other professions habitually practice means of emolument strictly analogous to their official advocacy of a bad cause. The merchant, for in- stance, says all that he can say, truthfully, in commendation of his wares, and is silent concerning i]ie jper-contras of their defects. " To find out these," he says, "is the buyer's business." The farmer praises all the good points of the horse or the bullock he sells, and leaves the piu'chaser to detect the defects, if he can. It is not intended, then, to assert, that the practice of this the- ory of the advocate's duty is more immoral than other things commonly supposed reputable in other callings. The question to be gravely considered is : whether the greater importance of the advocate^s profession, as affecting not only pecuniary and personal rights, but the moral sentiments and virtues of the
4: MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PKOFESSIOX.
common wealth, does not give a graver aspect to the errors of their theory of action. It is not that the bar is more immoral than commerce or agriculture ; but that, if the bar acts on an immoral theory, it is so much more mischievous. Xor, again, is it asserted that the individual advocate is necessarily a vicious man, because the professional idea into which he is betrayed is a vicious one. It is Lot doubted that many men of social honor act out the idea of theu' office above described, who, if they were convinced of its error, would repudiate it conscientiously. It is not questioned that the professional intercourse of lawyers with each other is usually courteous, generous and fraternal, above most of the secular professions ; that many magnanimous cases exist where peaceful counsels are given by them to augrj litigants, so as to prevent controversies which would be ex- tremely profitable to the advocates, if prosecuted ; that there is no class of worldly men who usually respond more nobly to the claims of beneficence than lawyers ; and that they deserve usually their social position in the front rank of the respectable classes. But, to recur to the truth already suggested, it should be remem- bered that their profession is not merely commercial or pecuni- ary in its concernments ; it is intellectual and moral ; it affects not only the interests but the virtues oi the people : lawj'ers are their leaders and moral teachers. Therefore, they act under higher responsibilities than the mere man of dollars, and should be satisfied only by a higher and better standard. The merchant may, perhaps, law^fully determine his place of residence by re- gard to his profits : the preacher of the gospel may not ; and should he do so, he would be held as recreant to his obligations. ^TLj this difference ? In like manner we may argue that should the lawyer act on a moral standard no higher than that of the mere reputable man of traffic, he would violate the obligations of his more responsible profession. But if this were not so, the obvious remark remains, that, if aU other secular professions act unscrupulously, this is no standard, and no justification for the bar: to "measiu'e oui'selves by ourselves, and compare our- selves among ourselves is not wise." The only question with the answer to which time integrity will satisfy itself, is this: ichether the ahi/i^e theory of an advocates functions is rnm^ally right.
MORALITY OP THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 5
We shall begin a diffident and respectful attempt to prove that it is not, by questioning the accuracy of the plea of bene- ficial policy, in which it is asserted, that the administration of justice is, on the whole, better secured hj this artificial structure of courts, than by any other means. We point to the present state of the administration of justice in our country;' to the *' glorious uncertainties of the law ; " to the endless diversities and contradictions, not only of hired advocates of parties, but of dignified judges ; to the impotence of penal law, and espe- cially to the shameful and fearful license allowed among us to crimes of bloodshed ; and ask, can this be a wholesome, a po- litic system, which bears such fruits? Is this the best judicial administration for which civilized, Christian, free nations may hope ? Then, alas, for our future prospects ! But it is notorious among enlightened men, that there are States, as for instance Denmark, Wurtemburg, Belgium, and even France, where the general purposes of order, security and equal rights — not, in- deed, as towards the sovereign, but between citizen and citizen — - are far better obtained in practice than they are among us, and that, in some cases, without our boasted trial by jury. Our sys- tem, judged by its fruits, is not even politic : it is a practical nuisance to the State. It may be well doubted whether, in spite of all our boasted equal rights, the practical protection this day given to life, limb and estate, by the unmitigated military des- potism of the G Dvernor-General of Cuba, not to say by the ty- rannical government of Louis Napoleon, is not, on the whole, more secure and prompt and equitable, than that now enjoyed in many of the United States. And the worst feature is, that as the legal profession has increased with the growth of the coun- try, and gotten more and more control over legal transactions, these defects of judicial administration have increased. It is urged in favor of this system of professional advocacy, that great practical injustice would frequently result from the inequality of knowledge, tact, fluency and talent in parties, if they did not enjoy the opportunity of employing counsel trained to the law and exercising their office in the spirit we have described. lb would often happen, it is said, that a rich, educated, skilful man, might contend with a poor, ignorant and foolish one ; but, by resorting to counsel, all these differences are equalized. It may
6 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
be justly asked, whether there are not inequalities in the skill and diligence of advocates, and whether the wealth which would give to the rich suitor so unjust an advantage over his poor adversary, if they pleaded their causes in person, does not, in fact, give an equally unjust advantage, in the numbers and. abil- ity of the counsel it enables him to secure, when those coun- sel are permitted to urge his cause beyond their own private convictions of its merits. We do not, of course, dream of any state of things in which professional advocates can be dispensed with Avholly ; minors, females, persons of feeble intellects, must have them in some form. But it is verj- doubtful whether as equitable resiilts would not be reached in the main, were all other suitors, except the classes we have mentioned, obliged to appear per se, extreme as such a usage would be, as those reached under our present system. Cases are continually occiniing, in which verdicts are obtained contrary to right, in virtue of ine- qualities in the members, reputation, talents, or zeal of opposing counsel, or of the untoward prejudices under which one party has to struggle. Especially is this assertion true of a multitude of cases in which the commonwealth is a party ; for when this unscrupulous theory of an advocate's functions is adopted, it is universally found that the personal client on the one side is served with a different kind of zeal and perseverance from that exerted on the other side in behalf of that distant, imaginary, and vague personality, the State. This theory, therefore, proba- bly does as much to create unfair inequalities as to correct them. And it usually happens that the advocate derives his warmth, his strongest arguments, and most telling points, from his conversations with the eager client, whom self-interest has impelled to view the controversy with all the force of a thor- oughly aroused mind ; that, in a word, the client does more to make the speech effective than his counsel.
But we are disposed to attach comparatively little importance to these considerations. Policy is not the test of right, on which side soever the advantage may lie ; and we have too much faith in the immutable laws of rectitude, and in the providence of a holv God over human affairs, to believe that a true expediency is ever to be found in that which is immoral. In the final issue, that which is right wih always be found most expedient. If,
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL TROFESSIOX. 7
"therefore, the theory we oppose can be shown to be immoral, there will be no need to reply to the assertion of its expediency. We remark, then, in the second place, that it is a presumptive reason against this theory of the lawyer's functions, that so con- stant a tendency is exhibited by individuals of the profession to descend to a still lower grade of expedients and usages in the pursuit of success. While the honorable men of the profession stop at the species of advocacy we have defined, there is another part, a minority we would fain hope, who show a constant pres- sure towards practices less defensible. To that pressure some are ever yielding, by gradations almost insensible, until the worst men of the body reach those vile and shameless arts which are the ojyjyrobrium of the bar. It is greatly to be feared that this tendency downwards is manifesting itself more and more forci- bly in our country as the numbers of the profession increase, and competition for subsistence becomes keener. Now, our argument is not so much in the fact that the profession is found to have dishonest members ; for then the existence of quacks and patent medicines might prove the art of the physicians to be immoral ; but in the fact that the honorable part of the bar are utterly unable to draw any distinct and decisive line, compatibly Avith their principles, to separate themselves from the dishonor- able. The fact to which we point is, then, that men who prac- tice in their clients' behalf almost every conceivable grade of art and argument unsustained by their own secret conscience, short of actual lying and bribery, consider themselves as acting legitimately under the theory of the profession ; and their more scrupulous brethren, who hold the same theory, cannot consis- tently deny their claim. If the advocate may go farther in the support of his client's case than his own honest judgment of its merits would bear him out ; we ask, at what grade of sophistry must he stop ? Where shall the line be drawn ? If he may with propriety blink one principle of equity or law, in his behalf, may he not for a similar reason blink two ? If he may adroitly and tacitly, but most effectively, insinuate a sophistry in his favor, might he not just as well speak it boldly out? The suj)- pressio veri not seldom amounts to a suggedlo falsi. And if the duty to the client, with the constitution of the court, justify the insinuation or assertion of a sophistry, by what reason can it be
8 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
sliown that they will not justify the insinuation of a falsehood? A sophistry is a logical falsehood ; and if he who offers it com- prehends its unsoundness, we cannot see how he is less truly guilty of falsehood than he who tells a lie. To speak falsehood is knowingly to frame and utter a proposition which is not true. He who knowingly urges a sophistical argument does in sub- stance the same thing; he propagates, if he does not utter, a false proposition, namely, the conclusion of his false argument. But we may fairly press this reasoning yet further. No one will deny that when the advocate, as an advocate, suppresses truth, or insinuates a claim more than just to his cHent, or less than just to his adversary, any such act would be insincere, and therefore immoral, if it were done as an individual and private act. The circumstances which are supposed to justify it are, that he is not acting for himself, but for another, not individually, but officially ; that there is an antagonist whose professional business it is to see that he gets no undue advantage for his client, and that the lawyer is not bound to form any private opinion whatever about the question, whether the advantages he is procuring for his client are righteous or not, that being the business of the judge and jury. These circumstances, it is claimed, make that profes- sionally innocent which would otherwise be a positive sin. Wliy, then, may they not justify the commission of any other sin which would be profitable to the client ; and what limit would there be to the iniquities which professional fidelity might de- mand, provided only the client's case were bad enough to need them ? If it is right, for his sake, " to make the worst appear the better cause," why not also falsify testimony, or garble authori- ties, or bribe jurors, or suborn perjurers, if necessary to victory? It would be hard to affix a consistent limit, for the greater ur- gency of the client's case would justify the greater sin. It is no answer to this to say that the latter expedients would be wrong, because the opposite party is entitled to expect that the contro- versy will be conducted with professional fairness, and that no advantage will be sought, which professional skill and knowledge may not be supposed able to detect and rebut if the party seek- ing it is not fairly entitled to it. For, according to the theory under discussion, this professional fairness is itself a conven- tional thing, and not the same with absolute righteousness ; and
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION 9
any conduct which was conventionally recognized for the time being would come up to the definition. So that the party se- cretly contemplating the employment of some of these vile ex- pedients, would only have to notify his antagonist in general terms, to be on the lookout for any imaginable trick, in order to render his particular trick professionally justifiable. And it is wholly delusive to urge that the advantage sought by one i^aiiy is legitimate, because it is only such a one as the opposing party may be expected to detect and counteract by his skill, if com- petent for his professional duties as he professes ; for the reason why the given artifice called legitimate is used in any case is just this, that it is supposed the opposing paiiy viill not have skill enough to detect and counteract it. Its concealment from him is the sole ground for the hope of success in using it ; and it is a mere evasion to say that it is such a legal artifice as the opponent's legal skill may reasoaably be supposed competent to meet ; when, in that particular case, it is used for the very rea- son that it is believed his skill will not be competent to meet it. It is used because it is hoped that it will remain as much un- detected and unanswered as would the illegitimate tricks of falsification and bribery. We believe, therefore, that if the ad- vocate may transgress the line of absolute truth and righteous- ness at all in his client's behalf, there is no consistent stopping place. No limit can be consistently drawn, and the constant tendencies of a part of the profession "uith the various grades of license which different advocates, called reputable, allow them- selves, indicate the justice of this objection.
We may properly add just here that, even if the theory we oppose were in itself moral, it might yet be a grave question whether it is moral to subject one's self to a temptation so subtle and urgent as that which allures the advocate to trans- gress the legitimate Hmit. The limit is confessedly a conven- tional one at any rate, and not absolutely coincident with what would be strict righteousness, if the person were acting indi- vidually and privately; it is separated from immoral artifices by no broad, permanent, consistent line; the gradation which leads down from the practices called reputable, to those alltnvedly base, is one composed of steps so slight as to be almost invisible ; and the desire to conquer, so vehemently
10 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
stimulated by the forensic competition, will almost surely seduce exen the scrupulous conscience to transgress. Xo sinner has a right to subject his infirm and imperfect virtue to so deadly a trial.
In the third place, we respectfully object to the lawfulness of the attitudes in which this theory of the profession places the advocate. It claims that the court is but the debating society, in which the function of the two parties of lawyers is, not to decide the justice of the cause, that being the function of judge and jury, but to urge, each side, all that can be professionally urged in favor of its own client; and that out of this exj>urte struggle, impartialh" presided over by the listening umpire, there will usually proceed the most intelligent and equitable decision. But the fatal objection is: that even if the latter claim were true, we might "not do evil that good might come." And truth and right are sacred things, which cany an imme- diate, universal, inexorable obligation to every soul in every circumstance, if he deals with them at all, to deal with them according to their reality. Man is morally responsible for every act he performs which has moral character or consequences ; and no circumstance or subterfuge authorizes him to evade this bond. His maker vnll allow him to interpose no conven- tionality, no artificial plea of ofticial position between him and his duty. Every act which has moral character man performs personally, and under an immediate personal responsibility. The mere statement of this moral truth is sufficient to evince its justness ; the conscience sees it by its own light ; and it is obvious that unless God maintained his moral government over individuals in this immediate, personal way, he could not main- tain it practically at all. Some form of organization might be devised to place men in a conventional, official position, in which evervthing mi^fht be done which a sinful desire mic;ht crave, and thus every law of God might be evaded. In a word, whatever else a man ma}" delegate by an artificial convention of law, he cannot delegate his responsibility ; that is as inalienable as his identity. And it is equally impossible for man volun- tarily and intelligently to assume the doing of a vicarious act, and leave the whole guilt of that act cleaving to his principal. His deed, in consenting to act vicariously, is his personal, iudi-
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 11
vidual deed, lying immediately between liim and liis God ; and if the deed lias moral quality at all, it is liis own personal mo- rality or immorality.
Now, truth and right are concerned in every legal controversy. But these are things to which moral character essentially be- longs. If a man speaks, he ought to speak truth ; if he handles a right, he ought to handle it righteously. Lawyers seem to feel as though this conventional theory of the courts of law had no more moral quality attaching to it than the apparatus by which the centre of gravity of a ship is restored to the middle, as she leans to one side or the other. The honest sailor seizes the lever by which he moves his ponderous chest of cannon balls or chain cable, and when the sliding of some heavy part of the cargo in the hold, or the impulse of wind or wave causes the ship to lurch to the larboard, he shoves his counterpoise to the starboard side. He teUs you that his object is, not to throw the ship on her beam ends, but to maintain a fair equilibrium, by going as much too far on the one side as the disturbing force had gone on the other. And this is all right enough. The forces which he moves or counterbalances are dead, senseless, souUess, without responsibility. But it is altogether otherwise when we come to handle truth and right. For they are sacred things. They can in no sense be touched without immediate moral obli- gation ; and to pervert a truth or right on the one hand, in or- der that a similar perversion on the other hand may be counter- balanced, is sin, always and necessarily sin ; it is the sin of meeting one wicked act by another wicked act, or, at best, of "doing evil that good may come." An attemj^t may be made at this point to evade this clear principle of morals by means of the confusion of thought produced by an appeal to a false anal- ogy. Perhaps some such illustration as this may be presented : the soldier obeys his officer ; he honestly, fairly and mercifully performs the tasks assigned him in his lawful profession, and yet sometimes takes life in battle. Now, supj)ose the war to which his commander leads him is an unrighteous war? AU must admit that every death perpetrated by the unrighteous ag- gressor, in that war, is a murder in God's sight. But we justly conclude that this dreadful guilt all belongs to the wicked sov- ereign and legislature who declare the war, and not to the pas-
12 MOKALITY OP THE LEGAL rROFESSION.
sive soldier -svlio merely does his duty in obeying his commander. Hence, it is asserted, " the principle appears false ; and there may be cases in which it is lawful for a man to do vicariously, or officially, what it would be wrong to do individually."
We reply that the general i:)roposition thus deduced is one essentially different from the one which our principle denies. To say that a man may lawfully do some things vicariously or officially, which he may not do privately and individually, is a totally different thing from saying that if an act would be imme- diately and necessarily wrong in itself, whenever and however done, the agent who does that act for another may still be inno- cent in doing it, because he acts for another. But the latter is the proposition which must bo proved, in order to rebut our principles. "We remark further upon the illustration above stated, that there are several fundamental differences between the case of the soldier and that of the advocate who profession- ally defends his client's wrong-doing. One is, that the soldier, in the case supposed, has not volunteered of his own free choice to fight in this particular war Avhicli is unrighteous. If he has, then we can by no means exculpate him from a share in the guilt of all the murders which the wicked sovereign perpetrates in battle l)y his hand. It is only when the soldier is draughted into this service without his option, and compelled by the laws of his country, that we can exculpate him. But the advocate has chosen his own profession freely in the first instance, and he chooses each particular case which he advocates, with what- ever justice it may involve. For, whatever fidelity he may sup- pose his professional oath, perhaps thoughtlessly taken, com- pels him to exercise in behalf of his unrighteous client, after he has made him his client, certainly he is not compelled to under- take his case at all unless he chooses.
Another minor difference of the two cases is, that the soldier, not being a civilian by profession and habit, is competent ta have very few thoughts or judgments about the abstract righteous- ness of the war to which his sovereign has sent him ; whereas, it is the very trade and profession of the lawyer to investigate the righteousness or wrongfulness of transactions ; so that if, indeed, he is aiding his client to perpetrate an iujiistice, he is the very man of all others who should be most distinctly aware
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PKOFESSION. 13
of the "WTOiig about to be done. But the chief and all-auUicieut diii'ereuce of the two cases is, that all killing is not murder ; but all utterance of that which is known to bo not true is lying. The work of slaying may or may not be rightful ; the case where the lawful soldier, obeying his commander in slaying in battle, commits murder, is the exceptional case, not indeed in fre- quency of occurrence perhaps, but in reference to the professed theory of legitimate government. But to the rule of truth and right there is no exception ; all known assertion of untruth is sin. How comes it that the profession of slaying as an agent for the temporal sovereign, as a soldier or sheriff, for instance, is in any case a righteous one ? Only because there are cases in "which the sovereign may himself righteously slay. And in those cases, it may be that this right to slay, which the sovereign him- self possesses, may be held properly by another person by dele- gation. But no man can delegate what he does not possess. The client cannot therefore delegate, in any case, to his lawyer, the function of making his wrong-doing appear right, because it would be in everj' case wrong for him to do it himself. And here we are brought to a point where we may see the utter al)- siu'dity of all the class of illustrations we are combating. For law3'ers will themselves admit that if they acted individually and privately when they present pleas which they are avv^are are "an- just, it would he sin. Their defence is that the}^ do it oflicLall3^ Well, then, if the client did it for himself, it would be sin ; how can the lawyer, his agent, derive from him the right to do what he has himself no right to do ? Or, will it be said that the of- ficial right of the advocate to act f(jr a given client is not dele- gated to him from that client, but from the State which licensed him as an advocate ? We think this is a doctrine which clients would be rather slow to admit. And again, the State is as ut- terly devoid as the client of all right to misrepresent truth and right. God has given to the civil magistrate the right to slay murderers and invaders, but he has given to no person nor com- monwealth under heaven the right to depart from the inexorable lines of truth and right.
This great truth brings us back to the doctrine of each man's direct and unavoida1)le responsibihty to God, for all his acts pos- sessing moral character or moral consequences. Now, in jier-
14 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
forming our cliity, God requires us always to employ the best lights of reason and conscience he has given us, to find out for ourselves what is right. It is man's bounden duty to have an opinion of his own concerning the lawfulness of every act he performs, w^hich possesses any moral quality, God does not permit us to employ any man or body of men on earth as our conscience-keejDers. How futile, then, is the evasion presented at this point by the advocates of the erroneous theory, " that the lawyer is not to be supposed to know the unrighteousness of his client's cause ; that it is not his business to have any opinion about it, but, on the contrary, the peculiar biisiness of the jvidge and jury ; nav , that he is not entitled to have any opinion about it, and would be wrong if he had, for the law presumes every man innocent till after he is proved wicked ; and when the ad- vocate performs his functions, no verdict has jet been pro- nounced by the only party authorized to pronounce one." The fatal weakness of this feeblo sophistry is in this, that these as- sertions concerning the exclusive right of the judge and jury to decide the merits of the case are only true as to one particular relation of the client. The judge and jury are the only party- authorized to pronounce the cUent wrong or guilty, as concerns the privations of his life, liberty or property. It would, indeed, be most illegal and unjust for lawyer or private citizen to con- clude his guilt in advance of judicial investigation, in the sense of proceeding thereupon to inflict that punishment which the magistrate alone is avithorized to inflict. But this is all. If any private, personal right or duty of the private citizen, or of any one, is found to be dependent on the innocence or wickedness of that party before the court, it is a right and duty to proceed to form an opinion of his character, as correct as may be, by the light of our own consciences, in advance of judicial opinion, or even in opposition to it. Yea, we cannot help doing so, if we try.
Now, the question which tho advocate has to ask himself as to an unrighteous client is : " shall I professionally defend his un- righteousness, or shall I not ?" And that question involves an unavoidable duty, and constitutes a matter personal, private and immediate, between him and his God. In deciding that he will not lend his professional assistance to that man's unrighteous-
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 15
ness, lie decides a personal duty ; lie does not toucli the bad man's franchises, nor anticipate his judicial sentence. Let us illustrate. Many years ago, an advocate, distinguished for his eloquence and high social character, successfully defended a vile assassin, and, by his tact, boldness and pathos, secured a verdict of acquittal. When the accused v/ as released, he descended into the crowd of the court house, to receive the congratulations of his degraded companions, and, almost wild with elation, advanced to his advocate, offering his hand, with profuse expressions of ad- miration and gratitude. The dignified lawyer sternly joined his. own hands behind his back and turned away, saying : " I touch no man's hand that is foul with murder.'' But in what light did this advocate learn that this criminal was too base to be recos- nized as a fellow man ? The court had pronounced him inno- cent! It was only by the light of his private judgment — a pri- vate judgment formed not only in advance of, but in the teeth of, the authorized verdict. Where, now, were all the quibbles by which this honorable gentleman had persuaded himself to lend his professional skill to protect from a righteous doom a wretch too vile to toucli his hand? as that "the lawyer is not the judge; that he is not authorized to decide the merits of the case?" Doubtless, this lawyer's understanding spoke now, clear enough, in some such terms as these : " my hand is my own ; it is purely a personal question to myself whether I shall give it to this mur- derer ; and, in deciding that personal question, I have a right to be guided by my own personal opinion of him. In claiming this, I infringe no legal right to life, liberty or possessions, which the constituted authorities have restored to him." But was not his tongue his ovm, in the same sense with his hand? Was not the question, whether he could answer it to his God for having used his tongue to prevent the punishment of crime, as much a pri- vate, personal, individual matter, to be decided by his own pri- vate judgment, as the question whether he should shake hands with a felon ? Let us suppose another case : a prominent advo- cate defends a man of doubtful character from the charge of fraud, and rescues him, by his skill, from his well-deserved pun- ishment. But now this scurvy fellow comes forward and claims familiar access to the society of the honorable lawyer's house, and aspires to the hand of his daughter in marriage. He imme-
16 MOEALITT OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
diately receives a significant hint that lie is not considered -^ortlij of either honor. But he replies: "Ton, Mr. Counsellor, told your conscience that it was altogether legitimate to defend my questionable transactions professional!}-, because the law did not constitute you the judge of the merits of the case, because the law says every man is to be presumed to be innocent till con- victed of guilt by the constituted tribunal, and because you were not to be supposed to have any opinion about my guilt or inno- cence. Xow the constituted authorities have honorably acquitted me — at your advice ! I claim, therefore, that you shall act out your own theory, and practically treat me as an honorable man." We opine the honorable counsellor wotdd soon see through his own sophistry, and reply that those principles only applied to his civic treatment of him as a citizen ; that his house and his daugh- ter were his own ; and that he was entitled, yea, solemnly bound, in disposing of them, to exercise the best lights of his private judgment. So say we, and nothing can be so intimately per- sonal and private, so exclusively between a man and his God, as his concern in the morality of his own acts. Since God holds every man immediately responsible for the way in which he deals with truth and right, whenever and in whatever capacity he deals with them, there can be no concern in which he is so much en- titled and bound to decide for himself in the light of his o"\^^l honest conscience. The advocate is bound, therefore, to form his ovm independent opinion, in God's fear, whether in assisting each applicant he will be assisting wrong, or asserting falsehood. This preliminary question he ought to consider, not profession- ally, but personally and ethically. Let every man rest assured that God's claims over his moral creatures are absolutely inevi- table. He will not be cheated of satisfaction to his oiitraged law by the plea that the wrong was done professionally ; and when the lawyer is suffering the righteous doom of his professional misdeeds, how will it fare with the inan f
Our fourth consideration is but an extension and application of the great principle of personal responsibility which we have attempted to illustrate above. We would grouj) together the practical wrongs which evolve in the operation of this artificial and immoral theory ; we would invite our readers to look at their enormity, and to ask themselves whether it can be that
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PEOFESSION. XI
these tilings are innocently done. Let tlie conscience speak; for its "Rami and immediate intuitions have a logic of their own, less likely to be misled bj glaring sophistry than the specula- tions of the head. And here we would paint not so much the judicial wrongs directly inflicted by suitors unrighteously suc- cessful ; for here the lawyer might seem not so directly responsi- ble. AA"e might, indeed, point to the case in which plausible fraud succeeds in stripping the deserving, the widow, the or- phan, of their substance, inflicting thus the ills of penury ; or to that in which slander or violence is enabled to stab the peace of innocent hearts, undeterred by fear of righteous retribution; and ask the honest, unsophisticated mind, can he be innocent who, though not advising, nor perpetrating such WTongs in his individual capacity, has yet prostituted skill, experience, and perhaps eloquence, to aid the perpetrator? Can it be right? But we would speak rather of those evils which proceed directly from the advocate himself in his own professional doings. Here is a client who has insidiously won subtle advantages over his neighbor in business, until he has gorged himself with ill-gotten gain. He applies to the reputable lawyer to protect him against the righteous demand of restitution. The lawyer undei-takes his case, and thenceforth he thinks it his dutj', not indeed to falsify evidence, or misquote law, or positively to assert the innocence of injustice, but to put the best face on questionable transactions which they will wear — to become the apologist of that which every honorable man repudiates. Kow, we speak not of the wrongs of the despoiled neighbor ; of these it may be said the client is the immediate agent. But there stands a crowd of eager, avaricious, grasping listeners, each one hungry for gain, and each one learning from this professional expounder of law how to look a little more leniently on indirection and fraud; how to listen a little more complacently to the tempta- tions before which his own feeble rectitude was tottering already ; how to practice on his own conscience the deceit which " divides a hair between north and northwest side;" until the business morality of the country is widely corrupted. Can this be right? Can he be innocent who produces such results, for the selfish motive of a fee? But worse still; a multitude of crimes of vio- lence are committed, and when their bloody perpetrators are
Vol. III.— 2.
18 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PEOFESSION.
brought before their country's bar, professional counsel flj to the rescue, and try their most potent arts. See them rise up before ignorant and bewildered juries, making appeals to weak compassion, till the high sentiment of retributive justice is almost ignored by one-half of the community. Hear them advocate before eager crowds of heady young men, already far too prone to rash revenge, the attractive but devilish theory of "the code of honor;" or assert, in the teeth of God's law and man's, that the bitterness of the provocation may almost justif}' deliberate assassination; or paint, in graphic touches, which make the cheek of the young man tingle with the hot blood, the foul scorn and despite of an unavenged insult, until the mind of the youth in this laud has forgotten that voice pronounced by law both human and divine, "vengeance is mine, I will repay," and is infected with a dreadful code of retaliation and murder ; until the course of justice has come to be regarded as so impo- tently uncertain, that the instincts of natural indignation against crime disdain to wait longer on its interposition, and introduce the terrific regime of private vengeance, or mob-law ; and until the land is polluted with blood which cries to heaven from the earth. Can it be right that any set of men, in any function or attitude, should knowingly contribute to produce such a fatal disorganization of public sentiment ; and that, too, for the sake of a fee, or of rescuing a guilty wretch from a righteous doom which he had plucked down on his own head ? Can it be right? And now, will any man argue that God hath no principle of re- sx?onsibility by which he can bring all the agents of such mis- chiefs as these into judgment? That such things as these can be wrought in the land, and yet the class of men who have in part produced them can, by a set of professional conventionali- ties, juggle themselves out of their responsibility for the dire result? Nay, verily, there is jei a God that judgeth in the earth. But if such a theory as the one we have discussed were right, while bearing such fruits, his government would be practi- cally abdicated.
The fifth and last consideration is drawn fi-om man's duty to himself. The highest duty which man owes to himself is to preserve and improve his own virtue. Our race is fallen, and the reason and conscience which are appointed for our inward.
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 19
guides are weakened and dimmed. But yet God places in our power a process of moral education by wliicli tliey may be im- proA'ed. The habit of acting rightly confirms their uncertain de- cisions, and a thorough rectitude of intention and candor act as the " euphrasy and rue " which clarify our mental vision. How clear, then, the obhgation to employ those high faculties in such a way that they shall not be perverted and sophisti- cated ? There is no lesson of experience clearer than this, that the habit of advocating what is not thoroughly believed to be right, perverts the judgment and obfuscates the conscience, until they become unreliable. No prudent instructor would approve of the advocacy of what was supposed to be error by the pupils in a debating society. Such au association was formed bv a circle of pious young men in tho countrj- ; and once upon a time it was determined to debate the morality of the manufac- ture of ardent spirits. But it was found that all were of one mind in condemning it. So, to create some show of interest, one respectable young man consented to assume the defence of the calling, "for argument's sake." The result was, that he unset- tled his own convictions, and ultimately spent his life as a distiller, in spite of the grief and urgent expostulations of his fi'iends, the censures of his church, and the uneasiness of a rest- less conscience. Nothing is better known by sensible men than the fact that experienced lawyers, while they may be acute and plausible arguers, are unsafe judges concerning the practical affairs of life. They are listened to with interest, but without confidence. Their ingenious orations pass for almost nothing, while the stammering and brief remarks of some unsophisticated farmer carry all the votes. The very plea by which advocates usually justify their zeal in behalf of clients seemingly unworthy of it, confesses the justice of these remarks. They say that they are not insincere in their advocacy, that they speak as they be- lieve ; because it almost alwaj'S occurs that after becoming in- terested in a case, they become thoroughly convinced of the righteousness of their own client's cause. Indeed, not a few have said that no man is a good advocate who does not acquire the power of tlius convincing himself. But there are two par- ties to each case. Are the counsel on both sides thus convinced of the justice of their own causes, when of course, at least, one
20 MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PEOFESSIOX.
must be wrong ? Fatal power : to bring the imperial principles of reason and conscience so under the dominion of self-interest and a fictitious zeal, that in one-half the instances they go astray, and are unconscious of their error ! It has been re- marked of some men famous as politicians, who had spent their earlier years as advocates, that they were as capable of speaking well on the wrong side as on the right of i3ub- lic questions, and as likely to be found on the wrong side as ou the right.
Now, it is a fearful thing to tamper thus with the faculties which are to regulate our moral existence, and decide our im- mortal state. It may not be done with impunity. Truth has her sanctities ; and if she sees them dishonored, she will hide her vital beams from the eyes which dehghted to see error dressed in her holy attributes, until the reproliate mind is given over to delusions, to believe lies. Were there no force in any thing which has preceded, duty to one's self would constitute a sufficient reason against the common theory of the advocate's office.
We conclude, therefore, that the only moral theory of the le- gal profession is that which makes conscience preside over every official word and act in precisely the same mode as over the pri- vate, individual life. It does not appear how the virtuous man can consistently go one inch farther, in the advocacy of a client's cause, than his own honest private judgment decides the judge and jury ought to go ; or justify in the bar anything which he would not candidly jiistify in his ovm. private circle ; or seek for any client anything more than he in his soul believes righteous- ness demands. ""Whatsoever is more than these, cometh of evil." It may be very true, that if all lawyers practiced this higher theory, the numliers and Inisiness of the profession would be vastly abridged. If the fraudulent exactor could find no one to become the professional tool of unjust designs ; if the guilty man, seeking to evade justice, were told by his advocate that his defence of him should consist of nothing but a watchful care that he had no more than justice meted out to him ; it is j^ossible cHents would be few, and litigation rare. But is it certain that any good man would regret such a result ? It might follow, also, that he who undertook to practice the law on this Christian
MORALITY OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 21
theory would find that he had a narrow and arduous road along which to walk. We, at least, should not lament, should Christian young men conclude so. Then, perhaps, the holy claims of the gospel ministry might command the hearts of some who are now seduced by the attractions of this attractive but dangerous profession.
rOSITIVISMO ENGLAND.
" "POSITIYISM," s:iys M. Guizc^t, in liis Meditatioiis, "is a JL word, in langiiugc, a l)ail)iirisni ; in philosopliy, a pre- sumption." Its genius is sntHcicntly indicated ])y its chosen name, in Avliich it qualifies itself, not like other sciences, by its object, but by a boast. Tho votaries of physics have often dis- closed a tendency to a materialism which depreciates moral and spiritual truths. The one-sidedness and egotism of the liiiman understanding ever incline it to an exaggerated and exclusive range. Man's sensuous nature concurs with the fascination of tlio empiiical metliod applied to sensible ol)jects, to make him overlook tlie s])iritual. Physicists become so inflated Mith their ])rilliant success in det(;cting and ex])laining the laws of second causes that they forget tlie implication of a first cause, which constantly presents itself to the reason in all the former ; and they thus lapse into the hallucination that they can construct a system of nature from second causes alone. This tendency to naturalism, which is but an infirmity and vice of the fallen mind of man, no one has avowed so defiantly in our age as M. Au- gust(! f'omt(!, tho pretended founder of the J^nsifire Ph'domplnj, and his followers. His attempt is nothing less than to estabhsh naturalism in its most absolute sense, to accept all its tremen- dous r(!sults, and to re[)udiate as a iu>nentity all human be- lief which ho cannot bring within the rigor of exact physical science.
Although it is not just to confound the man and the opinions, we always feel a natural curiosity touching the character of one
This urticle appeared iu ths Southern PrcHbyterian Review, for April, 18G9, re- viewing: I. Cdurs de Philoniyphic Positive. Par M. Angnste Comte. 6 vols. 8vo. Palis. 183()-'12. II. Ilistory of Civilization in Enfjlnnd. By Houry Thomas Buckle. Lomlou : John W. Parker & Sous. 1858. III. A Sz/nton of Logic, Rdtiocinative and Inductive. By Johu Stuart Mill. New York. 1846. IV. An Historical and Critical Vieio of the Specuhdive PJtilosop}iy of Europe in Vie Nine- teenth Century. liy J. D. Morell. A. M. New York. 1848.
22
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 23
who claims our confidence. Guizot says of liim, when he ap- peared before that statesman with the modest demand that he should found for him a professorship of the lUstory of Physical and MaUieiiiatiCdl Schnce, in the College of France: "He ex- plained to me drearily and confusedly his views upon man, society, civilization, religion, philosophy, history. He was a man single-minded, honest, of profound convictions, devoted to his own ideas, in appearance modest, although at heart prodi- giously vain ; he sincerely believed that it was his calling to open a new era for the mind of man and for human society. Whilst listening to him, I could hardly refrain from expressing m}'' aston- ishment, that a mind so vigorous should, at the same time, be so narrow as not even to perceive the nature and bearing of the facts with which he was dealing, and the questions which he was authoritatively deciding ; that a character so disinterested should not be warned by his own proper sentiments — which were moral in spite of his system — of its falsity and its negation of morality. I did not even make any attempt at discussion with M. Comte ; his sincerity, his enthusiasm, and the delusion that blinded him, inspired me with that sad esteem that takes refuge in silence. Had I even jutlged it fitting to create the chair which he de- manded, I should not for a moment have dreamed of assigning it to him.
" I should have been as silent, and still more sad, if I had then known the trials through which M. Auguste Comte had already passed. He had been, in 1823j a prey to a violent attack of mental alienation, and in 1S28, during a paroxysm of gloomy melancholy, he had thrown himself from the Pont des Arts into the Seine, but had been rescued by one of the king's guard. More than once, in the course of his subsequent life, this mental trouble seemed on the point of recurring."
The reader, allowing for the courteous euphemism of Guizot, will have no difficulty in realizing from the above what manner of man Comte was. His admiring votary and biographer, M. Littre, reveals in his master an arrogance and tyranny which claimed every literary man who expressed interest in his specu- lations as an intellectual serf, and which resented every subse- quent appearance of mental independence as a species of rel)el- lion and treachery, to be visited with the most vindictive anger.
24 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
That liis mental conceit was beyond the "intoxication" -which M. Guizot terms it-, a positive insanity, is manifest from his own language. On hearing of the adhesion of a Parisian editor to his creed, he writes to his wife : " To speak j)laiidy and in gen- eral terms, I believe that, at the point at which I have now ar- rived, I have no occasion to do more than to continue to exist; the kind of preponderance wliicii I covet cannot henceforth fail to devolve upon me." .... "Marrest no longer feels any re- pugnance in admitting the indispensable fact of my intellectual superiority." And to John Stuart Mill, at one time his sup- porter, he wrote of " a common movement of philosophical re- generation everywhere, when once Positivism shall have planted its standard — that is, its lighthouse I should term it — in the midst of the disorder and the confusion that reigns ; and I hope that this will be the natural result of the publication of my work in its complete state." (This work is his Course of Positive PJi'dosojjhy, finished in 1842.)
Positivism takes its pretext from the seeming certainty of the exact sciences, and the diversity of view and uncertainty which have ever appeared to attend metaphysics. It points to the brilliant results of the former, and to the asserted vagueness and barrenness of the latter. It reminds us that none of the efforts of philosophy have compelled men to agree, touching absolute truth and reli- gion ; but that the mathematical and physical sciences carry per- fect assurance, and complete agreement, to all minds which in- form themselves of them sufficiently to understand their proofs. In these, then, we have a satisfying and fruitful quality. Positiv- ism ; in those, only delusion and disappointment. Now, adds the Positivist, when we see the human mind thus mocked by futile efforts of the reason, we must conclude, either that it has adopted a wrong organon of logic for its search, or that it directs that search towards objects which are, in fact, inaccessible, and prac- tically non-existent to it. Both these suppositions are true of the previous philosophy and theology of men. Those questions usually treated by philosophy and theology which admit any so- lution— which are only the questions of sociology — must receive it from Positivism. The rest are illusory. History, also, as they claim, shows that this new philosophy is the only true teacher. For when the course of human opinion is reviewed, it is always
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. ' 25
found to move through these stages. In its first stage, the hu- man mind tends to assign a theoh)gical sokition for every natu- ral problem which exercises it ; it resolves everything into an effect of supernatural power. In its second stage, having out- grown this simple view, it becomes metaphysical, searches in philosophy for primary truths, and attempts to account for all natiiral effects by a j^^'iori ideas. But in its third, or adult stage, it learns that the only road to truth is the empirical method of exact science, and comes to rely exclusively upon that. Thus, argue they, the history of human opinion points to Positivism as the only teacher of man.
But Comte, while he denies the possibility of any science of psychology, save as a result of his Positivism, none the less begins with a psychology of his own. And this is the psj'chology of the sensationalist. He virtually adopts as an d priori truth (he who declares that science knows no a priori truths) the maxim of Locke, NiJdl in intelhctu quod von jprius in sensu, and holds that the human mind has, and can have, no ideas save those given it by sensitive perceptions, and those formed from percep- tions by reflexive processes of thought. Science accordingly knows, and can know, nothing save the phenomena of sensible objects, and their laws. It can recognize no cause or power whatever, but such as metaphysicians call second causes. It has no species of evidence except sensation and experimental proof. "Positive philosophy is the whole body of human knowledge. Human knowledge is the result of the study of the forces belonging to matter, and of the conditions or laws gov- erning those forces."
" The fundamental character of the positive philosophy is that it regards oW. phenomena as subjected to invariable natural laws, and considers as absolutely inaccessible to us, and as having no sense for us, every inquiry into what are termed either primary or final causes."
" The scientific path in which I have, ever since I began to think, continued to walk, the labors that I obstinately pursue to elevate social theories to the rank of physical science, are evi- dently, radically and absolutely opposed to everything that has a religious or metaphysical tendency." " My positive philosophy is incompatible with every theological or metaphysical philoso-
26 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
pliY." "Religiosity is not only a weakness, but an avowal of want of power." " The 'positive state ' is tliat state of the mind in which it conceives that 'phenomena are governed by constant laws, from which prayer and adoration can demand nothing."
Such are some of the declarations of his chief principles, made by Comte himself. They are perspicuous and candid enough to remove all doubt as to his meaning.
He also distributes human science under the following classes. It begins with mathematics, the science of all that which has number for its object ; for here the objects are most exact, and the laws most rigorous and general. From mathematics, the mind naturally passes to physics, which is the science of ma- terial forces, or dynamics. In tliis second class, the first sub- division, and nearest to mathematics in the generality and ex- actness of its laws, is astronomy, or the Tiiecaniipie celeste. Next comes mechanics, then statics, and last chemistry, or the science of molecular dynamics. This brings us to the verge of the third grand division, the science of organisms ; for the wonders of chemistry approach near to the results of vitality. This science of organism, then, is biology, the science of life, whether vegeta- ble, insect, animal, or human. The fourth and last sphere of scientific knowledge is sociology, or the science of man's rela- tions to his fellows in society, including history, politics, and whatever of ethics may exist for the Positivist. Above sociology there can be nothing, because, beyond this, sensation and ex- perimental proof do not go, and where they are not, is no real cof^nition. Comte considers that the fields of mathematics and physics have been pretty thoroughly occupied by Positivism; and hence the solid and brilUant results which these departments have yielded imder the hands of modern science. Biology has also been partially brought under this method, with some strik- ing results. But sociology remains very much in chaos, and un- fruitful of certain conclusions, because Positivism has not yet digested it. All the princij^les of society founded on psychology and theology are, according to him, worthless ; and nothing can be established, to any purpose, until sociology is studied solely as a science of physical facts and regular physical laws. "s\ithout concerning ourselves with' the vain dreams of laws of mind, free agencv, and divine providence.
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 27
Such, in outline, are the principles of Positivism. Let us con- sider a few of its corollaries. One of these, which thej do not deign to conceal, is a stark materialism. Their philosophy knows no such substance as spirit, and no such laws as the laws of mind. For, say they, man can know nothing but perceptions of the senses, and the reflexive ideas formed from them. " Posi- tive philosophy," which includes all human knowledge, is " the science of material forces and their regular laws." Since spirit and the actings of spirit can never be 'plienomena, properly so called, events cognizable to our senses, it is impossible that science can recognize them. This demonstration is, of course, as complete against the admission of an infinite spirit as any other; and the more so, as Positivism repudiates all absolute ideas. Nor does this system care to avail itself of the plea, that there may possibly be a God who is corporeal. Its necessarily atheistic character is disclosed in the declaration that true science cannot admit any supernatural agency or existence, or even the possibility of the mind's becoming cognizant thereof. Since our only possible knowledge is that of sensible j9^(?nf>wicwa, and their natural laws, material nature must, of course, bound our knowledge. Her sphere is the all. If there could be a su- pernatural event — to suppose an impossibility — the evidence of it would destroy our intelhgence, instead of informing it. For it would subvert the uniformity of the natural, which is the only basis of our general ideas, the norm of our beliefs. Positivism is, therefore, perfectly consistent in absolutely denjdng every supernatural fact. Hence the criticism of its votaries, when, like Strauss and Eenan, they attempt to discuss the facts of the Christian religion, and the life of Jesus Christ. Their own lit- erary acquirements, and the force of Christian opinion, deter them from the coarse and reckless expedient of the school of Tom Paine, who rid themselves of every difficult fact in the Christian history by a flat and ignorant denial, in the face of all historical evidence. These recent unbelievers admit the estab- lished facts ; but ha\ang approached them with the foregone conclusion that there can be no supernatural cause, they are reduced, for a pretended explanation, to a set of unproved hy- potheses and fantastic guesses, which they offer us for verities, in most ludicrous contradiction of the very spirit of their " posi- tive philosophy."
28 POSITIYISM IX EXGLAXD.
What can be more distiuctly miracnloiTS tlian a creation ? Tliat ^vhicli brings nature out of nUul must of course be super- natural. Positivism must therefore deny creation as a fact of Avhich the human intelligence cannot possibly have evidence. As the universe did not begin, it must, of course, be fi'om eter- nity, and therefore self-existent. But, being self-existent, it "^ill of course never end. Thus matter is clothed "^ith the attributes of God.
The perspicacious reader has doubtless perceived that these deductions, "s^-heu stripjDed of their high-sounding language, are identical with the stupid and vulgar logic which one hears oc- casionally from atheistic shoemakers and tailors : " How do you know there is a God ? Did you ever see him ? Did you ever handle him ? Did you ever hear him directly making a noise ?" Those who have heard the philosophy of tap-rooms, redolent of the fumes of bad whiskey and tobacco, recognize these as pre- cisely the arguments, uttered in tones either maudlin or profane. Is not the logic of Positivism, when stated in the language of common sense, precisely the same ?
Once more, Positivism is manifestly a system of rigid fatal- ism ; and this also its advocates scarcely trouble themselves to veil. Human knowledge contains nothing but pJieiiomena and their natural laws, according to them. " The positive state is that state of mind in which it conceives that j^^'-^'^omena are governed by constant laws, from which prayer and adoration can demand. nothing." "The fundamental character of positive philosophy is, that it regards all phenomena as subject to inva- riable laws." Such are Comte's dicta. The only causation, he knows is that of physical second causes. These, of course operate blindly and necessarily. This tremendous conchision is confirmed by the doctrine of the eternity and self-existence of nature ; for a substance which has those attributes, and is also material, must be what it is, and do what it does, by an im- manent and immutable necessity. Positivism must teach us, therefore, if it is consistent, that all the events which befall us are directed by a physical fate ; that there is no divine intelli- gence, nor goodness, nor righteousness, nor will concerned in them ; that our hopes, our hearts, our beloved ones, our very existence, are all between the jaws of an irresistible and inex-
POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND. 29
orable macliine ; that our free-ageucy, in short, is iUusorj, and our free-will a cheat.
But the positive philosophy, with its sweeping conclusions, iufluenees the science of this generation to a surprising degree. We are continually told that in France, in Germany, and espe- cially in Great Britain, it is avowed by multitudes, and boasts of prominent names. The tendencies of physicists are, as has been noted, towards NaturaUsm ; the boldness with which the schools of Comte lifted up theu' standard, has encouraged many to gather around it. Its most deplorable result is the impulse which it has given to irrehgion and open atheism. Thousands of ignorant persons, who are incapable of comprehending any connected philosophy, true or erroneous, are emboldened to babble materialism and impiety, by hearing that the "positive pliilosophy" knows ''neither angel nor spirit," nor God. And this is one of those sinister influences which now humes Euro- pean and American society along its career of sensuous exist- ence. We detect the symptoms of this error in the strong di- rection of modern physical science to utilitarian ends. Even Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Bacon, seems to vaunt the fact that the new Organon aimed exclusively at "fruit." He con- trasts it in this respect with the ancient philosophy, which pro- fessed to seek truth primarily for its intrinsic value, and not for the sake of its material applications. He cites Seneca, as repudiating so grovelling an end, and as declaring that if the philosopher speculated for the dii'ect purpose of subserving the improvements of the arts of life, he would thereby cease to be a philosopher, and sink himself into an artisan, the fellowcrafts- man of shoemakers and such like. And tho witty essayist re- marks that, for his part, he thinks it more meritorious to be a shoemaker, and actually keep the feet of many people warm, than to be a Seneca, and ■v\Tite the treatise De Ira, which, he presumes, never kept anybody fi-om getting angry. The truth, of course, lies between the unpractical spirit of the ancient, and the too practical spirit of the modern philosphy. Man has a body, and it is as well to study its welfare ; but he also has a mind, and it is better to study the well-being of that nobler part. Truth is valuable to the soul in itself, as well as in its material applications. To deny this, one must forget that man
30 rOSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
will have an immortal, rational existence, without an animal na- ture, when truth will be his immediate and only 2><^^uluiii ; so that an exclusive tendency to physical applications of science savors of materialism. To represent the splendid philosophy of the ancients as nugatory is also a mischievous extravagance. It did not give them all the mental progress of the moderns ! True. Perhaps no philosophy, without revelation, could do this. But it gave them the ancient civilization, such as it was. And surely, there was a grand difference in favor of Pericles, Plato, and Cicero, as compared with Hottentots and Austra- lians ! pagans who, like the Positivists, have neither a psycho- logy nor a natural theology.
When we look into Great Britain, we see startling evidence of the power of the new philosophy. John Stuart Mill presents one of these evidences. He has long since (in his Logic) com- mitted himself to some of its most fatal heresies ; and these he reaffirms and fortifies in his more recent Examination of Sir William ILaniltoiis PJiilosoj^Jiy. He holds in the main to the dogmas of the Sensualistic Philosoph}-. He flouts the primitive judgments of the human mind. He intimates, only too plainly, the ethics of utilitarianism. Pie disdains the idea of power in causation, and reduces man's intuitive judgment of adequate cause for every known effect to an empirical inference. Matter he defines, indeed, as being known to the mind as only a possi- bility of affecting us with sensations, thus parting company, in a very queer wa}', with his natural kindred, the more materialistic positivists. "While upon the subject of fatalism and free-will, his "trumpet gives an uncertain sound," he deserves the credit of correcting some of the errors of both the opposing schools, and stating some just truths upon these doctrines. His associa- tion with the anti-Christian school represented by the Westviin- ster lievieio is well known. Wo are now told that Mill is quite " the fashion " at one, at least, of the universities, and is the ad- mitted philosopher of liberalism.
Another of these evil portents in die literary horizon is Henry Thomas Buckle, in his Ifidory of Civilization in England. His theory of man and society is essentially that of the Positivist. He regards all religion as the outgrowth of civilization, instead of its root ; and is willing to compliment Christianity with the
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 31
praise of being the best religions effect of the British mind and character — provided Christianity can be suggested without its ministers, whose supposed bigotry, ecclesiastical and theological; never fails to inflame his philosophic bigotry to a red heat — al- though he anticipates that English civilization AA'ill, under his teachings, ultimately create for itself a religion much finer than that of Christ. He, of course, disdains psychology ; he does not believe a man's own consciousness a trustworthy witness; and he regards those general facts concerning human action which are disclosed, for instance, by statistics, the only materials for a science of man and society. He commends intellectual skepticism as the jnost advantageous state of mind. He is an outspoken fatalist, and regards the hope of modifying immuta- ble sequences of events by prayer as puerile. He regards " posi- tive " science as a much more hopeful fountain of well-being and progress than virtue or holiness.
It is significant, also, to hear so distinguished a naturalist as Dr. Hooker, now filling the high position of President of the British Association, in his inaugural address, terming natural theology " that most dangerous of two-edged weapons," discard- ing metaphysics, as " availing him nothing," and condemning all who hold it as "licyond the pale of scientific criticism," and de- claring roundly that no theological or metaphysical proposition rests on positive proof.
As Americans are always prompt to imitate Europeans, especially in their follies, it is scarcely necessary to add that the same dogmas are rife in our current literature. Even an Agassiz has been seen A^i'iting such words as these : " We trust that the time is not distant when it will be universally under- stood that the battle of the evidences Avill have to be fought on the field of physical science, and not on that of the meta- physical."
All these instances are hints of a tendency in English and American philosophy. "We have refeiTed to Positivism as giving us their intelligible genesis. Our purpose is, in the remainder of this article, to discuss, not so much individual Englishmen, or their particular theories, as the central jirinciples of that school of thought from which they all receive their impulse. To de- bate details and corollaries is little to our taste ; and such debate
32 POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND.
never results in permanent factory. He ■^lio prunes the off- shoots of error has an endless task ; a task which usually results only in surrounding himself with a thicket of thorny nibbish. It is better to strike at the main root of the evil stock from ■which this endless outgroA^-th sprouts. Hence, vre propose to examine a few of the general objections against the body of the system, rather than to follow, at this time, the special ap- plications of one or another of the representative men named above.
Let us, then, look back again at Positivism fully pronounced. "SVe have pointed to that gnlf of the blackness of darkness, and of freezing despair, towards which it leads the human mind ; a gulf without an immortality, without a God, without a faith, without a providence, without a hope. AVere it possible or moral for a good man to consider such a thing dispassionately, it would appear to be odd and ludicrous to him to witness the surprise and anger of the Positivists at perceiving that reasonable and Christian people are not supposed to submit with entire meek- ness to all this havoc. There is a great affectation of philosophic calmness and impartiality. They are quite scandaUzed to find that the theologians cannot be as cool as themselves, while all our infinite and priceless hopes for both worlds are dissected away under their philosophic scalpel. Such bigotry is very naughty in their eyes. Such conduct sets Christianity in a very sorry light, beside the fearless and placid love of truth displayed by the apostles of science. This is the tone affected by the Pos- itiAists. But we observe that whenever these philosophic hearts are not covered with a triple shield of supercilious arrogance, they also burn with a scientific bigotry worthy of a Dominic, or a Philip II. of Spain. They also can vituperate and scold, and actually excel the bad manners of the theologians. The scien- tific bigots are fiercer than the theological, besides being the ag- gressors. "^^"e would also submit, that if we were about to enter upon an Arctic winter in Labrador, with a cherished and depend- ent family to protect from that savage clime, and if a philoso- pher should insist upon it that he should be permitted, in the pure love of science to extinguish, by his experiments, all the lamps from which we were to derive light, warmth, or food, to save us from a frightful death, and if he should call us testy
rOSITIYISM IX ENGLAND. 33
blockheads because we did not witness those experiments wij?;'. equanimity, with any number of other hard names ; nothing but our compassion for his manifest hmacy should prevent our break- ing his head before his enormous folly was consummated. Seri- ously, the monstrous pretensions of this philosophy are not the proper objects of forbearance. "We distinctly avow, that the only sentiment with which a good and sober man ought to resist these aggressions upon fundamental truths is that of honest indigna- tion. We pretend to affect no other.
The first consideration which exposes the baseless character of Positivism is, that we find it arrayed against the rudimeutal instincts of man's reason and conscience, as manifested in all ages. That the mind has some innate norms regulative of its own thinking ; that all necessary truth is not inaccessible to it ; that a universe does imply a creator, and that nature saggests the supernatural ; that man has consciously a personal will, and that there is a personal will above man's, governing him from the skies ; these are truths which all ages have accepted every- where. Now, we have always deemed it a safe test of pretended truths, to ask if they contravene what all men have everywhere supposed to be the necessary intuitions of the mind. If they do, whether we can analj-ze the sophisms or not, we set them down as false philosophy. When Bishop Berkeley proved, as he sup- posed, that the man who breaks his head against a post has yet no valid evidence of the olijective reality of the post, when Spi- noza reasoned that nothing can be evil in itself, the universal common sense of mankind gave them the lie ; there was needed no analysis to satisfy us that they reasoned falsely, and that a more correct statement of the elements they discussed would show it, as it has in fact done. This consideration also relieves all our fears of the ultimate triumph of Positivism. It will re- quire something more omnipotent than these philosophers to make the human reason deny itself permanently. Thank God, that which they attempt is an impossibility ! Man is a religious being. If they had applied that "positive" method, in which they boast, to make a fair induction from the facts of human nature and history, they would have learned this, at least as cer- tainly as they have learned that the earth and moon attract each other : that there is an ineradicable ground in man's nature,
Vo}.. III.— 3.
34 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
I: hich will, iu tlie main, impel him to recognize the supernatural^ is as fairly an established fact of natural history as that man is, corporeally, a bimanous animal. His spiritual instincts cannot but assert themselves, in races, in individuals, in theories, and even in professed materialists and atheists, whenever the hour of their extremity makes them thoroughly in earnest. No ; all that Positivism, or any such scheme, can effect is, to give rej^ro- bate and sensual minds a pretext and a quibble for blinding their own understandings and consciences, and sealing their own perdition, while it affords topic of debate and conceit to serious idlers in their hours of vanity. Man will have the supernatu- ral again ; he will have a religion. If you take from him God's miracles, he will turn to man's miracles. " It is not necessary to go far in time, or wide in space, to see the supernatural of superstition raising itself iu the place of the supernatural of re- ligion, and credulity hurrying to meet falsehood half-way." The later labors of Comte himself give an example of this asser- tion, which is a satire upon his creed sufficientl}' biting to avenge the insults that Christianity has suffered from it. After begin- ning his system with the declaration that its principles necessa- rily made any religion impossible, he ended it by actually con- structing a religion, with a calendar and formal ritual, of which aggregate humanity, as impersonated iu his dead mistress, was the deity! "He changed the glory of an incorruptible God into an image, made like to corruptible man."
Here also it should be remarked, that it is a glaring misstate- ment of the history of the human mind, to say that when true scientific progress begins, it regularly causes men to relinquish the theory of the supernatural for that of metaphysics, and then this for Positivism. It was not so of old ; it is not so now ; it never will be so. It is not generally true, either of individuals or races. Bacon, Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, Cuvier, were not the less devout believers to the end, becauso each made splendid additions to the domain of science, The sixteenth cen- tury in Europe was marked by a grand intellectual activity in the rioht scientific direction. It did not become less Christian in its thought; on the contrary, the most perfect systems of reli- gious belief received an equal impulse. The happ}^ Christian awakening in France which followed the tragical atheism of the
POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND. 35
first Eevolution, and wliicli Positivism so tends to quencli in an- other bloody chaos, did not signalize a regression of the exact sciences. The history of human opinion and progress presents us with a chequered scene, in which many causes commingle, workine" across and with each other their incomplete and confused results Sometimes there is a partial recession of truth. The tides of thought ebb and flow, swelhng from secret fountains of the deep, which none but Omniscience can fully measure. But amid all the uncertainties, we clearly perceive this general result, that the most devout belief in supernatural verities is, in the main, concurrent with healthy intellectual progress.
2. We have seen that fatalism is a clear corollary of the posi- tive philosophy. It avows its utter disbelief of a personal and intelligent will above us ; yea, it is glad to assert the impossi- bility of reconciling so glorious a fact with its principles. It makes an impotent defence of man's own free agency. But our primitive consciousness demands the full admission of this fact. If there is anything which the mind thinks with a certainty and necessity equal to those which attend its belief in its own exist- ence, it is the conscious fact of its own freedom. It knows that it has a spontaneity within certain limits ; that it does itself originate some effects. Ko system, then, is C(^rrect which has not a place for the full and consistent admission of this primitive fact. But this fact alone is al^undant to convince the Positivist that he is mistaken in declaring the supernatural impossible, and in omitting a divine will and first cause from his system. Nature, says he, is the all ; no knoM'ledge can be outside the knowledge of her facts and laws ; no cause, save her forces. These laws, he asserts, are constant and invariable. But, re- member, he also teaches, that science knows nothing as effect save sensible j>^^'^^^omena, and nothing as cause save "the forces belonging to matter." Now, the sufficient refutation is in this exceedingly familiar fact, that our own wills are continually originating effects, of which natural forces, as the Positivist de- fines them, are not the efficients ; and that our wills frequently reverse those forces to a certain extent. Let us take a most familiar instance, of the like of which the daily experience of every workingman furnishes him with a liundred. The natural law of liquids requires water to seek its own level ; requires this
36 POSITITISM IN ENGLAND.
only, and ahvajs. But the peasant, by the intervention of hia own free will, originates absolutely an opposite eifect : he causes it to ascend from its level in the tube of his pump. He adopts the just, empirical, and " positive " method of tracing this pTie- norneaon to its true cause. He observes that the rise of the wa- ter is effected by the movement of a lever ; that this lever, how- ever, is not the true cause, for it is moved l)y his arm ; that this arm also is not the true cause, being itself but a lever of flesh and. bone ; that this arm is moved by nerves ; and finally, that these nervous chords are but conductors of an impulse which his consciousness assures him that he himself emitted by a func- tion of his mental spontaneity. As long as the series of j»j>Ag- -itomenci were affections of matter, they did not disclose t(^ him the true cause of the w^ater's rise against its own law. It was only when he traced the chain back to the mind's self-originated act that he found the true cause. Here, then, is an actual, ex~ perimental^j^/ienome^io/i, which has arisen without, yea, against, natural law. For, according to the Positivist, it discloses only the forces of matter ; this cause was above and outside of mat- ter. It was, upon his scheme — not ours — literally supernatural. Yet, that it acted was experimentally certain — certain by the testimony of consciousness. And if her testimony is not experi- mental and " positive," then no j)^^^i^ornenoii in physics is so, CA^en though seen by actual eyesight, because it is impossible that sensation can inform the mind, save through this same con- sciousness. But now, when this peasant is taught thus " posi- tively " that his own intelligent will is an original fountain of ef- fects outside of and above nature — the Positivist's nature — and when he Hfts his eyes to the orderly contrivances and wonderful ingenuity displayed in the works of nature, and sees in these the " experimental " proofs of the presence of another intelli- gence there kindred to his own, but immeasurably grander, how can he doubt that this superior mind also has, in its will, another primary source of effects above nature ? This is as valid an in- duction as the physicist ever drew from his maxim, " Like causes, like effects." We thus see that it is not true that the " positive method " presents any impossibility, or even any dif- ficulty, in the way of admitting the supernatural. On the con- trary, it requires the admission, that is to say, unless we commit the outrage of denying our ov.n conscious spontaneity.
POSITIYISM Dr ENGLAND. 37
3. The positive pliilosopliy scouts all metaplijsical science, namel}', psycliologr, logic, morals, and natural theology, as having no certainty, no Positivism, and as beiug, therefore, nothing viorth. These fictitious sciences, as it deems them, have no 2)^(<^>^omena, that is, no effects cognizable by the senses; and therefore it deems that they can have no experimental proofs, and can be no sciences. But we assert, that it is simply im- j)OSsible that any man can construct any other branch of know- ledge without having a science of psychology and logic of his own. In other words, he must have accepted some laws of thought, as sufficiently established, in order to construct his own thoughts. This he may not have done in words, but he must have done it in fact, T\'hat can be more obvious than that the successful nse of any implement implies some correct knowledge of its equalities and powers? And "tliis is as true of the mind as of any other implement. When the epicure argues, in the spirit of Positivism, *' I may not eat stewed crabs to-day with impunity, because stewed crabs gave me a frightful colic last week," has he not posited a logical law of the reason ? When the mechanic assumes without present experiment, that steel will cut wood, has he not assumed the validity of his own memory concerning past experiments ? These familiar instances, seized at hap-hazard, might be multiplied to a hundred. Every man is a psychologist and logician — unless he is idiotic ; he cannot trust his own mind, except he believes in some powers and properties of his mind. These beliefs constitute his science of practical metaphysics.
We urge further, that the uniformity of men's convictions concerning ^y7<t^/i(9;/ie;i« and experimental conclusions thereupon, obviously impHes a certain Uiiiformity in the doctrines of this common psychology. For, whenever one accepts a given pro- cess of " positive " proof as valid, this is only because he has accepted that function of the mind as A^alid by which he apj)re- liends that j)roof. Unless he has learned to trust the mental power therein exercised, he cannot trust the conclusion. If, then, physics do possess the glory — claimed for this science by the followers of Comte — of "positivity'' ; if their evidences are so exact that all men accept them, when understood, with C(m- fidence, this is only because they all have accepted with yet
38 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
fuller confidence those mental laws by wliicli the physicist thinks. So that the very Positivism of the positive philosophy implies that so much, at least, of metaphysics is equally " positive."
The Positivist, of course, has a psychology, although he re- pudiates it. " If he had not ploughed with our heifer, ho had not found out our riddle." And this psychology, so far as it is peculiar to him, is that of the sensualistlc school. The partial inductions, errors, and natural fruits of that school are well known to all scholars. This is not the first instance in which it has borne its apples of Sodom, materialism and atheism. Hume, starting from the fatal maxim of Locke, very easily and logically concluded that the human reason has no such intui- tion as that of a cause for every effect, and no such valid idea as that of power in cause ; for in a causative (so-called) se- quence, is anything seen by the senses other than a regular and immediate consequent after a given antecedent ? Hence he de- duced the pleasant consequences of metaphysical skepticism. Hence he deduced that no man could ever believe in a miracle. Hence he inferred, that since world-making is a "singular ef- fect," of which no one has had ocular observation, all the won- ders of this universe do not entitle us to suppose a First Cause. Hence Hartley and Priestly, in England, deduced the conclusion that the mind is as material as the organs of sense, and perishes with them, of course. Hence the atheism Avhich in France pre- pared the way ft)r the Eeigu of Terror, and voted God a non- entity, death an eternal sleep, and a strumpet the goddess of Eeason. We do not wonder that the Positivist, viewing psy- chology through this school, should have a scurvy opinion of it ; indeed, we quite applaud him for it. The fact that he still employs it, notwithstanding his ill opinion, only proves how true is the assertion that no man can think without having a psychology of his own.
The relationship of the positive philosophy to these mis- chievous and exploded vagaries, appears especially in its argu- ment against the credibility of supernatural effects or powers. Thus, says the Positivist, since our oidy knowledge is of the plienomena and laws of nature, the supernatural is to us inac- cessible. Let us now hear H^ime : " It is experience only which gives authority to human testimony, and it is the same experi-
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 39
ence which assures us of the laws of nature. When, therefore, these two kinds of experience are contrary, we have nothing to do but svibtract the one from the other, with that assurance which arises from the remainder. But according to the prin- ciples here explained, this subtraction, with regard to all popu- lar religions, amounts to an entire annihilation ; and, therefore, we may establish it as a maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle, and make it a just founda- tion for any such system of religion."
The only true difference here is, that the recent Positivist is more candid ; instead of insinuating the impossibility of the su- pernatural in the form of the exclusion of testimony, ho flatly asserts it. " The supernatural," says he, "is the anti-natural^'' In reply, we would point to the obvious fact, that this view can have force only with an atheist. For, if there is a Creator, if he is a personal, intelligent, and voluntary Being, if he still super- intends the world he has made (the denial of either of these pos- tulates is atheism or pantheism), then, since it must always be possible that he may see a moral motive for an unusual inter- vention in his own possessions, our experience of our own free will makes it every way probable that he may, on occasion, inter- vene. No rational man who directs his own affairs, customarily on regular methods, but occasionally by unusual expedients, because of an adequate motive, can fail to concede the proba- bility of a similar free-agency to God, if there is a God. This noted demonstration of Positivism is, therefore, a " vicious circle." It excludes a God because it cannot admit the super- natural ; and lo ! its only ground for not admitting the supernat- ural is the gratuitous assumption, that there is no God. But, in truth, man's reliance on testimony is not the result of expe- rience ; the effect of the latter is not to produce, but to limit, that reliance. The child believes the testimony of its parent before it has experimented upon it — believes it by an instinct of its xeason. How poor, how shallow, then, is the beggarly arith- metic of this earlier Positivist, Hume, when he proposes to strike a balance between the weight of testimony for the supernatural and the evidence for the inflexible uniformity of nature ! The great moral problems of man's thought are not to be thus dis- patched, like a grocer's traffic. The nature of the competing
40 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
evidence is also profoundly misunderstood. Our belief in the necessary operation of a cause is not based on simjDle experience, but on the intuition of the reason. The Positivist sees in the natural flora of England and France only exogenous trees. May he, therefore, conclude that nature has no forces to produce en- dogenous? The testimony of those who visit the tropics would refute him. The truth is — and none should know it so well as the physicist, since it is taught expressly by the great founder of this inductive logic, Bacon — a generalization simply experi- mental can never demonstrate a necessary tie of causation be- tween a sequence ol ^jhenomena, however often repeated before us. It can suggest only a probability. "We must apply some canon of induction to distinguish between the apparently imme- diate antecedent and the true cause, before the reason recognizes the tie of causation as permanent. If, therefore, reason — not empiricism — suggests from any other source of her teachings that the acting cause may be superseded by another cause, then she recognizes it as entu-ely natural to expect a new effect, although she had before witnessed the regular recurrence of the old one a million of times. If, therefore, she learns that there may, even possibly, be a personal God, she admits just as much possibility that his free will may have intervened as a superior cause.
The truth is, nature implies the supernatural. Nature shows "US herself the marks and proofs that she cannot be eternal and self-existent. She had, therefore, an origin in a creation. But what can be more supernatural than a creation ? If it were, in- deed, impossil)le that there could be a miracle, then this nature herself would be non-existent, whose uniformities give the pre- text for this denial of the miraculous. Nature tells us that her causes are second causes; they suggest their origin in a first cause. Just as the river suggests its fountains, so do the laws of nature, now flowing in so regular a current, command us to ascend to the Source who instituted them.
4, We carry farther our demonstration of the necessity of practical metaphysics to physical science, by an a]:)peal to more express details. "W^e might point to the service done to the sci- ences of matter by the Kovum Organum of Bacon. "What phy- sicist is there who does not love to applaud him, and fondly to
POSITITISM IN ENGLAND. 41
contrast tlie fruitfulness of liis inductive method with the inii- tihty of the old dialectics ? But Bacon's treatise is substantially a treatise on this branch of logic. He does not undertake to establish specific laws in physical science, but to fix the princi- ples of reasoning from facts, by which any and every physical law is to be established. In a word, it is metaphysics; the only difference being that it is true metaphysics against erro- neous. So, nothing is easier to the perspicuous reader than to take any treatise of any Positivist upon physical science, and point to instances upon every page, where he virtually employs some principle of metaphysics. Says the Positivist, concerning some previous solution offered for a class of phenomena : "This is not valid, because it is only hypothesis." Pray, Mr. Posi- ti\'ist, Avhat is the dividing line between hypothesis and inductive proof? And why is the former, without the latter, invalid ? Can you answ'er without talking metaphysics? Says the Positivist: " The ^j>(9.5i{ hoc does not prove the j^roj^^e;' hoc.''' Tell us why? We defy you to do it without talking metaphysics
The Positivist fails to apply his own maxims of philosophy •universally; his observations of the effects in nature are one- sided and fragmentary. He tells us that philosophy must be built on facts ; that first we must have faithful and exact ob- servation of pai-ticulars, then correct generalizations, and last, conclusive inductions. Eight, say we. But the primary fact which accompanies every observation which he attempts to make he refuses to observe. When it was reported to the great Leibnitz that Locke founded his essay on the maxim, Nihil in intellectu quod non jprius in sensv, he answered : JTisi inteHectus esse. These three words disclose, like the spear of another Ithuriel, the sophism of the whole sensualistic system. In at- tempting to enumerate the affections of the mind, ib overlooked the mind itself. At the first fair attempt to repair this omission, Positivism collapses. Does it attempt to resolve all mental states into sensations ? Well, the soid cannot have a conscious- ness of a sensation without necessarily developing the idea of conscious self over against that of the sensuous object. "As soon as the human being says to itself 'I,' the human being affirms its own existence, and distinguishes itself from that ex- ternal world whence it derives impressions of which it is not
42 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
tlie author. In this primary fact are revealed the two primary objects of human knowledge ; on the one side, the human being itself, the individual person that feels and perceives himself; on the other side, the external world that is felt and perceived : the subject and the object." That science may not consistently omit or overlook the fir.st of these objects is proved absolutely l)y this simple remark, that our self- consciousness presents that object to us, as distinct, in every perception of the outer world ■R"hich constitutes the other object; presents it even more im- mediately than the external object, the perception of which it mediates to us. We must first be conscious of self, in order to perceive the not self. Whatever certainty we have that the lat- ter is a real object of knowledge, we must, therefore, have a certaintv even more intimate, that the former is also real- Why, then, shall it be the only real existence, the only substance in nature, to be ostracised from our science ? This is preposterous. Is it pleaded that its affections are not pltenomenay not cogniz- able to the bodily senses? How shallow and pitiful is this; when those bodily senses themselves owe all their vahdity to this inward consciousness !
We now advance another step. Everj' substance must have its attributes. The ego is a real existence. If our cognitions are regular, then it must be by virtue of some primary princi- ples of cognition, which are subjective to the mind. "VMiile we do not employ the antiquated phrase, " innate ideas," yet it is evident that the intelligence has some innate norms, which de- termine the nature of its ideas and aff3ctions, whenever the objective world presents the occasion for their rise. He who denies this must not only hold the absurdity of a regular series of effects without a regulative cause in their subject, but he must also deny totally the spontaneity of the mind. For what can be plainer than this ; that if the mind has no such innate norms, then it is merely passive, operated on from without, but never an au;ent itself. Kow then, do not these innate norms of intelligence and feeling constitute primitive facts of mind? Are they not proper objects of scientific observation ? Is it not manifest that their earnest comprehension will give us the laws of our thinking, and feeling, and volition ? Why have we not here a field of experimental science as legitimate as that
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 43
material world wkicli is even less certainly and intimately known ?
Dr. Hooker would discard natural theology as entirely delu- sive. But now we surmise that this science has some general facts which are as certain as any in physics, and certain upon the same experimental grounds. He believes in the uniformity of :species in zoology. If one told him of a tribe of one-armed men in some distant countr}-, he would demur. He would tell the re- lator, that experimental observation had established the fact that members of the same species had by nature the same structure. He would insist upon solving the m^'tli of the one-armed nation by supposing that the witness was deceived, or was endeavor- ing to deceive him, or had seen some individuals who were one- armed by casualty, and not by nature. But psychologists profess to have established, by an observation precisely like that of the naturalist, this general fact, that all human minds have those moral intuitions which we call " conscience." Tiie utmost that science can require of them is, that they shall see to it that their observations are faithful to fact, and their generalization of them is correct. When they submit the result to this test, why is not the law of species as valid for them as for Dr. Hooker? Why shall he require us to be any more credulous concerning the natural lack of this moral "limb" than he was of the story of the one-armed tribe ? But if conscience is an essentird, primi- tive fact of the human soul, then it compels us to recognize a personal God, and his moral character, by as strict a scientific deduction as any which the physicist can boast. For, obligation inevitably implies an obligator ; and the character of this intui- tive imperative, which speaks for him in our reason, must be a disclosure of his character, since it is the constant expression of his moral volition.
5. This instance suggests another capital error of Positivism, in that it proposes to despise abstract ideas, and primitive judg- ments of the reason ; and yet it is as much constrained as any other system of thought, to build everything upon them. Mathe- matics, the science of quantity, is the basis of the positive phil- osophy, according to M. Comte ; for it is at once the simplest and most exact of the exact sciences. Now when we advert to this science, we perceive at once that it deals not with visible
44 POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND.
and tangible magnitudes and quantities of oilier classes, but %vitli abstract ones. The point, the line, tlie surface, the poly- gon, the curve of the geometrician, are not those which any hu- man hand ever drew with pen, pencil, or chalk hue, or which human eye ever saw. The mathematical point is without either length, breadth or thickness ; the line absolutely without thick- ness or breadth ; the surface absolutely without thickness ! How impotent is it for M. Comte to attempt covering up this cnishing fact by talking of the jj/ieno7/te?u-i of mathematics! In his sense of the word lyhenomena, this science has none. The intelhgent geometrician knows that, though he may draw the diagram of his polygon or his curve with the point of a diamond, upon the most polished plane of metal which the mechanic arts can give him, yet is it not exactly that absolute polygon or curve of which he is reasoning. How can he know that the ideas which he predicates, by the aid of his senses, of this imperfect type, are exactly true to the perfect ideal of figures? He knows that the true answer is this : abstract reasoning assures him that the dif- ference between the imperfect visible diagi'am and the ideal ab- solute figure, is one which does not introduce any element of error, when the argument taken fi'om the diagram is applied to the ideal. But, on the contrary, the reason sees that the more the imperfection of the diagram is abstracted, the more does the argument approximate exact truth. But we ask, how does the mind thus pass from the^7ie/iC'7/ic/<«Z diagram to the conceptual; fi'om the imperfect to the absolute idea ? Positivism has no an- swer. So, the ideas of space, time, ratio, velocity, momentum, substance, upon which the higher calcvlns reasons, are also ab- stract. Positivism would make all human knowledge consist of the knowledge of phenomena and their laws. Well, what is a law of nature? Itis not itself ?i, 2)^eTiomenon ; it is a general idea which, in order to be general, must be purely abstract. How preposterously short-sighted is that observation which leaves out the more essential elements of its own avowed process? These instances, to which others might be added, show that the admission of some dj^riori idea is necessary to the construction of even the first process of owx j^henomenal knowledge.
But the most glaring blunder of all is that wliich the Positivist commits in denying the prior validity of our axiomatic beliefs
rOSITIYISM IN ENGLAND. 45
or primitive judgments, ami representing tliem as only cmpirit-al conclusions. Tliat j)sycliology and logic of common sense in wliicli every man believes, and on wliicli every one acts, without troubling himself to give it a technical statement, holds that to conchide implies a premise to conclude from; and that the valid- ity of tlie conclusion cannot be above that of this premise. Every laan's intuition tells him that a process of reasoning must have a starting point. The chain which is so fastened as to sustain any weight, or even sustain itself, must have its first point of support at the top. That which depends must depend on some- thing not dependent. But why multiply words upon this truth, which every rational system of mental science adopts as a part of its alphabet? It can scarcely be more happilj- expressed than in the words of a countryman of Comte's, M. Royer Collard : "Did not reasoning rest upon principles anterior to the reason, anahsis would be without end, and the synthesis without com- mencement." These primitive judgments of the reason cannot be conclusions from observation, from the simple ground that they must be in the mind beforehand, in order that it may be able to make conclusions. Here is a radical fact wliioh explodes the whole "positive" philosophy.
Its advocates cannot but see this, and hence they labor with vast contortions, to make it appear that these primitive judg- ments are, nevertheless, empirical conclusions. Comte's expe- dient is the following: "If," says he, "on the one side, every positive theory must necessarily be founded upon observation, it is, on the other side, equally plain that to apply itself to the task of observation, our mind has need of some 'tlieorv.' If, in contemplating i\\e j)henomena, we do not immediately attach them to certain principles, not only would it be impossible for us to combine these isolated observations, so as to draw any fruit therefrom, but we should be entirely incapable of retaining them, and, in most cases, the facts would remain before our eves unnoticed. The need, at all times, of some ' theory ' whereby to associate facts, combined with the evident impossibility of the human mind's forming, at its origin, theories out of observations, is a fact which it is impossible to ignore." He then j^i'oceeds to explain that the mind, perceiving the necessity of some pre- vious "theories," in order to associate its own observations,
46 POSITIVISM m ENGLAND.
invents them, in tlie form of theoretical conceptions. Having- begnn, bj means of tliese, to observe, generalize and ascertain positive truths, it ends by adopting the latter, which are sohd, and repudiating the former, which its developed intelligence haa now tanght it to regard as unsubstantial. His idea of the pro- gress of science, then, seems to be this : the mind employs these assumed " theories " to climb out of the mire to the top of the solid rock, as one employs a ladder, and having gained its firm foot- ing, it kicks them away! But what if it should turn out that this means of ascent, instead of being only the ladder, is the sole pillar also, of its knowledge ? When it is kicked away, down tumbles the whole superstructure, with its architect in its ruins. And the latter is the truth. For if these " theories " are prior to our observation, and are also erroneous, then all which proceeded upon their assumed validity is as baseless as they. It is amus- ing to note the simple effort of Comte to veil this damning chasm in his system, by calling the assumed first truths " theo- ries." They are, according to his conception, manifestly nothing but hypotheses. "Why did he not call them so ? Because, then, the glaring solecism would have been announced, of proposing to construct our whole system of demonstrated beliefs upon a, basis of mere hypothesis. Nobody could have been deceived. Nor does the subterfuge avail which his follower. Mill, in sub- stance proposes. It is this : that as the sound physicist pro- pounds an hypothesis, which at first is only probaljle, not to be now accepted as a part of science, but as a temporary help for preparing the materials of an induction ; and as this induction not seldom ends by proving that the hypothesis, which was at first only a probable guess, was indeed, the happy guess, and does contain the true law ; so the whole of our empirical know- ledge may be constructed by the parallel process. In other words, the pretension of Mill is, in substance, that all our prim- itive judgments are at first only the mind's hypothetical guesses ; and that it is empirical reasoning constructed upon them after- wards, which converts them into universal truths. Now, the simple and complete answer is this : that this proving or testing process, by which we ascertain whether our hypothesis is a true law, alwavs implies some principle to be the criterion. How, we pray, was the test appHed to the first hypothesis of the series,
POSITIYIS:\r IN ENGLAND. 47
"W'lien, as jet, tliere "was no ascertained principle to apply, but only li}i3othesis ? Quid rides? Mr. Mill's process must ever be precisely as preposterous as the attempt of a man to bang a cbain upon nothing. Ko ; the hypothetical ladder is not the foundation of our scientific knowledge. Grant us a foundatiou and a solid structure built on that foundation, the ladder of hy- pothesis may assist us to carry some parts of the building higher ; that is all. And the parts which we add, carrying up materials by means of the ladder, rest at last, not on the ladder, but on the foundation.
The accepted tests of a primitive intuition are three : that it shall be a first truth, i. e., not learned from any other accepted belief of the mind ; that it shall be necessary, i. e., immediately seen to be such that it not only is true, but must be true ; and that it shall be universal, true of every particular case always and everywhere, and inevitably believed by all sane men, when its enunciation is once fully understood. The sensualistic school seem all to admit, by the character of their objections, that if the mind has beliefs which do fairly meet these three tests, then they will be proved really intuitive. But they object : these beliefs do not meet the first test, for they are empirically learned by every man, in the course of his own observation, like all inductive truths. And here they advance the plea of their amiable founder, Locke, who little dreamed, good man, what dragon's teeth he was sowing. It is this : that the formal an- nouncement of sundry axioms, in words, to unthinking minds, instead of securing their immediate assent, would evoke only a vacant stare. "We have to exhibit the application of the axioms in concrete cases before we gain an intelligent assent. Very true, but why ? It is only because the concrete instance is the occasion for his correctly apprehending the abstract meaning of the axiomatic enunciation. Is not the argument preposterous, that because the reason did not immediately see, while as yet the verbal Tnedium of intellection was darkness, therefore, the object is not an object of direct mental vision? Because a child is not willing to affirm which of " two pigs in a poke " is the bigger, it shall be declared, forsooth, that the child is blind, or that pigs are not visible animals !
Now, against all this idleness of talk, we demonstrate by proof
48 POSITITISM IN ENGLAND.
botli as empirical aucl deductive as that of tlie Positivist for an y law in physics, that observation and experience are not, and can not be, the source of intuitive beliefs. Let ns grant just such a case as Locke claims against us. AYe meet an ignorant, sleepy, heedless servant, and we ask, "Mj boy, if two magnitudes be each equal to a third magnitude, must they, therefore, be neces- sarily equal to each other?" We suppose that he will, indeed, look at us foolishly and vacantly, and, if he says anything, pro- fess ignorance. Our words are not in his vocabulary ; the idea is out of his ordinary range of thought. "We say to him, "Well, fetch me three twigs from yonder hedge, and we will explain. Xame them No. 1, No. 2, No. 3. Take your pocket knife, and cut No. 1 of equal length to No. 3. Lay No. 1 yonder on that stone. Now cut No. 2 exactly equal to No. 3. Is it done ?" " Yes, sir." *' Now, boy, consider ; if you should fetch back No. 1 from the stone yonder, and measure it against No. 2, do you think you would find them equal in length ?" If you have succeeded in getting the real attention of his mind, he will be certain to an- swer with confidence, " Y'es, sir, they will be found equal." " Are you certain of it?" "Y"es, sir, sure." "Had you not better fetch No. 1 and try them together ?" " No, sir ; there is no need; they are obliged to be equal in length." "Why are you sure of it, when you have not actually measured them together ?" " Because, sir, did I not cut No. 1 equal to No. 3, and is not No. 2 equal to No. 3 ? Don't you see that No. 1 and No. 2 cannot difier?" Let the reader notice here that there has been no ex- pe7nmenial trial of the equalit}' of the first and second twigs in length ; hence it is simply impossil)le that the servant's confi- dence can result from experiment. It is the immediate intuition of his reason, because there is absolutely no other source for it. Obviously, therefore, the only real use for the three twigs and the knife was to illustrate the terms of the proposition to his ignorant apprehension. Let the reader note also that now the servant has got the idea, he is just as confident of the truth of the axiom, concerning all possible quantities of which he has conception, as thoiigh he had tested it by experiment on all. This suggests the farther argument, that our intuitive beliefs can not be from experiment, because, as we shall see, we all hold them for universal truths, but each man's experience is limited.
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 49
Tlie first time a child ever divides an apple, and sees that either part is smaller than the whole, he is as certain that the same thing will be true of all possible magnitudes as well as apples, as though he had spent ages in dividing apples, acorns, melons, and everything which came to his hand. Now, how can a uni- versal truth flow experimentally from a single case ? Were this the source of belief, the greatest multitude of experiments which could be made in a life-time could never be enough to demon- strate the rule absolutely, for the number of possible cases yet untried would still be infinitely greater. Experience of the past by itself does not determine the future.
Moreover, several intuitive beliefs are incapable of being ex- perimentally inferred, because the case can never be brought under the purview of the senses. " Divergent straight lines," we are sure, " will never enclose any space, though infinitely pro- duced." Now, who has ever inspected an infinite straight line •with his eyes ? The escape attempted by Mill, with great labor, is this : one forms a mental diagram of that part of the pair of divergent lines which lies beyond his ocular inspection (beyond the edge of his paper, or blackboard), and by a mental inspec- tion of this p^irt, he satisfies himself that they still do not meet. And this mental inspection of the conceptual diagram, saith he, is as properly experimental as though it were made on a mate- rial surface. On this queer subterfuge we might remark that it is more refreshing to us than consistent for them, that Positi- vists should admit that the abstract ideas of the mind can be subjects of experimental reasoning. We had been told all along that Positivism dealt only with ^;>/!t';'^(9w^g;^(2. It is also news to us that Positivism could admit any j^ower in the mind of con- ceiving infinite Hnes ! "Wliat are these, but those naughty things, absolute ideas, which the intelligence could not possibly have any lawful business with, because they were not given to her by sensation ? But chiefly Mill's evasion is worthless in presence of this question : how do wo know that the straight lines on the conceptual and infinite part of this imaginary diagram will have the identical property possessed hy the finite visible parts on the blackboard ? What guides and compels the intelligence to this idea ? Not sense, surely, for it is the part of the concep- tual diagram, which no eye will ever see. It is just the reason's
Vol. III.^.
50 rOSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
own a priori and intuitive power. Deny this, as Mill does, and the belief — which all know is solid — becomes baseless.
In a word, this question betrays how inconsistent the sensual- istio philosopher is, in attempting to derive first truths from sen- sational experience, and ignoring the primitive judgments of the reason. How has he learned that sensational experience is itself true ? Only by a primitive judgment of the reason ! Here, then, is one first belief, which sense cannot have taught us, to wit, that what sense shows us is true. So impossible is it to construct any system of cognitions while denying to the reason all primary power of judgment.
When we propose the second test, that intuitive judgments must be "necessary," Positivism attempts to embarrass the inquiry by asking what is meant by a necessary truth. One answers — with "Whewell, for instance, — it is a truth the denial of which involves a contradiction. It is, of course, easy for Mill to rejDly to this heedless definition, that then every tnith may claim to be intuition, for is not contradiction of some truth the very character of error? If one should deny that the two angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, he could soon be taught that his denial contradicted an admitted property of triangles ; and this, indeed, is the usual way we establish deduced truths, which are not intuitive. We affirm the definition of common sense, that a necessary truth is one the denial of which is immediately self-contradictory. Not only does the denial clash with other axioms, or other valid deduc- tions, but it contradicts the terms of the case itself, and this according to the immediate, intuitive view which the mind has. Does not every one know that his mind has such judgments necessary in this sense? When he says, "the whole 7nust he greater than either of its joarts," his mind sees intuitively that the assertion of the contrary destroys that feature of the case itself which is expressed in the word "parts." Who does not see that this axiom is inevitable to the reason, in a different way from the proposition, "The natives of England are white, those of Guinea black ? " The latter is as true, but obviously not as necessary as the former.
Or, if Whewell answers the question, what is meant b}- a truth's being " necessary," that it is one the falsehood of which
rOSITITISM IN ENGLAND. 51
is "inconceivable," Mill attempts to reply, that this is no test of the primariuess of a truth, no test of truth at all, because our capacity of conceiving things to be possible, or otherwise, de- pends notoriously upon our mental habits, associations, and acquirements. Ho points to the fact that all Cartesians, and even Leibnitz, objected against Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation and orbitual motion, when first propounded, that it was "inconceivable" how a body propelled by its own rixornoi- tuvi should fail to move on a tangent, unless connected with its centre of motion by some substantial bond. There is a truth in this and similar historical facts. It is that the antecedent probability of the truth of a statement depends, for our minds, very greatly upon our habits of thought. And the j)i'f>'Ctical lesson it should teach us is moderation in dogmatizing, and candor in investigating. But for all this, Mill's evasion will bo found a verbal quibble, consisting in a substitution of another meaning for the word " inconceivable." We do not call a truth necessary, because, negatively, we lack the capacity to conceive the actual opposite thereof ; but because, positively, we are able to see that the opposite proposition involves a self-evident, im- mediate contradiction. It is not that we cannot conceive how the opposite comes to be true, but that we can see, that it is. impossible the opposite should come to be true. And this ifi wholly another thing. The fact that some truths are necessary in this self-evident light, every fair mind reads in its own con- sciousness.
As the third test of first truths, that they are universal, the sensualists ring many changes on the assertion, that there is debate what are first truths ; that some propositions long held to be such, as : " No creative act is possible without a pre- existent material;" "Nature abhors a vacuum;" "A material body cannot act immediately Bave where it is present;" are now found to be not axiomatic, and not even true. The answer is, that all this proves, not that the human mind is no instru- ment for the intuition of truth, but that it is an imperfect one. The same line of objecting would prove with equal fairness — or unfairness — that empirical truths have no inferential validity ; for the disputes concerning them have been a thousand-fold wider. Man often thinks incautiously; he is partially blinded
52 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
by prejudice, liabit, association, hypothesis, so that he has blun- dered, a few times as to first truths, and is constantly blunder- ing, myriads of times, as to derived truths. "^Yhat then ? Shall ve conclude that he has no real intuition of first triiths, and by that conclusion compel ourselves to admit, by a proof reinforced a Miousand-fold, that he certainly has no means, either intuitive or deductive, for ascertaining derived truths ? This is blank skepticism. It finds its practical refutation in the fact, that amidst all his blindness man does ascertain many truths, the benefits of which we actually possess. No ; the conclusion cf common sense is, that we should take care when we think. But the fact remains, that there are axiomatic truths, which no man disputes, or can dispute ; which command universal and immediate credence when intelligently inspected; which, v.o see, must be true in all possible cases which come within their terms. For instance : every sane h iiman being sees, by the first intelligent look of his mind, that any whole must be greater than one of its own parts ; and this is true of all possi- ble wholes in the universe which come within the category of quantity, in any form whatsover. Is it not just this fact which makes the proposition a general one, that man is a reasoning creature? What, except these common and primitive facts cf the intelligence, could make communion of thought, or com- munication of truth from mind to mind, possible? It is these original, innate, common, primary-, regulative laws of belief.
The most audacious and the most mischievous assertion of MiU against absolute truths, is his denial to the mind of any in- tuitive perception of causation and power. Tlie doctrine of common sense here is, that when we see an effect, we intuitively refer it to a cause, as producing its occurrence. And this cause is necessarily conceived as having power to produce it, under the circumstances. For it is impossible for the reason to think that nothing can evolve something. Nothing can result only in nothing. But the effect did not produce its own occurrence, for this would imply that it acted before it existed. Hence, the reason makes also this inevitable first inference, that the power of that cause will produce the same effect which we saw, if all the circumstances are the same. But the sensualistic school asserts that the mind is entitled to predicate no tie between
POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND. 53
cause and effect, save immediate invariable sequence, as observed; because this is all tlie senses observe, and JSlhil in intellectu quod noil ^rias in sensu. The inference, that the like cause will, in future, be followed bv the like effect, is, according to them, an empirical result only of repeated observations, to which the mind is led by habit and association.
Now our first remark is, that only a sensuahstic philosopher could be guilt V of ar'^'uinfy that there can be no real tie of caus- ation, because the senses see only an immediate sequence. The absurdity (and the intended drift also) of such arguing appears thus : tliat, by the same notable sophism, there is no soxd, no God, no abstract truth, no substance, even in matter, but only a bundle of properties. For did our senses ever sec any of these? How often must one repeat the obvious fact, that if there is such a thing as mind, it also has its own properties ; it also is capable of being a cause ; it also can produce ideas according to the law of its nature, when sense f ur]iishes the occasion ? Sensation in- forms us of the presence of the effect ; the reason, according to its own imperative law, supposes power in the cause.
It is extremely easy to demonstrate, and that by the Positiv- ist's own method, that mental association is not the ground, but the consequence, of this idea of causation. We all see cer- tain "immediate, invariable sequences" recurring before us with perfect uniformity; yet we never dream of supposing a causative tie. We see other sequences twice or thrice, and we are certain the tie of ]:)Ower is there. Light has followed dark- ness just as regularly as light has followed the approach of the sun. Xobody dreams that darkness causes light; everybody be- lieves that the sun does cause it. It thus appears, experiment- ally, that association has not taught U' ; the notion of c:^use ; but that our knowledge of cause corrects our associations and con- trols their formation.
The experience of a certain phenomenon following another a number of times can never, by itself, produce a certainty that, under similar circumstances, it will always follow The mere empirical induction gives only probability. The experience of the past, were there no intuition of this law of causation by which to interpret it, would only demonstrate the past; there would be no logical tie entitling us to project it on the future.
54 POSITIYISM IN ENGLAND.
"We ask ovir opponents, if it be the experience of numerous in- stances wliicli gives us certaiuty of a future recurrence, how many instances will effect the demonstration ? Is their answer, for in- stance, that one hundred uniform instances, and no fewer, would be sufficient? What, then, is the difference between the ninety-ninth and the hundredth ? According to the very suppo- sition, the two instances are exactly alike ; if they were not, the unlike one could certainly contribute nothing to the proof, for it would be excluded as exceptional. Why is it, then, that all the ninety-nine do not prove the law, but the hundredth instance, ex- actly similar to all the rest, does ? There is no ansAver. Tho truth is, the reason why an empirical induction suggests the probability that a certain, oft-repeated sequence contains the true law of a cause (which is all it can do), is but this : intui- tion has assured us in advance, that the second ^heiioinenon of the pair, the effect, must have some cause ; and the fact observed, that the other is its seeming next antecedent, "indicates a pre- sumption that this may he the true cause. For the true cause must be the immediate next antecedent, either visible or unno- ticed. But there may be another more immediate antecedent than the one first noticed, not yet detected. We, therefore, re- sort to some test grounded on the intuitive law of cause, to settle this doubt. Just as soon as that doubt is solved, if it be by the second observation, the mind is satisfied ; it has ascer- tained the causative antecedent ; it is now assured that this ante- cedent, if arising under the same conditions, will inevitably pro- duce this consequent, always and everywhere, and ten thousands of uniform instances, if they do not afford this test, generate to such certainty. Yea, there are cases in which the conviction of causative connection is fully established by one trial, when the circumstances of that one trial are such as to assure the mind that no other iindetected antecedent can have intervened, or ac- companied the observed one. For instance, a traveller plucks and tastes a fruit of inviting color and odor, which was wholly unknown to him before. The resvilt is a painful excoriation of his lips and palate. He remembers that he had not before taken into his mouth any substance whatever, save such as he knew to be innocuous. The singleness of the new antecedent enables liim to decide that it must have been the true cause of his suffer-
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ings. The man thenceforward knows just as ceiiainly that this fruit is noxious, whenever he sees it, to the millionth instance, ■without ever tasting it a second time, as though he had tasted and suffered nine hundred thousand times.
Indeed, as Dr. Chalmers has well shown, experience is so far from begetting this belief in the law of cause, that its usual effect is to correct and limit it. A child strikes its spoon or knife upon the table for the first time ; the result is sound, in which children so much delight. He next repeats his experiment confidently upon the sofa-cushion or carpet, and is vexed at his failure to produce sound. Experience does not generate, but corrects his intiiitive confidence, that the same cause will produce the samje effect, not by refuting the principle, but by instructing him that the causative antecedent of the sound was not, as he supposed, simple impact, but a more complex one, namely, impact of the spoon and elasticity of the thing struck.
Mill himself admits express^, what Bacon had so clearly shown, that an induction merely empirical gives no demonstra- tion of causative tie. To reach the latter, we must apply some canon of induction, which will discriminate between the j?os£ hoc and the propte?^ Tioc. Does not Mill himself propose such can- ons? It is obvious that the logic of common life, by which plain people convert the inferences of experience into available certainties, is but the application of the same canons. Let us now inspect an instance of such application, and we shall find that it j)roceeds at every step on the intuitive law of cause as its postulate. Each part of the reasoning which distinguishes be- tween the seeming antecedent and the true cause is a virtual syllogism, of which the intuitive truth is the major premise. Let us select a very simple case ; the reader will see, if he troubles liimself to examine the other canons of induction, that they ad- mit of precisely the same analysis. We are searching for the true cause of an effect which we name D. We cannot march ■directly to it, as the traveller did in the case of the poisonous strange fruit, because w^e cannot ]3rociu'e the occurrence of the phenomenon D with only a single antecedent. We must, there- fore, reason by means of a canon of induction. First, we con- struct an experiment in which we contrive the certain exclusion of all antecedent j)henomena save two, which W'e name A and B.
56 POSITIVISM IX ENGLAND.
It still remains doubtful which of these produced the effect D^ or whether both combined to do it. ^'e contrive a second ex- periment, in which B is excluded, but another ^j'7ie;i07ne?ion, which we call C, accompanies A, and the effect D again follows. Kow we can get the truth. Here are two instances. In the first, A and B occurred, and D follows immediately, all other antecedents being excluded. Therefore, the cause of D is either A or B, or the two combined (thus the inductive canon proceeds). But why ? Because the effect D must have had its immediate cause, which is our d prioi^i and intuitive postulate. In the sec- ond instance, A and C occurred together, and T> followed. Here again, the true cause must be either A or C, or the combined power of the two, T\'hy ? For the same intuitive reason. But in the first instance C coidd not have been the cause of D, because C was absent then ; and in the second instance, B could not have been the cause, for B was then absent. Therefore, A was the true cause all the time, ^'hy ? Because we know intuitively that every effect has its own cause. And now we know, without far- ther experiment, that, however often A may occur under proper conditions, D will assuredly follow. Why? Only because we knew, from the first, the general law that like causes produce like effects.
It thvis appears that the intuitive belief in this law of cause, is essential beforehand, to enable us to convert an experimental induction into a demonstrated general tmth. Can any demon- stration be clearer, that the original lav; itself cannot have been the teaching of experience ? It passes human wit to see ho%v a logical process can prove its ovra premise, when the j^i'emise is what proves the process. Yet this absurdity Mill gravely at- tempts to explain. His solution is, that the law of cause is " an empirical law co-extensive with all human experience." In this case he thinks an empirical law may be held as perfectly demon- strated, because of its universality. May we conclude, then, that a man is entitled to hold the law of cause as ]3erfectly valid only after he has acquired "all human experience?" This simple question dissolves the sophism into thin air. It is experiment- ally proved that this is not the way in which the mind comes by the belief of the law ; becaiise no man ever acqiiires all human experience to the day of his death ; but only a part, which, rela-
POSITITISil IX ENGLAND. 57
tivelv to tlie wliole, is exceedingly minute ; and because every man beKeves the general la^' of cause as soon as lie begins to acquire experience. The just doctrine, tlierefoi'e, is, tliat ex- perimental instances are only the occasions upon wliicli the mind's own intuitive power pronounces the self-evident law.
John Stuart Mill is both a Positivist in his logic, and the ac- cepted philosopher of English radicalism. The reader has in the above specimens a fair taste of his quality. With much learning and labor, he combines subtlety and dogmatism. His stvle, hke his thoughts, is intricate, ill-defined, and ambiguous, having a great air of profundity and accuracy, without the real possession of either. When one sees the confused and mazy involutions in which he entangles the plainest propositions that are unfriendly to his sensuaHstic principles, he is almost ready to suppose him the honest victim of those erroneous postu- lates, until he observes the astute and perspicacious adroit- ness vrith which he wrests the evidence of the truth which he disHkes.
But we return, and conclude this branch of the discussion by resuming the points. Positivism denies all primary and abso- lute beliefs. We have now shown that in this it is inconsistent, because such beliefs are necessary premises to those experimen- tal processes of proof which alone it aifects to value. It is by these primitive truths of the reason that the soul reaches a realm of thought above the perception of the senses, and ascends to God, to immortality, to heaven.
6. Comte and his followers claim that the physical sciences have the most fruit, and the most satisfying certainty, because they have received the " positive " method. Metaphysics, includ- ing psychology, ethics and natural theology, had remained to his day worthless and barren of all but endless differences and de- bates, because they had attempted a different method, and refused Positivism. Introduce here Butler's idea : ProbahUlty the practical guide of life. But he undertook to reconstruct so much of these as he did not doom to annihilation upon the strict basis of the observation of the bodily senses and experimental reasoning, under the name of "sociology." In this instance, with the help of biology, he proposed to deduce all the laws of mind from physical experiments and observations upon its
58 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
organs, the brain and nervous apparatus ; and from the visible acts of men's bodies as moved by the mind. Then, from the laAvs of mind, with the facts of human history, he professed to construct an experimental and positive science of ethics and gov- ernment. It is instructive to notice that the Positivists, just so soon as they approach these sciences of mind, morals, human rights and government, disagree with each other as much as the rest of us unpositive mortals. The Priest of Humanity has been compelled to expel many of his earliest admirers from his church. Somehow, Positivism itself, when it approaches these topics, is no longer "positive;" it guesses, dogmatizes, dreams, disputes, errs, fully as much as its predecessors. What, now, does this show? Plainly that the experimental methods of the physical sciences are incajDable of an exact and universal appli- cation in this field of inquiry. The objects are too immaterial ; they are no longer defined, as in physics, by magnitude, or fig- ure, or quantity , or duration, or ponderosity, or velocity. The combinations of causation are too complex. The effects are too rapid and fleeting. The premises are too numerous and unde- fined for our limited minds to grasp with uniform exactness and certainty. If Positivism, with all its acknowledged learning, and mastery of the science of matter, with its boasts and its confi- dence, has failed to conquer these difficulties in the little way it professes to advance in the science of the human spirit, shall we not continue to fail in part? " "^^^^-lat can he do that cometh after the king?"
Let us couple this fact, tliat the sciences of psychology, morals and natural theology have ever been, and are destined to remain, the least exact and positive of all the departments of man's knoAvledge, with this other, that they are immeasurably the most important to his. well-being and his hopes. The latter statement commends itself to our experience. It is far more essential to a man's happiness here, that he shall have his rights justly and fairly defined than his land accurately surveyed. It is far more interesting to the traveller to know whether the ship-captain to whom he entrusts his life has the moral virtue of fidelity than the learning of the astronomer and navigator. It is more im- portant to us to have virtuous friends to cherish our hearts than adroit mechanics to make our shoes. It is more momentous to
POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND. 59
:& clying man to know whether there is an immortality, and how it may be made happy, than to have a skilful physician, now that his skill is vain. We see here, then, that human science is least able to help ns where our need is most urgent. M. Comte re- prehends the human mind, because " questions the most radi- cally inaccessible to our capacities, the intimate nature of being, the origin and the end of all jj/ienomena, were precisely those which the intelligence propounded to itself as of paramount im- portance in that primitive condition, all the other problems Teally admitting of solution being almost regarded as unworthy of serious meditation. The reason of this it is not difficult to discover, for experience alone could give us the measure of our strength." Alas! the reason is far more profound. Man has ever refused to content himself with examining the properties of triangles, prisms, levers and pulleys, which he could have ex- actly determined, and has persisted in asking whence his spirit- ual being came, and whither it was going ; what was its proper rational end, and what its laws ; not merely because he had not learned the limits of his power, but because he was, and is, irre- sistibly impelled to these inquiries by the instinctive wants of his soul. His intuitions tell him that these are the things, and not the others, which are of infinite moment to him. It appears, then, that it is unavoidable for man to search most anxiously where he can find least certainty. His intellectual wants are most tremendous just in those departments where his power of self-help is least. To what should this great fact point us ? If we obey the spirit of true science, it will manifest to us the great truth that man was never designed by God for mental indepen- dence of him ; that man needs, in these transcendent questions, the guidance of the infinite understanding ; that while a " posi- tive philosophy " may measure and compare his material posses- sions, the only " exact science " of the spirit is that revealed to us by the Father of Spirits. This, we assure the Positivist, is the inevitable conclusion to which the sound and healthy reason will ever revert, as the needle to its pole, despite all his dogma- tism and sophistry. Introduce here the experimental argument for the certain failure of materialism from the constitutional ne- cessities of the soul, and from history of the past, even with so poor a religion as popery. If there were nothing else to ensure
60 POSITIVISM IN ENGLAND.
it, the intolerable miseries, crimes and despair, into wliicli Posit- ivism will ever plunge tlie societies which adopt it, will always bring back this result. He may draw an augury of the destiny of his \n'etched creed from the parsimony of its present followers. M. Comte drew up a scheme for the support of the ministers of his new " "Worship of Humanity," under which the " High Priest of Humanity " was to receive a salary of about $12,000 a year, and four national superintendents about $6,000 each. It ap]5ears from the newspapers that only forty-six persons contributed in 1867, and the total was $750. But meantime the votaries of that Lord Jesus Christ whom he despises, in the conquered South, though "scattered and peeled" by their enemies, contribute an- nually some millions of dollars, and are sending their best intel- lects and hearts to propagate their faith at the antipodes. Let the Positivist judge which system has the conquering vitaHty !
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY-
THE last and only time Mr. Bledsoe was introduced into the Critic, it was in connection with his Theodicy. This work, which was a thorough-going assertion of Pelagianism, was per- haps the most honest sophistry we have ever read. It exhibited some premises so erroneous that conclusions drawn from them could only be false, and displayed no little theological preju- dice ; but still the discussion was manly and vigorous, the style both nervous and rhetorical, and the love of truth apparent even in the advocacy of error. If a strong and energetic man start from the wrong point, and take the wrong direction, he will go only the farther astray, because of his vigorous exertions.
The work which we review possesses the same mental traits and characteristics of stjde with the former, with this advantage, that the subject is one which the writer approaches without preju- dice, and which the nature of his previous studies has qualified him to discuss. Born in Kentucky, where, as is well known, the emancipation feeling was almost as strong, until the abolition excitement began, as in any of the free States, spending the earlier years of his manhood in Ohio, and then a few years in Mississippi, and at all times disconnected with those occupa- tions which interest themselves in slave labor, the author may be regarded fairly as a man who has seen both sides, and who stands in an intermediate post of observation. But the aboli- tionist will probably say, if he meets the usual treatment from them, that his book now speaks the language of self-interest, because he holds office under the government of a "slave- breeding commonwealth." The common utterance of such charges is as offensive to public morality as to the individuals at whom they are hurled ; for they seem to take it for granted
' Appeared in The Critic for May, 1856, reviewing An Essay on Liberty and Sla.very, by Albert Taylor Bledsoe, LL. D., Professor of Mathematics in tlie Uni- versity of Virginia.
61
62 LIBERT! AND SLAYERY.
tliat candor, public virtue and moral courage are extinct in tlie South; and since the accusers cannot know a community in "wliich tliej Lave not lived, and wliicli tliey so muck contemn^ the inference is, that tliej disbelieve the existence of these quali- ties at the South, because they are not accustomed to meet with them at home. This is as unjust to the country at large as it is in this case to Mr. Bledsoe and the community in which he resides. It should not be supposed, that because the people of Virginia would deal summarily with a hypocritical incendiary fi'om abroad, who came with insolent malignitv meddlinoj with what does not concern him, they will, therefore, refuse the pri^^i- lecje of free discussion to her own honorable citizens.
Mr. Bledsoe's first chapter lays down first principles for his subsequent discussion, in a discussion of "the nature of civil liberty." It may be said in brief, that the theory of society which he advocates is the Bible theory ; the one which is advo- cated by the B'lhlical Repertory and bj^ Christian philosophers generally, in opposition to that infidel theory which ignores a Creator and moral Governor of mankind, the pet system of infidel French democrats and pseudo-Christian abolitionists. The author in substance describes Hberty to be a freedom to do icJiat a man. has a rigid to do ; and to define the extent of those rights he goes to the law of God. This chapter is marked most favorably with the best characteristics of the author, freedom from prescription, boldness in attacking errors sanctioned by great names and vigorous scientific inquiry. It rises, indeed,, very near the highest regions of ethical speculation, in the directness, simplicity and breadth of the thinking. The remain- ing chapters on the erroneous positions of abolitionists, the Bible argument for the lawfulness of slavery, the argument from the public good, and the fugitive slave law, do not quite fulfil the promise of the first in their philosophic method. This defect, if it is one, arises obviously from the author's pk\n of taking up and refuting the positions of abolitionists in detail ; so that the discussion, instead of b.nng strictly methodized on a logical plan,, is rather a series of refutations, each one indeed pimgent and demolishing, but yet as a whole, partaking of the confusion of the errors which they explode. The author does not conde- scend to meaner antagonists, but grapples only with the Ajaxes
LIBERTY AXD SLATERY. 6S
of the opposite host, Drs. Chauning and Wayland, aud Messrs. Barnes, Snmner, and Seward. The impression which manj of these special discussions leaves upon the mind of the reader is that of a strong man tearing away the defences of his helpless adversary, rending them into almost invisible shreds, and spurn- ing them as the driven stubble before his bow, till they can be no longer found. We were peculiarly gratified with the thorough work which he makes of the criticisms of that most glozing and treacherous of commentators, Barnes, upon the epistle to Phile- mon. But Avhile we would be glad that this book should be read, yea, studied by every man in the United States who is un- satisfied on the subject of slavery, we would not be understood as commending in every case the strength of its denunciations, or as approving all its j30sitions. Pages 151, 152, the author alludes to the familiar objection by which Dr. 'Wayland and others attempt to break the force of the unanswerablo argument from tlie legalizing of slavery in the law of Moses ; that in like manner the sins of polygamy and divorce are there permitted. Here Mr. Bledsoe makes the admission that the fact claimed is true; but that instead of proving slavery a sin, it only proves the two other practices innocent till they were prohibited by Christ. This would indeed be the just inference, if we were compelled to make the admission. But we would by no means, make it. We are by no means wdlling to surrender it as a set- tled question, that polygamy is in any sense allowed or legalized in the Pentateuch; and the scantj permissive legislation about divorce, explained as it is by our Saviour, is very far from placing that sin on the same platform with the ownership of slaves, which is not only limited and restrained (the whole of what is enacted about divorce), but authorized. Polemically it is a bad policy to seem to permit the abolitionist to say : " Well, after all, your notable Old Testament argument only succeeds in placing slavery in the same category with tbe two Mormon abominations of polygamy and divorce." There is no logical necessity on us to allow even the pretext for such a repartee.
In commending this book, with these and a few similar ex- ceptions, to our readers, we would avail ourselves of the occa- sion to make two important remarks. One is, that the political troubles in our federal relations growing out of slavery at the
64 LIDEKTY AND SLAVERY.
Soutli can never be permanently adjusted till tlie abstract ques- tion, "wlietlier the relation of master and slave is in itself an unrigliteous one or not?" is fullj met, discussed, and settled in tlie national mind. There were two courses of conduct, either of which might have been followed by the defenders of existing laws. Ono plan would have been to exclude the whole ques- tion of slavery persistently from the national councils, as extra- constitutional, unprofitable and dangerous, and to assert this exclusion always, and at every risk, as the essential condition of the continuance of the South in those councils. The other plan was to meet that abstract question from the first, as under- lying and determining the whole subject, to debate it every- W'here, until it was decided, and the verdict of the national mind was passed upon it. Unfortunately, the Southern men did neither steadily. They permitted the debate, and then failed to argue it on fundamental principles. With the exception of Mr. Calhoun — whom events are every year proving the most far-see- ing of our statesmen, notwithstandiug the fashion of men to depreciate him as an "abstractionist" while he lived — Southern politicians were accustomed to say that this whole matter was one of State sovereignty, according to the constitution ; that Congress had no right to legislate concerning its merits, and that, therefore, they should not seem to admit such a right, by condescending to argue the matter of its merits. The premise is true; but the inference is practically most erroneous. If Congress has no right to legislate about slavery, then Congress should not have been permitted to debate it. And Southern men, if they intended to stand on that ground, should have ex- acted the exclusion of all debate. But this was perhaj)s impos- sible. The debate came ; and of course the inferences of the premises agitated ran at once back of the constitution. South- ern men should have industriously followed them there; but they have not done it ; and now political agitation has gone so far, and become so complicated, that we fear the time has gone by when the country will be willing to consider calmly the fundamental question.
A moment's consideration ought to show that that question is the abstract lawfulness or unlawfulness of the relation of master and slave. The constitution gives to the Federal government
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 65
no power over that relation in the slave States. True, but that constitution is a compact between sovereign commonwealths ; it certainly gives incidental protection and recognition to the rela- lation of master and slave, and if that relation is intrinsically unrighteous, then it protects a wrong. The sovereign States of the North are found in the attitude of protecting a wrong by their voluntary compact ; and, therefore, it is the duty of all the righteous citizens of those commonwealths to seek by righteous means the amendment or repeal of that compact. They are not, indeed, justified to claim all the benefits of the compact, and still agitate under it a matter which the compact excludes. But they are more than justified ; they are bound to clear their skirts of the wrong, by surrendering the compact, if necessary. There is no evasion from this duty, except by proving that the consti- tution does not do unrighteously in protecting the relation; in other words, that the relation is not intrinsically unrighteous. Again, on the subject of the "Higher Law," our conservative statesmen and divines have thro\^Ti out a vast amount of pious dust. This may serve to quiet the country for a time, but it will inevitably be blown away. There is a higher lavj, superior to constitution and legislative laws; not indeed the perjured and "unprincipled cant which has no conscience about swearing alle- giance to a constitution and a body of laws which it believes vrong, in order to grasp the emoluments 'and advantages of those laws, and then pleads " conscience " for disobeying what it had voluntarilv sworn to obev ; but the law of everlasting ri^ht in the word of God. Constitutions and laws which contravene this ought to be lawfully amended or repealed ; and it is the duty of all citizens to seek it. Let us a23ply this to the Fugitive Slave Law. If the bondage is intrinsically unrighteous, then the fed- eral law which aids in remanding the fugitive to it legalizes a wrong. It becomes, therefore, the duty of all United States offi- cers who are required bv law to execute this statute, not indeed to hold their offices and emoluments, and swear fidelity, and then plead conscientious scruples for the neglect of these SM'orn functions, for this is a union of theft and perjury with hypoc- risy, but to resign those offices, with their emoluments. It be- ■comes the duty of any private citizen who may be summoned by ii United States officer to act as part of a 2^oi<^e, guard, or in any
Vol. UI —5.
66 LIBEIITY AND SLAVERY.
other way in enforciug this statute, to declhie obedience ; and then, in accordance "with Scripture, to submit meekly to the legal penalty of such a refusal, until the unrighteous law is re- pealed. But, moreover, it becomes the right and duty of these, and all other citizens, to seek the repeal of that law, or, if neces- sary, the abrogation of the compact which necessitates it. But when we have proved that the relation of master and slave is not intrinsically unrighteous, and have shown that the fugitive slave law does but carry out fairly the federal compact in this particular, it becomes the clear duty of every citizen to concur in obeying it.
Since the slavery discussion has now become inevitable in our federal politics, it is absolutely essential that the mind of the nation shall be enlightened and settled on the abstract question. The halls of Congress should ring with the arguments; the news- paper press should teem with them, and, above all, with the Bible arguments, for ours is a Christian nation in the main ; and the teachings of the sacred Scriptures are, after all, the chief means for influencing the convictions of the people. It seems, indeed, late in the day to begin the popular discussion of first principles afresh, when the immediate questions have almost reached their crisis ; but we are convinced that if it is too late now to get the pubhc ear for this discussion, it is too late to save the country. It is gratifying to notice that the political news- papers are at length weakening to the necessity of this discussion. A leading journal of the South a few weeks ago noticed, and lamented, the policy on w^hich we have been remarking, and said that since Mr, Calhoun died, not a single j^olitician had been found to argue the abstract question of right on its merits, while all that had been done for the peace of the coimtry since in this matter had been done by divines and scholars. The work of Mr. Bledsoe is important and timely, as making an able contri- bution to this fundamental discussion.
The second remark which we would urge is, that if this debate is to produce any good to the country at large, the propositions advanced must be marked by a wiser moderation, and the argu- ments by more soundness than have always been exhibited at the South. The Southern cause does not demand such asser- tions as that the condition of master and slave is the normal con-
LIBERTY AND SLAVEEY. 67
dition of human society, in such a sense as to be preferable to all others, in all time, and under all circumstances. Certain it is that the burden of odium which the cause will have to carry at the North will be immeasurably increased by such positions. Why array against ourselves indomitable prejudices, by the use- less assertion of a proposition which would be unnecessary to our cause, if it were true ? Nor can a peaceful and salutary purpose be ever subserved by arguing the question in a series of compar- isons of the relative advantages of slave and free labor, laudatory to the one party and invidious to the other. There has been, on both sides of this debate, a mischievous forgetfuluess of the old adage, " Comparisons are odious." When Southern men thus argue, they assume the disadvantage of appearing as the propagandists, instead of the peaceful defenders of an institu- tion which is, and will continue, very naturally, distasteful to their opponents ; and they array the self-esteem of those oppo- nents against them, by placing the discussion in an attitude where the acknowledgement of the Southern cause must be a confession of Northern inferiority. True, our Northern neighbors have often been only too zealous to play at this in\ddious game, or even to begin it in advance. They should not be imitated in their mistake. It is time that all parties should learn that the lawfulness and policy of opposite, or competing, social systems cannot be decided by painting the special features of hardship, abuse or mismanagement, which either of the advocates may im- agine he sees in the system of his opponent. The course of this great discussion has too often been this : each party has set up an easel, spread a canvass upon it, and proceeded to draw the system, of its adversary in contrast with its own, in the blackest colors which a heated and angry fancy could discover amidst the evils and abuses imputed to the rival institution. The only result possible is, that each shall blacken his adversary more and more, and, consequently, that both shall grow more and more enraged; and this, though all the black shades of sorrow and oppression be dra\\Ti from facts in the conditions of the rivals ; for, unfortunately, the human race is a fallen race, 'depraved, unrighteous and oppressive, under all institutions. Out of the best social institutions there still proceeds a hideous amount of wrong and woe ; and this, not because those institu-
68 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.
tions are unrighteous, but because tliey are administered by de- praved man. For tliis reason, and for another equally conclu- sive, we assert that the lawfulness, and even the wisdom and policy of social institutions aflfecting a vast population cannot be decided by this odious contrast of their special wrong results. The other reason is, that the field of view is too immense and varied to be brought fairly into comparison under the limited eye of man. First, then, if we attempt to settle the matter by trying how much wrong we can find in the working of the oppo- site system, there will probably be no end at all to the melan- choly discoveries which we shall both make, and so, no end to the debate ; for the guilty heart of man is everywhere & 2)er2)etual fountain of "s^Tongs. And, second, the comparison of results must be deceptive, because no finite mind can take in both the endless wholes.
The policy of the South, then, is, to take no ultra positions, and to support herself by no unnecessarily invidious compari- sons. It is enough for her to place herself on this impregnable stand, that the relation of master and slave is recognized as law- ful in itself, by the infallible law of God. That truth she can triumphantly evince ; and from it she can deduce all that it is right for her to claim. There is no wisdom nor use in her as- serting that domestic slavery is always and everywhere the best relation between labor and capital, and should, therefore, be everywhere introduced ; a proposition against which, to say the least, indomitable prejudices are arrayed. It is enough for her to say — what is true, and susceptible of overwhelming demonstra- tion— that, for the African race, such as it is, in fact, such as Providence has placed it here, this is the best, yea, the only tol- erable relation. If it is lawful in the sight of God ; if the con- stitution of the Union does no moral wrong in recognizing it as la^-ful ; if it is best for the interests of the African, of the white race of the South, and of the whole Union, that the matter should be left untouched by the meddling hand of federal legis- lation— a hand impotent of good to it, and only nighty for mis- chief— to develop itself under the leadings of Providence and the benign influences of Christianity, then the South has all her rights asserted. If thus much is true, then the federal consti- tution, and the laws carrying out its provisions, only say what
LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. 69
tlie Bible says, that the holder of African slaves does uot neces- sarily live in the commission of wrong, and is not, therefore, to be disfranchised of any right which the law allows to any other citizen.
It is because Mr. Bledsoe's work is marked l)y this just mod- eration in its positions that we are Avilling to commend it to the public. We have here none of the absurdities, of which the facile exposure has given abolitionists the pretext to sing tri- umphs, such as the argument that African slavery is righteous, because Noah foretold it of the descendants of Ham. The author says, for instance (p. 140), "In opposition to the thesis of the aboKtionist, we assert that it is not always and everywhere wrong." " We only contend for slavery in certain cases." And in the argument from the public good, he says (p. 228) : " We are not called upon to decide whether slavery shall be estab- lished in our midst, or not. This question has been decided for us." .... "The only inquiry which remains for us now is, whether the slavery which was thus forced upon our an- cestors shall be continued, or whether it shall be abolished? The question is not what Virginia, or Kentucky, or any other slave State Tnight have been, but what they would be in case it were abolished. If abolitionists would speak to the point, then let them show us some country in which slavery has been abolished, and we will abide by the experiment." True, Mr. Bledsoe does not always speak of his ultra adversaries in sugared terms. But in our disapproval of the strength of his words, let us remember the outrageous provocation which has been given.
POPISH LITERATURE AXD EDUCATIOX.
WHILE the Ivomaii empire continued, it may be said that Latin was the common tongue of the whole "Western church. But after the empire fell, the modern languages of Eu- rope gradually formed themselves and displaced the Latin in popular use, until it remained only the language of courts and scholars. But Eome, in her fear of change and blind fondness for prescriptive things, persisted in retaining all her creeds, hymns and liturgies in the old tongue, as well as the only ver- sion of the Scriptures accessible to Europeans. Froin Gregory the Great, near the end of the sixth century, a continued war- fare ^^'as waged, until Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, hnally triumphed by driving all the vernacular languages from religious worship, and imposing the formularies, with the dead language of Home, on the whole church. The Scriptures could only be read, even by the clergy, from the Latin Yiilgate. Even to this day, the prayers in which the priest leads the aspirations, or presents the wants of his people to God are in words un- known to them. No hymn echoes through " fretted vault or long-drawn aisle," which does not hide its praise in a tongue barbarian to those who join it.
The constant policy of Home has also been to exalt this lit- urgy at the expense of the preaching of the gospel in vernacular languages. The mass is long and pompous ; the sermons few, brief and trivial. The very structure of her churches betrays her contempt for this potent means of enhghtening and arousing the popular mind, for tliey are not auditories in which to hear the words of instruction, but ghostly theatres for tho display of superstitious pantomime. The altar and the chancel, the stage of the sacred mummeries, are the centre of all eyes, and not the pulpit, the pillar from which shines the lamp of life. Now the formation of a cultivated vernacular tongue is absolutely neces- sary to national improvement. The reason is obvious : there
' Appeared in the Critic for September-November, 1856, 70
POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION. 71
cannot be diffusiou of thought, unless there is a language refined enough to he its medium, and the bulk of a people can never know two languages, one living and common, the other dead and learned, so well as practically to use them both. The conse- quence is, that when the literature of a people is in a dead tongue, knowledge is not the inheritance of the masses, but the distinction of the few ; the native language of the people is left in its rudeness, and they remain as iincultivated as their speech. Hence, those who have first taught their countrymen to employ the native language of their homes and their daily life in litera- ture, a Boccaccio and Petrarch in Italy, a Luther in Germany, a Wickliife and Chaucer in England, have ever been regarded hy thinking men as high in rank among the fathers of civilization. But what ideas and topics so kindle the activity of the mind, and crave for its teeming productions the fitting dress of a cul- tivated language as the religious? Among every people, the £rst sentiments which attune for themselves the voice of elo- quence, are the aspirations of the soul towards its God. The oldest regular compositions in the world are the inspired books of the Hebrews. The first poem in Greece was probably the Theogony of Hesiod. And there are no sentiments so potent to unloose the stammering tongue of an awakening people, and to form its utterance, as those proceeding from man's relations to Lis Maker. It is hard to conceive how Bome could have devised a more ingenious and efficient mode to prevent the cultivation of the modern languages, and thereby, of the mind of Christen- dom, than when she compelled all people to retain their worship and religious lore locked up in a dead language. Let us sup- pose that she had done for every trilie to which she gave Chris- tianity what the primitive and Protestant missions have done, had seized their barbarous tongues and ennobled them by mak- ing them the vehicles of holy truth and sacred worship. Europe would scarcely have known the dark ages, but the glorious day of the sixteenth century might have followed the declining hght of the Augustan era without an intervening night. It may be, indeed, that when the popes thus postponed the dawn of civili- zation, "it was not in their hearts, and they meant not so." "When they commanded all people and tongues to speak to their God and to listen to his words only in a dead language, it was
72 POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION.
in their liearts to magnify the venerable age and hoary "unity of their communion. But the result is one among the numerous instances of that guilty fatality which seems to make Home, in all her plans and policies, the instinctive and unerring enemy of all human welfare.
She has always been the enemy of a free Bible. What Chinese, Indian, Hindu version of the Scriptures have her mis- sionaries ever given to those on whom they conferred the fatal gift of Romish dogmas ? Her priests import cargoes of relics and rosaries, puppets and pictures, missals and vestures, but no Bibles. From that day when the language of her Latin Vulgate became a dead one in Europe to ours, in which we have seen her convulsions of helpless rage and storms of curses against the present glorious diffusion of God's word, Rome has never will- ingly given to the world a Bible in a vulgar language. She has permitted a few versions, as tlie French of Lefevre, of Staples, and the English Douay. But it was only to countermine the influence of Protestants. Her people are only permitted to pos- sess these partial versions, because else they would persist in reading the Protestant, and even her own are circulated as re- luctantly as possible. No layman may read them without a license from his pastor, and no priest except at the will of his superior ; and then none must dare to think on them for him- self, or have an opinion of their meaning, except as his soul's masters dictate. In all her processes of education, her forms and '■'■fathers " are taught in preference to the Bible, and no re- ligious literature is desired except the literature of superstition. The thinking man cannot but see how hostile all this is to mental improvement. The Bible is the great school-teacher of man- kind ; its truths are of all others the most stimulating and fructi- fying, and its presentation of them the most successful. They move the secret foundations of man's soul, stirring the mightiest of his hopes and fears, filling the mind with vast and ennobling conceptions of an infinite God, a perfect holiness, an immutable truth, an immortal destiny. The Scriptures present examples of the most forcible reasoning, the grandest eloquence, the most burning animation, the sweetest poetry, the most tender pathos, and instances of most admirable virtue and goodness. In one word, they bring the mind of their reader into contact with God's,
POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION. 73
not mediately, as Rome would have it, througli the dim, deformed transmission of a murky, human soul, But face to face. What education can equal it ? In opposing an open Bible, Rome shows herself the great enemy of popular intelligence. The re- sults of the Reformation illustrate this charge by contrast. Wick- liffe, "the morning star of the Reformation," introduced the dawn by his English New Testament. One of Luther's first acts was to give the Scriptures in German to his countrymen ; and this great work, with the attendant discussions, gave form to that language as a vehicle for literature, and generated a nation of readers.
But more, while Rome makes religious discussion the privi- lege of the hierarchy, Protestantism makes it the right and bus- iness of every man. Hence, its very nature is an appeal from the ghostly throne beneath which the conscience and reason lay crushed, to the great tribunal of the common understanding. The audience to which it speaks is the whole race. It restores to every man his spiritual liberty, and thereby his responsibility ; it urges upon him the great issue between his soul and his God, and in urging, it elevates every man who will hearken to the level of his immortal destiny. Hence, the first work of the re- formers was to throw open the Bible, create a popular religious literature, and invite all Europe to the work of examination, and thereby of self-education. To see how much the popular intelli- gence owes to this, imagine that our venerable English version were blotted out of existence, and along with it, all the noble thought which it has stimulated in Britain and America ; and that in its place we had the corrupt, cunning Douay version of a corrupt Latin translation, only here and there in the hands of a priest or layman, whose supersition was known to be so dense as to permit no risk of its illumination.
The Popish prohibition of free enquiry and private judgment in religion is, if possible, still more fatal to the mind. The Council of Trent ordained that no one should presume to under- stand the Scriptures, except according to the doctrines of Rome and the unanimous consent of her Fathers. Rome enjoins on her children an implicit faith, which believes on authority with- OTiit evidence. The faith of tlie Protestant is an intelligent con- viction, the result of the fiee and manly exercise of the faculties
74 POPISH LITERATURE. AND EDUCATION.
God gave him, guided by divine fear and help. Tlie papist collects tlie dicta of Fathers and Councils, onlv to we'drthem as shackles on his understanding. The Protestant Inings all dkia to the test of reason, and still more, of that 'Word, to ^\hich his reason has spontaneously bowed as the supreme and infallible truth. Eome bids US listen to her authority and blindly submit; Protestant- ism commands : " Prove all things ; hold fast to that which is good." Happily, the prohibition of private judgment is as im- possible to be obeyed as it is alisurd. In the very act of com- manding us not to think for ourselves, Eome invokes oiu' thought io comprehend the proofs of her command. In the very breath with which she tells us not to reason, she calls upon reason to understand the justice of the prohibition. In truth, the exercise of private judgment is the exercise of thought ; for if the mind is to think at all, it must be its o^ti free thoughts which it pro- duces. If I ^ee at aU, it must be A^ith my own eyes, and in such shapes and colors as they of themselves reveal to me. To com- mand me to see only with the eyes of another, is to make me bhnd. And so, the attempt to banish private judgment from re- ligion is an attempt to make man cease to think, or, in other words, to reduce him on that subject below the level of a ra- iional being. If it were successful, man would no longer be a religious being, but a clever brute. And this is, indeed, the very ideal of that result in which Eome would most delight ; to make men a docile herd of human beasts, incapable of insubordina- tion, yet apt and skilful above other animals to toil for the pam- X)ering of her lordly luxury and pride. Nor is this mental bond- age limited to sacred learning ; it is also inculcated in secular studies, lest perchance the habit and spirit of free thought formed in the domain of human science should invade that of theology. The confines of every realm of thought are overspread with darkness, lest some sidedight should gleam upon the foul delu- sions of her spiritual tyranny, reveahng them to her victims. By how many odious restrictions, censorships, inquisitions and tortures is this despotism over thought sustained ! How many prisons, racks and faggots have been employed to crush the fi'ee- dom of the mind !
To Eome belongs the diabolical preeminence above all pagan priesthoods and political despots, of punishing with the tiirest
POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION. 75
death which the human frame can endure, the crime of being too wise and truthful to believe all her absurdities. The Index of Prohibited Books, a stout volume composed of the mere titles of the works she has proscribed, gives curious evidence of her instinctive hatred of all human intelligence; for we find there, not only all the great works of her assailants, as we would ex- pect, but of nearly all the great masters who have extended the domains of knowledge. Whether they wrote of Philosophy, Geography, Histor}-, Poetry, Rome could not forgive them the attempt to ennoble the minds which it was her purpose to en- slave. When we read in the Index such names as these, which a few minutes' search has collected : Bacon, Cudworth, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Yillers, Malebranche, Leibnitz, Locke, Bentham, Grotius, Bayle, Basnage, Burnet, Hallam, Mosheim, Brucker, Robertson, Selden, Sismondi and Milton, does it not seem as though Pome had designedly proclaimed herself the patroness of ignorance, by arraying against herself all that is most glorious in human intellect ? To repress the free activity of the mind in religion is the most effectual mode to curb all expansive thought in every department. The truths of religion are the most per- vasive and stimulating of all others. Christianity sits as queen and directress of all man's exertions, controlling every duty, modifying every relation, influencing every interest of humanity, ennobling and fructifying every speculation. The conscience is the central power of the soul, so that he who is fettered there is a slave in his whole being. When the conscience is chained, there can be no free development of the faculties by bold and manly exercise. The Keformation, says Guizot, was, in its men- tal character, but the insurrection of the human mind against the mental impression of Pome, which had weighed so heavily on the irrepressible activity of thought as to provoke a resistless reaction. How beneficent the impulse which every science and every institution received from that great movement. Poman Catholicism itself was aroused by the collision into a reaction, to which is due nearly all the subsequent activity which has rescued it from stagnating into barbarism. The attempt may be made to refute these conclusions, by pointing to the many illustrious men who, living and dying in the Pomish communion, have helped to adorn every department of knowledge, human and di-
76 roriSH liteeature and education.
vine ; or, by boasting of a few great entrepots of science in the old foundations of Popish Europe. "Was it not a son of the Holy Mother Church," it may be asked, " who first taught us the true theory of the stars? "Was it not a Papist who "gave to Europe a new world ? Were they not Papists who exhumed the Greek and Latin classics out of the dust of the middle ages, and who have since produced the best editions of all the works of Christian antiquity ? Did not Papists invent gunpowder, the art of printing, the mariner's compass, the galvanic machine? Yea, were not the very Reformers themselves, in whose pretended light and learning Protestants so much glory, reared in the bosom of Popery ? And did they not acquire in her schools the know- ledge which they ungratefully turned against her ? How, then, can that system be justly cha-rged as the mother of ignorance, from beneath whose patronage have proceeded the most glorious elements of human progress ?" This is our reply : " True, the human mind, thanks to its benevolent Creator, has a native ac- tivity Avhich despotism cannot crush, however it may curb it. It may be that Rome has been so far aware of this as not to attempt an impossibility— except once, when her judicial blindness pro- voked the triumphant insurrection of the Eeformation. It may be that she has permitted or encouraged certain forms of men- tal activity, even to a high degree of cultivation, as a safe outlet for the indomitable elasticity of man's spirit, selecting those forms which were least important to his true welfare, in order that she might be able to suppress the most precious and fruit- ful exertions of the mind with sterner force. But these instances of mental activity in her subjects have not been because of, but in spite of her influences. But for the baleful paralysis of that system, they would have been a hundred fold more ; and Papists have usually made their happy exertions just in proportion to the weakness of the hold which Eomanism had upon their real spirit and modes of thought.
It is true, again, that the innate energies of some great soiils among Papists have prompted them to attempt and accomplish mental exploits of high emprise, but Rome has usually resisted their exertions, and punished their success. Hoger Bacon, the inventor of gunpowder, loas a Papist ; but tlie reward which his church apportioned him for his chemical knowledge and spirit
POPISH LITERATUFiE AND EDUCATION. 77
of free enquiry was a long imprisonment in a monastery on the charge of magic. J?euc/ilbi, another sou of Rome, introduced to Europe the long lost treasures of the Hebrew literature. This is true ; and his church so appreciated his labors as to prompt the German Emperor to order the biu'ning of all the Hebrew books in the realm, and the great scholar's pupils were nearly all found in the next generation among the Protestant Re- formers. Erasmus also was a nominal Papist, who published the first critical edition of the Greek Kew Testament. But his work provoked a general howl of contumely and curses from the priests and monks of all Europe, some of whom charged him with committing thereby the sin against the Holy Ghost. Col- umbus did indeed " give to Castile and Leon a new world," but his theory of geography was the mock of all the popish clergy and doctors of Ferdinand's court, so that it was impossible for him to secure patronage for his enterprise, till the womanly piety of Isabella was moved in his behalf. Galileo also was a son of Rome, that great man, v.'ho revolutionized astronomy and me- chanics, who first made the telescope reveal the secrets of the skies, and thus prepared the way for that Wondrous science which, among its other beneficial results, has taught the mariner to mark his beaten track across the pathless ocean, thus making possible the gigantic commerce of our century. How did Rome reward him ? She made him la:iguish in her Inquisition, till he was bowed to the shame of denying the truth, of which the de- monstration was his glor}-.
And this Index of Prohibited Books is found crowded with the names, not only of heretics, but with a part of the works of nearly all Rome's own sons, whose genius or learning has illumi- nated her history ; a proof that their improvements were the offspring of fruitful nature, borne in despite of the novercal envy of Holy Mother Church. Upon the fact that so many of the benefactors of human knowledge, including even the Reformers, were reared under Rome, it may be said, so have the greatest liberators been ever reared under despots. Harmodius and Aristogeiton under Pisistratus, Brutus under Tarquin, the Mac- cabees under Antiochus, Tell under Rudolph of Hapsbiirg, Hampden, Pym and Cromwell under the Stuarts, and our o^^^^ Washincjton under George III. With as much reason mij^jht we
78 POPISH LITEEATURE AND EDUCATION.
argue lience, that despotism is the proper soil to nourish liberty,. as infer from the instances of freedom of thought under Kome that tliej^ were her proper gift to the human mind. And finally, it is not a handful of particular cases which proves a general law : " One swallow does not make a summer." When we in- quire for the general influence of a system, we consider not the few exceptions which exist under it, but the condition of the masses.
"We trust this discussion has educed principles which, among other valuable applications, will enable us to value at their pro- per worth the merits of Koman Catholic education and scholar- ship. Ever since the Reformation urged the human mind for- ward on its great career of improvement, Rome has perceived that Christendom will no longer endure the shackles of ignor- ance, in which that tyrant church would be best pleased to bind the mind, and that men will no longer permit the boon of know- ledge to be plucked openly away. Hence she has adopted the- policy of countermining the intelligence which she fears, by be- coming the patroness of a pseudo-education. And she has committed the managemei t of this policy especially to the order of Jesus, the most slavish and most thoroughly popish of all papal societies. Hence the eager activity of this order in the establishment of colleges, especially to catch the children of Protestants ; hence the boasts of superior scholarship, which have deceived many unthinking and ill-informed men. The treachery of all their pretended zeal for letters is betrayed by this question even ; why does it exhaust its efforts on provid- ing for the education of our sons, and the sons of other similar Protestant states, Avho least need their help, while the benighted, masses of Ireland, Spain, Italy, the Danube are left unen- lightened? Why expend their exclusive exertions to educate heretics, while so many of the sons of their own church sit in. Boeotian night? We suspect this over-generous zeal; we fear lest this education which they offer be the gift of another Tro- jan horse.
Our good, unsuspicious Protestants have especially been gulled by pretensions of peculiar classical and linguistic accom- plishments. It is claimed that their Latinity, for instance, is to the best attainments of Protestant schools as Hyperion to a.
POPISH LITERATURE AND EDUCATION. 79'
Satyr. "Their pupils do not merely stumble tlirougli a slow translation of a Latin sentence : they can talk Latin. So thor- ough is their learning that the higher elasses actually receive lectures in philosophy in that learned tongue." But look beneath the surface. That fluency is but the recitation of a parrot, accompanied with no thorough apprehension of gram- matical principles, and leading to no awakening of thought. These Latin lectiu'es on philosophy are but the slow mechanical dictation of some miserable syllabus of the contracted anti- quated bare-bones of scholastic pedantry. It does not suit the purpose of Rome or Jesuits to do that which is the true work of mental training, to teach the mind to think for itself. That habit, so deadly to the base pretensions of the hoary deceiver, once learned in the walks of secular literature, would bo too probably carried into the domains of theology. Hence, the Jesuits' policy is, to form in secular learning the desired mental temper of servile docility, inordinate respect for authority and impotence of independent thought, so that even mechanic:^,, optics, chemistry, must be taught by the memorizing of dicta ^ not by the exercising of the understanding in their investiga- tions. Then, if to this servile temper there can be added any accomplishments, by which the bondage of the mind can be concealed and a false eclat thrown upon the church, they think it is very well. The policy of Rome in her education is that of the lordly Roman slave-owner towards his bondsmen. To pro- mote the amusement, the interest, or the pomp of their lords, slaves were trained to be masterly musicians, scribes, rhetori- cians, and even poets and philosophers; but still they must exert their attainments only for their masters. And so would Rome lay hold on our children, the sons of freemen, of free America, and make them only accomplished slaves. But above all, does their system sap the very foundations of virtue and nobleness. It substitutes an indolent and weak dependence on authority for honest conviction, and policy for rectitude. It poisons the health of the moral being. He who is spiritually enslaved is wholly a slave, every noble faculty is benumbed by the incubus of spiritual tyranny, and the soul lies prone in. degradation.
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE.^
PERMIT me, dear bretliren, to offer you my liearty con- gratulations upon tliis re-nniou of onr Society, and tlie enjoyment of anotlier 3'ear of mercies and of liappy labors. A member of any of tlie successive classes which have issued hence, in an assemblage gathered from all those classes, meets some to whom he is a stranger in person, though a child of the same Alma Hater. But there is no distance between our aims and our hearts. AVliile we meet our own fellow-students with peculiar delight, we meet all as fellow-laborers. I need not suggest how much the enjoyment of each of us would be en- hanced, could we gather around us all who studied and prayed with us here ; for, doubtless, the busy thought of each one has already surrounded him with the familiar band. Probably such a meeting would be as impossible for all of us as it would be for me., Some of those whom I here learned to love I can see at no anniversary, till we meet in the general assembly and church of the first-born in Jerusalem, the mother of us all. "W'hat stronger evidence of the noble and holy influence of these annual gath- erings than that fact, of which, I doubt not, every heart has already been conscious, that they do not fail to carry our thoughts upward to that glorious re-union? Let it be our aim to make this momentary resting point in our warfare as like as possible to that eternal rest.
But we are reminded that we have not yet entered into that rest. To-morrow we return again to the struggle. And, there- fore, the appropriate mode of observing this season will be to make it such as God has made those Sabbaths which are his type of the eternal rest, a season for sharpening our weapons and girding our loins afresh for the contest.
I have thought anxiously in what way I could best contribute
' An address to the Society of Alumni of Union Theological Seminary, Vir- ginia. Delivered at the Annual Meeting, June, 1853.
80
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE. 81
to this purpose. And it lias seemed that, poiliaps, as appro- priate a topic as any wliose discussion the times demand, would be SIMPLICITY AND DIKECTNESS OP PULPIT STYLE.
Many share with me the conviction that the renewed discus- sion of this topic is needful. Unless I am greatly deceived, a comparison of much that is now heard from educated clergy- men with the pure standards of classic English will prove that the vice is far gone. Our ears have become viciously accus- tomed to a degree of wordiness, complexity, and ornament, which would have been called bombast by Addison, Swift, or Pope. Even Dr. Samuel Johnson, the proverb of his day for his love of the os rotundum, seems simple and natural beside us. But let us compare ourselves with the great ancient masters of style, as to the length and structure of sentences, the employ- ment of useless epithet, and the mode of using figurative or- nament. Let us compare ourselves, for example, with Horace, as distinguished for the sparkling beauty of his language as for the hatefulness of his morals, and we shall comprehend something of the excess of our fault.
The profusion of reading matter among us,- and the careless speed with which men write and read, must naturally tend to the same vice. Perhaps, after all the rules for style that may be laid down, the real source of transparency and beauty is the p)ossession of the sterling ore of thought and feeling. He who has the most numerous, just, and weighty ideas, in most natural order, and whose own soul is most fully possessed and pene- trated with them, usually has the finest style. It is only when the sentiment so fills and fires the soul of the speaker that he looks wholly at the thoiight, and not at all at the words in which it clothes itself, that the perfection of eloquence is approached. Hence, as the art of writing much with small materials is ex- tended, wordiness and complexity must increase. The hurried and shallow author continually strives to outdo his rivals and his own previous exploits, by tricking out his productions more and more with these ornaments which are so much cheaper than great or sparkling thoughts.
History shows also, that an artificial and luxurious mode of living surely affects the literary taste of a nation. The simplic- ity of thought is banished. The manliness of soul whicli pro-
VoL. III.— 6.
O/J SniPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE.
ceeds from labor, struggles witli diificulty and intercourse ■witli nature, becomes rare. The mawkisli mind of such a peoj)le demands the same tawdry profusion and frippery in literature "odiich it loves in its bodily enjoyments. We know how the manly eloquence of republican Eome faded away, as the people were corrupted by luxury, into the feeble bombast of the Byzan- tine literature. If the rapid increase of luxury can give any gi'ound for expecting a similar result now, that ground surely exists among us.
Hence, the impression has grown strong with me, that we need to be recalled to what would seem, to our exaggerated taste, a severe simplicity. When one so young as myself, and so lit- tle entitled by his own skill to teach on this subject, offers his humble contribution towards this refomu, he should do it with great modesty. And you will please receive what I shall offer, not as dogmatical, but suggestive. I do not dictate any- thing to you, but only offer, as subjects of your more thorough and wise reflection, those ideas jy which I have attempted the repression of my own faidts.
Permit me also to say, at the outset, that when I advocate a severe simplicity, I am waging no war against rhetoric. I am not presuming to impugn that argument, by which I know I should be met, that since it is our duty to do our utmost for the salvation of souls, that Christian minister is faulty who does not avail himself of exexj innocent aid or ornament by Avhich the truth can be commended. I only question whether any- thing which violates a natural simplicity and directness of speech is ornament, and has any efficacy in commending truth. Let rhetoric be truly defined as "the art of persuasion," the ari of so addressing the human understanding, conscience and affec- tions, as best to enforce our views, and I heartily shake hands with it. I will say, let us have as much true rhetoric as possi- ble. My objection to all meretricious aid is, that it is not or- nament, but deformity.
Indeed, throughout this discussion, it is on the principles of a sound rhetoric itself that I would ground all the considera- tions to enforce simplicity. The truest ari is that which is most natural. Tlie finest statue is that on which the strokes of the chisel are unseen, and the marble is most hke native flesh.
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE. 83
Tlie finest paiuting is that in which the behokler is not for a moment reminded of the cunning union of lights and shades, but seems to see the hving and breathing man, standing forth from the canvas. And so, considering our profession of pubhc speaking as an art merely, he is most perfect in the art in ^hom the hearer perceives no art, but seems to hear nature pouring forth her voice in her own spontaneous simplicity. I have seen somewhere an incident which well illustrates this proposition. A simple countryman Avas taken by his friends in London to see Garrick act in Hamlet. He seemed to be intensely interested in. the performance. But at his return, when his fi'iends examined the effect of the scene upon his mind, they were astonished to find him perfectly silent concerning the great tragedian. He seemed to have made no impression on him, while he was loud in his praise of all the subordinate actors. "\\'hen they asked di- rectly, what he thought of Hamlet, they learned the explanation. " Oh ! " he answered, " as to the man whose father had been so basely murdered, it was nothing strange that he should feel and act as he did. Xo son could help it. But as to those other people, who were ouh' making believe, their imitations were wonderful." So true to nature, and so unaffected had been Ganick's manner, that the countryman had utterly overlooked the fact that Garrick was acting! But this was he whom the cultivated taste of Britain decided to be the prince of theatrical eloquence. One of the most just objections, therefore, which can be urged against artificial ornament is, that it is a sin. against art. Much that is now heard from the pulpit with ad- miration would be as explicitly condemned by rhetoric, by Hamlet's instructions to the players, or by Horace's Epistle to the Pisos, as by Christian feeling and principle.
But let us introduce the more direct discussion by reminding you of the topics and aims of our public addresses. Our sub- ject is the most august that can fill and fire the human soul — the perfect holiiiess of the divine law, redemption from eternal ruin, and the winning of eternal happiness. Our aim is to per- suade men to embrace this redemption for the salvation of their souls. It is an established nile that the grandest subjects should be treated with most sparing ornament. The greatness of the topic commends itself sufficiently without such aids. Labored
84 SniPLICITY OP PULPIT STYLE.
attempts to give it adventitious force seem to be a confession tliat tlie subject does not itself possess T\eiglit enough to com- mand tlie heart. Ornaments which might be graceful and ap- propriate when connected with a hghter topic, would seem mere- tricious, when applied to a grand one. "W'e do not sun'ound the majestic temple with the same tracery which would be in place upon the graceful pavilion.
Again, we ol)serve that man's nature is such that all powerful operations of the soul are simple and one. Complexity of the affections enfeebles all. Multiplicity of figure distracts the at- tention, and by distracting, weakens. It is the single, mighty, rushing wind, which raises the billows of the great deep, while a variety of cross-breezes only roughen its surface with trifling ripples. A moment's thought will show us that a multiplication of ornaments or epithets must disappoint its own object. The minds of men cannot attend effectually to a large number of im- pressions in rapid succession. Although thought is rapid, yet a certain lapse of time is necessary to allow the mind to receive and become possessed with the idea presented to it. Hence, he who listens to the verbose speaker, is compelled to allow many of the words which fall upon his ear to jiass through his mind without impression. The mind of the listener cannot fully weigh and feel each phrase addressed to it in so rapid and com- plex a stream, and, consequently, it suffers them all to pass through it lightly. It cannot do otherwise, though there was, at the outset, a sincere effort of attention. Every writer or speaker, therefore, who indulges himself in heaping up useless epithets, or in the multiplication of adjectives not distinct and strongly descriptive, or in any other luxuriance of language, should remember that he is himself compelling his reader or hearer to practice the habit of Hstless attention. And then there is an end of all vigorous impression. The speaker can no longer hope to infuse a strong sentiment into the soul of his au- dience. Hence the maxim so strongly enforced by Campbell, that " the fewer the words are, provided neither perspicuity nor propriety be Adolated, the expression is always the more vivid." To admit into our discourse any word, phrase, or figure, which has not its essential use as a vehicle of our idea, is a sacrifice of effect. The effort which the mind of the hearer is called to make
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE. 85
towards these unessential plirases, in the acts of sensation and perception, is just so much taken from the force with which it receives the main idea. The highest species of eloquence is that which is suggestive, where clear and ^'igorous phrases not only convey to the hearer's mind distinct ideas, but point it to tracts of light which lead it along to higher conceptions of its o\\Ti. But such phrases must be brief. Our language should, therefore, be pruned, till every word is an essential part of the clearly defined idea, which the sentence holds up, like a strong picture, to the mind of the hearer. 11 we wish to strike a blow which shall be felt, we will not take up a bough laden vnth foli- age. ^\'e will use a naked club.
I suspect that the correctness of these views is confessed, even by the consciousness of persons of the most perverted taste. However they may laud their literary idol, they cannot conceal it from themselves, that their listlessness grows more and more dreary under the most brilliant sparklings of his rhetorical fire- works ; that the more his sparks are multiplied, the more feebly they strike. There is, indeed, a large class of Hsteners, whose minds are so utterly shallow, and who are so thoroughly uncon- scious of the real nature and aims of eloquence, that they are pleased with the mere lingual and grammatical dexterity with which surprising strings of fine words are rolled forth. Their idea of fine speaking seems to be that it is a sort of vocal leger- demain, Hke that of the juggler, who can twirl a plate on the end. of a rattan as no one else can, an art in which the perfection of skill consists in connecting the largest quantity of a certain style of words with the greatest fluency, so that they shall have the semblance of meaning and melody. "With minds so childish, of course, he who can carry this verbiage to the greatest length will be the greatest orator. But none here, surely, are caj)able of so base an ambition as to desire this low and ignorant ap- plause.
There are still stronger considerations, drawn from the natui'e of the preacher's subject, and of his purpose, in addressing his fellow men. All must admit that appropriateness is the very first element of good taste in every art. It is needless to argue this. Kow, if we consider what the preacher of the gospel pro- fesses to be, and what is the topic on which he addresses his
86 SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE.
fellow men, 'we shall feel hovr utterly inappropriate every artifi- cial ornament is. Every minister professes to be actuated by the love of souls, and by a strong sense of their danger without the gospel. He professes to be a man who is speaking, not to amuse, nor to gain money, nor to display his talent, but to do good. Even if he is so lost to tho feelings proper to his high ojffice as to harbor these ignoble motives, as a mere matter of taste he must conceal them ; for their display in connection with a sub- ject so awful cannot but be loathsome to all hearers. His mo- tive, then, must be benevolent sympathy and love to the Saviour. And his subject combines all that should awe the mind into sin- cerity, all that should unseal the fountains of tenderness and all that should fire the soul with warm and ennobling emotions. His themes are the attributes of an infinite and jealous God and his perfect law ; that fatal lapse which " brought death into the world and all our woe ; " the immortal soid, with its destiny of endless bhss or pain ; the tomb, the resurrection trump, the righteous Judge, the glories of heaven and the gloom of hell, the gospel's cheering sound, the tears of Gethsemane, the blood of Calvary, and the sweet and awful breathings of the Holy Ghost. His mission is to lay hold of his fellow men, as they hang over the pit, and draw them from perdition by the love of the Kedeemer. How unspeakably inappropriate is every arti- fice here which glances at self-laudation ! And how utterly un- natural is all complexity of figure ! If ever man should earnestly feel, he who presents these themes, fi'om the motives which the preacher professes, should be instinct with earnestness. But who is there that does not know that the eloquence of native emotion is always simple? When the wail of the bereaved mother rises from the bedside of her dying child, ah ! there is no art there ! "We have heard it, my brethren, and we know that our art cannot equal the power of its simplicity. When the story of his -VNTongs bursts from the heart of the indignant patriot, and he consecrates himself upon the altar of his country, it is in simple words. "When the almost despairing soul raises to the Saviour the cry, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner," he speaks unaifectedly. So should the preacher speak. Let me urge it, then, with all the emphasis which language can convey, that the ■very first dictates of good taste and propriety, for him who
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE. 87
speaks of the gospel, are iiiiaffectedness and directness of style. To tiirn away tlie mind's eye for one moment from these over- powering realities, towards the mere accessories of rhetoric, is the most heinons sin against rhetoric. It is as though the man who desired to ronse his sleeping neighbor from a burning louse should bethink himself of the melody of his tones, while he cries fire. It is as though the champion, fighting for his hearth-stone and his household, should w^aste his thoughts on the grace of his attitudes and the beauty of his limbs.
Do I advocate, then, a directness and simplicity so bald as to exclude every figure ? By no means. A certain class of figures is the very language of nature. Such we should use in their proper place. They are those figures which, every one sees, are used to set forth the subject and not the speaker. They are those figures which the mind spontaneously seizes when en- larged and strengthened by the earnestness of its emotions, and welds, by the heat of its action, into the very substance of its topic. Such ornaments are distinguished at a glance from the epithets, tropes and similes which the artificial mind gathers up, wdth an eye turned all the time upon the meed of praise it is to receive. Wiiliiu the strict bounds of this directness ard sim- plicity there is ample scope for the exercise of genius and ima- gination. Indeed, it is when a vigorous logic, and a truly origi- nal imagination, are stimulated by the most intense heat of emo- tion, that the most absolute simplicity of language, and, at the same time, the grandest heights of eloquence,, are reached.
There is no stronger conviction with me than that the preacher should never attempt to rescue his discourse from baldness or tameness by those supposed rhetorical ornaments wdiich are collected with deliberate design. The moment an ornament is felt to be introduced " with malice prepense," it becomes a de- formity. It is always a futile and degrading resort. There is a rule of architecture propounded for some styles by the greatest masters which speakers might profitably adopt. It is, that while every essential member of the structure shall be so pro- portioned as to be an ornament, no ornament shall be admitted which is not also an element of construction ; no column which has nothing to support ; no bracket which has nothing to .strengthen. Next to the possession of native genius, the proper
88 SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE.
sources of literary ornament are in tlie warmth of an "honest, ear- nest emotion, cooperating with a clear and logical comprehension of the thing discussed. Unless our ornaments come spontane- ously from this, their proper mint, the}^ will inevitably be coun- terfeit. When, therefore, the preacher, after he has done all in the preparation of his sul)ject which clear definition, just ar- rangement, and sound logic can effect, feels that his work is still too tame to take hold on the people, it is worse than useless for him to seek, in cold blood, for ornament. He should seek feel- ing. He needs to sacrifice, not at the shrine of Calliope, but at the altar of the Holy Ghost,
Let us remember that all men have a native perception of con- sistency and appropriateness. And all men instinctively judge whether the tones, countenance and language of the person speaking to them are spontaneous or artificial. The cultivated do not surpass the ignorant and the young in the strength of these perceptions, for they are the direct result of intuitive ca- pacities, which are often perverted by the habits of a faulty cul- tivation. Not even does dramatic eloquence offer any exception to the statement that all artificial speaking is inevitably felt by all hearers to be artificial, and therefore naught. For I am sure that there never has been, and never will be a good actor, whether on the stage, at the bar, or in the forum, who did not become eloquent by so palpably conceiving the emotions proper to the part he was acting as to merge his personality for the time in the part, and to become sincerely inspired with its feelings. Let us, then, remember that the prompt and spontaneous perception of every hearer decides absolutely whether our manner seems to him artificial or hearty ; and if it decides us to be artificial, it has forthwith, with equal certainty, the feeling of our inconsist- ency. But what is worse than this, the chief motive which the world will naturally impute to us for this insincerity of manner is the desire of self-display. We may plead that if there is an error of manner, it has arisen from a well-meaning mistake in our disinterested effort to impress the truth. The world will not be so charitable as to credit us. It will say that the natural language of disinterestedness is simplicity, and that the natural language of self-display is artifice ; and it will persist in imput- ing the latter as our motive.
SIMPLICITY OF PULPIT STYLE. 89
It is very important to observe here also, that if, from our per- verted traiuiug, an artificial manner has become second nature to us, this Avill not prevent the mischief. To the instinctive per- ceptions of the hearer it still seems artificial, and he naturally concludes it is purposely such. It is not sufficient, therefore, for the speaker to say that it is " his manner," — that to him it is not artificial ; that in speaking thus he is giving free course ta his dispositions. He should inquire how it became his man- ner, whether through the promptings of an ingenuous, humble, and self-devoting love for souls, or through the itchings of con- ceit, literary vanity, and servile imitation, in the days of his in- experience.
But where the native perceptions of the hearers receive from our manner this impression of artifice, what reason is so dull as not to draw the inference that the preacher, if he really believed what he proclaimed of the sinner's risk, and if he really felt that generous compassion which is his ostensible motive, could have neither time nor heart to bestow one thought on self-display? AVhen men listen to one who preaches of their dread ruin and its sacred remedy with deliberate and intentional artifice, they are driven to one of two alternatives. They must conclude, " either this man does not believe his own words, when he tells nie of my hanging over eternal fires, and of heaven stooping to my rescue ; or, if he does believe them, he must have almost the heart of a fiend to be capable of vanity and selfish artifice in the presence of truths so sacred and dire." And, indeed, my brethren, what must be the callous selfishness of that man who, believing in the reality of the gospel themes, can desecrate them to the tricking forth of his own rhetorical fame !
Grecian story tells us that when the painter Parrhasius was engaged upon a great picture, representing Prometheus as he lay chained to the crags of Mount Caucasus, and eternally con- sumed by a ravenous vulture, he bought an old man from among the Olynthian captives, sold by Philip of Macedon, and tortured him to death beside hie easel, iu order that he might transfer to his canvas the traits of the last struggles in their native reality. Does not the heart grow sick at the devilish ambition of this pagan, as he steels his soul against the cry of agony, and cooily wrings out the life of a helpless and harmless fellow man to win
90 SIMPLICITY OF rULPIT STYLE.
fame for himself, by tlirowing into his master-piece the linea- ments of a living death?
But, is this instance strong enough to express the crnel and impious vanity of that man who can deliberately traffic in the terrors of eternity, and the glories of God, merely to deck his own oratory ? He brings the everlasting woes of his brother man, and gathers the gloom and the groans of their perdition, and coolly dips his pencil in the blackness of their despair, to make of them materials for self-disi^lay ! Nay, he even dares to lay his hand upon the awfid glories of the cross, and those sa- cred pangs of Calvary, at which redeemed sinners should only shudder and weep, and weaves tlie^n into a garland for his own vanity. Kow, the impenitent man can hardly believe that the minister who shows in all his social life the sympathies and vii'tues of an amiable character is thus savagely and profanely selfish. And, therefore, the alternative which he must embrace is, to believe, or, if he does not consciously believe, to do what is practically more ruinous, to feel half consciously, that the minister is not in earnest ; that his preaching is not really prompted by a settled belief of the sinner's ruin and the Re- deemer's love, but by the desire to further his own reputation and earn his own bread. For, is not this parade of self-display just in character with such a purpose ? And when the lover of sin and godlessness thus feels that the appointed ambassador of eternity does not himself believe, of course he will allow him- self to doubt. Let this, then, be the great and final objection to all artifice of manner in the pulpit, that it most surely sows Taroadcast the seeds of skepticism.
And, in truth, dear brethren, does not our proneness to such manner, does not the fact that we can be capable of it, pro- ceed from the weakness of oiu' faith ? The true cure of the vice is to feel the powers of the world to come. The reason that Davies, Tennent and T\'hitefield, Paul and Peter, and above all. He that spoke as never man spake, displayed such directness and power, was that their souls saw heaven and hell with the vision of faith. The more we can feel the love of Christ, and the nearer we can draw to the cross, the judgment, and the eternal world, the more we shall feel that aU else than native simphcity and directness is out of place, and that all else is un- necessary.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
THE subject to whichwe invoke our readers' attention has been mucli debated. But our jjurpose is not to weary tliem with a repetition of those discussions concerning a pre-Adamite eai-th, the length of the creative days, or the best way to reconcile geo- logy with Moses, which have often been conducted within a few years past, with deficient knowledge and temper in some cases, and often with slight utilit}'. In the progress of natural science, relations between it and theology become apparent from time to time, and fi-equently in very unexpected ways. Both parties are usually at fault in defining those relations in the beginning ; and thus there occurs a season of somewhat confused contest, arising from the oversight of the proper "metes and bounds" of the two sciences. As the discussion proceeds, the facts are at length set forth, which enable all reasonable men to adjust the relations satisfactorily, and to appropriate to each its legitimate field of authority. All will agree that it is time such an adjustment were, if possible, begun between the geologist and the divine. Our humble attemj)t will be to make such a beginning. We have no geologic theory to advance or to impugn, and no particular facts to advance, either new or old. But, looking back over the gen- eral course of the discussion on the structure of our globe, only as those may profess to do who keep up with general literature, without assuming to be professional geologists, we would endeavor to fix some princij^les of discussion by which the apphcation of natural science and its inferences may be de- fined and Hmited to their proper territory, and the claims of theology established along the points of contact. It would, per- Jiaps, have been better for the divines if they had confined their efforts to these defensive views, instead of entering, without being always adequately prepared, into the technical discussions of g;eology.
' Appeared in. the Soutfier/i Presbyterian Review, for July, 1S61,
91
92 GEOLOGY AXD THE BIBLE.
1. But, wliile making this admission at the outset, we "U'onld firmly protest against the aiTogant and offensive spirit in "v^hich geologists Lave often, "sve may almost say -usually, met clerical criticisms of their reasonings. To the objections advanced by^ theologians, the answer has usually been a contemptuous asser- tion that they were incompetent to sit in judgment, or to object, when geology was in question, because they were not profes- sional masters of the science. Their reasonings have been pro- nounced foolish, ignorant, mistaken, and slightingly dismissed or rejected without fair examination, because they came fi'om " parsons." Now, we freely grant that it is a very naughty thing for a parson, or a geologist, to profess to know what he does not know, as well as a very foolish; that some of the "genus irrita- hile vatuTii" have doubtless been betrayed into this folly by their zeal against infidel science, as they supposed it, and that geo- logists have not been at all behind them — as some instances will show^ before we have done — in the mortifying displays of igno- rance and sophistry they have made, in their attempts to use the weapons of the theologian and expositor. But, we would remark, while the specialties on which inductions are founded, in any pai-ticular branch of natiu^al science, are, of course, better known to the professor of the specialty, the man of general in- telligence may jndge the deductions made from the general facts just as well as the other. Any inductive logic is the same in principle with all other inductive logic, and all deductive logic also is similar. Tea, conclusions from facts may sometimes be drawn more correctly by the man of general science than by the plodding collector of them ; because the former applies to them the appropriate logic with a more correct and expansive vievr, and, j)erhaps, with less of the prejudice of hypothesis. The man who defined the inductive logic was not a naturalist by special profession — was not practically skilled in any one de- partment of natural history — but was a great philosopher and logician.
If, then, after geologists have described and generalized their facts, and have explained their conclusions therefrom, a class so well educated as the clergy must be pronounced unfitted to form an opinion upon them, the fault must be in the geologist or his science. If demonstration is there, it ought sui'ely to be visible
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 93
to the iutelligent eve. How absurd is it for tlie advocates of tlie science to recalcitrate against the opinions of an educated chiss of men, when they yirtually offer their systems to the comprehen- sion of hoys, by making them a subject of collegiate instnictiou, and one who has, perhaps, more scornfully than any other, de- rided the criticisms of clerical opponents to popular assemblages of clerks and mechanics! Surely, if Mr. Hugh Miller thought that he could convince a crowd of London mechanics intelli- gently, in one night's lecture, of his theory of the seven geologic ages, it is absurd to claim that the science is too recondite for the unholy inspection of a parson's eyes.
There must always be a peculiar reason for the meddling of theologians in this subject. It is, that it is ^'irtually a theory of cosmogony; and cosmogony is intimately connected with the doctrine of creation, which is one of the modes by which God reveals himself to man, and one of the prime articles of every theology. The inevitable connection of the tAvo might be inferred from this fact, that all the cosmogonies of the ancients were nat- ural theologies ; there is no philosopher of whom we know any- thing, among the Greeks and Eomans, who has treated the one without treating the other. It must, therefore, be always ex- pected that theologians will claim an interest in geoloei;ic specu- lations, and will require them to be conformed to sound princi- ples of logic and exposition.
2. On the other hand, the attitude and temper of many of the eager defenders of inspiration towards the new science have been most unwise. By many, a jealousy and uneasiness have been disjDlaycd which were really derogatory to the dignity of our cause. The Bible is so firmly established uj)on its impreg- nable evidences, it has passed safely through so many assaults, has v^dtnessed the saucy advance of so many pretended demon- strations of its errors, which were afterwards covered with ridi- cule by the learned, that its friends can well afford to be calm, patient, and dignified. They should be neither too eager to repel and denounce, nor too ready to recede from established expositions of the text at the supposed demand of scientific dis- coveries. They should assume the calm assui'ance, which re- gards all true science, and every gentiine discovery, as destined inevitably to become the handmaids, instead of the assailants,
94 GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
of revelation. Especially to be deprecated is that shallow and fickle policy, -which has been so often seen among the professed defenders of the Bible, in hastily adopting some newlj-coined exposition of its word, made to suit some supposed exigency of a new scientific discovery, and as hastily abandoning it for some still newer meaning. They have not even waited to ascertain whether the supposed necessity for rehnquishing the old exjDO- sition has been really created by a well-ertablished discovery ; but, as prurient and shallow in science as in theology, they have adopted on haK-evidence some new-fangled hypothesis of sci- entific facts, and then invented, on groimds equally insecure, some new-fangled explanations to twist God's word into seem- ing agreement with the hypothesis. It would be well for us to ascertain whether our position is really stormed before we re- treat to search for another. But, several times within a genera- tion, the world has seen a certain class of theologians saying that the old popiilar understanding of the Bible upon a given subject must be relinquished ; that science had proved it un- tenable, but that they had at last found the ti'uo and undoubted one. And this they j^roceeded to sustain with marvellous inge- nuity and zeal. But, after a few years, the natiu'al philosophers rehnquish, of their own accord, the hypothesis which had put these expositors to so much trouble, and introduce with great confidence a different one. And now, the divines tell us, they were mistaken a second time as to what the Bible intended to teach about it ; but they are certain they have it right at last. So a third exposition is advanced. It has been this short- sighted folly, more than any real collision between the Bible and science, which has caused thinking men to doubt the au- thority of inspiration, and to despise its professed exjjounders If they are to be believed, then the word of God is but a soi-t of clay which may be moulded into any shape required by the purposes of priestcraft. Clergymen ought to know enough of the history of human knowledge to be aware that true science advances slowly and cautiously ; that great and revolutionizing discoveries in physical laws are not estabhshed every day ; that a multitude of hypotheses have been mistaken, before our times, for demonstrations, and afterwards relinquished ; and that even true inductions are always, to a certain extent, tentative, and
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 95
require to be partially corrected after the scienee has Ijeen pushed to farther advances, from which fuller light is reflected back upon them. It will be time enough, therefore, for us, as professional expositors oi the Mosaic history, to settle and proclaim a plan for expounding it in harmony with geology when geology has settled itself. Our wisdom would be to commit the credit and authority of God's Word to no the- ory except such as is absolutely established by the laws of sound exegesis; and when we have thus taken a well-con- sidered position, to maintain it firmly against all mere appear- ances.
3. It should, in the third place, be clearly decided what is the degree of authority which we are to claim for the Bible upon those questions of physics which lie along the path of its topics. Many claim for geology a license here, which comes very near to the deceitful distinction of the schoolmen, between the philosophical and theological truth. When their daring speculations clearly contravened the teachings of Scripture, they said that theco opinions were true in philosophy, though false in theology. In a somewhat similar spirit it is now pleaded for geology, that it has its domain in a different field of investigation and evidence from that of the Bible. Each kind of evidence is valid in its own sphere, it is said; and, therefore, the teachings of each science are to be held true, independently of each other. But all truths are harmonious inter se. If one proposition contradicts another, no matter from what field of human knowledge it may be brought, manifestly, both cannot be true. If, then, the Bible, properly understood, affirms what geology denies, the difference is irreconcilable ; it cannot be evaded by any easy expedient like that described above ; it can only be composed by the overthrow of the au- thority of one or the other of the parties.
To determine how the Bible should be understood in its allu- sions to physical facts, we must bear in mind the object of God in giving it. His purpose was not to teach us philosophical knowledge, but theological. Nothing seems plainer than that God acts on the scheme of leaving men to find out, by their own researches, all those facts and laws of nature, the knowledge of which may minister to curiosity or to material well-being ; while
96 GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
he limits himself to giving us those divine facts and laws which man's research could not discover, or could not adequately estabhsh, necessary for our attaining our proper theological end. Philosophy is our teacher for the body and for time ; revelation, for the soul and for eternity. When revelation says anything concerning material nature, it is only what is made necessary to the comprehension of some theological fact or doc- trine. And in its observance of this distinction the Bible is eminently a practical book, saying nothing whatever for mere curiosity, and stopping at just what is essential to religious truth. Hence, v/e ought to understand that when the Scriptures use popular language to describe physical occurrences or facts, all they mean is to state the apparent phenomena as they would seem to the popular eye to occur. They never intended to give us the non-apparent, scientific mechanism of those facts or oc- currences; for this is not essential to their practical object, and is left to the philosopher. Hence, w^hen natural science comes, and teaches us that the true ratioRale of apparent phenomena is different from that which seems to be suggested by the terms of the Scripture and of popular language, there is no real contra- diction between science and the Bible, or between science and the popular phraseology. For instance, the exposition of such passages, which led the doctors of Salamanca to condemn Columbus' geography as unscriptural, and the Inquisition and Turretin to argue against the astronomy of Galileo, as infidel, w^as mistaken. The former argued against Columbus, that the Psalms speak of the heavens as spread out Hke a canopy, and the earth as immovable and extended. Turretin argues most methodically that the Copernican scheme of the heavens cannot be true, because the Scriptures speak of the earth as " estab- lished that it cannot be moved ; " of the sun as " going forth to his circuit in the heavens ; " and of sun and moon as " setting," " rising," " standing still " at Joshua's command. We now clearly see that all this was an exegetical folly. And, now that we know it is the earth that moves, and not the sun, we no more dream of charging the Bible with error of language than we do the astronomer himself, wdien he says, perhaps on the very pages of his almanac, "sunrises," " sun sets," " sun enters Capricorn," etc; for such really are the apparent motions of those bodies,
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 97
and had the Bible departed from the establis-lied popular phrase- ology in mentioning them, to use terms of scientific accuracy, it would have been gratuitous pedantry, aggravated by the fact that it would have been unintelligible and absurd to all nations which had not yet developed the Copernican astronomy.
Now, so far as the demands of modern geology upon our un- derstanding of the Mosaic record are analogous to the conces- sions made above, we cheerfully yield them. It was with a view to the illustration of this new application that the familiar principle was again stated by us. And we find this principle, which we thus concede, claimed by the Christian geologist, as Hugh Miller, to cover all possible liberties which they find it convenient to take with the sacred text. This, then, is another point which requires careful adjustment. When Moses seems to say that God brought our world out of nothing into an or- ganized state, about six thousand years ago, and in the space of six days, are his words to be classed along with those passages which denote physical occurrences according to their popular appearance, and which are to be interpreted, as we do the popu- lar language about them, in obedience to the discoveries of natu- ral science ? Or, does this class of passages belong to a different category ? We are compelled to take the latter answer as the proper affirmative. In the first place, the reference to physical facts in the record of creation is not merely subsidiary to the narrative or statement of some theological truth, but it is iutro- diiced for its own sake. For, creation is not only a physical fact ; it is a theological doctrine. The statement of it is funda- mental to the unfolding of the whole doctrine of the creature's relation to his creator. It is not one of those things which re- velation treats as being intrinsically outside its scope, and which it, therefore, only introduces allusively. It is the first of those "things of God," which it is the proper and direct object of re- velation to teach authoritatively. Second : the fact of creation had no apparent phase different from its true scientific one, like the seeming dome of Ihe skies, the rising sun, the stable earth ; for the simple reason that it h.id no human spectators. Hence, there could be no popular mode of representation dif- ferent from the true scientific rathnude, as there was no people to observe the apparent phenomena and describe them. But
Vol. III.— 7.
vO GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
we have seeu that the popular language of the Bible about the rising sun, and such like apparent phenomena, receives its ex- planation purely from the fact that it is conformed to the ap- parent and obvious occurrences, and to the established popular language founded thereon. Instead, therefore, of requiring these passages to stand waiting until they receive their proper construction fi'om the hand of natural science, they are to be construed, like the remainder of the doctrinal teachings of the Scriptures, according to their own independent laws of exegesis, honestly applied.
Farther : when the proper rights of revelation, as related to natural science, are defined, it is most important that we tissert their independence of it. Most geologists speak as though, on any subject which the researches of human science may happen to touch, the Bible must say only what their deductions permit it to say.^ The position to which they consign God's word is that of a handmaid, dependent, for the vaHdity of the constmo- tion to be put upon its words, upon their permission. Now this, we boldly assert, is intrinsic rationalism ; it is the very same principle of baptized infidelity which reappears from so many different points of view, from Socinianism, Neologism, Abolitionism, exalting the conclusions of the human understand- ing over the sure word of prophecy. Let us fully concede that the Bible has been often misinterpreted, and that thus its infalli- bility has been cited to sustain what God never meant it to sus- tain ; that its correct exposition may, especially in certain parts of it, require great patience, caution, and modesty ; and that it is wrong to claim its teachings as authoritative on any point, un- less we have ascertained the true meaning of the text, beyond a peradventure, by the just application of its own laws of exposi- tion. But still, the Bible must be held to have its own ascer- tainable and valid laws of exposition ; and its teachings, when duly ascertained, must be absolutely iiuthoritative in all their parts, without waiting on or deferring to any conclusions of hu- man science whatsoever ; otherwise, it is practically no Biljle ; it is no " rule of faith " for a human soul. For, to say nothing of the uncertainties and fallibility of human reasonings, of the numerous mistakes of science once held to be demonstrated, how
^ Testimony of the Bocks, page 157- '8.
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 99
preposterous is tlie idea that our Bible held out to all the gen- erations of men before Cuvier what professed to be an infallible cosmogom-, while they had no possible means (the science which was to interpret it being undeveloped) to attain the true mean- ing, or to discover, by the laws of exposition of the language itself, their misunderstanding of it ? Such a revelation would be a mere trap. But, worse than this ; just as all our forefathers, when reading the first chapter of Genesis, supposed they were reading a plain story, which they M*ere invited and permitted to comprehend, l)ut were, all the while, deceived ; so we may now be unconsciously accepting a number of Bible propositions as authoritative, and staking our souls upon them, which are des- tined to receive, several hundred years hence, a totally different interpretation — an interpretation impossible for us to attain — from the light of some science as yet undeveloped, either geo- logical, or astronomical, or ethical, or ethnological. And who can guess in what part of the Bible these quicksands are ? All seems like solid ground to us now ; but so did Genesis seem to our honest forefathers. T\'e repeat, if they sinned against the Bible's o^^^l independent laws of exegesis in venturing to put a sense on the first of Genesis, if there was anything in those laws of exegesis themselves which, properly observed, would have sufficed to warn them off from their unwarranted interpreta- tions, they were wholly to blame for their mistake. But if not, if the Bible was dependent for a fair understanding on a science as yet wholly undeveloped, then iu those places it really means nothing in itself ; and in seeming to mean something it is a mere trap for honest people. And so, we repeat, until human science shall have made its last advance in every circle of knowledge which can ever inosculate "^-ith theology, we must remain in suspense, whether there are not other hollow places in this Bible which are betraying us. Obviously, such a book is not authori- tative to a rational soul. And obviously, he who holds the au- thority of the Bible only in the sense described, is but a ration- alist in spirit, whatever may be his Christian or his clerical pro- fession. But, it may be objected, " does not every enlightened Christian hold that it is the glory of the Bible to receive illustra- tions from every light of human science ? " We reply : it is its glory to have all human science ancillary to it, not dominant
100 GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
over it ; to have its meaning illustrated, hut not created, by all the discoveries of true science.
4. An equally important adjustment is to be made as to the party T^-hich is bound to assume the burden of proof in this dis- cussion between the Mosaic and the geologic records. We con- sider that the theologian, ^vho asserts the infallibility of the Bible and the independency and sufficiency of its own laws of interpretation, is entitled to the preliminary presumption ; and, therefore, the burden of proof rests upon the geologist, who as- serts a hostile hypothesis. The authoritj' of the Bible, as our rule of faith, is demonstrated by its own separate and indepen- dent evidences, literary, historical, moral, internal, prophetical. It is found by the geologist in possession of the field, and he must assume the aggressive, and positively dislodge it from its position. The defender of the Bible need only stand on the defensive. That is, the geologist may not content himself with saying that his hypothesis, which is opposed to Bible teachings, is plausible, that it cannot be scientifically refuted, that it may adequately satisfy the requirements of all the physical phe- nomena to be accounted for. All this is nauo;ht, as a success- ful assault on us. We are not bound to retreat until he has constructed an absolutely exclusive demonstration of his hy- pothesis; until h3 has shown, by strict scientific proofs, not only that his hypyothesis may he the true one, but that it alone can he the true one ; that it is impossible any other can exclude it. And we, in order to retain our position, are not at all bound to construct any physical argument to demonstrate geologically that Moses' statement of the case is the true one ; for, if the Bible is true, what it teaches on this subject is proved true by the biblical evidences, in the absence of all geologic proof. Nor are we under any forensic obligation to refute the opposing hy- pothesis of the geologist by geologic arguments farther than this : that we shall show geologically that his argument is not a perfect 'and exclusive demonstration. If we merely show, by any flaw in his conclusion, by the citation of any phenomenon irreducible to the terms of his hypothesis, that his demonstra- tion is incomplete, we have successfully maintained the defen- sive ; we hold the victory.
Now, have geologists always remembered this? Nay, is it
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not notoriously otherwise? It would seem as though this in- teresting young science had a sort of fatality for infecting its votaries with a forgetfulness of these logical responsibilities. Perhaps this would be found equally true of every other physi- cal science of wide extent, of complex phenomena and of fasci- nating character, while in its forming state. But every acute reader of the deductions of geologists perceives numerous in- stances where they quietly substitute the "may be" for the "must be," and step unconsciously from the undisputed proba- bility of an hypothesis to its undisputed certainty. And one's observation of nature need proceed but a small way to light upon instances in which phenomena exist which would receive a given solution just as plausibl}'- as certain others; while the geologists imagine a reason for withholding that solution in the cases wdiich would thus spoil their hypothesis. That they can not yet claim that exclusive and perfect demonstration of their hypothesis which is required of their position, as holding the aggressive, seems very plain from familiar facts. One is the radical differences of hypothesis to which leading geologists are committed up to this very day. Sir Charles Lyell makes it almost the key-note of his system, that all geologic changes were produced by such causes as are now at work, and operat- ing, in the main, with no greater speed than they now exhibit. Hugh Miller, and others, are equally sure that those changes were produced by successive convulsions and earth-tempests, revolutionizing in a short time the state of ages. Some recon- cile the ''stony record" with that of Moses, upon the scheme advocated by Dr. Chalmers, which pushes back all the mighty changes to that interval ending, in Genesis i. 2, when "the earth was without form, and void." Others, with Miller and Professor Tayler Lewis, adopt the very different theory of the six creative days extending to vast periods of time. Mr. Miller is certain that the iossiljlora and /"ccuna indicate just the order, in the main, as to the succession which their chief developments had in the geologic ages, which is set down in Genesis as the Avork of tho several days. Many others, equally great, declare just the op- posite.
A reasonable mistrust of the perfectness of geological demon- strations is excited again by instances of obvious haste and
iO'Z GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
inconclusiveness in their inferences from supposed facts. Of this one or two illustrations must suffice. Few of their writers rank higher than Sir Charles Lyell. .In the London edition of his Prlnc'q)les of Geohxjy, 1850, page 205, we have an attempt to make an estimate of the age of the earth's present crust from the character of the deep gorge, or great rocky gully, in which the Niagara river flows from the falls towards Lake Ontario. The deep part of this channel is said to be about seven miles long. The author first satisfies himself, on grounds which might perhaps amount to probability, that this whole gorge may have been excavated by the torrent itself. This is the first element of the calculation. Throiigh the rest of the argument this prol)ability is tacitly turned into a certainty. The next element to be ascertained is, the rate at which the river now digs out its channel, and the edge of the cataract recedes. A previous intelligent inquirer concluded, upon the best testimony he could collect upon the spot, that the falls receded a yard each year ; but Sir Charles assumes an average of a foot per year as the more correct rate, on grounds which he does not state. This second source of uncertainty is also quietly ignored. Then it is calculated that the Niagara has been flowing thirty-five thousand years. While the author does not venture to vouch for this positively, he concludes by indicating to his reader that his pri- vate opinion is, the time was more likely longer than shorter. Now, even the unscientific visitor of Niagara cannot fail to ob- serve, what Sir Charles himself coiTectly states, that the perpen- pendicular face of the gorge of the cataract and of the lower edge of Goat Island reveals this structure : on the top there is a vast layer or stratum of hard gray limestone, nearly horizontal, and, at the falls, nearly ninety feet thick, wdiile all below it, to the bottom of the precipice, is a soft shale. The real obstruc- tion to the very rapid cutting away of the precipice by the tre- mendous torrent, is the solidity of the limestone layer whose surface forms the bottom of tho river above the falls. When that once gives way the rest is speedily removed. Any person can easily understand that the permanency with which this lime- stone layer withstands the water dej)ends chiefly on its thickness, and also on its dip, or inclination, ai:d on the frequent occur- rence or absence of fissures or seams, destroying the cohesion of
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 103
i. 3 masses to each other. Now, will not the reader be surprised to learn that, even in the tv/o miles which extend from the cata- ract down to the Suspension Bridge, this all-important stratum of limestone is diminished more than half in its thickness, the soit and yielding shale forming the remainder of the cliffs? So that, to say nothing of the high probability of the occurrence of •;lie two other causes within the seven miles, we have here a cause for the recession of the cataract greatly more rapid than that which now obtains. Sir Charles Lyell concludes with these words : " At some points it may have receded much faster than at present, but its general progi'ess was probably slower, because the cataract, when it began to recede, must have had nearly twice its present height." Did not the waters then have more than twice their present momentum? So that common sense would say that, if there was more earth to be worn and dug away, there was far more power to do it. Surely, such reasoning as the above does not make an exclusive and perfect demonstration !
Another instance shall be taken from the same author. On page 219 he presents us with an argument for the great age of the world, from the length of time the Mississippi has been em- ployed in forming its alluvial delta. The elements of the calcu- lation are, of course, the area and depth of the alluvial deposit, giving the whole number of cubic yards composing it, the quan- tity of water passed down the stream in one year, and the per- centage of solid matter contained in the water in its average state of muddiness. The data upon which the depth of the alluvium is fixed are only two, the average depth of the Gulf of Mexico, and a well or shaft sunk near Lake Ponchartrain. Ai-e either of these sufficient ? Is it not customary for strata to dip towards seas and oceans? If the spot at which the well was dug happened to bo one of those sunk far below the usual level by earthquake agencies — and Sir Charles himself saw that such agencies had produced just such results in the region of the same river, near New Madrid — would it not come, in the course of a few hundred years, to receive far more than the average thick- ness cf alluvial deposit ? But let us come to the other element, the percentage of sediment in the water. From the observations of Dr. Kiddell he learns that it is one three-
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thonsandtli part, in Inilk, of tlie Mater. Two other observers, Messrs. Brown and Dickeson, make it one five hundred and twenty-eighth part, and they make the vohime of water one- third more! Sir Charles concedes that "so great a discrepancy- shows the need of a new series of experiments." Did either of tlje observers take pains to ascei-tain whether the hirger part of the sediment does not gravitate towards the bottom of the water while flowing, and to go doMn any part of the one hundred and sixty-eight feet, which measures the depth of the river at Kew Orleans, to procure the water which they examined ? We are not informed. The observations on the annual volume of water were made at New Orleans. '\\'as any allowance made for the waters which flow off in such vast quantities through the delta, by the hayous, and during the gigantic freshets, leaving the main channel above Ncav Orleans? We are not informed. Again, the total volume of the water passing New Orleans in a year depends on its velocity. Now, experienced pilots and boatmen of the Mississippi are generally of opinion that the lower strata of water in its channel run with far more velocity than the sur- face. Hence the calculators, in gauging the surface velocity, were probably entirely at fault as to the real volume of water. Last, it is universally known that the Mississippi is nearly twice as muddy, on the average, at the head of the delta as at New Orleans ! How much is this notable calculation worth after all these deductions? But, for all that, he chooses to assume Dr. Eiddell's estimate for his basis, and thus proves (!j that the Mis- sissippi has been running one hundred thousand years.
Now, let the reader note, that we do not advance the incon- clusiveness of these two calculations as sufficient proof, by itself, that the world is not thirty-five thousand, or one hundred thou- sand years old. But we advance it upon the principle expressed in the adage, " Ux pede Jlercidem.'" The detection of such hast}- and shalloAv reasoning gives sufficient groiind of mistrust as to their general conclusions.
Another specimen shall be drawn fi'om Hugh Miller, ludi- crous enough to relieve the tedium of this discussion. In the Testimony of the HocJcs (Boston : 1857, p. 259), he is arguing that the fossil animals were produced by natural law, vast ages ago, because they exhibit marks of creative design similar to
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 105
those vre now tind in the hving works of nature. One of his evidences is a little coral, the " Smithia Pengellyi," which con- structed its bony cells such that the fracture of them presented a surface remarkably similar to a certain calico pattern which had proved extremely popular among the ladies. The conclu- sion is, that as this calico must have been very pretty — as though the better part of creation had never been known to ex- hiliifc their sweet caprices by admiring things for their very ugli- ness— the creator undoubtedly caused these coral insects to construct their cells in this way for their prettiness! To us duller mortals it is not apparent that the " final cause " of coral insects was to be ready to have their stony buildings cracked open by geologists' hammers ; we thought they had been made for an existence where, in the main, no human eye could seo them, especially as the species was j^re-Adamite by myriads of years. Mr. Miller's notion of the design of creation seems to be very much akin to that of the old Scotch crone, who, when- ever she beheld a beautiful young girl, had no other apprecia- tion of her graces than to conceive " what a lovely corpse she would make."
Once more : while the currently received theory of the cos- mogony is ingenious, it is at least douljtful whether the adjust- ment of all the phenomena of so complex a case to the hypo- thesis, has been, or can be, accurately carried out. But, until this is done, it is not demonstrated. If that scheme is true, then all the material substancec which make up the chemist's list of simple substances must have been derived from the ele- ments of the atmosphere, of water, and of the primitive rocks. For, if we go back to the beginning, we find, according to the current hypothesis of the geologists, nothing in existence, ex- cept a heated atmosphere, watery vapor, and a fluid globe of melted granite, basalt, etc. All the rest, secondary, tertiary, al- luvial, is the result of cooling, crusting, depressions and up- heavals of this crust, disintegration, and cedimentary deposits. But, is it certain that air, pure water, and primitive rocks contain all the chemical substances? And a still harder question i» this : has it ever been ascertained whether the chemical condi- tions and combinations, in which the elements exist in the prim- itive rocks, and then in tlioso called secondary and tertiary.
106 GEOLOGY AXD THE BIBLE.
are sucli as are consistent with, this lijpotliesis ? Has it been ascertained tliat the small percentage of sihcate of lime found in some of the granites — only some — and other primitive rocks, within such a distance from their surface as could, bv any pos- sibility, be subjected to disintegration, can account for all the vast masses of carhonate of lime — no longer silicate — in all the limestone, marbles, chalks, coral, and calcareous clays of the newer strata? But the world is entitled to have these questions answered before the geologists claim a demonstration of their hypothesis.
Eecent events furnish us with another doubt. One of the main arguments by which the fossil animals of all but the most recent species are shown to bo pre-Adamite, as it is claimed, is, that no fossil human remains, or marks of human handiwork, have been found among them. And geologists have admitted — as they must — that the well-attested discover}' of such remains among the earlier strata would demand a surrender and recon- struction of their theory. But lately the scientific world has been agitated by the repoi-t that, near Atniens, in France, arrow heads of flint, and other Avorks of human industry, have been found unquestionably in a strain m, and along with fossils, uni- iormly assigned by geologists to a pre-Adamite period. And now, it is stated that a scholar of high qualifications, Eawlinson, Jias visited the spot, and is satisfied of the correctness of the assertion.
For these and many other reasons, we consider the geological hypothesis as not yet a demonstration; and, hence, we claim the right to stand upon the defensive, upon the impregnable bulwarks of Scriptui'e evidences, until we are positively dis- lodged. We deny that any logical obligation rests upon us to present any scientific argument, or to establish any hypothesis, on the subject. We are not bound to show, by natural science, what is the true rationale of the earth's creation. Our defence is thoroughly accomplished when we show that any adverse "theory is not yet exclusively demonstrated.
5. The most vital point in the relations between theology and geology we have reserved for the last. It is one which has been summarily disposed of by geologists, without condescend- ing to weigh its vast import. How far must the logical value of
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 107
the inferences of natural science from natural appearances be modified by the admitted fact of a creni'iun! The character of these inferences is the following: "We see a given natural law produce a given structure ; we find the remains of a similar structure which has been somehow produced in the past; we infer that it must have been produced by a similar natural law." The just application of this kind of reasoning, v.'ithin its proper limits, is fuUv admitted ; it has been the main lever in the dis- coveries of natural science. But now, we ask, how far should its application be limited by the knowledge of the truth, that someiL'Jiere in the past some omnipotent creative act must have intervened? This is the question.
Unless geologists are willing candidly to take an atheistic Tiew of cosmogony, the fact of an absolute act of creaiion must be admitted somewhere in the past. We will not insult the intelligence and piety of our readers by supposing it necessary to recite the arguments which disprove an atheistic origin of the present order of things, or the emphatic admissions of all the greatest teachers of natural science, that nature obviously discloses her own origin in the creative will of an eternal Intelli- gence. The short-lived theory of <.lerelo2)riienth.i\.^ been already crashed beneath the combined arguments and ridicrde of scien- tific geologists themselves. There is, however, one fact, pecu- liarly germane to this point, that the Christian geologists of Great Britain and America claim it as the peculiar glory of their science, that it presents an in-^dncible and original argument for a creation. It is this : the stony records of successive genera of fossil plants and animals show that prior genera perished wholly, and genera entirely new appear on the stage of life. !Now, as the development theory is repudiated, the entrance of ■each new genus evinces, beyond a doubt, a new and separate creative act. Let us grant this for argument's sake. It is agreed, then, that terrestrial structures began, somewhere in the past, in God's creative act.
But now, it is most obvious, that if a scientific observer had been present, just after that creative act, to ol)serve the struc- tures produced by it, any observations or inferences he might have draMTi from the seeming marks of the working of natural laws upon them, would have been worthless to prove that those
108 GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
specimens originated in natural laws, "We repeat, once admit that a creative act has intervened cmyicJiere in the past, and wo should have had there, if we had been present, one case in ■vvhich all deductions and inferences of the natural origin of things from their natural appearances would have been w^orth- less. Such analogical arguments would have been cut across and superseded utterly by the creative act. This is indisput- able. We may illustrate it by the instances usually presented by the sound old writers of the class of Dick — instances wdiich have far more significance than has usually been admitted. Suppose, for illustration's sake, that the popular apprehension of the Bible account of the creation of Adam's body and of the trees of Paradise is true. But now a naturalist of wour modern school investigates aifairs. He finds towering oaks with acorns- on them! Acorns do not form by na'ture in a day — some spe- cies of oaks require two summers to mature them. But worse- than this. He has ascertained by natural history that one summer's growth forms only one of the concentric rings in the grain of the tree's stock. He cuts down one of the spreading monarchs of the garden, and discovers that it has a hundred rings. So he coolly rejects the story that this garden began last week, and insists on it that Adam has told a monstrous fib in saying so ; that it is not less than a hundred years old. Yet. Adam was right ; for the creative act explained all. But let us suppose another naturalist returning after some nine or ten cen- turies. He visits the venerable tomb of the father of all the living, and learns from his heir, Setli, how that his father sprang,, at the bidding of God, out of the dust, a full-formed, adult man. The naturalist takes up a leg-bone of Adam's skeleton; he re- marks : " The person to whom this bone belonged at death was evidently an adult ; for its length, size, solidity and density show this." He saws off a section, polishes it down to a translucent film of bone, and subjects it to his microscope and his chemical solvents. He remarks : " Here is the cellular structure of gela- atinous matter, which once formed the incipient bone of the foetus; and these cells I now find filled with the deposit of proto-2)Jiosp}tate of lime, giving it its stony strength and hard- ness. But I know that the introduction of this earth into the cells of the soft bone of the infant is just the process by which
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 109
nature now forms tlie bones of adults, by gradual growtli. "Whence I learn tliat this individual, like his children, gi*ew, during the space of twenty-one years, from ixfmtus to an adult; and the myth of his son Seth, concerning his instantaneous creation, is an attempt to impose on my credulity. This attempt I, as a philosopher, shall repudiate with contempt." Yet Seth. was right, and the philosopher ■^n.'ong; for, not to rely on the inspired testimony alone, this natural argument would prove that Adam was once an infant, and, therefore, had a father. The same argument, applied to the body of Adam's father, would equally prove that he also was once an infant, and had a father. And it would prove equally well an infinite series of £nite human fathers, extending back to all eternity. But such B, series, philosophy herself shows, is impossible !
But, second — and the remark is of prime importance — any creative act of God, producing a structure which was intended to subsist under the working of natural laws, must produce one Ijresenting some of the seeming traces of the operation of such laws. We confidently challenge geologists who admit that there has ever been any creation at all to imagine a product of it which could be different. For, note, all these theistic geologists repudiate the theory of development of genera from different and lower genera. Whence it follows, that the first specimen of God's immediate handiwork, the very first moment it left his hand, must have stood forth as truly natural as any of its progeny which were destined to proceed from it by natural law. And the same thing must have been true, to some extent, of all inor- ganic structures. If they had no traits of the natural, as they came from God's hand, then they were incapable of becoming, thenceforth, the subjects of natural law. ^
Hence, third, it follows that, if once a creative act is admitted to have occurred somewhere in the past, it may have occurred anywhere in the past, so far as the deductions of natural science from the marks of natural law upon its products go. In other words, the value of all these analogical inferences as to the date at which, and the mode by which, these objects of nature came
' But the fossils! especially animal ? Ans. If the invalidity of the argnnients for the sequence aud age of unorganized strata be admitted, then the proof that iossils are i^re-Adamite is gone.
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into being, are ■^•ortliless just so soou as tliey attempt to pass back of the earliest historical testimony. For the creative act, •wherever it has intervened (and "U'lio can tell, when historical testimony fails, "s^■here it may not have intervened ?) has utterly superseded and cut across all such inferences. Nor can these natural analogies prove that the creative act has not thus inter- vened at a given place in the past, because the whole validity of the analogies depends on the supposed absence of the creative act. Hence, all the reasonings of geologists seem to us utterly vitiated in their very source, when they attempt to fix, from natural analogies, the age and mode of production of the earth's structure.
This objection is usually dismissed by geologists with a sort of summary contempt, or with a grand outcry of opposition. It does, indeed, cut deep into the pride and pretence of their sci- ence ; at one blow it sweeps off that whole domain of its pre- tended discoveries — the region of the infinite past prior to all history — in which the pride, conceit, and curiosity of man's fallen intellect most crave to expatiate. But let us see whether it is possible to impugn the simple premises on which our con- clusion rests, or the inevitable result from them. Is there a single answer which can be presented that is even of any scien- tific weight?
It is urged, in substance, by Hitchcock, that if the validity of their analogical reasonings from natural laws is denied in this case, the very foundations of all natural science are overthrown. But what is this, more than an appeal to our fears and preju- dices? It is as though one said, when we refuse to accept a given species of evidence outside its projDer range, that we thereby invalidate the force ot all evidence. The question is : what is the proper domain of these inferences fi'om the analo- gies of natural law? Within their ovra domain, true science accepts them as valid ; outside of it, true science herself will concvu' with theology in arresting them. Let these premises be granted, viz., given the sufficient evidence that supernatural causes are aU absent in a certain class of effects ; and given the fact that just such eiiect^. have usually resulted from a certain natural law: then the inference may be very valid that these effects did result from the operation of this law. But this infer-
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. Ill
ence cannot help ns to determine tlie first premise, whetlier all supernatural causes were truly absent, for the very reason that it depends on that premise in part. This would be to reason in a circle, with a A-engeance. The application of these inferences^ upon which Hitchcock and the other geologists insist, is, in fact, precisely a case of that induction from mere uniformity of ante- cedent and consequent, as far as observed, which Bacon con- demned under the term '■'■ Inductlo per eniimerationem s'an- pUcem^'' and which it was one of his chief tasks to explode as utterly worthless. He proves that it can never raise more than a meagre probabilitj-- of the correctness of its conclusions where it is not supported by some better canon of induction. To explain, the shallow observer says: "I find that, so far as my observation has been enabled to test the matter, a given consequent phenomenon, named B, has always been preceded by a given antecedent, named A. Hence, I conclude that, in every other case where B appears A was its cause." The obvi- A-ious vice of this is, that it is wholly unproved that some other cause capable of producing B Avas not present, besides A, in the last cases. The induction is worthless until that is proved beyond a peradventure. To apply this : our modern geologists argue, for instance, that wherever they have been able to ex- amine the actual process by which the formation of stratified rod's takes place, the cause is sedhnentary action. Therefore, wherever any other stratified rocks are seen, their producing cause must have been sedimentary action. Here we haA'e pre- cisely the worthless induction per enumerationem simplicern, for the possible presence of some other cause capable of pro- ducing stratified rocks has not been excluded. And every one but the atheist admits that another such cause may have been present in the shape of creative p)oi':er. Until the presence of that cause is excluded by some other evidence, the conclusion is not proved. The vice of the argument is just like that in the famous sophism of Hume against miracles — it is not worthy of a Humeist. And we conceive that there is no uncharitableness in declaring that the covert tendencies of all such philosophiz- ings are to Hume's cdheism. Such reasonings cannot be com- plete for such a result in all cases, unless the supernatural be wholly excluded and the secret tendency to do so, which is
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Tirtiial atheism, is tlie true spring of all sucli reasonings in sci- ence. Bnt it niaj be retorted: are we, then, to snrrender all dependence on inferences from natural law, as certain evidence, throughout the whole extent of the natural sciences? We reply, no; wherever the inquirer into nature is certain that the facts he investigates are truly under the dominion of natiu-al laAv, so far such reasonings are valid. As to the origin and history of nature in the past, they are valid no farther back than we can be assured of the absence of the supernatural; and we know jiot how such assurance can be gained by us, save by the testi- mony of human experience and history-, or of inspiration. This conclusion does, indeed, curb the arrogance of human science, but it does not affect in the least any part of its legitimate do- minions, or of its practical value to mankind. It does, indeed, disable us fro)n determining the age, date, and origin of the structures nature presents us, but it does not prevent our dis- covering the laws of those structures ; and the latter is the dis- covery to which the whole utility of science belongs.
Again, why should the theistic philosopher desire to push back the creative act of God to the remotest possible age, and to reduce his agency to the smallest possible 'ininhnuoii, as is continually done by these speculations? "What is gained b}' it? Instead of granting that God created a ivorld, a xoafioz, they continually strive to show that he only created the rude germs of a world, attributing the actual origin of the fewest possible elements to God's almighty act, and supposing the most j)Ossible to be the result of subsequent development under natural law._^ AVe repeat the question : what is truly gained by this, if once the lingerings of covert atheism be expelled? Admit in good faith the facts of an actual Creator, an almighty and omniscient agent, and of an actual creation, anywhere in the past, and it will appear just as reasonable that God should have created the whole finished result, as a part. To his infinite faculties there is nothing hai'd, as opposed to easy; nothing intricate, as oj^- posed to simple; nothing great, as contrasted with the small. It was just as easy for him to speak into existence a finished uni- verse, with all its beautiful order, "by the word of his power," as to jjroduce the incipient elements out of which "laws of nature" were slowly and laboriously to evolve the result.
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For, wliat are those laws of nature, and what their source ? Do they not originate, after all, in the mere will and immediate power of God? None biTt the atheist disputes this. And, although we cordially grant that the properties of bodies, by which they are constituted forces in the great s^'stem of causa- tion under natural law, arc actual properties, and not mere seeming bhnds or shmdacra of properties; though we grant that they are truly intrinsic in bodies, as constituted by God's creative will ; yet who, except the atheist, denies that their op- eration is sustained and regulated by the eyer-present, special providence of God? Hence, if we say natural lavy does this or that, as opposed to supernatural creation, we have not in the least simplified, or relieved, the perpetual miracle of God's working. There is still a manifold and coimtless operation of infinite power and wisdom.
But, if the natural philosophers still persist in claiming the universal application of their principle, that wherever there is an analogy to the results of natural law, there we must conclude natural law alone has wrought, we can clearly evince that their position is utterly untenable and inconsistent, save for the tho- rough atheist. For, as already intimated, push back the super- natural creative intervention as far as we may, it is impossible for us to conceivo how it could produce any structm-e adapted to the subsequent dominion of natural law, ■s\ithout giving it the jDroperties which such law gives to its similar products. To give the most comjilete proof of the justice of this remark, let us take that theory of the solar system which the unbeHev- ing La Place is said to have doubtfully suggested as a possible one, and which our nominally Christian philosophers have so incontinently adopted, without demonstration, as demonstra- tively the true one. Suppose that the natural historian, coming from some older system, had begun his investigation of ours on the principles of these philosophers at that stage when no- thing existed but a nebula of incandescent compound vapor, rotating from west to east around an axis of motion. This is the stage, we understand, at which it is now most popular to suppose cooling, liquefying, and solidifj'ing processes began, resulting in a sun and jjlanets ; when the only shadow of truly scientific evidence on which La Place grounded his doubtful
Voi. Ill— 8
114 GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE.
STirmise, lias been dissipated by Lord Rosse, resolving tlie nehulcs into clusters of well-defined stars. How would this scientific observer have speculated on what was presented at that priir.i- tive stage ? Had he used the confident logic of our geologists, he must have said to himself: "motion in matter is always the result of impact ; therefore, this rotary motion which I now be- hold must be the resxdt of some mechanical force, developed by natural action, either mechanical or chemical. And, again, va- por implies evaporation^ and sensible heat suggests latent heat rendered sensible by chemical action. There must, therefore, have been a previous and different condition of this matter, now volatilized, heated, and moving. These conditions are the results of the working of natural laws ; and that implies a pre- vious material, in a diflferent condition, to be the subject of that working." Xow, this reasoning would be precisely as good as that of geologists. But Avhat would it prove ? It would make matter and the organism thereof eternal; for, after ascending by such reasonings one stage higher, we should be equally im- pelled to ascend still another, and another. Thus it would exclude a creator totally from creation. Hence, it appears that . the principles we have criticised are unsound and inconsistent, in any hands except those of the atheist. Once admit a creator and a creation, and the validity of all inferences from the seem- ing analogies of natiu-e, as to origin of things, is ^-itiated the moment we pass back of the authentic light of historical testi- mony. Once admit a creator and a creation, and nothing is gained, in logic, by attempting to push back the creative act.
In fine, if that account which theology gives of the origin of the universe is to be accepted at all, it appears to us that the most philosopical conception of a creation would be the follow- ing: that God, in producing a world which his purposes re- required, should pass immediately under the dominion of natural laws, wotdd produce it with just the properties which those laws •were to develop. Thus God, intending to have trees perpetu- ated by a law of germination and growth, would most naturally create the first tree of the gemis just such as germination and growth would produce. And so the whole structure of his world would be made, at first, -R-ith an adaptation to the laws which were intended subsequently to regulate and modify it. And
GEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE. 115
just liere tlieologj inosculates witli cosmogony, and gives us a consideration whicli will strike every just mind with no little force, while it is one of that kind which the man of narrow spe- cialities is almost incompetent to estimate. What was God's true end in the creation of a material world? Reason and Scripture answer: it was to furnish a stage for the existence and action of reasonable moral beings. The world was made for MAN to inhabit. "Without the presence of this its rational occu2)aiit and earthly master, all the manifestations of intelli- gent design and moral attributes, given in the order of nature, would be an aimless and senseless work. For, as light would would be no light were there no eye in the universe, so God's declai-ative glory in the wisdom and goodness of his works is no glory till there is a mind to comprehend it. Now, such being God's end, it seems far more rational to suppose that God would produce at once the world which was needed for his purpose, rather than spend hundreds of thousands of years in grow- ing it.
But, bearing in mind the object for which God created a world, we shall see that it becomes the most reasonable suppo- sition that he should have made it, from the first, with some of those traits which geologists suppose have all resulted from the working of natural laws. For instance, God's purposes, as at present revealed, prompted him to subject the surface of our globe to that class of agencies which are continually adding to its sedimentary strata of rocks and earths. Well, it is the most reasonable, the most philosophic supposition, that the same purposes prompted him to create a globe which had, from the first, some strata of the same sort. That the surface of the globe should be from the first stratified was necessary, for in- stance, to produce springs and veins of water, and that whole economy of irrigation which makes it a tenable home for sen- tient creatures.
If^ therefore, there is any authentic testimony that God did,frorrh the first, create such an earth, no sound inference drawn from, natural analogies is of any force to rebut that testimony.
? 1
A CAUTIOX ACtATXST AXTI-CHRISTIAX sciexce.
"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ " — Colos- siANS, ii. 8.
EVEKY Ciiristiau sliould be familiar with the fact that the hiTUiau mind, as well as heart, has been impaired bv the fall. Men " so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and bod}-." From the nature of the case, the misguided intellect is unconscious of its own yice ; for consciousness of it would expel it. Its nature is to cause him who is deceived to think that error is truth, and its power is in masking itself under that honest guise. Why, then, need we wonder that every age must needs have its vain and deceit- ful philosophy, and " oppositions of science, falsely so called ? " And hew can the Christian expect that uninspired science will ever be purged of uncertainty and error, by any organon of in- vestif^ation invented by man ? Even if the organon were abso- lute, pure truth, its application by fallen minds must always ensure in the results more or less of error, except in those exact sciences of magnitudes where the definiteness of the predica- tions and fewness of the premises leave no room for serious mistake.
Even when a body of honest and sincere men, like this Synod, attempts to a^^ply certain common principles to cpiestions of moral and ecclesiastical detail, theii' differences betray the fact that the operation of their reasons is imperfect. Yet these are the men to whom the church looks to teach the way of salvation. Now we demonstrate in our very church courts the fallibility of our minds when we are left to ourselves. How then can any man be willing to entrust to us the guidance of a soul, which is
' A sermon preached in the Synod of Virginia, October 20, 1871, and published by request of Lieutenant-Governor John L. Marye, Major T. J. Kirkpatrick, George D. Gray. J. N. Gordon, F. Johnston, and others, elders of the Presby- terian Church.
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A CAUTION ACtAIXST ANTI-CHRISTIAX SCIENCE. 117
wortli more than the whole world, and -nhose loss is irrepara- ble ? No thinking man will commit himself without reserve, in this thing, to an}' human direction. "We must feel our need of an unerring guide ; and hence the superiority of that religion which gives us as prophet and teacher that Christ who is "the image of the invisible God, born before all creation " (ch. i. 15), "in whom are hid all the treasures of Tvisdom and knowledge," (ii. 3); and "in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," (ii. 9). How blessed is the man who is " complete in him I " He has an infallible guidance, and no other is sufficient for an immortal soul.
The Colossian Christians were enticed to leave this prophet for a shadowy philosophic theory of their day. This was a mixture of Oriental, Rabbinical and Greek mysticism, which peopled heaven with a visionary heirarchy of semi-divine be- ings, referred the Messiah to their class, and taught men to expect their salvation from their intercession, combined with Jewish asceticisms and will-worship. Thus we are taught, both by uninspired, but authentic history, and by intimati ans of the holy apostle in the Epistle itself. Tliis fanciful scheme was supported by the '' traditions of men " ; that is to say, by the inculcation of favorite masters of this vain philosophy ; and by "the inidiments of the world," by this world's first principles, instead of Christ's declarations. But the apostle solemnly re- minded them that this philosophy was vain and deceitful ; and moreover, that the price of preferring it to the Christian system was the loss of the soul. Thus, the real aim of the seducer was to despoil the soul of its salvation, and to make it a captive to falsehood and corruption.
The prevalent vain, deceitful philosophy of our day is not mystical, but phj-sical and sensuous. It affects what it calls "positivism." It even makes the impossible attempt to give the mind's philosophy a sensualistic explanation. Its chief study is to ascertain the laws of material nature and of animal life. It refers everything to their power and dominion ; and from them pretends to contradict the Scriptural account of the origin of the earth and man. Does it profess not to interfere with the region of spiritual truth, because concerned about mat- ter? We find, or the contrary, that physical science always
118 A CAUTIOX AGAINST ANTI-CHP..5ITIAX SCIENCE.
lias some tendency to become anti-theological. This teiidency is to be accounted for by two facts : one is, that man is a de- praved creature, whose natural dispqsition is eninitj against God. Hence this leaning away from Him, in many worldly minds, perhaps semi-conscious, which does " not like to retain God in its knowledge." The other explanation is, that these physical sciences continually tend to exalt naturalism ; their pride of success in tracing natural causes, tempts them to refer everything to them, and thus to substitute them for a spiritual, personal God. Again, then, is it time for the watchman on the walls of Zion to utter the apostle's " beware." Again are incau- tious souls in danger of being despoiled of their redemption by " vain deceitful philosophy." To enforce this caution, I urge :
I. The attitude of many physicists at this time towards reve- lation is threatening. I perceive this in the continual encroach- ments which they make upon Scripture teachings. Many of you, my brethren, can remember the time when this modern impulse did not seek to push us any farther from the old and current understanding of the Bible cosmogony than to assert the exist- ence of a pre- Adamite earth, with its own distinct fauna and fiora, now all entombed in the fossiliferous strata of rocks. To meet this discovery no harder re-adjustment was required than that of Drs. Vjq Smith and Chalmers, who proposed to amend the expositions of Moses by supposing that between "the begin- ning " and that epoch of void and formless chaos immediately 1 )efore the six days' work, there was a lapse of myriads of years ; of which Moses tells us nothing, because the creatures and revol- utions which filled these ages had nothing to do with the history of man's redemption.
But now we are currently required by physicists to admit that the six days' work of God was not done in six days, but in six vast tracts of time.
That the deluge did not cover "all the high hills which were under the whole heaven," but only a portion of Central Asia.
That man has been living upon the globe, in its present dis- pensation, for more than twenty thousand years, to say the least, as appears by some fossil remains of him and his handiwork ; and that the existence of the species is not limited to the five
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 119
thoxisand nine liuudred years assigned it by the Mosaic clirou- oiogy.
That the "nations were not divided in the earth after the flood bv the famihes of the sons of Noah ;" and that God did not " make of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth ;" bnt that anatomy and ethnology show there are several distinct species, having separate origins.
That God did not create a finished world of sea and laud, but only a fire-mist, or incandescent, rotating, nebnlons mass, which condensed itself into a world.
And last, that man is a development from the lowest type of animal life.
Can the Scriptures, my brethren, be shown plastic enough to be remoulded, without total fracture of their authority, into agree- ment with all these views ?
Again, the whole posture and tone of this class of physicists towards revelation is hostile and depreciatory ; their postulates, with their manner of making them, imply a claim of far more authority for human science than is allowed to inspiration. Thus, the attempt to restrain any corollaries, however sweeping, which they may draw by the teachings of Scripture is usually resented. But in any other field of reasoning, if two lines of seeming argu- ment lead to contradictory conclusions, men always admit the rule that triiths must be consistent among themselves, and, in obedience to it, they surrender the weaker line to the stronger, thus removing the collision. But these physicists never dream of surrendering a deduction simply to tha Bible contradiction of it. Thus they betray very plainly whether they think human science more certain than revelation. The very attempt to bring the truth of their scientific conclusions to the test of the Bible is resisted as an "infringment of the rights of science," an unjust restraint upon the freedom of their intellects. Now these men will scarcely claim for a man a right to argue himself into the belief of demonstrated falsehoods. The implication is, that the Scriptures really settle nothing by their own testimony ; that is, that they have no true authority ^^'itll these scholars. The pub- lic mind has become so habituated to this imperious attitude of physical science, that it is hard for you to take in its full signifi- iCance. To enable you to measure it, I will ask you to represent
120 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
to yourselves that some of ns theologians should raise the cor- resjiondiug outcry' against the physicists : that we should be heard exclaiming, " We resent the intrusions of physical science upon our divine science, as an infringement of the rights of the- ology ; and we resist them wherever they contradict our infer- ences, as an unjust restraint upon the freedom of man's intellect, when expatiating in this noblest of all its domains !" Realize to yourselves the astonishment Avith which scientific worldly men would listen to our outcry. They would deem it the extrava- gance of lunacy in us ! And, indeed, we should be rather fortu- nate if you also did ]iot sympathize a good deal with the charge! It is, in this matter, just as it is in all other cases where Chris- tians and the world meet on common, social grounds. Every- body thinks it obviously reasonable that Avhere a collision would arise, the Christian people must concede, in order to avoid giv- ing offence to the worldly. But should the Christians in any case require the world to concede anything in order to avoid giving offence to the church, in the common social arena, although the Christians pay just as good money as the world does for their share, their claim would appear excessively queer, indeed foolish, and wholh' out of the question! Why, what are Chris- tians for, if not to make sacrifices and be imposed on ? But, if two coordinate sciences impinge against each other, the equality of their authority gives the advocates of the one just as much right of complaint as the advocate of the other, until special in- quiry has settled where the fault of the contradiction lies. The feeling which I have above described shows that, in this case, the sciences of nature and of redemption are not thought coor- dinate, and that the latter is regarded as of inferior authority.
We hear the physicists, again, very condescendingly, lament- ing the imprudence of the theologians in thrusting the Scrip- tures into collision with their sciences. They regret, they tell us, the damage which is thus inevitably done to the credit of religion. They are, indeed, quite willing to patronize the Chris- tian religion as a useful affair, provided it is sufficiently submis- sive in its behaviour. But their conception about the collision between it and physical science is just that of the engine-driver upon the collision between a child and his mighty locomotive : it was a catastrophe much to be lamented, but only on the child'a
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 121
account! Sometimes we are told that tlieology has nothing to- do with science ; that onr imprudence is like that of Hoplini and Phineas, in risking the ark of God in tlieir war with the pagans. But what if the Philistines invade the very sanctuary ? Shall the ark of God, at their bidding, be expelled from its home on earth ? And if the price of its quiet is to be, that it shall have no Shekinah of glory to dwell upon its mercy-seat, and no tables- of testimony within it, written by the finger of God, we may as well let the enemy take the empty casket. Now, all these as- sumptions betray too obviously the belief of their authors that the Bible is fallible, but science infallible.
Again : While I do not charge infidelity upon all physicists, the tendency of much of so-called modern science is skeptical. The advocates of these new conclusions may plead that they only postidate a new exposition of Scripture, adjusted to the results- of the " advanced modern thought." But I ask, can any exegesis make our Bilile speak all the propositions which I enumerated above, and all the rest which it may please the adventurous in- novators to announce, without damaging its authority as a sure rule of faith? The common sense of most men will conclude that such a book is only a lump of clay in the hand of priest- craft, to be moulded into such shape as may suit its imj)ostures. We freely grant all that can be said in favor of caution and ex- haustive study, in placing a meaning upon the words of Scrip- ture; but a Bil)le which does not assert its own independent meaning, as fairly interpreted by itself ; a Bible which shall wait for distinct and changing human sciences to tell us what it shall be permitted to signify, is no siifficient rule of faith for an im- mortal soul. Those who know the current tendencies of the physical sciences well know that we utter no slander in saying that they are towards disbelief of revelation. We have the ex- plicit testimony of an eye-witness in the scientific association of the year, held at Indianajjolis, that the great majority of the members from the Northern States openly or tacitly disclaimed inspiration ; and this, while many of them are pew-holders, elders — yea, even ministers — in the Christian churches. When asked why they continued to profess a religion which they did not be- lieve, some answered that the exposure and discussion attending a recantation Avould be inconvenient ; some, that it would be pain-
122 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
fill to tlieir friends ; some, that Christianity "vvas a good thing for their sons and daughters, because of its moral restraints.
Both in the British Isles and in this country, the very worst and most reckless of these physical speculations now receiye the most mischieyous diffusion. They are inserted in popular text- books, and taught to youth, as though they were well-established scientific truths and yeritable organs of mental discipline ; and that, eyen, in some colleges professedly Christian. They are hawked about at second-hand, l)y popular lecturers, as though they were the commonplaces of science. We find them strained, in feeble but malignant solution, into the magazines which in- trude themselyes into our families as suitable reading for the Christian household. So that college lads can cultiyate, under their father's own roof, by this aid, a nascent contempt for their fathers' Bibles, along yvith tlieir sprouting mustaches; and misses can be taught to pass judgment at once on the blunders of Moses and the triiimphs of Parisian millinery. Worse than all, we sometimes hear of their utterance from the pulpit b}' min- isters, who treat of "Maa in Genesis and Geology," intimating, in no doubtful way, that the former record of man's origin is to be corrected by the latter.
Beware, then, my brethren, lest any man spoil you through this vain, deceitful philosophy. Bethink yourselyes what is to be done. Are you ready to surrender the infallibility of your Bibles ? The advocates of these new opinions may plead that we are not to assume in advance the inspiration of the whole Scriptures, when, as they say, the very question in debate is, whether tlieir sciences do not prove them fallible in part. Even if we granted this, it is still time that we knew where we stand. It is high time that the true quality of this antagonism were un- masked. Let us no longer say, " Peace, peace, if there is no ■peace.'' Consider how disastrous it may be to have these new opinions asserted without contradiction. It may be that your son, or daughter, or young pupil, is just now experiencing the bitter struggle of the carnal mind against the calls of the sanc- tifying Spirit, or that inflamed appetite is panting to overleap the odious but wholesome restraints of the revealed law. How dangerous, at this critical hour, to have them taught that phil- osophers have found, amidst the stony atrata and musty fossils
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHIilSTIAN SCIENCE. 123
■which they explore, iincloubted evidence of mistakes in Moses, Paul, and Christ ! I tell you that this has become a case under that general truth of which the apostle so faithfully warns us, that " the friendship of the world is enmity to God." You must resist, or you must practically surrender your Bibles. You will have to " takes sides " for or against your God. You will find yourselves under a necessity of forbidding the inculcation of this intrusive error to your children, and its entrance into your fami- lies, as though it were established truth ; no matter what odiwm you may incur, or what institutions or men, styled Christian, may follow the fashion of the times ; else, if things go as they now do, the church will have a generation of infidel sons.
II. And this is the position on which the Christian pastor should stand. Unless our Bible — when cautiously and candidly interpreted by its own light — is inspired and iufallilile, it is no sufficient rule of faith for an immortal soul. Such the Bible is, notwithstanding all the pretended discoveries of vain philoso- phy. Modern events have not loosened a single forindation stone of its authority, nor can any such discoveries, from their very nature, affect it. But in asserting this confidence, it is not necessary for the theologian to leave his own department, and launch into the details of these extensive, fluctuating, and fasci- nating physiciil inquiries ; nor shall I, at this time, depart from my vocation as the expounder of God's word, to introduce into ihis pulpit the curiosities of secular science. We have no occasion, as defenders of that word, to compare or contest any geologic or biologic theories. We may bo possessed neither of the knowledge nor ability for entering that field, as I freely con- iess concerning myself. We have no inclination to deny that these physicists have displayed a surprising industry in their researches ; that they have accumulated a multitude of obser- vations ; that tiioy have speculated upon them with amazing ingenuity, or that they have actually deduced many useful con- clusions. My business is in another field ; that of moral evi- dence. My effort shall be to set forth the nature and conditions of that evidence, as bearing upon the question of the Bible's in- spiration and authority ; and I shall endeavor to show you that the kind of physical speculations under review, whether the}' be more or less ingenious or probable, can never reach the level of that higher ciuestion.
124 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
First, tlien : Modern physical science is not to be allowed to boast entire immunity from error, or certainty of resiilts, any more than the physical science of the scholastic ages. I am well aware of the proud claim which its votaries now make- While they join in exposing and ridiculing the pretended phy- sics of tbe middle ages, and even glory in the vast mutations- which the natural sciences have undergone, our present physi- cists always assume that the Baconian Organon has given them an immunity from mistake. Henceforth, they boast, the pro- gi-ess of science is firm, yea, infallible, and destined to no re- verses or contradictions, but only to continual accretions, upon. the impregnable basis laid by the inductive logic. We are living, say thev, not in the age of hypotheses, but of experimental de- monstration. Those who come after us will never have any such rubbish to remove from our systems, as the calxes, and phlogiston, the Ptolemaic astronomy, and the baseless maxims, such as that "Nature abhors a vacuum,'' which we have cast- out of the old philosophy.
Xow, while rejoicing in the belief that physical science has- made many solid advances, we are skeptical as to the realization of tliis boast. It is overweening and unreasonable. Man is a fallen and weak creature, impaired in all his faculties. As I ar- gued at the outset, so I insist here : that this finite, fallen, im- perfect reason is incompetent to invent an infallible method of investigation, or to apply it with unfailing correctness, if it were given to us. Partial error has marked all the results of our forefathers' speculations ; and if we shoiild arrogate to our- selves an entire exemption from similar mistakes, this vain con- ceit of ourselves would be the strongest ground for prognosti- cating our failiTre. " That which hath been, is that wdiich shall be," Physical science will remain, in part, uncertain and changeable, for the simple reason that it will still be the work of men — men like the predecessors whose science we have con- victed of uncertainty. It is true that Lord Bacon called his method a JS'ovuvx Organum ; but he who supposes that the- publication of this new method is to make modem science in- fallible shows himself a sciolist indeed. Did Bacon invent a logical faculty, or only describe a use of it ? He who supposes that any more than the latter was done is as absurd as thongli
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 125
■one should say that the drill-master invents legs. Nature makes legs, and also teaches their use by instinct ; men managed to y>alk before ever a drill-master existed, by the impulse of na- ture's teaching. All that the drill-master does is to teach men to walk better, and oftentimes he cannot even do that. So, our creator gave us the faculty of reasoning, and men syllogized be- fore ever Aristotle described the syllogistic process, and made in- ductions before Bacon analyzed their canons. If you suppose that ilie experimental method was never known or valued in physics until Bacon's day, you are much mistaken. In truth, Aristotle, who is called the " Father of Logic," analyzed its laws as really as he did those of the syllogism. But had he not, Nature, man's kindly teacher, would have taught him to appreciate the experi- mental method ; and all men who have reasoned have appealed to it, because it is one of the methods of common sense. Again, if 30U suppose that all the speculations of the modern sciences are conformed to Bacon's method, you are much mistaken. Sins against its rigor and simplicity are by no means limited to ilie da^'S of old. Men still forget that hypothesis is not proof ; and the same motives, so natural to a fallen soul, which caused medioeval physicists to depaii:. from the safe and rigid processes of experimental logic — haste, lovo of hypothesis, vain-glory, pre- judice, disgust of a proud and over'T-eening heart against the humble, modest, and cautious rules of that method, still mislead men's minds. The assumption that henceforth physical science is to be trusted, and to be free from all uncertainty and change, is therefore simply foolish.
This verdict is more solidly confirmed by facts. Indeed, how can one doubt its general justice when he beholds the sciences ■of the day in a state of flux before his eyes ? Geologic theo- ries change in some particulars with every decade. New facts come to light, such as the supposed discovery of human fossils near Amiens, in France; and of skulls in California, in older strata than had been supposed to contain any such remains ; or as the deep sea soundings which have lately shown that forma- tions determined, as was asserted, to be older and newer, lie beside each other in the ocean cotemporaneously. These dis- coveries, inconsistent with previous hypotheses, impose to-day a labor of modification upon geologists, and we must be excused
-l26 a caution against anti-christian science.
for oiii* lack of confidence in tlieir new structures of tlieory, with so recent an example of error before us, and "with so manifest a pride of opinion influencing the reception reluctantly given to the new facts. Again : we are told that the chemistry taught to-day is different from that which was taught ns in the colleges and university thirty years ago — so different as to require a new nomenclature. What reflecting man would deny that unproved hj'pothesis enters largely into tlio current physical sciences? Let us mention, for instance, one of the most beautiful, and one which, in parts, has received almost a mathematical accuracy, the science of optics. Is light, itself, a distinct, imponderable substance, as was suggested by Newton to be possibly true? Or is it a molecular function only, of other transparent sub- stances? The latter supposition, we are informed, is now the fashionable one, but has it ever received an exact and exclusive demonstration? Does any one claim for it more than this, that it is a supposition which 'inay satisfy all the observed facts about light, so far as we yet know ? This is all, we presume, which any careful physicist will assert. Yet how often do we find writers on optics proceeding on this supposition, as though it were de- monstrated, to other conclusions and assertions ? We are told that the atheistic astronomer, La Place, suggested the "nebular hypothesis " for the origin of our globe, as a possible solution ; resting its plausibihty on the appearance of nebulous clouds cf light among the fixed stars. But since the chief ground cf plausibility has been removed by Lord Bosse's gigantic tele- scope, resolving some of these nebulae into clusters of fixed stars, do we hear our clerical cosmogonists who have adopted this supposition prate any the less glibly al)out it ? Not a whit. And last, as though to convince every sober mind that much of the current physical speculation is but a romantic dreaming, en- gendered of the surfeit of an over-prurient age, comes Darwin- ism, and engages a considerable number of the most admired names of physicists for this monstrous idea, that the wondrous creature, man, "so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties, in form and moving so express and admirable, in action so Hke an angel, in apprehension so like a God," is but the descendant, at long removes, of a mollusc or a tadpole. No prophet is needed to predict that some, at least, of the current science of our day
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHKISTIAN SCIENCE. 12T
will be swept away by tlie inuovations of future physical science itself, as "we have discredited much that preceded us.
The supposed conclusions, which seem adverse to the Scrip- tures as understood by common Christians, are parts of an un- stable, because an incomplete system. And I will venture the assertion, without other faculty or acquirement than the light of common sense, that these conclusions are far short of that per- fect, exclusive demonstration which would be necessary to un- seat the Bil)le from its throne of authority. A faithful scrutiny would detect sundry yawning chasms between facts and infer- ences.; sundry places where the proposition which, when intro- duced first, can be called no more than a "may-be,"' is after- wards tacitly transmuted into a " must-be." Xor is this surpris- ing when we remember the novel and fascinating quality of the observations, and the multiplicity of the premises given by the fruitful variety of nature. Here is a trying lab}Tinth indeed, to be threaded by the most patient, modest, humble, cautious, finite reason. But are humility, modesty, and caution the char- acteristics of modern advanced thought ? When, for instance, some ethnologists argue that the roots of the different families of languages indicate separate sources for the original tribes of men ; Vs'hen Sir J. Lubbock argues, from presumed social laws, that our civilization has raised man out of a primeval savage state ; when Bunsen reasons that man has been more than twenty thousand years upon our globe, from the supposed coin- cidence of some human fossils with older deposits : do you sup- pose that their proofs are of that character which, in a coui-t of justice, would stand the test of adverse counsel at law in every link, and remain so conclusive beyond all doubt as to justifv an honest jury in taking a fellow creature's life? The inventors themselves would doubtless recoil with a shock fi'om such a re- sponsibility !
But the Bible, by reason of its demonstrative evidences from the independent fields of history, criticism, miracles, fulfilled prophecy, internal moral character, aud divine effects on human souls, is in prior possession of the groiind of authority. We hold the defensive. The burden of proof against us rests with the physicists. Nothing is done to oust the Bible, until they construct a complete, exhaustive demonstration ; not only that
128 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHKISTIAN SCIENCE.
created things may have arisen, as modern science surmises, but that they nimst have arisen thus, and not otherwise. Let us sup- pose that we saw a group of ingenious and well-informed mechan- ics around a steam engine which bore no maker's label or mark. The question is : where and by whom w^as it made ? They are certain that it might have been made in Philadelphia ; they tell us that they know the skilled labor, the appliances, the metals are there for the production of just such a machine; and add- ing certain marks which are like those communicated to such work by the builders of that city, they are about to conclude that this engine came thence. But now there steps forth a sturd}', respectable Englishman, whose word no man has any right to doubt, and says : " Yes, it might have been made in Phil- adelphia; yet it was not, for I brought it from London." Is not mighty London confessedly equal to the production of just such a work ? Then here is a case in which the Englishman is undeniably competent to testify, and if he is also found credi- lile, the hypothetical reasons of the ingenious mechanics are vJioUy out of place if advanced to rebiit his testimony, be- cause the truth of what he testifies does not in the least clash with the grounds of their surmise. He can say to them, with ]5erfect truth : " Gentlemen, I do not impugn your knowledge or skill ; I do not dispute a word which you testify of the resources of your city; your surmise, hypothetically, is perfectly rea- sonable ; as far as at first appeared from the machine itself, it inight have Ijeen viade in Philadelphia; and yet, in point of fact, it was made in London, as I know." Thus : if there is an all- wise, Almighty God, it must be allowed that he is fully equal to the production of this earth and its organisms. However fair, hypothetically, the surmise may be, that they were produced by other agencies, if there is a credible, independent witness that, in fact, they were made by God, the testimony is relevant, and the supposititious inferences wholly irrelevant to rebut it.
Finally, no natviralistic arguments from observed effects to their natural causes, however good the induction, have any force to prove a natural origin for any structure older than authentic human history, except upon atheistic premises. The argument usually runs thus: we examine, for instance, the disposition ■which natural forces now make of the sediment of rivers. We
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 129
observe that wlien it is finally extruded by the fluvial current in- to the lake or sea where it is to rest, it is spread out horizon- tally upon the bottom by the action of gravity, tidal waves, and such like forces. The successive deposits of annual freshets we find spread in strata, one upon another. Time, pressure, and chemical reactions gradually harden the sediment into rock, en- closing such remains of plants, trees, and living creatures as may have fallen into it in its plastic state. The result is a bed of stratified stones. Kence, infers the geologist, all stratified and fossil hearing heds of stone have a sedimentary origin, or other such like natural origin. Hence winds and waters must have been moving on this earth long enough to account for all the beds of such stone on the globe. Such is the argument in all other cases.
Grant now that an infinite, all-wise, all-powerful Creator has intervened anywhere in the past eternity, and then this argu- ment for a natural origin of any structure, as against a super- natural, creative origin, becomes utterly invahd the moment it is pressed back of authentic human history. The reason is, that the possible presence of a different cause makes it incon- clusive. Now, I well know that this conclusion, simple and obvious as it is, awakens a grand outcry of resistance fi'om physicists. " What," they exclaim, " do not liko causes alwavs produce like effects ? This principle is the yoxj fulcrum of the lever of induction ; unsettle it, and you shake all science ; remove it, and all her exploits are at an end." Yery true ; all these ille- gitimate exploits in this region of a past eternity, whose solemn romance so piques the curiosity and inflames the enthusiasm of the human mind, in which science vainly seeks to measure strength in the dark with an inscrutable omnipotence ; all these -delusive exploits are ended. But within the proper sphere of science, we leave her the fuU use of her foundation principle, and bid her good speed in its beneficial use. And that is the sphere of practical inquiry, within tho historical j^ast, the pre- sent, and the finite, terrestrial future, where we can ascertain the absence of the supernatural.
But to show how utterly out of place the princii^le is in the past eternity, in which it must meet an Almighty First Cause, and meet him we know not where, let me add two verj' simple
130 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHEISTIAN SCIENCE.
thoughts: "Like causes always produce hke effects?" Tes^ proYided the conditions of action remain the same. But is it forgotten that a jJi'ojjosltio/i does not prove its converse ? The admission, that like causes always produce like effects, is not enough to demonstrate that all similar effects have come from the same causes. Suppose we are comj)elled to grant the pre- sence of another, independent, unlike, yea, omnipotent cause; and suppose we are compelled to admit that it may have inter- vened at any time prior to actual human history, as all except atheists do admit? Now, in the presence of this vast, unlUce cause, where is your valid inference, from like effects to the like causes? It is wholly superseded. It may be asked: "Must we then believe, of all the pre-Adamite fossils, that they are not, as they obviously appear, organized matter; that they never were alive ; that they were created directly by God as they lie ? The answer is, that we have no occasion to deny their organic char- acter, but that the proof of their pre-Adamite date is wholly invalid, when once the possibility of creative intervention is 23roperly admitted, with its consequences. For the assumed antiquity of all the rocks called sedimentary is an essential member of the argument by which geologists endeavor to prove the antiquity of these fossils. But if many of these rocks may have been created, then the pre-Adamite date of fossils falls also. Moreover, when we are confi'onted with an infinite Creator, honesty must constrain us to admit, that amidst the objects em- braced in his vast counsels, there may have been considerations, we know not what, prompting hirn to create organisms, in num- bers, and under conditions, very different from those which we now term natural. After the admission of that possibility, it is ob'\ iously of no force for us to argue, " These organisms must have been so many ages old, supposing they were produced, and lived, and died under the ordinary conditions knoTMi to us." This is the very thing we are no longer entitled to suppose.
But hear the other thought. Grant me any creative interven- tion of a God, in any form whatsoever, and at any time whatso- ever, then it is inevitable that any individual thing, produced by that intervention, must have presented, from its origin, every trait of naturalness ; for it was produced by a rational Creator for the piirpose of being — if inorganic — a part of a natural
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 131
system, to be providentially governed through the laws of na- ture ; or — if organic — to be, moreover, the parent of a species or race of organisms like itself. The inference is as sure as geome- try ; for if the first, the parent organism, had not all the proper- ties natural to the species, how could it generate that species ? What is the definition which science itself gives of identity of species? It is the aggregate of those properties, precisely, which are regularly transmitted through natural generations. Then, the first organism, made by the Almighty to be the parent of the species, must have been endued with all the properties natural to the species, or to its subsequent members. Now, then, if the argument of our physicists to a natural origin is universally valid — that the like effects must be from the like natiu^al causes — it is valid to prove that this first supernatural organism was also natural. But, according to our case as agreed on, it was not natural. And from this reasoning there is no pos- sible escape, save in absolute atheism.
As this is a conclusion of fundamental importance, let us make it still clearer by applying it in a fair instance. We will suppose that within the lifetime of Seth an antediluvian physicist ap- peared, investigating the origin of the human species precisely upon the modern principles. He exhumed the remains of Abel and of Adam, and submitted them to a critical examination. He also enquired of Seth what was his belief concerning the origin of the race. That patriarch answered, that the testimony of God, delivered by the venerable Father of Man, Adam, perfectly cleared up the matter; that he, his murdered brother Abel, the unnatural murderer Cain, were all the natural progeny of a first pair, who were themselves the supernatural, adult productions of the Creator, without human parents. But to this simple ac- count of the matter the man of science necessarily demurred; for he had examined Adam's bones, and found them exhibiting every mark of growth from a natural infancy. He had, for in- stance, possessed himself of that very arm-bone with which, as the unphilosophic mjih of Seth would fain teach, Adam had cul- tivated the primeval garden. Our naturalist had sawed out a transverse section of this bone ; he had polished it down to a translucent film; he had poured a pencil of microscopic light through it ; and lo, there appeared plainly, as in any other bone,,
132 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
tlio cellular tissue filled with that earthy salt, phosphate of lime, which gives to all natural boues their rigidity. And then our naturalist exclaimed, "Why, Seth, the very microscope contra- dicts you. We have learned from human physiology that all bony matter is thus formed by nature : first, the cellular tissue grows, and then the infant's little frail, flexible bones acquire a gradual solidity by the deposition of phosphate of lime in the cells, imtil, as the child becomes a mature adult, the full charge of this earthy substance gives the density and firmness of the bone of the sturdy man. Now, you observe that this bone of Adam has that density. By the unfailing maxim, that 'like causes produce like .effects,' I know that this bone must have been thus produced; that it was once the flexible, gelatinous structure of the foetus, then the soft bone of the babe, and at length, by gradual growth and deposition of the earthy salt, the mature adult bone which we see. Hence, science must pro- nounce your story untrue, when you say that this person's body had no natural parentage, but was produced in a mature state by a Ci'eator." To this beautiful induction the common sense of Seth doubtless objected; that God told Adam, for all that, he had made him without natural parents, the first of his kind; a testimony which Adam's own recollection confirmed, in that, from his earliest consciousness he had been a grown man, and there had been no older human being ^dili him at all. Seth doubtless protested, that this testimony he should believe in spite of seeming science. And we may imagine that our natur- alist grew quite impatient with his stupid obstinacy, and, as he thrust the microscope imder his nose, exclaimed, "Why, man, look here; seeing is believing; your own eyes will tell you that this is natural bone, and so must have grown naturally."
Yet, still the naturalist was wrong, and Seth was right. He could have proved it even without claiming Adam's testimony ; he could have reminded this naturalist that, if his reasoning necessa- rily proved that Adam had a parent, then the same reasoning, ap- plied to a bone of Adam's father, would prove with equal certainty that ]ie had a father in his turn, and then that there must have been a grandfather, a great-grandfather, and so backwards forever. But now it is a conclusion of science itself, that an infinite series backward, without original cause outside of itself, is an impos-
A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 133
sible self-contradiction. This conclusion is of geometrical rigid- ity, and is recognized by all modern pliilosopliers, even the most anti-Cliristian. Tiie denial of it is, moreover, blank atheism. Now, then, if the antediluvian naturalist cannot hold this absurd and atheistic history of an infinite series of human generations literally, without beginning from past eternity, he must admit that somewhere in the past there was the first man. But his arguments from the natural properties of that first man's remains must inevitably be false in that case. Well, then, he might just as well admit that the argument from Adam's bone was worthless in his case. Seth's testimony is found, after all, strictly compe- tent to the question ; and, if his character is seen to be trust- worthy, perfectly decisive of it. Seth could, moreover, have supported his own credibility by most weighty exj)erimental facts : such as the exceeding fewness, in his day, of those very bones and other remains of dead human generations ; the scan- tiness of the members of the human family, compared with their evidently prolific powers, and the obvious marks of recency at- taching to the whole condition of the race.
Now I claim that my instance is fair ; the parallel defect will appear in every attempt of modern science to push the Creator's intervention back of the earliest human history by such induc- tive reasoning. And I ask, with emphasis, if men are not in fact reaching after atheism; if their real design is not to push God clean out of past eternity, why this craving to show his last in- tervention as Creator so remote? "Wliy are they so eager ta shove God back six millions of years from their own time rather than six thousand ? Is it that " they do not like to retain God in their knowledge " ? It is not for me to make that charge. But have I not demonstrated that the validity of their scientific logic, in reality, gains nothing by this regressus f
Once more : let men explicitly r3linquish the horrible posi- tion of atheism ; and they must admit, somewhere in the past, the working of a Being of '•' eternal power and Godhead." And that admission contains another: that this eternal, sovereign Maker was, of coxwse, prompted hj some ratwmil design in mak- ing what he then chose to make. That is, in the language of natural theology, God must have some filial causes for what he does, of some sort or other. While we may not audaciously
134 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHEISTIAN SCIENCE.
speculate as to wliat tliey were, yet so much is obvious, that in this vast and inscrutable counsel of the Maker's purpose, amidst all the wide designs of the Infinite Eeason, the material is in- tended to subserve the spiritual. As the body is for the mind, and not the mind for the body, so the whole world discloses thus much of its Maker's purpose, that the irrational creation is for the sake of the rational. Shall philosophers be the men to impugn this? They cannot. All nature would cry shame on them for doing so. For what is their prefen'ed glory over the rest of us common men ? It is the superior use of their reason.
Now God is manifestly so infinite in wisdom and power, that any creative exploit to which his own final causes might prompt him is as easy to him as any smaller one. Suppose that he may have had rational ends to gain from the production of a world ah'eady organized and equipped for the home of a reason- able race of his servants. Then it was no more fatiguing or in- convenient to him to produce such a world six thousand years ago, in all its completeness, than to produce, six millions of years ago, simply a nebulous, incandescent mass of vapor, out of ^vhich to grow a world. But, it will be said, is not that state- ment purely hypothetical ? I reply, yes ; in advance of revealed testimony, it is. But its legitimate use is to show that there is a competetit and relevant case here fur just such testimony. Now, then, if such a witness appears, and his credibility has sufficient moral supports, his testimony is good. And this "siew of the matter is as really the most scientific as it is the most Christian.
Hence, brethren, I hold that there is, and there can be, no projDer collision between the most explicit and authoritative theistic testimony and sound natural science. They cannot clash, because wherever, in travelling backwards, the domain of creative Omnipotence is met, there true natural science stops. Let us hold this ground, and we have no need to debate any particular hypothesis as to the origin of organism, or to choose this rather than that. We have no call to leave the sphere of morals and theology to plunge into the secular disputes of anatomists or mineralogists. Neither ha^-e we any need to force a strained exegesis upon God's record of his own omnipotence in order to conciliate uncei*tain and fluctuating human sciences.
The best antidote, mv hearers, for all this naturalistic unbe-
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lief is to remember jour owu stake iu the truth of redemption ; and the best remedy for the soul infected is conviction of siu. "Be^N'are lest any man despoil you through a vain, deceitful 23hilosophy." Of what will they despoil you? Of a divine re- demption, and a Saviour in whom dwell the divine wisdom, power, love, and truth, iu all their fulness ; of deliverance from sin and guilt ; of immortality ; of hope. Let naturalism prove aU that unbeUef claims, and what have you? This blessed Bible, the only book which ever told perishing man of an ade- quate salvation, is discredited ; God, with his providence and grace, is banished out of 3-our existence. But is consciousness discredited, which assures you that yoii are a spiritual and re- sponsible being? Is sin proved a fancy and death a myth? Alas, no. These imperative needs of the soul still remain, and crush jou as before ; but there is no deliverer. In place of a personal God iu Christ, Father, Friend, Redeemer, to whom you can cry in prayer, ou whom you may lean in your anguish, who is able and willing to heal depravity and wash you from .guilt, who is suited to be your poi-tioa in a blessed immortahty, you are left face to face "s^dth this eternal nature, impersonal, j-easonless, heartless. Her evolutions are but the movements of an infinite machine, revolving by the letw of a mechanical necessity, and between her Tipper and nether millstones the corn is this multitude of human hearts, instinct with Hfe, and -hope, and fear, and sensibihty, palpitating, wi'ithing, and bleed- ing forever under the remorseless grind. Tes, for aught you know, forever ! for this dreary philosophy cannot even give you the poor assurance of annihilation. Even though it should banish God fi'om your creed, it cannot banish the anticipations of immortality from your spirit. Naturalism is a virtual atheism, and atheism is despair. Thus saith the apostle : " They who are " without God in the world " are " without hope." (Eph. ii. 12.) Toung man, does it seem to you an aUuring thought, when ap- petite entices or pride inflates, that this false science may re- lease you from the stern restraints of God's revealed law ? Oh ! beware, lest it despoil you thus of hope and immortahty. Ee- member those immovable realities, sin, guilt, accountability, which no vain, deceitful philosophy \\-ill be able to hide in the hour of yoiu' extremity. Look at these great facts in that light
136 A CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
iu wliicli, as you well know, deatli, "that most wise, eloquent, and miglitj teaclier," will place them. How poor and mean will all these pretentious sophisms appear in that hour ?
Hence, I am not afraid to predict an assured final triumph for the Bible in this warfare. In the end, the spiritual forces of man's natui'e must always conquer, as they always have con- quered. Look back, proud Natui-alist, upon history ; your form, and all other forms of skepticism, have been unable to hold theu' ground, even against the poor fragments and shreds of divine truth which met you in Poh-theism, in Mohammedanism, in Popery. Man, however blinded, will believe in his spmtual destiny in spite of you. Let proud Naturalism advance, then, and seek its vain weapons gi'oping amidst pre-Adamite strata and rotten fossils. The humble heralds of our Lord Christ will lay their hands upon the heartstrings of living, immortal man, and fmd there always the forces to overwhelm unbelief with de- feat. Do men say their propositions are only of things spirit- ual? Aye, but spiritual truths are more stable than all their primitive granite. These imperishable truths rest on the testi- mony of consciousness, a faculty more valid than sense and ex- perience : because, only by admitting its certainty can any per- ception or experience of the senses claim vaUdity.
Centuries hence, if man shall continue in his present state so long, when these cuiTent theories of unbehef shall have been consigned, by a truer secular science, to that limhus where the Ptolemaic astronomy, alchemy and judicial astrology, lie con- temned, the servants of the cross "u-ill be -u-inning larger, and jei larger, ^'ictories for Christ, with the same old doctrines preached by Isaiah, by St. Paul, by Augustine by Knox by Davies.
THE CAUnO.\ AGAIXST AM-CHRISTIAX SCIENCE CRITICISED BY M. WOODROW/
IN Maj, 1869, I addressed a memorial on theological edu- cation, not to tlie General Assembly, but to the Com- mittee on Theological Seminaries. Called by the church and Assembly to this work almost from my youth, I had devoted sixteen of my best years to their service, as a teacher in one of the Assembly's schools of divinity. I was conscious that I had studied this great interest, and engaged in this labor, with aU the zeal and attention of which my feeble powers were capable. It was obvious that our system of seminary instruction was stiU, notwithstanding its valuable fruits, in several respects experi- mental. It had been borrowed, by Drs. A. Alexander and J. H. Eice, mainly from Andover, then the only institution of this pre- cise nature in America, for Princeton and Union Seminaries. But Andover was Congregational — we are Presbyterians. I saw that there was danger lest features borrowed by these beloved fathers provisionally should, by unquestioned usage, harden into fixed precedents, which they never desired, when, perhaps, time might show that these features were unsuited, or not best suited, to our poKcy and principles. As our church was then, in God's j^rovidence, passing anew through a formative state, it seemed the right time to discuss these points of seminary management, "^'ho should evoke that discussion, if not the men to whom the church has entrusted the business ? I, though not an old man, was very nearly the oldest teacher in divinity in the service of the church. Now, I might have sought moral support for my views by manoeuvring to get come faculty, or colleague, or my Presbytery, or my Synod, or a majority thereof, to "father"
'Appeared in the Sontliern Presbyterian Revieic, for October, 1873, in answer to a criticism by Eev. James Woodrow, D. D., on tlie preceding article.
137
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tliem, in the form of an "overture" to the Assembly. But, as I desired to speak out mv ■n-hole mind respectfully, yet honestly, I preferred to have my views go before the Assembly unsup- ported by factitious props, and let them receive only that assent to "U'liich their intrinsic merit might entitle them.
The memorial was not read in the Assembly of 1869, but was referred to the faculties and directors of Columbia and Union Seminaries, going fii'st to the former. The authorities at Co- lumbia disapproved all my views. The papers were then mislaid for a time among the officers and committeemen of the Assemblv: 1 know not how. Finally, another committee of the Assembly reported, without ever having met as a committee, or having seen my memorial, advising that the subject be finally dropped, on the single ground that so decided a dissent of one seminary would make it improper to attempt any improvements, whether valuable or not. Thus the paper was consigned to "the tomb of all the Capulets;" and I was refused a hearing, when neither church nor any of the Assemblies knew anything whatever of my recommendations, save from the version of my opponents. Had I demanded the privilege of dictating my views, this reception would have been just. But the humblest servant expects a liear- ing, when he comes to the most imperious master, in the spii'it of humble zeal and fidelity, to inform that master of the interests of ]tis 23roperty entrusted to the servant's care. That mere hear- ing was what I asked for ; and only for my master's good, not my own ; for the only result to me, of the adoption of my views, would have been increase of toil and responsibility ; but even a hearing has been refused me.
This, however, is a digression. One of the points made in this forgotten memorial was an objection to the introduction of chairs of natural science into our seminaides. These sciences, and especially geology, have been so largely pei'verted to the in- terests of unbelief, that sundry friends of the Bible, in their un- easiness, came to think that our seminaries should be provided with chairs to teach these sciences, in their relation to inspira- tion, to all the pastors of the church. I recognized the danger, but dissented from this mode of meeting it, on three grounds, which still seem to me perfectly conclusive. One was, that the amount of instruction which could be thus given on these intri-
CRITICISED BY DR. \YOODROW. 139
<>ate and extensive branches of knowledge in connection with the arduous studies of a three years' course iu divinity, %vould usually prove inadequate to the end proposed ; whence I conclude that the defence of inspiration against the perversions of these sciences would be better left to learned Christian laymen, and to those pastors and teachers whose exceptional talents and opportunities fitted them for going thoroughly into such studies. My second point was, that the study of modern geology, especially, is shown by experience to be seductive, and to have a tendency towards naturalistic and anti-Christian opinions. Some, of course, must master these matters, notwithstanding any dangerous tendencies ; but it would be more discreet i)ot to place the Christian men es- pecially devoted to these seductive pursuits in the very schools where our pastors are all taught, and not to arm them with the church's own power and authority for teaching an uninspired and fallible branch of knowledge ex catliedra to all our pastors; because, should that happen among us, at some distant day, -which has often happened to others, it would be far more detri- mental to have the defection in a citadel of the church than iu an outpost. To show that I was not insinuating any doubt of any living man, I added : " Tlie undoubted soundness of all our l)resent teachers and clergy, and their unfeigned reverence for in- spiration, now bhnd ns to the ulterior tendency of such attempts. It may be two or three generations before the evil comes to a cli- max." My third argument was the most conclusive of all. It was grounded in the fact that our church and all its ecclesiasti- cal po^vers are founded upon a doctrinal covenant — our Confes- sion and Catechisms. Hence, I argued, the church cannot, by ecclesiastical power, teach her presbyters ex cathedra in her sem- inaries— which, if they have any right to exist at all, are ecclesi- astical institutions — a set of opinions which are clear outside of our doctrinal covenants. And this was the more conclusive be- cause it was morally certain that any theory of adjustment between geology and Moses, which would be taught by any modern geologist, would contradict the express terms of our doctrinal covenants as they now stand. For each of these schemes of adjustment postulates the existence of a pre-Ad- amite earth and living creatures ; but our Confession, Chap. lY. Sec. 1, expressly asserts the contrary. Now, this being the case,
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and some of our ministers holding one, and others holding a con- trary scheme oi adjustment, and others, again, being, like myself, committed to none, it must follow that, sooner or later, the at- tempt to inculcate one of these schemes by ecclesiastical author- ity must lead to strife among ourselves. How soon has this been verified! Dr. "Woodrow's groundless apprehension that I was seeking to inculcate a different scheme from his, has already verified it! Now, we do not regard our Confession as infallible; bvit it is our doctrinal covenant, and we are surely right, there- fore, in expecting, at least, thus much, that those who believe they have detected positive error in it, ought candidly to move the church to agree together upon the correction of that error ; and they are the proper persons to show how to correct it, if they can.
But meantime, Judge Perkins had endowed a chair of " Nat- ural Science in connection with Revealed Eeligion " in Columbia Seminary, and Dr. Woodrow was its incumbent. Is this crit- ique his retaliation for my presuming to exercise my right of dissent? I carefully remove all provocation, by making, as I have recited, a most express and honorable exception in favor of him and all his colleagues and puj^ils. It will appear in the sequel as though he were bent upon excepting himself from the benefit of my exception, and verifying in his own case the caution which I was too courteous to appl}' to him.
The first criticism which I notice is, the charge that I disal- low and reject all physical science whatever ; and that I do it upon the implied ground that revelation can only be defended by disallowing it all ; thus virtually betraying the cause of the Bible with all intelligent men. This misconception of my aim will be so astonishing to all impartial readers, that perhaps they will be slow to believe Dr. "SYoodrow has really fallen into it. Hence I quote a few of his own words. Itevieiv, p. 328 : "Dr. Dabney has been keeping u-p for a number of years an unremit- tino- warfare against j)hysical science." There must be a good many remissions when Dr. W.'s zeal can find but three blows in seven years. Page 333: "Dr. D. endeavors to excite hos- tility against physical science," etc. Page 335 : " Having taught .... that physical science is vain and deceitful philosophy," etc. Page 337: "If he had confined himself to saying that
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 141
tlie tendency of mueli of so-called modern science is skeptical, lie mio-lit easily liaye substantiated this assertion. But .... lie maintains no such partial proposition," etc.
But this is precisely the proposition which I do maintain; haying stated and defined it precisely thus in my own words. I presume that Dr. Woodrow is the only reader who has so mis- conceived me. My last and chief pubhcation, the sermon in Lynchburg, is entitled, "A Caution against Anti- Christian Sci- ence." Why may I not be credited as understanding and mean- ing what I said? Dr. Woodrow exclaims, as he cites from my own words my respectful appeal to the physical science of Drs. Bachman and Cabell, or to the refutation of the eyolution hy- pothesis of Darwin, etc., by Agassiz and Lyell, or to the proof of actual, new creations of genera by fossil-geology : " Is Saul among the prophets?" Why may ii not be supposed that I was not an ignoramus, and so was consistent with mj^self, and knew what I was saying ? The anti-Christian science which I disal- low Avas here expressly separated from this sound physical sci- ence. But again : In the introduction of the sermon I hasten to separate and define the thing I attack. On the second page I tell my readers that it is the "prevalent, yain," physical philosophy. Kow every one knows that it is the materialistic philosophy of Lamarck, Chambers ( Vestiges), Darwin, Hooker, Huxley, Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, Biichner, which is now the " preya- lent" one. That is, these and their followers, like the frogs in the fable, who made more fuss in the meadow than the whole herd of good bullocks, are notoriously "prevalent" upon the surface of the current literature. It is these whom people called " intelligent" now usually read in the journals of the day. They hear of Darwin and his friends a thousand times, and do not hear of Dr. Woodrow's sound and safe science at all. I j^re- sume that there was not a gentleman i". my audience in Lynch- burg who did not see that I opposed these materialistic physi- cists, and them alone. I further defined the thing I opposed as that which aflects "positivism;" which attempts to construct a " sensualistic " psychology ; which refers everything, as effects, to the laws of material nature and of animal life. One would think that the materialistic school of Darwin, Huxley, etal., was in these words defined beyond possibility of mistake to the well-
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informed liearer. All sucli would, moreover, clearly understand me as meaning these, because they knew that I knew it was pre- cisely this school of physicists which was making nearly all the noise and trouble in the popular literature of the day, described by me in subsequent passages of the sermon.
But Dr. "Woodrow, rather than give me the benefit of my own definition of my ovm object, on page 335 of his Jtevie^v, launches out into the most ams-zing misunderstanding and contradictions. Indeed, the passage is to me unintelligible, except that his as- tounding denial of the attempt made by the followers of Hume, and of Auguste Comte, to give a " sensualistic " explanation of the "mind's philosophy," betrays the fact that he has wholly failed to apprehend what I was speaking of. Had I learned manners in the school of Dr. Woodrow, I should here be war- ranted in retorting some of his very polite language on pages 368 to 370, and "prove that he is acquainted neither with the method nor the ends of" tnental "science;" that he "has re- fused to learn " about the history of psychology " what boys in college can understand," or that he " is ignorant of the difference between true science " of mind " and the errors uttered in its name," etc., etc. But instead of doing so, I shall simply beg Dr. Woodrow's attention to some very familiar facts in the his- tory of philosophy, which I trust will enable him to see my meaning. Be it known then, that especially since the days of Hartley in England, and Condillac in France, there have been in those countries, schools of philosophers, whose main charac- teristic is that they ascribe to the human mind no original functions save those of sensibility and sense-perception. They deny all a ])riori powers to the reason, and disbelieve the exist- ence, in our thinking, of any really primitive judgments of rea- son. They teach that all logical principles are empirical. They hold in its sweeping and absolute sense the old scholastic max- im, " J^ihilin intellect a quod non prius hi sensu." The consis- tent result of so false an analysis was foreseen to be materiahsm ; and so it resulted. Now, the term employed to denote this school of psychology, from the days of the great and happy re- action under Royer Collard and others in Paris, and Emmanuel Kant in Konigsburg, was sensrialistic, sometimes spelled by the Eno-lish philosoiphers, as Morell, sensatiojialistic ; and the name
CKITICISED BY DR. AVOODEOW. 1-1^ '
is appropriate, because the scliool sought to fiud all the sources of cognitiou in the se/tses. This common error characterized the deadly philosophy of Hume, the scheme of Augusta Comte, termed by himself positivism, and the somewhat diverse systems of Buckle, John Stuart Mill, and of Darwin and Huxley ; \A\o, while disclaiming positivism in that they do not adopt some of Comte's crotchets, yet hold this main error, and consequently reach, more or less fully, the result, blank materialism. One of the worst characteristics of the type of physical science now sa current through the writings of these men, is the union of this " sensualistic " psychology with their physical speculations, whence there results almost inevitably a practical atheism, or at least a rank infidelity. I hope that Dr. "Woodrow is now re- lieved, and begins to see what was the "anti-Christian science" which I opposed in my sermon and other writings.
I will now add, that at the end of last April, two months be- fore the publication of Dr. Woodrow, he did me the honor to write me very courteously, at the prompting of a good man, a friend of peace, notifying me of his intended critique. I -RTote him, the first of May, a polite and candid reply, in which oc- curred the following sentences :
"Eev. a::d Deas Sik: Tour courtesy in advertising me of your article de- serves a thankful acknowledgment. I beg leave to tax your kindness with a few remarks before you finally commit j-our JIS. to the press. The few words which, passed between ns in Richmond showed me that I had not been so fortunate as to convey the real extent and meaning of my views to you. This misconception I will make one more effort to remove, in order to save you and the public from dis- cussions aside from the real point
' ' I conceive that there is but one single jjoint between you and me, which is either worthy or capable of being made a subject of scientific discussion. It is this: I hold that to those tcho honestly admit a Creator anywhere in the pa^t, the a posteriori argument from, naturalness of properties to a natural — as opposed to a creative or supernatural —or^'^^?^ of the structures examined, can xo longer be rxi- VERSAiLT VALID. That is, really, the only point I care for. Now let me appeal to your candor to disencumber it of misapprehensions and supposed monstrous corol- laries, and where is the mighty mischief ?
"But, you may say. Dr. Dabney is understood as holding the above in such a sense as to involve the assumption that all save the ^pileistocene ' fossils are shams ; that is, that the older fossil remains of animal life never were alive, but that God, in creating the world, created them just as they are, probably for the purpose of 'humbugging ' the geologists. Now I have never said nor implied any such thing, and do not believe it. Search and see. You may return to the charge with this inferential argument ; that the doctrine means this, or else it has no point to it. It
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does not mean it in my bands, and I -will show you -what point I think it has. Let that ugly bugaboo, I pray you, be laid.
" Again, you will find, if you wiU search my notes and sermon, that I have not committed myself for or against any hypothesis held by truly devout, Christian geologists. I have not said that I rejected, or that I adopted, the older scheme of a pre-AJamite earth, as held by Drs. Chalmers, Hodge, Hitchcock, etc, I have not committed myself for or against the hypotheses of Cardinal Wiseman, and Dr. Gerald MoUoy of ilayuooth. No man can quote me as for or against the ' unif orm- itariau' scheme of Sir Charles Lyell as compared with the opposite scheme of Hugh Miller. As to the other propositions advanced in my notes and sermon, I presume they can hardly be made the subjects of scientific debate between us, even if of difference. We shall hardly dispute whether sham-science, disparaging Moses, is, or is not, wholesome reading for the children of the church. We shall hardly differ about the propriety of carrying that solemn conscience into physical specidation which sinners usually feel when they come to die. It can hardly be made a point for scientific inquiry, whether your larger or my smaller admiration for the fascinating art of the mineralogist is the more just.
'' The only real point which remauis, then, is my humble attempt to fix the 'metes and bounds' of physical aj^osteriori reasonings when they inosculate with the divine science. Obviously, atheistic physicists wholly neglect these metes and bounds. Obviously again, many theistic physicists— as Hitchcock, Reli(jioii of Geology — dazzled by the far.cination of facts and speculations, are overlooking these metes and bounds. Now, that inquiry may proceed ia a healthy way, and the ground be prepared for safe hypothesis, it is all-important that a first principle be settled here. I offer my humble mite, by proving that, to the theistic reasoner — I hcive no debate herewith atheists — the proposition cannot liold universally true that an analogous naturalness of properties in a structure proves an analogous natural origin. I do not care to put it in any stronger form than the above.
" But when cleared of misconceptions, this proposition, to the theist, becomes irresistible. ' Geologists ' — meaning of course the ones defined in the previous para- graph—refuse all limitations of analogical, a posteriori arguments, claiming that 'hke causes always produce like effects,' which, say they, is the A-ery corner-stone of all inductive science. But the real proposition they employ is the converse of this, viz.: 'Like effects always indicate like causes. ' Now, first, must I repeat the trite rule of logic, That the converse of a true proposition is not necessarily true ? Secondly, The theist has expressly admitted another cause, namely, an infinite, per- sonal Creator, confessedly competent to any effect he may choose to create. Hence, the theist is compelled to allow that this converse will not hold universally here. Thirdly, A wise creator, creating a structure to be the subject of natural laws, will of course create it with traits of naturalness. Hence, whenever the mineralogist meets with one of these created structui-es, he must be ])repared to find in it every trait of naturalness, like other structures of the clas^ which are originated naturally. Fourthly, To the theist this argument is perfect, when api^lied to all vital organisms. The first of the species must have received from the supernatural, creative hand every trait of naturalness, else it could not have fuliilled the end for which it was made, viz. , to be the parent of a species, to transmit to subsequent generations of organisms the specific nature. And, fifthly and lastly. To deny this would compel us still to assign a natural parent, before the first created parent, of each species of generated organism : which would involve us in a multitude of infinite series, with- out causes outside of themselves. But this notion science herself repudiates as a self-contradictory absurdity etc.
CKITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 145
" Wliat use is to be made of this conclusion, if acTmitted? First, to save us :from being betrayed into some theory of cosmogony virtually atheistic. Secondly, to make you and me, those who love geology and those who are jealous of it, modest in constructing hypotheses; to remind us, when examining the thingp which disclose ' eternal power and Godhead,' how possibly we may have gotten into contact with the immediate Hand who 'giveth no account to any man of his mat- ters. ' Very faithfully yours, K. L. Dajbney. "
As to my argument in this letter, on the main point we shall see anon. Now, of course it was impossible for me to foresee the amazing misapprehensions into which Dr. Woodrow had fallen. But had I been prophet enough to foresee them, I could hardly have chosen terms more exactly adapted to remove them, and to demonstrate that I did not attack all physical science ; that I did not recommend universal skepticism of all but mathe- matics and the Bible ; that I did not teach God had created a lie in putting fossils into the rocks, etc. But probably it did not avail to change one word ; Dr. Woodrow was not to be thus balked of the pleasure of printing a slashing criticism of one 'vAio had given no provocation to him. Leaving it to the reader to characterize this proceeding, I would only ask if I was not entitled to the benefit of my own exposition with the public? May I not claim the poor rtght, never denied even to the in- dicted felon, of speaking my own speech and defining my own defence ? Had Dr. Woodrow deemed my statements in my let- ter inconsistent with those in my sermon, he might at least have given me the benefit of a change towards what he considers the better mind.
I shall be reminded that the misconception of my scope was justified by such language from me as this : " The tendencies of geologists are atheistic." " These sciences are arraj^ed in all their phases on the side of skepticism," etc. These statements are all true, and consistent with my high respect for all true physical sciences. All of them are arrayed by some of their professed teachers, on the side of skepticism. Or, as I defined my meaning in the sermon, these sciences of geology, natural history, and ethnology, now exciting so much popular atten- tion, " always have some tendency to become anti-theologi- cal." I believe this to be true. They always have this ten- dency, but not always this effect. A tendency is a partial drift towards a certain result. It may exist, and yet in a multitude
Vol. III.— 10.
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of cases it may liave no effect, because countervailed by oppos- ing tendencies ; or better still, opposing causes. Thus it ap- pears clearly to be tlie doctrine of Scripture, tliat the possession of wealth always has, with frail man, a tendency towards car- nality ; yet all rich Christians are not carnal. Witness Abra- ham, the father of the faithful, j-et a mighty man of riches ; and the prince of Uz, Job. Hence a good man may, for valid rea- sons, o-^Ti riches, and may even seek riches ; yet, until he is perfectly sanctified, their pursuit is doubtless attended with a certain element of spiritual danger. If he does his duty in prayer and watchfulness, this danger will be counterpoised and he will remain safe. Now it is precisely in this sense that I hold these studies always to have some tendency to become anti- theological. Yet it may be even a duty to pursue them, prayer- fully and watchfully ; and many good men, Uke Dr. Woodrow, may thus escape their drift towards rationalism, though, like Abraham, acquiring great store of these scientific riches.
I assigned, as I thought very perspicuously, the reasons of this tendency. First : it is both the business and the boast of physical science to resolve as many effects as possible into their second causes. Repeated and fascinating successes in these solutions gradually amount to a temptation to the mind to look less to the great First Cause. The experience of thousands, who were not watchful and prayerful, has proved this. Again ; geology and its kindred pm'suits have this peculiarity, that they lead inquiry full towards the great question of the Anyr^, the fountain head of beings. Now let a mind already intoxicated by its success in finding the second causes for a multitude of phenomena which are to meaner minds inexplicable, and in ad- dition, secretly swa^-ed by that native hostility which the Scrip- ture declares lurks in all unconverted men, " not hking to re- tain God in their knowledge," let such a mind push its inqui- ries up to this question of the beginning of beings, there will be very surely some anti-theological tendency developed in him. Is it asked why all other human sciences, as law, chemistry, agriculture, are not chargeable with the same tendency ? The answer is : because they do not come so much into competition with the theistic solution of the question of the origin of things. Is it denied that geology does this ; and are we told that Dr.
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 1-17
Dabney lias betrayed his scientific ignorance by supposing that geology claims to be a cosmogony ? Well, we know very well that Sir Charles Lyell, in the ver}^ outset of his Principles of Geology, (London, 1850), has denied that geology interferes with questions of cosmogony. And we know equally well, that if this be true of his geology, it is not true of geology generally, as currently obtruded on the reading public in our day. I thought that " cosmogony " meant the genesis of the cosmos ; that cosmos is distinguished from chaos. So, when modern geology, in anti-theological hands — which are the hands which rather monopolize geology now in our periodicals, viz., Huxle}-, Hooker, Tyndall, Biichner, et al. — undertakes to account for the origin of existing structures, it is at least virtually undertaking to teach a cosjnogony. In this judgment I presume all men of common sense concur with me. " Geology ought not to assume to be a cosmogony ? " Very true ; and I presume Dr. Wood- row's does not. But unfortunately, in this case the frogs out- sound the good, strong bullocks. It is the assuming, anti-the- istic, cosmogonic geology of which the Christian world chiefly hears ; and hence viy protest.
On page 352 Dr. Woodrow says : " All speculations as to the origin of forces and agents operating in nature arc incompetent to natural science. It examines how these operate, what effects they produce ; but in answer to the questions, is there a per- sonal, spiritual God, who created these forces ? or did they originate in blind necessity ? or are they eternal ? natural science is silent ^
That is to say, Dr. AVoodrow's natural science is silent. But is Drs. Darwin's and Huxley's natural science silent about them ? Notoriously, it is not. When these men endeavor to account for existing beings by "natural selection," a physical law as the "original force" and "operating agent;" when inany recent wiiters endeavor to use the modern doctrine of the " correlation of forces" for the purpose of identifying God's power with force, their natural science does not behave at all as Dr. Wood- row's belicijves. And this is our quarrel irith iheni. Nor can we assent fully to Dr. Woodrovv^'s view, that true natural science "is silent" about all these questions. She ought no.t to be silent. Her duty is to evolve as the crown a:id glory of all her
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coBclusious, the natural, theological argument for the being, wis- dom and goodness of a personal God. Such was the natural science of Lord Bacon, of Sir Isaac Newton, of Commodore Matthew Maurj.
It is urged, I should not have srid these physical sciences have an anti-theistic tendency, because, where men have per- verted them to unbelief, the evil "tendency was in the student, and not in the study." This, I reply, is a half truth. The evil tendency is in the student and the study ; I have shown that the study itself has its elements of danger. But I might grant that it is in the student, rather than in the study ; and still assert the generality of this lurking tendency. For, the quahty in the stu- dent, which constitutes the tendency, is, alas! inborn, and uni- versal among the unrenewed, namely, alienation from God — a " not liking to retain him in their knowdedge" — a secret desire to have him afar off.
And now, when we turn to current facts, do they not sorrow- fully substantiate my charge against these perverted sciences ? Every Christian journal teems with lamentations over the wide and rapid spread of unbelief flowing from this source. Such men as Dr. McCosh fly to arms against it. Such men as Dr. ^^oodi'ow have so profound an impression of the power and au- dacity of the enemy as to be impelled to wage the warfare con- tinuously, even in an inappropriate arena. It is notorious that these physical speculations have become, in our day, the com- mon, yea, almost the sole resources of skepticism. We have in- fidel lawyers and physicians ; but they are infidels, not because of their studies in jurisprudence, therapeutics or anatomy ; but because they have turned aside to dabble in geology and its con- nections.
But we see stronger, though less multiplied, instances of this tendency, in the cases where it sways devout believers to posi- tions inconsistent with their own faith. Thus, Hugh Miller Avas a good Presbyterian, the representative and organ of the Scotch Free Church, yet he was misled b}^ geology' to adopt a theory of exposition for the first chapter of Genesis which Pr. Wood- row strongly disapproves. And Dr. Woodrow, though " believ- ing firmly in every word of the Bible as inspired by the Holy Ghost," is betrayed in this critique, by the same seductive "ten-.
CBITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 149
dency," into two positions inconsistent witli liis sovinci faitli. This will appear in the sequel. In this connection a remark should also be made upon the attempt to veil the prevalence of unbelief in America, by condemning my reference to the re- ported sentiments of many members of the Indianapolis meeting of 1870. He thinks it quite slanderous in me to allude to the pub- lished testimony of an eye-witness, without having required that person to put these slandered members through a very full and heart-searching catechism as to all their thoughts and doings, and the motives of them. Somehow, I find my conscience very obtuse upon this point. Obviously, I only gave the published testimony of this reporter for what it was worth. That I was clearly entitled to do so seems very plain from this fact: that he, and I knov/ not how many other prints, had already given it to the 2)iMic. He had made it the public's; he had made it mine, as an humble member of the public, to use it for what it might be worth. The currency given to the state- ment, by its mention in my poor little sermon, was but as a bucket to that ocean of publicity into which it had already flowed through the mighty Northern press.
The second point requiring correction in Dr. Woodrow's critique is the equalh' surprising statement, that I inculcate universal skepticism in every branch except the Bible and mathematics. Here, again, his mistake is so surprising that it is necessary to state it in his own words. Page 330, of Iievieir : "He" (Dr. D.) ^' recommend s skeptic ism as to the results of the application of our God-given reason to the works of God'fi hands." Page 331, I am represented as teaching that " we must regard ourselves as incajpahle of arrivijuj at a knowledge of truth,'' and, farther on, "that we can never hecome certain of anything in geology or other branches of natural science." I am represented, on page 332, as claiming "that our reason coidd. not form one correct judgment on any subject without divine guidance." On page 338, I am represented as attempting to show that "physical science never can reach undoubted truth." On page 337, I am made to teach "that the systematic study of God's works always tends to make us disbelieve his Word," whereas the very point of my caution is, that the sort of pre- tended study of God's works which makes so many people dis-
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believe liis Word is n(jt systematic. That is, it is not conducted on a just system.
There is, then, no mistake in my charging this misrepresenta- tion, that the reA^ewer really does impute to me a sweeping disbelief of all that physical science teaches, except in the "exact sciences." And neither is there, with the attentive reader, any mistake in the verdict that this charge is a sheer blunder. The very passage quoted to prove the charge from my sermon disproves it in express words. I state that "the human inind, as well as heart, is impaired by the fall," not de- stroyed. I do not go any farther, certainly, than our Confes- sion. Why did not Dr. Woodrow assail and ridicule that ? Again: "The Christian need never expect that uninspired sci- ence will be p)'^^^9^<^ (^f uncertainty and error ^'' etc. The meta- phor is taken from therapeutics, in which a " purge " is given wdth the aim of bringing away certain morbific elements bear- ing a very small ratio to the body piu-ged. And still more defi- nitely, I say: "Even if the organon were absolute, pure truth, its appHcation by fallen minds must always insure in the results viore or less of error^'' etc. On page 8 of Sermon, I add, speak- ing of the industry and ingenuity of the infidel physicists them- selves, that even "z'/ct'yhave deduced many useful conclusions." Dr. Woodrow remarks, very simply, p. 331 : "It is singular that Dr. Dabney should have fallen into this error," etc. Yes; so very singular as to be incredible. And I presume that he is the only attentive reader of my words in America who has *' fallen into the error" of imputing this eri'or to me. As Dr. Woodrow says, I condemn it in my Lectures. I repudiate it by honoring certain learned votaries of physical science. I rejju- diate it by appealing to certain well-established conclusions of physical science. I expressly limit my charge of fallibility in physical science to the presence of "wic/'d or less of error''' min- gled w4th its many truths.
But as Dr. Woodrow's misconception evinces that it was pos- sible for one man to fail to understand my position, I will state it again wdth a plainness which shall defy a similar result.
The perverted physical science which I oppose contradicts revelation. We believe that the Bible is infallible. Now, my object is to claim the advantage for the Bible of infallibility as
CKinCISED BY DR. WOODROW. 151
against something that is not iufaHible, in any actual or possi- ble collision between science — falsely so called — and the Scrip- tures. This is plain. Now, as Dr. Woodrow and all the good people for whom I spoke believe, with me, that the Bible is infallible, all that remains to be done, to give us this advantage, is to show that physical science, and especially anti-Christian physical science, is not infallible. Where now is the murder? Does Dr. Woodrow wish to assert that these human specula- tions are infallible? I presume not. Then he has no contro- versy with me here. That obvious and easy thesis I supported, bv noting, first, that while the fall left man a reasonable crea- ture, the intellect of his sinful soul was no longer a perfect in- strument for reasoning ; and we may expect it to be specially imperfect on those truths against which the prejudices of a heart naturally alienated from God are interested. Then, alluding to the fact that these infidel physicists usually assume the arrogant air of treating their science as certain, and the Bible as uncer- tain ; and alluding to the claim that, however fallible the ancient and the mediceval physics, the adoption of the inductive method has now made the conclusions of modem physics certain, I pro- ceeded to contest that claim in part, asserting that we must ex- pect some error still in modern physics. This I proved (ci), by the principle, that ancient and modern men are of the same species, and so should be expected to have the same natures and infirmities; but modern physicists convict their predeces- sors of a number of errors, whence it is arrogant in the former to assume that posterity will not convict them of any. I showed (Jj), that it was not true the inductive method was first invented and used in science from Lord Bacon's day, because Aristotle is said to liaA-e described the method ; and whether any logician described and analj'zed it or not, nature had taught men of com- mon sense, in all ages, to make some use of it. I asserted (c), that even the inductive method had not saved modern physics from all error, perfect as that method miT;ht be, because in fact modern physicists do not always stick to it faithfully ; they some- times, at least, yield to the same temptations which seduced the medifeval physicists. I showed {d), that modern physics had not yet reached infallilHlity, because it is still corredJng itself. And I remarked (e), that infallibility could be approximated in
152 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
tlie exact sciences only, in pursuing wliicli, tlie fewness of pre' mises and exactness of predications maj, by the help of care, bring entire certainty within the reach even of fallible intellects. Kow, a great many scholars have concurred with me in apply- ing this name, " exact sciences," to the knowledge of magnitudes and number. They must have thought that the others were in ■some sense "inexact sciences." Yet they never dreamed they were guilty of recommending universal skeptu-lsm of everytli'ing save the B'lMe and rnatlie'inatlcs. I presume they thought thus: that these " inexact sciences," true sciences to a certain extent, notwithstanding their inexactness, should be valued and should be used as far as was safe, but should be pressed with caution, and especially that they should be modest when they came in competition with exact science or infallible revelation.
Now, Dr. Woodrow would reply, at this showing of the mat- ter, that I must be clear before I require the "inexact science" to succujnb to the theological jDroposition, that the latter was indeed God's infallible meaning, and not merely my human sup- position about it. I grant it fully. And I take him to witness that I did not require my hearers to commit themselves to the interpretation of the Westminster Assembly, nor to that of Dr. Pye Smith, Chalmers, et al., nor to that of Mr. Tajder Lewis, d al., nor to my own interpretation of what Moses really meant to teach about the date and mode of creation. I did not even in- timate whether I had any interpretation of my own. Indeed, I behaved with a reserve and moderation which, for so rash a per- son, was extremely commendable. But I must claim another position: I must assume that Moses did mean soviething, and when we are all honestlj^ and certainly convinced by a sufficiently careful and mature exposition what that something is, then we have the infallible testimony of the Maker himself, and fallible human science must bow to it.
But from Dr. Woodrow's next step I must solemnly dissent. It is that in which he degrades our knowledge of God and re- demption through revelation to the level of our fallible, human knowledge of the inexact physical sciences. He is attempting, page 331, to refute my inference from the fall of man, which he misrepresents as a commendation of absokite skepticism, to the imperfection of his speculations. To do this he claims " that
CKITICISED BY DE. WOODROW. 153
tlieology is as mucli a human science as geology, or any other branch of natural science." "The facts which form the basis of the science of theology are found in God's Word ; those which form the science of geology are found in his works; but the science in both cases is the work of the human mind." To en- sure us that he is deliberate in propounding this startling doc- trine, he repeats : " Still, the science of theology as a science is equally liurnan and tininsjnreil with the science of geology ; the facts in both cases are divine, the sciences based upon them human." He then proceeds expressly to extend this liuman and tininsjnred quality to oicr hiowledge of the great central tilths of theology !
The grave error of this is unmasked by a single question : is then the work of the geologist, in constructing hypotheses, in- ductions, inferences, merely hermeneutical? All that the stu- dent of the divine science properly does is to interpret God's Word, and compare and arrange his teachings. Is this all that geology undertakes? The world had to wait man}^ centuries for a Kepler and a Newton to expound the laws of the stars ; God tells us himself that his Word is for his people, and so plain that all may understand, and the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. Again, this degrading view of theology misrejD- resents the reality. The '" facts of geology" are simply pheno- menal, material substances. The facts of theolocrv, Mhich Dr. Woodrow admits to be divine, are Jklactic j^rojyositions, introduc- ing us into the very heart of divine verities. "God is a spirit." " The word was God." " The wages of sin is death." Here are the matured and profoundest truths of the divine science set down for us in God's own clear words. Does he teach the laws of geology thus ? This difference is too clear to need ela- boration. Once more : the critic's view, whether risrht or wronc is unquestionably condemned by his Confession of Faith and his Bible. The former, Chap. I., § 5, says: "Our full persua- sion and assurance of the infallil)le truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing wit- ness by and with the Word in our hearts." And Chap. XIY., § 2 : " By this faith a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word,^/?^/' the axdhorlty of God h hnse/f SYivali- ing therein," etc. The Scriptiu'e says: an apostle's preaching
154 THE CAUTION AGAIXST AXTI-CHKISTIAX SCIENCE
"was not -svitli enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon- stration of the Spirit and of power ; tliat your faitli slionld not stand in the wisdom of men, Init in the power of God." (1 Cor. ii. 4, 5.) The apostle John promises to Christians (1 John ii. 20, 27): "But ye have an unction from the holy one ; and ye know all things." "The same anuhithuj teacheth you all things, and is truth, and is no lie."
Dr. Woodrow, perceiving how obnoxious his position might be shown to be to these divine principles, seeks an evasion in the claim, that the children of God are as much entitled to ask and enjoy spiritual guidance when they study God's works as when they study his Avord. He reminds us that the heavens declare the glory of God, etc., and asks whether Christians forfeit his guidance when they seek a fuller knowledge of that glorv in the heavens and the firmanent. Unfortunately for this evasion, we have to remind him of a subsequent page of his essay, where he heaps scorn upon the idea that physical science has any the- ological tendency, and declares that it is only ignorance which ascribes to it either a pro-Christian, or an anti-Christian charac- ter. The physicist, then, is not seeking God's glory in his study of strata and fossils ; if he does, he has become, like Dr. Dab- ney, unscientific ; he is seeking only "the oliservable sequences" of second causes and effects. Farther, the physicists whom I had in view never seek God anywhere, never pray, and do not believe there is any spiritual guidance, being infidel and even atheistic men.
If, then, the " science of theology " is as human and unin- spired as the science of geology ; and if, as Kichard Cecil has so tersely expressed it, the meaning of the Bible is practically the Bible ; the ground upon which we are iuA^ted in the gospel to repose our immortal, irreparable interests, is as fallible as geology. How fallible this is, we may learn from its perpetual retractions and amendments of its own positions, and fi-om the differences of its professors. Is the basis of a Christian's faith no better? Is this the creed taught to the future pastors of the church bv Dr. ^'oodrow ? As was remarked at the outset, when we predicted such results in the distant future, from the attempt to teach fallible human science in a theological chair, we stiU courteously excepted Dr. Woodrow from aU applications
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 155
of tliis caution. The reader can judge wlietlier my critic has not deprived himself, in this point, of the benefit of this excep- tion, and verified my prophecy two generations earlier than I myself claimed.
The third general tojiic requiring my notice in this critique is the outsx^oken charge of culpable ignorance. It is said, page 368, that I am " acquainted with neither the methods nor the ends of physical science, with neither its facts nor its princi- ples," etc. ; and of this assertion many supposed specimens are given, served up to the reader with the abundant sauce of dis- dain and sarcasm. On this I have, first, two general remarks to make. If it was only intended to ^irove that I am not a technical geologist, like Dr. Woodrow, which is not necessary to infidel physics, this end might have been quickly reached without fifty-two dreary pages of criticism, by quoting my own words, Sermo7i, page 8 : " We may be possessed neither of the know- ledge nor ability for entering that field, as I freely confess con- cerning myself." The other remark is, that all these specimens of imputed ignorance would have been passed over by me in ab- solute silence, did they not involve instances and illustrations of important principles ; for I presume the Presbyterian public is very little interested in the negative of that question, "Is Dr. Dabney an ignoramus," the affirmative of which Dr. Woodrow finds so much interest in arguing.
But it is asserted that I understand " neither the methods nor the ends " of physical science, because I speak of some such professed science as " anti-Christian," and suspect it of atheis- tic tendencies. Pago 353 : " Natural science is itself incapable of inquiring into the origin of forces . . . and it is impossible for it to be either religious or anti -religious." Page 354, it is claimed as a " fact," that the " results reached are not in the slightest degree affected by the religious character of its stu- dents." Page 351, I am criticised for asking whether the theo- logical professor of " natural science in connection with revealed religion " traces geologic forces up to a creator, and it is charged as a " grievous mistake to suppose that natural science has any- thing whatever to do with the doctrine of creation." Well, I reply, if even a mere physicist had not, we presume that a Chris- tian divine, put into a theological school to teach the church's
156 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
pastors the " counectiou of natural science witli revealed re- ligion," ought to have something to do with that " connection." This, as the attentive reader will perceive, was the question in that passage of my writing. Hence it is a sheer error to cite this place as proof of an " utter failure to recognize the jarovince of natural science."
But in truth, physics, simply as natural science, have a theo- logical relation. These stitdies deal with the very forces, from whose ordering natural theology draAvs the a posteriori argu- ment for the existence of a creator. It is not a " fact," that these studies are unrelated to the religious views of their stu- dents. Were this so, it would not have happened that a New- ton always travelled by astronomical science to the recognition of a God ; and a La Place declared, as the result of his Mecan- ique Celeste, that a theory of the heavens could be constructed without a creator. It would not have happened, that while Dr. Woodrow always traces natural laws up to the great First Cause,. Dr. Thomas Huxley should see in Darwin's physical theory- of evolution by natural selection a perfect annihilation of the whole teleological argument for the being of a God. Dr. "Wood- row says in one place, that because the business of natural science is with second causes, it has no business with first causes. Because the fisherman is at one end of the pole, he has no business with the hook and the fish that are at the opposite end of the line ! Fortunately, on pages 343 and 344, Dr. Woodrow himself contradicts this error. There he defends his view of a creation by evolution, by claiming that the stnicture produced by second causes is as truly God's creation as a first suj^ernatu- ral structure could be. If that is so, then the study of the se- cond cause is surely a stud}' of a creation, and so of a creator. So also Dr. Woodrow's friend. Lord Bacon, contradicts him, and justifies me in the very place quoted {Ttevlev', page 374) :. "It is an assured truth and a conclusion of experience, that a. little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism ; but a farther jjroceeding therein doth l)ring the mind hack again- to religion ; for in the entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto the senses, do offer themselves unto the mind of man, if it dwell and stay there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause,"
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 157
— just tlie " tendency " towards unbelief described by me ; " but when a man passetli on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes, and the works of providence, then, according to the al- legory of the poets, he will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be tied to the foot of Jupiter's ehair." Thus, according to Bacon, natural science has a relig- ious relationship. What is it indeed but hj'percriticism to ob- ject to the phrase, " anti-Christian science," and the like, that natural science is properly neither Christian nor anti-Christian, when everybody but the critic understood that the terms were used in the sense of "natural science perverted against religion?" So fully are such phrases justified by use, and so well under- stood, that Dr. Duns actually entitles his gigantic volumes on physical science, " Biblical Natural Science^ What a target, in that title, for such objections !
On page 372, the reviewer finds an evidence of ignorance in the passing allusion which I made to the new questions touching the relative order of strata raised by the results of recent deep- sea soundings; " all of which," declares Dr. Woodrow, "evinces an utter misapprehension of the real import of the discoveries in question." That is to saj^. Dr. Woodrow happens not to be pleased with that view of the import of these recent discoveries which I advanced, derived from competent scientific sources. Therefore the apprehension which happens not to suit him is all "misapprehension." We shall see, before we are done, that it IS rather a permanent illusion with the reviewer to account that his opinion is true science, and true science his opinion. But we beg his pardon ; we do not purpose to be dogmatized out of our common sense, nor to allow the reader to be dog- matized out of his. Let these facts be revicAved, then, in the light of common sense. It is the current theory of Dr. Woodrow's triends, the geologists, that the stratified and fossil-bearing rocks are the result of the action of water, formed of sediment at the bottom of seas and oceans, and then lifted out of the water by upheavals. Nov\^ geologists have assigned a regular succession of lower, and upper, and uppermost, to these strata, determined, as Lyell remarks, by three guides : the composition of the strata, the species of fossil life enclosed in them, and the observation of actual position, where two or more of the strata co-exist.
158 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Now then, should some new upheaval lift up the bottom of the North Atlantic, for instance, what is now the surface of the sea bottom would, immediately after the upheaval, be the top stra- tum of the laud upheaved. But the deep-sea plummet and the self-registering thermometer have proved that s)^^ecies of animal life hitherto determined by the rules of stratigraphy to be suc- cessive, are in fact cotemporaneous now on the sea bottoms, and considerable difference of temperature — determining diiierent species of aquatic life — are found, unaccountably, in neighboring tracts of the same ocean at depths not dissimilar. Is it not evi- dent that, in case of such an upheaval, we might have, side by side, formations of equal recency ? But geologists would have decided, by jorevious lighto, that they were not equally recent ; that one was much older than the other. The prevailing strati- graphy may, consequently, be very probably wrong. Let the reader take an instance : microscopists have been telling us, with great pride, that English chalk is composed in large part of the minute shells of an animalcule, which they name GIolo- genna. They say that the cretaceous deposits rank as nicsozoic, below the^^e/ocewd, eocene, midvieiocene in order, and consequently older in origin. That is. Sir Clias. Lyell says so, in his most recent work, if he is any authority with Dr. Woodrow. But the microscopists also tell us, that the slime brought up from the depths of the North Atlantic by the plummet, of a whitey-gre}" color when dried, is also composed chiefly of the broken shells of the tiny Gloljogerince , many of them so lately dead that the cells still contain the jelly-hke remains of their organic parts. If this is true, then chalk formations are now viahbig, and should an upheaval occiu", there would be a chalk bed as really new, as post tertiary, as the bed of alluvial mud on the banks of Newfoundland. May it not be, then, that some other chalk beds on or near the top of the ground, may be less ancient than the established stratigraphy had claimed ? Such was our point touching these deep-sea soundings ; and we rather think that sensible men will not agree with Dr. Woodrow that it can be pooh-poohed away. But as we are nobodies in science, we will refer him to a testimony of Dr. Carpenter, of London, late president of the British Association, who is recognized as per- haps the first physicist in Great Britain. He says :
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 159
"Whilst astronomy is of all sciences that which may be considered as most nearly representing nature as she really is, geology is that which most completely represents her as she is seen through the medium of the interpreting mind ; the meaning of the phenomena that constitutes its data being, in almost every instance, open to question, and the judgments passed tipon the same facts being often different, according to the qualifications of the several judges. No one who has even a gen- eral acquaintance with the history of this department of science can fail to see that the geology of each epoch has been the reflection of the minds by ichich its study was then directed. " . . . . " The whole tendency of the ever-widening range of modern geological inquiry has been to shoio koto little reliance can be placed on the so-called 'laws' of stratigraphical and palceontohgical successions."
Abating the enpliemism, Dr. Carpenter seems as bad as Dr. Dabney. He will soon require the chastisement due to the heresy, that the Woodrow opinion is not precisely the authori- tative science of the case. His testimony is peculiarly signifi- cant as to the worthlessness of "the so-called 'laws' of strati- graphy," because he had himself been especially concerned in the examination of this chalk-mud from the deep-sea sound- ings.
Dr. Woodrow sees proof of ignorance of even the nomencla- ture of natural science, in my use of the word naturalli<vx to de- scribe— what he obviously apprehends I designed to describe — ■ that school which attempts to substitute nature for God as the ultimate goal of their research. The very passage quoted from my printed notes by him defined my meaning. " This, there- fore,"— meaning obviously the unwillingness of this school to recognize any supernatural cause back of the earliest natui-al cause — "is the eternity of naturalism; it is atheism." Dr. Woodrow thinks this an antiquated, and therefore an improper use of the word. On both points I beg leave to dissent. If I need an expressive term, why may I not revive an ancient one, if I define its sense ? Is not this better than coining a new one, and being obliged to define that? But my term is not anti- quated. Naturalisinus holds its place to-day in German lexi- cons; and Webster — surely he is "new-fangled" enough — gives the word in my sense. But the concrete noun, "naturalist,'' ought to be used in the sense of a student of nature ; not in my meaning of an advocate of naturalism — in my evil sense. So it is usually employed. But in the only place where I use it in the bad sense, I distinguish it sufticiently by the epithet, "proud naturalist," whose theory of nature is a "form of skepticism."
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Here again I am comforted by the belief that Dr. Woodrow is the only man in America embarrassed by my nomenclature.
On page 339 of the Review, supposed evidence is found that I believed, in my ignorance, that the idea of a j)re-Adamite earth •was first suggested within the memory of the older members of the Svnod of Virginia; and a great deal of rather poor wit is pei-petrated as to the age of these members. Having read, for instance, the introductory chapters of Lyell's Prhic'q)hs of Geology, twenty years ago, in which quite a full sketch of all the speculations about this matter is given from ancient times, I was in no danger of falling into that mistake ; nor did I give expression to it. My brethren doubtless understood the words, "this modern impulse," in the sense I designed, namely, as a ^'popular impulse," given by the comparatively recent diffusion of geological knowledge, and felt in the minds of the people. And it is substantially true, that just one generation ago, it had not generally gone fai-ther in the speculations then prevalent among Americans, than the claim of a pre-Adamite earth in such a sense as might be reconciled with the Mosaic cosmogouv upon the well-known scheme of Dr. Pye Smith. Since that day many other and more aggressive postulates, standing in evil contrast vidth the first and comparatively scriptural and tolerable one, have been diffused among our people by irreligious men of sci- ence. Some of the latter I also enumerated; intimating that, Avhile we might, if necessary, accept the first, along with such sound Christians as Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Chalmers, and Dr. Woodrow, all of the latter we certainly could not accept con- sistently with the integrity of the Bible. So that my charge of anti- Christian character was, at least to a certain extent, just, against this set of physicists.
Another evidence of my ignorance, upon which Dr. Woodrow is exceedingly funny, upon pages 367 and 368, is my classifica- tion of the rocks, as lowest and earliest, the primary rocks all azoic ; next above them, the secondary rocks, containing remains of life 2)'i^<^'^ozo'ic and meiocene ; third, the tertiary rocks and clays containing the pleiocene fossils; and fourth, the alluvia. Dr. Woodrow then presents a classification, which he says is "'Eeal Geology," differing from the brief outline I gave chiefly ' — not only — by using more subdivisionss The meaning of the as-
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROVy-. 161
sertiou that tliis is the "Keal Geology," it must be presumed, is, that this is Dr. Woodrow's geology ; for his classification is not identical with Dana's, or Lyell's, any more than mine is. But it is not true that Dr. Dabney " comes forward as a teacher of this science." In that very lecture I state expressly that I "do not presume to teach technical geology." My avowed, as my obvious, purpose was only to cite the theory of the geolo- gists in its briefest outline, unencumbered with details and minor disputes of its teachers among themselves, sufficiently to make my argument intelligible to ordinary students of theology. For this object details and difierences were not necessary, and I jDroperly omitted them. Dr. Gerald Molloy, of Maynooth, — a writer of almost unequalled perspicuity and intelligence, — with ]3recisely the same end in view, goes no farther in the way of classification than to name as his three divisions, igneous, meta- riiorpli (C, and aqueous rocks. Here is a still greater suppression of details. Dr. Woodrow may now set this exceedingly rudi- mentary division over against his detailed "Real Geology," and represent Dr. Molloy also as ignorant of what he sj)eaks of.
But, it is presumed, Dr. Woodrow would add that my rudi- ments of a classification were partly wrong, namely : that I call the igneous rocks (granite, trap, etc.) primary, and that I apply the term azoic to all rocks devoid of fossils ; whereas it has seemed good in the eyes of the Woodrow geology — the only " real geology" — not to call the igneous rocks j?ri?na?'y, and to restrict the term azoic technically to a very small segment of the azoic rocks, viz., to the sedimentary rocks, which have no fossils.
Well, the Woodrow geology is entitled to choose its own no- menclature, we presume ; and so are the majority of geologists u-Jto differ from it entitled to choose theirs ; and I have a right to follow that majority. Dr. Woodrow, as ho intimates, chooses to follow Sir Chas. Lj^ell in his crotchet of refusing to call the "igneous" rocks '^ primary. '' The latter uses the word "pri- mary " as synonymous with the palseozoic group. But Dr. AVoodrow also knows that this freak of Lyell's is prompted by a particular feature of his " uniformitarian " scheme, and is a de- parture from the ordinary nomenclature of the earlier geologists. He knows also that many geologists apply the term azoic to all the crystalline rocks, and not to the non-fossiliferous strata of
Voi. III.— 11.
162 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHKISTIAN SCIENCE
sedimentary rocks only. Tims, Duns, " following competent men of science," diyides tlius, first. Azoic; second. Primary, equivalent to the paleozoic ; tlien, secondary, equivalent to the mesozoic ; and fourth, tertiary, or cainozoic. So Dana states his division thus, "I. Azoic time. II. Palseozoic time. III. Me- sozoic time. lY. Cainozoic time. V. The age of mind." And what can be more true than that the igneous rocks, ordinarily stj'led primary, may be also termed azoic ; when the ahsence of fossil 7'erjiains of life hi them is at least as uniform and promi- nent a trait in them as any other ? But the reader ^ill feel that this is an exceedingly small business.
The specimen of ignorance which amuses Dr. Y\^oodrow per- haps most of all, is my notice of some geologists' "nebular hy- pothesis," criticised on pages 344 and 345 of the Review. This idea; — that our solar system w^as first a vast mass of rotating, in- candescent vapor, and then a sun and a set of planets, of which the latter, at least, had been cooled first to a molten liquid, and then to a solid substance on their sin-faces — is said to have been suggested first by La Place as a mere hypothesis ; and the only seeming fact giving it even a show of solid support was the ex- istence of those faint, nebulous spots of light among the stars which no telescope had as yet made anything of. Kow every one wdio reads infidel books of science observ^es how glibly they prate of this supposition, as though there were some certainty that it gave the true origin of our earth. Meantime Sir "William Herschel first, and then Lord Kosse, applied more powerful magnifiers to them. The effect of Herschel's telescope was to resolve some of the nehidce into distinct clusters of stars. He then divided them into the three classes of the resolved, the re- solvahle, and the xinresolved, suggesting that a still more power- ful instrument would probably resolve the second class. Lord Kosse, in our own day, constructed a still larger reflector, and the result is, that more of the nelndca, when sufiiciently magnified, are now seen to be clusters of stars. Kow, must not every sober mind admit with me that "the chief ground of plausibility is thus removed " fi'om the atheistic supposition ? The probability is, that the other nebidm are what all are shown to be, which have been resolved. Then the evidence of fact is lacking that the heavens ever contained planetary matter in that form. For
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 1 G3
tlie only other luminous and nebulous bodies known to astronomy are tlie comets, and tliej evidently are not cosmic or planetary matter, i. e., not matter -wliicli can be cooled into a solid as large as a world, because, however vast their discs and trains, their quantity of matter is so amazingly small that they produce no appreciable perturbations in the orbits of the planets near them. But Dr. Woodrow exclaims that the newly discovered S2)ectro- scojye has taught us the chemistry of the heavens, and has shown that some nelmlce are incandescent gases. Well, let us see about this spectroscojM, of which we have heard a great deal these latter years. One thing Avhich we have heard is the following sensi- ble caution from Dr. Carpenter. Speaking of the assumption founded on the sjyectroscojye, that the sun's chromosphere is in- candescent hydrogen, he says, "Yet this confidence is based en- tirely on the assumption that a certain line which is seen in the spectrtim of a hydrogen flame, means Tiydrogen also when seen in the sjpectmin of the sun's chromosphere. ... It is by no means inconceivable that the same line might be produced by some other substance at present anknown." Dr. Carpenter then proceeds to administer a similar caution to Dr. Huggins, one of the professed authorities wdth the spectroscoije. Such is the skepticism of England's greatest physicist about its revelations. But to be more particular : its friends tell us that the s^jectra of luminous rays j)assing from incandescent sohds through a gase- ous laedluhi have certain dark lines in them ; whereas, when the incandescent gases are themselves the sources of the rays, the spe( tra have the cross-lines in different places. Now hear how Dr. Roscoe tells this story of Dr. Huggins, about the nehulce in the spectroscope, in the great work of the former on sjjectrum analysis. " He," (Dr. Huggins) " instead of having a band of light intersected by dark lines, indicating the physical constitu- tion of the body to be that corresponding to the stars, found the light from these nebulm consisted simply of tlcree instdated hrigJit lines," etc. The sober reader will be apt to think with me, and with Dr. Carpenter, that so minute a result, and so unhke the other results of more distinct spectrum analyses, gives no basis for any conckision "whatever. And this will be confirmed when he hears Mr. Lockyer, another fiiend of the &p)'^''^''0'^<-02>(^, ^''•y> " The light of some of those nehulcB visible in a modcrctelv large- •
164 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
iustrumeut lias been estimated to vaiy from one l,500tli to one 20,000tli of the light of a single sperm candle consuming 158 grains of material per hour, viewed at a distance of a quarter of a mile. That is, such a candle a quarter of a viile off, is twenty thousand tunes more hrilliant than tJie nebula /" Let the reader now consider what likelihood there is, that anj art can ever sep- arate all the stray beams of other light diffused through our atmos- phere, from this almost infinitely slender beam, so as to be sure that it is dealing with the rays of the nebula alone. But a rnicro- seopic shadoio of this almost invisible ra}" is the "conical ball of the chassepot gun " on which Dr. ^Voodrow relies, to pierce the solid steel of common sense ! This is, to our view, shooting with rays of " moonshine," in the thinnest of its metaphorical senses.
The last of these specimens is that noted on page 366 of the Review. I had shown that the first structures made by God, though superuaturally j^roduced, had every trait of naturalness. This was then illustrated by me, by reference to one of the trees of paradise. To this Dr. Woodrow makes the very singular ob- jection, that I ought not to found scientific arguments upon sur- mises! He overlooks the simple fact that this surmise about the tree of paradise with annual rings, was not my argument at all, but only my illustration of it ! Had he read the previous paragraph of my " Notes," or pages 13 and 14 of my sermon, with attention, he would haA'e found tJiere my argument, founded, not on suppositions about a possible tree or bone, but on impregna- ble principles of natural science itself. Does not Dr. Woodrow know that every parable is, in its nature, a supposition? Yet parables are excellent illustrations. When Jotham, the son of Gideon, in the sixth chapter of Judges, answered the men of Shechem with his parable of the trees, Dr. Woodrow would have put this reply in the mouths of Abimelech's faction : " That Jotham was exceedingly illogical, for the reason that the ac- tual utterance of words by olive and fig trees, vines and bram- bles, was a phenomenon not known to exist."
On page 335 of his Iieview, Dr. "Woodrow prepares the way for his charges of ignorance and inconsistency against me, by the following illustration : "Just as leading Presbyterian theo- logians, personally hiowti to Dr. Dahney, have taught that * every
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 165
obstacle to salvation, arising from the character and govern- ment of God, is actually removed, and was intended to be re- moved, that thus every one of Adam's race might be saved,' and that 'the Father covenants to give to the Son, as a reward for the travail of his soul, a 2)<'rt of those for whom he dies.'" To many readers it has doubtless appeared unaccountable that so "far-fetched" an illustration was sought. The clerical readers of the .So>(f/ie?'/i Presljyterian Eevleio and the Southern Presbyte- rian, can easily recall the clue of association which suggested it. They will remember that nine and a half years ago, these two periodicals, which have now been made the vehicles of the charge of scientific heresy against me, contained articles which insinuated against me the very charge of theological heresy, viz., an indefinite design in Christ's atonement, which is here intro- duced by Dr. Woodrow as an illustration. The occasion of that charge was my action, in obedience to the General Assem- bly, as chairman of a conunittee for conference and union with the United Synod of the South. That committee j)roposed to the Presbyteries a declaration of doctrinal agreement, of which I happened to be the penman. The conductors of the two presses in Columbia, opposing the union, sought to prevent it, in part, by criticising the orthodoxy of the doctrinal propositions, and intimating the doctrinal unsoundness of them and their writer in no indistinct terms. True, this intimation remained ■^athout eflect, as might have been supposed, when aimed equally against the orthodoxy of my obscure self, and of such well-known and learned Old School theologians as Dr. Wm. Brown, Col. J. T. L. Preston, Dr. J. B. Pamsey, and Dr. McGufley — the last two conferring as informal members of the committee. We see, when reminded of this history, how natural it was that Dr. Woodrow, seeking for a biting illustration, should recall this one. And the clerical readers of the Bevieic have doubtless al- most as naturally understood him as insinuating that "the lead- ing Presbyterian theologian, personally known to Dr. Dabney," was no other than Dr. Dabney himself. If the words bear that construction, all I have to say is, that I never wrote or uttered the statements enclosed in the quotation marks.
But I find these very words ascribed by Dr. B. M. Palmer, in a controversial piece against the United Synod, to Dr. H. H,
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Boyd, a distinguished minister of that l)ody. Doubtless, Dr. Palmer quoted them correctly. Grant, now, that the insinua- tion against me, which seemed to lie so obviously in Dr. Wood- row's reference, was not intended by him, and that he also meant to designate Dr. Boyd ; the question recurs, why was so peculiar and remote an illustration selected ? The only answer is this : that an intimation of Dr. Dabney's unworthiness might be given from his intimate association with c. theological comrade so erroneous as Dr. Boyd was esteemed at Colum- bia. To this again I have to say that Dr. Boyd was not "personally known" to me; that I never spoke to him save once, on the steps of a hotel, as I was passing to the cars; and that I never heard him preach, nor road one line of his theological WTitings, save the few quoted by Dr. Palmer, and thus had no personal knowledge of his unsoundness or ortho- doxy. My whole knowledge on this point was a statement re- ceived through acquaintances, which I believed to be authentic, coming from Dr. Boyd himself; and that statement was, that when our Lynchburg declaration appeared. Dr. Boyd, counsel- ing with his own brethren in his Presbytery, earnestly advised them to accept the union ou those terms, although, as he de- clared, that joint declaration was, in his view, purely an Old School document, and distinctl}'' condemnatory of whatever was peculiar in his own theological views. For, he said, the best in- terests of the churches demanded union ; and inasmuch as his brethren were doctrinally already upon this Old School plat- form, he did not desire selfishly to gratify his own peculiar doc- trinal preferences, at the cost of obstructing their comfort and usefulness ; his points of difference from the platform not being, in his view, vital.
The fourth, and far most important vindication which remains, is of the fundamental position of my sermon on anti-Cliristian science. That position has been seen by the reader in the ex- tracts given in this reply (pages 143-'5 above) from my letter of May 1st last to Dr. Woodrow. That position may be thus re- stated : the structures of nature around us cannot present, by their traits of naturalness, a universally demonstrative proof of a natural, as against a supernatural origin, upon any sound, theis- tic theory. Because, supposing a creator, originating any struc-
CRITICISED BY DR. AVOODROW. 167
tiires and orgauisms supernaturally, he also must have conferred on his first things equal traits of naturalness. Hence, should it be found that this creator has uttered Ms testimony io the super- natural origin of any of them, that testimony fairly supersedes all natural arguments a postenori from natural analogies to a natural origin. Mv arguments for this position are briefly stated in those extracts inserted aboye (pages l'i3-'45.) The rea- sonini;;, thouGfh brief, will be sufficient for the candid reader, and I shall not weary him by repeating it.
But Dr. Woodrow, Heviev^ pages 365 and 366, impugns one of my points. He will not admit it as proven that a wise crea- tor, producing a first organism to come under natural law, and to be the parent of a species of like organisms, must haye made it natural. He says, " he does not know, and he thinks it hkely that Dr. Dabney does not know either." And he proceeds yery facetiously to speak of my imagination about the rings in the tree of paradise as the sole basis of my argument. The tree was only an illustration. That basis I will state again. If the- ism is right, as Dr. "W'oodrow believes, then the creator is doubt- less voluntary, kno-s\-ing, and wise. "^Thile it is often very unsafe j)hilosophy to surmise that the creative mind must have been prompted by this or that final cause, it is always very safe to say that he was prompted by some final cause, and that a con- sistent and intelligent one. For this is but saying that he is wise, and what he has efiected is a disclosure of what he designed to effect, so far as it is completed. Now, God, in producing his first organisms by creation, must have designed them to exist Tinder the reign of natural law ; because we see that he uni- formly j^Zace* thein imder that law. That is to say, what he does is what he intends to do. But natural law could not gov- ern that which remained contra-natiu'al in quahties as well as origin ; therefore God must have created his first organisms, while supernatural in origin, yet natural in traits. This argu- ment is, if possible, still more demonstrative when applied to the first living organisms, vegetable and animal, because these were made by God to be the parents of species propagated by the first, and thenceforward in successive generations. Now, not only does revelation say that these supernatural first organisms " yielded seed after their I'ind" but natural science also tells us
168 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
most clearly, that the true uotion of propagation, pei-petuating a given sjDecies, is the parents' conveying nnto the progeny all their own essential, specific qualities. So true is this notion, that the most scientific definition of sjMcies is now stated sub- stantially thus by the greatest living natural historians. A given species denotes jxist that aggregate of j^roijerties which every individual thereof derives hy its natural propagation. Hence it is certain that the first organism, supernaturally produced, j^os- sessed every essential quality natural to its species ; otherwise it could not have been a parent of species.
Suppose then, that by any possibility, a physicist should ex- amine the very remains of one of those first organisms, he would find in it the usual traits of naturalness ; yet he could not infer thence a natural origin for it, because it was a first thing. Hence it is concluded, with a mathematical rigidity, that, granted a creator anywhere in the past, the argument from naturalness of structure to naturalness of origin cannot he universally conclusive. And supposing the structure under examination to be one of which revelation asserts a divine origin, then, in that case, this testimony of the almighty maker absolutely cuts across and su- persedes the opposing inference from natural analogies. Such was the doctrine of my notes and sermoa. Dr. Woodrow seems to conclude that, in such a case, God's workmanship would teach a lie, by seeming to be natural in origin when it was not. The solution of his embarrassment is simple. It is not God who teaches the lie, but perverted science going owi of her sphere ; and that this question of apyr^ is oat of her .[-p/n/'e, Dr. Woodrow has himself taught with a fortunate inconsistency, on. page 352 of his Bevieiv.
But as I know nothing about science, I beg leave to fortify mj position by three scientific testimonies. The first shall be that of Dr. Buchner, the German materialist and atheist. He de- clares, in a recent work, that the ideas of God and of science are incompatibles, in this sense, that just to the degree a divine ac- tion is postulated, the conclusions of science are to that extent estoj)ped. Xow, what is this but confessing that the only eva- sion from my argument is atheism? The second testimony shall be from a more friendly source. Dr. Carjienter, in the in- augural speech referred to above, iises the following closing
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROW. 169
words. T\"lien we make allowance for a certain euphemism, promiDted bj liis attitude as president of a body purely scien- tific, many of wliose members are avowed infidels, and by the occasion of liis speech, which was wholly non-religious, we shall see that his testimony is very decided. After showing that every physical law, correctly interpreted, tells us of one single, al- mighty, intelHgent Cause, the supreme, spiritual God, he says : " The science of modern times, however, has taken a more special direction. Fixing its attention exclusively on the ordei' of na- ture, it has separated itself wholly from theology, whose function it is to seek after its cause. In this science is fully justified.'* . . . "But when science, passing beyond its own limits, as- svimes to take the place of theology, and sets up its conception of the order of nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is invading a province of thought to which it has no claim ; and vot ^inreasonahly provokes the hostility of those who ought to be its best friends."
The third witness is Prof. F. H. Smith, who fills the chair of Natural Science in the University of Virginia. His long expe- rience, vast learning, subtle and profound genius, and well known integrity and caution of mind, entitle his scientific opinions to a Aveight second to none on this side of the Atlantic. He makes, in two letters to me, the following statements :
•'The transcendent importance of the subject of the letter with which you lately houored me forbade any response which was not deliberate.
"The 'naturalness' of the new-created world is, in my judgment, conclusively established in your recent letter to me. You wholly demolish the argument of the infidel, who deduces from such continued and uninterrupted naturalness the eternity and self -existence of nature. To me it is simply inconceivable, that the physical world should ever have borne marks of recent creation, or that it shall ever present signs of impending annihilation. Nay, granting the existence of such inconceivable signs, I do not see how we could interpret them. If they were pos- sible, they must be unintelligible.
"The beginning of a universe regulated by mechanical laws must have beert some ' configuration, ' to which it might have been brought by the operation of th© same mechanical laws from an antecedent configuration, mathematically assignable. I undertook to illustrate this trutli to my class last session, by this simple example: The undisturbed orbit of a planet is an ellipse, described with a velocity periodi.^ cally varying by a definite law. The planet passes any given point of its orbit with, the same velocity, and in the same direction, in each recurring round. If it were arrested there, and then projected with that velocity in that direction, it would re- sume identically the same orbit. The actual motion at each point of the orbit is, therefore, the necessary projectUe motion of the new-created planet at that point.
170 CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-cTHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Hence, wherever created and projected, its iniUal motion migJit have been the result of centrifugal action. Thus the elhptical circulation presents no marks of a begin- ning or of an end. As regards the terms of its existence, the phenomenon is dumb. The lesson it teaches is not the shallow sophism that it has no beginning or end ; but that whatever information we derive on these points, we must seek from a source other than natiire.
' ' When this first great truth was first apprehended by me, it filled me with a glow of a new discovery. You may smile at the confession ; for to one well ac- quainted with the history of philosophy, the statement may appear to be one of venerable antiquity. Indeed, I foimd it myself, subsequently, ably set forth in an article ' on geology, which appeared in the Southern Quarterly Review (Columbia, S. C), in 18G1. I believe that Mr. P. H. Gosse, a British naturalist, advanced substantially the same idea in a book quaintly called. Omphalos ; the name and key- note of which were suggested by the probable fact that Adam had a navel, though lie was never united to a mother by an \imbilical cord.
' ' Be the history of the doctrine what it may, none the less acceptable and timely is the irresistible logic by which you have established it. Most heartily do I agree with you in affirming that the formula, ' Like effects imply like causes, ' fails for the initial state of the world, and cannot, therefore, logically be used to disprove a beginning, " etc.
' ' AU the astronomer's statements " (calculating possible past or future eclipses), ' ' as to the past or the future, are limited by the qualification, either overt or covert, nisi Deus intersit."
"We claim, that a case of what hiwyers call " circumstan- tial evidence," in a court of justice, is a fair illustration of the logical rules which ought to govern in all these hypothetic geo- logical arguments to a natural origin for given structures. The science of law has exactly defined the proper rules for such evi- dence. These rules require the prosecution to show that their hypothesis, viz., the guilt of the man indicted, not only may possibly, or may very probably, satisfy all the circumsiaiiiice which have been proved to attend the crime, but that it is the onJy j)0ssihle hypothesis w^iich does satisfy them all. And the defence may test this in the following manner : if they can sug- gest airy other hypothesis, invented, surmised, or imagined, even, which is naturally possible, and which also satisfies all the cir- cumstances, then the judge will instruct the jury that the hy- pothesis of guilt is not proven, and the accused is acquitted. Such is the rule of evidence to which logical science has been broiTght by a suitable sense of the sacredness and value of a human life. Now, the conditions of scientific hypotlieses are logically parallel; they are cases of '■^ circurristant'ial evidence.'^
' An article which appeared anonymously, but was written by R. L. Dabney.
CRITTCISED BY DR. WOODEOW. 171
Suppose, then, for argument's sake, that some S'lch hypothesis, in the hand of an infidel physicist, should pnt our Bible iipou its trial for yeracitv. It is the time-honored belief of the Chris- tian world that the truth of that Bible is the only hope of immor- tal souls. Surely the issue should be tried under at least as solemn a sense of responsibility, and as strict logical require- ments, as an indictment against a single life.
But I carry this parallel further. Grant the existence of a Creator God, " of eternal power and Godhead," then vre of the defence have always the alternative hypothesis, which is always naturally possible, viz., that any original structure, older than all human obseryations, whicl; is brought by anti-Christian sci- ence into one of her " circumstantial " arguments, may possibly haye been of direct diyine origin. Hence it follows, that should, perchance, the Bible contradict any scientific hypothesis of the origin of things, science is incapable, from the yery conditions of the case, of conyicting the Bible of falsehood upon such an issue. The thoughtful reader can now comprehend the jiolemic prejudice which prompts Buchner to say that the yery idea of God is an intrusion into the rights of science; and Huxley to argue that the evidence fi-om design for the existence of a God is annihilated by the evolution scheme of Darwin. These infi- dels have perspicacity enough to see that the theistic position vacates their pretended scientific deductions as to the origin of stractures and organisms. Let us explain. A murder has been committed in secret; there is no parole testimony, appar- ently, to unfold the mystery. The prosecutors therefore pro- ceed, with exceeding industry, care, patience, and ingenuity, to collect the materials for a circumstantial argument, to fix the guilt upon Mr. X. T. Z., against whom a vague suspicion has arisen. These lawyers note even the most trivial matters, the direction of the shot, thd smell of gunpowder upon the garments of the corpse, the scrap of blackened paper which formed a part of the wadding of the gun, and a thousand other circumstances. They weave them into their hypothesis of X. Y. Z.'s guilt, with a skill which is apparently demonstrative. But there now steps forth a new witness, named L. M., and testifies that he saw the murder committed by another man, named A. B., who had not been hitherto connected with the event. !Now, there is, uatu-
172 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
rally, DO antecedent impossibility tliat A. B. miglit commit a murder, or tliis murder. Let us suppose that such was the case. Every lawyer knows that the issue would now turn soldy iipon the cowpetency and credibility of L. M. as a witness. If the pros- ecution desire still to sustain the proposition that X. T. Z. is the murderer, they now have but one course open to them : they must successfully impugn the competency or credibility of L. M. If they admit these fully, their case against X. T. Z. is naught ; their circumstantial hypothesis falls to the ground, "^vith- out a farther blow. That hypothesis was exceedingly plausible ; the antecedent probabilities of its truth were great, or even al- most conclusive ? Yes. Still, if L. M. is true, they now con- clude nothing. They show that X. Y. Z. ravjld have killed t\i& murdered man. L. M. shows that actually he did not. The conditions of the argument of infidel science against the Bible and the creative agency of God are exactly parallel. Their hy- pothesis may be, naturally speaking, every way probable ; but the Bible comes in as a parole-witness, and testifies that God^ and not nature, was the agent of this given work. Xow, we be- lieve that the Bible is a competent and credible witness. Hence its voice supersedes the " circumstantial evidence " here.
It is complained, that when we thus refuse to allow the maxim, " Hke effects imply like causes," to thrust itself into competition with the testimony of revelation upon these ques- tions of the first origin of the world, we deprive mankind of its use in every scientific induction, and in all the experimental conclu- sions of practical life. Dr. Woodrow is not satisfied with the reply, that within the sphere of natural induction, where we are entitled to assume the absence of the supernatural, his canon is vahd. He attempts to quote me against myself, as saying, on page 15 of my notes : " It is not experience which teaches us that every effect has its cause ; but the a pAori reason. Very true, intuition, not mere experience, teaches us that every effect has its cause. That intiiition is : had there been no cause, there would have been no eflect." Had my doctrine been attended to, as developed in my sixth lecture, these words would have been found on r>Si"e 49 : " The doctrine of common sense here is, that when the mind sees an effect, it intuitively refers it to some cause.'''' For instance, when we come upon a stratified
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODROV;. 173
rock, intuition necessarily refers its existence to so7ne cause, either to God, or to watery action, or some other adequate natural agency. But the question is : vlilch cause f If we are practically assured of the absence of the supernatural cause, then of course we must assign the effect to one or another natu- ral cause. But if toe have good reason to think that the svper- natitral cause may possihly have l)een present, then the attempt to confine that effect to a natural cause, upon the premise that " similar effects imply the same causes," obviously becomes an invalid induction. Now, should it appear that revelation testifies to the presence of the supernatural cause at a given juncture, that would be good reason to think, at least, its possible pre- sence ; and then the naturalistic induction becomes invalid. It obviously comes then into that class which Bacon stigmatizes as worthless for the purpose of complete demonstration, under the term, " Inductio sinipUcis enumerationisr Kovxiin Organiim, L'J). I. § 105 : ^^ Inductio enim, quce procedit 2^^^ enumeratlonem siinpllcein,, res pueriL'is est, et pi'ecario, concludit, et pericido ex- ponittir ah instantia contradlctoria^'' etc. Yes ; in the case in hand, the instantia contradlctoria would be the instance of a supernatural origin, competently testified by revelation. Hear even the sensualistic philosopher. Mill, [Logic, p. 187) : " But although we have always a propensity to generalize from un- varying experience, wo are not always warranted in doing so. Before we can be at Hberty to conclude that something is uni- versally true because we have never known an instance to the contrary, it must be proved to us, that if there were in nature any instances to the contrary, we should have known of them," etc. This is, so far, sound logic. But now, should it be that the Bible testifies to structures supernaturally originated in a pre- Adamite time, it is obvious that we should not have known of them, for the simple reason that no human witness was ex- tant. The universal reference of all structures to natural causes would be, according to Mill himself, in that case, the very in- duction we " were not warranted " in making. What can be plainer ?
Dr. Woodrow cites as an instance the wine made of water by Christ, at Cana. He says, page 359, "Had one of the guests been questioned as to its origin, he would unhesitatingly have
174 THE CAUTION AGAIJ^ST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
said tliat it was tlie expressed juice of the grape. But, by unex- ceptionable testimony, it could have been proved that it had been water a few minutes before, and had never formed part of the grape at all. Now, in view of this fact, according to Dr. Dabney's reascming, we are forever debarred from concluding that wine is the juice of the grape, unless we shall have first proved the ahsoice of God's intervening powder," etc. I reply: Not so. My position is, that we would be " debarred from con- cluding " that a given vessel of wine " was the juice of the grape," in the particular cases where "unexceptionable testimony" had " first proved the PRESENCE of God's intervening power." This one word removes all the confusions and misconceptions of the subsequent pages of his critique. Indeed, I desire no better instance than Dr. AYoodrow's admission touching this wine of Cana to exemplify my view. Any sensible man, drinking good wine under ordinary circumstances, would of course suppose that it came from grapes. But if competent testimony showed that, in this case, a miracle-worker had been present, who had infinite power, and a benevolent motive, to make tJds wine with- out grapes, his good sense w^ould not lead him, admitting the testimony, to argue that this must also have come from grapes, because all natural wine uniformly comes from that source. And my position is precisely parallel. Wo examine numerous structures, whose beginning we did not ourselves see, and they all wear, seemingly, the appearance of full and equal natural- ness. We were about to ascribe them all, very naturally, to a natural source. But should "unexceptionable testimony" com© in, asserting that some among them had a supernatural origin, we should then conclude, precisely as the man of " common sense" at Cana had to conclude, that hi this particular case^ the inference from naturalness of qvalities to a' natural origin did not hold. This is all I have ever asked. Dr. Woodrow con- cedes it.
But he argues that if I hold on this ground, that there never was any pre-Adamite earth — as he understands me to hold — then I must also hold that the fossils, in all deposits older than the Adamic, are a species of shams ; that they never were alive ; and that the existence of these portions of matter would be ab- solutely unaccountable. Indeed, he thinks I should be driven
CRITICISED BY DR. WOODEOAV. 175
to the belief, tliat the visible works of God are a lie ; which is as disastrous as believing his Word a lie. But if, ou the other hand, I do admit an earth existing one fortnight before Adam, the Scriptures are, upon my view of them, as fatally impugned as thouerh an earth had existed a million of vears before Adam. Hence, he thinks my main position would he useless, were it not false. Let us inspect the two horns of this cruel dilemma. As to the first : he will not allow me to say of the fossils, " We have no occasion to deny their oi'ganic character." He thinks my "whole argument rests upon the supposition that the fossils may have been created as we find them." He cannot see what else I mean by saying that if many of "these rocks" may have been created, then the pre-Adamite date of fossils falls also. He can only understand it in this way, either that the fossils never were anything but rock, or that God thrust them into the rocks after they had died, and after the rocks were made, which would be very preposterous.
Had Dr. Woodrow attended to my meaning, when I spoke of many of "these rocks" as possibly created, he would have un- derstood me. He seems to suppose that I meant the fossili- ferous rocks. In fact, I was speaking of the stratified but non- fossll'iferous rocks — the azoic of his nomenclature. That geolo- gists recognize quite a large mass of these, is plain from the fact that they have a separate division and name for them. Now they teach us that these azoic, but truly stratified rocks, were the work of the same sedimentary action which has through long ages produced the fossiliferous stratified rocks. I trust my meaning will now be seen. It is this : suppose it should be found that revelation testified these azoic sedimentary rocks, so-called, were not growing through long ages by deposition from water, but, along with some other things, were made by the almighty word of God. If that were gi'anted, then the " laws, so-called, of stratigraphic succession," as established by geology, are without adequate proof ; and it again becomes an open ques- tion— to which Scripture may possibly testify — when and how the living creatures which are now fossils did live, and when and how the deposits containing their remains were formed. I say, in that case, the geologists' present arrangement of strati- graphical succession is unproved. As I have stated, the data
176 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
fioiii which thej claim to have settled this order — proving, as they suppose, that some fossils are such ages upon ages older than some others — are of three kinds : the observed order of strata where they are actually in juxtaposition ; the kinds of organic life thev contain ; and the material and structure of the stratzim itself. Now, in the case supposed, this last datum has become inconclusive. One stone is lost from their arch of evi- dence, and the whole arrangement of the stratigraphic succes- sion becomes unsettled. For the reasoning in support of it now involves a vicious circle. For instance, the geologist has concluded that the non-fossiliferous clay-slate is a very old stratified rock, because without fossils. Again, he has con- cluded that a certain species of fossil life is old, because formed in some stratiim very near that very old slate. Then he con- cludes that some other stratum is also old, because that old species of fossils is found in it. But the basis of all these infer- ences is lacking in the case I have supposed, and the reasoning ^'•roceeds in a circle.
The other horn of the dilemma made for me is equally unsta- ble. It was urged that, if I had to admit the existence of an earth one fortnight older than Adam, the interpretation placed on the Scriptures by the "Westminster Assembly is as violently outraged as though that pre-Adamite earth were millions of years older than Adam ; whence Dr. Woodrow supposes it to follow that my main position, if it were not false, would be useless. I have shown that it is not false ; I will now show that, as with Prof. F. H. Smith, and so many other learned men, judges, it is of vital use, after we admit a pre-Adamite earth. Its use is, that it alone can save Dr. Woodrow and us from an endless regress-as into a naturalistic atheism. Let us review that naturalistic argu- ment, as the evolutionists and the atheist Biichner insist on us- ing it, and as Dr. Woodrow claims it ought to be used, untram- melled by my position. The maxim, " Like effects imply like causes," must be pushed, say they, universalh' ; if restricted by my rule, the very basis of experimental science is gone. But now, theism says that there were first things, somewhere in the past, created, and not evolved naturally. There was a first man, not naturally born of a mother, but created, the father of sub- sequent men. Yet this first man must also have been natural in
CRITICISED BY Dll. WOODROW. 177
all his organization, in order to be the father of men. But had these physicists subjected his frame to their experimental inves- ti<i;ation, thev would have concluded that, because his orci;aniza- tion was natural, his origin must have been natural. He, there- fore, bj their logic, was not the first man, but had a natural iather. Who does not see that the same process of reasoning applies equally well to that sujDposed earlier man, and then to liis father ? Who does not see that the same logic, consistently followed, runs us back into an infinite natural series, without any first term, or first cause ? Dr. Woodrow, then, must cease to oppose my doctrine, in order to save himself from the infidel evolution theory. And the evolutionist must accept my doc- trine, in order to save himself from that absolute " eternity of naturalism, which is atheism." But if my doctrine is squarely accejDted, then, on every question of the o.px'rt of things, of tlie when and tJia hoio of the origin of nature, the testimony of rev- elation properly and reasonably supersedes all natural inferences contradictory thereto, when once the testimony is clearly under- stood.
But hoto should that testimony of the Bible be understood? It would appear that I have been much misapprehended here, in spite of the caution with which I refrained from dogmatizing' on this point. It has been supposed that my whole argument involves the assumption of that sense placed upon the Mosaic record by the Westminster Assembly, totally denying a pre- Adamite earth. I will therefore attempt to place my meaning beyond possible misconception. I say then, first, that I have not post-dated the interpretation of the Westminster Assembly as the true one, and that I have not asked any one to commit him- self to a denial of a pre-Adamite world in all forms. It may very well be that the science of Bible-exegesis is not jei dispassion- ate and mature enough on this point to authorize us to commit ourselves finally to atnj exposition of it, as I am very sure that ;such a final decision is not at all essential to our defence of the integrity and supreme authority of revelation. And it may also be true, that the inquiries and conclusions of geology are not yet mature enough for it to venture on the construction of a scientific theory on that point. I say, secondly, that if the sup- position be made for argument's sake, that tlie interpretation of
Vol. III.— 12.
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tlie Westminster divines turned out some day to be tlie onlv scriptural one — the onlj one faithful to the inspired text — then my principles would still enable me to uphold the fidl authority of my Bible, reasonably, consistently, and philosophically, not- withstanding the seeming, natural analogies for an older date of the world. Note, dear reader, that I do not make that supposi- tion, and I have no craving to do so. But let us, for argument's sake, look at it, as one may surmise it to return upon us. Sup- pose, 1 saj, that after all the pros and cons, friends and enemies of Moses' inspiration should settle down to this conclusion that his language can in fairness mean only what the Westminster divines supposed, viz., that there was no pre-Adamite earth at all. Let us suppose that, while honest reverence led believers, like Dr. Woodrow and me, to this conclusion, that all the "scien- tists" had also settled down to the same, so far as to say, dis- dainfully, " Your Moses obviously can mean nothing but that, if he means anything ; and it is, therefore, we reject him totally." Let us also represent to ourselves by what plausibilities a j^ersou who, like Mr. David N. Lord, holds this view, would support his- assertion, that to this issue the universal opinion must come at last. He would remind us that the great body of Christians certainly understood Moses so, while unbiassed by the stress of this ereolosrical view : that while a few of the fathers and the Be- formers understood Moses differently, yet the new interpretation, as he would call it, was, in fact, suggested and dictated by that geological stress, which was a little suspicious ; that the Chris- tian geologists, when driven by that stress, are vacillating and contradictory in their exegesis, which is again suspicious ; that the Westminster divines, while probably very poor geologists, were exceedingly 'able and faithful expositors ; and especially that Iloses" enemies are coming more and more ojmihj to the jKtsl- tion, that no such new interpretation can save his credit for in- spiration. Our imaginary expositor certainly has the facts with him on this last point. The tone of the scientific infidels is changing in this direction manifestly. Formerly they studied decency, and professed to be quite obliged to the Pye Smiths and Chalmers, who saved the consistency of the venerable Book with their science by means of the new interpretation. But now their animus is very different. They disdain to trouble them-
CBITICISED BY DR. WOODEOW. 179"
selves about these old literary remains of " Hebrew barbarians" and ignoramuses. No sense placed on them is of any import- ance to the scientific mind. Let the Westminster sense be the true one — which they think is most probably the only consistent one — for the man who is a fool enough to believe in the docu- ments, these "scientists" easily disencumber themselves by kicking the whole aside as rul)bisli. Such is Huxley's mode, for instance.
Suppose now, for argument's sake, that we should at last be all compelled to settle doA\'n upon the Westminster construction. Then I, from my position, could still save my Bible, and do it consistently. Dr. Woodrow could not. I could say, this Bible is established by its own impregnable, independent evidences, moral, prophetical, historical, miraculous, to be a competent and credible witness to the supernatural agency of an Almight}* Crea- tor. I could say this omnipotent agency is competent to any result whatsoever. I could bring in my position, that in such a, case the divine testimony logically supersedes the circumstantial evidence for a natural hypothesis, no matter how plausible ; and my conclusion would not be superstition, but true logic and true science. If the unbelieving geologist thrust at me his difficulty about the seemingly ancient fossils, I could say, first, that the Divine Witness does not stand in need of an explanatory hypothe- sis from man to entitle him to be believed. I should say, sec- ondly, that it was always credible that Infinite "Wisdom might find a motive, and Infinite Power a means, to effectuate results very unaccountable to my mind. It might be, for instance, that this Omnipotent and Infinite Wisdom, working during the six days, and during the long antediluvian years, during the flood, and during the years succeeding, in times and places where there Avas no human witness, saw fit to construct these strata, and to sow them with vegetable and animal life with a prodigal profu- sion now unknown ; and to hurry the maturing of strata, and the early death and entombment of these thronging creatures, with a speed very difi'erent from the speculations of geology ; and all for profound motives good to his infinite wisdom, but beyond my weak surmises. I might also add that possibly this is what rev- elation meant, v/hen it said (Gen. i. 20) : " God said, let the waters bring forth ahuiidojitbif'' ett'.. I might point to the fact, that such
180 THE CAUTION AGAINST ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
a divine working would not be wholly unwonted; tliat, for in- stance, lie causes thousands of embryos of animal life to be pro- duced and to perish without their proper development, for one that grows; that he sows the earth prodigally with Te;^etable germs which, if they ever sprout, sprout only to perish ; that he sheds millions of rain-drops, such as are adapted by nature to w^ater the herbs upon the barren wastes of ocean ; that he gives to millions upon millions of flowers in the wilderness, destined only to be cropped by the irrational brute, the same aesthetic arrangement of color, shape and perfume which he has conferred on the flowers] of our gardens, for the purpose of giving to ra- tional, observing man the thrilling pleasures of taste. Why this seeming prodigal waste ? It is no duty of mine to account f ( ir it. But God acts so ! So, if he had told me that he had done a similar thing at the world's creation, I should be ready to believe it. But I should heUece it on tJte authority of ^God's e:i' press ten- timony, not on the strength of a mere hypothesis mid a set of anal- ogies tvhich I have just descrihed.
I repeat again, I have no mission at this time to assert this Westminster construction of Moses as the only true one. It may be asked, why, then, do I argue its possibility? Why did I, in my former arguments, seem to imply that this might be the issue between the Bible and science ? I answer : because I wished to illustrate the full value of this saving principle, by showing how, even in that aspect of the debate, it would defend us against infi- delity.
And now I close. I beg the reader's pardon for detaining him so long, excusing myself by the honest plea, that my chief object is, not the vindication of any poor credit I may personally have, but the exposition of vital principles, which will, sooner or later, be found precious to all Christians. As against my rigid critic my purpose has been solel}' defensive ; and if my haste or care- lessness has let slip one word which, to the impartial reader, savors of aggression or retaliation, I desire that word to be blotted from memory. Kone can accord to Dr. Woodrow more fully than I do the honor of sincere devotion of purpose to the truth; or can join more cordially than I do in the wish that he may soon return home wdth recruited energies and prosperous health, to the work of defending truth.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.^
WE have a long score to settle Avitli Dr. Bledsoe. Some- tliiug more than twenty years liaye elapsed since we no- ticed, in two critiques, his great work, then newly published, TJte Theodicy This dogmatic and spirited book, as we then showed, has for its key-note the Pelagian doctrine, that, in con- sequence of the self-determination of the rational will, omnipo- tence itself cannot efficaciously control a soul without destroying its freedom. And the great " theodicy," or yindication, of Dr. Bledsoe, for God's admission of sin into his uniyerse is, that lie could Hot lidp it. These strictures Dr. Bledsoe resents in his Iievleio of January, 1871 ; and he has followed this rejoinder uji, in the succeeding numbers noticed, with attacks on Calvinism and applications of his philosophy to two or three other import- ant points in theology. To understand these, a knowledge of his personal history is needed.
Dr. Albert Taylor Bledsoe, a native of Kentucky, an alumnu.'^ of the Military Academy of West Point, became a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church. But in a short time his bold and independent mind saw that the standards of that church indisputably teach Calvinism, and also baptismal regeneration, and the eternal damnation of unbaptized infants dying in in- fancy. Incapable of the mental chicanery which reconciles so many men to insincere or formal professions, he frankly demitted his clerical function and went into the practice of law, which he pursued with distinguished success at Springfield, 111., for a few
' Appeared in the Southern Presbyterian EevuiC, October, 1876, revie-wiug I. The Sufferings and Salvation of Infants, and Rcvieicers Remeired, being Dr. Bled- soe's rejoinder to the strictures of the Southern Presbyterian Review on his Thto- dicy. Southern Review, January, 1871. II. History of Infant Baptism. Southern Review, April, 1874. III. Tlie Southern Review and Infant Baptism. Southern Review, S\\\y, 1874. IV. The Suffering and Sidvation of Infants. Southern Re- vietc, January, 1875. V. Infant Baj)tisni and Salvatioti in the Calvinistic System. By C. P. Krauth, D. D. VI. Our Critics. Southern Review, October, 1875. VII. The Perseverance of tlie Elect. Southern Review, January, 1S7G.
181
182 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
jears. But seeking more congenial pursnits and associates, he ilien became a tlistinguislied Professor of Mathematics, first in the" Uniyersity of Mississippi, and then in that of Virginia. X^pon the formation of the Southern Confederacy, its needs for military knowledge in its seryice prompted him to resign his chair and take the post of Assistant Secretary of War. Leaying this post, he went to Europe, and deyoted the remaining years of the war to the literary defence of Confederate principles, and to extended studies. After the return of peace, he founded, first in connection with another gentleman, the Sou titer n lievien', a well known quarterly, which, like the starry sphere sustained upon the shoulders of Atlas, has been chiefly borne upon his sturdy arms. A few years ago Dr. Bledsoe, after haying long held, under protest as to some of her doctrines, the attitude of a layman in the Protestant Episcopal Church, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and resumed his clerical function, though without assuming any pastoral relation. His Jicview was soon adopted by the General Conference of the Methodist Church South, as their litera-ry organ, though not without dis- sent on the part of leading members. Since that adoption. Dr. Bledsoe has seemed to add to his former praiseworthy mission of defending sound opinions and faithful history in ethics and politics, the more special one of exposing and correcting what he deems the enormities of Calyinism. His first onset possessed all the zeal of a new recruit. Subsequent researches haye shown him something to admire in some Calyinists ; and he now an- nounces it as his chosen task to discover the common ground which "Wesley dimly groped after, upon which sincere Calyinist and Arminian may meet in a code of doctrines at once evangeli- cal and soundly philosophical.
Convinced as we are that this triumph is impossible for mor- tal man, we yet admit that the peculiar doctrinal code of Wesley and Watson is, in some important respects, a retiirn towards the truth from the worse extremes of early Arminianism. It is, per- haps, the very closest approximation to the truth which can be made by evangelical minds still unfortunately infected with the 7:ocozov e<f~Joo^, of the equilibrium of the rational will. To us it appears clear that the Wesleyan creed contains far more of God's truth than the New Haven theology. Wesleyanism teaches, in-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 183
■deed, that tlie bondage to native depravity is in part relieved Tinder Christ, and that the sinner's will is now restored to such ■equilibriur/i as to be able to cooperate with God's grace in the spiritual acts of repentance and faith. But the Wesleyan admits that the depravity, as inherited from Adam, is total, until retrieved by " common sufficient grace." The semi-Pelagian of New Eng- land denies total depravitj^ and ascribes to man, by nature, an ability of Avill to all spiritual good. The Wesleyan does, indeed, teach a imiversal atonement for the sins of all the race. But he holds to a true vicarious satisfaction for guilt ; while the New Haven divine denies this vital truth, and invites us to rest our hope of pardon upon some Socinian device of an exemplary suf- fering by Jesus. The "Wesleyan claims that, by virtue of "com- mon sufficient grace," all sinners have ability of will to embrace Christ; but he teaches that it is a "grace," a redemptive purchase of Calvary, and not a natural endowment of fallen souls, which en- ables dead sinners to perform the living acts of faith and repent- ance. He holds against the Scriptures, that God was moved by an eternal foresight of believers' faith and holy obedience, to predestinate them to life ; but he, at least, holds that God has in this way a personal, infallible and eternal predestination, which the New Haven divine refuses to accept. It is to us a pleas- ing thought, that multitudes of the adherents of Wesley grasp with a sanctifying faith these saving truths, while they quietly, and perhaps unconsciously, drop these unscriptural excrescences which their great teacher attached to them in the vain hope of bending God's word to his unfortimate philosophy, and thus these excellent people really build their hopes upon grace, and grace alone. These rudiments of vital truth are practical to them ; the excrescences fortunately remain unpractical.
Dr. Bledsoe is perspicacious enough to see the vital connec- tion between the theory of free agency and the doctrines of grace. Hence he tells us that he has made the great work of Edwards on the Will the study of years. One of his chief works has been an attempted refutation of Edwards' doctrine of the moral necessity, or certainty, of our volitions ; and the opposite view of self-determination is continually asserted and expounded by Dr. Bledsoe as the corner-stone of all his speculations. He is too shrewd to adopt the old Arminian formula, that the will
184 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
determines itself to clioose ; or tlie modern form of the lieres}^, that vohtion is an uncaused event in the world of spirit. He admits the first principle, "Nothing arises without cause." But says he : the mind itself is simply the cause of its own volitions. Motives are, indeed, connected with volitions, as their necessarj'' occasions, bat not as their efficients. The action of intelligence and sensibility, the presence of motives in the mind — all these, he admits, are the conditions f<ine qua non under which acts of choice take place ; but still it is the mind itself, and that alone, which is the efficient or true cause of volition. And in thi» assertion he places the very being of our free agency and respon- sibility.
Now this is more adroit than the old scheme demolished by Edwards ; for it evades the most terrible points of Edwards' refu- tation. As Dr. A. Alexander has admitted, there is a sense in which, while the will, in its specific sense as the faculty of choice, is not self-determined, we intuitively know that the soul is self- determined, and that therein is our free agency. But still the scheme of Dr. Bledsoe is the opposite of Dr. Alexander's, and is but the same Arminian philosophy in a new dress. When Dr. Bledsoe says that the mind is the true cause of all its own voli- tions, he means that this mind causes them contingently, and may be absolutely in equilihino while causing them ; he means that the mind does not regularly follow its own strongest judg- ment of the preferable when acting deliberately and intelli- gently ; he means to deny the efficient certainty of whatever in the mind produces volition ; he means to apply his theory of the will to the very results in the theology most characteristic of the semi-Pelagianism, or, even worse, of Pelagianism. It is to this philosophy he appeals to justify an omnipotent God in permitting sin, simply because he could not help any sinner's transgressing who chose to do so ; to argue the necessity of syn- ergism in regeneration ; to deny the sinfulness of original concu- piscence.
This novelty of Dr. Bledsoe's statement of the old error does not require a re-statement of the impregnable argument b}^ which the certain influence of the prevalent motive has been so often established. The well-informed Presbyterian reader M'ill not need this repetition. For such a one, the whole plausibility of
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 185
Dr. Bledsoe's argument is destroyed by simply pointing out two of its omissions. He speaks of the presence of motives in the mind as conditions sine qua non of volition, and yet denies tlieni causative efficiency. But lie has failed to perceive the essential difference between sensibility and desire, between the passive and the conative powers of man's soul, and between the objec- tive inducement and the subjective motive. For this confusion, as for the apparent weakness in our demonstration, he and we are indebted to the sensualistic philosophers. Were Dr. Bledsoe reasoning with Hobbes or Locke, his refutation would be sound. Were it true that there is nothing in the mind but sensations, and the reflex modifications or combinations thereof ; that sense- impression is the ;r^^y of mental aiTectious ; that the presence of the object necessitates the nature of the impression, and the na- ture of this passive impression on the sensibility necessitates the nature of the reflex appetency ; and this, in turn, necessitates the volition ; then man would be a sentient machine, and his free agency would be gone. The sinful volition of the sheep-stealer, for instance, would be as much the physical result of the sight of the sheep, as pain over the skull is the involuntary result of a blow with a bludgeon. But must Presbyterians forever adver- tise the Arminians that Hobbes is not their philosopher ? We now again notify Dr. Bledsoe, that we surrender that scheme of necessity to his devouring sword. Let him demolish it as fast as he pleases. Dr. Alexander has given him a proof much sim- pler and shorter than any of his o^xu, that objective inducement is not the efficient of any deliberate and responsible volition. It is found in the obvious fact, that the same object, the same sheep, for instance, is the occasion of opposite volitions in the sheep-stealer and the honest man. But were the sheep cau^^e of volition in each case, "like cause should have produced like effects." But let us pass now from objective inducement to sub- jective motive, from the passive impression on the sensibility to the conscious, active, spontaneous appetency; and it needs no arcrument other than our own consciousness to convince us that deliberate volition always does follow subjective motive ; or that the choice will infallibly be according to the soul's own subjec- tive, prevalent view and appetency. The stray sheep did not cause the thief to purloin, nor the honest neighbor to restore it
186 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
io its owner's fold. Biit subjective concupiscence, wliose action was occasioned by tlie siglit of the animal, caused the one man to steal it; moral love for "our neighbor as ourself" caused the honest man to restore it. Let Dr. Bledsoe make full allowance for this distinction, and he will attain to what he has not yet reached, amidst all his studies — a clear understanding of the Calvinistic and Bible philosophy of the will. And here we can see in what sense Dr. Alexander could justly admit, that, while the faculty of will is not, the soul is, self-determining. Motive, which is the uniform efficient of rational volition, is subjective: it is as truly a function of self-hood as volition itself. It is not an impression superimposed on the spirit from without; it is the soul's own intellection and appetency emitted from within.
The reader is now, we trust, prepared for seeing how fatal is Dr. Bledsoe's second omission in his analysis of free agency. He has left out the grand fact of ^jjerma^je/ji, subjective d'lsjyosl- t'ion — the iiahitus, not consuetudo — of the Reformed theology. "When we appreciate the flood of light which this fundamental fact of rational nature in that theology throws upon the main questions of free agency and morals, and when we see how usually great philosophers, as Dr. Bledsoe, overlook it, we are often amazed. He may rest assured it is the "knot of the whole question." Let this simple view be taken. Grant that the soul of man is self-determining. WJiere then are we to seek the regula- tive lavj of its self-action? Ko agent in all God's creation works lawlessly. " Order is heaven's first law." Every power in the "universe has its regulative principle ; is mind, the crowning being of God's handiwork, lawless and chaotic in its working ? This regulative law of man's free agency is found in his disposition, his moral nature. Though one being detects another's disposi- tion ct2)osterion, by deducing it from his observed volitions, yet in each spirit, disposition is a 2>'^iorl to volition ; for it is the original, regulative power which determines what subjective motives have place in the mind. These facts are so evident to the consciousness that to state them is to show theu' justness. How, then, are fi*ee acts of choice in the moral agent regulated ? "We reply, not by objective impressions; for then the man would not be free ; but by the agent's own permanent disposition. There is the fullest, most efficient certainty, that the specific sul)-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 187
jective motive will arise according to the man'^ own disposition, and that the volition will follow the prevalent motive. Does Dr. Bledsoe complain that then it is man's disposition which governs him ? I reply, Yes ; and nothing can be so appropriate, because his disposition is himself; it is the ultimate, the most original, most simple function of his self-hood.
From this truth it follows, that to control the disposition of a creature is to control his motives and actions. When Omnipo- tence, which first created, new-creates a sinner's disposition, al- though we may not explore the mystery of that act, we see clearly enough that God thereby determines efficiently the new line of action. And yet free agency is not infringed ; but the uniform law of connection between disposition and subjective motive, and motive and act, so far from being tampered with, is reestablished and ennobled. But on Dr. Bledsoe's philosophy, God possesses only a contingent, possible power of occasioning, not causing, some of the volitions he desires, by the ingenious and multiform play of his skill amidst those feelings and impressions in the sin- ner's soul which are only the conditions of the creature's self-deter- mination ! Which of these is the Bible account of saving grace?
Amidst the many refutations wdiich he claims to have made of Edwards' argument, we notice only one, because it will be found to bear npon our subsequent discussion. Edwards has argued the certainty of the acts of free agents, from the fact that God certainly foresees them. This unanswerable argument Dr. Bled- soe thinks he has neutralized. He admits the fact of God's fore- knowledge of such acts. But he argues that, since this is the foreknowledge of an infinite mind, it is the most unwarrantable presumption in us to suppose that it implies such sort of causative connection between the volitions and their antecedents as would enable our finite minds to foreknow future events. He rebukes the Calvinist with heat, because, from the fact of God's fore- knowledge, he. presumes to infer the mode of it. Dr. Bledsoe here travels precisely over the ground of the famous controversy about scientia 'media, and asserts the same sophism which the Jesuit and semi-Pelagian asserters of that error attempted to ■sustain. Admitting, against the Socinian, that God has fore- knowledge of all the volitions of rational creatures, they sixp- posed it to be a mediate and inferential knowledge. What did
188 THE rniLosoppiY of dp., bledsoe.
tliey suppose to be its viedluvi or middle premise ? God's- knowledge of all the conditions tinder wliicli any free agent will act being an infinite omniscience, his insight into the disposition of each creature enables him to infer how that creature will act under those given conditions. But Dr. Bledsoe ought to know how often the demolition of this scheme has been completed. For instance : this Jesuit theory makes this branch of God's foreknowledge derived or inferential ; if we mistake not, Dr. Bledsoe, with all sound theologians, believes all God's know- ledge to be immediate and intuitive. Again, every one who is able to put premises together must see that the middle term of this scientia 'media virtually assumes that efficient connection be- tween the agent's subjective disposition and motives, and his volitions, which the Calvinist assumes and the semi-Pelagian de- nies. We ask : how does God's insight into that agent's dispo- sition enable him certainly to infer the action, unless as God sees that this disposition certainly regulates the agent's free choice ? Hence, Avlien the Jesuit cries that we must not mea- sure the method of God's omniscence by our knowledge, he is pretending to claim for God, as a mental perfection, a tendency to draw an inference after the sole and essential premise thereof is totally gone ! Is this a compliment or an insult to the di^dne intelligence ? To every right mind it will be clear that, whether a mind be great or little, it would be its imperfection, and not its glory, to infer without a ground of inference.
But as Dr. Bledsoe does not seem to be aware that he is tread- ing the oft-refuted path of the Molinist, so he does not seem to understand the true nature of the argument from God's foreknow- ledge to the certainty of the creature's will. AYe will expound it to him. He will not deny that the Bible says God made man's soul after his image, in his own likeness. AVhile God's intelli- gence may, consistently with this fact, surpass man's infinitely, the two intelligences cannot, while acting aright, expressly contradict each other. Second, Dr. Bledsoe doubtless believes, ■^dth us, that the necessary intuition, "no eflect without its adequate cause," is valid and correct. If this is the fundamen- tal norm of the human reason, and was impressed on our minds by a truthful God, it miist be because it was also, from eternity, a principle of the divine reason. Now then, if the divine mind
THE PHILOSOPHY OP DR. BLEDSOE. 189
foresees an event as certain in tlie f\iture, he mast foresee it as to be effectuated by some true cause; for ex. n'lh'do nihil is also trne to God's thinking. Again : if a mind infinitely correct fore- sees that a given event is certainly going to occur in the future, it must be certainly going to occur. Is not this so true as to be almost a truism? But unless there were someirhere, some true cause efficient to j^^'oduce the certain occurrence of that event, its occurrence would not be certain. Here is a case, e. g., where God certainly foresaw that Nebuchadnezzar would freely choose to sack Jerusalem. Then, the occurrence in the future was cer- tain. Then, there must have been, somewhere, a cause efficient to produce that choice. Where now will Dr. Bledsoe find that €ause ? In fate ? Oh, fie ! In God's compulsion of the Assyrian's freedom ? This is as bad as the other ! Or in the devil's com- pulsion ? This is worse yet ! There is absolutely no place for Dr. Bledsoe to rest, save in our good, Calvinistic, Bible philosophy : that the efficient of Nebuchadnezzar's free volition was in the power of his own disposition and subjective motives over his own will. These lying open before God's omniscience, and in- deed operating tinder his perpetual, providential guidance, he thus foresaw infallilily the free volition which he purposed to permit the wicked pagan to execute ; foresaw, because he pur- posed to permit.
We are compelled, then, to return to the charge made in our pages in 1856, which he so much resents : that he has mistaken the nature of the creature's free agency ; that he has infringed the omnipotence of God, and therefore that his "theodicy" is nothing worth. As he complains of injustice in our presenta- tion of his views, we now give them in his own words ( Theodicy, p. 192, etc.) : "Almighty power itself, we may say with the most profound reverence, cannot create such a bei ig (' an intelligent moral agent,') and place it beyond the possibility of sinning." "It is no limitation of the divine omnipotence to say that it can- not work contradictions. To suppose an agent to be created and placed beyond all liability of sin, is to suppose it to be what it is and not what it is at the same time .... which is a plain contradiction." His theodicy is, that in this sensa God tolerates sin in his natural kingdom, because he cannot effectually ex- clude it without destroving the creature's free agency.
190 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
How can anr just miud fail to see that here we have a total oversight and exclnsiou of that vital distinction, so "well know?"; in sound philosophy, beween certainty and compulsion ? Com- pulsion would overthrow fi-ee agency ; certainty as to the natui-e of volitions does not. Deny this, and you cannot hold that God is indefectible without uprooting his freedom. Deny this, as Dr. Bledsoe virtually does, and it becomes impossible for God to answer a prayer for grace with any certainty ; or to regenerate any sinner ceiiainly; or to promise certain glory to any elect angel or to any redeemed man in heaven. Deny this, and it becomes impossible for Jesus Christ to give us, in the infallible holiness of his Person, a safe groimd for our tnist in him. We forewarn oiu' Wesleyan brethren that this is biit blank Pelagian- ism; it uproots all foundations of faith and beheving j)rayer; and it flings a pall of doubt and fear over the assurance of angels and saints in glory. We beseech them again to beware, and not allow Dr. Bledsoe's zeal in assailing what they deem the er- rors of Calvinism to seduce them to this fearful position, so destructive of redemption itself. Happily Dr. Bledsoe is too good a Christian to stand consistently to his OT\-n philosophy ; he con- tradicts himself. On page IT-i of his Theodicy, he states that " as every state of the human intelligence is necessitated," and "every state of the sensibiUty is a passive impression," a "ne- cessitated phenomenon of the human mind," as the sensibility " may le dead" an almighty God may so act on this necessita- ted intelligence and sensibility as to create new Hght and a new heart in the sinner. On this remarkable concession we make several remarks. First, Dr. Bledsoe here, in his misconception of the real doctrine of the CaMnist concerning the Tvill, actually goes into the extreme of the ultra-necessitarian; he talks just like a follower of Hobbes or Spinoza. Second, he confirms our charge of a failm-e to distinguish betv\^een sensibility and cona- tion, as two opposite capacities of the soul, and between mere objective iiiducement and subjective motive. In describing God's agency in creating the new heart, he omits what is the hinge of the whole change, fundamental disposition and its re- newal. Hence, third, in quoting Dr. Dick as presenting a paral- lel theorv of regeneration, he shows that he misconceives the whole matter, mistaking the semi-Pelagian conception of " moral
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 191
suasiou " for the Bible one of a quickening of tlie soul into spiritual life. His theory vibrates between semi-Pelagianism and fatalism. Nothing is easier than to show, from his position, thab the man thus renewed of God would act under a fatal ne- cessity. If "states of intelligence are necessitated," and "states of sensibility are passive and necessitated," and God creates light, and a new heart, through a necessary operation on these, then there is an end of the converted man's free agencv; his gracious state will consist in his actions being directed by the two necessitated powers of intellect and sensibility. That is too fatalistic for us Calviuists! Spontaneity is left out. Dr. McGuffey was e"videutly correct in his verdict upon this book : that its peculiarities arose from Dr. Bledsoe's not conceiving aright the true nature of the Keformed theology he supposed himself refutincr.
But let us bring his conclusion to a test surer than any philo- sophy : the Word of God. He, speaking precisely of this de- partment of his providence, his rule over free agents says : " My counsel shaU stand, and I Avill do all my 2)l(iasarer " He doeth his will among the armies of heaven, and the inhabitants of this earth : and none can stay las hand, or say unto him, what doest thou ? " " Therefore hath he mercy on whom he wiU have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." The 110th Psalm, glorifying the gracious influences of the Messiah's kingdom, says that " his people shall be willing in the day of his power." So, " his people never perish, and none is able to pluck them out of his hand." " They are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." But Avhy multiply proofs ? The effectual call- ing of every soul " dead in trespasses and sin " is a proof that God's omnipotence is able to renew every sinner. For the clear teaching of the Bible is, that, while there are differences of de- gree in the developments of native dej^ravity, the deadness to- wards God is entire in every sinner, and " the carnal mind is enmity against him." The whole activity of every natural man is put forth for self-will and against godliness. Hence, were not an efficient and invincible power put forth in the quicken- ing of every believer, none would bo quickened. This divine power which quickens one would be enough to quicken all he rest, had God purposed to attempt it. The uniform tenor of
192 THE PHILOSOPHY OP DK. BLEDSOE.
tlie gospel teaclies us tliat we are all lost sinners ; and that wlien one is saved instead of another, it is the divine mercy which has originated the difference, not the superior docility of the favored man. *' What hast thou that thou didst not receive ? "
Does the caviller, then, harass Dr. Bledsoe with the que. tion : if God was as able to keep Satan in holiness as Gabriel ; if lie •was as able to redeem Judas as Saul of Tarsus, why did he choose the everlasting crime and misery of his creatures, Satan and Judas ? It will be better for him, instead of asserting God's benevolence at the expense of his omnipotence, to answer, with us: "secret things belong unto the Lord our God." For the pretermission of Satan and Judas, our God doubtless saw, in his own omniscience, a valid reason. It was not capricious, nor cruel, nor unfair; nor did God find it in his own impotency. Had God seen fit to reveal that reason, every reverent mind would doubtless be satisfied with it. He has given us no know- ledge of it. Yet one thing we know, that this unknown reason implied no stint of divine benevolence and infinite pity towards the unworthy, in God. That we know, at least, by the fact that God is so merciful as to give his only Son to die for his enemies. There we rest satisfied. "What he doetli we know not now, but we shall know hereafter." There our author, and the caviller whom he vainly seeks to satisfy, had better rest with us.
The second great task which Dr. Bledsoe proposes to himself is the application of his philosophy of the will to the " suffering and salvation of infants." In four of the articles of his licvkio, cited at the head of this paper, he zealously impugns Calvinism, and esx)ecially the Calvinism of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as involving the damnation of d}ing ijifants. While we shall re- sist with all our might this indictment against the Presbyterian Church, justice requires us to say that in some of the positions of these articles Dr. Bledsoe is correct, and by his candor lias earned the approbation of all. Among these praiseworthy places is his clear exposure of Lecky's Batlonalmn in Eurtype, for assail- ing early Christianity on this suljject, when it is transparently manifest that he knew not v/hereof he affirmed. He has here convicted this defender of rationalism of a pretentious sciolism. Another passage which deserves the earnest sympathy of the
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 193
friends of trutli is that in which, he demonstrates that the Thirty- jiine Articles, especially as expounded by the Homilies of the Protestant Episcopal Church, are sternly Calvinistic, and where he exposes the miserable shufflings of her Arminian and pre- tended Low-church clergy around these doctrines and that of baptismal regeneration. He shows that the mos't offensive points in the whole discussion upon the destiny of dead infants hav'i grown out of this wretched error of baptismal regeneration, with the kindred one of a " tactual succession ; " and he convicts the original Lutheran, along with the Anglican Church, of being committed to the harsh doctrine of the eternal damnation of all Tinbaptized children. But when, with Dr. Krauth, he attempts to include the Presbyterian Church in the same charge, we must wholly demur. A part of their proof is, that Calvin and the supralapsarian divines use language implying that they believed there are infants in hell, whose eternal perdition began before they were old enough to commit overt sins ; and they remind us that, among these extremists, was Dr. Wm. Twisse, the first Moderator of the Westminster Assembly. It is a sufficient re- ply that the Assembly did not endorse Dr. Twisse's supralapsa- rianism ; that Presbyterians are responsible, not for the "UTitings of any uninspired men called Presbyterians or Calvinists, nor even of Calvin himself, but only for the creed which they have expressly published as their OT\-n. If Dr. Bledsoe must judge of the complexion of that creed by the literature of that age, then, in fairness, he is bound to remember that our ablest and most esteemed divines of that age, as of this, like Turretin, do most expressly refute the ultraisms of Gomarus and Twisse. But he thinks, with Krauth, that when our Confession (Chap. X., § 3) speaks of " elect infants dying in infancy " as being redeemed in some way by the blood and righteousness of Christ, the only antithesis implied is of "non-elect infants dying in infancy." To a mere surmise, a simple denial is a sufficient answer. We assert that the fair and natural implication is, of elect infants v:ho do not die hi infancy, but live to be adults. For, the sub- ject of the previous proposition is the manner in which grace is applied to rational adults. It asserts that, in their case, it is by effectual calling. How then is grace applied to elect souls, i. c, to elect infants called in the providence of God to die in infancy.
Vol. in.-13.
194 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
who are not iu a rational condition ? This question the article in hand undertakes to answer. Though these little souls be nob in a condition to experience the rational part of effectual calling and to exercise conscious faith, the omnipotence of the Saviour can and does apply redemption to them also ; and in like man- ner to djdng idiots and lunatics. This is the blessed truth here stated, and it is the whole of it. The natural antithesis implied is that between the elect soul that dies in infancy and the elect soul that lives to be adult, and the different modes in which the same redemption is applied to each. Does the objector cry, " why then did not the Confession speak out plainly, and say whether it supposed there was any soul, not elect, which ever died in infancy ? " 'We answer : because on that question the Bible has not spoken clearly. Let Dr. Bledsoe show iis the ex- press place of Scripture, if he can. Herein is the admirable wisdom and modesty of the Westniinster Assembly, that, how- ever great the temptation, they would not go beyond the clear teaching of revelation. "Where God is silent they lay their hands upon their mouths.
Our assailants also think they find clear traces of infant dam- nation in our Confession (as in the Thirty-nine Articles), where it asserts that original sin is, even in the infant, true sin carrying guilt, and making the soul obnoxious to the moral indignation of God. Here they bring us, indeed, to the hinge of the whole ques- tion. Is "concupiscence" real sin ? Or is it only an infirmity? Does it involve guilt, even apart from the overt transgression to which it naturally tends ? If it does, then it indisputably follows that even the young infant is worthy of condemation before God. But it does not follow tliat any dead infant is actually in hell ; nor that we, who are convinced that " concupiscence is sin," should dispute the application of Christ's blood to atone for that sin in every soul dpng without actual transgression. This obvi- ous distinction Dr. Bledsoe quietly leaves out ; while he charges that as v>^e hold concupiscence by itself is really guilty, we must believe many infants are damned for it. He stoutly holds that it is no sin at all ; and therein, as we shall show, commits himself to the baldest Pelagianism. And here again, iu passing, we sol- emnly caution ourAYesleyan brethren to take care how they per- mit this champion of theirs, under the appearance of a zeal against
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 195
a despised Calvinism, to betray tliem to an error wliicli "Weslev, "Watson, and all their leaders reject. We testify to them, that this doctrine of the Southern Revieto is not Wesleyan : it is Pela- gian ; it is Socinian. It says (Jan., 1875, ji. 97): "Xew born infants deserve no punishment at all, much less 'God's wrath and damnation.' " P. 103 ; " The guilt of original sin " is only " sup- posed," "founded only on the sand of human opinion." P. 105 : " Before the time of Augustine . . . natural depravity was looked upon by the fathers of the Church not as 'truly a sin,' but only as mi;-ifort\ le." April, 1874, p. 353: "The omnipotence of God himself cannot take away our sins, and turn us to him- self, without our own voluntary consent and cooperation." Da not Wesley and Watson teach that there is an original sin de- rived by fallen man from Adam, which is so truly sin as to Heed and receive the propitiation of Christ's blood offered in a sacri- fice of universal atonement "for every man ?" Do they not teach that this original sin also necessitates the redemptive gift of " common, sufficient grace," purchased l)y Christ's blood, and inwrought l^y his Spirit, to relieve, in the common, unrenewed sinner, the bondage of the will, and lift him again to the power of self-determination for gospel acts ? Surely this doctrine and Dr. Bledsoe's are at dagger's points ! Again, according to him, a dying infant, not being a sinner, has no need of a Saviour in the gospel sense. It is not redeemed by Christ, but only helped in some such sense as a physician who eases its sufferings. It is not pardoned ; for it has no " true sin " to be pardoned. It cannot be renewed ; for, according to Dr. Bledsoe, it needs no renewal; and if it did, could in no possible way receive it, since "the om- nipotence of God himself cannot turn it to itself without its own voluntary consent and cooperation." But the dying infant has not sense enough to give that voluntary consent. Hence, when ransomed parents reach heaven, their glorified little ones will have no part Avith them in "the song of Moses and the Lamb." When Christ blessed little children, claiming them as subjects of his "kingdom of heaven," he was mistaken ; for that kingdom is the one which he purchased with his blood. No infant should be baptized. The water represents the blood and Spirit of Christ cleansing srnners from guilt and corruption. But, according to Dr. Bledsoe, they are not real sinners, have no guilt, and instead
196 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DK. BLEDSOE.
of needing a renewal of their corruption, are only laboring under a " misfortune." Why he should hold to infant baptism it passes our wit to conceive. In one place he says he has a reason for baptizing them; but we have not been able to find the place where he has condescended to state it. Now, for v^liat does the Methodist church haptize infants f Does she do it, like Pelagius and the Papal priests, to deliver them from a Utah us of eternal natural blessedness ; or to signify their deliverance from sin and wrath? Let its standards and ritual answer. Again we warn our Methodist brethren ; they cannot afibrd to carr}- this doc- trine : it is neither theirs nor Christ's.
We also justly complain of Dr. Bledsoe for certain passages in which he endeavors to involve Presbyterians in od'naa for this solemn and awful fact of original depravity, which they did not invent but sorrowful!}' recognize as a great reality. His language is worthy of a cavilling Lecky, or of a Universalist. He speaks ironically of "innocent little babes" condemned by a God of love to cruel and everlasting torments, only because Adam chose, some thousands of j-ears ago, to eat an apple. He should know that this is unfair ; for no Calvinist ever ascribed any imputed guilt of Adam's first sin to any posterity of his which was innocent of all subjective depravity. Our Confes- sion says that "original sin" is, in all, true sin, and carries true guilt. But it defines original sin as including not only the guilt of Adam's first sin, but always inward corruption also. Dr. Bledsoe afi'ects to draw a contrast between the earthly parent, though a sinner, loving and cherishing the smiling babe, and the Calvinist's God, though holy, hating and damning it. Does he not know that this is precisely the song of cavilling Univer- salists? He professes to believe that God will certainly j)unisli our adult sinful children in hell, if they refuse to repent. But does not the Christian parent cherish and pity that adult im- penitent child in any hour of his helplessness, as he did the infant? To any one but a Universalist the solution is plain. Our children are bone of our bone. We are not the appointed judges and punishers of ungodliness. God is that Judge. Hence, while he discloses towards our impenitent children, in ten thou- sand mercies, a pity far more watchful and tender than a pa- rent's, yet when he assumes his rightful judicial function, he
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conclemns each man according to liis deserts. He is a Euler " both of goodness and severity."
Biit to return. The Bible teaches that inherited depravity of nature is, apart from actual transgressions, truly sin, as such, involving guilt, and therefore obnoxious to the righteous wrath of God, and to such penalty as his equity apportions to it. Dr. Bledsoe thinks that inherited depravity, apai-t from actual transgression, is not triily sin, involves no guilt, is only a "mis- fortune," and merits no •\vi-ath or punishment at all. This is precisely the issue between him and Calvinism. In giving it practical form and extent we have another distinction to pre- sent, which is of cardinal importance. It concerns that general proposition which Dr. Bledsoe would also contest: that every sin, being committed against an infinite God, is an infinite evil, and so carries a desert of everlasting punishment. Let us, for illustration, discuss this proposition as to a specific sin of a rational adult. Many, in this instance, would deny it, because they are so in the habit of estimating transgression as the civil magistrate does, insulated from all its attendants and sequels. Does the court, for instance, indict a man for murder? That single act is considered by itself; and the court does not con- cern itself with antecedent character, or with consequences, ex- cept as they throw some light on the evidence. Now men con- tinually deceive themselves by these examples, as though a heart- searching God could or would judge sins against himself in this partial and inadequate way. They seem to have before their imaginations some such case as this: here is a man who has truly and literally comi-iitted only one insulated sin against God ; and God has this one act to judge, as expressive of no antecedent moral state, as destined to have no repetitions, as unconnected with any formation of evil habitudes in the agent's soul, and as carrying no cpnsequence or influence upon his immortal character or on that of immortal fellow-creatures. Has God said that this one act, thus insulated, is by itself w^orthy of eternal penalty ? We reply, we are ignorant of any revelation on that question. For, in fact, such a case never existed, and God will never have such an instance to judge. It is impossible that it should arise ; were it possible we do not profess to know what God would think of it. Every
198 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
case which God has to judge is that, not of sin by itself, out of a sinner; not of an act merely, but of an agent; and the infallible omniscient mind will, of course, look at each act as it truly occurs, in its whole connections with character, destiny, and example to others. Here, for instance, a profane oath has been uttered. God sees that this oath is, first, an expression of certain prevenient sentiraents of wilfulness, irreverence, care- lessness, and enmity in the mind of the swearer. Then, sec- ondly, it iuA^olves certain inflviences for evil on spectators and imitators, the evil tendency of which is to mde-spreading and everlasting mischiefs. Then, thirdly, it strengthens the profane temper and habit of swearing, thus involving the natural pro- mise of a series of profanities continued forever. In a word, God, as an omniscient judge, has to weigh the sinner as a concrete whole, and to estimate each transgression as part, and index, and cause, as well as fruit, of a disease of shi, a spiritual eating can- cer, which is an immense evil, because invohdng, unless grace intervene — and the sinner has no ciahn of justice to that rem- edy— an everlasting mischief and criminality. Thus judged, sin is manifestly an infinite evil ; it manifestly deserves an endless penalty. One reason why a holy God punishes forever is, that the culprit sins forever. The everlasting series of sins is the fruit of the first rebellion. This is God's point of view. Y/hen we argue thus, Ave do not appreciate those aggravations which attach to any one particular sin, by reason of the majesty and holiness of the i^arty offended, and tlie perfectness of his claim of right to our obedience. It is well said by the Puritans, "To have a little sin, one must have a little God."
Let us now apply this view to the case of a depraved infant, standing, as yet, before the divine inspection, without actual transgression. He has one sort of sin and guilt as yet, that of his original sin. If that is real sin and real guilt, as we shall prove, then a righteous divine judge will, and ought to, disap- prove it as such, and to adjudge to it lohatever jjenalty is its fair equivalent. How unanswerable is this! But the objector, when we proceed to the question, how extensive that penalty may justly become, preposterously argues as though this infant's sin and guilt were to have no natural secpiel or increment. They seem to imagine that somehow God continues to view him as not
THE THILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 199
growing up from a depraved infancy to a sinful manhood, and to an endless series of provocations. But in fact God views liim as one w^lio will grow into all that sin ; for this career is simply the sure and natural outgrowth of his own corrupted free-agency. The objector, with a strange hallucination, seems to suppose that, if there should ever be, beyond the grave, a soul con- demned for its infnnt depravit}- — just as v^e see all infants this side the grave at present under condemnation for their infant depravity — that first infant would be sinless of all save its initial depravity. But, obviously, if there were such a case, that infant would develop precisely" like tlie unconverted infants we see around us every day, and precisely like them ivould continxie a condemned soul, hecause it continued a simiing and an increasingly sinful sold. Let the man who cries out against the "monstrosity of infant damnation" drop these absurd scales from his eyes. Let him remember what it is that the Calvinist asserts. We do not assert that there is a single case of an eternally damned infant in the universe ; for we know Christ redeems infants, and we hojje he redeems all who die infants. But we assert that were not the infant guilt of depravity cleansed by Christ's blood in the case of those who die infants, it would be just in God to disapprove, judge, and condemn ih.em., precisely as toe actually SEE HIM condemning the living ones in our mon households. Does not Dr. Bledsoe believe, sorrowfully, that the condemnation of some of these living ones may become everlasting? He says he does. But on wdiat conditions ? On the conditions of growth into adult sin and perseverance in impenitency. Well, were the grace of Christ not applied to the soul of the infant that dies, its condemnation w^ould also turn out to be everlasting on pre- cisely the same conditions. Does Dr. Bledsoe think the eternal doom of the adult unjust, who, beginning a depraved infant, lived on in a life of voluntary depravity to a final imxDenitency ? He does not. He regards it as solemn, fearful ; yet worthy of a holy God. Why then this outcry, when the case of the non- elect dead infant, if there were such a case, would be precisely parallel ? There is, then, no use in this vain attempt to cavil against God's condemnation of the guilt of original sin. It is precisely what we see every day in the living infants of our OAvn families. We see it in their ahenation from God, in their sick-
200 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DE. BLEDSOE.
nesses, mortality, and community witli us in the curse. "\Ve liear it in the express word of God, that they " are all hj nature heirs of wrath, even as others ;" that " all the world are become guilty before God;" and that "the wrath of God abideth" on. eveiiy son of Adam who has not believed.
But let us now return to the hinge of the whole debate. Is that hahitus of soul which the depraved infant inherits really sin, in such a sense as to carry guilt and to deserve penalty? Dr. Bledsoe is constrained by his erroneous philosophy to say no ; it is, so far, only an infirmity. We say his philosophy con- strains this answer. For, first, if certainty in the influence of subjective disposition and motive over volition were absolutely inconsistent vdi\\ free-agency and responsibility, there would be no real guilt in the actual transgressions which are the fruits of such hib'dus, and, of course, no guilt in the parent state of soul. Secondly, if self-determination and contingency are essential ta free agency, in Dr. Bledsoe's sense, then no permanent and de- cisive state of soul can have moral quality. There remains no- thing to which moral quality can be ascribed, save acts of -oul. This conclusion, which is virtually Dr. Bledsoe's, should have opened his eyes to the error of his premises; for that "sin con- sists only in sinful acts of soul," has always been the key-note of the cry of ancient and modern Pelagians. Let us test the question whether a depraved disposition is truly sin, by sound reason and scripture.
The stereotyped argument in the negative is, "that nothing can be sin which is involuntar}^ ; but the disposition cannot be voluntary, being, as the Calvinists themselves teach, a j^rlori to all the volitions it regulates." This plausible sophism proceeds simply upon an ambiguity in the word "involuntary." In one sense, an act or state is involuntary when the agent wills positively not to do it, but is forced against his will ; as when one striving to cleave to his support is yet forced to faU. The result, which is^ in that sense, "involuntary," is, of course, devoid of moral qual- ity, and blameless. The other sense is, when an act or state of soul is called involuntary because it did not result from any ex- press volition. In this sense, that which is not the result of an intentional volition may have moral qiiality, and lie criminal. An envious man may so think of his innocent enemy as to have
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 201
envy excited, by reason of an involuntary train of association ; yet tliat envy is criminal. Let the ambiguity be removed by em- ploying the -sN-ord spontaneous. Responsibility is coextensive "with rational spontaneity. But the envy, in the case supposed,, ■was spontaneous. The disposition to ungodliness is sponta- neous. The sinner cannot say that it subsists in his breast con- trary to his will. No power makes him entertain it against his wishes. It is as much a function of his selfhood, prompted from within, as any volition he ever executes. It may be, then^ like the express volition, responsible and criminal.
We argue that native evil disposition is such, again, from the testimony of conscience. Every man blames himself when h& thinks dispassionately, for inclinations to evil not formed into purposes. He would blush to have them disclosed to his fel- low men. Why this, except that his moral intuition tells him. his fellow will rightfully disapprove it ? If he perceives a mere inclination in his neighbor to wrong him, he resents it, though it be formed into no purpose.
Many sins of omission prove the same thing. Here, for in- stance, is a well-dressed and self-indulgent man walking beside- a stream. A prattling child falls into the water, and while he is hesitating to infringe his bodily comfort and tarnish his goodly raiment by leaping after it, the child is drowned. Here is guilt, but there has been no volition : the lazy man can say with truth, that positively he had not made up his mind to neglect the drowning child. But he is guilty of breaking the sixth command- ment. Now ever}^ one sees that it is to his selfish hesitancy the guilt attaches. But hesitancy is a state, and not an act of soul. We blame it in this case because it is the index of a selfish, cow- ardly disposition.
This suggests a stronger plea. Every practical mind gauges the moral quality of an act according to its intention. When, for instance, a just judge would ascertain the guilt or innocence of a homicide, he inquires into the intention. He knows that "all killing is not murder." It is the malicious intent which stamps criminality upon the act. This is but stating, in another form, the admitted truth, that the subjective motive determines the moral quality of the act, as it decides its occurrence. But it is the natural disposition which regulates the subjective motive^
202 THE THILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
Hence, it is so far from being true, that morality resides only in acts of soul — if it did not reside in the dispositions which regu- late these acts and give them their quality, it would not be found in the acts at all, it would be banished from the eai-th. In fine, we appeal to that common sense of mankind which persists in imputing moral merit or demerit to character as well as to ac- tions. "What is character? Wherein does the thievish charac- ter of the rogue reside, in the intervals when he is eating, or is asleep, or anyhow is not thinking of his thefts? The only an- swer is, it resides in his disposition and habitudes. We appeal to that common sense which always regards cause and effect, parent and child, as kindi'ed. When we see concupiscence, in the words of the Apostle James, conceiving and bringing forth sin, we know that mother and daughter have a common nature.
This suggests to us the scriptural argument. Here M^e are on solid and impregnable ground. Job declares that none can bring " a clean thing out of an unclean." Does he not use the term "clean" in the same sense in the parent and the child? David confesses in the fifty-first Psalm that he "was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did his mother conceive him ; " and this in- born sinfulness he makes, along with the crimes which were its fruit, subject of profound repentance. The fifty-eighth Psalm declares that infants go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies ; their poison is as the poison of the adder, hereditary and natural. Our Saviour tells us "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and on this he grounds the necessity of a new birth. He tells us, " Either make the tree good and the fruit good, or else the tree evil and the fi'uit evil." Does he not use the words "good" and "evil" consistently throughout, of the soul's dis- positions and its acts? The great apostle tells us that we were
all naturally " dead in trespasses and sins and were hy
nature children of wrath." Does anything that is not truly sin excite the " -uTath " of a righteous God ? Lastly, God prohibits concupiscence, saying, "Thou shalt not covet;" and in his own inspired definition, b}' the Apostle John, makes discrepancy with his laio the characteristic of sin. ' // d.if.aozla iazr^ if^ dvoaca. This must include not being, as well as not doing, what God's law requires.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 203
Now a mind tinctured witli nnscriptural pliilosophy will sup- pose tliat it sees two stubborn objections to this Bible doctrine. He will exclaim, "Tlie infant cannot reason. Intelligence is necessary as a condition of guilt. It is as unreasonable to re- gard this little creature in its cradle as criminal for a natural state of soul of which it comprehends nothing, as though it were a kitten." But we reply, it is not a kitten. It has w^hat the kitten has not — a rudimental reason and conscience. ^Vliy should not this be enough to ground a rudimental responsi- bility? Let it be noted here, that w^e did not claim the re- sponsibility for mere disposition to evil was as developed, or as heavily criminal, as that for intentional and overt rebellion ; we claimed that it is a true moral responsibility. It may be added that, as a question of fact, there is nothing in mental science about which it is more perilous to dogmatize than touching the state of intelligence, and the degree of its development, in the human infant. All we know is, that it cannot exercise the com- municative faculty of speech, and that its consciousnesses are not of such a qualitj' as to be remembered to after years. He would be a rash man who woidd dare to assert, on these grounds, that the infant human has no more functions of rational con- sciousness than a mere animal. But aside from all this, we make our appeal again to common sense. Do we not morally disapprove the evil disposition of a bad adult, at such moments as it lies quiescent, and is not provoking his own intelUgent con- sciousness by acts of soul ? Do we not despise the thief as a thief while he is asleep ?
Ah ! but, exclaims our opponent, this is because the thievish disposition of this man is his own voluntary acquisition ; he has created it, or induced it upon himself by a series of thievish acts, intelligently and freely performed before. No being can be worthy of praise or of blame for what he has not freely chosen. Here we have, in this final objection, the last stronghold of the Pela- gian philosophy. It is easily demolished by the same distinction which separates the spontaneoiis from the 2^ot<itlvely involuntary. No man is blameworthy for a defect which afflicts himself against his will. Every man may be blameworthy for a moral state which is spontaneous. That oiir disposition is spontaneous, we have shown by a simple appeal to consciousness. We know that
204 THE rHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
it is the most primary function of selfhood; vre cherish and ex- ercise it of oiu" own motion, not compelled fi'om ■uathout; it ia the most subjective of all subjectivities. And no^- that its being coeval ■v\ith our rational existence is no ground for disclaiming responsibility for it, we are able to prove by an adamantine de- monstration. If a being is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy for his moral disposition, because it was native, and not taken to himself by a subsequent act of choice, then Adam could not have any hohness in Paradise, for God "created him upright." Then Gabriel can have no credit for his heavenly hohness, be- cause it was original. Then the humanity of Jesus deserved not a particle of credit, because it was bom of the virgin " a holy thing," by "the power of the Highest." And chieiiy, the eternal God deserves no praise, because he has been eternally, natu- rally, immutably, necessarily holy. This proof we croAvn, by showing that the Pelagian theory of the rise of responsible char- acter is a case of logical suicide. Say they : a man is justly re- sponsible for his character, because he intelligently chose it for himself. Then, we argue, that act of choice must have been a^ responsible one. But the moral quality of every vohtion depends on that of its intention, /. e., of its subjective motive. If the motive be non-moral, the act vdU be non-moral, and can conduce in no way to a moral habitude. Thus, on this absurd philo- sophy, the disposition must act and become a cause before it is in existence. This result teaches us that when our analysis of moral actions has led us back to the ruling disposition, we have the ultimate moral fact. Beyond this we cannot go with, our analysis. The original disposiiio?i, which, though not aris- ing in an act of choice, is spontaneous, communicates the moral quahty to all the vohtions it regulates, Jjecaiise it has moral qual- ity in itself.
Xow then, if Dr. Bledsoe will admit the Bible doctrine, that a. fallen infant is guilty for his sinful disposition, he will also ad- mit with us, that a righteous God will hold him guilty therefor^ in preciseh' such a penalty as is equitable. And hence, did the purpose of grace as to dying infants dictate God's leaving such, a soul beyond the grave to bear that just penalty, and work out its own ulterior character and conduct, the result would be pre- cisely what we see in this life, where a fallen infant, beginning
THE rHELOSOPHY OF DE. BLEDSOE. 205
its career a culprit, and adding, of its own free will, a life of sin and final impenitency, works out for itself an everlasting perdi- tion. But -is it GoiVs real 2)uiyose to permit a single djang infant thus to remain without the grace of Christ ? It is on this ques- tion that the fact wholly turns, whether there are any lost infants. And of this question, we presume Dr. Bledsoe knows precisely as little, and as much, as we do. Neither of us hath a precise " Thus saith the Lord." We presume that the silence of God on this point of his gracious purpose is accounted for by this trait of his revelations : that they are always intensely practical; that he never turns aside to gratify mere curiosity; and so, as ihere are no instrumentalities for us to use in the redemption of dying infants, he has, in his usual practical fashion, remained silent. But in one thing we agree with Dr. Bledsoe : water-bap- tism is not an essential instrumentality for the applying of Christ's grace to a dying infant, nor is the lack of it decisive of its fate. To teach this is an odious, unscriptural Phariseeism ; and, being unwarranted by God, is a brutal cruelty to bereaved parents. We know that a multitude of dying infants are re- deemed. To lis it appears every way agreeable to the plan of redemption through grace, that, as dying infants never sanctioned Adam's rebellion in overt act, so in the liberality of God, they all enjoy union with the second Adam, without being required, like us adults, to sanction it by overt faith in this life. Ko man can prove from the Scriptures that any infant, even dying a j)agan, is lost.
The next movement of Dr. Bledsoe's polemic, in the SotifJiei'ii Jieview of October, 1875, and January, 1876, is against his own Methodist brethren. Here we have, therefore, the more pleasing task of spectators interested for fair play. One of the positions which he has found for the meeting point of Wesleyanism and Calvinism, of which he hopes to be the efficient, is his doctrine of "the perseverance of the elect." To Arminians the doctrine of "the perseverance of saints" has been very obnoxious. But Dr. Bledsoe distinguishes between "the elect " and "the saints." He avails himself of the modification of the doctrine of condi- tional decrees, fully sanctioned by the greatest Wesleyan divines, including the great founder himself and Watson. According to these, while all predestination in God is grounded in his fore-
206 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE.
siglit of men's free acts, tliere is a tliree-fokl divisiou of the ob- jects. Those whom God foresaw would stubbornly reject Lis gos- pel, he for that reason determined to leave to their doom. Those "whom he foresaw would truly beheve and repent, he for that rea- son determined to renew, justify, and adopt. The smaller num- ber whom he saw would persevere in that faith until death, he for that reason predestinated to everlasting glory. This view Dr. Bledsoe adopts. One consecpience justly inferred from it is, that he thinks a man may be a saint, a true, renewed behever, without being one of the elect. Another is that a man may he a true believer for a time, and be totally and finally apostate. A third is that the elect must certainly and infallibly persevere in a state of grace to the end, and be saved. Thus, while with other Methodists he denies the perseverance of the saints, he startles them by roundly asserting the infallible " perseverance of the elect." This conclusion is obviously implied in the Wes- leyan positions, as Dr. Bledsoe argues with resistless logic. If God elect to eternal life only those v.'hom he foresees will perse- vere in faith and repentance until death, then their perseverance therein must be certain ; that is, //* God's forelKnowledge is cer- tain.. This Dr. Bledsoe is led, of course, and correctly, to assert in the fullest terms. When asked whether this is not virtiially the Calvinist's doctrine of perseverance, he replies, Xo, because while he holds the fact, he utterly dissents from the grounds of the fact asserted by the Calvinist ; he ascribes the perseverance of the elect to the foreseen determinations of their own free will ; still holding fast to his Arminian ;roD azoj, that no degree of grace from without could limit this self-determination without destroying free-agency. Biit his speculation as to the " perse- verance of the elect " leads him to other sound positions. He is led to see, as he consistently must, that we should ascribe to God a foresight of all things, including all free determinations of created wills, absolutely infinite, eternal, infallible and immut- able. Hence, he repiidiates with contempt the feeble notion of Adam Clarke, that God forbears from foreseeing certain acts of men. Dr. Bledsoe also recognizes the iron logic of the Calvinist, that if the believer's faith and repentance are fruits of regenera- tion, then these, as foreseen by God, cannot be the causal grounds of his purpose to regenerate ; for this would represent
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DR. BLEDSOE. 207
the divine mind as making an effect tlie cause of its o^^•n cause. Hence he concedes that in the act of regeneration there can be no synergism; the cooperation of the human will begins there- upon, in the consequent process of conversion. Is the reader ready to exclaim, then Dr. Bledsoe is a good Calvinist ! So have some of his own brethren exclaimed. But stay : his es- cape is in claiming that God's regeneration produces no cer- tainty of ^^-ill in its subject as to gospel acts ; it only lifts him, as to them, into an equilihriuin of will ! Here we are tempted to make three remarks. First : we thought Dr. Bledsoe, as an Ai'minian, was bound to hold that '' common sufficient grace " had done that much for the gospel-sinner before regeneration. Secondly : how different is Dr. Bledsoe's regeneration from that of the Bible, which St. John assures us is such that " whoso- ever is born of God doth not commit sin ; for his seed remain- eth in him : and he cannot sin because he is bom of God." Thirdly : it seems as though, after all, the only barrier between Dr. Bledsoe and Cahinism is the ecocoMu "of seK-detemii- nation."
The Doctor also asserts that he does not believe God gives preventing grace to all men under the gospel. For God's fore- knowledge being infinite and infaUible, he foresees some cases in which preventing gi'ace would be stubbornly resisted, and thus become the occasion (not cause) of an aggravated doom. Hence it is in mercy that God sometimes withholds it, that his kindly- intended grace may not become the occasion of the poor sinner's making his case worse than before. Here again we have two words. First : how much difference remains between this doc- trine and that Cah'inistic doctrine of preterition, which, under the ugly name of " reprobation," Dr. Bledsoe so much abhors ? Secondly: well does Dr. Granberry say of this, that it seems to teach that God withholds the gi-ace essential to conversion from all whom he foresees would fall. It is hard for us to see how it teaches anything else. For has not God, according to Dr. Bledsoe, a complete foreknowledge of everj^hing? Then he foreknows every case in which converting grace is destined to be slighted ; and of course the same wisdom and mercy which cause him to withhold the useless gift in some cases will withhold it in all. How does the reader imagine Dr. Bledsoe escapes ? It
208 THU THILOSOrHY OF DK. BLEDSOE.
is hj saving (October, 1875, p. 479) that God may give pre- venieut grace in cases Avliere lie foreknows it will be despised, "in order to demonstrate tlie malignity of sin, and cause the universe to stand in awe of its deadening, destroy- ing, and soul-damning influences." Really, it seems to us that Dr. Bledsoe might just as ^Yell adopt, at once, the Cal- vinistic statement, that God gives or withholds jn'ace "fur Ai^ oicn glory. ^''
These teachings, and especially that of the " perseverance of the elect," awakened some of his brethren. Dr. Grauberry, the excellent Professor of Practical Di^dnity in the new Tanderbilt X'niversity, objected strenuously, lirst in the Chnstian Advocate, and then in the Annual Conference of the Southern Virginia Methodists for 1875. Here the two met in oral debate, and Dr. Bledsoe has further defended his vie'ws in his Beview for Jan- nary, 1876. It is with good ground that the honest Methodist instincts of Dr. Granberry snuffed the taint of Cahdnism in this doctrine. We have seen the corollaries, in part, to which it has already led Dr. Bledsoe. They do not contain the unsophisti- cated Arminianism ; they savor of the Westminster scheme. But further, the doctrine of the " perseverance of the elect " in itself viitually asserts the j^erseverance of saints, of some saints — the hated dogma to the zealous Armiuian — for Dr. Bledsoe's elect are a certain species of " saints." Worse yet ; both Dr. Bledsoe and Dr. Granberry agree in holding that there is no essential difference of grace in the saint who is, and the saint who is not, elect. They must hold thus, or else we truculent Calvinists will compel them to acknowledge oui' " sovereign distinguishing grace." The difference then, between the non-elect saint who falls, and the elect saint who cannot fall, is contingent and not essential. So that Dr. Bledsoe forces us to admit the persever- ance of certain saints who are virtually Hke other saints. This is not old Methodism. But most of all, Dr. Bledsoe presents us, in every case of the " perseverance of the elect," "s^dth an in- stance utterly destructive of the Ai'minian philosophy. Hie Arminian holds that certainty in volitions is inconsistent tcith free- dom. This is his corner stone. But every persevering elect person is a case of certainty of volitions coyisistent witJt freedom. Dr. Bledsoe has thus placed Dr. Granbeny and himself helplessly
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DK. BLEDSOE. 209
between the jaws of the Calvinistic vise ; and -sve design to turn the screw remorselessly. Let ns see what premises he has given us. If God certainly foresees who "sydll persevere and thereon elects them, they must be certain to persevere. Other- wise God's foreknowledge would be erroneous. But unless the volitions to cleave to the gospel were free, they would have no moral quality, and would be no steps or means towards hohness. Now any volition which is not foolish has a motive. If the gos- pel motives, in these cases, are certain to produce the contin- uance of gospel- voHtions, there must be an efficient connection between motive and volition here. Yet the agent is free. This is all the certainty, or " moral necessity," any intelligent Calvin- ist asks in his philosoj)hy of the will. Dr. Bledsoe's doctrine has given us our case.
And lastly, we now find the application of our discussion on a previous page, of Edwards' argument from God's foreknow- ledge to the " moral necessity" — or as we prefer to say, certainty — of the volitions foreknown. The key of the argument is in the great truth, that no effect is without a cause. "W"e know that God knows this universal law, because he makes us know it in- tuitively. Now, then, no event could be certain to occur in the future unless there was to be also a cause efficient enough to make it certainly occur. If, then, it is certain that any elect person is going to persevere in gospel volitions, it can only Jje he- cause there is, somewhere, a suitable cause efficient to produce them. Now Drs. Bledsoe and Granbeny do not believe that this cer- tainly efficient cause is in the Christian's will ; for they think that is contingent, else, they insist, it would not be fi'ee. The cause must then be in God's gi*ace. This then is the blessed doctrine of " efficacious grace." This is Calvinism.
The question then remains in this attitude : Dr. Bledsoe says, and proves, that the Wesleyan doctrines include the inference of the " perseverance of the elect." Dr. Granberry says, and proves, that this inference is Calvinistic. They both conclude correctly ; and our conclusion from the whole is, that the Wes- leyan theology, like a generous but over-fresh must, should work itself clear by ripening into " the old wine well refined upon the lees " of the Westminster Confession. Our sincere prayer is that the venerable editor of the Southern Ileview, with all his younger
Vol. UL— 14.
210 THE PHILOSOPHY OF DE. BLEDSOE.
brethren, may find in every lionr of temptation, and iu tlieir last conflict, the priceless support and comfort of " efficacious grace," Tliis intercession we ofi'er with a comfortable assurance, "being (with Panl, Phil. i. 6) confident of this very thing, that he -^hich liath begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION/
THE nature of free agency constitutes much the most im- portant problem in the whole range of philosophy. Ir- deed, it would be no exaggeration to claim for it an importance greater than all the rest of philosophy together, after man's ra- tionality is admitted. The connections of this problem with theology are manifold and A^tal. As is one's philosophy of the will, such, if he is a consistent thinker, must be his theory of proyidence, of foreknowledge, of the decree, of original sin, of regeneration, of the perseyerance of the saints, of responsibility. The most momentous things to man, in all the uniyerse of space and time, are responsibility, sin, penalty, and redemption. But; one of the clearest of our intuitions tells us that free agency is essential to a just responsibility, to guilt and merit, to reward and penalty. What, then, is free agency? What are its real, conditions? This must ever be the question of questions.
Dr. Bledsoe has seen clearly this fact; and hence all the dis- cussions of his £xariii)iat(0)i of Edwards, his Theodicy, his de- bate with the Southern Presbyterian Review, from 1871 to his last thundering broadside, January, 1877, are virtual or actual discussions of free agency. When we add the other fact, that, no point in philosophy has been surrounded with more of con- fusion, ambiguous definition, and prejudice, the thoughtful mind will need no apology for our continuance of this yital discussion. A special and practical reason exists for carrying it, in this case, to a thorough result. This is the mischief which Dr. Bledsoe is unconsciously doing among eyangelical Christians and minis-
' Appeared in the Southern Presbyterian Review, for July, 1877. Reviewing: I. An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will, By Albert Taylor Bledsoe. Philadelplim: H. Hooker. 1845. 12mo., pp. 234. II. A Tlieodicy, etc. By A. T. Bledsoe, LL. D. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1856. 8vo., pp. 368. III. Vindication of our PhiXoHophy. By the Eev. A. T. Bledsoe» LL. D. Southern Review, Art. Y., January, 1877. Pp. 54.
211
212 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
ters. He lias been an Episcopal, and is now a Methodist minister. He stoutly declares lie is no Pelagian ; lie considers himself quite a Pauline divine. His theory of free agency re- trenches some of the untenable logic of his school, and fi*ankly admits some of the positions and arguments of the orthodox philosophy. Especially does he teach his errors with an equal vigor of thought and style and obvious integrity of purpose. The sad result is, that he is forming the opinions of a multitude of young Christians, and ministers eveu, in the Episcopal — a Calvinistic — Church, to what will turn out, in their cases, bald and poisonous Pelagianism and Socinianism. These young men, scantily furnished, perhaps, in the history of doctrine and phil- osophy, adopt Dr. Bledsoe's conclusions, unconscious that they contain the very rudiments of those heresies, supposing them to be new and safe, results of his original discussions. But they wall, we fear, think too connectedly to adopt also the happy inconsistencies by which Dr. Bledsoe arrests himself; and they will be j)l^^iiged into deadly errors, which he, with us, will lament. We are convinced thus, that there is nothing in South- ern, or even in American, theological literature, more important than a thorough adjustment of this debate.
Dr. Bledsoe's reply to our very courteous and measured argu- ment of last October is delivered with unspeakable energy and eloquence of invective. He professes to see in the provocation nothing but imbecility and ignorance. But his readers are ask- ing, " Why, then, this effort ? " Why should leviathan thus "tempest the deep" to crush a minnow? Would he fill the whole sea with bloody foam, unless the lance of his little as- sailant had pierced consciously to his vitals? He complains that his theory of free agency has been criticised without ever having been read; that he is represented as holding exactly what he repudiates and refutes ; that l)age and word have not been quoted faithfully from his E-ramination of Edwards and TJieodicy, to show what he really holds. Now, a sufficient re- ply to this loud complaint would be to say that neither of these u'orl'S was 'placed at the head of our critique; that we did not undertake specially to discuss them at that time, but only to defend ourselves and the truth from the aggressions contained in the pieces which we expressly named. Is it not preposterous
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 213
that, wlieu a Tolummous wiiter is taken to account for his recent dechiratious, he should claim a right to have works of twenty years ago included ? But we stoutly assert, as we shall evince, that our recent chastisement of Dr. Bledsoe's trespasses on Pres- byterianism was not composed without just understanding of those books. If there remains any appearance of unfairness, it will be removed by remarking, first, that Dr. Bledsoe has, in some cases, very causelessly mistaken his critic as meaning to put propositions into his mouth as Dr. Bledsoe's own, when the thing obviously designed was to show that Dr. Bledsoe's posi- tions were obnoxious to certain absurd corollaries ; and, second, that it may be entirely feasible for him to quote from his earlier writings what is opposite to positions we do ascribe to him, he- cante he so contradlds himself. But that is his misfortune, and not our fault. He complains that we did not cite his own words. We surmise that when we proceed to do this, and show that the same contradictious remain, he will be hardly so well satisfied as he now is. One bitter complaint is, that we charge the vir- tual tendency of his scheme of free agency to be Pelagian when it is not. We shall see. Another is, that we accuse him, in his account of the rise of volition, of not seeing the significance of subjective disposition in the matter; whereas, he claims that he does see and teach all about it. We shall see whether he does. Still another complaint is, that we charge him, in speaking of motive, with overlooking the vital distinction between subjective appetency and objective impressions on the passive sensibility, which, he claims, he has most perspicuously separated. We shall see whether he has. A fourth complaint is, that we make him hold mind itself to be the "efiicieut" and the "cause" of volitions ; whereas, he now wishes to be understood as holding that "mind is not the eflicient cause of volition." We shall see whose is the contradiction.
Chiefly Dr. Bledsoe seems to complain, because our review did not again go back and debate his theory of the will. We will endeavor to remove that ground of complaint also. Mere re- joinders, sur-rejoinders, and replications upon personal and j)ar- tial issues, are httle to our taste, and of little fruitfulness. We presume that neither the Presbyterian nor the Methodist pul)lic is much interested in that thesis which Dr. Bledsoe pursues with
214 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
SO niticli zeal and pleasure, viz., that liis critic is silly and igno- rant. It is more important to settle the question, whether Dr. Bledsoe's way of asserting the contingency of all responsiljle voli- tions is any more A-alid than the old way, which, he admits, Ed- wards has demolished.
Before we proceed, however, to this main object, Ave wish to show the reader with how much violence our author is in the habit of contradicting himself and the truth. Our purpose is not so mvich to enjoy our reasonable self-defence against his accusations, as to convince of the real incoherency of Dr. Bled- soe's theory. He contradicts himself because the positions he wishes to occupy are contradictory, and the candor and vigor of his own spirit precipitate him into the pitfalls he has prepared for himself.
Thus, Ave are much berated for representing him as holding that the mind is the efficient or the cause of its OAvn volitions. He tells us that he has asserted the contrary. The latter is per- fectly true, both of his books and his Heoiew. Thus, in the latter, p. 11 : " All . . . must admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause. . . . It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of tlie human mind." And p. 20: "What he (Dr. Bledsoe) really denies is, that there %8 anytli'mg, either in the mind or out of the mind, xolilcli pro- duces volition^ This is clear enough. But in Section lY. of the Examination of Edwards, and in the lieoiew, p. 16, he finds himself face to face with the inevitable maxim, E-n nihilo nihil; and he admits the absurdity of a change, either in mind or matter, "Avithout any parentage AA'hatever." It is easy to an- ticipate that the stress of his own common sense must precipi- tate him into the opposite declarations which we ascribed to him, and it accordingly does so more than once. Thus, on the very page cited (16th), "Volition never comes of itself at all ; it comes ofmind.^^ "Volition ahvays has its parentage in mind." Is not a "parent" a came to its own offspring? On the same page, he angrily declares he has not denied that " volitions haA^e any efficient cause or antecedent ofanyl'ind." On p. 21 he de- clares that original concupiscence, " caused " by Adam's fall, Avhile not itself sinful, is the " soiirce " of all men's sin, and leads uni- formly to sin. On page 14 he assures us that he, along Avith all
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 215
tlie advocates of free agency he ever heard of, has maintained -always "that the onbid is the cause of volition." So also in his Examination of Edwards, we find him saying, p. 47, " Under cer- tain circumstances, the free mind will furnish a sufficient reason and ground of the existence of a volition." Page 48 : "I do not denv that it (volition) depends for its production upon certain cir- cumstances, as the conditions of action, and upon the powees of THE MIND." Page 71 : " It is true that President Edwards tells Tis of those who ' imagine that volition has no cause, or that it produces itself.' . . . But whoever held such a doctrine? . . . I have never been so unfortunate as to meet with any advocate of free agency, either in actual life or in history, who supposed that a volition arose out of nothing, wdthout any cause of its ex- istence, or that it produced itself. They have all maintained, with one consent, that tJie mind is the cause of volition. Is the mind nothing ? "
We now ask the candid reader, does not this last passage mean that the mind is the producing cause of it ? Again, when Dr. Bled- soe says that volition has "its parentage" of the mind, that de- pravity is the "source" of all sins, has he not said in substance, what in another place cited above he has said in words, that the mind is the efficient cause of volitions ? Is not the cause which produces a thing efficient thereof ? If Dr. Bledsoe desires to use words without sense, he must excuse us ; we cannot follow him. If he now means to say that his own words, "the mind is 'the cause ' of its volitions," are meaningless, it is his only excuse, but a very poor one. It is perfectly true that he does contradict himself by stating with the greatest perspicuity, and by arguing that volitions have no true cause, that they are not effects at all ; that they are contingent as to all antecedents whatsoever. But this — the stronghold of his philosophy of the will — is yet so utterly incompatible with consciousness and common sense, and w'ith his own admissions, that he cannot avoid declarations equally emphatic on the opposite side ; he slips into them by the mere force of nature.
Dr. Bledsoe complains again, that we do him great injustice in saying that he, hke many other analysts of mind, has failed to give proper weight to that decisive fact, the influence of dis- position, or habitus, on volitions. And yet in the same breath
216 THE rniLOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
he glories in asserting that he does not ascrihe any important in- fluence to that great fact. AYell, that is precisely what we charged and now charge on him as a fatal error. And when we come to test what he so modestly terms that " most careful, con- scientious, painstaking, and elaborate discussion," in the 15tli Sec- tion of his Exami)iatio7i , or 3d Chapter of his Tlieodlcy, in which he impotently endeavors to dispute — what his own common sense makes him in many places assert — that the mind's native dispositions are, and must be, regulative of its volitions, we shall show by tlie confusions and futility of that argument the full justice of the charge.
He also complains grievously of our charge, that in discuss- ing the efficiency of motive he fails to see and use the vital dis- tinction between the objective inducement and the subjective mo- tive. "\Ve now proceed to show that this our charge -is exactly true. This is clearly betrayed by the manner in which Dr. Bled- soe declaims about it, at this very place. {Iievieio, p, 42.) He assures us that he understands it perfectly, of course ; for he pro- ceeds to tells us, " this distinction has never been overlooked by anybody." ..." We have certainly never known any man or read any author who was so weak or so silly as to overlook such a distinction." But it is a well known fact in the history of philosophy, that the distinction between objective inducement and subjective motive, which we have in view, and of which we "Were speaking, has heen overlool'ed, and that hy all philosophers of the sensationalist schools. Hobbes overlooked it; Locke overlooked it ; so of course did Condillac and Helvetius ; so did all the fatalistic schools. Yet, more ; their very princi]:)les ne- cessitated that they should overlook it ; because, from their maxim, N'Juliii intellectu, quod noii jpr'ius hi sensu ; in other words, from their analysis of all subjective states of appetency into mere reflexive modifications of states of passive sensibility caused by the objective, they could not, as consistent thinkers, hold or use the distinction. This is notorious. Now, the above assertion of Dr. Bledsoe inevitably proves one of two things : either that he does not apx>reciate that important distinction as we hold it, or that he is ignorant of the ordinary history of philoso- phy. And it is very vain for him to endeavor now to prove his correct appreciation of the difierence between objective induce-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 217
ment and subjective motive, by citing to us, as he here does, sentences from his books, in which, wrapping both kinds of ante- cedents together, under the common promiscuous name of " mo- tive," he asserts of them all indiscriminately, that they are all not efficients, but mere occasions of volition. That very mode of assertion betrays the justice of our charge. But we shall not rest it here alone. Sometimes it is hard to " prove a negative." But one evidence in this case, of at least partial weight, is, that the Examination of Edwards may be searched through in vain for an articulate statement or application of the distinction. But more than this : numerous passages imply its rejection. To apprehend these, a word of explanation may be needed. The sensational theory of the soul's powers, with which both English and French psychology were so deeply tinged by the ascendency of Locke, traced all mental modifications, whether intellective or emotive, to the objective impressions. As with it all cognition was empirical, so all emotion was passion. The very language confounded the words. The outward impression on feeling was regarded as the cause of the emotions which followed. In some- what the same way as the blow caused the pain in the head of the man struck, so they conceived that the pain caused the re- sentment, and the resentment caused the volition to double tlio fist and strike back. Now, if this is the whole account of the emotions of this rational agent, his free agency is illusory. Be- sentment efficiently determined the volition to hit back ; pain from a blow caused the resentment ; the blow delivered by an- other man caused the pain. Thus, while the man struck acts as a sentient agent, he does not act as a self-determined rational one. He is but a sentient machine, Vvdiose acts are remotely but efficiently determined from without, not from within. The theory of the causative efficiency of motive, thus expounded, was a theory of fatalism. Such was that of Hobbes ; such that of all consistent sensationalists, as well as of theological fatahsts. But a more correct psychology supervened. Scholars grasped the all-important truth, all along practically assumed in the phil- osophy of the Bible, that the human soul has not only percipi- ent faculties and sensibilities, but, a priori, constitutive pow- ers of reason and appetency ; that in the emotive sphere of the soul's action, these appetencies and repulsions were inherent,
218 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITION.
subjective, and spontaneous ; not functions of passive sensibility, but functions of subjective activity, whose spontaneous move- ments are merely conditioned on, not caused by, the impressions on sensibility. And they saw, what the Bible had intimated, that it is these subjective desires and repulsions which are the true motives (motiva) of vohtions. It is this vital distinction which Sir William Hamilton makes under the terms sensibili- ties and conative powers; and he (erroneously) claims to have been the first to discriminate them clearly. One more impor- tant truth remains. The rational agent's "conative powers" do not move at haphazard; they have their regulative principle; and this, in every case, is the agent's subjective native disposi- tion, or habitus. In the order of causation, disposition is a pi'i- ori to the operation of inducement, and is not modified by it. It is not the pain of a blow which determines a given human soul to be resentful, but it is the preexisteut resentful disposi- tion which determines that man to resent a blow. It is not ap- plause which causes the spirited young man to desire fame, but it is the native, preesistent desire of fame which de- termines the young man to regard applause as an objective good. When an objective inducement becomes an occasion of an act of soul, as, for instance, a forgotten purse, of a servant's theft, the causative efficiency is not projected from the gold upon the thief's soul, but from the thief's covetous desire, as regulated by his evil disposition, upon the gold. This was established in our article of October last. Now, then, from the point of view of this Bible psychology, the rise of volition be- comes intelligible. Our consciousness had told us, on the one band, as against the sensationalist scheme of motive, that we are free agents ; that in all our deliberate and responsible voh- tions, our souls are self-determined. Our common sense and ex- perience had told us, on the other hand, that such volitions can- not be uncaused and contingent changes in the mind ; that the very notion of a rational volition is of one for which the man had a controlling reason ; or in other words, of one in which the motive efficiently prompted. It is because this distinction be- tween subjective motive and objective occasion of choice has not been clearly held to, that nearly all the confusions in the argu- ment have arisen. The gi'eat treatise of Edwards, while ou the
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 219
right side, is by no means free from this confusion. All the ar- guments of Eeid — on the Active Powers — against the moral ne- cessity of volitions, are occasioned by this confusion ; and they have force, just so far as they are aimed against the sensation- xilist view, which makes the passive sensibility the efficient mo- tive. So, the whole force of Dr. Bledsoe's reasonings against Edwards — so far as they have any force — is from this mingling of the sensationalist theory of necessity with the true theory of certainty, which views volition as the effect of subjective motive. It is certainly true that Dr. Bledsoe blindly opposes both sys- tems, the correct one and its sensationalist travesty. But the question is, has he intelligently discriminated therein, and has he seen the decisive consequence of that discrimination ? We again affirm, lie has not; and we proceed to affirmative proofs from his own works.
Thus, Examination of Edwards, p. 40, line 2, Dr. Bledsoe says : " The strength of a motive, as President Edwards properly remarks, depends upon the state of the mind to which it is addressed." There is another fatal admission here, which we reserve. Now, manifestly, Dr. Bledsoe, like Edwards, con- founds motive with objective inducement. Their "motive" is something which "is addressed to the mind." That tells the whole story; it is the objective inducement! He argues in Titter obliviousness that the real "motive" is not the thing "addressed to the mind," but the subjective appetency deter- mined by the "state of the mind" to which the object is ad- dressed.
So, p. 75, line 7: "A mind, an object, and a desire, if j^ou please, are the indispensable prerequisites, the invariable ante- cedents to volition; but there is a vast chasm between this posi- tion and the doctrine that the mind cannot put forth a volition unless it is made to do so by the action of something else uponitr Here, again, Dr. Bledsoe betrays the fact fatally that he does not perceive what the Calvinist means by efficient motive. He thinks that we mean the objective — the " something else " than the mind, that is supposed to "act iipoii it." He is lighting blindly. This passage also presents another proof of this : that, like so many others in all his writings, it confuses together objective induce- ment and subjective desire, as all alike not "causes" but " condi-
220 THE PHILOSOPHY OF YOLITION.
iiofis'' of volitions. Had lie seen tlie proper distinctlou, lie •would never have spoken tlius ; lie would have said that the objective is tlie one thing, namely, the condition only, and the subjective de- sire is the opposite thing only, namely, the cause.
On p. 89, again, the author fails to apprehend the true doc- trine in the same "way: "External objects are regarded as the- efficient causes of desire ; desire as the efficient cause of volition ; and in this way the whole question seems to be settled." That- is to sav, Dr. Bledsoe has still no other apprehension of our doc- trine than that of the sensationalist. He thinks that we think desires are efficknthj caused by external objects! He has not gotten out of the delusion that the desires which we hold prompt volitions, are functions of the passive sensibility ; and this is the doctrine which he opposes. And how does the reader suppose Dr. Bledsoe designs to fight it ? By attacking the second link of what he erroneously supposes to be the Calvinist's chain ; by denying what ho grants every other asserter of free will, besides^ himself, has held ; by denying that such desires have any effi- ciency as causes of volition ! Thus, p. 92 : "Our desires or emo- tions might be under the influence and dominion of external causes, or of causes that are partly external and partly internal ; but yet our volitions would lie perfectly free from all preceding influences whatever." Thus, it appears plainly, he is still in the dark. For, we do not hold that our desires or subjectiTO emo- tions are " under the influence and dominion of external causes.'* We hold that they arise from within, are functions of the soul's. own spontaneity, and efficiently regulated by the soul's own per- manent /tahitus.
On p. 97, again, the same confusion appears. Dr. Bledsoe asks, " Is it true, then, that any power or efficacy belongs to the sensitive or emotive joai-t of our nature?" So, on pp. 99, 100, Dr. Bledsoe cannot accept that law so beautifully expounded by Bishop Butler, that while our passive impressions become blunter fi-om habitual action {jyjiis^ietudo), our active principles become stronger. What is his difficulty about it? He tells us that he cannot see how, when the passive function of sensibility is weakening, the effect thereof can be increasing. Still he is in the same fog; he supposes our active desires to be mere func- tions of passive sensibility. "We cro^vTi our proof with Dr. Bled-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 221
«oe's concluding -words, p. 102 : " The trutli is, that in feeling the mind is passive ; and it is absurd to make a passive impression the active cause of anything. The sensibility does not act, it merely suffers. The appetite and passions, which have always iDeen called the 'active powers,' the 'moving principles,' and so forth, should be called the passive susceptibilities. Unless this truth be clearly and fully recognized, and the commonly received notion respecting the relation which the appetites and passions sustain to the will — to the active poioer — be discarded, it seems to me that the great doctrine of the liberty of the -will must con- tinue to be involved in the saddest perplexity, the most distress- ing darkness."
It would not be hard to add many other proofs, as at page 182 (top), but they are superfluous. It is Dr. Bledsoe ^Yho is in "distressing darkness." He has mingled together the functions of conation and sensibility in inextricable confusion, and hence can see no light. The very passage in the TJieodlcy to which Dr. Bledsoe so confidently appeals to show that he does a2)j)re- ciate the vital relations of native, subjective disposition, and of cubjectivo appetency to volition, betrays an ignorance and blind- ness about the whole truth that are simply pitiable. Does he {Tlieodicy, pp. 173-4) distribute the powers of the mind into "intelligence, sensibility and will?" Tes. But by "will" he means exclusively here, not Hamilton's " conative powers," not what the Calvinists mean by "will " in its wider sense, the whole subjective activities, including disposition and subjective desires leading to vohtion ; no ; but simply and nakedly, the power of choosing, the volition-making power. Either he is ignorr.nt of the main drift of our meaning, or he discards it. Then he tells us every act of the intelligence is merely passive. And "erc/'y state of the sensihility is a 2y(issii:e imjyresslon.f^ Then comes volition, efficiently produced by nothing, within or without the mind, always contingent. These are the only antecedents of free volition of which Dr. Bledsoe knows anything! The Al- mighty may necessitate states of intelligence — mere passivities — \>y his agency in providence or regeneration, if he pleases. But he has not thereby communicated either necessity or even cer- tainty of a single right volition in the neAv-born creatui'e; for those states are only antecedent occasions, not efficients of
222 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
volition. God may have new created the heart, bvit the mau may still make every volition a sin, if he chooses!
One more of Dr. Bledsoe's complaints of unfairness remains to be noticed. This is, that toe assert his philosojyJiy to he virtualhj Pelagian. This charge we did undoubtedly make, and intend to repeat. Now, Pelagius and Celestius taught sundry dogmas, such as baptismal redemption, monkery, the existence of unre- deemed infants dying in infancy in a happy eternal state which yet is not the Christian's heaven, which Dr. Bledsoe does not hold ; nor does the veriest Socinian on whose modern shoulders Pelagius's own mantle has fallen, hold them. They are as anti- quated as the Ptolemaic astronomy. These ancient heretics, again, carried out their erroneous first principles with a symme- trical consistency in some results which we never dreamed of ascribing to Dr. Bledsoe; we do him no such injustice. In these senses he is, if he will prefer it so, no Pelagian. But in church history Pelagianism is a given, definite code of doctrines in philosophy and theology, clustering around certain hinge- propositions. These hinge-propositions granted, the essential body of the system follows for all consistent minds. What wo mean by calling Dr. Bledsoe a virtual Pelagian is, then, this : that he asserts these hinge-propositions, and the more obvious and important of their consequences.
The central position of Pelagius and Celestius was this: 1, That volitions are contingent, and uncontrolled by any efficient antecedent, either in or out of the mind ; and that if they were not, man would neither be a free nor justly responsible agent. Accordingly, 2, They define sin and holiness as consisting only in sinful or right acts of soul. They hold, 3, That a natural or original sin or righteousness would be no sin or righteousness, because not chosen by the sotd in an originating act of choice. They also hold, 4, That responsibility is absolutely limited by ability, taking "ability" in its scientific sense. Hence, 5, Prime- val man did not have any positive moral character impressed on him at creation. If he had, not being the result of his own volition, it would have been as absolutely non-moral as the natural color of his hair. But he was innocent; i. e., in a state of harmless neutrality at the outset, and had to acquire his own positive moral character in his after career, by right
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 223
acts of choice. Hence, 6, Ko power, not even the Almighty, could determine or give certainty to man's free volitions con- sistently with the nature of his free agency. Hence, also, 7, There can be no such native immoral disposition as that which Calyinists call moral deprayity, inherited hj children from Adam, for, if original, it would not have originated in the child's act of choice, and so, woidd have been involuntary and non-moral. Children, therefore, however they may go astray into sin from evil example, are not actually born depraved. So also, 8, " con- cupiscence," an appetency for WTong not matured into pur- pose, although the occasion of sin, is not sin. And last, 9, The re-creation of a soul into holiness, in regeneration, would be incompatible with free agency ; hence, the gracious agency in regeneration is only suasive ; and the change of heart can be, essentially, no more than the sinner's putting forth a hearty volition to change his conduct. Such is the well-known out- line; it is not necessary to burden the page with an array of names of learned sound, to substantiate the statement. It will not be disputed by the well-informed. Our testimony is, that this is virtually Dr. Bledsoe's creed; and that it is not "Wes- leyan Arminianism. We shall let him speak mainly for him- sek
Now, as to the first position, hear him (Theodicy, p. 153) : "TVe lay it do-^Ti, then, as an established and fundamental po- sition, that the mind acts and puts forth volitions, without being caused to do so — without being impelled by its own prior action or by the prior action of anything else. ... It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human mind." Examina- tion of Edwards : "I think we should contend for a perfect indiff- erence, not in regard to feeling, but in regard to the -will." (P. 110.)
As to the second, it is enough to quote from the Itevieio, p. 28, these words : ^'Holiness consists in those things which 'are done^ hy us according to the will of God, and not in those things which he has giyen us." Can anything be more explicit?
On the third point Dr. Bledsoe is equally explicit. The whole loth section of his Examination of Edwards is but a distillation of this Pelagian heresy. Let this unmistakable sentence suffice, p. 198: "It strikes my mind with the force of self-eyident triith, that nothing can be our virtue, unless we are, in some sexise, the
224 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
author of it ; aud to affirm that a man may be justly praised or blamed, that he may be esteemed virtuous or vicious, ou account of what he has wholly aud exclusively received fi'om another, ajDpears to me to contradict one of the clearest dictates of reason."
That Dr. Bledsoe holds, with all his heart, the fourth Pelagian principle, is sufficiently evinced by this sentence from the E,varii~ illation of Edwards, p. 182 : " If my volitions are brought to pass by the strength and influence of motives, I am not respon- sible for them."
On the fifth point, our evidence is superabundant. jLCvieic, p. 28 : Dr. Bledsoe professes to quote, and adopts expressly these words of another : " "Was not primal man holy f . . .1 answer, innocent, l)ut not Jwlyy Exaininatlon of Edwards, p. 199: "I deny that Adam was created or brought into existence righteous." P. 198: "He is neither virtuous nor vicious, neither righteous nor sinful. This was the condition of Adam, as it very clearly appears to me, at the instant of his creation."
On the sixth point, may be quoted, along with many passages from the Theodicy, the following from the Heview, p. 34: "Be- hind this veil of words," (the phrase, "certainty of volitions," used by Calvinists,) " as thin as gossamer, we see the same old thing, the scheme of necessity, grinning upon us." This latter he declares impossible to be reconciled with free agency. And Heview p. 6, borrowing the words of another : " Therefore — with reverence be it spoken — the Almighty himself cannot do this thing."
On the seventh point. Dr. Bledsoe professes in some places to depart from the consistent Pelagian track. He says, p. 21, that he has always held, in direct opposition to Pelagius, that Adam's sin " caused the depravity of human nature ;" and that, while "Adam was created upright, in the image of God," "in- fants are born with a fallen and depraved nature, and can there- fore never be saved, without the regenerating grace of the Ho- ly Spirit." Let us pause here a moment, to illustrate the inten- sity of his self-contradiction, both in thought and word. In this point, he is not, according to his present assertion, a Pela- gian ; but it is absolute absurdity that he, with his positions, is not a Pelagian here, as in other things. Let the reader note, first, the flat verbal contradiction. Ou the last page, "Adam
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITION. 225
was not created liolv," only innocent. "I deny tliat Adam was brought into existence righteous." But now, lo! "Adam was created upright." Does not "upright" mean "righteous"? or is there some miserable jugglery in the interchange of these synonyms ? But, second, Dr. Bledsoe has no business believing that infants are born with a fallen and depraved nature. For, according to his own clearest doctrine, on the last page, any quality which is original, cannot he a moral quahty, not being the acquirement of the agent's own undetermined electing act. Any mind that can put two and two together will see that Dr. Bledsoe is bound to follow his leader here also. Again, he has " dinned into us " his heresy — thoroughly Pelagian — that if a vo- lition is caused efficiently hy anything^ in the man or without, it is not free. Then, it is impossible that a free agent can have a native principle certainly causative of sinful acts ; because, ac- cording to Dr. Bledsoe, such acts would not be free. Hence, this doctrine of a depravity which is the " source " of all man's er- rors, is, in his mouth, utter contradiction and absurdity. Again, Dr. Bledsoe cannot hold that sinners have native depravity and need salvation by grace, as he has said, p. 21, lievieiv, because, in strict accordance with his philosophy, he has assured us, again and again, to the contrary. Thus, lievieio, Jan., 1875, p. 97: "New born infants deserve no punishment at all." April, 1874, p. 353 : " TJie omnipotence of God him^self cannot tal'e uicay our sins and turn iis to himself without our voluntary ■consent and co-op&ration. Does the dying infant give that volun- tary, 7'ational consent and co-oj)erat'wn f " Of course not ; it is in- capable of it. Then either it has no original depravity, or, dying in h fancy, it must, according to Dr. Bledsoe, inevitably he damned hy it. Let him be honest, then, and either go to the Pelagian ground, where he properly belongs, or else admit himself a be- liever in universal infant damnation. Now, let the reader pause and weigh for himself the inexorable logic of this dilemma. When lie has done so, he will say it is vain for Dr. Bledsoe, according to his wont, to wiithe and roar, to scold and vituperate, in the liope of hiding his agony.
On the eighth point, Dr. Bledsoe so "glories in his shame" that it is almost superfluous to quote evidence that he does not think concupiscence is sin. But, as further illustrating his con-
226 THE rniLosoPHY of yolitiox.
sistency, \\e quote Rccieir, January, 1877, p. 24: "Dr. Dabney says that we appeal to our philosophy 'to deny the sinfulness of original concupiscence.' We do no such thing. We appeal to our consciousness, to the consciousness of all men, and not to any philosophy "u-hatever, to show that a new horn infant is not shi- falj or deserving of punishment, on account of what it brings into the world with it." Yet, he had said, p. 21, that it is born depraved ! He then goes on to assert, in manifold terms, that concupiscence is not sin. He is even rash enough to qiiote Au- gustine ^ as holding with him.
On the ninth point of the Pelagian scheme which I have men- tioned, Dr. Bledsoe, according to that method of absolute self- contradiction which is the chief trait of his philosophy, is both on the Pelagian side and the opposite. Consistency would re- quire him to be aU the time on the Pelagian side. If, as he so often holds, volition cannot l>e caused by anything, either in the
' That Augustine did not exclude concupiscence from his definition of sin is evi- dent from many passages of his "writings against the Pelagians; one of which we shall quote from the very treatise cited by Dr. Bledsoe, Contra duas EpisUdus Pela- gianorum, Lib. I., Cap. 10: "Magis enim se dicit (Paulus, ILom. vii. 16), legi cou- sentire quam carnis concupiscentife. Haneemmpeccati 7iomi7ie ap-peWat." In chap- ter thirteen of the same book there is a passage which will, perhaps, account for the mistake into which Dr. Eledsoe has fallen. Augustine is explaining in what sense concupiscence in the baptized may be called sin and yet not sin : " Sed ha?c (concu- piscentia) ctiamsi vocatur peccatum, non utique quia peccatum est, sed c^uiapeccato facta est, sic vocatur: sicut scriptura manus cujusque dicitur, quod manus earn fec- erit. Peccata autem sunt, qu.se secundum carnis concupiscentiam vel iguorantiam illicite fiunt, dicuntur, cogitantur ; quie transacta etiam nos teueut, si non remittan- tur. Et ista ipsa carnis concupiscentia, in baptismo sic dimittitur, ut quamvis tracta Bit a nascentibus, nihil noceat renascentibus "
So also in his De Xup. et Coneup, I. 26 : "In eis, qui regenerantur in Christo, cum remissiouem accipiunt prorsus omnium peccatorum, utique necesse est, ut reatits etiam hujus licet adhuc maneutis concupiscentuB remittatur; manet aciu, praeteriit reatu.'" This is almost identical (allowing for the clearer views of Luther and Melanchthon on the subject of justification as a forensic act) with the statement of the Apology for the Augsburg Confession, Art. I. (See Hase's EwjigeliscJi-Pro- test. Dog77iatik, p. 75.) "Lutherus semper ita scripsit, quod baptismus tollat reatum peecati originahs, etiamsi materiale peccati maneat, yiAelicii concupiscentia. AdJidit etiam de materiali quod Spiritus Sauctus, datus per baptismum, incipit mortificare concupiscentiam. " Melanchthon, more than once in the Apology says that Augustine is accustomed to define "peccatum originis concupiscieutiam esse."
Dr. Bledsoe, it would seem, has taken a limited statement (and that not under- stood) in regard to concupiscence in the regenerate, as if it were designed to be universal.
THE PHILOSOrHY OF YOLITION. 227
mind or out of it ; if all antecedent states, wliotlier of intelligence or emotion (the only emotions he kno^vs of being passive impres- sions or sensibilities), however they mar be determined by om- nipotence itself, still bear to volitions no otiier relations than that of conditions and not efficients ; then Pelagius' view is the only possible one. There can be no other regeneration than a moral suasion resulting in a contingent and mutable change of choices as to sin and righteousness. And when Dr. Bledsoe is fighting a Calvinist, he is virtually in this position. He denies that there is or can be a necessitated holiness ; and by this denial he makes us clearly see he means to deny the possibility of God's propagating in a free agent any such subjective state as would be followed with efficient certainty by any given kind of volitions. He also travesties the Bible doctrine of regeneration — showing again that he does not understand it — as God's directly and ne- cesssivily producing the volitions of the new born man. "Whereas the Bible doctrine is, that God efficiently produces tlie holy dis- 2)osition which regulates the man's volitions. When he w^ould fain cleanse himself from the slough of Pelagianism, he paints to himself a regeneration which consists in God's efficiently creat- ing in the man new views of truth in the intelligence and new acts of sensibility. But on this monstrosity we have sundry remarks to make. One is, that Dr. Bledsoe declares all the time, these new views and feelings God has produced are but mere pas- sive functions of soul ; and again, that volitions are, after all, uncaused by them. Then, of course, such impressions, however far omnipotence might carry them, would constitute no moral change of tl\e soul. And we have, after all, no certainty of any new conduct from the new born man. If each volition arises uncaused, contingent, connected by no tie of efficiency with any antecedent state or act of mind, then all the volitions possibly may ; so that we might have this monster : a man thoroughly re- generated by Omnipotence, and yet happening to choose to do' nothing but sin ! Our second remark is, that this scheme of re- generation, if it amounted to anything, would make the converted man a mere machine. It is entirely too necessitarian for us Cal- vinists! The states which, are the necessary antecedent condi- tions— not causes, according to Dr. Bledsoe — of all his regene- rate volitions, are mere functions of passivity. So far as those-
228 THE PHILOSOPHY OP YOLITION.
volitions liave any connection or character at all, it is with impressions, in which the soul is tnerdy jJC ■'<■•<'"'<' •' Thus, true spontaneit"«^ is left out ; it is entirely too mechanical for its Cal- vinists.
But Dr. Bledsoe appeals to his friend AYiggers {Augustinian- isiii aud Pelagianism), who is himself Pelagian in tendency, and who helped him so much in writing his Theodicy, to sIioav what Pelagianism really is. Well, Wiggers' showing is pretty just, so far as it goes, but it is incomplete and superficial. It must be borne in mind that this system of error, like every other system of error or truth of human origin, was not fully developed by its inventors. Pelagius and Celestius did not establish all the regular parts and corollaries of their heresy, any more than Copernicus developed all the laws of that planetary system called Copernican. But from the premises which Pelagius gave the rest grew, in the ulterior discussion, by a logical necessity ; and thus the system known as Pelagianism came into the history of theologv. Every one who thinks connectedly, whether he be friend or enemy of that system, recognizes the vital members of the system as belonging to it. Dr. Bledsoe quotes "\Mggers^ as saving that the results of Pelagianism condemned by the General Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431 — (wasn't that the " Robber Coun- cil " ?) — were seven. !Now, first, we have not been speaking of the results, but of the principles of the system ; and second, these were very far from being all the results of Pelagianism de- bated in the church. But some of these propositions Dr. Bled- soe says he holds ; some he both holds and rejects, as we have seen ; and all of them he would hold, if he had the logic and consistency of the early Pelagians. Thus, he assures us he does not think Adam's body would have died, whether he had sinned or not. He would be much more consistent if ho did think so ; for he thinks that millions of infants die avIio have no sin, original or actual. Why not Adam too ?
Nor can w-e see why Dr. Bledsoe should repudiate the sixth and seventh results of Pelagius : that the law, as well as the gos- pel, may be a means of salvation; and that men wdthout the gospel may in some cases practice true godhness, and go to heaven. For upon his theory of free will, why should not these volitions, which are always loose from all efficient control, hap-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 229
pen sometimes to be riglit ? And none but a Calvinist can con- sistently liold it certain that no Jew nor Pagan can serve God be- cause be knows no gospel ; for tbis would make him responsible for volitions wbicli arise witb certainty. The only reason then^ that Dr. Bledsoe disclaims these " results " is that he does not think consistently.
In dismissing this part of the discussion, we beg the reader especially to note Dr. Bledsoe's positive claim that he holds the '\\'esleyan theology. This we shall now effectually explode. On pp. 24-25, of his Jievieio he concludes, sustained by the suf- frages of a wondrous theologian, in the form of a Presbyterian young lady, that he knows intuitively no one is responsible for his native depravity ; and he tells us in the same connection, that it is also an intuitive datum of his, that concupiscence is not sinful. " This," he exclaims, with ardor, " is our Methodism
born with John Wesley in the 3-ear of our Lord 1788."
Kow, Dr. Bledsoe is very right in his chronology, so far as that his doctrine was " born " long since the days of inspiration. But we utterly dispute that it is Methodism, or was born with John Wesley. Xo. This is his Pelagianism, " born " in the fifth century. Hear David, in the 51st Psalm, Tepenthig because he was shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin. Hear Christ say, John iii. 6 : " That which is born of the flesh is flesh." Hear Paul, Eph. ii. 8 : " We were by nature children of wrath." Is God angry with what is not sinful ? Who knows best what is guilty, God, or that wonderful " Presbj'terian young lady ? " And when we hear Wesley, "we find that he has as little to do with the paternity of Dr. Bledsoe's doctrine as the Bible has. Doctrinal Tracts^ P^^g© 251 : *' It has already been proved that this original stain cleaves to every child of man, and that Tiereby they are children of wrath and liable to eternal damnation." Says Dr. Bledsoe, BevieiL\ p. 21 : "xA. neio horn infant is not s'ui' fid, or deserving of 2^'^>dislinunt''' Says Wesley, it is, by reason of its original depravity, " a child of wrath, and Halle to eternal damnation.'" Wesley, on Original Sin, first British edition, pp. 155, 156 : " Now, this bias of the will is certainhj evil arul sinfuly and hateful to God ; whether we have contracted it ourselves, or whether we derive it from Adam, makes no difference." .... " Therefore the inference, 'if natural, and, in some sense, neces-
230 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITIOX.
sarv, then no sin,' does l>y no oneans hold.'''' Dr. Bledsoe asserts that if it be natural, and in any sense necessary, it is no sin. "Wesley adds : " This doctrine has been held, ... so far as we can learn, in every church under heaven, at least from the time that God spake by Moses." Alas for Dr. Bledsoe, Wesley dis- cards him; says to him : " I never knew you." Let him novr launch some of his scornful invective at the great founder of Methodism. "W'e wait to hear the thunder. Many proofs, equally explicit, might be collected from Wesley On Original
Sin.
On page 27 of his JiCcieiL', as in the fifteenth section of his Examination of EJira/'ds, Dr. Bledsoe asserts in its baldest form that most characteristic Pelagian principle, that Adam was not made holy, but only innocent, which he explains as meaning, neither positively righteous nor sinful ; that no moral agent can have such positive initial righteousness ; because such a state, if possessed, not being freely chosen by an act of will, would be no moral state at all. He proceeds, page 27 : " Probation is the necessary antecedent to the only means of attaining moral free- dom or holiness." On tins heresy we remark, first : Scripture says, Luke i. 35 : " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee ; . . . therefore, also, that holy thing lohich sitall he lorn of thee, shall be called the Son of God." Here was a thing holy hefore a 2rro- lation, horn holy. It was not the eternal Word, for that was not born of Mary ; it was the humanity of the Messiah. This sim- ple but terrible antithesis should be enough to open our author's eyes to the depth of his Pelagianism ! In fact, his o^-n propo- sition, as stated by himself, does articulately dispute the possi- bility of our Redeemer's being by nature a holy free agent. But this is the common faith of all churches, and the corner- stone of our salvation. We now prove that Dr. Bledsoe's Wesleyan authorities are as dead against him as is the Bible, and the church of all ages. Thus :
When Dr. Taylor, of Xor^^-ich, a recognized modern Pelagian, said, exactly according to Dr. Bledsoe's philosophy: ''Nature cannot be morally eoj-rupted, but by the choice of a moral agent "
Wesley's reply is in these emphatic words: "You may play
upon words as long as you please, but still I hold this fast : I, and vou too, whether you vdU own it or no, am inclined, a,nd „as
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITION. 231
ever since I can remember, antecedently to any cJioice of my own, to pride, revenge, idolatry." Isn't Dr. Bledsoe also evidently in- clined to the first two? "If voii will not call these moral cor^ Tvj)t}ons, call them just what yon will. But the fact I am as W'ell assured of as that I have memory or understanding." {^Original Sin, pp. 193, 194.)
Dr. Taylor, in accordance with Dr. Bledsoe's philosophy, had said : " It is absolutely necessary, before any creature can be a subject of this" (God's peculiar kingdom), " that it learn to em- ploy and exercise its powers suitably to the nature of them." Says Wesley: ^' It is not necessary.''^ .... " But it must appear extremely absurd to those wlio believe God can create spirits, both wise and holy ; that he can stamp any creature with what measure of holiness he sees good, at the first moment of its ex- istence." . . . "Just in the same manner you" (Taylor) "go on: * Our first parents in Paradise were to form their minds to an habitual subjection to the law of God, without w hich they could not be received into his spiritual kingdom.' This runs upon the same mistaken supposition, that God could not create tJieni holy. Certainly Jia could, and d'uir (Pp. 221, 223.) Says Taylor, the Pelagian, like Dr. Bledsoe : " Blyldeousness is rigli t action^ Says "^Vesley : " Indeed, it is not. Here, as we said before, is a funda- mental mistake. It is a rigid state of mind, which differs from right action as the cause does feom the effect. Eighteousness io properly and directly a right temper or disj)osition of mind, or a complex of all right tempers." Wesley here, at one trenchant blow, demoUshes Dr. Bledsoe's whole philosophy of the will, and teaches with the Bible and all orthodox Christians of all churches, that right volitions are not uncaused; but the ^^ effects'' ^^ caused'''' by holy dispositions acting a priori to the volitions. (P. 286.) And says Wesley in conclusion, p. 291: "From all this it may appear, that the doctrine of origincd rigliteousness, as w^ell as that of original si/i, hath a firm foundation in Scripture, as weU as in the attributes of a wise, holy and gracious God."
This express contradiction of Wesley himself leaves j)oor Dr. Bledsoe's " Methodism " in a pitiable plight. We have one more Methodist authority, which is, if possible, still more damaging^ that of Mr. Eichard Watson's T/ieolog. Institute.^, Pt. IL, Ch. 18, Fall of Man, Doctrine of Original /Sin. Having stated pre-
232 THE THILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
cisely the doctrine of Dr. Bledsoe and the Pelagians, lie proceeds to refute it thus : " If, however, it has been established that God made man ' upright ; ' that he was created in ' knowledge, right- eousness, and true holiness,' and that at his creation he was pro- nounced ' verij good; ' all this" \yiz. Dr. Bledsoe's theory of voli- tion] " falls to the ground, and is the vain reasoning of man against the explicit testimony of God. The fallacy is, however, easily detected. It lies in confounding * luilj'ds of holiness ' with the principle of holiness. Now, though habit is the result of acts, and acts of voluntary choice, yet, if the choice be a right one — and right it must be in order to be an act of holiness — and if this right choice, frequently exerted, produces so many acts as shall form what is called a habit, then either the principle from which that right choice arises must be good or bad, or neither. If neither, a right choice has no cause at all ; if bad, a right choice could not originate from it ; if good, then there may be a holy principle in man, a right nature before choice ; and so, that part of the argument falls to the ground. Wow, in Adam, that recti- tude of princ'tjjle fro7n loJdcli a rigid choice and right acts Jlowed, was either created with him, or formed hy his own volitions. If the latter he affirmed, then he must have willed right hefore he had a princijple of rectiUide, which is absurd; if the former, then his creation in a state of vwrcd rectitude toith an aptitude and dis- position to good, is established''' The author then sustains the truth by citing similar arguments from "Wesley and President Edwards.
Now this book is one of the text books of the Wesleyan min- istry. The words we have quoted from it, which are worthy of being written in gold, give, with unanswerable precision, the very argument we advanced in our Beview of October last, pp. 651, 656. The reader is referred to the discussion there, in which we established by the same logic and by unanswerable Scriptures, this doctrine of the Christian churches. Dr. Bledsoe, in his reply, took good care not to venture near that part of our argument. Let it be also noted how scornfully and utterly Wesley and "Watson here cast away his pet theory of the will. The latter states the idea, "a right choice has no cause at all," Dr. Bledsoe's very theory, as a self-evident absurdity, which he uses to reduce his opponent to a ruinous dilemma. Botli of them teach expressly
THE PHILOSOPHY OF YOLITION. 233
and by constant implication, that holy dispositions are the effi- cient cause of right Tolitions. We have seen Wesley declare that Dr. Taylor's theory about volition, which is Dr. Bledsoe's, is his ^\fundamental nnistake.''' Is Dr. Bledsoe a Wesleyan? or, like Taylor, a Pelagian ?
The sophism which underlies this fundamental mistake is so mischievous, and has evidently so completely deceived Dr. Bledsoe, that although we explained it briefly in our October No., p. 652 (top), it is worthy of further illustration. The old sophism is, that a man cannot be responsible for a disposition with which he is endued by nature ; because we intuitively judge that tee can^ not 1)6 responsihle for vjliat is hivoluntary. The answer is, that in the sense of that intuition, a maviS own native disposition is vol- vntary with hhn. Nobody constrains him to feel it, or yield to it ; he feels it of himself ; he yields to it of himself. The meaning of the proposition, " a man is not responsible for what is involun- tary," as our common sense assents to it, is this : A man is not respons'Me for lohat hefalls him against his own sincere volition ; that is all. Now, will Dr. Bledsoe be rash enough to say that a man's natural disposition actuates him against his own sincere volition ? that the naturally envious man, for instance, is actu- ated by his own envious disposition, against his own hearty volition? Hardly. Nature does not act against itself. Dr. Bledsoe seems very strangely to jump to the conclusion, that, because we do not elect beforehand our natural dispositions, therefore we do not have them voluntarily, and oiTght not to be held responsible about them at all. He cannot see the simple truth, that this native disposition being the mnans own, its influ- ence is as really a function of his spontaneity as any volition could be, even on Dr. Bledsoe's extreme theory. Now, one simple question will clear away his confusion. May not a man's free preference accept and adopt that which nature gave him, just as much as though he had first elected the quality and procured it for himself ? For example, here is a young gentle- man who has a very nice brown beard. How does he like it himself ? Extremely well ; indeed he altogether prefers and ad- mires it, and quite prides himself on it. But whence did he get it? Shall we insinuate that it is the work of his own volition? (by the aid of a hair-dye ?) Oh ! no. Natui'e gave it to him ;
23-1 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
dan that is one essential ground wliy lie is proud of it! So we see how entirely possible it is that a quality which one did not acquire hy an act of choice may yet be most entirely his free^ sponta?ieous preference. Once more. "We beg our young gen- tleman's pardon for supposing — merely for argument's sake — that he has the most frightfid "carroty red" beard, and — what is not at all impossible — that he is very foohshly and heartily proud of that same beard. Do not aU the young ladies judge him to be therein guilty of " shockingly bad taste ? " Of course. Dr. Bledsoe would come to his defence with his Pelagian logic and would argue that, inasmuch as his yoimg gentleman had not voluntarily dyed his beard carroty red — but naughty Dame Nature had done it for him — therefore his perverse Hking for it must be involuntary ; and so it is no violation of any principle of taste. But none of the young ladies would beheve him ; their common sense would show them that this perverse pride in the carroty red was just as spontaneous and free as though the fop had dyed the fair brown beard red "on purpose." Let the reader apply this parable to man's native moral disposition, and he will see that, although they be native, yet are we as free and responsible in them as though we had first procured them by a volition.
Once more. Dr. Bledsoe is much aggrieved by our saving that the result of his Theodicy is, that God admitted sin into his universe hecause he could not Jielj) it. On page 23 of his lieviev:, he exclaims that to hold such an opinion of God would be virtual atheism. And he urges, page 24, that the very gist of his theory is, that no one ought to discuss the question "why God permitted sin,'" because, in fact, he does not permit it at all. That this last is a play upon words only, and that he does teach substantially that God cannot help men's sinning if they choose. Dr. Bledsoe shall himself prove. He beheves that sin is here, and that it is not God's choice that it should be here. (See Theodicy, pp. 197 and 199.) He sees that sin ^'vydl raise its hideous head ; but he does not say, ' So let it be.' No ; sin is the thing which God hates, and which he is determined , by all means within the reach of his omnipotence, utterly to root out and destroy." It is here. God does not consent to it, but is determined, as far as he can, " xdterly to root it out." Yet it
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 235
will always be (/. e., iu hell). Now, we ask any plain mind, has not Dr. Bledsoe, iu saying these threo things, substantial!}^ said, that siu enters, because God cannot help it? Again, ho says, "with much iteration, *' Haying created a world of moral agents ... it was impossible for him to prevent sin," etc., etc. " He could not prevent such a thing." How much difference is there between this, and our " could not help it ? " The candid reader will see none. And as to the question, whether it is correct to say God has " permitted sin," this, even after Dr. Bledsoe has robbed him of his omnipotence, is a mere verbal quibble. "WTien he says we must not speak of God as "j)er- mitting" siu, he is merely asserting that the word is always the synonym of consent to from j^reference. Of course God does not consent to sin, out of preference for sin itself ; and if that is the only meaning of "permit," then God does not "permit sin." But wise men "permit" many things which they do not prefer. This use of the word is undisputed. And since we do not, like Dr. Bledsoe, rob God of his omnipotence over rational free agents, when we see him, for instance, permitting an archangel ■ — Satan — to sin, and we know that his omnipotence would have enabled him to sustain Satan in holiness, even as it sustains Gabriel, then we are certain that we are right in saying God permits sin, while he does not for its own sake prefer it.
Had Dr. Bledsoe considered a little, he would not have robbed God of his almightiness in the interest of a false speculation. He would have seen these consequences. If God, " ha^-ing cre- ated a world of moral agents, .... could not prevent such a thing," then, first, there is no certain encouragement for sinners to pray to God for grace ; and, second, there is no cei-tainty that God can keep sin out of heaven. Are not angels and saints in heaven free moral agents ? If God was " determined, by all the means within the reach of his omnipotence," to root sin out of this world, and has failed^ may he not also fail to keep it out of the heavenly world ? Dr. Bledsoe cannot evade this by any of his expedients. Thus, his w^ork, instead of being "a Theodicy,'^ spreads the pall of despair over the kingdoms both of grace and glory.
We now approach the second part of our uudeitaking — the more articulate discussion of Dr. Bledsoe's special theory of
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free agency. He charges us witli a deliuqueucy in not dis- cussing it formally in our niimber of October last, where we^ did not propose, nor undertake, to do it. We shall now repair that omission, but in a manner which, we surmise, will contri- bute very little to his contentment. Other inducements to this discussion exist in the fundamental importance of the doctrine of free agenc}-, and in the relation between Dr. Bledsoe's theory of it and all his other theological lucubrations. He seems to- suppose that we evaded the task of arguing for our view, imder the pretext of such discussions being supei-fluous for Presb}i;e- rian readers, when in fact we knew that his mighty logic in th& .Examination of Edwards had already demolished all the Cal- viuistic arguments ! The reader shall see. The method we pro- pose is, to define carefully our theory of free agency, and then to prove it. We shall then be prepared to entertain Dr. Bledsoe's rival theory, and weigh its contents — if there be any.
First, then, the question between us is not whether man is a real free agent, or whether consciousness testifies that we are, or whether such real free agency is essential to jiist responsi- bihty. We believe the affirmative of all these as fully as Dr, Bledsoe ; and when he represents the debate as between those who hold to a real and conscious free agency and those who dispute it, he misrepresents us. The question is, not whether a real free agency is, but only what it is.
Second, The word " will " has been often used in a broad, and also in a narrow sense. In the broad sense, it is what the Scrij)tnre popularly calls " the heart," or what Sir W. Hamilton calls the " conative," or Dr. McCosh the " optative " powers. This is the sense in which Calvinistic writers use the word " will," when they distribute the powers of man's soul into the powers of sensibility (passive), powers of intellection (simply cognitive), and " will," or active powers. In this broad sense, the " will *' includes much besides the specific power of volition ; viz., all those appetitive or "orectic" powers which furnish the emotive element in subjective motives. In the narrow sense, the word " will " means the specific power of choice, or the "vo- litional " power. This is the sense in which Dr. Bledsoe uses it ; and this is the sense in Avhich we shall use it.
Third, The " motive " of volition is a term which is contin-
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 237
Tiallj used by Dr. Bledsoe, aud even by Edwards, with a mis- chievous ambiguity. It is often employed for the object, that to which the soul moves in volition. Aud nearly all the confu- sion in the arguments on the will has arisen from the mistaken notion, that we regard this object, along with its involuntary im- pression on the sensibility, as the efficient of a volition. Again do we forewarn Dr. Bledsoe and our readers, that these, in our view, are not motive, but only the outward occasion for the ac- tion of real motive. What then, according to us, is the efficient motive ? The soul's o^vIl spontaneous, subjective desire, as guided by its own intelHgence ; and this desire is a function of a faculty distinct from, yea, an opposite to, the sensibility ; of an active power, whereas the sensibihty is a "passive power"; of a power wherein the soul is self-moved, instead of being moved from "wdthout ; wherein the soul is agent, and not mere subject of an effect.
Fourth, If we should say that volitions are " morally neces- sary," Ave should mean, with Edwards, only that they arise with fM certainty, and by the efficiency of their subjective motives. We think, with Dr. Hodge, that the misunderstanding of the word " necessity' " does boundless mischief in this debate ; but we do not think that this is the fault of the word. The truth is, that since this Latin word was domesticated in philosophy, it has undergone a change iu its popular use ; and even scholars have lost sight of the fact, that its philosophical sense, of full certainty of eventuation, and nothing more, is its proper etymo- logic meaning. What is its real origin? The '^ necessitas" is simply '^ quod noii cedet,'' the itnf ailing. We can recall the reader's mind from its hallucination, by reminding him of the twdn-brother of this word, which has not been abused by modern popular use, " incessant^ Every school boy knows that *' in " is *' un," the negative particle. So that " incessant " is tlie unceaS' ing ; and so "necessary" (necessant) is the non-ceasing. But our familiar word " incessant " has not undergone the bad luck of being perverted to mean — wholly another thing — the c;nnpul~ sonj. Nobody is so perverse as to think the " incessant talker '* is a compulsory talker — a man who is compelled to talk. Well, let the reader only give the great Latin scholastics credit for understanding the real meaning of the Avord, and this mighty
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bugbear of " necessity " will vanisli. He -will tlien see that it is no dishonest after-thought, no " dodge " to escape the just odiunv of a hateful theory, to say that by a "necessary vohtion " w© mean — -and philosophy always did mean — simply Avhat the phrase " an incessant volition" would classically mean, volitlo qiice^ onediante inotivo, non cedet ; simply this, that, supposing the sub- jective motive present, the volition will not fail to rise. Now, "where is the murder?" Why should oiir innocent Latin word be held responsible for the wholly different idea which popular use has forced upon it, that of inevitable compulsion ? But Dr. Bledsoe declares roundly (as in Bevleio. p. 34) that he will not be appeased by this definition ; that nothing shall satisfy him except our believing that volitions are uncaused and contingent ; and that they onay fall to rise, though every condition of their rise be present. Else he thinks the mind is not free.
But, fifth, what is free agency ? Let the reader note that we do not say " free will." Dr. Bledsoe himself is constrained, in a sort of grudging way, to grant the reasonableness of Locke's remark, that freedom is an attribute of an agent and not of a faculty ; so that, properly speaking, it is the mind which is free, and not the will. So w^e will not speak of " free will " — at best an ambiguous term — but of free agency. Dr. Bledsoe is much, dissatisfied with Edwards for defining freedom as a man's privi- lege of doing what he chooses. We will venture the assertion that Dr. Bledsoe will not find any man of common sense who desires any fuller freedom than this. But the ground of objec- tion against this clear and practical definition is, that the way in which choice comes to pass ought to be determined also ; that if a man has the privilege of doing what he chooses, yet he may have been made to clioose, in some way infringing his freedom. And Dr. Bledsoe cites Edwards with great condemnation as say- ing that, no matter how a man comes to choose thus and thus, if he has unobstructed privilege of acting as he has chosen, he has all the freedom he can ask for. Now we presume that the dif- ference between Dr. Bledsoe and Edwards here is simply this : that the latter was too clear a thinker to have his mind haunted with any phantom of a cltoice which is compelled. His common sense taught him that choice, on any theory whatever, must still be an uncompelled determination of the soul ; so that his practical
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITIOX. 239
clefinition of freedom does include a freedom of the soul, and not of the limbs only, as Dr. Bledsoe cavils. Edwards had in his view, doubtless, that declaration of the "Westminster Confession, Chapter IX., which frankly says, that freedom is an attribute of the rational agent so inahenable and essential that it cannot be, and is not, infringed, whatever the moral state of the soul. So, if Dr. Bledsoe could only think that " any good can come out of Nazareth," he might see that when we define free agency as a man's liberty of doing as he chooses, we are not laying a wicked trap for him, to catch him in this fraud, viz., that while he has the privilege of doing as he cliooses^ we will couijjel him to choose as he chooses. No ; we cannot conceive of that bugbear of his, a compelled choice ; we assure him we think it, just as he does, the intensest of contradictions. And so, in our generous desire to calm his apprehensions — not because it is really necessary — we tender him this definition of free agency : it is the soul's poAver of deciding itself to action, according to its own subjective na- ture. But even this is not going to satisfy him !
But let it be distinctly understood that, by " ability of wdll,'* we understand a very different thing, namely, fallen man's sup- posed power to reverse that naturfj by his volition. That power we utterly deny to a born sinner ; wo do not believe that he can, or will, choose dispositions exactly against those which it is his nature to prefer, and thus revolutionize that very nature by a volition. Ability we deny ; free agency we grant to him.
Sixth, We do not regard President Edwards as infallible, and did not before Dr. Bledsoe assailed him. The essential structure of his argument is indestructible, but it has some excrescences .and blemishes. He, like nearly all the English Christian phil- osophers of his day, was too much under the influence of the pious Locke ; and hence his usually clear vision is sometimes confused by the shallow plausibilities of the sensationalist psychology. Hence he sometimes seems to confound objective inducement with subjective motive. He also confuses his rea- soning bv sometimes using the word "will" in the broad and sometimes in the narrow sense.
Seventh, The question, " how volitions arise in a free agent," has received three distinct answers. One is that of the consistent sensationalist, fatalist, and pantheist. According to these, voli-
2-10 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
tion is efficiently caused bj emotion ; but emotion is only the necessary reflex of impression made on the sensibility from ■uithout. '^^'e think, with Dr. Bledsoe, that this scheme is vir- tually no scheme of free agency at all. Fnder it the soul is, after all, determined to action by an efficient external to itself ; the soul is really not agent, but acted on.
The second answer is in the opposite extreme : it stakes our true free agency in this, that the volition may always be a men- tal modification arising immediately in the mind without any efficient at all — a self-determined change. The advocates of this scheme hold that the free volition must be disconnected even from subjective motive, and arise, in that sense, absolutely un- caused. Its advocates describe it sometimes as the theory of the self-determination of the will as opposed to the self-determina- tion of the soul, using the "will" in its narrow sense. Some- times, they say, the mind must be in absolute equilibrium, as to even subjective motive, when the free volition takes place. Sometimes, they say, volition is an uncaused event. But always they concur in holding that the free volition must be a contingent event, whatever may be the antecedent states of mental convic- tion and desire looking towards the object of choice.
The third answer shuns both these extremes, and defines free agency as the self-determination of the soul, not of the specific faculty of choice. But it holds that rational spirit, like every other power in nature, conforms to the maxim, "Order is hea- ven's first law." In other words, it acts, like everything else in divine providence, in accordance with a regulative law ; and this law of free volitions is the soul's own rational and appetitive nature — its Jidbltus. Hence the rational free volition is not an . " uncaused phenomenon " in the world of mind ; it only arises by reason of its regular efficient, which is the subjective motive. By subjective motive is meant that complex of mental judgment as to the preferable, and subjective appetency for the object which arise together in the mind, on presentation of the object, according to the regulative law of the mind's own native disposi- tion. In a word, the free volition will rise according to, and be- cause of, the soul's own strongest motive ; and that is the reason why it is a rational, a free, and a responsible volition. Hence, •we believe that such volitions are attended with full certainty.
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— which is what we mean by moral necessity — and. also with full freedom. We are fully aware that every man performs acts whose causation in the soul is more secondary. Thus, the snuiT- taker opens his box and "takes his pinch," often, perhaps, with- out any remembered consciousness of the subjective motive. It is because both mind and limbs have come, by repetition, so un- der the influence of the law of habit — consiietudo, not Tiahitus. This law is so influential in this case that we popularly term the acts " mechanical." Are such acts still rational, free, and re- sponsible ? They are, so far as previous acts of conscious fi-ec- <lom formed the consuetudo which now influences the mind and body.
Now the third is the theory of the will, or of the way respon- sible volitions rise, held by Calvinists. Does not its right state- ment evince of itself its correctness to every candid mind ?
1. Our first argument for it then shall be, that it is supported by man's consciousness. Dr. Bledsoe thinks not. He is, in- deed, too adroit to say that we are conscious of having rational responsible volition iciihout motlces; for he foresees the reply, that consciousness can only be of what is in the mind. He ad- mits {Examination of Edwards, p. 230) : "We are not conscious that there is no producing cause of volition. Xo man can be conscious of that which does not exist." His position (p. 227) is that "we find our minds in a state of acting. This is all we discover by the light of consciousness." But is this all? We raise the question of fact. We assert that whenever the soul -chooses with sufficient dehberation, we are conscious of choosinn- according to a subjective motive. Dr. Bledsoe is misled in the reading of consciousness by haste, pride of hypothesis, and the evanescent nature of the impression left on remembered consciousness by the motive when the mind huri'ies on to the •execution and fruition of its choice. This cause of an errone- ous reading of consciousness may be well explained by the man- ner in which we instantaneously drop out of remembered con- sciousness the ohjects, also, of rapid volitions. The intelligil jle perception of the object is, as Dr. Bledsoe admits, the absolutely ■essential condition — not cause — of the act of will. Tet often its presence is not consciously remembered for a moment. Here is a man fencing. We see him intentionally bring up his sword
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and make " tlie guard in tierce.' He saw his aclrersary make, perhaps with almost Hghtning speed, the "thrust in tierce." That occasioned his making the guard in the same figure, the subjective motive being, of course, the desire, according to his nature, to preserve his own body. Does he remember, an in- stant after, in which figure his adversary made his thrust ? Per- haps not. But Dr. Bledsoe admits that his perception, at the time of the "thrust in tierce," was the occasion without which he would not have made the "guard in tierce," which he did in- tentionally make. "\Miat is the solution ? That in the speed of the mental processes the conscious perception of the thrust dropped instantaneously out of remembered consciousness. There is no other. Kow, Dr. Bledsoe will ask that fencer: Do you remember being rationally conscious of the desire of self- presei'vation as your subjective motive for making that rapid guard? And very possibly the fencer will answer: Xo. The solution which Dr. Bledsoe has just used applies again. Haste and excitement caused the motive, as the occasion, to drop out of remembered consciousness. But the intelHgent volition to "guard in tierce" cotdd no more have arisen in that fencer's, mind without motive than without object. Let us, then, elimi- nate the cause of confusion, and inspect any volition which is sufficiently deliberate ; we know, we are conscious, that motive prompts it. Had the motive not been, the volition would not have been. This is but saying that a reasonable man knows that when he acts deliberately he thinks he has his own "reason for acting." "When he sees one act, and asking, "Why did you do that?" .receives the answer, "Oh, for nothing at all," he sets down the answer as silly. It is the very characteristic of a fool to act " -u-ithout knowing what for." Is this the description Dr. Bledsoe means to give of himself when he declares (p. 227) that he " sees not the effectual power of any cause operating to pro- duce his vohtions?" Did he write all these wise books and re- views without "effectually" or decisively "knowing what for?" Coui'tesy requires us to leave him to make the answer. For our- selves, we can only say, that when we get to that pass — that we dehberately choose a line of action Avithout even thinking wo have in ourselves a rational motive — an aizio. — determinative of our choice — we hope our friends will select a lunatic asylum for us»
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2. If tlie most deliberate acts of clioice may be thus loose from tlie efficiency of all antecedents in the mind, then we could not make a recognition of any permanent cliaracter in ourselves, or our fellow-men. What do we mean by a character? Clearly a something having continuity and permanency qualifying the fi-ee spirit. Any man with common sense will add, " a character is a cei-tain set of practical principles permanently qualifying the man." But we need not claim more than the general answer. Kow one man does not have the gift of "discerning another man's spirit" by immediate intuition ; he learus character <^J9C>5- terlori by observing his fellow-mau's volitions. But if Dr. Bled- soe's theory were true, volitions would be no itidices of character, for they must be loose from the efficiency of " all antecedents in or out of the mind ;" and, of course, loose from the regidative power of that permanent something in the mind constituting its character. But we ask, emphatically, may not character be at least sometimes known by conduct ? If not, how does a jury ever find out whom to punish ? How does Dr. Bledsoe find out whom to esteem ?
Dr. Bledsoe (in Section XY., Examination of Ed/wards) makes- a set effoi-t to escape this fatal logic. The place abounds with the baldest assertions of the fundamental Pelagian postulate, that a concreated righteousness of principle would be no right- eousness, because not the result of an act of choice ; and tliat^ hence, no moral agent can be made righteous, but he must do a. righteousness. President Edwards had argued — Treatise on- Original Sin — in exact conformity with the Wesleyan Watson, and with Wesley himself, " Not that principles derive their good- ness from actions, l)ut that actions derive their goodness from, the principles whence they proceed ; so that the act of choosing what is good is no further virtuous than that it proceeds from a. good principle, or virtuous disposition, of the mind."
Dr. Bledsoe conceives that the fallacy of this argument pro- ceeds from the ambiguity of the term principle. Taking, e. g., the instance of Adam's first eating the forbidden fruit, he claims- that the " principle " from which this evil volition resulted, was not any " implanted principle " at all, but Adam's " intention, or design, or motive." The only " implanted principle " Dr. Bledsoe sees in the case is, that native desire for material good and for
244 THE PH ILOSOPHY OF TOLITION.
knowledge wliicli Adam's Creator had jilaced in tlie animal and spiritual parts of tlie creatui'e's person. If God put them there, lie urges, thej could not haye been sinful ; they must have been innocent. Sajs he, " And hence, Ave very clearly perceive that a sinful action may result from those principles of our constitu- tion which are in themselves neither virtuous nor vicious." And again, " In fact, the virtuous principle from which the virtuous act is supposed to derive its character, is not 8.n implanted prin- ciple at all, but the design, or intention, or motive, with which the act is done, and of which the created agent is himself the author."
Now, on this evasion we remark, first, he misrepresents us in saying we teach there must have been an " implanted principle " of evil from which Adam's first sin must proceed. Xo. We say there must have been a principle of evil prioi- in the order of causation to the act, or else the act would not have been qualified as evil. And this Dr. Bledsoe is compelled to own, p. 201, " As it is truly said ... a holy action can proceed only from a holy principle or disposition," etc. Second, we ask the reader to note how unavoidably Dr. Bledsoe falls into the true doctrine : *' holy action jjroceeds from," " a sinful action may resvlt from," etc. Surely that which " proceeds " and " results from " antece- dents, is an efi'ect. Common sense wall assert its rights. Third, Dr. Bledsoe thinks that the " agent is himself the author " of "the design, or intention, or motive," which is "the principle from which the virtuous act is supposed to derive its character." Very well. He has taught us that all functions of intelligence, and all functions of emotion or feeling, are passivities ; the will is the only active power. Kow, then, if the agent is author him- self of the principle of his volition, he must have originated that principle by an act of choice ! What principle of '•' design, or intention, or motive," regulated that prior act of choice ? And must he not have chosen to choose ? Thus Dr. Bledsos is hope- lessly ntaugled in the endless 7'egressus and in Mr. "VTatson's fatal refvitation at once.
But, fourth, and chiefly, let us look a little more narrowly at this self-originated " design, or intention, or motive " in Adam, from which Dr. Bledsoe admits his unholy action proceeded. What was this intention ? Merely to gain knowledge, and please
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 245
his palate uaturally and iunocently ? That was not all ; for as Dr. Bledsoe justly argues, the appetency for these natural goods being implanted by his Maker, was not essentially sinfid, but legitimate iu its proper bounds. Th^re was an intention to gratify this unrighteously. There was intelligent intention to prefer these natural goods to duty. Now let this " intention " be inspected. "VMio fails to see that it involves a subjective appetency, a desire ; the new expression of a new and per- verted disposition; the hcib'dtts, namely, of unrighteous self-will? While we knoAV very well that this new disposition, qualifying Adam's soul now, was synchronous with the evil act, we also know that, in the order of production, it was precedent to it, and so qualified it as evil. Thus Dr. Bledsoe's pretended analysis is only an attempt to wrap up the great facts of the precedent disposition and appetency under the word " intention." But, we repeat, intention involves them. '' Intentlo''' is a subjective and active directing of the soul upon (tendere in) an objective end. This is the analysis of common sense. Every lawyer and juryman thinks that, iu proving "evil intention" on the mur- derer, he has proved "malice."
Dr. Bledsoe thinks that if Edwards argues that Adam's first holy volition would never have taken place unless God implanted a principle of holiness to prompt it, he is equally bound to argue that the first sin could never have occurred unless the Maker first implanted an evil principle to prompt it. Our author for- gets, in this ingenious cavil, that there is an important contrast in the essence of holiness and sin. Sin in principles and acts, is n _2)riva(lve quality. Holiness is a positive one. ' H djiafnla kazlv rj dvofiia. Discrepancy from law is sin. But only positive conformity with the standard is holiness. Now surely it is one thing to say that a finite, dependent creature cannot, if created iu a state of defect, out of that defect originate the positive ; and a very difierent one to say that this finite, mutable creature, naturally endued with the positive, may admit the negative de- fect. Dr. Bledsoe's logic is precisely this : because a candle sixteen inches long will never shine miles;' it be positively lighted, ergo, it will never cease shining unless it be positively extin- guished. That might follow as to an infinite candle ; but this one, being but a few inches long, has only to be completely let alone to burn itself out.
246 THE rHILOSOPHY OF YOLITIOX.
3. If onr tlaeorr Avere not true, no cortaiiity -uoiild attend any form of influence Avhicli man exerts npon man. Education ■sv^ould yield no definite results in the formation of character. Human control over a fello^v-m-an, beyond the material <2;rasp of the controlling person, could never be exej'ted ■\\-ith full certainty ; for the way in which human control exerts itself is by address- ing some inducement to some known subjective appetency of the person governed, which is known to be adequate to occasion the designed action. For instance, may not thje employer pre- sent to his servant's native desire for gain a pecuniary reward, which will certainly result in the performance of the service? Does not the teacher present to the urchin's desire of bodily welfare a positive threat of the birch, modifying that native ap- petency into active fear, which will result in punctual and unfail- ing obedience ? Dr. Bledsoe knows that this is often done. He lias friends, from whom, unless death or casualty intervene, ho knows his requests will secure an infallible compliance, in at least some things, lloir does he know this ? If volitions are efficiently caused by " no antecedent in or out of the mind," he lias no right to think it — no means to know it. His doctrine is, that every antecedent condition of choice may be there, looking to the confidently expected volition, and yet there is always the possibility that the will may fly off at a tangent, as men popu- larly sav, into the opposite determination. He has no right to be entirely certain that the best friend he has in the world is going to comply with his most reasonable request, though able to do so.
4. The free volition which should arise exactly according to this theory would be neither rational nor moral. The very ground of our judging these qualities to an act is, that we recog- nize it as 23roceeding out of a rational or a moral motive, which was efficient thereof. Dr. Bledsoe is so unable to blind his eves to this fact, that he says, while the rational or moral vo- lition has no cause, it has its ground in reason, of coiu'se. But what is tJie ground of an act? The phra,se is a metaphor. The ground of a thing is that on which it stands, as r. house on its foundation. The ground of a volition is the state of soul on which it stands for its being, ^'hat is this but its cause / The ground of an act which yet is not its cause, would be a ground that was not a ground. How can a volition derive i)ositive or
THE rHILOiSOPHY OF VOLITION. 247
certain moral character from itb rational or moral " groiind " in the mind, unless the volition is positively and certainly con- nected therewith? Ltjt common sense answer. We see a man p3rform an act in outwaivl form charitable. We ask, " What made you do that ? " He answers, "Nothing; the volition just cairiQ so." Instantly we "withdraw oiir moral approbation. The man, instead of appearing approvable, now seems only silly.
5. Dr. Bledsoe's scheme breaks down utterly when brought to the test of man's free choice concerning his summuni hcmmn. Let natural good and evil be presented in alternative before the free soul ; as for instance, sickness and health. Let him be free to choose between them simply for their own sakes, without any complication of the question by connected consequences or moral restrictions. Let him be invited to exercise his freedom by elect- ing sickness rather than health, simply for the sake of being sick. Is there a particle of uncertainty? Is there the faintest possi- bility that he will so elect? Yet is that man's election just as free and rational, though morally necessitated or made ceitain by the efficient influence of his own common sense and natural de- sire of welfare, as any other volition he ever performs.
6. Every rational being iu the universe, except man, is an in- stance exactly against Dr. Bledsoe's theory of free agency. God's holy volitions are morally necessitated by his eternal and immut- able perfections. Is he, therefore, not free? The Bible itself tells us that "he cannot lie," "he cannot be tempted to evil." Then, according to this philosophy of contingent volitions, none of God's moral volitions are fi-ee ! Our Lord Jesus Christ, as we have seen, ivas horn a "holy thing." According to Dr. Bledsoe, he was therefore not a free agent. Holy angels, as we are ex- pressly taught by scripture, had holiness as their " first estate," and they are now made known to us as " elect angels." Kow, Dr. Bledsoe himself says he believes in the infallible "persever- ance of the elect." So it appears these angels must be certainly determined to holy volitions, and therefore they are not free agents ; and if they are not free agents, they cannot have moral character ; so the holy angels cannot be holy, because they are indefectibly holy ! Again, according to Dr. Bledsoe, elect sinners will infallil^ly persevere in so many, at least, of the acts of holy volition as will maintain their spiritual union \A\h their Ke-
248 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
deemer; for Dr. Bledsoe believes iu the "perseverance of tlie elect" — -tliougli not iu tlie "perseverance of the saints." Now, there are some " mighty curious " corollaries attached to this doc- trine of the "perseverance of the elect." God's decree of their election to glory is conditioned ou his foresight that they will not only believe on Christ, but continue in faith to the end. But if the creature's volitions are contingent, God's prescience of them must be contingent, since he knows them just as they are to be. Here, then, we have a perseverance grounded ou the fact that they wall persevere, and a perseverance which is but con- tingent, i. e., a jjerseverance that may not persevere! But our main point is to argue that, as to those persevering elecfc, at least those volitions by which they cleave to Christ must be certain. But Dr. Bledsoe's theory teaches that if they are certain, they are not free. Once more ; lost souls and evil angels are infallibly certain never to will holy volitions. Then, their unholy ones are not free, and therefore not blameworthy!
We quote, under this head, from Wedey on Onglnal Shi, y^. 286, 287, in order that Dr. Bledsoe may see how much title he has to call himself a Wesleyan. Dr. Taylor, of Norwich, had ad- vanced— precisely Dr. Bledsoe's doctrine, on p. 28 of his Iieolew — the proposition that a being " must exist, and must use his intel- lectual powers hefore he can be Tujliteousr Wesley, adopting Dr. Jenning's reply, answers precisely according to our argument in this sixth head :
"But according to this reasoning, CJirist could not be righteous at his birth. You answer, ' He existed before he was made flesh. ' I reply, He did, as God. But the man Christ Jesus did not. . . . According to your reasoning, then, the man Chris'- Jesus could not be rigJtteom at Ids birth. "
' ' Nay, according to this reasoning, God could not be righteous from eternity, because he must exist before he was righteous. You answer, ' My reasoning would hold even with respect to God, were it true that he ever did begin to exist ; but neither the existence nor the holiness of God was prior to each other. ' Nay, but if his existence was not prior to his holiness — if he did not exist before he was holy — your assertion, that ' every being must exist before it is righteous, ' is not true. "
7. The Bible doctrines of God's certain foreknowledge of men's volitions, of his foreordination of them (see Acts ii. 23 ; Isaiah x. 5-7), of his prediction of their voluntary acts, and of his providence over such acts, present an unanswerable demon- stration of our theory of volition. We shall not fatigue Chris- tian readers by citing many scriptures to prove any one of these
THE THILOSOPHY OP VOLITION. 249
doctrines. God's providence is "liis most lioly, wise and pow- erful sustaining and governing all his creatures and all their actions." That his efficacious providence extends, in some mysterious way, to men's volitions, is expressly assei-ted in the Bible. " The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord as the riv- ers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." (Pro v. xxi. 1 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 11 ; xxiv. 11, etc.) Is God's providence here efficacious? If one answers, "No," he contradicts the Scrip- ture, and robs God of his sovereignty. If he answers "Yes," as he must, the question is settled; for in causing this volition certainly to arise in the man's soul, God has procured the opera- tion of some sort of causation. The argument is so true that it is hard to express it "vvithout uttering a truism. But, then, that volition, which still is free and responsible, was not uncaused. Now the species of causation which we assign for it, subjective motive, is beyond question more consistent with the man's free agency than any other jDOSsible species. Let Dr. Bledsoe try his hand at explaining how there can be any other possible species of efficient causation of that volition in that man's soul, more compatible with his free agency therein, than subjective motive acting spontaneously, yet according to the known law of his disposition. But we need not press him so far. The argu- ment is in these simple and inevitable propositions : God effi- ciently controls the man's volition ; therefore the volition had some efficient. But the essence of Dr. Bledsoe's theory is, that volition has no other efficient antecedent, either in or out of the mind, than the mind itself.
Again, God has predicted a multitude of volitions to be formed in subsequent times by free agents. He has foretold them posi- tively. He has, so to speak, made the credit of his veracity re- sponsible for their certain future occurrence. Here we have two arguments. These predictions im]3h' a certain foreknow- ledge in God; and from this foreknowledge we argue the cer- tainty of the events foreknown. Again, inasmuch as God is well acquainted with the feebleness and fickleness of man, and the uncertainty of human affairs in themselves, unless, when he predicted that a certain man should freely do a certain act, he purposed effectually to bring the doing of it to pass, he could not safely or wisely have committed himself to the prediction.
250 THE PHILOSOPHY OP VOLITION.
"Would Dr. Bledsoe, knowing tliat tlie casliier of liis publishing lionse was both poor, fickle, foolish, mortal, and of iincertaiu moral principle, like to pledge his credit that this cashier shall, on the first day of Jiine, 1885, infallibly pay a given paper mer- chant five thousand dollars, unless he felt, while giving the pledge, that he himself possessed some eifeetual mode of causing the cashier to do it ? God, in the Bible, pledged liis credit to many such things.
But God's universal and infallible foreknowledge is sufficient to prove our doctrine. Dr. Bledsoe cites Edwards as present- ing this argument in this comprehensive form : " When the ex- istence of a thing is infallibly and iudissolubly connected with something else which has already had existence, then its exist- ence is necessary ; but the future volitions of moral agents are infalhbly and iudissolubly connected with the foreknowledge of God, and therefore tJiey are necessary." This is so conclusive that Dr. Bledsoe admits frecpiently that God's prescience j)rove3 ilie certainty of free volitions. Thus, p. 141 : "It is freely con- ceded that whatever God foreknows will most certainly and infallibly come to pass." Watson, in his Inst'dutes (Part II.
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Genesis i. 2
- Eph. ii. 12
- Gen. i. 20
- Phil. i. 6
- John iii. 6
- Eph. ii. 8
- Luke i. 35
- Acts ii. 23
- Isaiah x. 5-7
- 2 Sam. xvi. 11
Chapter l Y.), admits that God's prescience refutes the idea of any
iincertaintij in the volitions foreseen. He says that, when he teaches the "contingency" of volitions, he does not mean their uncertainty, but their freedom. " Contingency is not opposed to certa'rnty, but to necessity.''^ He then proceeds to define the species of necessity, which he denies of free volitions, in the following unmistakable terms : " The very nature of this contro- versy fixes this as the precise meaning of the term. The ques- tion is not, in point of fact, about the certahity of moral actions, that is, whether they will happen or not ; but about the nature of them, whetJit'i' free or constrained,'* etc. It thus appears that the necessity against which Watson protests is the necessity of constraint. Abating the novel and unusual definition of the "word contingency, Watson's statement is one which every Cal- vinist can accept. But Dr. Bledsoe certainly cannot adopt that view of "cei-tainty" in voHtions which the leading Wesleyan authority here gives us.
The argument from God''s prescience to our theory of volition %vas stated by us {IteviGv:, October, 1876) in a form to bring out
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITIOX. 251
articulately a link wliich Edwards leaves to be implied. That wbicli is bj an infallible mind certainly foreseen, must be certain to occur. Nothing -would be certain to occur in the sphere of <lependent being, unless there were some efficient of its certainty. Does anything come absolutely ex nllulo f Eyen Dr. Bledsoe concedes that it does not. Well, then, when a thing is certainly to come, it is equally clear that the something out of which it comes must be such a something as will not fail to produce it. Por if it may fail to produce it, then the thing is not certain to come. This is the idea of efficient causation: a jjroducin"* agency which will not fail. Now, then, unless the event be cer- tain to arise, no correct mind will have a certain belief it will arise. If any mind correctly and certainly expects it to arise, it must be because there is seen some efficient cause to make it arise. For since nonentity cannot produce, an event that did not have some certainly efficient cause would not be certain to cccur. Every gambler knows that the dice which always fall six up, are loaded. But where will you find that certain efficient of the free, foreseen volition ? Our theory presents the answer most consistsnt with free agency ; for if you place the causation anywhere save in the efficient influence of subjective motive, under the regulative control of the soul's own disposition, free agency is lost.
Such is the point of this unanswerable argument. Dr. Bled- Boe is hugely offended because we intimated that he misunder- stood or evaded its point. If the reader will examine the elev- enth section of the Examination of Edwards, he will see the mode in which our author proposes to resolve it. He tells us in the outset that, "to many minds, even among distinguished philosophers, the prescience of Deity and the free agency of man have appeared to be irreconcilable." Among these are Dugald Stuart, Dr. Campbell, and Locke. Yet Dr. Bledsoe be- lieves that he can easily remove the argument w^hich convinced them! How does the reader suppose this exploit is wrought? By begging the verj'' question in debate, whether volition is an event withoiit efficient cause ; and by deciding, in opposition to the intuitive judgment of all other philosophers and common men, that in the mental world changes may, and do, arise without efficient cause. He would have us draw a distinction between.
252
THE THILOSOrHY OF VOLITION.
"logical certainty" an:l a "causal certaiuty." He admits that God's certain foreknowledge of a Yolition must imply its "logi- cal certainty;" but lie denies tliat wo are entitled to infer there- from its " causal certainty." Let liim express Lis idea in another form (page 135): " But is this indissoluble connection" (of the- occurrence of volition with God's certain foresight thereof) " at all incoiasistent with the contingency of the event known ? Tlds is the question.'''' ... To settle this question, . . . "let us sup- pose, to adopt the language of President Edwards, * that nonentity is about to bring forth,' and that an event comes into being v/ichout any cause of its existence. This event then exists ; it is seen, and it is known to exist. Kow, even on thia- wild supposition, there is an infallible and indissoluble connec- tion between the existence of the event and the knowledge of it ; and hence it is necessary, in the sense above explained. But what has this necessary connection to do with the cause of its existence ? " By supposing such a case, Dr. Bledsoe endeavors to show that the "logical certainty," which he concedes, does not imply a " causal certainty," which he denies. But the reply is very simple : Such a case cannot be supposed. That " nonen- tity can bring forth," is a proposition which the reason rejects as a self-evident impossibility. Does not he himself admit that it is a " wild supposition ? " If it might be assumed, then w-e might admit that a " logical certainty" does not imply a " causal certainty." But it may not be assumed. On the contrary, we assert that, because the reason tells us by its most fundamental intuition that every event must have a cause, the " causal cer- tainty " does, and must, follow from the logical certainty. If we are cei'tain a given event is going to happen at a given time, then we are intuitively certain that the eflficient cause of that event is going to be present at that time. Our reason tells us that otherwise the event would not be. What is this but the in- tuitive judgment on which all valid inductive science proceeds ? Unsettle this connection between the logical and the causal cer- tainty, and a posterloH argument is at an end. The very or- ganoii for ascertaining natural laws is l)roken up ; the foundation of the Teason is uprooted. Dr. Bledsoe exclaims, that then we bring the law of causation to eomplete t!ie arjjument fi'om God's prescience to the efficienL influence of motive. Of cour&e "VNe
THE PHILOSOPnY OF ABOLITION. 253
•do. His complaint betraj's the very fact whose intimation ho so resented. Of course the intuition that no change comes tin- caiised is an implied premise of Edwards' enthymeme. He did not expand it in that place, because he did not imagine that any one would argue from tlio opposite and impossible supposi- tion that nonentity can bring forth events.
It is wholly unnecessary to follow Dr. Bledsoe through all the confusions of his attempted evasion from the grasp of our argu- ment. In one place, for instance, he endeavors to insinuate — - what he dares not assert plainly — that the intuition which de- mands a cause for every event is not binding in this argument, by bringing in the assertion of Stewart, that the deductions of geometry are not founded on its axioms, but on its definitions. "We might pause to ask whether it is creditable to one who has written on the philosophy of mathematics to be misled by this very one-sided statement. He should long ago have found its solution in the obvious view, that w^hile the properties of figures and bodies described in the definitions of geometry are, of course, the subject matter of geometrical reasonings — the things geometers reason about — still the axioms, or primitive judgments of the reason aliout quantity are the logical foundations of all the reasonings about properties. But why intrude that old, quib- bling debate ? Could geometrical reasoning proceed without any axiomatic truths? Can philosophy proceed without the funda- mental axiom of cause ? After all. Dr. Bledsoe does not dare to say it can. Even in the construction of his sophism, he admits iliat it would be a " wild supposition." The outrage done to rea- son by this attempt to sunder a *' causal" from a "logical" cer- tainty is so great that Dr. Bledsoe's own mind recalcitrates, and constrains him to a fatal concession. {Examinaiion of Edward Sy p. 146.) *'If Edwards means that a thing cannot be foreknown unless it has a sufficient ground and reason for its existence, and does not of itself come forth out of nothing, we are not at all con- cerned to deny his position." Now, why should Dr. Bledsoe de- ceive himself by calling the efficient cause of volition a sufficient *•' ground and reason " ? Is volition only a logical inference ? He, of all men, is compelled to deny that proposition. We properly speak of a " sufficient ground and reason" for logical conclusion. "Why, then, seek to hide under this nomenclature of logic what
254 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
is nothing else but efficient viotlve of tlie act of soul ? The only- sufficient ground and reason, in whose certain action God sees, the certainty of the volition, is the subjective onotice which, he sees, determines that volition. It is true, Dr. Bledsoe proceeds to speak, as he so often does, of volition as "proceeding from the mind, acting in view of motives." First, we remark on this subterfuge : here is the old and obstinate confusion of objective inducement with true, subjective motive ; our author still is under the hallucination that "motive" is something ohjective, at whicJh the mind is looking. But, second, has not Dr. Bledsoe said many- times that " motive," whatever it may be, is only the occasion, and not the cause, of the mental determination? The question then arises, since the objective, at tvhicMlie mind looks, does not effi- ciently dispose or influence the mind to choice, what does f Does the mind determine itself to choice? Dr. Bledsoe gives up that solution as contradictory. (See his Sixteenth Section, Examina- tion of Edivards.) Then what does? Does '"nonentity bring forth " ? And here we commend to Dr. Bledsoe's lips one of the few valid specimens of his own philosophizing. He teaches us, very correctl}^, that it is not the agent which is the cause of effects, but it is his action which causes it. The being or existence of a. given agent is not what is fruitful of effects ; it may exist for agea ■ — as the arsenic has existed in the mineral ore ever since the cre- ation, and caused the death of no animal — without generating a given effect. It is when it acts that it produces effects. "While we loosely speak of the agent as cause, yet, in strictness of speech, it is the agent's appropriate action which is the real cause of the re- sultant change. This is excellent doctrine, and according to it. Dr. Bledsoe contradicts himself when he speaks of the mind as causing or producing volitions, and yet denies that any antece- dent action in the mind produces it.
Dr. Bledsoe virtually concedes that, to the human reason, at least, a logical certainty must imply a causal certainty, by the subterfuge to which he is at last driven, on his 147th page. It is, in substance, t lis : that, although our minds are sq consti- tuted that it would be absurdity and contradiction in us to think a thing certain to occur, without thinking there will be any cer- tain thing anywhere to make it occur, yet it uuiy not be so with Ood's mind ; and it is very pres umptuous in us to assume it. That
THE PHILOSOrHY OF VOLITION. 255
is to saj, although God assures us that our spirits are formed iu his image and Hkeuess ; although we are assured that every con- stitutive feature of the human reason which is a mental excellence, also exists in God's mind in the higher grade of an infinite rational perfection; although God enjoins us by the very intuitions which he has implanted as our regulative laws of thought, not to think that an event will be certain to arise without any cause certainly efficient of its rise ; yet it is presumptuous iu Calvinists to say that God certainly will not perpetrate the mental solecism which he lias made impossible for us, formed in his image ! Dr. Bled- soe thinks that somehow God's infinitude may make such a differ- ence between his thought and ours that a species of thinking which would be preposterous iu us may be legitimate for him. This is substantially the solution which Archbishop King gives, to escape the stress of our argument from God's foreknowledge. If the reader would see a calm and masterly refutation of Dr. Bledsoe and Archbishop King on this point, let him consult again the "Wesleyan text book, Watson's TJieological Institutes, Part II., Chap. IV. He there shows that the position is "dan- gerous," ''monstrous," and in premises "anti-scriptural." Ho asserts that the fact that God is incomprehensible does not ])re- vent our knowing him truly and correctly, up to the limits of our finite knowledge. He teaches that his prescience differs from ours, not in kind, but in degree. He declares that if God's attri- butes, both rational and moral, are not really like the scrip- tural, human conceptions of them, but mere analogues, then the foundation of religion is gone. Is Dr. Bledsoe a Wes- leyan ?
Again, we beg the reader to fix the true question before his mind. The question is not, whether God has modes of cogni- tion inconceivably above ours. Doubtless he has. The question is, whether God has modes of cognition contradictory to those which he has himself made not only valid but imperative for us, created in his image. If one of us were to convince himself that an event is certainly coming, and yet that there is nothing anywhere certainly efficient of its coming, we should outrage our reason. Does God commit that very outrage in the higher use of his reason ? We answer, no ! And we say, no, not be- cause his doing so would be incomprehensiljle, but because it
256 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TOLITION.
"would be coutraclictory. Dr. Bledsoe sliall here define tliis dif- ference. P. 221 : " Tliere is some difference, I have supposed, "between disbelieving a thing because we cannot see how it is, and disbelieving it because we very clearly see that it cannot be any how at all." This is weU said ; because we see that, according to that law of cause which God has impressed both on nature and reason, tlie thing that is certain to happen must have, somewhere, an efScient which will certainly make it happen ; and inasmuch as the efficiency of subjective motive over volition is the only ex- planation tin r^of, consistent with free agency, therefore we kno^v^ that when God foreknows volitions certainly, our theory of mo- tives producing volitions is true.
Dr. Bledsoe takes an attitude of humihty, in order to escape this argument. He falls back on his ignorance. He chides us for assuming, as he charges, that God has no way of knowing certainly the contingent volition, because we cannot explain it. But let not the reader be deceived. Dr. Bledsoe thinks that he can explain ifc none the less, and this by the Mohnist scheme of McleM'id Tnedia^ which, he tells us, he adopted with aU his heart, •^vhen he became acquainted with it. Church history tells us that Bome hag never had the audacity to adopt it, in the teeth of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and philosophy. But Dr. Bledsoe is a bold man. In his Iievieio, pp. 47-51, we have his attempt to es- cape our exposure of Molinism ; an attempt made up of confu- sions and misstatements, in which he so loses himself as to as- cribe to us precisely what we were confuting. "We will not weary the reader by unwinding all these tortuous and entangled threads. It will be shorter to restate the problem.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century, the Pelagian theory of volition, which was substantially Dr. Bledsoe's, found itself crushed by this argument from God's certain prescience. To escape this refutation, Louis Molina, a Spanish Jesuit, devised his theory of mediate foreknowledge, w^hich he introduced to the learned world, A. D. 1538, in his book entitled L'J>cri Arhitrii Concordia <-nin Gratiae Donis, Dr. Murdoch, on Mosheim, Yol. III., p. Ill, states his doctrine thus: ""What depends on the voluntary action of his creatures, that is, future CdrdingencieSy God knows only mediately^ by knowing all the circumstances in which these free agents will be placed, what motives will be
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 257
present to tlieir luiuds, and thus foreseeing and knowing liow they Avill act."
Those orders of the Eoniish clergy who folloAved Augustine resisted this doctrine with all their might. The controversy was ardent, because the Jesuits, according to their usual policy, de- fended their member with a strict partisan zeal. The question "«"as referred to Rome, "where a special commission of theolo- gians was raised to examine it, called the Congregatlo de A uxiliis (Graiiae). Mosheim, who made no secret of his leanings to Arminianism, says (Yol. III., p. 327) that after long debates, this commission actually reached a decision, which was reported to the Pope for his sanction and publication. The substance of this was, that this " opinion of Molina approximated to those of the Pelagians, which had been condemned" by the Koman Chiu'ch. y^e have, then, the suffrages of Eome herself, in ad- dition to early history, in support of our assertion that !Dr. Bledsoe is a virtual Pelagian, for he says that he heartily adopts the doctrine. But the usual crooked and time-serving policy of the popes, and their fear of the growing ascendency of the Jesuit order, j^revented the publication of this decision.
Dr. Bledsoe and we both agree that, si'-ice God's cognitions
are perfect, eternal, coetaneous, and unchangeable, none of them
can have arisen deductively, after the method of our inferential
and "discursive" processes of logic. All must be j^i'imary and
intuitive. The theologians mean this : that it cftnuot be that
God, like us, first knew premises, and then cifterwardsy by a
process of derivation and a succession of thought, learned from
them conclusions not before known to the divine mind. For
this is inconsistent wdth the eternity and completeness of the
divine omniscience. But no theologian means to deny that this
immediate intuition of God takes in truths according to their
actual relations. Doubtless, since his knowledge is absolutely
correct, it takes truths exactly as they are ; but many truths are
truths of relation. These, therefore, the divine mind, while it
takes them iip intuitively, takes as related truths. For instance,
in the history of the material world, God had no occasion to learn
the power of a given cause, a posteriori^ from its effect, as we
do, since he eternally and immediately knew both cause and
effect. But he doubtless always foresaw that cause and its effect Vol.. ni.— 17.
258 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
as tliiis related, because, in fact, tliey were thus related ; and bis- intuition is always true to fact, being absolutely correct. Kor ■will the considerate mind have a particle of difficulty in admit- ting that there may be immediate intuition of a truth of relation. Are not several of our own primitive judgments of this kind? "What else is this : ''If two magnitudes are respectively equal to a third, they must be equal to each other" ?
'\^'ith this obvious explanation, we make our first remark agamst this ascription to God of a scientJa media. However Dr. Bledsoe may have modified the theory for himself in his last Jtevieic, under the stress of our criticism, it was, in the hands of its inventors, an ascription to God of an inferential knowledge. If it is not such in Dr. Bledsoe's hands now, he is evidently im- proving somewhat in his theology ; our tuition is doing him some good ! Why did its own inventors name it sclentia mecUay. mediate foreknowledge, except because they thought its conclu- sions were mediated to the divine mind by premises ? And do they not state expressly what those premises, as they suppose^ are? — "the circumstances in which these free agents wiU be placed, and what motives will be present to thei^ minds." What else did the inventors mean, by placing this species of cognition between God's sclentia simjyhx, or knowledge of the infinite pos- sible, and his scientia visionis, or knowledge of all the uncontin- gent actual ? Surely these include all possible forms of the di- vine intuition. The intermediate class they thought, therefore, to be a class of inferential cognitions. So, certainly, judges Dr. Hodge {TJieology, Yol. I., p. 400) : " The kind of knowledge this theory supposes cannot belong to God, because it is inferentiah It is deduced from a consideration of second causes and their influence, and, therefore, is inconsistent with the perfections of. God, whose knowledge is not discursive, but independent and intuitive." This makes our fii'st objection against scientia inedia- sufficiently clear.
Our second is an argument ad Tioininem ; but it is a just one. It proceeds against Molina on grounds which we do not hold^ hut wMcTh he does ; and it is, therefore, fair to hold him to them and their consequences. It is to be regretted that Dr. Bledsoe did not perceive this obvious character of our argiiment on this head, as he might have thus saved himself from sundry confu-
THE THILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 259'
sions wliicli are especially preposterous. The Molinist supposes that the divine mind itifsrs what the human free will may please to do, *' from all the circumstances in which these free agents will be placed, and the motives present to their mind." But on his and Dr. Bledsoe's theory of volition, these circumstances and motives furnish no ground for any inference ; because they say that there is no efficient or certain tie of influence between the free volition and the circumstances or motives, or both together. Of all the men in the world, they are the last who have any business with such an inference as to what free voli- tions will be ; because the very heart of their theory cuts all tie of efficient influence between the proposed premises and conclu- sion. We Calvinists are the men who are entitled consistently to draw that inference, because we believe that there is an effi- cient tie between subjective motive and volition. We have not, like Dr. Bledsoe and his Molinist friends, cut our premises and conclusions fatally asunder. And we, reasoning experimentally, after that inferential manner suitable to temporal and finite minds, actually do infer, in a multitude of ca«es, what free agents will choose, from our knowledge of " circumstances and mo- tives," And we can see how, if God did also reason deductively — -which he does not — ^as the Molinist supposes, he also could,- in all cases, infer what all free agents will choose to do, from his prescience of their " circumstances and motives ;" that is, provided our Calvinistic theory of the efficient influence of mo- tives is the true one. And, inasmuch as God sees all truths, both truths of relation and all others, not deductively, but im- mediately and intuitively, we suppose that God eternally and intuitively sees what free agents are going to choose, in relation to the foreseen motives which are going to cause these free choices. That is, we suppose God's intuitive prescience is ex- actly according to the actual fact ; and as these future fi-ee voli- tions, when they come, are to come out of the efficient influence of motives in the men's spirits, God foresees them as thus con- nected. And this is the way, we suppose, God has, not a scien- tia media, but a scientia visionis, of all that free agents are going- to choose ; a scientia vision is which, while not an inference fi'om premises after the mode of our successive, discursive thought, is yet an intuition of truths in their destined relations. We are
260 THE PHILOSOPTTY OF VOLITION.
certain tlie matter is now clear to tlie candid reader, and we even venture to liope, to Dr. Bledsoe. One tiling is clear to all except liim : wlietlier God's foreknowledge of free volitions were an in- ference from premises, or an intuition of triitlis in relation, it must be equally impossible for a correctly thinking mind to think the two parts of the truth in relation, if Dr. Bledsoe were right in saying the relation does not exist. But this is his posi- tion : "Motives are not related to volitions by any tie of certain effieiencv." And we humbly presume that God's omniscience no more enables him to think this erroneous solecism, which no rational man can think, than God's infinite holiness could enable him consistently to do an act w^hich would be intrinsically wicked if done by his inferior, man. There is the sum of this whole matter.
8. The way is now prepared for our eighth argument in sup- port of the efficient influence of subjective motives over voli- tions. As we saw it was implied in the Bible doctrine of origi- nal sin, so it is necessarily implied in the doctrine of regenera- tion. "Wliat is it ? That God so exerts a gracious efficiency npon the depraved soul, — called in Scripture the " new creation imto good works," the "new birth," or birth from above, the " quickening," the "illumination," the " heavenly calling," etc. — that the souls hitherto certainly self-determined to ungodliness are now graciously yet freely determined to certain perseverance in godliness. They " are created unto good works, which God hath bef<5re ordained that they should walk in them." They " are kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." They cannot practice habitual sin, because they " are born of a living and incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth forever." Such is the work. Now, it is impossible that this permanent effect can be graciously propagated, consistently with free agency, except on the theory of a tie of efficiency between the renewed disposition, with its holy sulijective motives, and the free volitions of the soul in this gracious state. This is the miiiiminn postulate on which the doctrine of regeneration can possibly hold, and man yet remain a free agent. If grace turns man into a stock, or a machine, or an iiTational sentient beast, which moves at the spur of a mere instinct provoked from with- out, then it is conceivable how grace may certainly and regularly
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 261
evoke the series of acts which is outwardly conformed to godh- ness. But then, where is free agency? If we retain free agency, we must either hold to the causative and efficient influence of motives over free volitions, or we must give up the Bible doc- trine of regeneration.
Dr. Bledsoe makes an impotent attempt to reconcile the diffi- culty. In the chapt3r cited from his Theodicy, he teaches that motives, while not the efficients of volitions, are their invariable antecedents. The judgments of the intelligence, if correct, may be antecedents to wrong choices. The desires of the heart, if perverse, may be antecedents to wrong choices. Both these functions of spirit he supposes to be purely passive. He can concede, then, that grace may omnipotently renovate these pas- sive antecedents of free choice, without infringing the freedom of the will ; and this is regeneration. Such is his scheme. The fatal defect is, that according to that theory, which is his cor- ner-stone, such regeneration would not ensure a single holy act, much less an infallible perseverance in holy strivings. For these "necessitated" states of passivity, correct judgments of intellect, and right desires, he tells us, are not efficients, but only antecedents, to volitions. These arise in the wiU itself, "not determined, but determinations," connected by no tie of effi- ciency with " any antecedents in or out of the mind." What can be plainer, then, than this : that according to Dr. Bledsoe, God might "necessitate" these antecedents, and yet procure not a single holy volition ! The whole scheme is naught.
9. The last argument we adduce is the well-kno-^Ti reductio ad^ absiirdinn, which has descended from the scholastics to Presi- dent Edwards. If the will is self-determined, since this faculty has but the single and sole function of volition, it must be by a prior volition that it determines itself to the given choice. But now the question recurs. What determined the will to that prior volition ? The only answer is, an earlier volition, still prior to this ; because the faculty of choice, which is supposed to exert the self-determination, has but the one function. Thus, it must have chosen to choose, and we have a ridiculous regressus, to which there is no consistent end. Dr. Bledsoe endeavors to escape this argument by two expedients. One is to say that he does not use the words " the will self-determined," " the will
S62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF YOLITIOX.
-determines itself," along with all prior advocates of Lis theory of free will. They ought not to have used such language, he liolds ; it is not correct. He tells us they have been all off the track in debating the question whether motives determine the will, or whether the vnM determines itself ; for, in fact, the will is not determined at all ; it determines. Its sole function, volition, is not an act detertnhied, hut a determination. This is as pretty a conundrum as was ever made up of a mere verbal quibble. '' Yolition is simply a determination," qu^th 'a. But did ever one hear of an action without an agent ? ^ ho, or what, does the determining in this determhiatio f Only the will, says Dr. Bledsoe. "Then the will determines — what ? Oh ! says Dr. Bledsoe, the will determines not itself, but its volition. But what is volition save a function of ifrdf .^ Then the stubborn fact remains, that on his theory the "v^dll does determine itself. All the rest of the ■semi-Pelagian and Pelagian worlds were not fools, nor was Dr. JBledsoe the only wise man among them. The phrase " the will determines itself" is, on their theory, perfectly correct and un- avoidable. Dr. Bledsoe's other evasion is to blink the fact on 'which Edwards' argument in part hinges, that when the specific faculty of will is made self-determining, then our opponents are shut up to the concession that it must determine itself to choose iby an act of choice, since this is its sole function, viz., emitting acts of choice. The other functions of spirit all belong to other faculties.
From this point of view the reader can easily see how short- sighted and impotent is the effort which our author makes, in many places, to A\Test this famous argument from Edwards and turn it against him. Dr. Bledsoe pleads that the only way for ws Calvinists to avoid the absurd result of a regressus without end is to adopt his notion of volitions arising in the will, deter- mined by nothing ; for, reasons he, if Calvinists say that volition cannot arise save from some other mental modification or func- tion, prior to volition, and the efficient thereof, then he has equal right to say that this prior mental modification must also have had its prior efficient to produce it. And if we demur to his logic, he will prostrate us with the same formidable maxim, ex niJiilo niliil, with which we threatened him when he advanced his volition without efficient cause. Here, again, we have a
THE THILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 265
smart quibble ; that is all. He forgets that the something for which he asserts absolutely self-determined (or, if he prefers it so, undetermined) action, is a specific faculty in the soul, which his theory absolutely severs from all tie of efficient relation to iiny other faculty. But the thing for which our theory claims self-determination is not a severed faculty, but the soul itself, ihe spiritual agent, qualified consistently by all its related facul- ties of intellect and appetency and sensibility. TJiere is the vital difference. Dr. Bledsoe's theory is guilty of asserting, in this undetermined faculty, a function which would be e7is ex ni- 7uIo ,' and it is also guilty of derationalizing this function of choice by thus severing it from all efficient relation with the regulative faculties of the soul ; but, according to our view, it is t/ie soul which has the function of originating modifications in itself on occasion of suitable objectives. Therein is its spon- taneity. The soul does originate new modifications of thought and appetency. We need no regressus without end to account for a given act of thought or appetency in the mind. But the simple question is, how are the several faculties related to each other in their efficient inter-action ? Which is directive, and which executive ? Are the conjoined faculties of intelligence and appetency directive of the will, the faculty of choice ? That is what common sense and the Bible declare. Or is the faculty of choice, the executive faculty, unrelated by any efficient tie to any directive faculty? That is Dr. Bledsoe's theory; and we r.ssert that it disjoints the soul, leaves man a blind agent, and confounds the whole psychology on which rational agency and responsibility rest. It is perfectly triie that we must assign to the soul some function, somewhere, of self-caused action, else we should be involved, for each mental state and act, in an endless regressiis of mental causations, and real spontaneity would be lost. But the point of the matter is this : that the naked func- tion of volition, as among the related functions of the soul, is the very one which cannot be, in Dr. Bledsoe's sense, self-caused. It should not be concealed here that there is a sense in which «very change in the world of mind is connected Avith a chain of efficiencies which goes back to eternity, which is a literal regres- ^vs i)i infnitinn. We speak now of that providential control over soiils, and their states and acts, which the Almightly se-
264 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
cretly exeiis, in the endless execution, in and tlirougli men, of liis eternal decree. But botli consciousness and Scripture assure us that the way in which this providence operates does not in- fringe our true spontaneity ; and as the point now in debate is not the theology, but the psychology, of human volitions, we content ourselves with simply recording this truth.
We are now prepared to approach the remaining task which v/e assigned oiu'selves, to examine Dr. I>ledsoe's peculiar phase of the theory of free will, and ascertain whether it contains any- thing entitled to modify our views. Many of his arguments have been already considered and refuted in connection with our affirmative establishment of the Calvinistic doctrine. Repetition wiU be avoided as much as possible.
We have seen how our author, conscious of the utter oA'er- thro'w Edwards has given to the proposition, that " the will determines itself," endeavors to change the issue of the debate. All the great men, like Dr. Reid, who ha^e made inconsistent attempts to sustain his view of free will, he thinks, have con- ceded too much. They have allowed it to be taken for granted that volitions are determined somehow ; and, rejecting the doc- trine that they are determined by subjective motives, have attempted to show that they are determined by the will. But on that position. Dr. Bledsoe confesses, Edwards has utterly overthroAvn them. So he would take a higher position: iliat volitions are not detennhied at all ,' that they are not effects o^f any efficient cause. If he is met by the maxim, ex nihilo nihil, his evasion is, to say that volitions arise from the mind, and the mind is something. But he would concede to Edwards, against his own friends, that it is not correct to say "the will is self- determined" to choose ; or that the will "remains in e(iuilihrii> in the act of choice ;" or that the mind is conscious at the moment of choosing of a " power of contrary choice." He admits the fatal logic of our champions against these positions. Now, upon these admissions we remark first, is it not a little presumptuous for this last champion thus to criticise the positions of all the gi'eat men upon his own side ? Is he alone the consistent advo- cate of their common theory of free will ? Common sense will rather incline to the conclusion that these great and astute advo- cates of the Arminian philosophy knew what they were about,
THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION. 265
at least as well as Dr. Bledsoe. T7e siu'inise tliat they declined to adojjt liis favorite position of an undetermined detertrmiaiion, not from sliort-siglitedness, but because, like ns, tliey regarded it as intrinsically absurd. We liold witli tliem, that if eitlier their or Dr. Bledsoe's theory of free will were true, then it must result that the will is in eqidlibrio as to motives. Very true, the will cannot be undecided when it decides, but, on their common theory, it remains in equiltbrio quoad the motives competing to influence the choice. Whatever inconveniences Edwards' logic has at- tached to this position Dr. Bledsoe will have to abide. So " the power of contrary choice " must be claimed if his theory be true ; for if the will, when choosing an affirmative choice, had not the power to choose the contrary, it was efficiently deter- mined from that contrary to the affirmative, — the very doctrine Dr. Bledsoe abhors. These attempts to modify the old doctrine of absolute free will are, therefore, but virtual confessions of its overthrow.
But the kernel of Dr. Bledsoe's doctrine of the will is in his notion of cause and effect. He asserts that the mind has no notion of " effect," save as it is physical change produced in a passive subject. He asserts that no true agent can be so the subject of causation as that thereby its active function shall be produced efficiently. He regards passivity as of the essence of all true effects. Act and effect with him belong to irreconcilable categories. He is even rash enough to say that " a change in matter is the only idea we have of an effect ;" and on p. 81, J^.i'o mi nation of Edwards, that "we have no experience of an act of mind produced by a preceding act of mind." He is will- ing to grant that the volition has conditions sine qua non, but denies that it has any efficient cause.
Now, the intelligent reader will have noticed, that all this is simply a petitio principii. Whether in the dependent being, man, the action of the soul can be efficiently produced, and yet be proper action, is the very question to be proved in this dis- cussion, and not to be assumed, as Dr. Bledsoe does. To saj' that an effect proper must be a change wrought on a passive sub- ject, is simply begging the very question to be settled. That the assumption is not true as to conscious volitions, we have proved — not assumed — in our affirmative discussion. That it is not true
266 THE PHILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
of otlier activities of tlie mind, as a general proposition, is easily proved, both by Scripture and reason. When, for instance, the apostle tells us of God's " icorhing hi us, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure," have we not a truly caused action f Accord- ing to Dr. Bledsoe, effect is limited to the realms of matter and instinct ; there is no class of rational and spiritual effects that are truly effects. Yet every man in the world — doubtless includ- ing Dr. Bledsoe — aims to produce them ! For instance, all speak of e^ddence as producing mental conviction. Oftentimes the conviction of mind is an effect of evidence as inevitable and cer- tain as any physical effect in the world. Now, we know that Dr. Bledsoe will attempt to exclude this class of mental effects, -so fatal to his position, by saying that the functions of the intelli- gence are passive. But no psychologist will say so. Ko other philosopher will rank the intellect among the "passive powers" of the soul. He is refuted again by all the numberless instances in which volition itself is directed, not upon the bodily mem- bers, but upon our own mental faculties. Dr. Bledsoe says that it is the very nature of volition, not to be a real effect, but to produce real effects. "Well, let the latter part of his assertion be true, and then, in every case in which volition is directed iipon the action of our own mental faculties, he has refuteil himself. There is the case, for instance, of voluntary attention, in which the will directs the intellect, and energizes it to its highest and most creative acts of cognition. But why multiply words ? Does Dr. Bledsoe require us to think that the familiar phrase " self-government " is a mere metaphor, save as it is applied to the direction of our limbs and sense-organs ? If not, he must admit that there are multitudes of cases in which acts of mind are causes of other acts of mind.
So hard pressed does Dr. Bledsoe evidently feel himself by the difficulties of his position, that he even resorts to a wretched piece of genuine sensationalist analysis, worthy of James Mill himself, to account for our very notion of cause and effect, p. 77 : "The only way in which tlie mind ever comes to be fur- nished with the ideas of cause and effect at all is this : we are con- scious that we will a certain motion hi the h>dy, and we discover that the motion follows the volition," etc. Sarely it is not neces- sary at this day to refute this anyalsis, and to prove that such
THE PHILOSOrHY OF VOLITION. 267
instances as these, of conscious, or observed, caiisations, are merely the occasions and not the sources of our rational notions of cause and effect. God and angels have no bodies, no limbs, to be moved by volitions ; hence, according to this marvellous explanation, they would not have any notion of causation at all ! Conscious instances of such bodily motions produced by voli- tions are merely the occasions, and not the only ones, upon' which the mind evolves its own a 2)^"'^ori notion of cause and effect — the antecedent which contains efficiency to effectuate the consequent — and forms the inevitable judgment, that with- out such antecedent the consequent change would not have heen.
In his third section our author endeavors to raise a difficulty against the doctrine of the efficiency of motive as producing voli- tion, by asserting that there is no way to measure " the stronger motive." When Edwards teaches that the choice always is as the stronger motive, the question is asked, "What is motive ? Let the answer be, motive is the complex of all that in the mind which immediately produces the volition. How, then, asks Dr. Bledsoe, is it known which is " the stronger motive ?" Edwards replies, as he supposes, by the fact that it is the one which the volition follows. And then he charges that Edwards has pro- ceeded in a circle, first assuming that the volition must follow the stronger motive, and then, that the motive the volition actu- ally followed was the stronger. Now, that this cavilling is falla- <5ioas may be shown by a parallel fact. By precisely the same process Dr. Bledsoe might show that the science of mechanics is all fallacious. But he doulitless believes in the laws of me- chanics. The motion of a body will be in the direction of the stronger force, will it not ? Undoubtedly. But how is the rela- tive strength of forces measured ? By the motion they produce. The stronger force will overcome the greater resistance, "uill it not ? Yes. But how is the relative strength of the force esti- mated? By the amount of resistance it overcomes. Have we n<^t here, then, the very same "circular" process? Undoubt- edly. Yet Dr. Bledsoe believes firmly in the validity of these mechanical laws, in spite of our cavil! Then his parallel cavil is worthless as against Edwards. The truth is, that on Dr. Bled- soe's empirical philosophy the cavil* would be insoluble for him
263 THE THILOSOPHY OF VOLITION.
in either case, tlioiir^k worthless in both cases. The sohition is, ihat oiir necessary ccnviction of the great hnv of causation is not Jerived from experience, as he supposes, but is an a i^r'torl result of the law of the reason ; and it is law which alone enables- us to formulate our experience rationally. It is not experience which has gradually taught us that every motion in bodies is an effect of related force, and that every deliberate, responsible vo- lition is the effect of subjective motive. It is intuition which prepares our minds thus to construe the sequences of change given us by observation. And by the same law of the intuitive judgment, which demands a cause for every change, we know that cause must be adequate to and so related in its degree of energy to its effect.
It is very true that, in the case of a given motive in our fellow- creature's mind, we can only determine its relative strength a 2)oster'iori by its effect in producing volition. But do we ever suppose that the motive derives its strength from this circum- stance ? Ko ; our reason forbids it.
There is one general but conclusive reply to all of Dr. Bled- soe's argumentation against the efficient certainty of motive. He has ?di Itself made admissions — un^\•ilhngly and under the uncon- scious stress of common sense — ichich retract and destroy his icJiole theory. Thus, p. 93 : " A desire or affection is the indis- jyensahle condition, the incariahle antecedent, of an act of the will." P. 216 ; " Has volition an efficient cause ? I answer, No. Has it ' a sufficient ground and reason ' of its existence ? I answer, Yes. No one ever imagined that there are no indispensable antecedents to choice, -^-ithout which it could not take place.'* .... "But a power to act, it will be said, is not a sufficient rea- son to account for the existence of an action." He means of this or that specific action. "This is true; the reason is to come. The sufficient reason, however, is not an efficient cause ; for there is some difference between a blind impulse or force and rationality " (pp. 92, 93j. " Our volitions might depend on cer- tain desires or affections, but they would not result from the in- fluence or action of them The reason why this pi-inciple
has not been employed by the advocates of free agency is, I humblv conceive, because it has not been entertained by them." Jouffroy, as admitted on p.- 92, did not " entertain' it. P. 40,
THE THILOSOrHY OF VOLITION. 269
*' TJie strength of a motive" as President Edwards properly re- marks, " DEPENDS UPON THE STATE OF THE MIND to V'Jiich it IS ad- dressed." Thus does Dr. Bledsoe stumble uuintentionaUy, but iiuavoidablv, into the Calvinistic doctrine of volition. By "mo- tive " he here means objective inducement, as is perfectly ob- vious from his describing it as a something " addressed, to the mind " ; so that he has acceded to our position, which is the comer-stone of our whole philosophy of the will, viz., that the strength of objective inducement " depends on the state of the mind." Now, then, first, will not that state of the mind be regu- lative of the volitions of which these objective inducements are the occasions, not causes ? The affirmative is too plain. And Second, what is included in that "state of the Diind" or, as Dr. Bledsoe expresses it elsewhere, "jiature" of the mind, which is thus found to be efficiently regulative of volitions ? This is the crucial question, from the investigation of which he always re- coils, by reason of that obstinate confusion of sensibility and conation, of the objective and subjective, with which we charged him in the outset. Had he dared to look this question steadily in the face, he would have seen what all common sense recog- nizes— just what the Calvinistic philosophy formulates. This " state," this determinant " nature," is precisely the hah'Uus, the disposition, regulative of the rise of subjective appetencies, and thus of the volitions which these cause. In this fatal admission Dr. Bledsoe has refuted his wdiole refutation. Again, Dr. Bled- soe finds that none of his colleagues, in the advocacy of self- determination of the will, concur with him, not even Jouflfroy, in his idea that while volitions " depend on certain desires or affec- tions," yet they do not " result from their influence or action." Ko wonder ; for they have not Dr. Bledsoe's capacity for self- contradiction. To him alone must belong the unique glory of believing that an event is " not influenced by" what it " depends on ! " Again, he teaches that not only a mind, but an oliject and a desire, are the invariable, the indispensable antecedents of voUtion. Well, sound philosophy teaches that a change has no invariable and indispensable antecedent except its efficient cause. Why should a given antecedent be indispensable to a giA'en consequent, except that it is its cause ? It is by this very principle that all the methods of experimental induction into the
270 THE PHILOSOPHY OF YOLITIOX.
laws of cause in nature proceed. The pliilosoplier knows that when he has found the invariable indispensable antecedent, he has the cmise. Hence this is what all his canons of induction are framed to seek for.
Once more : Dr. Bledsoe admits that, while he thinks volition has no efficient cause, yet it has, of course, "its sufficient ground and reason." He exclaims, " There is some diflference between blind impulse or force and rationality ! " In that we all agree. But is force the only species of cause, and physical motion in the passive body the only species of effect ? That is what Dr. Bledsoe assumes without proving. What we proved by Scrip- ture, experience and reason was, that there are spiritual causa- tions as well as physical. And we presume, again, that Dr. Bledsoe has the unique honor of being the only philosopher who is not a materialist who ever denied it. Now, then, in this sphere of spiritual causations, our plain theory is, that as the effects are rational, the causes also are rational. Now, what is a rational cause save "a sufficient gi'ound and reason?" The Greek, the native language of philosophy, suggests this obvious truth by using the same word for both. Ahia is cause; and alzia is reason of acting ; rational, subjective motive.
With this complete answer which Dr. Bledsoe has given of himself we conclude our answer. And thanking him for his efficient aid in his own demolition, we make our final bow, re- ciprocating his courteous wishes for our welfare.
THE EMOTIONS/
THE works on mental science most current treat almost ex- clusively of the intelligence or cognitive faculties of the soul. Locke's great treatise dispatches the subject in his chap- ter on Poioer, and that in the most superficial and unsatisfactory manner. Sir William Hamilton and Dr. Noah Porter close their books without teaching us anything at all about the feel- ings of the soul, except the mere intimation given in their j)re- liminary divisions of the subject, that human souls have such functions. Kant, in his Critic of the Practical -Reason, speaks of the motives of human activity, thus recognizing the emotive functions of the soul, and making some profound remarks. But the main object of the treatise being to discuss the ethical judg- ment and sentiment, as the peculiar characteristic of rational, responsible agents, it really presents no systematic discussion of the feelings as a whole. To us the most striking trait of this work of the great philosopher is the following : he alone, of all the psychologists, recognizes and establishes " the propensity to evil " in human nature on pure grounds of psychology as distin- guished from theology, as one of the constitutive traits of hu- man character, just as other psychologists recognize and prove the natural love of happiness, of power, or of applause. Of this, more in the end. Dr. Thomas Brown devotes an adequate portion of his eloquent lectures to the feelings, for which, as for the elevation and purity of his views, and the ingeuuity of his analyses, he deserves much admiration. But his distribu- tion of the subject is not logical, and he leaves much to be done for the perfecting of this branch of the science.
Dr. McCosh seems to have been moved by this belief to the undertaking of this, his latest work. Dr. Brown had distributed the feelings into three classes: 1, Our "immediate emotions;"
' This article appeared in the Southern Presbyterian Review for July, 188-4, reviewing The Emotions, by James McCosh, D. D., LL. D. New York : Charles Scribner's Sons, 12rQ0. , pp. 256.
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272 THE EMOTIONS.
sucli as wonder, beanty, the ludicrous, love, liate, jDride, liumil- itv, sympatliy. 2, Our " retrosiiectivc emotions;" as regret, anger, gratitude, gladness, remorse. 3, Our " prospective emo- tions ; " as desires, fear, and Lope. Tlie basis of this classifica- tion is the way in which feelings are related to their objects in time. The first class he then subdivides into feelings involving moral quality, as love, hate, sympathy ; and those involving no moral quality, as wonder, beauty, the ludicrous. Dr. McCosh lias evidently had this distribution in his eye, and in attempting to improve it, he only changes it into one still more inconse- quential. His plan is to distribute the feelings into : I. " Affec- tions towards animate objects," the subdivisions of which are {a) retrospective, (Jj) immediate, and (c) prospective affections towards animate objects. II. "Affections towards inanimate objects," the a?sthetic namely. III. " Continuing and complex affections." This hst suggests easily many fatal objections. The divisions do not divide. Are not aU feelings, in theii- very- nature, more or less " continuing " ? The same affection is in some spirits more persistent than in some other more fickle ones. Xo affection is, hke volitions and like many sense per- ceptions, momentary. Again, love is classed in the third divi- sion, for instance; but love is as simple as any of the affec- tions, and certainly it is one which can only be directed towards an animate object. Again, have we no aesthetic feelings towards animate objects ? Do we never see beauty in a squirrel, a fine horse, a graceful child? Must the object necessarily be dead, like a star or a mountain, in order to awaken the [esthetic senti- ment ? And if the division into prospective, immecTiate, and retrospective is worth anything, does it not also extend to the second and third classes ? Once more, the complex affections we must unquestionably find very numerous, even as various com- binations of a few letters make a multitude of different syllables. The hst should be very long, whereas Dr. McCosh's is very short, and must, therefore, omit a very large number of complex feel- ings. And sui'ely, in a philosophic classification, the complex ejnotions should be treated under the heads of the simple and elemental ones which form them l\v combination. Wh'at chemist would treat, in one book, sulphur as a simple substance, and then in another the sulphates and sulphides ?
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Or, if wo return to Dr. Brown's less objectionable distribution, "v\'e may well inquire wlietber the relations of feelings to their objects in time gives us any accurate or useful ground of divi- sion. In one sense all our feelings have a ])osterior relation, in time, to the cognition of their objects; for such cognition is the condition precedent of the rise of the emotion. For instance, ■when Dr. Brown makes wonder an immediate emotion, and an- ger a retrospective one, we must ask: Did not the cognition •which excited the wonder precede that feeling just as truly as the cognition of the injury preceded the resulting emotion of anger? We may admit that desire, hope, fear, do look forward to future good or evil in the sense in which wonder and resent- ment do not.
But if we grant that the relation in time of the feelings to their objects gives a thorough ground of division, the equally grave ob- jection is, that this division would be fruitless. The discrimina- tive trait selected is one which has little importance, and leads to no scientific results. It is as though one should classify fruits by their color, when one class would be of " red fruits," includ- ing strawberries, some cherries, currants, grapes, and apples (and excluding others of the same species), with pomegranates. "What light would botany ever receive from such a classification and treatment ?
So it Avas erroneous for Dr. Brown to divide feeUngs into those qualified by moral trait and those having no moral trait. Strictly, no feelings are ethical in quality except the emotions of con- science, approbation, and reprehension. But in the popular sense, any feeling may become moral, or immoral, according as it is conditioned and limited. The aesthetic feelings, the bodily appetites, the resentments, the desires, the loves and hatreds, may be "sdrtuous, or vicious, or indifferent, according to their objects and limitations. If there are some objects of feeling such that the emotions cannot be directed to them without hav- ing some ethical quality, good or bad — ^which is admitted — this is far short of giving us a ground of general discrimination. A profitable classification must be obtained in far other ways than these.
Before dealing with this task, let us resume the question as to the importance of this discussion of the feelings in philosophy.
Vol. m.— 18.
274 THE EMOTIONS.
Our rational consciousness reveals to us a multitude of acts of intelligence, sensitive, intuitive, suggestive, or illative, which all have this in common, that their results are cognitions. The same consciousness reveals to the slightest glance that there is a class of functions in the human spirit very distinct from cognitions : the feelings. The best description of these, and of their wide difference from cognitions, is that which we read in conscious- ness itself. Our admiration, disgust, desire, necessarily wait on our ideas of their objects; and yet differ as consciously from the acts of intellection which arouse them as the warmth of the solar ray, felt in our nerves of touch, differs from its luminous power, felt by the optic nerves. Feeling is the temperature of thought.
Although so many of the books direct our attention exclusively to the powers of intellect, the feelings are far from being the least important or least noble functions of the soul. These writers seem to think that the whole glory of the mind is in its discrimi- nations of thought ; that here alone they can display a glittering acumen. But this quality is no less necessary to the correct analysis of the feelings than of the logical processes of mind. If any eminency is to be assumed for either department, we shoidd incline to claim it for the feelings, as the more noble and essen- tial functions of the soul, rather than the cognitions. For,
First, The conative feelings constitute the energetic and oper- ative part of every motive to action. Hence these are, in scien- tific view, more important than the cognitions which occasion, them. Essentially, feehngs are man's motive power. Intellect is the cold and latent magnetism which directs the ship's com- pass, and furnishes the guide of its motion, should it be able to move. Feeling is that elastic energy which throbs within the machinery, and gives propulsion to its wheels. Without it, the ship, in spite of the needle pointing with its subtile inteUigence to the pole, rots in the calm before it makes a voyage any- whither.
Second, The morality of our volitions depends upon that of their subjective motives ; and these derive their moral complexion wholly from the feelings which combine in them ; for this is the active, and therefore the ethical, element. It is chiefly the feel- icgs which qualify the motives, as praise- or blame-worthy.
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Hence, again : a great and noble emotion is a higlier function of the soul than any mere vigor of cognition. "The sei-pent was more subtile than any beast of the field ; " and none the less the reptile, the most ignoble of his class of animals. "Magna- nimity" is made up chiefly of the grand affections, and not of keen thoughts. Disinterested love is nobler than talent. Gen- erous seK-sacrifice is grander than acute invention ; the heroic vrill is more admirable than the shrewd intellect. Hence, again : our moral discrimination, our analyses of our own motives, is chiefly concerned with the ascertainment of the real elements of feeling which combine in them. We shall strikingly confirm this by the instances to be cited hereafter, in which we shall find the moral problem : Was the act right ? or, in other words. Was the emotional part of the motive right? will turn solely upon the analysis of the feehng which entered into the motive. Indeed, the intelligent moral government of the heart will be found to turn on such analysis of the feelings, tracing them to their real ultimate principles. The maxim, " Know thyself," resolves chiefly into a knowledge of the feelings which mingle within us. It is, then, chiefly the psychology of the feelings which is the moral guide of life.
Third, The vigor of the functions of cognition itself depends, in every man, more on the force of the incentive energizing the facult}'-, than on the native strength or clearness of the intellect. Many a man w'hose mental vision w^as by nature Kke that of the eagle, has been practically of inert and useless mind ; the lumin- ous ray of his spii'it was dimmed, and at last quenched, by the fogs of indolence or fickleness. There was not loill enough to direct the mental attention steadily to any valuable problem. But in the man of persistent and powerful feeling, the desire has so cleared and stimulated the vision that it has grown in clear- ness until it has pierced the third heavens of truth. It is chiefly the feelings which make the man.
If we examine a lexicon, we find names of feelings in almost countless numbers. In a single subdivision we see " pleasure," "joy," "gladness," "content," "delight," "rapture," "cheerful- ness," " a merry heart," and many others. In another we hear of " expectation," " Avish," " hope," " desu'e," " craving," " lust," " concupiscence," " coveting," " longing." In another of " un-
276 THE EMOTIONS.
easiness," " appreliension," "alarm," "fear," "panic," "terror." But tlie faculties of cognition seem to be few, and easily separ- ated. Hence, perhaps, some infer tliat tliere can be no complete psychologT of the feehngs ; that this department of the soul's functions must remain an ever-shifting cloud-world, whose laws are too numerous and too fickle to be comprehended. But it is hoped that this mutable maze will be found like the kaleid- oscope, all of whose diversified wonders are accounted for bv two plane miri'ors and a few colored beads. True science can bring order out of this confusion. And the most valuable ethical and theological results wiU be, that right emotions will be distin- guished from the wrong, and we shall asceiiain the line which separates the normal afiections from the unlawful.
One simpHfication of the subject is at once effected by noticing that they may be the same in natui'e and differ in degree. So that many of the names of emotions do but express the same feeling in different gi'ades of energy. Thus: "concern," "ap- prehension," " fear," " terror," are but four degrees of the same feeling, as calmer or more intense. T\ hat else is expressed by the terms "content," "cheerfulness," "joy," "rapture," "■ trans- port " ? The word " passion " is often used colloquially, and even defined in some books as meaning the emotion in an in- tense degree. Thev tell us, for instance, that "love" has become " a passion," when it has risen to an uncontrollable agitation, absorbing the whole soul, overpowering the self-control, making the pulse to bound and the face to glow. Thus they would call "displeasure" a feehng, but rage a " passion." And they have even separated off chapters upon the discussion of " the passions." But if the intense feeUngs are the same, except in degi'ee, with theii- calmer movements, this is just as sensible as though the chemist who promised to treat scientifically of " water," should discuss separately water in a teacup and a tub ; or, after an- nouncing "caloric" as his subject, should devote one chapter to heat in a tea-kettle, and a different one to heat in the boiler of a steam-engine. This abuse of the word "passion" has another mischief : it utterly obscures the etymology of the word, and in doing so helps to becloud another division of the feelings, which is, as we shall see, the most fundamental of all. Passio is from patior, " I suffer," " I endure." Passions should mean those
THE EMOTIONS. 277
feelings witli which I am passively impressed. The English Liturgy uses the word classically and. correctly when it teaches the worshipper to supplicate Christ "by his most holy cross and passion" (by his sufferings ; the feelings of pain, bodily and spiritual, which he was made passively to endure) ; and our Con- fession uses it aright when it declares God '• without parts and passions : " an Infinite Monad, essentially and boundlessly active, but incapable of being made to suifer or to experience any func- tion of passivity.
This plain and obvious view of feelings, the same in element but different in degree, explains another very frequent fallacy. The feelings, in their calmer grades, are mistaken for the rational functions of judgment, which they attend , Thus, the man whose motive is caution, or apprehension, is described as acting rationally ; while he who is actuated by teiTor is said to act with "blind passion." But what is "terror" except a higher degree of the very same element of feeling, " fear," which appears in " apprehension "? In the true sense of the word "passion," an emotional function of passivity, if terror is a " passion," so is "apprehension." Extensive delusion also exists in the idea which finds expression in the first word of the popular phrase, "hlind passion." It is supposed that vehement emotion usually obfuscates the intellect. So it sometimes does, doubtless. And perhaps far more often it clarifies the intellect. Every faculty performs its functions more accurately when it is vigorously ener- gized. Feeling is the temperature of thought. Is the solar beam in July less luminous than on some pale wintry day, because charged with so much more heat ? Facts confirm this the true philosophy. Lawyers assure us that they get their most perspi- cacious views of the merits of their cases from the minds of their clients who are "piping hot" ^dth indignation and zeal. The great orator, when in the very " torrent and tempest of his passion," enjoys flashes of intellectual vision so clear and pene- trating, that he sees by them in a moment logical relations which a day's calm study might not have revealed to him. Stonewall Jackson modestly stated, that the moments when he had been conscious of the best use of his intellect were in the crisis of a great battle, with the shells hurtling over him. To our appre- hension it appears fully as probable that the dull and dim grade
278 THE EMOTIONS.
of an emotion will mislead the reason, as the vehement grade ; especially in view of the fallacy which calls the calmer grade a rational judgment. The gentle wolf in sheep's clothing will be more likely to invade the peaceful sheepfold of the intellect suc- cessfully than the raging wolf in the confessed wolf's skin.
These fallacies also greatly obscure our apprehensions of the functions and value of the feelings in the conduct of the spirit. ^\"e must learn to separate from our conception of the essence of the feelings that supposed trait of pungency or agitation. This necessarily characterizes only the more intense degrees of the feelings. The mental state may be true feeling, and yet calm and even. Again, we define feeling as "the temperature of thought." Now, the temperature of a beam of hght may vary in intensity, from the faint warmth of the wintry sunHght to the burning: heat of the midsummer beam condensed bv a lens. Yet in both rays it is caloric, not mere light. Heat is usually thought of by the unlearned as imbuing only fiery or molten masses. Yet science teaches us that there is a smaller degree of caloric even in a block of ice, for it can so radiate from that ice as to affect a thermometer. These facts are onh' used to illus- trate the proposition so often overlooked, that there may be an element of feeling in even the calmest processes of soul, and the analogy of the cases of itself raises a probability of the truth. But it can be demonstrated, and that by the following plain and short view. There can be no subjective motive without some feeling. But, without subjective motive, there can be no action of vohtion. Every rational volition is from a subjective motive to an object, which is the inducement, or objective end of the action. But in order for any object to be an inducement to ra- tional volition, it must present itself to the mind in the double aspect of the desirable and the real. For instance, if one says : " Come with us to the hill and dig laboriously, and you shall bear home on your shoulders a heavy load of rubbish," no one responds. The object is real, but totally undesii'able. Again one says : " Bun, and overtake the foot of yonder moving rain- bow arch, and under it you shall find a bag of gold." Not a soul moves a step. Why not? The object named, gold, is de- sirable, but the understanding knows it is unreal. Again, one says : '' Come with us to the mountains of Georgia, and in the
THE EMOTIONS. 279
known auriferons veins of that region we -will dig gold." The man desirous of wealth will now move. The objective, or pro- posed inducement, stands to the mind in the double category of the desirable and the real. But of course if this object becomes inducement to the soul, there must be an answering correspond- ency between it and the soul ; the subjective actions of the soul going out towards it must also be double, including both a judg- ment and a desire. Thus psychology confirms the verdict of common sense and consciousness. Every motive to action must involve a desire. But desire is feehng. Hence in the states of soul leading to the calmest intelligent action, there must be some feeling.
We learn thus, it is a mistake to suppose that feeling is inter- mittent in the soul's functions, while cognition is supposed to be constant. It is as true that the waking soul is never without feelings (in at least some calmer manifestations) as that it is never without thoughts. One phase of feeling goes, but another takes its place in perpetual succession ; it is only the intensity of feeling that ebbs and flows. Indeed, were all feehng really to desert a human soul, that soul would be as truly frozen for the time into fatuity as though it were struck idiotic. Suppose a man walking along the street under the impulse of ^ome purpose, wholly deserted by feeling — he would not take another step! Por thought is not purpose, unless it also involves desire. With the total extinction of desire, purpose would be annihilated, and the purposeless soul would pause as certainly as though it had become fatuous. Let the eager racer, who is about to bound towards the goal, see that the gold crown upon the goal, which -was his incentive, has turned to a clod. He stops. Why should he run ? No feeling, no action. If a man totally lost all feel- ing, what would there be left to energize his attention so as to direct it voluntarily to any given subject of thought ? Nothing. The processes of thought would remain as aimless and vacil- lating as the movements of the magnetic needle whose polarity is interrupted. Conscious thought might die away out of the soul after the death of feeling. Certainly there would be an end of all connected thought ; for the act by which the soul directs its attention is a volition, and without feeling there is no volition.
The next step towards simplifying the multifarious forms of
280 THE EMOTIONS.
feeling slionlcl be to search for those elements which are simple, original, and characteristic of human nature as such. This search must result in a correct classification ; and only by such a result can its completeness be verified. And,
I. At the forefront of all proper classification of feelings must stand ever the distinction between those which have an external cause, and in which the soul is passive — acted on, instead of acting — and those which have a subjective source in the soul's own spontaneity and dispositions, and which act outwardly to- wards their objects. Had not the popular usage so totally spoiled and perverted the classical meaning of the word j?as- sions, this would give us exactly the term we need for the former class. The word would express states of feeling in which the sovil is subject, and not agent, where the capacity for the feehng is a "passive power," or mere susceptibility lodged in the native constitution, and not a subjective activity. But as the persist- ency of the erroneous usage would cause us continually to be misunderstood, we surrender the word. Let us agree to call these ieelmgs functions of sensibility, or sensibilities.
The opposite class of feehngs, where the power in exercise is a subjective and active power, and the function of emotion has a subjective cause, we will call cqjpetencies. But we must remind the reader that these inward activities may pronounce them- selves for or against an object. They may take the form of de- sires or aversions ; they may reach after or repel the objectives. And the one class of feelings will be converse to the other. "We desire, then, when we speak of " appetencies," to be understood, as meaning either desires or aversions, either of these outgoings of subjective spontaneity.
It will soon be made to appear how all-important this division is. Yet many neglect it. Dr. Porter, dividing the powers of the soul, mentions them as three powers, of "Intellect, of Sensi- bility, of Will." So Gregory and many other morahsts. Locke, in the brief discussion of the feelings referred to, insists, indeed, upon distinguishing between the desires and the will, but declares that aU desire is determined by an " uneasiness," which he evi- dently regards as a passive sensibihty. Kant, however, with his usual accuracy, divides feeling from desire. Sir Wm. Hamilton, in his Lectures on Metaphysics, announces and defends the cor-
THE EMOTIONS. 281
rect distinction, making four classes of powers in the soul : 1, Of intellect or cognition ; 2, Of sensibility ; 3, Of " conation," including («) appetencies, and (li) volition. He claims, with a rather hasty self-importance, that he was the first to see and an- nounce the true distinction. Had he been as familiar with the Calviuistic divinity (even of his own country) as with the heathen Peripatetics, he would have seen that many of them had virtually taught the correct division generations before him. For in their habitual distribution into " iLnderstanding , affections, and vnll," they include, virtually, under the term will, not only the function of naked voHtion, but also all those of subjective conation. When, for instance, the Calvinist speaks of the " coiTuption of the v'iU" he means rather the conative movements preceding volition, than the mere power of volition itself. This distribu- tion really meant to say, then, that the soul has three classes of powers: 1, The intellective; 2, The susceptibilities (passive powers) ; 3, The conative, or active, divided into («) the appeten- cies, and ijj) volitions. So that they really set forth the all-im- portant distinction between the sensibilities and the appetencies.
It is true that the two opposite forms of feeling often, nay, usually, concur ; both are usually present together. It is also true that the impressions on the sensibility are the occasions (not causes) of the rise of appetencies, or subjective desires and aversions. But none the less is the distinction just and funda- mental. For —
First, Consciousness requires it. In the rise and continuance of a sensibility, I am conscious that, so far, I am only subject, and not agent ; passive, and only impressed from ^^^thout. I call into exercise no more spontaneity or selfhood as to experi- encing or not experiencing the sensibility, than the man unwit- tingly assaulted from the rear with a bludgeon has, as to the pain resulting from its stroke. And, consequently, I feel no more responsible. But when I begin to harbor an appetency, though it be not yet matured into volition, I am conscious of self-action. I know that this action of soul is an expression of my own spontaneity. This appetency is the Ego tending out- wardly to its objective. Its presence is as truly an expression of my free preference as is a volition. I feel thus only because / incline, or have the disposition, to feel thus; whereas before,
282 THE EMOTIONS.
mj sensibility was uttered in the passive verb, my appetency is uttered in the active transitive verb. Let the reader consider any actual instance. Suppose it to be that of the man causelessly assaulted with the bludgeon. The first consequence of the blow which is reported in the man's spirit is the gi'ief or distress an- swering immediately to the physical affection of the bruised nerves. In this the soul is as involuntary and passive as a stone in falling. Next thereafter may arise in the spirit of the injured man the warm appetency or desire to retaliate the pain — active resentment. Or this may not arise. If the sufferer is choleric, it may arise ; if he is meek, or if the blow came fi'om one he loves, it may not arise, but in its place will come a tender grief and a generous desire to render good for the smiter's evil. If the desire to strike back arises, its occasion will be found in the pas- sive sensibihty of grief or distress inflicted on the spirit by the blow ; but the cause of the resentful appetency, or of the tender forgiveness, must be sought in the subjective feeHngs of the man struck. Let another instance be found in the complex feeling called the " appetite " of hunger. This includes, first, an invol- ujitary sensibility, the uneasiness of want ; and next, a voluntary desire reaching forth to the food set before the eyes. But let .us suppose that, at this moment, one informs him, " This food con- tains arsenic." The appetency instantly subsides, although the uneasiness of want continues. A third instance may be found in the feeling of wonder. This, in its first movement, is a passive sensibility, excited by a novel object. It is, however, the imme- diate occasion of the active appetency of " curiosity," or the de- sire to know.
Second, This distinction is essential to explaining our con- scious free agency, consistently with the certainty of volitions. The true doctrine here is undoubtedly the Augustinian : that motives regularly cause volitions. But now, if we confound pas- sive sensibilities with spontaneous appetencies, and call the former " motives," that doctrine becomes inconsistent Avith our conscious free agency. If my impulse to strike back at my as- sailant is a passive sensibility, it is caused by his bloAv, as truly as the bodily pain. In the producing of that pain I had no more agency than the stone has in dropping when its support is re- moved. If that imj)ulse was cause of the volition to strike back,
THE EMOTIONS. 283
then the whole series, feelings and act, was determined for me by a causal necessity, without my consent, by the assailant when he struck me. I was no free agent, but a sentient puppet. The last movement, the act of retaliation, was determined by the other's blow, as really as the movement of the hindmost link in a chain, whose foremost link is drawn forward by another hand. But if we make the proper distinction between sensibility and appetency, if we perceive aright the objective source of the one, and the subjective source and true spontaneity of the other, we are able to refute that fatal inference. It is this truth which dis- solves the whole fallacies, both of the materialistic fatahst and the advocate of the contingency of the will. Grant, with Hob- bes, Condillac, and the Mills, that appetency is but " transformed sensation," or transformed sensibility, and every act of man is physically necessitated, like the movements of the successive Jinks of the chain. But the Pelagian, seeing whither this fatal argument leads, sought to break it by den;ydng that motives do cause voHtions. He exclaimed : The feelings do not causatively determine the will, but the will is self-determined, and essenti- ally in equilibrio, and always competent to emit the volition which is contrary to the strongest motives. Only thus can you save man's true free agency. But the Pelagian is here contradicted by consciousness, by theology, by the absolute divine prescience of volitions, by experience, and by a thousand absurd conse- quences of his denial. Motives do determine volitions. But what are motives f This vital question cannot be answered without the just distinction between sensibiHties and appetencies. Pas- sive sensibilities never are motives — at least to responsible rational volitions — but only non-efficient occasions of those sub- jective appetencies which are the determining motives. And man is free in his volitions, because he is spontaneous in those motives which determine them ; not because there is any such monstrosity in his spiritual action as this function conformed to no law, even of his own subjective reason or disposition, and regulated by no rule, even of his own subjective constitution. Thus the errors of the two extremes are resolved at once, and the consistenc}^ of the true moderate doctrine reconciled with our conscious free agency.
II. The next fundamental point is, to ascertain the con-
284 THE EMOTIONS.
ditions under wliich feelings arise in tlie soul. One condition is obviously the presence, in thought at least, of some idea or judg- ment as object of the feeling. He who feels must have some- thing to feel about. It is equally obvious that it is mine cofjni- tion, some idea or conclusion, presented either by sense, mem- ory, association, imagination, or reason, which furnishes that object before the soul. It is an injury which excites resentment ; in order that it may do so, the injury must be either seen, felt, or thought. The object of parental love is the child. This affection can only imbue the mother's spirit conscioiisly as the child is present, either before her eyes or her thought. Hence the maxim, that the soul only feels as the mind sees. Cognition is in order to feeling.
The other condition is, if possible, more important, though not so obvious. In order to feeling, there must be in the soul a given a jyiorl disposition or habitus as to the object. And this is true both of the sensibilities and the appetencies. As the rise of bodily pain from a blow or stab is conditioned on the previous presence in the flesh of living nerve-tissue, so the pre- vious presence in the soul of a given susceptibility is the condi- tion prerequisite to the excitement of a given sensibility by its object. The blow did not put the nerve-fibres into the flesh ; it found them there. So the presence of the object in thought does not create the susceptibility or sentiency of soul, but finds it there. The parallel fact is true of the appetencies. Unless the soul is naturally and previously qualified by a given disposi- tion, or tendency of inclination for or against the given object, seen in cognition, this could not be the object of appetency or aversion. The racer would not, and could not, emit desire for the clod set upon the goal; he could and would for the gold crown. Now, did the clod and the metal, or either of them^ propagate this difference in the man's desire ? That is absurd ; they are dead, inert matter ; objects of desire or aversion, not agents. It was the native, subjective disposition of the racers soul which determined the desire towards the golden crown, and away from the clod, when the two objects were presented in cog- nition. This is plain.
But from this it follows, that if a given disposition is native to the soul, no object naturally indifferent or alien to that disposi-
THE EMOTIONS. 285
tion can have any agency wliatever to reverse it. This must fol- low by the same kind of reasoning which proves that, if the horse pulls the cart, it cannot be the cart which pulls the horse. What is it that has decided whether a given object shall or shall not be an inducement to this soul ? It is that soul's disposition which has decided it, and decided it a priori. Then, an object which the soul's disposition has already decided to be alien or indifferent cannot influence that disposition backwards. The effect cannot reverse its own cause. If, then, we have ascertained a native dis- j)osition of souls, we have gotten an ultimate fact, behind which analysis can go no further ; a fact which is regulative (not com- pulsory) of human spontaneity, and through the spontaneous appetencies, of the will. Let an instance be taken from the class of feelings called appetites. "VVe ask the child: Is this drug sweet or nauseous ? If on experiment the native taste pronounce it nauseous, that is the end of the matter. Of course, the child may still be forced by manual violence to swallow it. The child may even elect freely to swallow it ; may even beg eagerly to be allowed to swallow it, if it sees that the evil drug is the only choice except a more evil sickness or death. But that child will not freely eat that drug for the sake of enjoying it, nor will its natural repugnance be in the least changed, but rather confirmed, by having the drug forced upon it. Let an instance also be taken from the spiritual dispositions. Is the human soul so constituted as to find an intuitive pleasure in the ap23lause of its fellows, and pain in their contempt ? If experi- ment uniformly reveals this, what would or could be the result of this appeal : " Come, my friend, and embark 3'ourself in this laborious train of efforts. They cannot possibly procure for you any good or advantage, except that of being despised by all your fellow-men. Come, undergo these toils, solely to win that contempt." Every one knows that the appeal must totally fail, unless the man were a lunatic; and all except lunatics would think us lunatics for attempting to make it. Now, the hearer is, in this refusal, perfectly free, and yet his free refusal is abso- lutely certain. Why ? The a jyriori constitutive law of dispo- sition has settled the matter : that being well abused cannot be, 'per se, an inducement to a human soul ; the native disposition is to find pleasure in the opposite — in ap]3lause.
286 THE EMOTIONS.
m. From this simple view it results that the feelings, both sensibiUties and appetencies, will present themselves in pairs. We shall meet with a given feeling and its reverse. The second essential condition of feelings, as we saw, was the previous ex- istence of a native disposition. Now, the disposition whicL has decided a given object to be an inducement, will of course regard the opposite object as one of repulsion. The taste which has elected the sweet will, i2)so facto, repel the nauseous as evil. Or, the disposition which recognizes the approbation of fellows as the good, will ipso facto reject the obloquy of mankind && per se an e^dl, however one may endorse it for the sake of some other higher good. The pair of results in each case does not disclose two dispositions, but only one, acting according to its own nature oppositely towards the two opposite objects. In the compass it is the same molecular energy which causes the upper end of the needle to turn towards the north pole, and to turn away from the south. It is so of the soul's native condition of spiritual electricity; the one disposition discloses two opposite actions, either of sensibiHty or of appetency ; the soul is affected, in virtue of one disposition, with two sensibilities, or two appeten- cies, pleasure or pain, desire or aversion, towards the pair of oppo- site objects. Eminently is this true of the moral emotion : appro- bation of the virtuous and reprehension of the wicked, are the dual expression of the one, single right disposition of conscience.
Thus aU the feelings may be shown to go in pairs, as pleasure and pain, wonder and ennui, subUmity and disgust, beauty and ugliness, love and hatred, gratitude and resentment, beneficence and malice, fear and bravery, pride and humility, approbation and rex3rehension, self-satisfaction and shame. And the whole list of Desires, whether for continued existence, j)ower, money, fame, ease, has its counterpart list of Aversions, for death, weak- ness, poverty, reproach, sickness. Thus our anah'sis is at once simphfied, and the number of cases to be reduced is diminished by one-half.
ly. This seems the suitable place to refute two kindred, or we may say, virtually identical, theories, which boast of a still greater simphfication, and have infused boundless fallacies inta the science of ethics. These writers say : Give us two feelings, only, the sensibihties to pleasure and paifi, and we have aU the
THE EMOTIONS. 287
elements necessary to account for the multiplicity of human emotions. An object happens by chance to affect us a few times with pain or pleasure. We remember the effect of its presence. This memory of the experienced pain or pleasure is supposed to be sufficient to generate subsequent aversion or desire towards that object. Desire, then, is only rational self -calculation, pro- posing to itself to seek the same means in order to repeat the feeling of pleasure.
Hartley had applied his favorite doctrine of association for virtually the same purpose. The Mills, father and son, and even the witty Sydney Smith, heartily adopted the scheme. The " as- sociational philosophers," dazzled by the power association evi- dently has over our ideas, and the wonders which this faculty works in suggestion and imagination, were led to suppose that they could account for all the higher functions of the reason by association, without postulating for the mind any of those a priori cognitions and judgments which were so obnoxious to this empirical school. They thought they could account for memory as a mere result of associated ideas. Our most fundamental judgments of relation were to be explained as a sort of trick the mind got into by seeing two ideas associated in a certain way, of supposing them necessarily related that way. Our belief in the tie of cause and effect, they said, was nothing but a habit of ex- pecting a consequent to follow a given antecedent, simply because they had been so often associated so. What wonder that these men thought they could also account for all the marvels of emo- tion with the two simple elements of experienced pain and plea- sure, and their magician, association? Thus : Experienced pain has been associated with a given object a number of times. Afterward the sight of the object, by the law of association, sug- gests those former pains, and this is the genesis of the emotion oifear. Other objects caused pleasure. By the same power of association their presence suggested that former pleasure, and that gave birth to desire. Or if the rational faculty joined to the association a probable expectation of attainment, that was Jiope. The sight of the kind mother, by the associative tie, suggests to the boy or girl the many personal pleasures of which she had been the source, from the first remembered draught of nourish- ment out of her generous breasts to the last ministration of
288 THE EMOTIONS.
relief or enjoyment; and tliat string of associations constitutes jilial love and gratitude. We see a person suffering ; the associa- tion wliicli tlie spectacle revives of our former suffering gives us a gentle pain, and that is sympathy !
Now, in refuting this notable scheme, it need not be denied that our feelings do fall within the wonderful tie of association, nor that this faculty has a potent influence in combining and modifying the emotions. But elements must exist before they can combine ; and the associative faculty, whose whole power is to procure the reproduction of ideas or feelings before connected, has no power to generate. The chief plausibility of this scheme is derived fi-om its success in accounting iov fear, as only remem- bered pain associated vdth its cause. But when we take another step in their process the 23lausibihty vanishes. If their plan is correct, should we not account for all our aversions precisely as we account for our fears? But then aversion and fear should be the same, but they are often widely distinguished.
But the more thorough and obvious refutation is to remark, that the whole trick of this analysis is in assuming that there is one pain and one pleasure only. But pains and pleasures are many and diverse. Some are animal, some spiritual. Is the pain of a stripe from the rod quivering in the animal nerves of the gross and selfish child the same with the pain of conscience awakened in the spirit of the ingenuous boy by the tears of the mother, who, while she disapproves, is too loving to strike ? Can the one pain be analyzed into the other by any jugglery of the associations? No. This Hartleian scheme thus begs the ques- tion at the outset, by confounding, under the names of pain and pleasure, functions of feehng widely distinct and equally original.
The fact substantiated under our second head equally refutes it. As soon as we ask the question, Can any object whatsoever oc- casion in man's spirit any feeling whatsoever? the negative which common sense at once pronounces to that simple inqidiy gives us the material of this argument. Did the clod occasion the same joy and desire in the racer's mind as the golden crown ? May a heap of rubbish be possibly the object of an aesthetic pleasure as the rainbow may be ? Can a human spirit be pleased at being talked about abusively, as well as by being talked of approvingly ? Of coui'se not. But why not ? The answer is as
THE EMOTIONS. 289
simple as fundamental: tliat tliere must exist, in the sensitive spirit, a capacity or specific disposition establishing a relevancy of the soul to the specific class of objects. And that disposition must exist as a subjective law of the soul previous and in order to the result, the rise of the different feeling. It would be as reasonable to say that the rivulet generated the spring as to assert that the feeling implanted the disposition and capacity, whose preexistence is in order to the rise of the feeling. Hart- ley has missed, then, and totally overlooked the main fact in the problem. Since pains and pleasures are many, and are natur- ally distinct, it is vain to talk of a plan by which one pain and one pleasure may generate many other coordinate and equally original pains and pleasures.
Association, least of all, can work this effect. For the very nature of this mental process is to connect ideas and feelings by some tie of preexistence together in the mind — resemblance, contrast, causation, or logical relation — so that the one idea shall reproduce the other. That is all. But mere reproduction does not transmute. The suggested idea merely arises such as it was when cognized before, save as it is now thought in some new connection. Hence, all these theories which seek to make asso- ciation the generator of different mental states from those first associated are worthless. Let us test in this way, for instance, the genesis of filial love and gratitude from the child's associa- tions of experienced natural pleasures with the kind mother's person. Those pleasures, when experienced, were personal and selfish. But the very essence of fihal love is to be disinterested. How could the mere circumstance that these pleasures are re- vived by suggestion in association with the mother's image work all that mighty change into an affection of the opposite class ? Again, how do we get from such a source an ethical affection for the mother, including the judgment and sentiment of right, merit, desert, and obligation? Why should these remembered personal pleasures generate a love different from that felt for the kindly cow, which relieved the child's hunger more constantly than the mother's bosom ; or for the jolly toy, which gave him as many gay moments as the mother's caresses? There are loves, again, which go out towards objects which are sources of our griefs and not our joys : the mother's love for her new-born
Vol. III.— 19.
290 THE EMOTIONS.
iBfant, wliicli, up to tliat moment when slie enshrines it in her heart of hearts, had made its existence as ?ifojtus known to her only in the pains of gestation and the agonies of parturition ; the parent's love attaching to a child whose faults and cruelties only pierce the lo%'iug heart with sorrows.
It is unnecessary to pursue the parallel process with the sup- posed generation of sympathy from our own remembered pains and of the other afiections. The argument is so similar as not to need repetition.
The other branch of the theory which accounts for appetency as the deliberate self-calculation arguing from pleasures before experienced to the repetition of their means, receives a more easy and popular answer. How was the soul carried to the ap- petency of that object the first time it sought it? Not by the experience of the pleasure derived from the object, for there has been no experience as yet, this being the first experiment. Here the theory breaks down hopelessly. Now, when the soul sought the object of its appetency the first time, the impulse to do so could not have been calculated, but it must have been immedi- ate and instinctive. But this first instance of appetency is of the same class of mental affections with all the subsequent in- stances of the same appetency. In the subsequent ones, then, this immediate and instinctive desire cannot be absent, which was the sole element in the first and most characteristic instance. It is not meant to deny that rational calculation, founding on remembered experiences of advantage, does afterwards mingle with and reinforce instinctive desire ; all that is argued is that it cannot first generate it, any more than a child can procreate its own parent. Let us suppose that a physiologist was asked : What causes the new-born infant to imbibe its natural nourish- ment? and that he were to reply: "The cause is its experience of the sweetness of the mother's milk." The folly of the answer would be transparent. How did the infant know it was sweet before it had tasted it? By similar reasoning it appears that, as this infant seeks the mother's breast under the guidance of an orisrinal and inliorn animal instinct, so all the soul's elemen- tal appetencies are spiritual instincts. This truth reflects new- honor upon the "snsdom of him who fashioned human spirits, when we come to perceive the "final causes" of the original feel-
THE EMOTIONS. 291
ings. The designs wliicli the Maker pursues in them are so pro- found that we learn man "is fearfully and wonderfully made," not only as to his anatomy, but as to the frame-work of his feelings.
Y. We advance now to the true classification of the elemental feelings. We have already found them fundamentally separated by a dual division into sensibilities and appetencies, the former passive and produced by an external cause, the latter active and springing from a siibjective source. Then, in view of another principle of division, we found them all falling into pairs : sensi- bihties, pleasurable or painful ; and appetencies, either of desire or aversion; and each pair the expression, not of two, but of one original disposition of soul, yielding the contrary feehngs in re- sponse to opposite objects. Still another basis of a dichotomy was found by remembering that man is corporeal and spiritual, and has, accordingly, animal sensibilities and mental. The pas- sive sensations experienced in the animal susceptibility are im- pressions on the bodily senses ; the corresponding appetencies are known by the name " appetites." In popular language, these are usually limited to the appetitive part of thirst, hunger, and the sexual sensibility. But it would be curious and interesting to inquire whether each of the appetencies occasioned by the sensation impressed on the other animal senses is not equally entitled to be called an " appetite." Why may we not say that the peasant whose back itches has an appetite to scratch, as properly as we say that, when thirsty, he has an appetite to drink? When the eye is wearied by confinement in darkness, may we not say that it has an "appetite" for the light? When the musician's ear is wearied by silence, why should we not speak of him as having an "appetite" for harmony? But waiv- ing this question, we only add that the pleasures and pains of the sensuous aesthetic — we shall meet the mental aesthetic feel- ings further on — and the desires and aversions occasioned by them, also belong to this division of feelings.
There remain, then, to discuss the mental feehngs of the two classes: the sensibilities and appetencies which inhabit the ra- tional spirit properly, as distinguished from the animal nature, to which the senses contribute nothing except the remoter min- isterial service of channels for the cognitions which occasion
292 THE EMOTIONS.
the spiritual feelings. Let this be more clearly viewed in an instance. The virtuous man is informed -of the utterance of a base lie. The feeling which we take into account here is the ethical loathing he feels for the falsehood. Now, it may be asked, had not this virtuous man employed his acoustic sense, would his mind have known that the foul sin of lying had oc- curred? No; the bodily acoustic sense has been the channel of the cognition. But the evil quahty which occasions his mental abhorrence does not at all reside in the sou?ids through which, by the ministry of the ear, his mind cognized the evil lie. It is not that these sounds Avere grating or unmelodious, or the words unrhetorical. The vice is in the thouglits tittered by the liar; and the moral feeling is spiritual, and not sensuous.
Looking, then, only to the feelings of the mind, and excluding bodily sensations and appetites, we venture to suggest, as an imperfect and tentative arrangement, the following classification. The first column contains the objects, on the presence of which in cognition feeling is conditioned. These objects, as explained, fall into pairs. The second column contains the corresponding sensibilities; and the third the corresponding appetencies, also appearing in pairs of opposites. But each pair of pairs reveals only one subjective disposition or capacity of feehng in the soul. So that the whole variety of feelings is reduced to nine 2:)rincvples.
These nine elements of disposition, susceptibility, and cona- tion, of course combine in various ways, producing many forms of complex feeling. Of these a few have been indicated in the table. The moral emotion may combine in many of these, as with instinctive resentment, love, sympathy, and modify the products. So the sensuous affections may combine with others, as love, selfishness, sympathy, and ambition, or avarice, pro- ducing the most energetic results, of which some are criminal and some legitimate.
The eight traits of disposition, with their resulting capacities for sensibihty and conation, are implanted by our Maker in our souls. The ninth disposition was introduced by the fall. We may safely conclude that, had a given capacity no legitimate and innocent scope for its exercise, a wise and holy God would never have implanted it in the man made in his image. Hence, while the perversions of these feelings, produced by the combination
THE EMOTIONS.
293
of the ninth, native depravity, are all miscliievous and criminal, there must be exercises of the other eight which are lawful. There is a legitimate wonder, curiosity-, mirth, admiration, desire of power, delight in a good name. It is possible for a man to "be angry and sin not." There is a desire for one's own wel- fare, which is not sinful self-love, or the craving for unrighteous advantage and good. There is a generous emulation, which is sympathy with our fellow's manifested energy.
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Let US pause liere to remark in this instance upon the impor- tant Ught thrown by a just analysis and classification of the feel- ings upon their moral quality. The emotion of emulation has been by some moralists applauded, and by others condemned. Some teachers and rulers appeal freely to it as a wholesome stimulus to effort. Others deprecate all use of the principle, as depraving to the morals. Now, if we conceive no emulation, save that which is the outcome of envy, the latter are right. For envy can only be criminal and malignant. It is a mixture of selfishness, pride, and hatred, as quickened by the contempla- tion of a rival's superiority. The appetency of will which at- tends it is not the laudable desire to advance one's self, but the mean craving to depress and degrade the rival. The envious man does not wish himself better, but his competitor Avorse. Were all emulation but a phase of this vile emotion, it must always be wrong. But is there not a totally different phase? Every thoughtful man knows that the great law of sympathy ex- tends to other affections besides sorrow. We sympathize with our fellow's joy, with his hope, with his courage, with his fear, with his resentment, with his mirth, just as we do with his grief. The philosophic meaning of -ddo:; is not sorrow merely, but feel- ino-, all feeling; and aoji-ddeca is the social infection of the one with all the forms of his neighbor's 7:0.6/^^0.70.. Now, love of ac- tion, energy, is a feeling, and a legitimate and noble one. T\Tiy may not the ingenuous spirit, witnessing the flame of this ani- mating emotion, instinctively sympathize with it, just as he would with his neighbor's sorrow, or terror, or gladness? Doubtless this disinterested sympathy is felt. There is, then, an emulation which is sympathy icith another's energy. It is from wholly an- other element of emotion than envy. It is not malignant, but just and generous. It does not crave to drag its honorable com- petitor down, but rightfully to raise itself up. And thus the Scriptures are justified and reconciled Avith themselves, which in one place rank "emulation" among the evil fruits of the "flesh"; and in another enjoin us to "provoke one another to good works."
The consistency of the classification proposed above must be left mainly to speak for itself. The reader's own reflections will pursue the hints which it presents him. This article is already
THE EMOTIONS. 295
approacliing tlie limits of allowable length, and room can be claimed only for two other points.
One of these is the evident prevalence of "final cause" throughout the structure of the emotions. Every one has been fashioned with design. The skill with which they are all fash- ioned to educe their results bespeaks the Creator's wisdom and benevolence just as clearly as the structure of the human eye. "What was the end designed, in imbuing the mind with the sensi- bility of iconder and its corresponding appetency of curiosity ? To stimulate man to learn and to make his newly acquired knowledge sweet to him. Why was the law of sympathy estab- lished? To provide a spontaneous and ready succor for the distressed ; to connect men in social ties, and to enable them to double their joys and divide their sorrows by sharing them. What is the " final cause " of instinctive resentment ? To ener- gize the innocent, weak man against aggression, and thus to prevent his giving additional impetus to the unjust assailant through timidity and sloth. But we must forbear this attrac- tive line of thought.
Psychologists, in explaining the dispositions and classifying the native feelings of the soul, almost uniformly overlook the one we have placed in the ninth rank, native depravity. But we hold that the same sort of inquiry and reasoning from facts, which leads them to hold that the love of applause is a native trait of man's heart, should cause them to count depravity equally among man's constitutive dispositions. Why this grave and most incon- sistent omission ? Has the pride of reason blinded them ? Kant is the only great writer, not teaching from the theological point of view, who has stated the psychological truth as to this trait, and therein he shows his acuteness and honesty at once. This original depravity he defines as a subjective "propensity" {pro- pensio) prompting the soul to adopt something else than duty, as sensual good, selfishness, advantage, for the prevalent rule of vol- untary actions. But notwithstanding this deplorable election, these lower motives may prompt the man to many actions for- mally right, as business honesty, domestic kindness ; so that the man's conduct may be to a large degree moral. Yet the man himself is fundamentally immoral, radically depraved, because he has deposed from his soul what is entitled to be the supreme
■296 THE EMOTIONS.
rule of all actions, and established tlie unrigliteoi;s rule of self- will, so tliat erery one of liis acts is bad in motive, at least by defect. If we ask wliat subjective cause determines tlie original propensity to determine the will to this life of disobedience, we raise an absurd question. For, if an answer could be found, this would only raise a prior question. What determined that antecedent determining cause of propensity? The regressus would be endless. We must stop, then, wath the inscrutable but indisputable fact, original evil propensity. It is the end for us of all possible analysis. But to preclude the sinner from the cavil, "Then my propensity, being native, infringes my free agency by a physical necessity, so that I am not responsible for the volitions that result," Kant argues acutely, that this pro- pensity to evil is none the less a function of spontaneity, be- cause it is original. For it is as truly and as freely elected into the soul by its free agency as is any specific act of evil freely willed by the sinner. Is not this propensity to evil as truly, as freely, as thoroughly, the soul's preference as any single bad act it ever willed ? The propensity reigns in the soul by virtue of a perpetual, continuing act of spontaneity, unrelated to time. Each specific sin that soul commits is a similar act of spontaneity, re- lated to some particular point in time. Hence, the soul's de- terminate preference for sin is both certain and free, and there- lore responsible. The evidence by which Kant proves the ex- istence of this original depravity is very plain and short. All men sin, both in the savage and civilized states, and the morals of nations (which have no earthly restrainer over them, and con- sequently show out man's real animwi) are simply those of out- laws or demons. International relations dx& frequently those of active robbery and murder, and all tlie time those of expecta- tion and preparation for robbery and murder.
Kant's description of that mixture of good and evil conduct which natural men exhibit, which yet coexists with radical de- pravity of will, is luminous and correct. We do not say that because the natural man is radically depraved, he is therefore as bad as man can be, or as bad as he may become in future. We do not condemn his social virtues as all hypocrisies. Many af- fections in this man are still normal and legitimate, and they concur in prompting many actions. His ethical reason in those
THE EMOTIONS. 297
judgments which recognize the Tightness and obligation of God's holy law is not essentially corrupted, and cannot be, except by lunacy. This sacred judgment of conscience in favor of the right has not wholly lost its force in this man. But he holds God's law persistently dethroned from the place of universal supremacy in his soul, to which it is entitled. When he does the formally right thing, he does not do it supremely to please God. When the law of right comes into clear competition with the law of self-will, the man always gives the preference to his own diso- bedient will. His conduct may be mixed — some good, some bad — but his soul as a moral monad, incapable of an ethical neu- trality, is decisively against duty. The man is radically depraved.
In proving psychologically that the disposition to evil is a na- tive spring of feelings and volitions, just as truly as the love of applause, the desire of happiness, or the love of the beautiful, it is not necessary, then, to assert that every natural man desires to break every rule of right. All we have to prove is, that every natural man is fully determined to commit some sins — such as his other propensities do not restrain him from — and to neglect some known duties. When an exact naked issue is made be- tween God's holy will and self-will, the latter has the invariable preference.
Our first evidence is an appeal to consciousness. Let the man who is in the state of nature answer honestly the question, whether it is his present j)reference and (by God's grace) pur- pose to act from this time up to every known obligation, espe- cially those due to God, and to forsake now every known sin, and he must say no. He thinks he admires virtue as a whole and in the future. To some of the particxilar parts of virtue he has, at this time, an inexorable opposition. Observation shows us that while some men are far less wicked than others, every natural man transgresses in some known things deliberately and repeatedly. The only man of whom the writer ever heard who asserted his entire freedom from the dominion of sin was a Col. Higginson, a Boston Socinian, who in one of Joseph Cook's "symposia,'" declared that he had never in his life slighted a monition of conscience. But this claim to a perfect natural holiness was rather damaged with all men of common sense when it became known that in the Confederate war he had
298 THE EMOTIONS.
raised and commanded a regiment of runaway-negroes to invade his fellow-citizens. Thus he ran greedily into the very wicked- ness which his political gospel, the Declaration of Independence, had charged against George III. One is not surprised to find in such a boaster just that blindness of heart which would pre- vent his seeing the cruelty and wickedness of arming against his brethren semi-savages and slaves, whose allegiance to their mas- ters was solemnly guaranteed by the very constitution under which he pretended to act !
Again, if we trace this alDsolute aversion to duty hack in each man's history, we find its apj^earance coincident in every child with the earliest development of reason and conscience. When first the child's mind comes to know duty rationall}', he knows it but to hate it, at least in some of its forms. All sensible per- sons who rear children discover that then* sin is in part always a development from within, and not a mere habit learned from imitation, or pro23agated by bad treatment and unwholesome outward infliiences. So true is this that the average child, left to its own expansion "v\dthout any moral nurture or restraint, would be so much worse than the average child reared under a faulty and e^dl discipline, that average men would regard him as a monster. AVe ^-iew the evil of the nature of little children Tinder an illiTsion. We call them " little innocent babes." Be- cause their bodily and mental powers of executing their impulses are so weak, we think of them as harmless. The animal beauty of their bodies seduces our judgments. But let this picture be considered. Let us take the moral traits of an ordinary infant, his petulance, his unreasoning selfishness, his inordinate self- will, his vengefulness, his complete indifi"erence, whenever any whim of his own is to be gratified, to the convenience or fatigue and distress of his loving mother or nurse, his entire insubordi- nation to all force but corporeal, his bondage to bodily appetite, his uncalculating cruelty. Suppose him, instead of appealing to your pity by his helplessness, embodying precisely these quah- ties in the frame of a robust adult, we should have a wretch from whom his own mother would flee in terror. Does one say that these dispositions, which would be hateful sins in an adult, are no sins at all in the infant, because he has as yet no intelli- gence to know they are wi'ong? We reply with this question:
THE EMOTIONS. 299
If this child were left absolutely free from all external restraints, when his intelligence came to him, would he therefor forsake these dispositions f Experience tells us he would not. But fortunately for society, while his native evil is at its greatest, his faculties of execution are at their weakest. Thereby Providence subjects him from the outset to an ever-present apparatus of restraints and discipline, which, by the time his powers of mischief are grown, have curbed his native depravity within bounds tolerable to society.
Now, how can the existence of any native principle of feeling be better proved than by the fact that some degrees of it are found in every man ; that it appears from the first in each, and that it develops along with the growth of his faculties ? Is there any other or stronger proof by which psychologists show that the aesthetic sensibilit}^ sympathy, resentment, love, are native to man ?
One more fact remains : that this aversion to duty and love of sinful self-will operates with determining energy, and against all possible inducements. This dominancy of the feeling exhibits itself especially, in many cases, in resisting and conquering in- ducements which, rationally, ought to be irresistible. For in- stance, the love of life is usually supreme. Here is a man who is indulging a sensual sin to the injury and destruction of life itself. He is clearly forewarned ; but he does not stop. In an- other man avarice, in another inordinate ambition, is his dearest permanent appetency. The one has wealth, the other fame and power, within his reach. But each is falling under the power of drunkenness, which is known to be destructive to fortune and to reputation. But this fact does not arrest the course of indul- gence ; the able, energetic man finally sacrifices his own dearer desire to the low and sensual vice. Or if we take the general view of this matter, it can be made clear to any understanding that, on the whole, a course of temperance, prudence and virtue will be best for every man's own happiness. In the final out- come any and every sin must subtract from man's highest good. Indeed, this conclusion is the testimony of every man's con- science. Let men be urged, then, to make this true self-interest their uniform guide ; to eschew all evil, and perfoi'm all duty. In each man the appetency to sin will assert itself still,
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against the man's own liighest interest and most reasonable self- love.
But it is when we observe man's uniform neglect of the duties of godliness that this rebellion of sinful self-will becomes most marked. Here the inducements to repentance are literally im- mense, including all the worth of heaven and dreadfulness of hell. ^Tien the problem is urged, "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" the judgment of every man's understanding is, of course, absolutely clear against the exchange. Or, if the sinner pleads, "I do not decide this horrible exchange ; I only postpone the right decision in fa- vor of God, and my soul, and heaven ; " when we show him the unutterable rashness of this delay, and show that he is staking an eternity of blessedness on a very perilous chance, against a worthless bauble of self-indulgence, his understanding is equally clear against his own proceeding. But none the less does he proceed in the paths of ungodliness.
Now, in mechanics we measure a force by the resistance it uniformly overcomes. And so it is correct to measure the en- ergy of this appetency for transgression by the rational and moral obstacles which it overcomes
Here, then, is a fundamental dislocation in man's soul. In his appetencies, man's subjective spontaneity finds its expression. They inspire the "^ill ; they regulate from within the whole free agency. In them centres man's activity. But on the other hand, conscience claims to be the rightful and rational ruler of mankind. It utters its commands with an intuitive authority; it is as impossible for one to doubt whether conscience, diily en- lightened, is entitled to be obeyed, as to doubt his own exist- ence or identity. We have, then, this situation in each natural soul : the s-uprenu faculty of the reason at war with the funda- mental appetency of the free agency. And this fatal coUision presents itself on the most important of all the soul's concerns — duty; that on which the soul's destiny consciously turns. There has been, then, a catastrophe in human nature ! Just as clearly as "there was war in heaven when Satan and his angels fought with Michael and his angels," there is a strife going on in the firmament of man's spirit. We see no such dislocation in the natural laws of either man, or animal, or inorganic nature,
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in any other instance. In man's other faculties there is entire consilience. Perception, memory, suggestion, imagination, reasoning, all work together in substantial harmony. The laws of material nature concur. Or else, if we perceive in sentient beings any disorder similar to the one we have displayed in man's soul, we at once say, " There is disease." Is there not, then, a moral disease infecting the soul? It cannot be disputed.
When and how was this disease contracted ? How can it be effectually remedied ? To these momentous questions, philoso- phy has no answer. If we attempt to solve the second by say- ing, "Self-discipline can and must subdue the propensity to sin," philosophy herself meets us with this fatal difficulty: Whence is the effectual motive to that subjugation of the un- godly self-will to arise within man himself? The dominant ap- petency has already pronounced, always pronounces, in favor of self-will and against conscience ! Kant has seen, and stated with transparent clearness, this insuperable point. The soul is a free agent wherever it is responsible. True. Its action is self-de- termined? True. But unless the soul is an anomaly, a mon- strosity in nature, an agent acting by no law whatever, it must contain some regulative law of its own determinations. If we violate its freedom by supposing an external objective law, then, at least, we have to suppose a subjective law regulative of its actions. What can that subjective law be but disposition — hahihtsl But as to this issue of an ungodly self-will against duty, we find there the regulative, ultimate propension, and it is f'iindmnentally against this suhjugation of self -will. This deci- sion is native. Now, how can nature reverse nature ? How can the first cause reverse its own law of effects ? Can the fountain naturally propel its own stream against its own level?
The remedy for this spiritual disease, then, must begin, if it ever begins at all, in a supernatural source. So saith Scripture. John i. 13 ; iii. 5.
CIYIC ETHICS.
PASSING now from the social morals of the family to the general ethics of social duties, we meet the fact that the ci\'il government is the appointed regulator and guardian of all these. Hence these duties take the form of civic morals, and our rights and duties as citizens meet us at the front. The dis- cussion naturallj^ begins with the question, What is the moral ground of my obligation to obey the magistrate, whom yester- day, before he was inducted into office, I would have scorned to recognize as my master, to whom to-day I must bow in obedi- ence? Three opposing theories have been advanced in our day in answer to this qiiestion. The first answer is that I am bound to obey him solely because I have consented to do so. This is the theory which founds government in a "social contract," which, first stated by Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbuiy, was made popular among English Liberals by John Locke, and, in- troduced to the French by Rousseau's famous book, Le Contrat Social, became the ruling philosophy of the French Jacobins. This apprehends men as at first insulated individuals, human integers, all naturally equal and absolutely free, having a natu- ral liberty to indulge, each one, his whole practical -^tII as a "lord of creation." But the experience of the inconveniences of the mutual violences of so many hostile wills, with the loss of so many advantages, led them, in time, to consent voluntarily to the surrender of a pai-t of their wills, natural rights, and in- dependence, to gain a more secure enjoyment of the remainder. To effect this they are supposed to have conferred, and to have entered into a compact with each other, covenanting to submit to ceiiain restraints upon their natural libei-ty, and to submit to certain of their equals elected to ride, in order to get their re- maining rights protected. Subsequent citizens entering the so- ciety by biiih or immigration are supposed to have given their sovereign assent to this compact, expressly, as in having them-
302
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selves naturalized, or else impliedly, by remaining in the land. The terms of compact form the organic law, or constitution of the commonwealth ; and the reason why men are bound to obey their equal, or possible inferior, as magistrate, is simply that they have bargained, and are getting their quid pro quo.
Many writers, as Burlemarqui and Blackstone, are too intelli- gent to suppose or claim that any human persons ever rightfully existed, in fact, in the independent state described, or that any commonwealth actually originated in such an optional bargain ; but they teach that such a non-existent compact must be as- sumed as implied, and as virtually accounting for the origin of civic obligation. Thus Blackstone, II. Intro., § 2, p. 47. But to us it appears that this species of legal fiction is a poor basis for a moral theory, and is no source of natural right and obligations.
The second theory may be called theistic, tracing civic obli- gation to the will and ordinance of God our Creator. It answers that we are bound to obey the civil magistrate, because God, who has the right as creator and sovereign, commands it. This command is read by all Christian citizens in sacred Scripture, which says, " The powers that be are ordained of God," and " Whosoever resisteth, resisteth the ordinance of God." It is read again in the light of natural facts and reason. These facts are mainly two, that God created man a social being, which is so true that without social relations man would utterly fail of reaching his designed development and happiness, and indeed would perish, and that man's personal appetencies ever tend to engross to himself the rights of others. Selfishness is ever inclining to infringe the boundaries of equity and philanthropy. Hence it is the ordinance of nature that man shall live in society ; and that man in society must be restrained from injuring his fellows. And there are no other hands than human ones to wield this power of restraint. We are thus taught as clearly as by Scripture itself, that the Creator ordained civil government and wills all men to submit to it. The same argument may be placed in this Hght : Men are rational, moral, and responsible creatures. Righteousness is their proper law. But personal selfishness tends perpetually to transgress that law, hence arises the necessity of restraint. Thus, the only alternatives are, sub- mission to civil government, which is such restraint, or an ulti-
304 .CJJVIG ETHICS.
mate prevalence of aggression, wliicli would destroy the very- ends of social existence. AVitness tlie wretched and savage state of all human beings who are wholly without any form of gov- ernment. Here we are met by a cavil which is expressed by some, and which has evidently embarrassed many other moral writers. This is, that God ought not to be introduced into this discussion, because God and his will are theological facts ; but since this inquiry is concerning natural right and secular rela- tions, it ought to be decided exclusively upon natural data, with- out importing into it other premises from the alien field of theology. To this I answer, tliat in reality there is no fact among the data of moral science so jDurely natural as God. As soon as the mind begins to reason on the j^henomena of nature and experience, it is led in one direction to God, at least as im- mediately and necessarily as it is led in other directions to gravity, causation, conscience, free agency or any other natural fact. God is not only one proper factor, but the prior one, in the philosophy of our moral nature, seeing he created it, and his nature is the concrete standard of moral perfection ; and his preceptive will, the expression of that nature, is the practical source and rule of all our obligations. He is, therefore, not only the first, but the essential and most natural of all the factors in every question of natural right. To attempt to discuss those questions, omitting him and his will, is just as unreasonable as it would have been in Newton to discuss j^lanetary astronon}', and the orbital motion of the planets, leaving out all reference to the sun. And this is justified, last, by the remark, that in con- structing our theory of civic obligations, we introduce God, not in his theologic relations as Redeemer, but in his natural rela- tion as creator and moral ruler. I am happy to find my position thus sustained by the great German statesman and philosopher, Dr. Julius Stahl, (quoted by Dr. Chas. Hodge Tlieol. Vol. III. p. 260) : " Every philosophical science must begin with the first prin- ciple of all things, that is, with the Absolute. It must, therefore, decide between Theism and Pantheism, between the doctrine that the first principle is the jDersonal, extra mundane, self-revealing God, and the doctrine that the first principle is an impersonal pov/er immanent in the world." It is the Christian doctrine of God and of his relation to the world that he makes the founda-
CIVIC ETHICS. 305
tion of legal and political science. He controverts tlie doctrine of Grotius that there wonld be a jus naturale if there were no God, which is really equivalent to saying that there would be an obligation to goodness if there were no such thing as good- ness. Moral excellence is of the very essence of God. He is concrete goodness, infinite reason, excellence, knowledge, and power, in a personal form ; so that there can be no obligation to virtue which does not involve obligation to God.
The theistic scheme, then, traces civil government and the civic obligation to the will and act of God, our sovereign, moral ruler and proprietor, in that he from the first made social principles a constitutive part of our souls, and placed us under social rela- tions that are as original and natural as our own persons. These relations were : first of the family, then of the clan, and, as men multiplied, of the commonwealth. It follows thence that social government in some form is as natural as man. If asked, whence my obligation to obey my equal, or possible inferior, as civil magistrate? it answers, because God wills me to do it. He has an infinite right. The advantages and conveniences of such an arrangement may illustrate and even reinforce the obligation; they do not originate it. Civil government is an ordinance of the Maker ; magistrates receive place and power under his provi- dence. They are his ministers to man.
This theory, pushed to a most vicious extreme by the party known as Legitimists, is the third which has had some currency. These advocates of the divine right of royalty teach, that while government is the ordinance of God, its first form was the family, in which the father was the sovereign, and this is the type of all larger commonwealths. Every chief magistrate should therefore be a king, holding the same sovereign relation to their subjects which fathers hold to their children. As in the patriarchal clans of Scripture, the birth-right descended to the eldest son and carried with it the headship of the clan, so the right to reign is hereditary in the king's eldest son. To deprive him of it is to rob him of his rightful inheritance. Subjects, if discontented with their king, have no more right to replace him by another chief magistrate elected by themselves, than minor children have to vote in a new father. If the hereditary monarch becomes op- pressive, the only remedy for the subject is humble jDetition aud
Vol. III.— 20.
306 CIYIC ETHICS.
passive obedience. There is uo right of revolution. Oppressed subjects must wait for a release by divine providence. And in support of this slavish theory they quote the precepts of the apostles. (Rom. xiii. ; 1 Peter ii. 13-17.)
This servile theory I thus refute. Men in society do not bear to their rulers the proportion minor children bear to their parents, in weakness, inexperience, or folly, but are generally the natural equal of their rulers. Nor are the citizens the objects of an instinctive natural love in the breasts of kings, similar to that of parents for their children, powerfully prompt- ing a disinterested and humane government of them. The pre- tended analogy is utterly false. Second, whereas divine authority is claimed for royalty, God did not give a regal government to his chosen people Israel ; but his preference was to make them a federal republic of eleven cantons. When he granted a king at their request, it was not an hereditary one. The monarchy was elective. David was not the son of Saul, but was elected by the elders of Israel. It is true that the prestige of his hero- ism enabled him to nominate his immediate successor, Solomon, who yet was not his eldest son. After Solomon, the elders of Israel were willing to elect his son Rehoboam ; but upon ascer- taining his tyrannical purposes they elected Jeroboam. And the reader must note that they are nowhere in Scripture blamed for this election, nor for their secession ; and Rehoboam, who had been elected by two tribes, when proposing coercion is strictly forbidden by God. So Jehu, elected by divine direction, was not a successor of the house of Ahab. Third, the New Testa- ment does not command us especially to obey kings, but "the powers that be." Scripture thus makes the ^e y^c^o government, whatever may be its character, the object of our allegiance within the limits of conscience. And it is fatal to these advocates of the divine right of royalty, that the actual government which St. Paul and St. Peter enjoined Christians to obey was neither regal nor hereditary. It was a recent usurpation in the bosom of a vast republican commonwealth still retaining the nominal forms of republicanism. Julius Csesar and his nephew Octavius care- fully rejected the title of king. The latter selected that of im- perator, the constitutional title of the commander-in-chief of the active armies of the I'epublic. He held his executive power by
CIVIC ETHICS. 307
annual, nominal reelection of the offices of pontifex maximus and consul, botli republican offices. He was, in a word, wliat the Greeks expressed by the name — zu(ja>uu^, Octavius Coesar was not the son of Jvilius, Tiberius was not the son of Octavius, Caius Caligula was not the son of Tiberius, Nero was not the son of Caius. So that the fact is, that the very government to which the early Christians were commanded to submit was a revolutionary one, and not regal. So unfortunate have the Le- gitimists been in claiming the authority of Scripture against the right of revolution, and in favor of royalty. In a word, their theory has not a particle of support in reason or God's word. Yet the obtruding of it by so many divines as the theistic theory doubtless did much to j^rejudice the right view.
On the contrary, the power of magistrates as between them and the citizens is only a delegated power, and is from the com- monwealth, which is the aggregate of citizens, to them. God has indeed, by the law of nature and revelation, imposed on all the citizens and on the magistrates the duty of obedience, and or- dained that men shall live in regular civil society under laws. But he has not given to magistrates, as such, any inherent rights other than those belonging to other citizens. As persons, they are equal to the citizens and of them ; as magistrates they exist for the people and not the people for them. " They are the ministers of God to thee for good." They personally have only the common and equal title which their fellow citizens have to good as being of one race, the common children of God, subject to the golden rule, the moral charter of republicanism.
Having refuted the theory of legitimacy, or divine right of kings, we now return to comj^lete our evidence for the right theory, by refuting the claim of a social contract.
First, it is notoriously false to the facts. Ci^dl government is a great fact. It must find its foundation in a fact, not in a legal fiction. And the fact is, men never existed rightfully for one moment in the independency this theory imagines. God, their maker and original ruler, never gave them such independence. Their civic responsibility, as ordained by him, is as native as they are. They do not elect between civic subordination and license any more than a child elects his father, but they are hoi^fi under government. The simple practical proof is, that were any
308 CIVIC ETHICS. .
man to claim tliat natural liberty, and the option of accepting pr declining allegiance, every government on eartli would claim the right to destroy him as an outlaw.
Second, the theory is atheistic and unchristian. Such were Hobbes and the Jacobins. It is true that Locke tried to hold it in a Christian sense, but it is none the less obstinately atheistic in that it wholly discards God, man's relation to him, his right to determine our condition of moral existence, and the great fact of moral philosophy, that God has formed and ordained us to live under civil government. So, in the insane pride of its per- fectionism, it overlooks the fact that man's will is ever disordered and vmrighteous, and so cannot be the just rule of his actions.
Third, it also virtually discards original moral distinctions. So did Hobbes, its author, teaching that the enactments of govern- nnent make right and wrong. It infers this consistently, for if man's wish made his natural right, and he has only come under any constraint of ci^il law by his optional compact, of course whatever he wished was right by nature. Moreover, govern- ment being a restraint on natural right, is essentially of the nature of an evil, to which I only submit for expediency's sake to avoid a greater evil. Civil society is herself a grand robber of my natural rights, which I only tolerate to save mj^self from other more numerous robbers. How then can any of the rules of civil government be an expression of essential morality '? And is this scheme likely to be very promotive of content and loyalty ?
Fourth, the social contract lacks all basis of facts, and is therefore wholly illogical. It has no claim in for o scientke to be entertained even for discussion. For the science of natural rights should be inductive. But this theory has no basis of facts. Commonwealths have not historically begun in such an optional compact of lordly savages. Such absolute savages, could we find any considerable number of them, would not usu- ally possess the good sense and the self-control which would be sufficient for any permanent good. The onl}^ real historical in- stances of such compacts have been the agreements of outlaws forming companies of banditti, or crews of pirate ships. These combinations realize precisely the ideals pictured b}' Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Did ever one of them result in the crea- tion of a permanent and well-ordered commonwealth? The
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well-known answer to this question hopelessly refutes the scheme. Commonwealths have usually arisen, in fact, from the expansion of clans, which were at first but larger families. True historical research shows that the primitive government of these clans was usually presbjterial, a government by elders who had succeeded to the natural and inherent authority of the first parents.
Fifth, certain inconvenient and preposterous consequences must logically follow from the theory of the social contract. The righteous "swear to their own hurt, and change not." No matter, then, how the lapse of time may have rendered the old contract unsuitable or mischievous, no majority could right- eously change it so long as any minority claimed their pledges. Again, unless the commonwealth has a formal constitution, who can decide what are the terms of the social contract? England has no written constitution. Again, if the ruler violated the es- sence of the contract in one act, this would release all the citi- zens from allegiance. The contract broken on one side is bro- ken on both. But so sweeping a release of all the individual citizens of the commonwealth from their allegiance, whenever any essential article of the social contract had been violated, either by a ruler or a greedy majority, would lead to intolerable anarchy. There is a noted government which historically and actually originated in a social compact, that of the United States of America. It was a republic of republics, a government of special powers, created by a federal covenant between sovereign states, or little contiguous independent nations. The contract- ing integers were not citizens, but states. The logical result was that the infringement of any essential principle of the con- stitution, which was the compact, released each contracting party from the bond. This result inhered inevitably in the na- ture of the federal government, as was admitted by jurisconsults of all parties, by Josiah Quincy, President Fillmore, and Daniel Webster as fully as by Jefferson, Madison, and Calhoun. A government formed by a social compact is, ipso facto, dissolved by the breach of that compact into the integers which composed it. In the case of the United States those integers were sover- eign commonwealths. Hence the exercise of their constitu- tional right of secession could not result in anarchy, for the
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original commonwealtlis survived, exercising all tlie authority necessary to tliat civic order enjoined by natural obligation.
Last, law properly arms tlie magistrate with some powers Avhich could not have been derived from a social contract of in- dividuals, because the individuals never jiossessed those powers. Life, for instance, is God's. No man can bargain away what does not belong to him. Nor can they plead that the common- wealth's existence justifies her in assuming a power of life and death. But the commonwealth, on their view, has no existence to persons as yet until the social contract is completed. Again, how does the commonwealth get power to take the life or pro- perty of aliens who never contracted with it ? The theory re- presents independent men as surrendering certain natural rights to society in order to secure the enjoyment of the rest. But I deny that any right can be mentioned, morally belonging to any man, of which he is stripped when entering a just government. The one most frequently named is the right of self-defence. But what is meant b}^ it ? The privilege of making one's self accuser, judge, jury and executioner, at once to avenge any supposed wrong in any manner suggested by one's own resentment? I deny that this was ever a right of any creature of God's in any state of existence. It is always a natural unrighteousness. It is the right of an innocent man, when the arm of the law is not present, to protect himself by his own personal force, even to the destruction of the assailant, if necessary. Then I deny that just government strips any citizen of this right. The law fully recognizes it.
This infidel theory sets out, like an atheist as it is, without re- ference to the fact that man's existence, nature and rights sprang out of the personal will of a creator. It sets out without refer- ence to original moral distinctions, or original responsibilities to God, or to his moral essence. It quietly overlooks the fact that man's will, if he is the creature of a personal and moral creator, never could be in any circumstance his rule of action. It hides away the stubborn fact that the human will is depraved, and, for that second reason, cannot righteously be his rule. It falsely as- sumes a state of nature in which the individual's will is inde- pendent, and makes his right. Whereas, no being except the eternal and self-existent God has a right to that state for
CIVIC ETHICS. 311
one instant. But all these are facts of nature, involved in this case of civic obligation, and discoverable by reason and experi- ence. All then miist be included in our construction, if we would have a correct, or even a rational view. The state of facts is simply this : Man, being a creature, enters on existence the subject of God. This he does not only by force, but by moral right. Moral distinctions are essential and eternal, hav- ing been eternally impersonated in God's subjective moral prin- ciples, and authoritatively legislated for creatures in all the pre- cepts, to utter which God is prompted by those immanent prin- ciples. Moral obligations on the creature are therefore as na- tive as he is. They are binding, not by the assent of the crea- ture's will, but by God's enactment ; so that man enters exist- ence under social obligations, as is indicated by his being, in so many constitutive traits, a social creature. Civil government is nothing more than the organization of one segment of those so- cial rights and duties Thus civil government is God's natural ordinance. Once more, the rule of action enforced by just gov- ernments is the moral rule. This is approximately true, even of the government Avliich we deem relatively bad. So that a thor- oughly just civil government, if such could be realized, would en- join on each order of citizens only the acts which were morally right for them to do, and forbid only those which would be wrong.
What then would be a man's civil liberty ? I reply, under a perfectly equitable government, could such be realized, the same as his natural liberty. No existing government is perfectly equitable, because executed by man's imperfect hands. None are wholly unrighteous. Some withhold more, some fewer of the citizen's moral (and natural) rights. Hence, under the most despotic government, some natural rights remain. Could a gov- ernment be perfectly equitable, each citizen's civic liberty would be exactly equal to his natural.
Some few citizens may shrink from the theory of government in God's absolute authority over man, and denying to man any absolute natural independence, from the apprehension that it may lead to arbitrary civil government. To such, I reply : Is it not far more likely that tyrannical consequences will be drawn from the other theory which discards God, the eternal standard and pattern of pure equity and benevolence, which postulates
312 crvic ETHICS.
tlie sinful creature's licentious aud unjust "s\'islies, as tlie ulti- mate measure of his riglits, wliicli represents tlie natural riglits of tlie ruler and the ruled as a very different quantity fi'om his ciyic rights, and which discards the essential distinction between justice and injustice a priori to legislation ? Is not this the freer and safer theory, which founds man's inalienable rights, as his duties, on eternal and holy moral distinctions, and holds rulers and ruled responsible to the judgment of an equitable heavenly Father Avith whom is "no respect of persons ?"
" By their fruits ye shall know them." I require the student to look at Hobbes, deducing with his iron logic from this theory of the social contract his conclusion, that government must be leviathan, the irresistible giant among all the weaker animals. He proves that on his theory government ought to be absolute. For the theory recognizes neither responsibility nor allegiance to a common heavenly Father, perfectly impartial, equitable and benevolent, the ruler of rulers, the protector of all his chil- dren, who will call all their oppressors to a strict account To the Jacobin, the commonwealth is the only God, beyond which there is no umpire, no judge, no avenger. Again, upon this theory, the supreme rule of commonwealths' action has no stan- dard whatever of intrinsic righteousness, equitable and immut- able, embodied first in the moral perfections of the heavenly Father, and then in the universal and indestructible judgment of the right human conscience ; but the ultimate standard of right is the mere will of each greedy and unrighteous creature. For this system there is no morality to enforce duties or guaran- tee rights except the human laws ; and these are merely the expression of the cravings of this aggregate of licentious, ruth- less, selfish aatHs.
This reasoning of course makes the will of the majority su- preme, and says vox Populi, vox Dei. But it must be remem- bered that this majority is only the accidental major mob, in which the wicked will of each citizen is the supreme law; so that the god of Jacobinism, whose voice receives this sovereign expression, may at any time reveal himself as a fiend instead of a benignant heavenly Father. The practical government which residts fi*om this theory is simple absolutism, differing from the personal despotism of a Sultan or a Czar only in this one partic-
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ular, that its victims have that "many headed monster," the mob, for their master, always hable to be more remorseless and greedy in its oppressions than a single tyrant.
To this deduction history gives the fullest confirmation. The democracies infected by this theory have ever turned out the worst despotisms. Such was the government of the Jacobin party in France ninety years ago, expressly deduced from the social contract, and yet, a government guilty of more oppres- sions, stained with more political crimes and murders of the in- nocent, more destructive of public and private wealth than all the despotisms of Europe together, annihilating in one decade forty-eight billions of francs of the possessions of the French people, and drenching Europe in a universal, causeless war, and rendering itself so loathesome to the nation that it was glad to escape fi'om it into the military despotism of Napoleon. The favorite motto of this democracy is, ^^ Liberie, egalite, fraternite" of which the practical rendering by the actions of the Jacobins was this, ^' Liberte,'' Hcense to trample on other people as they chose ; " Egalite" similar license for the Outs when they could become the Ins; " Fraternite,'' all brother rogues. So aU the worst oppressions and outrages experienced by the people of the United States ha.ve been inflicted by the same Jacobinism, masquerading in the garb of Republicanism.
The Declaration of Independence teaches as self-evident that " all men are by nature equal." The proposition is highly am- biguous. We need not be surprised to find the Jacobin party claiming it in their sense, that every sane human being has a moral right to a mechanical equahty with every other in every specific privilege and franchise, except when deprived of them by conviction of crime under the laws ; so that, if any one man or class in society is endowed with any power or franchise what- soever that is not extended to every other person in the com- monwealth, this is a violation of natural justice. This famous document is no part of the constitution or laws of the United States. With all its nervous pomp of diction and political phil- osophy, it involves not a few ambiguities and confusions, and the enlightened friends of freedom have no concern to assert its infaUibit}'. But this often quoted statement bears another sense. There is a natural moral equahty between aU men, in
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that all are genericallj men. All have a rational, responsible and immortal destiny, and are inalienably entitled to pursue it. All are morally related alike to God, the common Father ; and all Tiave equitable title to the protection of the laws under which divine providence places them. In this sense, as the British constitution declares, all men, peer and peasant, " are equal be- fore the law." The particular franchises of Earl Derby differ much from those of the peasant : the lord sits in the upper house, as the peasant does not ; inherits an entailed estate ; and if indicted for felony, is tried by peers. But the same laws protect the persons and rights of both. Both, so far as human and as subjects of human society, have the same generic, moral right to be protected in their several (different) just franchises. Here are two meanings of the proposition, which are historically perfectly distinct. If there are those who profess to see no dif- ference, it is because they are either inconsiderate and heedless, or uncandid. The difference was perfectly palpable to the Eng- lish hberals who dethroned the first Charles Stiiart ; for that great Parliament on the one hand w^aged a civil war in the support of the moral equality of all Englishmen, and at the same time re- jected wdth abhorrence the other, the Jacobin equahty, when they condemned the leveller Lilburn, and caused his books, which contained precisely that doctrine, to be bui'ned by the common hangman. I assert that it is incredible the American Congress of 1776 could have meant their proposition to be taken in the Jacobin sense ; for they were British Whigs. Their per- jDetual claim was to the principles and franchises of the British Constitution, and no other. Their jDohtics were formed by the teachings of John Hampden, Lord Fairfax, Algernon Sidney, Lord Somers, and the revolutionists of 1688. I should be loath to suj^pose those gi'eat men so stupid and ignorant of the history of their own country as not to understand the British Tights, w^hich they expressly say they are claiming. Second, their English common sense showed them that the statement is false. In the Jacobin sense men are not by nature equal. One half of them differ by nature from the other half, in the essential qualities of sex. There are countless natural differences of bodily organs, health, and stature, of natural faculties and moral dispositions. Naturally, no two men are equal in that sense.
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Third, it is impossible tlie Congress could have intended that sense, seeing that every one of the thirteen states then legalized African slavery, and not a single one granted universal white suffrage even. No application was made by any of those states of this supposed Jacobin principle at that time to remove these inequalities of franchise. Were these men so nearly idiotic as to propound an assertion in which they were so glaringly re- futed by their own actions at home ?
The extreme claim of equality is false and iniquitous. For out of the wide natural diversities of sex, of powers, and of char- acter, must arise a wide difference of natural relations between individiials and the state. To attempt to bestow identical fran- chise upon all thus appears to be unjust, and indeed impossible. It is but a mockery to say that we have bestowed a given fran- chise upon a person whom nature has disqualified from using it. It is equally futile to boast that we lift all men to the same identical relations, when their natural differences have inexora- bly imposed on them other relations. Of what avail would it be to declare that all women have the same natural right with my- self to wear a beard and to sing bass, when nature has decided that they shall not ? What is the use of legislating that all lazy fools shall acquire and preserve the same wealth with the dili- gent, wise men ? The law of the universe ordains that they shall not. I urge further, that the attempt to confer upon all the same franchises, to which the wise and virtuous are competent, upon the foolish and morally incompetent, is not only foolish and impossible, but is a positive and flagrant injustice to all the worthier citizens ; for when these unsuitable powers are abused by the unworthy all suffer together. The little children of ray family have not an equal right with their parents to handle loaded revolvers and lucifer matches. If we were so foolish as to con- cede it, the sure result would be, that they would kill each other, and burn down the dwelling over their own and their parents' heads. So it is not equal justice to clothe the unfitted members of society with powers which they will be sure to misuse to the ruin of themselves and their better fellows under the pretense of equal rights. Such pretended equality is in fact the most outrageous.
I argue again, that the Jacobin doctrine leads by logical con-
B16 CIVIC ETHICS.
sequence to female suifrage and "woman's rights." The wo- man is an adult, not disfranchised bj conviction of crime. Then, by what argument can these theorists deny to her the right of suffrage, or any other civic right enjoyed hx males? By what argument can they require her to submit for life to the domestic authority of a male, her absolute equal, in order to enter mar- riage ? Especially have American Jacobins armed this logic with resistless force against themselves by bestowing universal Suffrage on negroes. By what plea can the right of suffrage be withheld from the millions of white American women, intelligent, educated, virtuous and patriotic, after it has been granted as an inalienable natural right to all these illiterate semi-savage aliens? In the point of this argument there lies a fiery heat which must sooner or later burn its way through all sophistries and plausi- bilities, unless the American people can be made to unlearn the fatal premise. But the concession of all equal rights to women means simply the destruction of the family, which is the corner- stone of the commonwealth and civilization. Will permanent marriage continue after it becomes always possible that every man's political "enemies may be those of his own household ?"^ Further, the moral discipline of children becomes impossible when there are two equal heads claiming all the same preroga- tives, unless those heads are morally perfect and infallible. "What will be the character of those children reared under a gov- ernment where, when a father says I shall punish, the mother has an equal right to say, you shall not? Once more, I have shown at a previous place, that if marriage is reduced to a sec- ular co-partnership of equals, the principles of equity will com- pel this result, that it shall be terminable upon the plea of either- party. This theory thus destroys the family and reduces the re- lations of the sexes to concubinage, when carried to its logical results. Facts confirm these reasonings. Such were its fruits in Jacobin France, and in those Swiss, Italian and German cities which adopted the revolutionary j^hilosophy.
But among the inalienable natural rights of all are these: privilege to pursue and attain one's rational and equitable end, virtue, and that grade of well-being appropriate to the social po- sition of each for time and eternity; and for adults, liberty of thought, inquiry and belief, so far as human compulsion goes.
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The former is an inalienable right, because it attaches to the boon of existence, which is God's gift. Hence all restraints or insti- tutions of ci\dl society which causelessly prevent this are un- righteous. But even the title to existence must give place to the commonwealth's right of self-preservation ; as when she calls upon even her innocent citizens to die in her defence from in- vasion; or when she restrains capital crimes bj inflicting the death penalty. "The greater includes the less." Hence the same principle justifies the commonwealth in restricting the lesser rights when the safety of the whole reqiiires it. The right of free thought is inalienable, because belief is the legitimate, and ought to be the unavoidable result of sufficient evidence ; whence I infer that it cannot be obstructed by violence without "traversing the rights of nature. Second, responsibihty to God (as we shall prove in the proper place) is unavoidable, and can- not be evaded. Hence the iniquity of intruding another au- thority over thought between the individual and God, when the intruder is unable to take his penalty for wrong behef off his shovilders. Third, no human government, either in church or state, is infallible. Rome professes to meet this objection by claiming that she is infallible. She is consistent ; more so than a persecuting Protestant. Hence the conclusion, that civil gov- ernment has no right to interfere with thought, however erro- neous, until it intrudes itself in acts "violative of proper statutes. For instance, the state refrains from meddling with the Mor- mon's polygamous opinion, not because he has a right to such opinions; he commits an error and a sin in entertaining them; but this sin is against another jurisdiction than the state's, that of God. If he puts it into practice, he is righteously prosecuted for bigamy, a felony. But suppose the statute is immoral, re- quiring of the citizen an act or an omission properly sin ? How shaU a free conscience act ? I answer, it asserts its higher law by refusing to be accessory to the sin. If the conscientious cit- izen holds a salaried office, one of whose functions is to assist in executing such sinful laws, he must resign his office and its emoluments. To retain its powers and emoluments while still refusing to perform its tasks on plea of conscience, is hypocrisy and dishonesty. Ha\ing thus resigned his executive office and its salary, the citizen is clear of the sin involved in the evil law;
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except that he, like all other private citizens, has the right to argue and vote for its amendment. But if this sinful act is ex- acted by the state from its citizens, not as its executive officers but as its private subjects, he must refuse to obey, and then sub- mit, without violent resistance, to whatever penalty the state in- flicts for his disobedience, resorting only to moral remonstrance against it. The latter part of my precept may appear at first glance inconsistent with my doctrine of freedom of conscience. Ardent minds may exclaim, if it is righteous in us to refuse com- plicity in the acts which the state wickedly commands, then it is wicked in the state to punish us for that righteous refusal, whence we infer that the same sacred liberty which authorized us to re- fuse compliance should equally authorize us to resist the second wrong, the unjust penalty. I reply, that if civil government had no better basis than the pretended social contract, this heady argument woidd be perfectly good. It is equally obvious that it would lead directly to anarchy ; for the right of resisting pen- alties which the private citizen judged iniquitous must, on these premises, rest exclusively upon his sovereign opinion. The state could not go behind the professed verdict of his conscience ; for upon this theory the disobedient citizen's private judgment must be final, else his liberty of thought Avould be gone. But now, I remind these overweening reasoners that anarchy is more expressly forbidden to them by the will of God than unjust punishment of indiA-iduals is forbidden to magistrates ; that an- archy is a far greater evil than the unjust punishment of indi- viduals, because this universal disorder strips away all defence against similar unjust wrongs, both from themselves and their fellow-citizens. Or my argument may be jDut thus : My right to refuse obedience to a civil law only extends to the cases where compliance is positive sin j?dr se. But my submission, for a conscientious reason, to a penalty which I judge undeserved, is not my sin per se : my suflferings under it are the sin of the erroneous rulers. Hence, while I mxist refuse to make myself an accomplice in a positive sin, I submit peaceably to the pen- alty attached to such refusal. Thus, when " the noble army of martyrs " were required by the pagan magistrates to worship idols, they utterly refused. The act was sin per se. But when they were required to lose goods, liberty or Hfe, as the penalty
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of their refusal, they submitted ; because these losses, volunta- rily incurred in a good cause, were not sin per se in them, how- ever evil on the part of the exactors. Even Socrates, though a pagan, saw this argument so clearly that when means of escape to Maegara from an unjust death sentence were provided for him, he refused to avail himself of the escaj)e, and remained to drink the hemlock. [See Plato's Phcedo). Thus judged the holy apostles and the Christian mai-tyrs of all ages.
It may be asked now, if the individual righteous citizen may not forcibly resist the injustice of the state, how can that aggre- gate of citizens, which is only made up of individuals, resist it? Does not this refute the right of revolution against even the most usurping and tyrannical government ? That right is cor- rectly argued against Legitimatists from these premises : First, that the will of God, as revealed by nature and Sacred Script- ure, does not make a particular form of government obligatory, but some form ; the rule for the individual being that the de facto government is authoritative, be it of one kind or another. Hence the sin of rebeUion does not consist in changing the form, but in resisting the government as government. Second, that as between rulers and ruled, the power is delegated from the latter to the former. Rulers exist for the behoof of the ruled, not the reverse. Whence it follows that to make a crime of the ruled (the masters) changing their rulers involves the same absurdity as making the parent rebel against his own child. Third, that hence there must be in the ruled the right to revolutionize, if the government has become so perverted, on the whole, as to destroy the ends for which government is insti- tuted. This right must exist in the ruled, if anywhere, because providence does not work relief without means, and the right- eous means cannot be found in external force, according to the law of nations. The divine right of kings is no more sacred than that of constables.
But the difficulty recurs, if it is the duty of each individual citizen to submit to the government's wrongs on him, how can the injured body of citizens ever start the resistance without sin? Since the existing offices of the state are in the hands of the oppressors, of course the initial action of resistance must be private and unofficial. Even grant that when once a " commit-
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tee of public safety " lias been organized tliat may be fairly con- sidered as clothed with delegated and official power, the getting it arranged must be unofficial, private action. All this is true, and it gives us the clue to find the dividing path between un- warrantable individual resistance and righteous revolution. If the outraged citizen is moved to resist merely by his own pri- vate wrong, he is sinful. If his resistance is disinterested, and the expression of the common breast outraged by general op- pressions, it is patriotic and righteous. There is the dividing line. It is common to say ^vith Paley, that, to justify forcible revolution, the evils the body of the citizens are suffering under the usurpations of the existing government must be manifestly greater, on the whole, than the evils which unavoidably accom- pany the revolution. This seems correct. And that there must be, second, a reasonably good and hopeful prospect of success. This I dissent from. Some of the most righteous and noble re- volutions would never have begun on such a calculation of chance of success. They were rather the generous outburst of despair. Such was the resistance of the Maccabees against the Syrian domination. Such was the rising of the S^^ss against the house of Hapsburg. But these were two of the most beneficial revolu- tions in history.
An all important corollary of the liberty of thought is, that neither church nor state has a right to persecute for opinion's sake. A part of the argument may be seen above. It may be supposed that this is too universally held to need any argument. I answer, it is held, but very much on unintelligent and sophisti- cal grounds ; so that its advocates, however confident and pas- sionate, would be easily " dum-founded " by a perspicacious ojoponent. The history of human rights is, that their intelhgent assertors usually learn the true grounds of them " in the furnace of affliction"; that the posterity who inherit these rights hold them for a while in pride and ignorant prescription ; when the true logic of the rights has been forgotten, and when some plausible temptation jiresses so to do, the next generation discards the precious rights bodily and goes back to the practice of the old tvranny. Such has been the history, precisely, of confederated rights in the United States. The present popular theory of the United States' Constitution is exactly that theory of consoHdated
CIVIC ETHICS. 321
imperialism wliicli that constitution was created to oppose ; and whicli our wise forefathers fought the Eevohitionary War to throw off. You may deem it a strange prophecy, but I pre- dict that the time will come in this once free America, when the battle for religious Uberty will have to be fought over again, and will probably be lost, because the people are already igno- rant of its true basis and condition. As to the latter, for in- stance, the whole drift of the legislation and judicial decisions touching the property of ecclesiastical corporations, is tending like a broad and mighty stream to that result which destroyed the spiritual liberty of Europe in the middle ages, and which "the men of 1776" knew perfectly well would prove destructive of it again. But the statesman who now should propose to stay this legislation woidd be overwhelmed by a howl from nearly all the Protestant Christians of America.
In arguing men's responsibility for their moral opinions, we saw and refuted the erroneous grounds on which many advocates of freedom claim it. I showed you that upon their ground our right of freedom was betrayed to the advocates of persecution. For these succeed in pro^dng beyond reply that men are responsible for their beliefs, and then add the inference that, since eiToneous beliefs are mischievous, the errorist should be responsible to the penalties of the civil magistrate. When we object by pointing to the horror of mediaeval persecutions, they reply, that these admitted excesses no more disprove the right of magistrates to punish error wisely and moderately than the Draconian Code of Britain, which punished sheep-steaHng with death, proves that theft should not be punished at all. The only way to refute these adroit statements is to resort to a truth which Radicals and Liberals are most prone to forget, that the state is not ro -dv of social organization, but is hmited by God and natiu'e to the regulation of one segment of social rights and duties ; while the others are reserved to the family, the church and to God. It is well again to repeat, that while the citizen is responsible for erroneous behefs, his penal responsi- bility therefor is to God alone. The wickedness of human in- trusion here is further shown by the following considerations : No human organization can justly usurp the individual's re- sponsibility to God, for his powers of thought and will, because
Vol. UI.— 21.
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no liuman organization can substitnte itself under tlie indi- vidual's guilt and penalty if he is made to think or feel crimi- nally. Now, this is more especially true of the state than even of the organized church. Because the state in its nature is not even ecclesiastical, much less a spiritual institute; being ordained of nature simply to reahze secular (yet moral) order. Orthodoxy or spirituality are not qualifications requisite for its magistrates, according to the laAv of nature, but only secular virtue and intelligence. Witness the fact, that the rule of Mohammedan magistrates is morally valid in Turkey, and of pagan in China. And the magistrates to whom Eomans xiii. enjoined allegiance were pagan and anti-christian. Now, how absurd that I should be required to devolve my spiritual per- sonal functions and responsibihty on an institute utterly non- spiritual in its nature and functions, or even anti-spiritual ! And how practically absurd, that institutes which are disagreeing (as to rehgion) and contrary to each other and the tiiith, throughout most of the world, should be selected as defenders of that truth which not one of them maj hold.
Again, if the fallibihty and incompetency of the state for this task be waived, persecution for misbehef , by either church or state, is wicked, because it is not only a means utterly irrelevant to pro- duce the professed good in view, right belief, but has a violent and mischievous tendency to defeat it, and hence is criminally impolitic. Thus, first, a right belief must be spontaneous ; force is a compulsory measure. It is as though one should whip a sad child to make him glad. His sadness may be sinful, but a pun- ishment which he feels unjust will certainly not help matters. Second, it is so natural as to be unavoidable, that a creed must be more or less associated in men's minds with apprehension of its supporters. True, a cruel man may by chance be the pro- fessed advocate of a right creed. None the less do I associate creed and its advocate and infer that if the advocates are wicked, the creed is wicked. What, then, is the insanity of trying to make me love the creed from which I had dissented, by giving me most pungent motives to hate its advocates? So history teaches that persecution for mere opinion's sake, unless annihilat- ing, as of the Lutherans in Spain, only makes the persecuting creed odious, and the j)ersecuted one popular. Thus the perse-
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cuting of the Scotch Covenanters by the prelatist made prelacy odious to the Scotch nations for two centuries. The brief per- secution practiced against the Immersionsts by the colonial gov- ernment of Virginia, has made that creed popular ever since in the old counties of the state. Third, persecuting helps the error persecuted by arraying on its side the noblest sympathies of human nature, sympathy with weakness and suffering, and moral indignation at injustice. Fourth, persecution, if practiced at all extensively, is frightfully demoralizing ; first, by confounding faidts, which, if faults at all, are lesser ones, with the most enor- mous in the criminal code. A sincere mistake about a mysteri- ous doctrine is punished more severely than rape and murder. Secondly, by always using and rewarding, as it must, the vilest and foulest of the community as its delators and tools, thus putting the rascality of the community in place of honor. It breeds hypocrisy wholesale ; professing to punish a mistake in theologizing severely in the person, perhaps, of a very pure and benevolent woman or old man, while the current sins of cursing, drinking, lust and others, go rampant. Eras of persecu- tion have always been eras of foul and flagrant moral laxity. Last, persecuting, if not annihilating, alw^ays inflames religious dissensions and multiplies sects. If annihilating, it produces, as in Italy, France, and Spain of the eighteenth century, a dead stagnation of infidelity under the mask of orthodox uniformity.
The American constitutions now all deny to the states the right to establish or endow any form of religion, true or false. That right, almost universally believed in out of America, until our generation, by all statesmen of all creeds, was argued from two different points of view. One, which I may call the high pre- latic (as in Gladstone's Church and State), makes the state the ro -av of human aggi'egation, charged with all associated func- tions W'hereby man is advantaged for time and eternity; teaches that this omnibus organ, state, is moral and spiritual ; has a con- science ; is, as an organism, responsible to God for propagating his true religion, as w^ell as Christian morals, just as much as the two other institutes of God and nature, the family and the church. Hence it is obligatory that the state shall herself profess a re- ligion, and that a true one, through her chief magistrates; shall apply a rehgious test-oath to all her officers, judges and legis-
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lators ; and shall actively support and propagate the true reli- gion through the ministry, through the orthodox church. This extreme theory is refuted thus : If it is to do all this, why not persecute also? Let the student consider the question. The state is not by its nature either a spiritual or ecclesiastical in- stitution, but a secular one. The same argument would prove that every gas company or telephone company was bound to profess a company religion, have a test-oath, evangehze its em- ployees and patrons. The second, more modern, theory, advo- cated by Bishop 3\^arburton, Dr. Chalmers, Macaulay, Patrick Henry and such men, argues thus : They repudiate the (absurd) prelatic theory of the state, and hold that it is only a secular organization, appointed by God and nature to realize secular order. 1. But, by the reason that it is entitled to exist, it is entitled to use all means essential to its existence and fulfilment of its natural ends. This is granted. 2. They proceed to say that popular morality is essential to its existence and fulfilment of its natural ends. 3. There is no adequate basis for popular morality, except the prevalence of some form or forms of rea- sonably orthodox, evangelical Christianity. 4. But experience shows that no voluntary denomination of Christians can suc- ceed in sufficiently evangelizing the masses without state aid. Hence the conclusion that it is the state's right and duty to se- lect some one or more denominations of Christians reasonably orthodox, evangelical, and pure, and endow and aid them to evangelize every district and the whole population.
This theory is much more plausible and decent. No experi- enced man contests either of the first three propositions. We contest the fourth, and also argue crushing difliculties in the way of the state's reaching the desired end in the way of church establishment. Experience shows that free and voluntary effort of the denominations, all wisely and equitabl}' protected by the government, but left independent, will come nearer evangelizing the whole society than any other plan. The United States is the best example. For when we consider the rapid growth of its population, we see that the voluntary efforts of the denomi- nations have done relatively more than any churches enjoying state aid in other lands.
The following arguments are to be added against the more
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moderate theory we are discussing ; they apply a fortiori against the higher prelatic theory. That the state's patronage will be benumbing. For, since the state is and must be a secular insti- tute, its individual magistrates are likely to be anti-evangelical. " The natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned." " The carnal mind is enmity against God." These earthly rulers must therefore be expected to patronize the least evangelical ministers and denominations; and the office-seeking temper will debauch the ministry, just as it does the other office-seekers. Again, since the state pays the salaries of the preachers, the duty to the tax-payers will not only justify, but demand its supervision of the functions paid for, either by claiming the appointing power over pastors, or in some other appropriate way that shall be efficient. Then how shall the endowed church maintain its spiritual independence or its allegiance to King Christ ? This was strikingly illustrated in Scotland in the colHsions of the Free Church with the govern- ment in 1843. The British government claimed for secular patrons the "right of advowson," (or right to nominate a minis- ter to a parish). Dr. Chalmers claimed that the ordination, in- stallation, and discipline of ministers were spiritual functions of the church, over which she could recognize no control whatever except that of her divine Head. But the government rejoined that this secular control over the religious teachers was the just corollary from the support which the secular government fur- nished to them. Dr. Chalmers' party attempted to evade this argument by a distinction. They admitted that secular aid must justify a certain secular control over religious functionaries, quo- ad temporalia, but not quoad sacra; as to these the authority of the church under Christ must be exclusive and supreme. The government replied in substance that the distinction was impracticable; when the tenvporale, for instance, was a manse, endowment or a monied salary furnished by the commonwealth as her compensation for a certain religious teaching, it was im- possible for her to exercise the control over her money, without also exercising a virtual control over the function for which the money was paid. Dr. Chalmers' distinction appeared as vain as though a plaintiff in a civil court, who had sold a horse, the health of which he warranted, and who was now sued for the
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purchase-monev, should raise this plea : that while he admitted the jnrisdictiou of the court over the money, he should deny its competency to decide upon the health of the horse, on the ground that it was a court of law, and not a veterinary surgeon. The court would answer that its jurisdiction over the purchase- money must inevitably involve its right to judge the horse's health; jimsdiction over the quid must carry jurisdiction over the ^_;;'o quo. I conceive that, against Dr. Chalmers, who still asserted the duty of the state to endow the church, this reply was conclusive. The wildest form of state establishment miist logically result in some partition between the state and chiu'ch of that spiritual government which Dr. Chalmers rightly taught belongs exclusively to the church under the laws of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this suggests, finally, that an}^ state estab- lishment of religion must tend to evolve Erastian influences as to church discipline of private members also ; see this pow- erfully confirmed by the difficulties of Calvin in Geneva. For, will not the unchristian citizen say that this pastor is a public servant? How, then, can he convict his o^m master for acts not prohibited by the state, his employer? The consequence is logical, that since the religious functionaries are but a part of the state's administration, magistrates alone should have the censorship of manners and morals, unless they are to surrender that whole function to the clergy. But the latter would be ab- surd and impossible. If the magistrates are not entitled to correct the crimes and misdemeanors of the people, there is nothing to which they are reasonably entitled. If, now, another censorship of manners and morals is allowed the clergy, the citizens are subjected to an imjperium in hnperio, to double and competing authorities. Where, then, will be their rights or liberty?
The Protestant Reformers did not at first evolve the doctrine of religious Hberty or separation of church and state. The former was taught by Milton and John Owen, and the latter by Jefferson and Madison. Virginia was the first commonwealth in the world which, having sovereign power to do otherwise, established full religious liberty instead of toleration, Avdth inde- pendence of church and state, and which j^laced the stamp of crime upon the African slave trade. The latter law she enacted
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in October, 1778, in the midst of tlie throes of a defensive war, thirty years before it was done by the Government of the United States, and forty years before the overpraised and tardy action of Great Britain.
From the view we have given of the basis of the common- wealth and of rights under it, it is obvious, that the right of suffrage and ehgibility to office is not an inahenable natural franchise, but a function of responsibihty entrusted to suitable classes of citizens as a trust. The opposite theory, which claims suffrage as an inahenable right, is inconsistent, in that it does not extend the claim to women, and either extend it to aliens also, or else refrain from all jurisdiction over them and their property. That claim is founded on the social contract theory, by implication, and so falls when it is refuted. That theory represents man as absolutely free from all obligation to govern- ment, save as he comes under it by his optional assent to the social contract. It is supposed that this assent is only given by suffrage. Hence, it is argued, no man owes any allegiance ex- cept he be clothed with the right of suffrage. But we have seen that God and nature bring men under the moral obhgation of allegiance, and not their own optional assent. Hence the duty of allegiance does not imply the right of suffrage. The ex- tremest Jacobins do not deem it right to extend suffrage to minors. Why not? The answer must be, because they lack the knowledge and experience to exercise it safely. They are human beings ; it would be absurd to disfranchise them merely because they are of a certain age. The argument must be, that this immature age is the sign of their disqualification for the function. Now, if a class of persons, over twenty-one years of age, are marked by a similar incompetency, why should not the same exclusion be applied to them? To give the incompetent a power which they will abuse to their own injury, and the in- jury of their fellow-citizens, is not an act of right, but of injus- tice. That claim leads to unreasonable and self-destructive results ; for should it be that a class of citizens in the common- wealth are of such a low grade of intelligence and virtue (yet not in the class of condemned felons) as to use their suffrage to destroy their fellow-citizens' right and their own, reason, says the commonwealth, is entitled to self-preservation by disfran-
328 CIVLC ETHICS.
cliising them of that power. One of the maxims of the Whigs of 1776 was: "That all just taxation shovJd be accompanied with representation," They meant that a commonwealth or 2?opulus must be somehow fairly represented in the parhament •which taxes them, or else there is injustice. Modern democracy claims that it is true of individuals. Certainly those great men did not mean it thus. The historical proofs are, that in that Sense the maxim is preposterous. For, first, then no females, however rich, could pay a cent of taxes unless they voted ; nor wealthy minors; nor, second, ahens holding much property protected by the commonwealth. And, last, since even Jaco- binism does not propose to have babies, idiots and lunatics vote, all their property must remain untaxed. As the moral duty of allegiance does not spring out of the individual consent, but is original and natural, so the duty of paying taxes, which is one branch of allegiance, does not arise thence. This, of course, does not imply that a government has a moral right to tax an unprotected class of citizens unequitably. And for equi- table protection of the taxed against their own rulers clothed with the taxing power, it is enough that the taxed be repre- sented in the law-making department by enough of the classes who pay taxes, to make their just will potentially heard. And experience proves that to clothe all, including those who have no property, with suffrage, leaves property practically iinprotected.
THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
THERE is a discriminating conservatism, wliicli values and seeks to preserve tlie principle of old institutions, and which, understands the conditions of their value. It seeks to save the kernel even at the expense of the shell. There is also an unthink- ing conservatism, which, by a bhnd association of ideas, cleaves to the form of institutions once valuable, overlooking the condi- tions of their utility, and the principles which remain stable under changing forms, or even demands mutations of form in order to remain stable. This conservatism seeks to keep the shell at the expense of the kernel. Such is often the temper which moves the American people to regard industrial combina- tions with excessive legislative favor. There was once a histori- cal reason, which made the right of incorporating precious to the free people of Europe. We still feel the former fondness for it, after the state of affairs in which that reason was grounded has been totally reversed.
After the fall of the Roman Empire before the Teutonic in- vasions, Western Europe was for a time a chaos, " without form and void," presenting no distinctive social order or settled rights. At length, out of the disastrous confusion, the feudal system was seen to emerge. Its main feature was the holding of lands for stipulated military services to the landlord or suze- rain, by tenants for life, without a fee-simple title. The tie which thus connected the lord and the vassal was almost the only remaining bond of rights or social obligations. The other essential feature of feudalism was, that the owTiership of the lands also carried to the suzerain the right of government over its inhabitants, and made him not only a landlord, but a ruler. Each barony was a military commonwealth, exercising the rights of administering justice within itself, and of waging war on its neighbors, and irresponsible, even to the king, except for its
329
330 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
stipulated military obligations and aids. For the vassal, there might be rights and franchises, guaranteed to him by the charter of his fief, and protected bv the mailed hand of his lord. But for persons not belonging to the military caste, for artisans and traders, there ^vas no right, and no protection. The tillers of the soil were either slaves or sei-fs adscr'qjti fjhhce. The inhabitants of the towns were liable to be plundered at will by the neigh- boring feudal chieftains.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the industrial classes in towns began to find this expedient : Sometimes by payment of money, sometimes by some timely service, sometimes by their own sturdy right arms, they extracted from their lords charters of incorporation, virtually giving them an organic existence, and guaranteeing some of their rights. Kings perceiving in these corporations probable counterpoises to the power of the great feudatories, found their interest in proposing themselves as their patrons and umpires. Chief magistrates of nations thus found in these industrial communities agents by whose help they were able to create out of the endless strifes of feudalism a national order. The biu'ghs, enfranchised by these charters, became the strongholds of the commonalty, and the fountains of popu- lar opinions. Industry, protected in them by a republican mu- nicipal government, created wealth, comfort, and civilization. Thinking men recognized in them the saviours of popular rights, as well as the fountains of manufacturing and commercial wealth. They became essential factors in the creation of modern consti- tutional freedom. It is, then, not strange that these corpora- tions were cherished as precious and admirable, and that their protection was sought for every species of interest against feudal violence. Each trade in the to^\-ns was organized into a guild, governed within itself by strict by-laws, and guarding its com- mon privileges by the stipulations of a chai-ter. Just as in the military caste, ever}- teniu'e of land had before assumed the form of a fief ; so, among the industrial classes, every franchise en- deavored to gain the sanction of corporate rights. It is not sur- prising that generations of the commonalty grew iip accustomed to think the usage of incorporation the very bulwark of freedom and source of prosperity.
But this favor for incorporating business enterprises has sur-
THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATESTG PEIYATE CORPOKATIONS. 331
Tived among us, in full force, after every condition of society A\'liieli justified the practice lias passed away. The feudal insti- tutions were aristocratic ; they divided society by rigid and arbitrary castes. The power of the feudal lord was a one-man- power, and it recognized no restrictions save those of existing charters. The commoner, if he met the baron single-handed, and outside of chartered protection, was absolutely at his mercy. The only hope of the commonalty was in combination, in the union of many weak hands into one corporation. But now, all this is totally changed. Feudalism has been dead in America for more than a century. All men are now legal equals, and each is a sovereign. The chief magistrate, in enforcing the law, acts directly upon individuals, and no longer upon fiefs. The law is in theory supreme, and every man is equal before it. The commonwealth itself is the all-comprehending guild, whose charter, the constitution of the state, should abundantly pro- tect every citizen, whatever his interest or pursuit. Incorpora- tion, once the only expedient of the weak as against the strong, is now too often the partial and usurping artifice of equals against their fellows — of the strong against the weak. Yet, after the whole ground for the prejudice and the usage has been reversed, they still continue in full force. Thus, out of this mediaeval expedient of the commonalty is now rapidly growing a new aris- tocracy, armed by law with class-privileges and powers more odious than the feudal. Such is the blind conservatism which saves the shell Mobile it loses the kei*nel.
A corporation is an artificial person, created by the law, usually of many individuals, and clothed by its charter with cer- tain rights of personality, and with a continuity of existence outlasting the natural life of each of its members. Judge Mar- shall defined it as "an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law." "A public corporation" is one which, like the municipal government of a town, is created for political functions. A "private corporation" is organized by the law, perhaps of many indi\dduals, and yet mainly to pur- sue some end of personal gain belonging immediately to the members alone. Public corporations are essential to the execu- tion in detail of the functions of justice and government; and although they may operate each one directly on but a part of
332 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
the citizens, yet tliey exist for the common purposes of all the people. Against them I have no word of caution or objection to utter. The thoughts which I propose to unfold are aimed only at private corporations, and only at the unnecessary crea- tion of these.
There are only two cases under a republican constitution which offer any fair jaretext for erecting private corporations with special privileges not common to all the citizens. One is that in which the work proposed requires more wealth than any one citizen or copartnership possesses. One man may not be found rich enough to build a long railroad. Yet such a road may be productive of wealth. The other case is that in which the en- terprise, in order to be useful, must be continued under the same management longer than the lifetime of any citizen. Hence, it is argued, the law must create the artificial person, which col- lects into one treasury the wealth of many members, and which does not die when its projectors die, to carry through and per- petuate this costly and enduring work. The only other alterna- tive, it is said, would be for the state to conduct all such enter- prises herself, by the agency of multitudes of her officials, and thus to make herself at once the civil government and the uni- versal business corporation. But the commonwealth which should undertake this, in a high material civihzation, would be- come so all-engrossing as to be a gigantic tyranny to the citizens. It would, indeed, be clear of the error of conferring on associa- tions of a part of the citizens' class-privileges ; but this would be at the cost of engrossing to itself dangerous powers from all the citizens. The aggregate of functions thus thrown upon the gov- ernment would be too heavy and multifarious for anything short of omniscience ; and the aggregate of power and money would be too formidable to be entrusted to any hand but that of im- mutable rectitude. The huge machine would jjresent oppor- tunities for boundless mismanagement and peculation. The plan would convert a free government into a Chinese "pater- nal" despotism.
But if we concede these arguments, there is no reason why private corporations should be causelessly multiiDlied. At least, their privileges should be jealoiisly limited to suitable cases; they should be made to resemble, as nearly as may be, business
THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATIXG PEITATE CORPORATIONS. 333
copartnersliips ; and tliey slioukl have no privileges different from those belonging to ever}^ citizen, save sucli as conduce to the pnbhc and general advantage.
TTe have now touched the prime motive for seeking corporate powers. Business men contemplating any industrial entei-prise do not desire to bear the responsibilities of business copartner- ships. According to the good old law of copartnerships, the partners were not only jointly, but severally, bound for all the debts of the firm. The creditors of the firm could not only ex- haust the definite siims contributed to the firm by the partners, but could pursue the sejjarate j)riyate estate of each partner un- til their debts were satisfied. Either partner, in signing the firm-name to an obUgation, bound the firm and its other mem- bers. It is precisely these responsibilities which the petition- ers for private corporations seek to evade. And the sophistical plea they advance for asking this immunity is, that the foresight of such a sweeping risk deters business men from useful adven- tures; that the commonwealth, as a whole, is interested in en- couraging an active spirit of adventure, because the successful opening out of new industries will add to the common riches ; that hence the laws should encourage adventure by giying j)i*i- vate incorporation, which will enable business men to make the experiment by risking only their specified capital stock.
My position is, that this specious plea is vhulhj unsound, at least for existing American society. The spirit of industrial ad- yenture does not need stimulus among us, but it needs prudent repression. The temper of our people is ah-eady over-adven- turous. We are perfectly sure that every j)ossible new ad- yentui'e, j)romising increase of private or common wealth, will find men to pursue it vigorously; the private motives of ambi- tion, love of excitement and desire of gain, ensure this. Does not experience testify that too many adventures are made, in experiments too uncertain and of too little reasonable promise, either of private or pubHc reward? I repeat, no stimiilus is called for in our day.
But all these industrial adventurers pursue these experiments, reasonably hopeful or foolishly rash, for their own private be- hoof. This is all they think of. The other vital fact in the question is, that the experiment inevitahly costs inoney, some-
334 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PEIVATE COEPORATIONS.
body's money, and usually a great deal of it. The money it lias cost is actually consumed, and somebody is inexorably compelled to " j)ay the piper." Is there a mine to be developed, supposed to promise much wealth ? Is a j)rivate corporation created to do it, consisting of ten members, each of whom only puts in as capital stock one thousand dollars ? But by the adroit use of their credit they get the control of labor and other values to the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which are all sunk in useless shafts and tunnels, and then the honor- able corporators, after paying all the corjyorat'ion, has ten thou- sand dollars of debt, wipe their mouths and announce the mine a total failure, and dissolve their corporate body into thin air. But now, values to the amount of one hundred and forty thou- sand dollars have been irrevocably consumed. Whose? The labor of honest working men ; the timber, forage, and provisions of the neighboring farmers; the little patrimonies of orphans and widows, lent to the corporation as a safe investment on rash representations. These are the people who are made to pay the cost of the rash experiment, while the responsible experimenters go nearly free and retain all their private wealth, and while the honest losers would not have been allowed a mite of the direct profits of the minerals had the barren veins proved rich in them. This is a flagrant natural injusticG. The men who de- vised the experiment for their own private advantage, who were guilty of the mismanagement, and who made the mistakes, these are the men who are justly bound to bear the whole risks and losses of these mistakes. The only shomng of a j)retext which saves the transaction from the just charge of robbery, is that such experiments on the whole redound to the common advan- tage and wealth, and that therefore the adventurers should be relieved of a part of their risk. But I have shown this assump- tion erroneous. The community is not interested to have such spirit of enterprise stimulated in this form. The measure does not result in the increase, but in the destruction of private and public wealth. It is these wasteful and costly experiments, un- wisely and rashly made, because consciously made at other peo- ple's expense, which are devouring a large part of the honest and solid increase of wealth made by regular industries, and thus are retarding the progress of society.
THE PHILOSOPHY REGUIATING PEIYATE CORPORATIONS. 335
Again : this sophistical pretext has only a showing of a fair appHcation to business enterprises which are novel and untried. As to all the knowni and approved lines of industry, men ought to be able to know the reasonable expectations of risk and gain ; and, if they attempt them, to do so with as good knowledge of the prospect of gain, as their other fellow-citizens have in their industries. If a man is personally ignorant of such estabUshed and known industry, what right has he to migrate into it? "What right to demand that he shall be empowered to indulge his impertinence in assuming a business he does not understand, and has not fitted himself for, at his neighbor's expense ? Here is a man who knows how to make shoes, and understands the risks, and the ways by which honest, moderate profits are made from leather. But his ambition, avarice, or laziness moves him to attem]Dt woolen manufacture, of which he knows nothing, and which he has not taken the pains to learn. As a corporator, he can " play gentleman," instead of sticking to an honest last. So the law equips him with a private corporation, to enable him to make this experiment of playing gentleman at others' expense [ I repeat : it is only when the industrial experiment which pro- mises general advantage is untried and novel, that any color of pretext appears for relieving the adventurers themselves of any part of the risk. And then, the wise and equitable way would be for the state to pay the first adventui'ers a small hountij, taken out of the common treasury, to aid in the cost of the first trials. But we now see the invidious privileges of the private corpora- tion granted for pursuing every familiar and ordinary line of business as old as society itself.
If this ill-advised species of legislation were reformed, and all men who wished to adventure their riches in the hope of acquiring other riches, were made to do so under the responsi- bihties of the old copartnership, we should see this change : men would much more regularly stick to the callings in which they had been reared, and in which they were qualified and enti- tled to succeed. There would be few adventures of the absurd and dishonest character now so common, made by men ignorant of the business into which they intrude, at the expense of men more honest, industrious and modest than themselves. There would be far less over-trading. There would be far less waste
336 THE PHILOSOPHY EEGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
of tke earnings of remunerative industry in unwise experiments. The steady and wholesome increase of solid wealth would be much greater.
Corporate privileges can never be common franchises, belong- ing of right, and equally, to all citizens. They must ever re- main of the nature of special grants; and hence, they can be equitably bestowed on favored persons only on special grounds, which constitute the petitioners for them in some sense excep- tions from their fellow-citizens. The fair inference from these truths would seem to be, that the granting of such privileges should be the sovereign and the very careful act of the legisla- ture alone. It should be regarded as a power too delicate and important to be delegated. The American States, in delegating this prerogative by some general law of incorporation, to an inferior agency — as nearly all the states have done — may plead that, in such action, they have merely devolved upon the lower department the ministerial function of arranging the forms of the corporation ; while the principles of the general corpora- tion law sovereignly determine the nature and conditions of the privileges allowed. So much may, however, be safely affirmed : that these sweeping expedients for facilitating incorporation are symptoms of an abuse of the usage by its undue and rash ex- tension. Legislatures have seemed to think, that because their general laws of incorporation contained no express limitations ; because they offered equal privileges, in seeming and in word, to any and every citizen desiring to incorporate, therefore they were not making class-legislation; therefore they were not chargeable with conferring special privileges on some citizens at the expense of their feUow-citizens. This view is entirely deceptive. No matter what equal right the law may seem to offer to all, all men cannot actually pursue all avocations. There must always be some branches of industry naturally un- fitted to come under corporate management; while some are naturally adapted to gain advantage from this form of control. A private corporation may be extremely well suited to the man- agement of a mammoth distillery, or woolen-factory, and utterly unfitted to the successful rearing of poultry and pigs. It is, therefore, a mockery to the farmer for the legislature to say to him : " The general law of incorporation is, in its letter, as
THE PHILOSOPHY REGUIATING PEIVATE CORPOEATIONS. 337
open to you as to tlie distiller. If you wish to eujoy its privi- leges, incorporate yoiu'selves to rear pigs." Imperious circum- stances have made it impossible for tliem to incorporate them- selyes successfully. Hence tlie incorporated distillers are, by this law, empowered to pursue their industry with special privi- leged advantages against their fellow-citizens, the farmers. This is essential injustice, under the .guise of a nominal equality. Again, if the shrewd men w^ho avail themselves of these cor- porate powers do not regard them as specially advantageous, why do they seek them, in preference to the old, fair copartner- ship? Evidently, then, they know that the condition of their making advantage of their corporate powers is this : that many of their fellow-citizens shall still jDursue their industries unpro- tected by similar corporate powers. If the system of incorpor- ated and privileged industries could be equitably universal, it would cease to be unfairly advantageous to anybody. If every- body could practically enjoy the system, then these shrewd men would cease to desire it f Or themselves. They would say : " Now it can do us no good, because all are again on one level." Thus, the obstinate truth still appears, that the customary legislation for private corporations is invidious class-legislation, anti-re- publican in tendency, however repubHcan in seeming, and favorable to oligarchy in business, and ultimately in the state.
But these wholesome views have not prevented the states from vying with each other in general corporation laws, which throw wide open the gates, and make the acquisition of these privileges as easy as possible to the classes favored by circum- stances. In Texas, any persons combining to pursue any legiti- mate industry may obtain corporate powers by certifying their pretensions, their capital stock, their names and by-laws, to the .secretary of the commonwealth, and complying with certain rules of mere form. Thereupon it is the latter's duty, as a matter of course, to confer on these the full powers. In Virginia, the same law is in force, except that the official who incorporates is the judge of the circuit (district) court. In New York, two laws authorize the secretary of state to grant incorporation to any and every imaginable enterprise, except banking, whenever the petitioners certify him of the objects, duration, capital, and trus- tees of the proposed combination.
Vol. III.— i2.
338 THE PHILOSOPHY EEGULATING PEIVATE CORPORATIONS.
Thus, instead of maintaining any wise restrictions on private incorporations, we Lave tliem for everything, not only to build railroads, navigate ships, operate factories, educate the young, bury the dead ; but corporations to carry parcels on the vehicles of these other corporations ; corporations to spin, to make our clocks and watches, to peg shoes and to make a nail; corpora- tions to fatten cattle on the " free grass " of other corporations ; corporations to play Sbj^lock; corporations to print bank notes for those other corporations ; corporations to lock up the papers safely, which represent the fictitious wealth of sister-corpora- tions.
Note the following among the actually existing corporations of the great State of New York :
" The American Bag-Loaning Com|)any ;" " The American Hotel-Directory Company " (to print directories for hotels) ; "The Ball Players' Publishing Company ; " "The John Bauer Company," for dealing injunhf "The Empire Brewing Com- pany ; " " Electric Manufacturing and Miscellaneous Stock-Ex- change Company;" "The Farmers' Milk Company;" "The Me- tropolitan Milking-Machine Company;" "Metropolitan Cafe Company " for carrying on an eating-house) ; " The Beady- Cooked-Food Company" (to provide hot dishes); "The Sala- manca Embroidery Company," to embroider cloth; "The Horse Stealing Preventing Society;" "The Chautaqua Lake Camp- Meeting Company;" "The Gramercy Boat Club;" "The Citi- zens' Plate Glass Insurance Company;" "The Company to Prevent Extortion by Gas Companies,"
Does not this list more than justify the exaggerated sarcasm of Dickens' description of the "Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Beady Delivery Association," which Mr. Ralph Nickleby in- augurated so successfully with the help of the eloquent member of parliament, and which he manipulated so much to his own profit ? This picture of our American extremes would be ludi- crous, were it not alarming.
Li arguing against the abuse, further, I note first a point which is least important — the costly and wasteful methods of produc- tion caused by private corporations, as compared with individ- ual, responsible effort. I know that the boast of their advocates is just the opposite : That the association of the means of many
THE PHILOSOPHY EEGULATmO PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 339
men enables a corporation to produce a given value more largely and methodically, and thus more economically; that "union is strength." The following plain question explodes this plausible claim: Why do these shrewd corporators, claiming to have capital and skill for a given production, so jealously shun the strength of that union which the old right of forming copartner- ships would give them, and so eagerh^ prefer the private corpo- ration ? Obviously, because they know that they shall thus get more gain for their capital and skill, and throw on other people more of the risks and responsibilities of unlucky ventures. But somebody must "pay the piper." Of course, the people who deal with the private corporation miist, on the whole, pay more than they would to a responsible copartnership. The public, after giving the corporate privileges, pay more for the service than it had paid before. Let us exemplify in some detail. Why does the money-lender so often prefer to lend as a member in an incorporated bank, rather than as a private citizen? 'Be- cause he wishes to enjoy the experience and prudence of the bank to get him safe loans? But suppose this money-lender has gotten himself made director or cashier in this lending cor- poration, so that the prudence of the bank is no other than his own individual prudence? Now, why? Because the banking corporation can get more interest than private money-lenders. Why does the capitalist who actually puts in more than enough money to build and operate one of the largest factories, prefer to be a shareholder in a company which builds a whole town of factories? Because he aims not only to manufacture that class of fabrics, but to operate a monopoly in their sale. Here is a ship-owner, who has himself plenty of money to build and man the finest steamer, but he prefers to be one member of a "navigation company" which has a fleet of steamers plying be- tween New York and Richmond. He designs to monopolize the coasting trade between the two ports, so as to charge ex- actly double freight for the same barrel of potatoes the day af- ter a competing ship, belonging to an individual owner, ceased to run. (I speak that I do know.) But j)erhaps the most glar- ing plunder is that of the "express forwarding companies," pri- vate corporations chartered to do the duties of "common carri- ers" on the vehicles of other corporations, which have no other
340 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PEIVATE CORPOEATIONb.
title to existence than to be themselves " common carriers ; " so that to say thej are not competent to these duties is to confess themselves dishonest delinquents. A snug plan this, truly, to make the public pay twice over for one service. No wonder the express company divides fabulous dividends, rears palaces in oui* trading towns, parades its cohorts of fat horses and officials ! What is the exalted function which is so magnificently reward- ed ? Only that which was performed for our forefathers, by sim- ple wagoners and sturdy shipmasters.
That the means employed by private corporations are pro- motive of wasteful, and not of economical production, is proved by their employing in a thousand ways more lavish methods than individual producers ever do. The administration is on a scale of gigantic waste. Does the rich private capitalist, carry- ing his ovnx risks and responsibihties, ever pay his steward or head clerk $25,000 salary ? the rate of a modern railroad president ! Why is it that all the salaries paid by the corporations are higher than those paid for similar services by wise individuals, from the highest to the lowest? The steward of the company gets his $25,000, while the steward of the most gigantic private business gets perhaps his $3,500. The mere laborer gets his $1.50 jMr diem for the same species of manual labor for which the most thrifty farmer can give onl}' fifty cents. The answer is clear: the monopolist power which the incorporation con- fers enables them to rake together masses of money, at the ex- pense of other industries, which beget prodigality and waste in administration.
I shall be reminded that this age, so marked by the multitude of private corporations, is also the age of cheapened produc- tions. The reconciliation of this with my conclusion is in this truth. The marvellous applications of beneficent science to the work of production have indeed cheapened many values to a great degree. But the contrary influence of the corporations has, in most cases, intercepted the henefit of this cheapened pro- duction, in whole or in part, and prevented the people from en- joying the advantage to the degree to which they are entitled. It is applied science which has provided economical produc- tion for us; it is the private corporations which have prevented a part of the results. Besides, the cheapening of production
THE PHILOSOPHY EEGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 341
turns out to be after all partial and deceptive. The corporations do give us some things astonishingly cheap, partly by making them in what Carlyle called the "cheap and nasty "way." And yet, they do not give us, on the whole, cheaper living. They give us a yard of flimsy calico for five cents, but it costs more to dress a girl a year, than when French chintz sold for seventy- five cents. The mortising machine gives us a cheaper panel door, or slat blind, yet it costs much more to build a given house than before there were mortising machines.
Second: I advance to a more weighty argument, " 2foney is powerT It used to be a maxim of political science, that " ichere power isj thither power tends." As long as the love of power is native to man's heart, this centripetal tendency must exist. Jefferson taught that, in order that republican equahty of poUt- ical rights may continue, no excessive differences of wealth must arise. Hence, he felt it necessary to abolish in Virginia all rights of primogeniture ; so that when special energy and skill should have gathered a large mass of wealth into one hand, pa- rental love should usually ensure its division at the holder's death, and thus its redistribution. But we undo his work by creating corporations which never die, but which continue from generation to generation to grasp wealth with all the greed of the "robber-baron," and to hold it perpetually in viortua manUy with all the tenacity of that baron's descendants with their law of entails. We create an aristocracy of active capital, furnished with trains of drilled retainers, far more dangerous to the com- mon liberties than a landed aristocracy. Must not the natural arrogance of wealth suggest the lust for more power ? It is for the gratification of this desire for more gainful organization and more monopolies, that they first enter the arena of political ma- noeuvre. Success in this will in due time suggest the desire for more direct political power. The experience of the American States with these creatures of their legislation has just passed through the first stage and is approaching the next. The seniors among us can rememloer how a moneyed corporation in Phila- delphia, the creature of the United States, once challenged the whole force of the United States government, and almost came off conqueror. It is now the stale jest of some capitals, that their legislatures meet mainly to register the edicts of railroad
342 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PEIVATE CORPORATIONS.
presidents. In Maryland, tliere is a corporation whose reve- nues far exceed those of the sovereif:;n commonwealth, and which commands an army of trained officials so much more nu- merous, that the state's servants are but a squad before them. And, for a reason to be explained anon, corporations will always incline to employ means much more corrupt than private men would venture, to seduce legislators to bestow further favors. The eager craving of the age is for equality before the law. The people are taking the surest plan for disappointing their own desires, through the growth, out of these corporations, of oligarchies more oppressive than the feudal aristocracies they have overthrown. We have made our forms of government ex- tremely democratic ; and this epoch of democracy witnesses the creation of the new oligarchies. So "extremes meet." The peril is illustrated by this fact, that monopolists and victims are alike so devoted to material good, that they join in flouting the counsel which would have us forego any of these supposed means of enrichment, for the sake of sound morality and political safety, as a silly crotchet. The sufficient answer is, Who expects the American people to forego the readier means of making money, for your "political abstraction"?
I urge, third, that the forms of industry promoted by the powerful corporations tend to undermine the domestic and per- sonal indejDendence of the yeomanry. The associated means of production supplant the individual, the products of the older and more independent forms of industry retreat before those of the corporations. The time was when manufactures were liter- ally "domestic," the occupations of the people in their homes. The producing yeoman was a "free-holder," a person whose vital significance to British liberty our times have almost for- gotten. He dwelt and labored under his own roof-tree. He was his own man, the free-holder of the homestead where his productions were created by the skill and toil of himself and his family and servants. Now all this is changed. The wheel and the loom are no longer heard in the home. Vast factories, owned by corporations, for whose governors the cant of the age has al- ready found their appropriate name as "kings of industry," now undersell the home products everywhere. The axe and the hoe which the husbandman wields, once made at the country forge.
THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 343
ihe shoe upon liis mule's feet, the plough with which he turns the soil, the very helve of his implement, all come from the fac- tory. The housewife's industry in brewing her own yeast can hardly survive, but is supplanted by some "incorporated" "baking powder," in which chemical adulteration may have full play. Thus the centralization of capital leads at once to the centraHzation and degradation of population. The free-holding yeoman citizen is sunk into the multitudinous mass of the pro- letariat, dependent on the corporation for his work, his Avages, his cottage, his kitchen garden, and privilege of buying the pro- visions for his family. In place of the freeman's domestic inde- pendence, he now has the corrupting and doubtful resource of the "labor union" and the "strike." His wife and children are di-aofCfed from the retirement of a true home into the foul and degrading publicity of the festering manufacturing village, the "negro-quarter " of white wage-slaves, stripped of the overseer's wholesome police and the master's and mistress' benevolent over- sight. Thus conditions of social organization are again pro- duced more incompatible than feudalism mth repubHcan insti- tutions.
The fourth, and chief argument against our system is found in its influence on the ^drtue of the people. Every one remarks on the alarming relaxation of business and political morals. But unless we can refute the testimony of not only Washington, but of Moses, David and Solomon, correct morals are the very foundation of public safety, and this unfashionable, homely, and simple old truth must stubbornly hold its place, notwithstand- ing nineteenth century smartness. I shall show that the species of legislation I criticise furnishes the occasion for much of the corruption which all sensible men dread.
1. One evil begins at the very inception of the legislation. It puts it into the power of legislators to pass, and of suitors to urge, enactments directly affecting individual, pecuniary interests. By this system the legislator, whose only rightful business is the equitable protection of the moral riglits of all citizens, is in- vited and enabled to use the sacred power of the commonwealth to vote money indirectly out of the pockets of one citizen into those of another. Disastrous invention ! Every prudent states- man has recognized the peril and the evil cf such political
344 THE PHILOSOPHY BEGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
action as suggests, even to the citizens, the habit of looking to the action of the government for any pecuniary personal advan- tage, instead of looking to it for the just and equal defence and regulation of the independent, manly exertions of each citizen for himself. Whatever may be the direct object of the legisla- tion, which contains, like the tariff laws, this ill-starred sugges- tion, it forms a weighty objection to it. It is an unwholesome day for the virtue of a people, when they learn to look to that gov- ernment for partial pecuniary advantage, whose only legitimate action is the equitable guardianship of all. And this is especially the tendenc}'^ of our unrestricted legislation for private corpora- tion. The petitioner goes to the legislature of his country with an unfair motive. Hence immediately the temptation to apply to the legislator some improper motive. Let me repeat the short de- monstration : Here is a group of men who desire to combine their means for the pursuit of some known and customary' busi- ness. There is the old, fair and honest way of copartnersMpy with the effective strength arising out of close union, and its just responsibilities. Why do these men put the legislature ta the trouble of making them a corporation ? Of course it is be- cause they expect thereby to acquire some additional and jjartial advantage over their fellow-citizens with whom they propose ta deal. These advantages having a money value, of course it be- comes natural to think of paying money for them. Here the poisoned fountain is opened for the corruption of the law- makers themselves.
2. It is an urgent point of moral interest to the common- wealth, that as few business functions as possible be entrusted to corporations, especially of those functions which enter into- the ordinary traffic and production of the people, because "cor- porations have no soul." Sir Edward Coke uttered this in one sense ; sensible men have now universally learned to take it in another. Corporations are too often deficient in that prime attribute of rational souls, conscience. And the formidable fea- ture of this fact is, that it is the result of regular and effi- cient moral causes. The legal personality of the corporation is artificial ; what more natural than that its attributes should be artificial? Moral responsibility can only exist as an incli- vidual thing, binding the separate, single soul, by its own
THE PHILOSOPHY EEGHLATING PEIVATE CORPORATIONS. 345
immediate obligation, to its Divine Ruler. When the agent is an association, the sense of responsibility is so diminished by being divided out among numbers, that it comes to be lightly felt by each member. In point of fact, we see all men yield, in some degree, to this illusion, except the few who have kept a thoroughly enlightened and unbending conscience . Average men will not usually feel as immediate responsibility for their associated acts, as for their individual acts. The world is full of instances ; no further illustration is needed.
Again, few appreciate the plausibility of the influence against just action, arising out of this feature of business associa- tions, that they usually deposit the ruling responsibility in one place, and the executive agency in another place. The orders emanate from the directory, in the great city. The execution is by the hands of hired officials, away in the coun- try. These officials are inclined, hy their very Jionesty, to exe- cute the orders of the heads of the corporation with unques- tioning punctuality. The ordinary logic of the faithful official is : "I have nothing to do with directing the action of the cor- poration ; I am not the least responsible for the moral character of it. I have covenanted, in consideration of my salary, to exe- cute orders. I have no business with criticising their moral propriety as long as I hold my office." Thus, this official has become as mere a tool as the common soldier in a standing army. But the directory also persuade themselves that their fidelity should be in studying exclusively the interests of their association. The individual injustices they order are executed far away, and by other and inferior hands ; they do not pique the consciences of the directors, not being seen.
Let us view a plain instance. Here is an honest and faithful station agent. A valuable package has been lost by his railroad, or a neighboring widow's only cow has been injured by a train. The claim for damages is presented to him as the only accessible representative of the corporation on the sj)ot. The good man reaches down from a pigeon-hole a list of the corporation's rules, and reads to the aggrieved claimant this : " The company, considering that it has been imposed on in the levying of claims for damages, instructs all agents to resist such claims in future, until enforced by process of law." And then, his comment is
346 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
this : " No doubt, respected madam, your case is just, but you see, / have my orders.'' Now if tliis were au individual trans- action, would this decent man resist a claim after he had con- ceded its justice, and wantonly put the injured claimant to the additional costs of a suit ? He would be ashamed to do it. But now, he is the tool of a corporation. " He has his orders." 'And if the lordly directory are asked why they enforce a rule which Avorks this individual injustice, they answer : " It is our duty to study the general interest of the stockholders." Thus conscience is bandied backwards and forwards between employers and em- ployed, until it is tossed clean out of the business, and the traffic of the great corporation becomes as heartless as that of a dead machine.
Hence, I repeat, it is important for the maintenance of the public conscience, that as little as possible of the ordinary traffic of society be conducted by corporate agencies, and as much as possible by individuals or copartnerships, under their wholesome, personal responsibihties. But private corporations have been so heedlessly multiplied, that now, many things have ceased to be done by men in their individual capacities. Do you wish a parcel carried by land or sea ? It is not done for you by any individual ship-master or carrier, acting under the restraints of a personal conscience, but by an " Express Com- pany" or " Navigation Company." Do you need shoes? You do not get them from the shop of a cordwainer, but from some " Shoe Company." Or a handful of nails ? An " Iron Company " is invoked to produce them. Do you wish your person trans- ported? You commit it to a "Eailroad Company." Are you fearful that they may break your neck? You secure an in- surance from an "Accident Insurance Company." Lo we go to the end, when oiir heirs secure a grave for us from an incor- porated " Cemetery Company."
3. The creating of private corporations for transacting the current business of society is exceedingly unfavorable to moral- ity, because these associations so multiply the chances for secret fraud. In illustrating this point, I have but to refer the intelli- cent reader to the unfathomable tricks of the stock -boards and of Wall street. "The mystery of iniquity doth already work." Is not this, in plain English, the recognized prudence of the
THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 347
speculator in these markets : tliat lie sliall believe nothing which is told him by other dealers ; that he shall take it for granted they always have a concealed design in making whatever repre- sentations they profess to give the pubUc; that he shall con- struct his argument as to what is the prudent thing for him to do by inferring what is his adversary's secret trick? Does not every lawyer know that it is vain to endeavor to ascertain the actual solvency of a corporation even by inspecting its records ? They let him see just so much as tends to mislead him. Who has not heard of the illustrious invention of "watering stocks"; or of the ways that are dark of sending out the human jackals to "bear" the stocks the capitalist wishes to buy, or to "bull" the sinking bonds he is anxious to sell ; of managing the works of the corporation so as to announce lean dividends when the "operators in the ring" wish to buy the stock, and of flaunting before the public fat dividends when they wish to sell; of buying largely on credit from honest merchants, and selling largely for cash, dividing out the proceeds of the sales as divi- dends; so that when pay-day comes, the creditors find only a dead corporation with no assets, while the members of yester- day walk abroad to-day rich private citizens, secure from the righteous claims of the men they have plundered? By all these arts the large stockholders in the directory victimize the small holders and the creditors of corporations almost at their wiU. "The big fish continually eat up the little ones." The whole system tends "to make the rich richer, and the poor poorer," thus producing a condition among the people most incompati- ble with permanent republicanism.
I have been speaking of the tendencies of this legislation. I make no sweeping attack upon the personal character of the members, directors, and officers of these corporations. Many of these have been men of the noblest public spirit, of blameless integrity. Their action has been a help and support to their constituents. Their faithful exercise of the trusts with which the law has charged them has been the chief influence com- mending a vicious system, for whose errors they themselves were not responsible to the confidence of their fellow-citizens. In criti- cizing the dangerous tendencies of the system, and the sins of its unworthy members, I would not detract anything from the fair credit of such men.
3-48 THE PHILOSOPHY REGULATING PRIVATE CORPORATIONS.
Yet tlie crowning objection to the prevalent system is tliat its tendencies are unfavorable to the virtue of society. This is not the only occasion of that tide of dishonesty which threatens to undermine our civilization ; but it is one occasion which the people can ill afford to tolerate when the other conspiring causes are so influential.
The history of Federal institutions presents us with one more commentary on the tendencies of private corporations, which should be peculiarly instinictive to Southern statesmen. We have been taught by the fathers of the constitution that the cen- tralization of political power is adverse to the hberty of the peo- ple, of which the due independence of the several states in the exercise of theii- reserved rights is the only earthly bulwark. But manifestly these incorporations have been promotive of po- litical centraHzation. The first wrench which perverted the constitution and the action of the Federal Government from that equitable model designed by the fathers, was the assump- tion by Congress of power to create a banking corporation -with- in the domain of a sovereign State, as the debate on this measure was the beginning of that undying contest between the party of reserved rights and liberty, and the party of centraHzation and despotism, which was never appeased until it ended in the wreck of the constitution itself. The next great constitutional struggle was against the protective system, but this is grounded in the same i^rinciples of class legislation and partial advantage, and it has always been closely wedded to corporations. They are twin sisters. But for the influence of private corporations on the affairs of the United States the revolution of 1861-'5 would never have been attempted, and without the congenial aid of these as- sociations the aggressive party would have found the vSouth un- conquerable in its defence of the constitution and the freedom of the people.
iroUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED/
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- John i. 13
- 1 Peter ii. 13-17
I WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTEATION ?
THE terms deduction, induction, are very currently used, and they seem to be regarded as signifying two contrasted methods of ascertaining truths. Tlie description usually given in popular statements is, that while deduction is the drawing down of an inference from a more general truth, induction is the leading in of a general truth from individual facts. There has doubtless been much bandying of the terms, which was not more intelligent than the word-play with that other pair of ambiguous terms, " analysis and synthesis." It is customary to say that Aristotle first examined and formulated the deductive logic or syllogism, and Bacon the inductive method. While almost entire barrenness is imputed to the syllogism, the glory of great fruit and utility is claimed for the induction. Some, indeed, are perspicacious enough to see that neither Aristotle nor Bacon was the inventor of the one or the other method of reasoning, any more than the first anatomists of human limbs were the in- ventors of walking. Nature has enabled men to walk, and en- sured their doing so, with at least imperfect accuracy, by fash- ioning the parts of their limbs, nerves, bones, tendons, and muscles. The anatomist has only described what he found in the limbs by his dissecting knife. Men virtuall}' syllogized be- fore Aristotle, and found inductive truths before Bacon. Yet even these more accurate historians seem to think that the two are opposite methods of logical progression.
These vague opinions of what induction is, are obviously un- safe. They lead to much invalid and even perilous reasoning. No stronger testimony against the unauthorized character of much that now calls itself physical science, under the cover of sophistical inductions, need be cited than that of J. Stuart Mill.^
' A series of articles wliicli appeared in Tlie Southern Presbyterian Review, for January, July, and October, 1883.
^ Logic, Vol. I., pp. 480, 481, 7th Edit., London, 1868.
349
350 rN'DUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
" So real and practical is tlie need of a test for induction, similar to tlie syllogistic tes^ of ratiocination, tliat inferences whicli bid defiance to tlie most elementary notions of inductive logic are put forth -R-itliout misgi^•ing by persons eminent in physical sci- ence, as soon as they are off the ground on which they are familiar T\-ith the facts, and not reduced to judge only by the arguments; and as for educated persons in general, it may be doubted if they are better judges of a good or bad induction than they were before Bacon -syrote. . . . While the thoughts of mankind haye on many subjects worked ihemselyes practically right, the thinking power remains as weak as eyer; and on aU. subjects on which the facts which would check the residt are not accessible, as in what relates to the in-snsible world, and eyen, as has been seen lately, to the -sisible world of the planetary re- gions, men of the greatest scientific acquirements argue as pitiably as the merest ignoramus." In these days, when the folloAvers of physical research so often imagine the theologians to be in an active state of hostihty against them and their sciences, it is well that we have this accusation fi'om one as remote as possible from alliance with theology. This able witness jji'o^es at least so much : that every beam of light which can be thrown on the true nature of the inductive logic, though slender, is desii-able ; and will be useful both to purify the sciences of matter and to re- concile the conflict, if any such exists, between them and philoso- phy and theology.
We propose first to account for the vagueness which Mr. Mill has noted in the applications of this species of reasoning, by briefly displacing the uncertainties and discrepancies existing among the logicians who have professed to treat of it. The modern admirers and expounders of Ai'istotle are found to deny that he did overlook the inductive method, and confine himself to the syUogistic ; they claim that he formulated the one as really, if not as fully, as the other. But when they proceed to exhibit what they suppose to be the AristoteHan form of induction, they are not agreed. Thus, Grote's Aristotle (Vol. I., p. 268, etc., MuiTay, London) intei^^rets him thus : " In syllogism as hitherto described, we concluded that A the major was predicable of C the minor, through B the middle. In the syllogism from indue-
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 351
tion we begin by affirming tliat A the major is predicable of C the minor; next we affirm that B the middle is also predicable of C the minor. The two premises, standing thus, correspond to the third figure of the S3dlogism (as explained in the preced- ing pages), and would not, therefore, justify anything more by themselves than a particular affirmative conclusion. But we reinforce them by introducing an extraneous assumption that the minor C is coextensive with the middle B, and comprises the entire aggregate of individuals of which B is the universal, or class term." The instance Mr. Grote gives from Aristotle to ex- plain the above is :
(1), Horse, mule, etc., etc., are long-lived.
(2), Horse, mule, etc., etc., are bileless.
(3), (Extraneous assumption.) The horse, mule, etc., etc., com- prehend all the bileless animals —
(4), (Conclusion.) Hence, all bileless animals are long-lived.
Now, it is obvious to remark on this : that without the extra- neous assumption the fourth proposition would not hold good as a universal truth. The third proposition, or extraneous as- sumption, then, is not an accessory, but an essential part of the logical process. But if Aristotle correctly defined syllogism as a process including the proof and conclusion in three terms and three propositions, this inductive process here supposed, whether valid or invalid, is not syllogism. A still more formidable ques- tion remains : How do we see that the extraneous assumption is warrantable? Are we entitled to assume that horse, mule, etc., etc. (an incomplete enumeration), do contain all the bileless ani- mals ? Evidently, nothing contained in this formula authorizes us. The process, then, as a proof of a general proposition, is inconclusive. It does not give us the form of a valid inductive proof, and is not the correct analysis of that mental process.
But Mr. Grote himself states that the prior commentators on Aristotle understand him differently. Thus —
(1), All horse, mule, etc., etc., is long-lived.
(2), All bileless is horse, mule, etc., etc. , (3), Ergo, all bileless is long-lived.
But Mr. Grote correctly remarks that, while, in form, this comes correctly under the first figure, it manifestly leaves the second proposition unwarranted, and authorizes no universal
352 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
conclusion. He also quotes M. Bartlielemy St. Hilaire as ex- plaining Aristotle thus : " Induction is, at bottom, Init a syllo- gism, whose minor and middle are of equal extension. For the rest, there is but one sole way in which the minor and middle can be of equal extension : this is, that the minor shall be com- posed of all the individuals whose sum the middle represents. On the one part, all the individuals ; on the other, the whole species which they form. The mind very readily makes the equation between these two equal terms." M. St. Hilaire is right, so far that, if this is the Aristotelian induction, it is per- fectly valid. Biit it is equally clear that it is perfectly worthless, as we shall prove by the authority of Galileo. If we must as- certain the predicate to be true of each separate individual of the class, by a separate proof, before we can affirm that predi- cate of the class as a whole, then our general affirmation is cer- tainly a safe one. But it can certainly teach us nothing, and authorize no progress in knowledge, because we have abeady learned in detail all it states, in our examination of the individ- uals. So Galileo. "Yincentio di Grazia objected to a proof from induction which Galileo adduced, because all the particu- lars were not enumerated. To which the latter justly replied that if induction were required to pass through all the cases, it would be either useless or impossible : imj)Ossible when the cases are innumerable ; useless when they have each already been verified; since, then, the general proposition adds nothing to our knowledge." (Quoted in Whewell's Inductive Sciences, Yol. II., p. 219.)
"Whewell himself explains Aristotle after that general method of the commentators which Grote rei^rehends. Thus the former : "Induction is when, by means of one extreme term, we infer the other extreme term to be true of the middle term." This Whew- ell explains thvis :
(1), Mercury, Yenus, Mars describe elhpses about the sun.
(2), All planets do what Mercury, Yenus, Mars do.
(3), Ergo, aU planets describe ellipses about the sun. {Induc- tive Sciences, Yol. II., p. 50.)
Again, we repeat, in our anxiety to have the reader see the real weak point in all these theories of induction, the fatal de- fect is in the second proposition. What authorizes us to say
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTEATION ? 353
■that all planets do as Mercury, Venus, Mars do ? The theory of these authors gives us no answer ; the assertion is not author- ized ; and the process, as a proof, is Avorthless.
Ueberweg {Hist of Phil., Vol. I., p. 156) represents Aristotle thus: "In induction {i-o-ycofr/, o ic i-ajcoy?^:: aoXXoycafio^) we con- ckide from the observation that a more general concept includes (several or) all of the individuals included under another concept of inferior extension, that the former concept is a predicate of the latter. (Afialytics jPrior, II., 23.) Induction leads from the particular to the universal, (d-6 zio:^ y.adiy.aaza izc ra ■/.adoXoi) Iffooo^. Topics, I., 10.) The term l-ayco-fr^, for induction, svig- gests the ranging of particular cases together in files, like troops. The complete induction, accoi'ding to Aristotle, is the only strictly scientific induction. The incomplete induction which, with a syllogism subjoined, constitutes the analogical inference {jzafjddecyfia), is principally of use to the orator."
We pass now from the Stagyrite logic to the method of Lord Bacon, which it is customary to represent as its antithesis. Ba- con's claim to be the founder of modern physical science has been both asserted and contested. The verdict of Mill seems to be just: that he does deserve great credit, not so much for giv- ing the real analysis of the inductive method as for pointing us to the quarter where it lies. The very title of his N^ovxim Or- gamini, "Concerning the Interpretation of Natiu'e," struck the correct key-note. The problem of all science, mental as well as physical (and it is to be noted that Bacon claims. Book L, Aph- orism 127, that his method is as applicable to mental and moral sciences as to material), is to interpret the facts given us by nature. The right method was doubtless pointed out when Ba- con told the world, in the beginning of his Novum Orgaivum, that instead of assuming general propositions, and then audaci- ously deducing from them, by syllogism, what causes and facts shall be, we are to begin in the opposite way, by the humble, patient, and accurate observation of facts, and then proceed, by legitimate inductions, to general and more general propositions concerning nature's laws.
Bacon says. Book II., Aphorism 1, that as the work and design of human power is to induce upon a given body a new property or properties, so the work and design of human science is to dis-
VOL. III.— 23.
354 iNDUcxmE logic discussed.
cover tlie "form" of a given property. Tlie -vrliole tenor of his discussion shows that by "natura" he means anv permanent propei-ty of a concrete individual thing. He himself has defined the sense in which he uses the word "form," T^dth a clearness which admits of no debate. Thus, Book II., Aphorism 17 : " For when we speak oifornis, we mean nothing else than those laws and determinations of pure activity which regulate and consti- tute some simple property [naturam simjylicem) , as caloric, lights weight, in every material thing and subject susceptible thereof." He admits that the old philosophy rightly declared, ^Ho hiov: a thing truly is to knoiv it through its causes." These causes Aris- totle had distinguished into four — the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause. In the investiga- tion of natvire, the inquiry after the final cause is out of place- He teaches elsewhere that it belongs to philosophy and natural theology. He also turns aside fi'om inquiry into the material and the efficient causes in their abstract senses. The problem of induction is to ascertain the regular law of the formal cause. The directions for the interpretation of nature fall, then, un- der two general classes. The first show us how to derive gen- eral truths from experience ; the second dii"ect us how to apply these general truths to new experiments, which may further re- veal nature. To deduce a general truth from experience, indi- vidual observations, there is, first, a task for the senses, that of accurate, distinct observation of the individual facts of natural history ; there is then a task for the memory, the tabulating of coordinate instances ; and there is then the task of the intellect or reason, the real induction, which is the detection, among all the resembling and differing instances, of the universal law of cause. It is the last task in which the mind must have the aid of the proper canons of induction, by all attainable comparisons. Thus : let a muster, or array, be made of all the known individ- ual instances in which the propeiiy which is the subject of in- quiry is present. Then let another array be made of the known instances in which that property is absent. Then let another ar- ray be made of the known instances in which the jDroperty is present, increased or diminished. When these sets of cases or arrays are carefully pondered and compared, the law {forma) of the property will begin to reveal itself by this principle: that.
WHAT IS INDUCTR'^E DEMONSTRATION ? 355
whatever is always present with that property, or always absent when it is absent, or is found increased or diminished with it — that is the cause of the property. This inductive process is then illustrated at tedious length by an application to the inquiry, What is heat? First, a list is made of all known individual things in nature which exhibit heat, as solar rays, combustive masses, fermenting masses, quick-lime moistened, animal bodies, etc., etc. Then a list is made of bodies which exhibit no caloric, as the fixed stars, the moon, etc. Then lists are formed of objects more or less warm; and the vindemiatio, or induction to the ivue forma, or law of caloric, may be cautiously made. This is, that '■^Caloric is an expansive motion, repressed and striving in the lesser parts of the warm body." (Book II., Aph. 18.) This first vindemiatio is then to be tested and confirmed by consider- ing a number oi pi'erogatival instances, which are particular in- stances presenting the property under such circumstances as give them the prerogative of determining the law of the pro- perty. Of such instances, twenty-five are enumerated ! and with a refinement and intricacy' of distinction which must be utterly confusing to a practical investigator.
The disparaging verdict which Mill pronounces upon this tech- nical part of the Baconian Organuin, must be admitted to be just. Yet it should be mitigated by the fact that, cumbersome as the proposed canon is, it seems to have led Bacon, centuries in advance of his age, in the direction of the latest theory as to what caloric is. That theory now is, that caloric is a mode of molecular motion. Bacon's conclusion was that it is " the striv- ing of an expansive but restrained motion in the lesser parts of a body!" His method was not mere groping: it foreshadowed an imperfect truth. In the light of fuller inquiries, Bacon's errors seem to have been these : that his contempt for the ab- stract in metaphysics led him to neglect the fundamental notion of 2>ower hi the efficient cause, discriminating it so vitally fi'om the material, formal, and final causes, and thus to depreciate the inquiry into efficient cause ; that he had not pondered and settled this other truth of metaphysics, the relation between power and properties in individual things ; and that he applied his induc- tion, in his favorite examples, to detect i\\e forrna, or law of a propert}-, instead of the laics of effects. It is the latter inquiry
356 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
in wliicli inductive science is really concerned, and tlie solution of wliicli extends man's powers over nature. The thing we wish inductive philosoph}^ to teach us is, how may we be sure to pro- duce, in the future, a given desired e^ect, v^hich. has been known in the past?
The illustrious Newton, who did more than any other to throw lustre on the new method by its successful application, presents us, in his four rules {Prhicipia, 3d Book), a substantive advance upon the rude beginnings of Bacon. These rules are far from being exhaustive ; nor are they stated in an analytic order, but they are the sound dictates of the author's experience and pro- found sagacit}'.
"1. We are not to admit other causes of natural things than such as both are true (not merely imaginary) and suffice for ex- plaining their phenomena.
" 2, Natural effects of the same kind are to be referred to the same causes, as far as can be done.
" 3. The qualities of bodies which cannot be increased or di- minished in intensity, and which belong to all bodies in which we can institute experiments, are to be held for qualities of all bodies whatever.
" 4. In experimental philosophy, propositions collected from 2)/ienoniena by induction are to be held as true, either accurately or ai^proximately, notwithstanding contrary hypotheses, till other phenomena occur, by which they may be rendered either more accurate or liable to exception."
Sii' William Hamilton, in his Logic, Lecture 17th, describes his "inductive categorical syllogism" as "a reasoning in which we argue from the notion of all the constituent parts discretively, to the notion of the constituted Avhole collectively. Its general laws are identical with those of the deductive categorical syllo- gism; and it may be expressed, in like manner, either in the form of an intensive or of an extensive syllogism." This he calls "logical or formal induction." The process is precisely that which we have seen described by St. Hilaire : When a given predication has been found true of every individual of a class, it is also true of the class as a whole. This is unquestionably true ; but as unquestionably useless, as we have seen from the state- ment of Galileo. It gives us only a truism, and no new truth.
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION ? 357
But Hamilton proceeds to distinguish from this what he calls the "philosophical or real induction," in which the argument is not from all of the individuals in a class to the class as a whole ; but from a part of the individuals to the Avhole. He sajs that the validity which this induction may have, is not from the logi- cal law of identity, but from a certain presumption of the objec- tive philosopher, founded on the constancy of nature. This species of induction proceeds thus :
(1), This, that, and the other magnet, attract iron.
(2), But this, that, and the other magnet, represent all mag- nets.
(3), Ergo, all magnets attract iron.
This doctrine he again enlarges in his 32nd Lecture, where he treats of modified logic, and deals wdth the " real or philosophi- cal induction " expressl}'. He again makes it an inference from the many to the all. To the soundness of such an induction two things are requisite : that the cases colligated shall be of the same quality, and that they shall be of a number competent to gi'ound the inference. But to the question. How many like cases are competent? he has no answer. This species of induction, he admits, cannot give a categorical conclusion. It only raises a probability of truth, and leaves the conclusion a mere hypo- thesis, sustained by more or less of likelihood. That likelihood is, indeed, increased as a larger number of cases is compared, as the observation and comparison are made more accurate, as the agreement of cases is clear and precise, and as the existence of possible exceptions becomes less probable after thorough ex- ploration. Hamilton concludes by quoting with approbation these words from Esser's Logic : " Induction and analogy guar- antee no perfect certainty, but only a high degree of proba- bility."
The objection against the Aristotelian syllogism of induction, which we urged on pages 351 and 352, had been stated by Arch- bishop Whately. Let it be put thus :
(1), This, that, and the other magnet, attract iron.
(2), But this, that, and the other magnet, etc., are conceived to constitute the genus magnet.
(3), Ergo, the genus magnet attracts iron.
Whately 's objection is, that the second 2>ro2)Osition is mani'
358 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
festly false. Hamilton pronounces this, wliicli appears to us a fatal, "a very superficial objection." His reason is, tliat it is extra-logical ; tliat logic is a formal science only ; and that hence the correctness of its forms is not vitiated by the circumstance that some proposition expressed in them and correctly con- nected, so far as these forms go, with other propositions, is in fact untrue, and that the imaginary propositions with which the text-books of logic illustrate the logical forms answer just as well, whether the}' be really true or not. Hamilton is here clearly misled by a confusion of thought. Because an imagi- nary, or even a silly, proposition may serve to illustrate a rule of logic, when that rule is the subject of inquiry, it does not fol- low that, when the ascertainment of other truth by the use of the rules of logic is our object, that can be a good logic whose frame- work always and necessarily involves a false proposition. Blank cartridges may serve very well for the purposes of an artillery drill; it by no means follovv^s that blank cartridges are adequate for actual artillery practice in war. Such artillery woiild be practically no artillery ; for it would repulse absolutely no enemy. And such logic would be practically uo logic. Logic is a formal science. True. But it professes to give the general forms of elenchtic thought, by which the truth of the propositions of all other sciences, besides logic, may be ascertained. Hence, if it projDOses to us a given form of thought which is always and necessarily invalid in every real science to which logic offers its method, that form is incorrect as a logical form. We affirm "WTiately's objection, then, in order to call the reader's attention again to the fatal weak spot in these theories of induction.
What, then, is Whately's own explanation of the inductive syllogism? See his Logic, Book lA^., Chap. I. He begins by justly distinguishing two uses of the word induction, which are entirely different. The one process is not a process of argu_ ment to the conclusion, but is wholl}^ preliminary thereto, the k~a.Yiofr^, or bringing in of like instances ; the collecting process ; and this is, in fact, nearer to the literal meaning of the word. The other process called induction, is the argumentative one, leading in the conclusion, as to the whole class, from the in- stances. Now, of this logical induction, Whately remarks that, instead of being different from the syllogistic, it is the same with.
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 359
it. And, indeed, unless we assert its sameness, we must give up the tlieory of the syllogism ; for that theory is, that syllogism expresses the one form in which the mind performs every valid Teasoning step. The logical induction is, then, says Whately, a syllogism in the first mode and figure, with its major premise suppressed. That suppressed major is always substantially the same in all logical inductions : that tohat belongs to the individual cases observed, belongs to their lohole class. The induction by which we predict, in advance of individual examination, that all magnets will attract iron, would then stand thus, according to Whately :
(1), What belongs to the observed magnets, belongs to all magnets.
(2), But these observed magnets attract iron.
(3), Ergo, all magnets attract iron.
Now the reader will observe that Whately's process only in- verts the order of the first two propositions in Hamilton's. For Whately's first is only a different way of expressing Hamilton's second : that
(2), " This, that, and the other magnet, represent all magnets."
The order of propositions given by Whately seems obviously the simple and correct one. But the difficulty he had pro- pounded as to the Aristotelian form of the induction, recurs as to his : How have we ascertained our major premise, that what belongs to the observed magnets belongs to the whole class ? Are we entitled to hold it as a universal truth ? The same diffi- culty virtually meets Whately. It is amusing to find him at- tempting to parry this fatal difficulty in a way similar to that which Hamilton uses to parry him : " Induction, therefore, so far forth as it is an argtimeiit, may, of course, be stated syllogis- ticaUy ; but so far forth as it is a process of inquiry, with a view to obtain the premises of that argument, it is, of course, out of the province of logic." The evasion is as vain for Whately as it was for Hamilton. For that universal major premise, namely, that what belongs to the observed individual cases belongs to the whole class, can no more be the im- mediate non-logical result of a mere colligation of cases, than the conclusion itself of the inductive syllogism can be. Whately has himself admitted that if a premise used in a syllogism
360 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
now in hand was a conclusion of any previous reasoning pro- cess, tlien our logic must concern itself about tliat premise also, and tlie mode by wbicli we get it, as well as aboiit the form of its relations to the other propositions in our present syllogism. Now, the universal major he claims, is not the mere expression of an extra-logical colligation — that is self-evident. Unless it is an original intuition, it must be the conclusion of a prior logical process. What is that process? Is this universal major valid? "Whately gives us no sufficient answer ; and thus his theory of inductive argument fails like the others. Yet, it presents us, as we shall see, one step in advance of the others, towards the risfht direction.
Dr. TVhewell deserves mention also, by reason of his wide learnin<^, extending into the domains of physics and metaphysics, and his authorship of a work, once a standard, devoted to this very subject. This is his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. His view of induction may be seen in these citations (Vol. I., p. 22) : Where " truths are obtained by beginning from observation of external things, and by finding some notion in which the things, as observed, agree, the truths are said to be obtained by induction." Contrasting deduction with induction, he says, " De- ductive truths are the results of relations among our thoughts. Inductive truths are relations which we perceive among existing things^ And of the deductive process he thinks the geometri- cal demonstrations the best examples.
Now, the insufficiency of these descriptions is obvious from ' these remarks. Lines, angles, surfaces, sohds, in geometry, are as truly things as any observed phenomena or effects in physics. Thus the distinction wholly fails. Again, "Whewell has com- bined, in his description of induction, two processes of mind which are wholly distinct, and only one of which is a logical process. Both have, indeed, been called induction (in different senses), but the first is only a colligation of observed things or facts. This process only completes a general statement which gives correct expression to a series of individual observed facts, when taken as a whole. The instance given by another presents this process very simply : A navigator in unknown seas beholds land ; he knows not whether it is continent or island. But he sails along its shores, noting its bays and headlands, and taking
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION ? 361
ocular evidence of the continuity of tlie whole coast, until he be- holds again the same spot he first saw. He calls the land now an island. But he has made no logical inference; he has but colligated all his separate notes of the coasts, with their connect- ing continuity, into that general concept of which "island" is the correct name. Now, this is really what Kepler did when he performed what has so often been cited as a splendid instance of induction : from a number of observed angular motions of the sun in the ecliptic, he declared that the earth moved in an ellipse, with the sun at one of '(k\& foci. The real process was but to plot and colligate upon a plane surface, all the successive posi- tions of the earth; whereupon inspection showed that the line she had pursued was elliptical. A still simpler and equally illus- trious instance of this process was given when Maury enounced the general facts of his wind-and-current charts. His results were obtained by faithfully j)lotting, upon blank charts of the oceans, the directions of the ^\dnds and currents, with the suc- cessive dates, from a multitude of actual observations in sailors' log-books. When this humble but noble work was patiently done, the general facts as to the directions of the winds and cur- rents, at given seasons, revealed themselves to inspection. Here was a grand colligation, but, as yet, no inference. But we have a time instance of inductive inference when Newton derived the great law of the attraction of gravitation, as expressing the true cause of that elliptical circulation. Kepler had colligated only a general fact ; Newton inducted a law of cause. Whewell seems, p. 23, to confound them.
But on p. 48 he speaks, if still too indefinitely, yet more nearly to the truth. " Induction is familiarly spoken of as the process by which we collect a general proposition from a number of particular cases ; and it appears to be frequently imagined that the general proposition restdts from a mere juxtaposition of the cases, or, at most, from merely conjoining and extending them." . . "This is an inadequate account of the matter." . . "There is a conception of the mind introduced into the general proposition, which did not exist in any of the observed facts." The phrase "conception of the mind" is indeed an inaccurate expression for the missing but all-important element of the logi- cal induction. But Wliewell had perceived so much: that this
"362 IXDUCTITE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
element of proof was not in tlie mere colligation of agreeing in- stances alone, but was to be furnished from another source. And he points our inquiries in the right direction, in seeking this xital jDremise among the intuitive judgments of the reason. It is to be found in that judgment which so many of these writers speak of as our conviction of the uniformity of nature! Thus, in substance, answer the most of them, as Hamilton and his great German authorities, Krug and Esser. But this is the question.
The comments of Lord Macaulav on the inductive method, in his famous Essay on Lord Bacon, justify the angry estimate of his comrade. Brougham, bv their superficial character. But thev may also serve to show how just the complaint of Mill is as to the confusion of the opinions of even educated men on this subject. IMacaulay, with his usual plausible brilhancy, as- sures us that the method of the Novum Organum was nothing more than the familiar experimental argument of the Enghsh squire as to the cause of his bodily ailments. The result of the squire's induction is to trace his sufferings to his indulgence in his favorite dainties. On the nights after free indulgence he suffered much. On nights when he had wholly abstained, he was free from pain. On nights when he had indulged sparingly, he suffered slightly. Here, intimates Macaulay, we have the whole Baconian process, the comparentia histantiarum similium^ the exclusiones instantiarum negativarum; the comparationes pluHs aut m^inoris. He seems to think that this embraces the inductive logic !
Fleming, in his Yocdbulary of Philosojyhy, after citing numer- ous definitions of induction, which exhibit the uncertainties and confusions criticized in these pages, gives his own statement thus: "By the principle of induction is meant the ground or warrant on which we conclude that what has happened in cer- tain cases, which have been observed, will also happen in other cases which have not been observed. This principle is involved in the words of the wise man, Eccles. i. 9 : ' The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is done is that which shall be done.' In nature there is nothing insulated. All things exist in consequence of a suflicient reason; all events occur according to the efficacy of proper causes. In the Ian-
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 363
guage of Newton, Effectuum naturaliiim ejusde^n generis ecedent sunt causce. The same causes j)i'Oflnce the same effects. The principle of induction is an application of the principle of cau- sahtj," etc. Of this description we may say w^hat was said of Whewell's, but with more emphatic approval : that it points us in the right direction.
We now introduce the definitions of three contemporary American logicians. The Rev. Dr. McCosh says {Div. Gov., p. 289) : "Induction is an orderly observation of facts, accom- panied by analysis ; or, as Bacon expresses it, the ' necessary exclusions ' of things indifferent, and this followed by a pro- cess of generalization, in which we seize on the points of agree- ment."
Professor Bowen, Logic, p. 380, teaches that induction is from some observed cases to the many not observed; and he passes this verdict on the process: "But just so far as they" (induc- tions) "are means to these ends, they lose the character of pure or demonstrative reasonings, the syllogisms to which they are reducible are faulty, either in matter, as having a major premise, the universality of Avhich is merely prohahle, or in form, as con- taining an undistributed middle."
" Induction, properly so called, concerns the matter of tlioug]it, and concludes from so7ne to all."
Dr. Porter, Elements of Intellectual Science, Abr. Ed., p. 393, says : "Judgments of induction differ from simple judgments in several important particulars. (In the simple judgments we bring the individuals under the appropriate common concept.) In induction w^e proceed farther: we add to those simple judg- ments yet another, namely, that what we have found to be true of these, may be received as true of all others like them. The ground of the first judgment is facts observed and compared. The ground of the second is what is called the analogy of na- ture. A judgment of induction is, then, a judgment of compar- ing ohservation, enlarged hy a judgment of analogy. The judg- ment of observation is founded on an ohserved similarity ; the judgment of induction on an. interpreted indication"
We have postponed to the last the notice of two celebrated philosophers, Dugald Stewart and John Stuart Mill, because they both exhibit, as a common trait, the influence of their
364 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
countryman, Hume, in "^Testing tlieir \dews from the truth. Stewart (Vol. III., Chap. lY., of the Method of Inqidi'y pointed out in the Experimental, or Inductive, Logic), amidst many elegant, but confused, digressions, reaches substantially the same view of inductiye reasoning -udth his predecessors. (P. 246.) " "^Mien, by thus comparing a number of cases agreeing in some circum- stances, but differing in others, and all attended -with the same result, a philosopher connects, as a general law of nature, the event with its j!?7^?/semZ cause, he is said to proceed according to the method of i?idncfwn.'' "In drawing a general physical con- clusion from pai-ticular facts, we are guided merely by our in- stinctive expectation of the continuance of the laws of nature ; an expectation which, implying little, if any, exercise of the rea- soning powers, operates alike on the philosopher and on the savage." . . . " To this belief in the permanent uniformity of physical laws, Dr. Eeid long ago gave the name of the induc- tive j)rincij)?e."
Stewart seems to admit by implication what we have seen Hamilton and Bowen assert so plainly, that the physical induc- tion can give only a probable evidence, and can never demon- strate absolutely a universal truth. For Stewart, in commenting on the nteresting fact that the inductive method is applicable in mathematics, reminds us that it was only by this method Newton proved the binomial theorem ; and then proceeds to argue, pp. 318, 319, that, had this theorem not really been sustained hy some principle more valid than is found in any jDhysical induc- tion, mathematicians wovdd not have accepted it as universally true for all exponents of the {a-\-o?). All the proof, says he^ which Newton seemed to have of the binomial theorem, was to- expand the products, by actual multiplication, of the {ct-\-x) to- the second, the third, the fom'th, and to such a mimber of powers as satisfied him that the laws he found jjrevaihng for the number of terms, and the exponents and coefficients in all the products actually inspected, might be trusted to prevail in all other powers, however high. Now, had this been really all, jStewart thinks we should have had, in this mathematical for- mula, a specimen of induction exactl}- like physical induction. And he evidently thinks it could not have been demonstrative of the universal truth, but only evidential of the probable trutk
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 365
of the formula for iintried cases. He tbiuks there is really, la- tent iu the process of Newton, a further evidence, which is demonstrative : that Avhen the actual multiplications are pursued to several powers, the mind sees a reason why the coefficients and exponents not only do, but must, follow the law observed by inspection in the products expanded. Does not this imply that in the case of physical inductions, a similar desideratum is lacking ? Surely. But Stewart does not supply it. Surely, he cannot think that he finds it in " permanent uniformity of phy- sical laws," which he regards as the inductive principle ; for he thinks it is instinctive, rather than rational. Thus he leaves his system of inductive logic as baseless of solid foundation as the others.
But the worst legacy of the philosophy of Hume he leaves us, is his distinction between the physical cause and the efficient cause. The physical cause is the invariable actual antecedent of the jy^^^i^onienon regarded as effect. The efficient cause is the secret unseen power the mind imputes ; and he declares the word jpoioer expresses an attribute of mind, not of matter. He ex- pressly declares that the object of induction is to seek, not the efficient, but the physical cause. (Pp. 230, 231.) And his rea- sons are but the deceptive ones of the sensationahstic philosophy which misled, in part, even Brown and Stewart, and so much more sadly, Mill : that observation of physical sequences gives us nothing but a regular antecedent and consequent ; so that physical science should have to do with nothing more. That this often repeated conclusion is utterly sophistical appears from these two tests : observation of physical phenomena gives us no general concepts ; for all philosophers agree that nature jDresents to the eye nothing but individual things and jyAd;iCwze;?(?. Shall physical science, therefore, have no business with general con- cepts and universal propositions ? Again, nature presents to the eye no inference of any kind. Shall physical science then dis- card inference ? Carry out this argument, and man's relation to nature must sink to that of the cunning brute, the ant or the beaver. Hence it appears that, if there is to be any science or any theory, elements must be contributed to it from the subjec- tive powers of the mind, as well as from the outward observed facts and things. Stewart was the more unpardonable for mak-
366 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
ing this concession against the inquiry for the efficient cause, for that he is not really a sensationalist, but admits the mind has intuitive notions and judgments. He should have remembered that, granting what the eyes observe in the rise of ajy/^enowie/io^ is only its regular antecedent, we rationally supply to the real causal antecedent, as its own property, the notion of poioer. Just as when by the senses we perceive a cluster of properties of a concrete thing, the law of the reason necessitates our sup- plying the notion of suhstance. It is impossible for us to think the antecedent which seems next the effect the real next ante- cedent, unless we judge it to emit i\ie potcer efficient of the effect. In a word, the physical cause, can, in truth, be none other than the efficient cause. If we do not know, by sense-perception, what the power is, we rationally know that it is ; if we do not know its TO Tzco;;, we do know its to otc. Hence, its reality is as proper a ground for argument and inference as the reality of any con- crete body. Do we know what the energy we call electricity is ? Yet we construct a thousand experiments to seek it, and infer- ences from its power. Stewart ought to have affirmed, then^ precisely what he denied, what Newton affirmed : that the real object of the inductive inference is to find the efficient cause.
We shall see that the chief, the only useful, problem of in- duction is, to ascertain the certain laws of given effects. Hoto can an antecedent hring the effect certainly after it, imless it he efficient thereof? To limit induction, as Stewart and Mill do, to the ascertainment only of the physical antecedent, is to forbid induction from ever rising above the probabilities of mere enu- merated sequences, whose worthlessness to science Bacon has so well exposed. Have we not the clue, in this refusal of the search after the efficient cause, to the imperfections and confu- sions of their treatment? We repeat, the reversal of this diction of theirs is vital.
Mill is at once the best and the worst of all the English- speaking logicians, in his treatment of the inductive logic. His insight into its true nature is far the most profound and correct ; and his technical canons of induction the most simple and accu- rate at once. But his error as to the rudimental doctrine, which underlies all his admirable discriminations, is the most obsti- nate. To him eminently belongs the credit of vindicating for
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION ? 367
tlie inductive logic tlie character of a true demonstration, and of showing where that demonstration is founded. Having set aside the inaccurate uses of the word induction, he defines as follows (Bk. III., Ch. II., § 1) :
" Induction, then, is that operation of the mind by which we infer that what we know to be true in a particular case or cases, wall be true in all cases which resemble the former in certain assignable respects." (Chap. III., Sec. 1.) "It consists in in- ferring from some individual instances in which a phenomenon is observed to occur, that it occurs in all instances of a certain class ; namely, in all which resemble the former in what are re- garded as the material circumstances." But since the mere ob- servation of a similarity of sequence in a number of instances does by no means authorize this expectation as to instances not observed— a truth which Mill here implicitly recognizes, and elsewhere expressly acknowledges — the all-important question remains, what is it that authorizes the mind to infer positively, in the case of the valid induction, that the unobserved instances will be like the observed ? He answers (§ 1) : " The proposition that the course of nature is uniform, is the fundamental princi- ple or general axiom of induction." "If we throw the whole course of any inductive argument into a series of syllogisms, we shall arrive by more or fewer steps at an ultimate syllogism, which will have for its major premise the principle or axiom of the uniformity of the course of nature." Again (Chap. V., § 1), recognizing the general law of logic, that only universal premises can yield universal conclusions in the mathematical reasonings, he admits that it must be so likewise in inductive reasonings. " This fundamental law must resemble the truths of geometry in their most remarkable peculiarity, that of never being, in any instance whatever, defeated or suspended by any change of cir- cumstances." But where do we find such a uuiversal principle? He answers: '^ This law is the law of causation^ (§ 2.) "On the universality of this truth depends the possibihty of reducing the inductive process to rules." "The notion of cause is the root of the whole theory of induction." And most emphatically (in Chap. XXL, § 1) having expounded his canons of induction, for discriminating between the sequences which authorize, and those which do not. authorize, expectation of the same phe-
368 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
noiixena recurring, lie says : " The basis of all tliese logical ope- rations is tlie law of causation. The validity of all the inductive methods depends on the assumption that every event, or the beginning of every jy/i^/if^/ie^^o/i, must have some cause."
But this excellent doctrine he then fatally neutralizes by the doctrine of the sensationalists concerning the notion of causa- tion. This he declares to be of empirical origin (Chap. Y., § 2) : "The only notion of a cause which the theory of induction requires, is such a notion as can be gained from experience." He deems that the tie of power, which we think the reason, but not the senses, sees between cause and effect, is " such as cannot, or at least does not, exist between any physical fact and that other physical fact on which it is invariably consequent, and which is popularly termed its cause.'" He distinguishes, with Eeid and Stewart, between the physical and the efficient cause, and declares that induction concerns itself only about the physi- cal cause. TVith him, causation is " invariahle, unconditional antecedence ' ; nothing more.
Again (Chapter Y., § 3), after referring to the truth that a se- quent effect is not usually found to be the regular result of a sole antecedent, but of a cluster of several antecedent lyhenomena and states, he claims that all these regular antecedents are equally cause, and that the mind has no ground for assigning efficiency to one more than another. He seeks to abolish the distinction between the efficient causes and the conditions of an effect. If one eats of poisonous food and dies, we have no reason to call the poison the cause of the death, rather than the idios;\Ticrasy of the man's constitution, the accidental state of his health at the time, and the state of the atmosphere, for all had some con- current influence to occasion the result. " The real cause is the whole of these antecedents ; and we have, philosophically speak- ing, no right to give the name of cause to one of them, exclu- sively of the others."
These dicta, as we shall show, are subversive of the author's own better doctrine, cited in the previous paragraph. For it is easy to see that, if they were true, they would be fatal to that certainty and universality which he has himself correctly de- manded for the major premise of all inductions. Waiving, for the present, the discussion of the question whether our notion
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 369
of causation is empii'ical, we would point out that there is, obvi- ously^ no invariable, no certain connection between the mere condition of an effect and its actual rise. This condition must be present, if it is a conditio sine qua non, in order to the rise of the effect ; but it may be duly present, and yet the effect may not come. This simple remark shows that, were efficient cause no more invariably connected ^dth effect than is a condition, then cause and effect would not have any of that uniformity and universal certainty of effect which, Mill admits, is essential to ground the inductive argument. But he asserts that the condi- tion is part cause, and as much entitled to be \'iewed as real cause as any other part of the antecedents supposed to be more efficient. Thus he contradicts himself. This suggests the fur- ther argument, that our common sense is not mistaken in ascrib- ing an efficiency or power to the cause such as it does not ascribe to the occasion ; because we know, experimentally, that the true cause has a connection wi'th the effect more necessary than the occasion has. Oftentimes conditions may be changed, and yet the regular effect continue to occur ; but if the truly causal ante- cedent be lacking, all the appointed conditions remain dumb and barren of effect, though duly present. For instance, in or- der that germination may result, there must be moisture, warmth, and vegetable -sitalit}^ in the seed. Can any reasoning man be- lieve that moisture or warmth is as essentially, efficient of the growth as the vital energy is? No. For he sees that all the water in the sea and all the caloric in the sunbeams, conjoined, would never produce growth until the vital germ is added. But as soon as this is present, in addition to the other two, the growth regularly takes place. They are conditions, this alone efficient cause of living, vegetable growth. Mill has evidently been unconsciously deceived by the fact that there are effects in which more than one vera causa concur as efficients, in addi- tion to certain conditions. Thus, in the case of a moving body driven by two forces in different lines, each force is true cause of the resulting diagonal motion, in addition to the other condi- tions of mobility.
But to us this appears to be the crowning proof of error in ihis doctrine of Mill, that often we find conditions of effects which are merely negative. Yet they may be conditions sine
Vol. III.- 24.
370 IXDUCTITE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
qua non. The biu'glar was enabled to effectuate liis felonious purpose of burning the dwelling by reason of the absence of the fire-engine. How could an engine ichicJi teas ahsent exert effi- ciency in the destruction of the house? The very amount of this condition was, that this engine exerted absolutely no effi- ciency, did nothing in the case.
The eiTor of Mill's doctrine appears also when it is can-ied into psychology. Our author is, in a sense, a Xecessitarian, or, at least, a Determinist, in his theory of Tohtion. Xow, when a given vohtion rose, the whole set of conditions attending its rise included a certain subjective motive, which was a complex of a certain judgment and appetency; and a certain objective inducement, not to say other circumstances, conditioning the feasibihty of the voUtion. According to Mill, this whole cluster of conditions, taken together, should be regarded as the cause of that volition ; and one element has as much right to be re- garded as efficient thereof as another. Then, the objective in- ducement and the subjective motive were as really efficient, the one as the other ? AVhere, then, was the agent's rationality and free agency? In the objective presentation of the inducement, the man's spontaneity had no concern, in any shape. To him, that presentation was as absolutely necessitated as the fall of a mass unsupj^orted. Hence, if that objective inducement was as truly cause of his volition as his inward appetency was, his free- agency was a delusion, and his act of soul was alisolutely neces- sitated. But of his exercise of these attributes in that volition, his consciousness assured him. We thus vindicate that philos- ophy of common sense which distinguishes the real efficient from the mere conditions of an effect. It is the presence of the former which determines and produces the effect ; the others are merely conditions 7'ecipient of that effect.
This review of the history of the inductive logic the reader "s^ill find to be not a useless expenditure of his time. It has not only traced the growth of the doctrine in its progress towards correctness, but it has famiharized his mind to the terms and ideas with which he has to deal in the further studv. It has given iis opportunity to criticize and establish the proper views on some points, hke the one last discussed, which will be found Adtal to the development. And above all, it has disclosed.
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to US the true problem wliicli yet remains to be solved, to com- plete that development. The most important points of this re- view to be resumed are these: that "induction" has been used to describe three distinct processes of the mind — of which the first is the colligating of many resembling percepts into one gen- eral concept of the mind; the second is the inference to the truth of the predication concerning the whole from its ascer- tained truth concerning each and all of the individuals of that whole ; and the third is the inference from some observed instances to all the other unobserved instances of the class. That the first of these processes the Avriters we have consulted declare to be no logical process at all, but only a preliminary thereto ; that the second was found by us perfectly valid, but also perfectly useless, except as a compendious form for recording knowledge already ascertained ; that the third is the useful pro- cess of the inductive inquiry, and the only one which really ex- tends our knowledge or our power over the previously unknown. But the vital problem about this process is, how the ascertain- ment of only some of the resembling instances entitles us to infer a universal rule, which shall be held true of cases absent in space, or future in time, from the sphere of the actual observation. That the answer given is, our expectation of the " uniformity of nature " is what entitles us ; and that the best of our teachers, as Newton, Fleming, and Mill, ground that expectation in the law of causation.
Bat that we may comprehend the difficulty and gravity of the main problem, we must inquire whether this expectation of the uniformity of nature is valid, and whence it is derived. Does nature, in fact, present an aspect of uniformity ? Far from it. A verv great part of her phenomena are unexpected and unin- telligible to men. The unlikely and the unexpected is often that which occurs. Whole departments of nature refuse to disclose any orderly law to man's investigations, as the department of meteorology refused to our fathers ; so that the results which arise are well described to our apprehension by the phrase, " as. fickle as the winds." That the aspect of nature is to the j^opu- lar and unscientific observer almost boundlessly variable and seemingly capricious, is shown by the sacrifices of the Romans to the goddess Fortuna, whom they supposed to rule a large part
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of the affairs of men, and whose throne they painted as a globe revolving with a perpetual but irregular luliricitj. What else do we mean by our emphatic confessions of our blindness to the future, than that the evolutions of nature are endlessly variable to our apprehension ; and for that reason baffle our foresight ? See Mill, Chap. XXI : " It is not true, as a matter of fact, that mankind have always believed that all the successions of events were uniform and according to fixed laws. The Greek philoso- phers, not even excepting Aiistotle, recognized Chance and SjDon- taneity as among the agents of nature," etc., etc. So, Baden Powell, Essay on tJie Inductive Philosophy, pp. 98-100. No writer has made more impressive statements of this uncertainty of the aspects of nature than that idolater of the inductive sci- ences, Auguste Comte. His Philosophie Positive saj^s of her energies : " Their multiplicity renders the effects as irregularly variable as if every cause had failed to be subjected to any pre- cise condition. It is only where natural causes work in their greatest simplicity and smallest number, that any appearance of invariable order is ob\dous to the common observer As soon as the number of concurring or competing causes becomes larger, and the combinations more intricate, the resultant phenomena begin to wear to us the as]3ect of a disorder which obeys no regular law whatever. " Such is Comte's confession. This sug- gests the question. What, then, authorized the observer to pos- tulate this proposition, that "nature is uniform"? Shall it be said that he is authorized to do so because his inductions have led him to detect latent laws of order amidst nature's seeming confusions? But the postulate of nature's uniformity was, as it appears, necessary to his first inductions. Whence did he de- rive it at the beginning ? Is his induction all reasoning in a circle ? The same philosopher has also pointed out this general fact, that the departments of nature, in which her causes are few and simple, and her movements therefore uniform, are the very ones which are farthest from man and from his control; while in those departments which are nearest to him, which most concern him, and which it is most desirable for him to con- trol, causations are most innumerable and complicated, and all principle of uniform order most latent. The heavenly bodies move in orbits, under the operation of two forces only ; and
•WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTRATION? 373
lience tlieir movements are manifestly regular, intelligible, and capable of exact prediction. Astronomy is tlie most exact of tlie physical sciences. But these stars are the farthest bodies from us, and the ones over which we can have absolutely no control. As we approach nearer to our human interests and per- sons, natural causations become more numerous and intricate. The chemistry which governs in the composition of our food and medicines, presents us with physical energies much more numer- ous and subtile than the two forces, centrifugal and centripetal ; and in that science results are far less regular and capable of prediction by us, just as they are nearer and more important to us. But when we come still nearer to the vital energies which govern our health, disease, pain, or ease and death, there the appearance of uniformity is least, and the fortuity seemingly greatest. No man " knoweth what a day may bring forth. " How, then, are we warranted to set out with this assumption of the "uniformity of nature"? How is it that we claim to account for her actual complications and apparent fortuities, thus embar- rassing us at every turn, by our hypothesis of the inter-actings of latent laivs ; when the very question is, whether these irreg- ularities do not refute the very idea of permanent law in her realm ?
If it be urged that there are regularities amidst the seeming fortuities of nature, and that induction may proceed from these regularly recurrent instances, we shall be met with another diffi- culty. It is demonstrable that no amount of mere regvilarity in a recurring sequence can amount to demonstration that the same sequence will recur in the future. The customary apprehension of the inductive argument seems to be thus : that if a given phe- notnenon be actually observed to go immediately before another a sufficient numher of times, this justifies the postulating of a regular law. And such, in fact, is the amount of most of the so- called scientific observation and argument. If one asks. How many observations of the same recurring sequence are sufficient to reveal, and thus to prove, a law ; no consistent answer is given to us. And let it be supposed that any answer whatsoever were given us — as that fifty or five hundred entirely agreeing in- stances wovild be sufficient to establish a law — then we must ask, ^hat is there different in the last crowning instance, say tho
374 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
five-hundrecltli, wliich makes it conclusive of a law, wlien the four liunclred and ninety-nine were not ? The argument was be- gun on the assumption that they were to be all agreeing instances ; for the disagreeing instances would rather cross and contradict the induction than strengthen it. And yet this five-hundredth must have something in it different from the four hundred and ninety-ninth, for that is conclusive where this was not. To this difficulty also we get no consistent answer.
In truth, the inquiry has proceeded far enough among the in- ductive logicians to prove thus much, absolutely, that this spe- cies of induction, which does no more than count up agreeing instances of sequence, can never be a demonstration. Bacon calls it the " Inductio jper eiiumerationein simplicemr His ver- dict against its validity may be found in the JS^oviiin Organuin, L. I., Apothegm 105 : "Some other form of induction than has been hitherto in use, must be excogitated in establishing an axiom " (general principle). "And this is necessary, not only for discovering and proving what they call Jirct truths, but also the lesser and the mediate axioms ; in fine, all axioms. For an induction which proceedeth by simple enumeration, is a puerile affair, and gives a precarious conclusion, and is liable to j)eril from a contradictory instance ; and oftentimes it pronounces from fewer instances than is meet, and only from such as lie readiest at hand." So Mill (Book III., Chap. III., § 2) : " To an inhabitant of Central Africa, fifty years ago, no fact probably appeared to rest on more uniform experience than this, that all human be- ings are black. To Europeans, not many years ago, the proj)o- sition, all swans are white, appeared an equally unequivocal instance of uniformity in the course of nature. Further expe- rience has proved to both that they were mistaken." (See also Chap. XXL, Yol. II., p. 101.) So speak aU the thoughtful wri- ters. The invalidity of such induction is also proved by familiar examples. Experience observes the invariable death of our fel- low-men. We confidently expect all living men, including our- selves, mil die. Experience has, with equal certainty, sliOAvn us night always preceding day within the limits of twenty-four hours ; for we live between the arctic circles. But no man dreams that night or darkness causes the day; and if he con- cluded that the sequence must hold as he has seen it, he would
WHAT IS INDUCTIVE DEMONSTEATION ? 375
he refuted bj the first winter within the arctic circle. Every man who rises early enough, hears the cock crow invariably before the dawn ; no man infers that the cock's crowing causes •dawn, or must necessarily precede it. Babbage's calculating machine presented a curious refutation of this species of induc- iion. Its machinery could be so adjusted by the maker as to present to the eye a certain series of numbers, increasing by a given law, and this was continued through instances so numer- ous as to weary the spectator. Did he now conclude that these numerous agreeing instances revealed to him the necessary law of the machine ? He was speedily refuted by seeing it change the law of the series by its own automatic action.
But does not such an enumeration of agreeing instances teach anything? Tfe reply that it does raise a probability of a law which may be found to regulate the future rise of similar in- stances. The more numerous the agreeing instances summed up, the more this probability will usually grow; and when, by our own observation and the testimony of our fellow-men, the agreeing instances become exceedingly numerous, and none of a contradictory character appear, the probability may mount towards a virtual certainty. The ground of this will appear when we have advanced further into the discussion. It must also be conceded that inferences which have only probability, may be of much practical value in common life, and serve a cer- tain purpose even in the proceedings of science. Bishop Butler has taught us that, to a great extent, probability is the guide of life. Junctures often arise when it is not only man's wisdom, but his clear duty, to act upon only probable anticipations of re- sults. In science, also, these imperfect inductions have their use, which is this, to guide to some probable but only provi- sional hypothesis, which is taken only as a guide to experiments that are made for the conclusive investigation of nature. What we observe, then, of this induction by mere enumeration of agree- ing instances is, that it is not useless, but it can never give de- monstrated tniths. But science requires, in its final results, complete demonstration.
Not a few logicians, among whom Hamilton is to be num- bered, in view of this imperfection in the mere induction from the many to the all, have roundly declared that induction can never
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give more tlian probable eyidence of its laws. {Logic, Lecture 32nd, end.) He asserts that it is impossible for it to teacli, like the deductive syllogism, any necessary laws of thought or of nature! Must we concede this? Is the problem, the gravity of which was indicated, indeed hopeless? Must we admit that all the sciences of induction, and all the practical rules of life, which are virtually also inductive, are forever imcertain, presenting us only probabilities, and remaining but plausilile hypotheses which await the probable or possible refutation from wider investiga- tions? This we cannot beheve. We claim a demonstrative force for this species of evidence, when it is properly con- structed. We must substantiate such a view, or else candidly surrender the proud claim and name of science for our opinions upon all the natural j)^f^^f^omena. Keal demonstration cannot be grounded in uncertainties, however much they be multi- pHed. They can only be grounded, as Mill has most truly de- clared,— however inconsistently for his oa^ti logic — in necessary truths. Moreover, the common sense of mankind rejects the conclusion tnat all its inductions are only probable. Some of them we know to be certain, and experience never fails to con- firm their certainty. The question, then, recurs, which is the great problem of this species of logic : How does the inference seemingly made from the some or the many to the all, become vahd for the all?
II THE NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES AND THEIR INDUCTION
In our previous sketch of the history of Inductive Reason- ings, we found that the chief (and the difficult) question, the great problem of this species of logic, which continually emerged, was this : How does the inference seemingly made from the some, or the many, to the all, become vaUd for the all ?
The settlement of this, as of the other fundamental doctrines of logic, must proceed upon right postulates as to psychology, and especially as to its highest branch, the original ]30wers of the reason. In our criticism of the Sensualistic Philosophy of
NATUEE OF PHYSIC.VL CAUSES. 377
the Xineteenth Century, a parallel questiou as to tlie Deductive Logic is considered (see pp. 265-272). That questiou was the old one between the assailants and defenders of the utility and fiiiitfulness of the syllogism, with which the students of philos- ophy are acquainted. The followers of Locke, from his day to ours, haye argued that, since a syllogism which concludes more in its third proposition than is predicated in its major premise, is confessedly faulty, all such reasonings must inevitably be either sophisms, or worthless, only teaching us what we must have known before in order to state our premise. Yet we saw Mill, after echoing this objection, confessing, what all men's common sense must concede, that the syllogism is the full ex- pression to which all deductive reasoning is reduced. How was this paradox to be solved ? It was shown that the solution is in recognizing the a j^rwri necessary and universal judgments of the reason. Admit that the mind is entitled to other judg- ments than the empirical, the intuitive namely, and that they are universal, then the synthesis of truths becomes a valid and fruitful source of new knowledge.
A similar resort to the doctrines of a true psychology must be made, again, to explain the Inductive Logic. This necessity has been disclaimed, on the ground that logic is a critical art, whose whole and onh- business is to test the validity, not of the con- tents, but of the forms of our elenchtic thought. This might be admitted ; and yet it would remain true that these processes, which it is the business of logic to criticize, are psychological processes, and that the critical acts are also psychological pro- cesses. Moreover, as in the world of matter, the substance determines the form, so in the realm of thought, it is the quahty of the contents of thought which determines the logical frame- work. The science of logic, therefore, must be grounded in a correct psychology.
That psychology must not be the sensationalist. We must hold that the mind has original powers of judging a lyriorl neces- sary truths ; powers which, although they may be awakened to exercise on occasion of some empirical perception, yet owe the validity of the judgments formed, not to sense-perception, but to the mind's own constitutive laws. This, then, is the metaphysi- cal doctrine assumed as the basis of this discussion : that while
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tlie senses alone give us our individual idea of objective things, it is the original power of the reason which gives us our uni- versal necessary judgments about objective things and their re- lations ; and these same powers furnish the forms according to which we connect them into general knowledge. Those neces- sary and universal truths are primitive judgments, intuitively seen to be tiiie ; and not dependent for their authority upon the confirmation of observed instances, be they many or few. For these first truths and laws of the reason must be, in their order of production (though not in their date), prior to the observa- tions of the senses and to all deductions therefrom, because they are necessary to construe the individual perceptions intelligibly, and to connect them for any purposes of reasoning. But it is our purpose here to postulate, and not to argue, this view of the mind's powers. For the latter, the reader must be referred to the work mentioned above [Sensiialistic Philosojyliy of the JTiyie- teentli Century fon-i-idered, Chaps. X. and XL).
We have seen J. S. Mill's correct jjosition, that the lai'' of causation is the foundation of every inductive demonstration. We have also seen his inconsistent assertion, that our behef in this law is the result of an induction fi'om experience. We have proved, on the contrary, that it is a necessary intuition of the reason. Whenever we observe a ])henomenoii or a new existence, the law of the reason ensures our assigning for it an adequate cause. It is impossible for us to think a thing or event as aris- ing out of nothing. To think it as producing itself, would be the contradiction of thinking it acted before it existed. Xor can we avoid ascribing to the cause 2)ov'er efficient of the effect. The old objection, that we have no right to assume anything else than what the senses observe, a regular or uniform sequence between a cei*tain antecedent and a certain consequent, is worthless to any one who has learned the true doctrine : that the reason is itself a source, and not a mere passive recipient, of cognitions. As, when sense-j^erception gives us only a cluster of properties belonging to body, the reason must supply the sujDerseusuous no- tion of substance underlying and sustaining them, so when the senses perceive a cause preceding its effect, the reason compels us to supply the rational notion of efficient power in the cause. It is this, and this alone, which enables and quahfies the ante-
NATURE OF PHYSICUj CAUSES. 379
•cedent to be catise. And this power must be thought as efficient -of the effect. This judgment involves the further belief that, wherever the cause is present, under the same conditions, the efficiency of its power ensures the same effect. Such is obvi- ously the nature of the necessary judgment : " Same causes, same effects." A simple examination of our consciousness con- vinces us that our rational notion of substance involves the as- surance of its continuity of being and permanency. As the rise of that substance ex, nihilo, without any cause, is a proposition which cannot be rationally thought, so the cessation of that sub- stance's continuity of being, or its return into nihil without a cause efficient of its destruction, is equally incredible. This in- tuitive confidence in the permanency of true substance, as thus defined, is not an inference from any observations, but a phase of the intuition, a source and premise of all our reasonings about substances ; and a regulative law for construing every observa- tion experiences give us about them. So we have a similar in- tuitive confidence in the persistency and uniformity of power, wherever it inheres. So long as power qualifies any being, it is, in its own nature, efficient of the same effect which it is once seen to produce. If we see the agent and the recipient of the effect again present, and do not witness the rise of the same effect, we intuitively and necessarily believe that some other jDOwer, whether visible or invisible, is intervening to modify or counter- act the known power. This is the explanation of our belief in the " uniformity of nature " when the belief is legitimate. Na- ture is uniform just so far as the same powers are present, and her uniformities are nothing but the necessary results of the permanency of substances and powers. What we call laws of nature are only the regular methods of the actions of natural powers. We believe in those laws, only because we intuitively judge that each power or energy is, imder the same circum- stances, efficient of the same effects.
But this conception of regular laws in nature implies an as- surance not only of the permanency of substances, biit of their essential properties. That substances have two classes of pro- perties, distinguished as attAhiita and accidentia^ is obvious ; and it is according to their permanency or mutability that we ascriba a quality to the one class or the other. How is it that we ara
380 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
autliorized to entertain this assurance of tlie permanency of es- sential properties ? The answer is, because these lyt'operties make tliemselves knoion to our reason as powers. If we reflect, we see that what we call a property of a body is only revealed to ns by its emission of a power, producing an efl^ect either on some other body, or on our own percipient senses, and through them on our own spirits. This truth has been seen by Dr. McCosh, for instance (in his Divine Government, Physical and Moral, p. 78). The evidence assigned for the proposition seems inade- quate : that we observe no body acts on itself, but only on an- other body in a certain relation to itself. The same writer, very singularly, excepts from his assertion those properties which affect our senses. Of all the properties of external things, he should have said that those which affect our senses directly, are most certainly powers. For it is only by some effect on our senses, propagating a perception, that we learn an effect has been produced on another bod}-. What is perception? How do we convince ourselves of the reality of the external world? Consciousness, a subjective faculty, can of course only testify to the subjective part of the perceptive function. What, then, is the rational ground of that judgment of relation which, as we know, we all make between the perceptive cognition and the external source? Reflection convinces us that this ground is in the necessary and intuitive judgment of cause. We are conscious of a perception ; we are also conscious we did not affect ourselves with it. But there can be no effect without a cause ; therefore the object perceived must be a reality. It is frequently said that we derive, or at least we first see, the rational notion of power and efiiciency in our own conscious volition ; that we are conscious of the will to emit efficiency ; that we see the effect, and that we thus form the notion of efficient power in cause. We have no disposition to dispute the fact that this may be one of the occasions upon which the reason presents her intuitive notion of power. But, whatever the change which she may observe, constituting a ney^ phenomenon or state, whether in the subjective or objective sphere, she must supply the notion of cause and of efficient power. For the necessary law of her thinking is, ex nihilo nihil. The new effect could not have been, except there had preceded a sufficient
NATUEE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 381
cause. But when is cause sufficient? Only when it possesses power efficient of the new change.
Now, then, the first cognition which the mind can have of any objective thing, is through exjyerienclng an effect therefrom. Is it not obvious, thence, that what we call properties of things are only known to its as powers f They are, simply, what are able to affect MS with the perceptions. And since every perception is an effect, we only learn that any body has the property (or power) of affecting another body by experiencing its power of affecting us. Hence, we should say that we know the proper- ties of bodies which affect our senses as powers primarily ; and those which we see affecting other bodies we know as also powers secondarily. Instead of saying that properties are powers, it would be more correct to say that powers are the only true properties. The notion of power is in order to the idea of propei"ty. Here, then, is the ground on which we expect a permanenc}' in any essential property, as immutable as that which we intuitively ascribe to substance; it is because "the same causes produce the same effects."
But there are properties which are not permanent, and yet they can produce effects on us and on other bodies. The dis- tinction of "attributes" and "accidents" made by the scholas- tics is just. The sohdity of congealed water, for instance, is cer- tainly not an essential property of that substance ; yet it has power to affect our tactual sense, and it also has a ^aower of im- j)act on other bodies Avhicli the liquid has not. Here is an ap- parent inconsistency — that we should infer the permanency of essential properties from the fact that they are causes ; that the same causes produce the same effects — and yet concede power to properties which are not permanent. But the inconsistency is only seeming. The explanation is, that the change or state which was just now an effect may in turn become a cause, and may not only depend on its cause, but have another effect de- pending on it. While its own prior cause propagates it, it may also propagate its effect; with the suspension of the action of its cause, it and its effect cease. The original cause has thus its progeny, not only of the first, but of the second and subsequent generations. Now, what is an ^^acciclens" a property not per- manent, except a mutable effect of some other property which
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is a permanent cause ? — mutable, because, wliile the power of essential property lias no change, the conditions for its action may change. While the more original power or powers of the essential property is acting, its effect, the accidental property, is propagated ; and this in turn may become cause, so long as it subsists. Thus, solidity is not an essential property of water, for this substance often exists uucougealed ; the solidity is the result of a molecular energy which is an essential property in the substance, and which is allowed to come into action by the departure of the caloric out of it. To understand this truth, w^e must avail ourselves of the old distinction between active and passive powers. Essential projjerties are active powers. Acci- dental properties are the results of passive powers in the bodies which exhibit them ; of susceptibilities or powers of recipiency, by means of which the more original powers of the essential properties, either simple or combined, show through and give themselves these new and mutable expressions.
We remark, again, that it is obvious the permanency of the properties which we predicate of a class, or of a general term by which we name it, is essential to the validity of all general and scientific propositions. This, to the logician, needs no argu- ing. Hence it follows that it is all-important we shall be able to distinguish, in classifying, between permanent or essential properties and ''accidentia^ How do we effect this? Here the rule quoted from Sir Isaac Newton comes to our aid. If we find that a given property is always present whenever the body is present, and that it is not affected with increment or diminution, whatever other effects are wrought on the body, we may safely conclude that it is an essential property. This rule should be qualified by the following admission : It may be that the energy wdiich we invariably see expressing itself through this property is not the original energy, but is itself the next effect of a la- tent and undetected energy. If this were surely discovered, we should feel constrained to carry back the name and title of es- sential property to that original energy. For instance,' we have been accustomed to regard caloric as an original energy in mat- ter. Should it be discovered that caloric is itself a result of a peculiar molecular motion in matter, or in some latent medium, w'e must give the name of original energy to that hitherto
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 383
undetected cause. This, we suppose, Newton would have freely conceded. But this concession does not practically derange our inductive conclusions. For if there is the latent energy, and yet it always expresses itself through the known property, and if it is its necessary law to do so, any practical conclusion from it is as solid as though the latent cause had been seen. "We are, in fact, reasoning from it, while we only leave it anonymous. But, it may be asked, does the fact that a body always exhibits a certain property, as often as loe have observed it, prove that property to be essential, and therefore permanent? Is not this the defective induction J96r enxiiiierationem shnj^llcemf We con- cede that it is nothing more. Hence it is all-important that we employ the other part of Newton's rule also, that upon frequent observations we see the property takes no increment or decrease, whatever changes are made upon the body. If the property stands that test, it is essential. But the application of this test is, as we shall see in the subsequent discussion, but an employ- ment of the canon of " corresponding variations," one of the methods of induction by which a vaUd is distinguished from an invahd inference. It may be asked, Does the process of induct- ive reasoning begin so far back in our thinking, in the very form- ation of our concepts, as well as in deducing from them ? We answer. Yes ; the rational function must come into play, not onh' at an early stage of our processes of logical thought, but along with their very beginning. This is the very principle of true metaphysics.
We shall see that this is not the only case of inductive infer- ence, which takes place in the ver}^ processes of generalization. It has been too long and too heedlessly repeated, that the gen- eralizations which give us our general concepts are j^rcZ/wiew^;'?/ to our processes of inference, and therefore cannot be inferen- tial. Dugald Stewart, in repeating this statement, seems to have a view of its inaccuracy, for he immediately qualifies it by re- marking that, while a given inferential process has no concern with the question whence or how the premises employed came, but only with the question whether they are correctly related ; yet oue or more of these premises may be itself an inference from a previous illation. This is the vital concession. A gen- eral proposition cannot be correctly affirmed, save of general
384 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
terms. Hence it is also essential that tlie concepts named in tliose general terms be correctly framed. The question of their correctness may require to be settled by a logical process. Let it be considered now, that when we frame a general term, it must be understood to connote all the properties essential to the species. For instance, the general term horse must be held to signify each and eyery property essential to that species of quadrupeds. Let us suppose that, in a place new and strange to us, as the Shetland Isles, we meet \nt\i an indiyidual quad- ruped, which we wish to classify. We see that, along with some quite striking differences, as of size and such like, it has several of the more obvious qualities of the horse species. May we refer it to that species ? On the one hand, unless this individual quad- ruped has all and each of the properties essential to the species horse, we are not authorized to class it there. On the other hand, we haA'e not seen all the possible properties of the Shet- land individual : for instance, we have not dissected it ; we have not yet satisfied ourselves, ocularly, that it may not be a rumi- nant, or that it may not present specific differences in its osteol- ogy. Yet we refer it to the species horse. It is obvious that in doing this, we make an induction, and it is a:i induction from a part to the whole. We know by observation that the individual has some of the equine properties ; we infer that it has the rest of the essential properties. But all logicians agree that the in- duction from some to all is not necessarily valid. Are our gen- eral concepts themselves, then, only partially correct? How much uncertainty must not this throw over all our general rea- sonings ? If we are not certain that a given thing really belongs to its class, we cannot predicate certainly about it what we have l^roved concerning the class.
Now, on this question, it ma}^ be remarked, first, that our re- ferences of individual things to their classes are often support- ed by only probable evidence, or incomplete inductions. And, therefore, our propositions, when applied to tliose indi\dduals, have only jjrobable truth. But in practical life, probabilities are far from valueless; if they are not universally accurate as guides of our action, they are generally so. But for the con- struction of a science, they do not suffice, for science claims truth, and not mere probability. Second, we all practice, in our
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 385
customarj generalizations, certain mental expedients to guard ourselves against erroneous classifications; expedients which we learn bj experience, and whicli are, in fact, approximate uses of logical canons of induction, although we have not distinctly analyzed and explained to ourselves the rules which we virtu- ally employ and trust. This is that practical sagacity which the mind acquires in the j)rocess of its own self-education. By its help we greatly diminish the probabilities of error in our generalizations. This may be explained by the instance already mentioned. An inexperienced child and a shrewd, observing adult, neither of whom is a trained logician or natural histo- rian, see for the first time the Shetland pony. The child, im- pressed by the puny size, shaggy coat, and bushy fetlocks of the quadruped, may exclaim that it cannot be a horse. The experience of the man tells him that these pecuHar appearances may be but accidentia of the Shetland variety, striking as they are, and he at once directs his observation to other characteris- tics in the little animal, which convince him that it is, neverthe- less, a true horse. The more discriminative marks, the uncloven hoof, the character and number of the teeth, the relations of the limbs to each other, furnish him with the inference that the rest of the equine properties would all be found in it, if it were thoroughly dissected. Third, this observer, although not a nat- uralist, makes a practical application of a general principle to guide his induction. His reason has told him that the ends of nature cannot but dictate morphologic laws, which ensure the associating of certain characters together, so that where some of them are seen, the rest may be safely inferred. He does not call himself a philosopher; he does not name those ends "final causes." But, none the less, his reason has the partial guidance of the universal principle. He does, semi-consciously, a similar thing to that which Cuvier did, when he argued that no quadru- ped having graminivorous teeth would ever be found with claws on its feet, because the final cause of the Creator would never lead him to pro^dde an animal with the instruments for seizing prey, which was ordained, in other parts of its structure, to live without prey. And when the philosophic naturalist's classifica- tions are made with scientific certainty, by inferring the whole number of essential properties from the knowledge of a part of
Vol.. Ill— 25.
386 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
them, it is because he has converted the invalid induction into a vahd one by the help of a necessary principle which he makes- his major premise.
Powers and Properties Permanent.
But it is time we had returned to another point in our ex- planation. If essential properties are powers, and if, as such, thev must be permanent, why are not their effects continuous? Whereas, it is notorious that properties are not always active in the production of effects. A property, like the attractive energy of a loadstone, may remain for ages without effecting the actual motion towards itself of the bit of iron which lies in an adjacent drawer of the cabinet. This demands explanation at our hands. The explanation is, that properties of created things are causes only potentially ; in themselves only powers in jyosse. In order for the effluence of the actual power, a certain relation or rela- tions must be established between the thing possessing the pro- perty and another thing. Thus, the loadstone is always poten- tially an attractor of iron ; but a certain proximity must be es- tablished, in order for' the effect, motion, to take place. Such instances may be multiplied until we convince ourselves that the essential condition for all physical effects is the instituting of some particular relation between two bodies. Not until the appropriate relation is instituted is the potentiality of the causal property released so as to become an actual power. Until then the property remains quiescent. If this doctrine is correct, the action of an elastic spring held in a state of compression is the parallel to the powers of natural things. The elasticity is doubt- less in the compressed spring all the time, and expresses itself in a steady pressure upon the bolt or key which holds it. Let that bolt be withdrawn, and the elasticity is released, and pro- duces the visible motion of the body propelled by the spring, hitherto quiescent. The condition of the action of every natural property is, then, its release from some restraining energy ; the condition of the cessation of action is the restoration of that re- straint. Is not this strictly conformed with the recognized re- lation in science between statics and dynamics, action and re- action ?
The instances of the beginning and cessation of effects which
NATUEE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 387
we are best able to read seem to be conformed to this view. The rise of the mercury iu the tube of the barometer is ascribed to the counterpoising pressure of the atmosphere. This is a force which reallj exists perpetually, but it cannot produce this particular effect until a counteracting force is taken away from the top of the column of mercury. As soon as this is removed, the mercury rises in its tube ; Avhen it is replaced, the atmos- phere is no longer able to support the column; but the atmos- phere has not lost a jjarticle of its Aveight. xA.gain, chemical afl&nities are deprived of manj- of their customary effects when organized bodies are presented to them. This is because there is another energy in the organism, the vital energy. Just so soon as this departs, the carbon, water, and nitrogen of the or- ganism yield to the chemical energies, like other carbon, water, and nitrogen. Those energies are there, but cannot work "un- til that which letteth is taken out of the May."
This theory may be no more, as yet, than a probable hypothe- sis. But it substitutes another theory which has recently grown into much favor, and which is also only a plausible hypothesis. That is the theory of "the equivalency and transformation of energy." The conclusion from this doctrine, which is aimed at, is, that there is really but one kind of energy in the material universe ; that as the caloric, for instance, which disappears from the sensible to the latent state in the volatilization of water into steam, is transformed into an equivalent amount of elasticity in that steam, so caloric and elasticity are but two forms of the same energy. Now, much is yet lacking before this supposition is proved. The instances in which a body may be infused with a high degree of one form of energy, and then again deprived of it, while another energy in the same body remains constant, seem fatal to the inference that those energies are equivalent and trans- formable. Thus, a mass of metal may be greatly heated, and then refrigerated, while its gravity remains unchanged. Gravity, at least, then, cannot be thus correlated to caloric. The same argument seems to hold of all jjarallel cases.
Another seemingly fatal objection to the theory of the " equiva- lency and transformation of energy " has been urged by Clausius. What transformation and reflection of a force can take place, which is emitted on the exterior limit of the universe, and on £U
388 im)ucTivE logic discussed.
line of action awaj from existing bodies? Let the energy be, for instance, tliat of lieat or liglit. Its reflection back into the uni- verse in the form of the same, or of a transformed energy, would appear equally impossible, since nothing exists, outside the uni- verse, to be the medium of its reception or reflection. Hence, it would seem that, as a wedge of heated iron jjlaced in a winter atmosjDhere must continuously lose its caloric until as cold as the surrounding medium, so a universe, a system of bodies ener- gized under natural laws, must continually difluse its energies until its motions declined into universal quiescence. The fa- vorite corollar}' of tlie theory under debate is : the permanency and equality of the aggregates of cosmic forces through all time. But this corollary, we here see, cannot be true on that hypothe- sis. Yet, if it be not true, how shall the physicist maintain his fundamental position, the uniformity of nature? The alterna- tive hypothesis we suggest solves the difficulty. The powers of nature are not all equivalent and transformable the one into the other. But the powers of nature are permanent ; because true 2)Owers are essential properties, and essential properties are permanent. The /or/ns of matter change; but the matter, whose are the essential properties, is indestructible.
But the only a pr^'ori argument advanced for the new theory, so far as we are informed, is this : That reason forbids us to sup- pose that a power which we see now existing and active, can anon, upon the completion of its effect, be annihilated and pass . into nonentity. It has disappeared in that form ; but they argue, it cannot be extinct. Hence, they conclude that it has reap- peared in the form of its effect. There has been, not an anni- hilation, but a transformation of the energy. Xow, this arii;u- ment seems wholly neutralized b}* the view which we have sug- gested.
Grant that reason requires our believing in the permanency of powers, as much as of substances; this energy which we see acting temporarily, has not gone into its effect, but has retired into potentiaHty in the matter which it inhabits. The condi- tions of its release have terminated ; it is again remanded from its active to its potential state. The same energy is in matter stiU, in the form of essential, permanent property ; and is again able to emit the same power and propagate a similar effect,
NATURE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES. 389
whenever the conditions of release take place again. This theory of power, then, instead of reducing all the energies of nature to a single one, recognizes as many distinct kinds of en- ergy in material things, as there are certainly distinct and essen- tial properties in matter. We may not have concluded accu- rately as to which properties are really distinct and essential. We may be mistaking two properties for essential ones, which will turn out to be two effects of some more latent essential pro- perty of matter. We may find that what we call heat, light, and electricity are but three phases of some one molecular energy, transformable into these equivalent effects. But we return to the more natural and obvious theory of Newton and his great con- temporaries, that matter has more than one real, essential pro- perty, and more than one power. This theory of power is encumbered with none of the difficulties besetting the newer one. It coheres mth the rational view which, as we have seen, compels us to regard essential properties of substances as no- thing else than powers hi posse, because we have cognition of them only as we see them producing effects.
The Aim of Eeal Induction. But the main use of the inductive logic is to enable us to an- ticipate nature. Our beneficial power over her can only be gained by learning her ways. To be able to produce the given effect we desire, we must know the natural law under which that effect arises. Bacon has tersely expressed this truth at the be- ginning of his Novum Orgaraim. "Human knowledge and power coincide, because ignorance of the cause maketh the effect to fail. For Nature is only conquered by obeying her ; and that which in our contemplation hath the aspect of Cause, in our working hath the aspect of Rule." The thing we need to do is to predict what sequent will certainly follow such or such an an- tecedent. For only thus can we know these two things, the knowing of which constitutes all practical wisdom : how to pro- duce the effect we desire, and how to foresee what shall befall us. Our first impulse is to attempt to learn nature's secret, by the mere observation and summing up of what we see occurring, with the circumstances of the occurrences. But when we have done this, and recorded our enumerations, experience speedily
390 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
teaches us that we cannot jet certain!}- interpret and predict nature, since the same antecedents may not be relied on always to bring in the same sequents. Sometimes they may, and often- times they may not. The problem, then, is to distinguish be- tween those observed sequences which certainly will hold in the future, and those which will not. And heticeen the antecedent and consequent of the form ei' sort, there must he known to he a necessary tie ; for it is self-evident that only a necessary tie can ensure the certain recui^ence of the second after the first. But it is equally evident, both to the human reason and experience, that nature has no necessary tie between her events, except that of efficient cause. Hence it appears that the sole remaining j^^'ohlem of in- duction is to distinguish the causal sequences we observe, from the accidental. Whenever we see what we term an effect, a change, a newly beginning action or state, this necessary law of the rea- son assures us that it had its cause. Had not that cause been efficient of that effect, it would not have been true cause It must, then, have communicated power. That power will always be efficient of the same effect, when it acts under the same con- ditions. Hence, when we have truly discriminated the cause from the mere antecedent, the projyter hoc from thejtx;*/ hoc, we have found therein a certain and invariable law of nature. We have read nature's secret. We are now enabled to predict her future actions; and so far as we can procure the presence of the discovered cause and conditions, we can command nature, and produce the effects we desire. This, and this alone, is inductive demonstration. This position is substantiated also by the au- thority of the three most intelligent expounders of the inductive logic, whom we have quoted : by that of Lord Bacon, cited on p. 354; b}' that of Sir Isaac Newton, cited in his second Rule, on p. 356 ; and by that of Mr. Mill, p. 366. (See Southern Presbyte- rian Review for January.)
He who ponders the last argument thoroughly, will see that there is no consistent explanation of the inductive demonstration possible, upon the plan of Mr. Hume's metaphysics. Let the a priori rational notion of efficient cause and power be discarded ; let our judgment of cause be reduced to the mere observation of invariable sequence, without any supersensuous tie between an- tecedent and consequent suppHed by the law of reason ; let the
NATUEE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 391
vain distinction between efficient cause and physical cause be established, and the aim of science restricted to the inquiry for the physical cause, while the search after the efficient cause is discarded ; and let the rational distinction between true cause and conditio sine qua non be obliterated ; then, obviously, no necessary truth remains, from which any argumentative process can be constructed, to lift any series of observations above the uncertain level of an inchictio ennnierationis sirajylicis. Mr. Mill himself, while making the fatal denials envimerated above, is driven by the force of truth to say that such necessary, universal truth must be introduced from some whither, in order to give to induction the solid character of science. Whence can it be ob- tained, if not from the intuitive judgment of efficient cause ? Experience, without this, only tells us that this has come after that a great many times. But the number of instances in which experience has not been, and will not be, able to observe whether the same consequent comes after that antecedent, is infinitely greater than the number of instances which have been experi- mentally observed. Hence we can never conclude by that method, whether the sequence we observe is the certain one in the future. The introductory citations showed the reader how the writers on this branch of logic waver and confuse and contradict each other. Is not the reason now disclosed, — that so many of them have disdained the guidance of correct metaphysics ?
The reader is now brought to the proper point of view to un- derstand why the induction from a mere enumeration of agree- ing instances can never rise above probability ; and why it does, as we admit, raise a probable expectation of recurrence in the future. So far as the ohserved presence of a given antecedent seemingly next hefore the consequent raises the prohahilitij that we see in that antecedent the true efficient cause, just so far have we probable evidence that the consequent wall follow it in future. Now, inasmuch as our rational intuition tells us that cause always immediately precedes effect, ihe pheno^nenon which is seemingly next before another may be in many cases taken for the nearest antecedent, and, therefore, the cause. But even this rule of probability is liable to many exceptions, which we are taught to . make by our practical sagacity. We have invariably seen dark- ness preceding dawn ; and that immediately. But we have never
392 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
felt the least iuclinecl to see tlie faintest jDrobabilitj therein, that the darkness was the cause of the dawn. Why not? Because our observation showed us a species of heterogeneity between, the two events, which made us disinclined to look for the prob- able, or even the possible, cause of light in darkness. But in many other cases, as, when the tides were seen always to follow the rise of the moon to the meridian, the probability that the moon's coming was the true cause appeared; and as soon as Newton's theory of mutual attraction was stated, that proba- bility appeared very strong.
But ordinarily the observed sequences can only raise a 23rob- ability that we have found in the antecedent the true cause ; for this reason: that toe hioio there are of ten such things as iinob- served or latent or invisihle causes. For instance, the old empiri- cal chemists knew that something turned the metal, when suf- ficiently heated, into the calx. They talked of an imponderable: agent which they named x^^^ogiston. They had not suspected that oxygen gas was the cause ; for this gas is transparent, in- visible, and its presence in the atmosphere had not been clearly ascertained. Had the frequently observed sequence, then, led them to the conclusion that heat was the efficient and sufficient cause of calcination, they would have concluded wrong. Further experiment has taught us this error : some metals, as j^otassium, calcine rapidly in the midst of intense cold, if atmosphere and water be present. None of the metals calcine under heat, if atmosphere and water are both excluded, as well as all other oxygen-yielding compounds. Here, then, is the weakness of the induction by the mere enumeration of agreeing instances : Tie -have not yet found out hut that an xmobserved cause comes hetioeen the seeming antecedent and the effect, the law of whose rise we wish to ascertain.
And here is the practical object of all the canons of inductive logic, and of all the observations and experiments by which we make application of them, to settle that question, ivhether be- tween this seeming antecedent and that effect, another hitherto un- detected antecedent does not intervene. Just so soon as we are sure there is no other, whether it be by many observations or few, we know that the observed antecedent is the true efficient cause ; and that we have a law of nature which will hold true
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 393
always, unless new conditions arise overpowering the causation. Not only is it possible that we may be assured of the absence of any undetected cause between the parts of the observed se- quence by a few observations ; we may sometimes reach the cer- tainty, and thus the permanent natural law, by a single one. To do so, what we need is, to be in circumstances which author- ize us to know certainly that no other antecedent than the ob- served one can have intruded unobserved. Such authority may sometimes be given by the testimony of consciousness. For in- stance, a party of explorers are traveling through a Brazilian for- est, where every tree and fruit is new and strange to them. One of the travellers sees a fruit of brilliant color, fragrant odor, and pleasing flavor, which he plucks and eats. Soon after, his lips and mouth are inflamed and swollen in a most painful manner. The effect and the anguish are peculiar. His companions, who have eaten the same food, except this fruit, and breathed the same air, do not suffer. This traveller is certain, after one trial, that the fruit is poisonous, and unhesitatingly warns his com- panions with the prophecy : " If you eat this fruit, you will be poisoned." What constitutes his demonstration ? His con- sciousness tells him that he has taken into his lips absolutely nothing, since the previous evening, that could cause the poison- ing, except this unknown fruit. He remembers perfectly. He has tasted nothing except the coffee, the biscuits, and the dried beef, which had been their daily and wholesome fare. But, no effect — no catise. This fruit, the sole antecedent of the painful effect, must therefore he tlie true cause ; and must affect other hu- man lips, other things being the same, in the same way. His utter ignorance of the fruit does not in the least shake his con- clusion. The traveller has really made a vahd application of the "method of residues." He has argued validly from a j!;o6Z! hoc up to a propter hoc.
This is so important that it will not be amiss to illustrate it in another instance of inductive argument — that of the metals and calxes. The first observations seemed to show that heat was the cause of calcination. Bvit when heat was applied to a metal ex- cluded from atmosphere, it did not calcine. And when the metallic bases of the stronger alkalies, as potassium, were iden- tified as metals, it was observed, that this one of them calcined
394 IXDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
violently on a lump of ice. Hence the belief that lieat vras the efl&cient of calcination liad to be given up — chemists had to con- fess that the apparent antecedent, heat, in their first experiments could not be the nearest antecedent, but that this, the true cause, was still latent. They had really connected their erroneous in- duction by the joint method of "agreement and difference." It was reserved for Sir Humphrey Davy to show them the true efficient of calcination, in the invisible, undiscovered, but all im- portant agent, oxygen-gas.
Once more ; when the observed antecedent is of a character which our previous conclusions have not condemned as hetero- geneous from the supposed effect, and therefore not very un- likelv to be its cause ; as we increase the number of the agree- ing instances observed, we feel that oui* probable evidence that we have found the true cause, grows also. Why is this ? It is because reason has assured us that this effect has its efficient cause next before it ; and as this antecedent seems to appear again and again before it, and no other has yet been detected between them, it becomes more probable that there is no other intervening antecedent. If such is the case, then this antece- dent is the cause.
The Methods of Ixduction. We are now prepared to advance to the correct definition of ihe inductive demonstration. It may be, in form, an enthy- meme, but always, in reahty, is a syllogism, whose major pre- mise is the universal necessary judgment of cause, or some proposition imphed therein. This view of the indiictive j^vo- ceeding corresponds with that conclusion to which the reflection of twenty centuries has constantly brought back the philosophic mind : that all illative processes of thought are really syllogistic, and may be most completely stated in that form ; and that, in iact, there is no other process of thought that is demonstrative. The history of philosophy has shown frequent instances of re- calcitration against this result, as those of Locke, of Dr. Thomas Brown, and of their followers; but their attempts to discard syllogism, and to give some other description of the argumenta- tive 251'ocess of the understanding, have always proved futile. The old analysis of Aristotle still asserts its substantial sway;
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 395
and successive logicians are constrained, perhaps reluctantly, tlie more maturely they examine, to return to his conclusion — • that the syllogism gives the norm of all reasonings. If our definition of the inductive demonstration, then, can be substan- tiated, it will give to logic this inestimable advantage : of recon- ciling and simplifying its departments. The review of opinions given by us at the outset revealed this state of facts : that logi- cians felt, on the one hand, that no reasoning process coidd be conclusive, unless it could be shown to conform, somehow, to syllogisin ; and on the other, that the custom and fashion of dis- tinguishing induction from deduction as different, or even oppo- site, kinds of argument, had become prevalent, if not irresistible. Consequently, the most of them, following the obscure hints of their leader, Aristotle, endeavored to account for induction as a different species of syllogism, in which we conclude from the some to the all, instead of concluding from the universal to the particular or the individual. And then immediately they were com- pelled, by the earliest and simplest maxims of their logic, to admit that such syllogisms are inconclusive ! And they have to confess this in the face of this fact : that this induction is the organon of nearly all the sciences of physics and natural history ; sciences whose results are so splendid, and so important to human progress ! Such a result is not a little mortifying and discreditable to phi- losophy. But we hope to show that it is a needless result. It will appear that induction is not only syllogistic, and therefore within the pale of demonstrative argumentation, but regularly and lawfully syllogistic. Mill has had a sufficiently clear con- viction of the necessity of accomplishing this, to teach (Vol. I., pp. 362-365) that the conclusions of this species of reasoning can only become solid when grounded in a universal truth. This, he thinks, is our belief in the invariability of the law of <3ausation. But he then (p. 345) very inconsistently adds, that this universal truth itself is but a wider induction, which ap- proaches universal certainty sufficiently near, by reason of its breadth. This universal and necessary truth, we hope to show, is the intuition of cause for every effect, along with the truths involved therein.
To effect this, the methods of induction must be explained. "When we speak of observed sequences, we mean a set of ob-
396 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED .
served resembling cases where one state or change seems imme- diately to precede ^another change, or "effect," which we are studying. These cases may be observed by ourselves, or wit- nessed to us by others. The fact of the sequence is the only material thing. But, first, one's own observation must be honest and clear, and his record of the case exact. He must not see his hypothesis in the facts, but only what occurs there. And, second, a case taken on testimony should be fully ascertained by a judicial examination of the evidence. Having now this set of agreeing instances, more or less numerous, which gives us, as it stands, only an induction per enumerationeiii shnplicein, our task is, so to reason fi-om it as to discriminate ^e propter hoc from the post hoc. The result of this task, when successfully performed, is to give us a "law of nature," which is such because it is a law of true efficient causation. It is to effect this, we need the methods of logical induction. In stating them, the chief guide "s\-ill be Mr. Mill, whose discussion in this point seems the most complete and just.
1. The " Method of Agreement " is the following. Observa- tion usually gives us secpieuces of this kind, namely, not one ante- cedent, but a cluster of them appear to stand next before an effect or (more commonly) a cluster of effects. Such observa- tion, no matter how often the like case recurs, fails to tell us which antecedent, or which combination of them, contains the efficient cause of either effect. Wc must observe further, and compare cases. Like the algebraist, we will use letters as sym- bols, for the sake of clearness, calling the antecedents by the first letters of the alphabet, and the consequents by the latter. Let us suppose that the cases agree in this : one antecedent re- mains the same in each, and the same effect appears after each cluster of antecedents, however the other antecedents may change. Thus in case 1st, A+B-]-C are followed by X. In case 2d, A+D+E are followed by X. In case 3d, A+F+G are followed by X. Let it be postulated that these are all the ante- cedents : then the true cause of X must be among them. But in case 1st, neither D, nor E, nor F, nor G, could have caused X, for they were absent. In cases 2d and 3d, neither B nor G could have caused X, for they were absent. Therefore A was the true cause of X each time. The canon, or rule of elimina-
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 397
"tion, or exclusion of seeming but false causes, then, is this: Whichever antecedent remains alone unchanged next before the same effect in all the known cases of sequence, is the true cause. The law of nature gotten in this case is, that A will always, cceter'is paribus, produce X. The necessary universal truths on which we have proceeded are, that every effect must have some cause, and that, to be efficient cause, it must be present.
The converse process is also practicable. Let the cases ob- served be in the a posteriori order : several clusters of effects X+Y+Z, X-f-W-f-V, etc., are found to agree only in that among the antecedents A is constant. The counterpart canon will teach that X is the effect of A.
As an example of this method may be taken the earlier and simpler reasoning by which the tides were connected with the presence of the moon on the meridian. In one case the flood- tide was observed, we will suppose, at the bottom of a bay pene- trating the land towards the west. The observed antecedents were the passage of the moon over the meridian, and also a strong east wind. It did not appear whether the moon's attrac- tion or the wind's force was the main cause. At the second ob- servation, the flood-tide was preceded b}^ the moon's coming to the meridian, and by a calm ; at the third, by the moon and a south wind. The argument concludes that the moon is, all the time, the main cause.
But, simple as this process of exclusion seems, it is not yet a perfect demonstration in every case. This arises from three truths, which must be candidly admitted. First. Usually, we cannot know that the observed antecedents, A-^B-hC, are all the antecedents really present, becaiise often true causes remain long latent. Second. The same effect, X, may be caused at dif- ferent times by different true causes. For instance, fulminate of mercury explodes under heat ; it also explodes under percussion. Sensible caloric is emitted by the solar rays ; by compression of a gas ; by friction ; by chemical actions. If, then, we were safe from the presence of a latent cause among the antecedents, all that we should prove by the method of agreement would be : A is one cause of X (while there may be others). But this would be no mean result, for it would give us thus much of power over nature, that we should know (whether or not X could be pro-
398 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
duced by other means) we could always produce it wlien vr& could, cceteris paribus, produce A. Third. One effect may be the resvdt of the combination of two or more causes. And this single effect may be the total of what would have been the two separate effects of the two causes, acting severally ; as when two mechani- cal forces moving in different lines, propel a mass along the diagonal of the "parallelogram of forces." Or, the mixed effect may present itself in a new form, concealing, by its apparent heterogeneity, both the causations, as when the affinities of an acid and an alkah form a neutral salt, which exhibits neither acid nor alkaline reaction. In view of this third truth, it is evi- dent the "method of agreement" may not tell us absolutely whether A is the cause of X, or A with which other antecedent combined. Again, since A may itself be, along with X, one of a pair of effects of a latent cause, all we can conclude is, either A is cause of X, or is an invariable function of an unknown cause of X. The method of agreement, then, does not give us an ab- solute demonstration, unless we have means of knowing that the observed antecedents, A-|-B-|-C, A-|-D-^E, etc., are the only an- tecedents present in each sequence — that no causal antecedent is left undetected.
2. The " Method of Difference " is apphcable to the foUo^Ning case. A set of sequences is ascertained, in which, when a given antecedent is present, a given consequent is also present; but when that antecedent is absent, that consequent is also absent. Thus, A+B+C are followed by X+T-f Z. But B+C are only followed by Y+Z. Here the reasoning proceeds on this pre- mise : because this antecedent A cannot be excluded without excluding the effect X, it must be the efficient cause of X. The canon derived may be thus stated : Whenever the absence of a given antecedent is followed by the absence of the effect, all the other circumstances remaining the same, that is the true cause. The law may consequently be inferred, that A "v\ill always pro- duce X, cfjeter'is parihxiAs. For instance, let the problem be to as- certain the true cause of the corrosion or calcination of a metal, as iron. It is found that sometimes heat and atmosphere are present ; at other times heat without atmosphere. In the former cases corrosion always followed ; but when the atmosphere was excluded, there was no corrosion. The cause of corrosion must,.
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 399
then, be in the air ; further experiment confirms this, by showing it is in the oxygen of the air.
So far, then, as we can Jcwnu that the second set of sequences, in which th^e effect failed, differed from the former set in which it had phice, only in one circumstance, we know that the true cause is in that circumstance. This is the canon on which most of our experimental inductions in practical Hfe j^roceed. It is the one of which experiment usually seeks to make use. For it is this feature which experiment is most often able to realize, the reproduction, namely, of the identical sequence, abating one single known circumstance, which has been observed before. Hence the method of difference is both more feasible and more definite in its conclusions than the method of agreement. In- deed, the chief value of the latter is to suggest a probabihty which points to the hypothesis indicating the experiment Avhich will test it. By the experiment thus suggested, an appeal is made to the method of difference, and the probabilit}' of the law of cause is either established or exploded.
But the method of difference, when most rigidly appUed, only proves that A is one cause of X. It does not prove that X may not be also produced, in other times and places, by other causes. It may, however, be again remarked, that this gives us so much, at least : that A, given similar conditions, will always produce X. Reflection will show, also, that this method may be used in the counterpart, or a posteriori way. Whatever antecedent is always absent when the effect X fails, all other circumstances remaining the same, is a cause of X. But, because this canon 23roves that A always produces X, it does not follow by the con- verse that every X was produced by A. To the heedless mind, the two propositions may seem almost identical, but they are really different, and the second may be false. Its falsehood ap- pears from the admission that similar effects are often produced at other times by wholly distinct and independent causes. Ob- servation may have proved that all solar rays directly produce calefaction ; but it is entirely erroneous to say all calefaction is from solar rays directly. Few cautions are more important than this, which reminds the inductive reasoner, that while like causes give Hke effects, like effects do not prove like causes.
In this reasoning, we, of course, use the word cause in the sense
400 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
of concrete causal antecedent. If it is taken in the more abstract sense of the efficient energy present in the concrete causal ante- cedent, it may be a probable hji^othesis, that the energy is the same in these several concrete causes. Thus, let the effect be calefaction. It may be caused by the sun's rays, or by combus- tion, or by some other form of chemical action, or by friction, or by percussion, or by a modified current of galvanism. This proves beyond a doubt that the same effect does not always come fi'om the same (concrete) cause. But the physicist may claim that the molecular energy, causing the sensible effect of calefac- tion, may be the same energy in all these different antecedents. If so, there is an abstract sense in which the effect, calefaction, proceeds from the same cause all the time. To affirm or deny this is equally unnecessary to our purpose.
3. The third method may be regarded, from one point of view, as a double application of the first, or as a combination of the first and second. The method of difference, as we saw, is the one to which our intentional experiments usually appeal. Having ob- served a number of cases in which a cluster of antecedents, A+B+C, is followed by several consequents, X, Y, Z, and hav- ing surmised that A causes X, we construct a designed sequence, in which the cluster of antecedents is in all respects the same, except the exclusion of A. If X disappears out of the conse- quents, we reason that A is a true cause of X. But in the study of nature, instances may well arise in which we cannot control the antecedents A+B+C, so as to procure the rise of B+C without A. What can we do ? The third method answers : ob- serve and record all the instances in nature where B+C occur without A, and probably with some other phenomenon, as B+C +D, or B+D+E, etc. If we find that all the seclvisters of an- tecedents, however else they Taaj differ, agree in the omission of A and also in the failure of X, the probability is increased that A is an efficient cause of X. We have made two different ap- plications of the method of agreement, one affirmative, the other privative, and they concur in pointing to A as a real cause of X. As an example : the question was, Which is the real efficient of the anodyne effect in crude opium? This is known to be a complex gum. It is also known to contain, as one of its " prox- imate principles," the alkaloid known as morphia. Every time
NATURE OP PHYSICAL CAUSES.: 401
tlie crude gum is given, including tlie morphia, an anodyne effect follows. This is no demonstration. Let us now suppose that organic chemistry has not yet given us the ability to extract the morphia alone from the crude gum, with an exact certainty that we took out nothing else and left the opium, in all other re- spects, what it was before. This inability prevents our resorting at once to the definite method of difference. But we may col- lect all known gums any ways akin to opium, containing other proximate principles which it contains, and administer them. If we find that among the various effects of the various drugs, the anodyne effect fails in all which lack morphia, we adopt the probable opinion that this is the real anodyne agent. But the wise physician will remember that this is short of demonstration. The uncertainty always attaching to the method of difference may be diminished, but cannot be annihilated by doubling the testimony. Thus, in the instance taken, the first set of cases would still leave some doubt whether some undiscovered ele- ment in the crude opium, or some combination thereof with known elements, might not be the efficient ; and in the second set of cases, where morphia was absent, and the anodyne effect also failed, it would not be demonstrated but that the new drugs given contained some element counteracting an anodyne effect, which, but for this, might still have been emitted in the absence of morphia.
4. The fourth method has been termed that of residues. Cases which present a plurality of antecedents, followed by a plurality of consequents, are analyzed by it until one pair is left unac- counted for. This may then be concluded to be cause and ef- fect. The result observed is, that A+B-fC are frequently fol- lowed by X+Y-f-Z. Now, if, in any valid way, it has been j)roved that A is the cause of X, and, if single, produces only X, and that B produces only Y, then, although we may not ex- perimentally insulate Z in any separate case, it may be concluded that C is the true cause of Z. For, the causal efficiency of A having been traced into X, and of B into Y, there is no source to which to ascribe Z, except to C. Every effect must have a present cause. Obviously, to render this method a complete demonstration, we should be able to know that A, B and C are the only possible causes present. For if a fourth antecedent.
Vol. in.— 26.
402 INDUCTTVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
D, remains in addition to C, it may be proved that A has ex- pended its efficiency in producing X, and B in producing T, and it ^vill still be an unsettled j^roblem whether C or T>, or a combination of the two, produces Z. The elimination is in- complete.
5. Another method remains, which may be applicable where, in consequence of the inability to experiment, the exact applica- tion of pre^-ious methods may be impracticable. This may be called the inference from con^espond'ing vacations. A given state or change, which we call A, is often seen to be followed by a change called X. This suggests, as has been so often said, only a jjrobability that A is the efficient cause of X. But if a variation in the action of A is seen to be followed by a corre- sponding variation in the occurrence of X, the probabiHty strengthens. If a second and a third variation in A is followed by still other corresj)onding changes in X, the evidence grows rapidly towards certainty. This variation in the antecedent may be not only in quantity, but also in dii-ection of its action, or in some other circumstance; and still it gives us this inference. The nature of the proof is this : If a given antecedent had no power over a consequent, a modification of that antecedent would have no influence on that consequent. Hence, when the modification of the one is invariably accompanied with a corre- sponding modification of the other, it seems plain that there must be some causal tie. But it is not, therefore, ceiiain that the tie is direct ; the two circumstances which change together may be connected as two functions of some more recondite cause. Until we are able, by some experiment or reasoning, to exclude this hypothesis, our induction by observing correspond- ing variations is not complete.
Examples of this method may be found in the conclusion that increments of heat are the causes of the successive expansions of the mercury in the thermometer We observe that, the more heat, the more expansion ; the less heat, the less expansion. An- other application of this induction led to the discovery of the causes of the variations in the height of the tides. It was ob- served that when the conjunction or opposition of the sun and moon was most complete, the spring-tides occurred ; when they were less complete, the tides were lower ; and when the two lu-
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 403
minaries were fartliest from a conjunction or opposition, a whole quadrant apart in the ecUptic, the least, or neap-tides, occurred. Hence, we concluded that the concurrence of the traction of the moon's force with the sun's, in the same line, is the cause of the higher tide.
If the corresponding variations in the antecedent and conse- quent are variations in quantity, and especially if they maintain an exact proportion in their increase or decrease, such as can be measured by numerical ratios, the induction is very clear. The doubling of A results in the doubling of X, the effect ; the quad- rupHng of A in the quadrupling of X, for instance. Then A ia clearly the cause of X, or, at least, a regular function of a cause of which X is an analogous function. And the latter conclusion enables us to predict the future result as certainly as the former. But the variations may be in other circumstances than quantity. For instance, if a given body is surmised to be the cause of mo- tion in another body, and if the direction of the produced motion changes regularly in correspondence with the changed direction of the first body, we conclude that our surmise is correct. Or else, again, both motions are functions of some force not yet detected, to which they are both related by a causal tie ; so that the regu- larity of the observed law of motion is safely assumed.
These five methods of interpreting nature, with their canons, appear to present all the valid means in the possession of sci- ence. No other are suggested. But the following reasoning seems to show that there can be no other. If the antecedent, which seems to be next the effect, could be surely kno^m in every case to be really the nearest antecedent, no canons of induction would need to be appUed. The simple observation would di- rectly show us the causal tie, and, therefore, the natural law. (It is only necessary to say, that by nearest antecedent is not meant the one nearest in time or space ; for in this sense an inefficient may be as close to the effect as an efficient antecedent ; but we mean the nearest in the sense of efficiency.) The whole pro- blem, then, is to make sure that, between the eft'ect and the nearest visible antecedent, some invisible or unnoted antecedent has not come. Now, the only M-ays to test this, in man's power, are by some elimination of parts of the sequences, or some varia- tion of parts. The methods of agreement, difference, and resi-
404 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
dues, if applied in tlieir direct and converse modes, exhaust all the eliminations practicable, whether of causal or non-causal antecedents, or of essential or non-essential sequents. The method of corresponding variations completes the use of the remaining resource. These methods are but the effectuating of that task which the sagacity of Lord Bacon pointed out : the separation of the irrelevant instances from our observed se- quences, so that the truly causal ones may be disclosed. That which he foreshadowed, the slow and painstaking care of other philosophers has carried out to its details, and presented with more exactitude. It may be rash to assert that no other method for separating the j^ost hoc from the propter hoc will be added by the future advancements of logic. Thus far this critical sci- ence has advanced in the ablest hands of our day.
Dr. T\ hewell impugns, indeed, these methods as artificial and fruitless. He questions whether it is by them truth is reaUy discovered, and challenges Mr. Mill to name the important phy- sical laws which the discoverers have professed to reach by either of these methods. The answer to this view is, first, to deny TYhewell's allegation. All the valid inductions of common ex- perience and of inductive science have been virtually made by these " methods." And, as we remarked, experiment, the great lever of induction in the physicist's hands, is both a virtual and a formal appeal to the " method of difference." The second an- swer is, that a logical science, in one sense, has not for its end the discovery of truth in the ssnse of the invention of it, but the proper function of logic is to test the processes of invention after they are suggested. Logic is the critical science. The syllogism, in its other or deductive aspect, is not the inventive organon. Its oflice is to sit as judge on the processes of deductive thought which claim to lead to truth. The function of the syllogism is to hold up its form as a standard of those relations of propositions which make illations vahd, that the professed reasonings pre- sented by the inventive faculty, suggestion, may be tried by that sure rule. So, the rules of the inductive syllogism are not claimed to be valuable because they are suggestive of unseen truths, but because they try and discriminate, in the suggestions supposed or claimed to be inductive, between the vahd and the invalid. The processes which are active in leading to the un-
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 405
known trntli are observation, hypothesis, and the " scientific imagination," with experiment. Again, it is but seldom that the vigorous minds which have reasoned deductively to valuable truths, have expressed their arguments in formal syllogisms. Even geometers do not do this, with all the exactness of their noble science. The reasoner does not usually proceed further than using enthymemes or sorites in the formal statement of his arguments ; often he is not even so formal as this. But none the less is the syllogism the full form of each valid step ; and the test of its validity is, in the last resort, whether the step can be stated in a syllogism of lawful mode and figure. So it may be true that a Galileo, a Newton, a Franklin, a Maury, may not have expressed his inductive argument in the technical form of either of the five methods; but if his induction is demonstra- tive, he has virtually, if informally, emijloyed them. The test of its validity is, in the last resort, whether his inductive process can be expanded into one of them, and find in it its full and ex- act expression.
But it has been admitted that even these methods of induction do not always lead to absolutely demonstrated results. The in- sufficiency of the method of agreement was clearly evinced : either one of three contingencies (see p. 397) would vitiate the conclusion. Even the method of difference, the most exact of all, we found (see p. 399) only gave an absolutely certain result, on condition we could know positively that, between the two sequences, A+B+C followed by X+Y+Z, and B+C followed by Y-l-Z, we had made no difference among the antecedents except the exclusion of A. But, obviously, that is a thing very hard for us, in most cases, to know positively, and in many cases im- possible to know. Yet, if it is not known, our inference that A is the efficient of X, is not absolutely sure, because the possibility remains that the failure of X to appear among the second set of effects may be due, not solely to the absence of A from among the antecedents, but to that other unnoticed change which was made among them when removing A. Hence, another work re- mains before an inductive demonstration is complete. This is Verification.
Now, obviously, one approximate method of verification is to aj)ply a second method and canon of induction, or a third, in ad-
406 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
dition to a first. If they give tlie same result, the probable evi- dence mounts up towards certainty -witli a multiplying ratio. But in many cases only one method is applicable. The most complete verification is obtained by experimenting backwards. Having reasoned to the conclusion that X is the efl^ect of A, the student of nature constructs an experiment, in ^yhich A is made to arise alone. If X follows, and the conditions of the case are such he can know that no other antecedent capable of producing X has been present, his induction is verified. Of this the method of Franklin is an instance, when he completed the inductive argument that the lightning of the clouds is electricity. His ex- periments on electrical bodies, and his observation of the light- nings, had suggested the belief that the causal energy was the same. This was, so far, only an induction by comparison and simple enumeration of instances. The lightnings were appar- ently followed by some of the consequences of the electric energy. Now, if the two are in reality the same energy, the lightning should experimentally produce all the known effects of the elec- tric excitement. To verify this, as is known, Franklin availed himself of the ingenious expedient of the kite. He thus found that a conductor, excited no otherwise than from the energy of the lightning cloud, emitted the spark, communicated the mus- cular shock, charged the Leyden jar, and did all that the electri- cal machine had done. Thus, an only probable induction was verified and raised to the rank of a certainty.
Verification is not confined to experiment; but sometimes a sagacious observation of nature will detect her giving the con- firmation. Of this the most splendid instance is the confirmation of Sir Isaac Newton's hypothesis of the orbitual movements of the planets by the force of gravity. He had these data of pro- bability. The law of inertia seemed to give a cause for a tangen- tial motion absolutely constant. But Copernicus and Galileo had taught that the planetary motions were orbitual around the sun as a centre. There was the great mechanical law of the parallelogram of forces, which teaches us that the mass acted on by two inomenta in two lines, will move in the diagonal. Add to the inherent tangential momentum, then, a centripetal force, and the orbitual motion seems accounted for. Of this orbitual compound motion, the centripetal element appeared as real a
NATUEE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 407
falling to the centre as that of tlie stone (or tlie famous apple) falling to the earth. But now our terrestrial experiences had taught him most familiarly how this falling to the earth is the effect of gravity. The lines pursued by all falling bodies tend to the earth's centre. Obviously the earth draws them to her centre. Now, this attraction of gravity acts not only at the earth's surface, but above its surface to the highest distances at- tained by mountains and balloons. It obviously acts on the clouds and their contents. Wliy suppose it limited at all ? Make the supposition that it is universal, though diminishing in in- tensity with distance, and why may not this be the very reason of all these centripetal motions ? Can one guess by what ratio the force of gravity will diminish ynih. distance ? If it expands itself in every direction around its centre, it would appear that its intensity in each point should diminish by the same ratio by which the surface of a sphere increases ; that is, with the square of the raclhis. May it not be, then, that while the tangential motion of each planet is but the original impulse in a straight line, preserved absolutely constant by inertia, the centripetal or falling motion compounded therewith, is just the effect of this gravitation, acting with an energy inversely as the squares of the distances?
Such was the dazzling hypothesis. (We profess to state it, of course, not in the very words of Newton, but in the tenor of his expositors.) But he was too good a logician to assume it as proved ; he had a probable induction thus far, nothing more. Verification was needful. He first established the law of plan- etary attraction, using Kepler's facts (or so-called laws) as his minor premises. Knowing thus the attraction between the moon and the earth, he supposed a piece of the moon brought to the surface of the earth, and from the established law of its attrac- tion, computed the quantity and direction of the descent this piece would make in one second when it came to the tops of the highest mountains. He found that this was identical with the descent, both in direction and amount, of a piece of the moun- tain, as acted on by gravity. From the identity of behavior he infen'ed (by Rule II. of his Iiegulae Philosophandi) that the force which makes the planetary attraction is identical with the force of gravity. Thus the grandest hypothesis ever constructed
408 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
by a scientific man, was converted by this verification (after- wards extended to the other planets) into an established truth. Thus it is successful verification which completes the inductive demonstration. "Where no verification is possible, many, or even most, of our inductions may remain but probabilities. But they are not therefore wholly useless ; for, first, they may guide the investigator in the invention of tentative hypotheses ; and, second, as we have seen, they may lend to practical life a guid- ance which, though not certain, has its value. But such an in- duction has no right to be set up as a proposition in science.
Induction is Syllogism. It is now time that we returned and redeemed our promise to show that induction is but the old syllogistic logic, inasmuch as each demonstrative process is but an enthymeme, whose real major premise is the intuitive judgment of cause, or some corol- lary thereof. We are glad to have the powerful and very em- phatic testimony of Mr. Mill to this doctrine. In Book III., Chap. XXI., he says : "As we recognized in the commencement, and have been enabled to see more clearly in the progress of the investigation, the basis of all these logical operations is the law of causation. The validity of all the inductive methods de- pends on the assumption that every event, or the beginning of every phenomenon, must have some cause — some antecedent on the existence of which it is invariably and unconditionally con- sequent. In the method of agreement, this is obvious, that method avowedly proceeding on the supposition that we have found the true cause as soon as we have negatived every other. The assertion is equally true of the method of difi^erence. That method authorizes us to infer a general law from two instances : one in which A exists together with a multitude of other circum- stances, and B follows ; another, in which A being removed and all other circumstances remaining the same, B is prevented. What, however, does this prove ? It proves that B, in the par- ticular instance, cannot have had any other cause than A ; but to conclude from this that A was the cause, or that A will, on other occasions, be followed by B, is only allowable on the as- sumption that B must have some cause; that among its ante- cedents, in any single instance in which it occurs, there must be
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 409
one wbicli lias the capacity of producing it at other times. This being admitted, it is seen that, in the case in question, that ante- cedent can be no other than A ; but that, if it be no other than A, it must be A, is not proved, by these instances, at least, but taken for granted. There is no need to spend time in proving that the same thing is true in the other inductive methods. The universality of the law of causation is assumed in them all."
Let us submit this assertion to a more critical examination ; and first as to the method of agreement. Refer to page 396. In the first case, or cluster of cases, we saw A+B+C followed (possibly among other efiects) by X. In the second, A+D+E, and in the third, A-|-F+G, are also followed by X. The reason- ing, rigidly stated, now proceeds thus (and that it may proceed strictly, it is necessary to make the supposition that no other causal antecedents are present, except A, B, C, in the first case, etc., which, in practice, it will usually be very difficult to know) : In the first case, the cause of X must have been either A or B or C, or some combination of them. Why? Because it is a universal a priori truth that there is no effect Avithout a cause. This step, thrown into a formal syllogism, will be :
1. No effect can arise without a cause.
2. But X arose preceded only by A+B-|-C.
Therefore A or B or C, or some combination of them, must be cause of X.
So we prove that, in the second case, A+D+E, and in the third, A+F+G, must have caused X. But next we construct another syllogism :
1. A cause must be i^resent at the rise of the effect (immediate coroUary from the intuition of power and efficiency in cause).
2. B and C were absent in the 2d and 3d cases ; D and E were absent in the 1st and 3d cases ; F and G were absent in the 2d and 3d cases, while yet X was always present ;
Therefore, none of these, but only A, was cause of X each time.
But why the last part of our conclusion? Why may we not conclude that A was cause of X at one of its occurrences, and D at another, and G at another ? A third syllogism precludes this :
1. "Like causes produce like effects."
2. None but A could be possible cause of all the Xs ;
410 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
Therefore A was only cause of each X.
The method of difference (see page 398) proceeds thus: In one case, or set of cases, A+B+C are followed by X+Y+Z. In another case, or set of cases, B+C are followed only by Y+Z. As we saw, to entitle us to proceed rigidly, we must know that, in the second case, the absence of A is the only differing circum- stance in the cluster of antecedents; that no other change in them has been made. We then conclude certainly that A caused X. The proceeding is a syllogism.
1. Like causes produce like effects.
2. But in the second case B+C did not produce X, which was present in the first case ;
Therefore neither B nor C is cause of X. And, since there is no effect without its cause, A must be cause of X.
The third method of induction (see pp. 400, 401) was a com- bination of the first two, in which the afiirmative result of the method of agreement was strengthened by the privative result of the method of difference. The syllogism of the first part has been already given. In the second part, the process is like that of the method of difference.
1. Like causes always produce like effects.
2. But neither B+C+D, nor B, D, E, in the second class of instances, produced X ;
Therefore neither of them is cause of X. But, as there can be no effect without a cause, A was the true cause of X.
The fourth method is that of residues (see p. 401). "What observation gives us is a cluster of antecedents, A+B+C, usually followed by a cluster of effects, X+Y+Z. We prove that A produces only X, and B only Y. The inference which remains is, that C is the cause of Z. The syllogism is the fol- lowing :
1. Like causes always produce like effects.
2. But A produces only X, and B only Y;
Therefore neither is cause of Z. But as there can be no effect without a cause, the remaining antecedent, C, must be cause of Z.
This formulation of the inference enables us to see with great clearness what are the conditions necessary to make it demon- strative. We must know, first, that A, B, and C are all the an-
NATURE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES. 411
tecedents present wliicli cotilcT be causal of Z, or, in other words, that there is no j^ossible canse latent. We must know, first, that A or B produce only X and Y, and that Z is not also another •effect of one of them or of their combination. For it is not im- possible in itself that a cause may, under changed conditions, produce a second effect, different from the first, or at least dif- ferently conditioned. The intuition, like cause, like effect, is only a universal truth, while the cause is conditioned in the same way.
The last method of induction is that by noting the correspond- ing variations of antecedent and consequent. If a change in the circumstance of A is invariably followed by a corresponding change in X, we infer that A causes X. "What is the analysis of this inference? Our intuition of cause is of that which has efficient power over its eff'ect. This intuition involves the conse- quence that only an efficient cause could thus invariably propa- gate corresponding change in a sequent. But to make this con- sequence rigid, we must know that nothing varies in the cluster of antecedents, except that one of them which we suppose to be connected with the varying sequent. For, if other things among the antecedents vary, those other things may have to do with the variations in the sequent. But, with this caution, we may frame this syllogism :
1. Whatever sequent varies always with a given antecedent must receive its causal power.
2. But X varies always as A varies, no other change causal of X concurring;
Therefore X is the effect of A.
Thus, by the successive examination of all the methods of in- duction, it is shown that they are all virtually syllogistical. The simple and satisfactory conclusion is thus reached, which unifies our theory of logic, and which also secures for careful and suffi- cient inductions that apodeictic character which is so essential to make them scientific propositions, and wdiich we yet saw de- nied to them by so many great logicians. Induction and deduc- tion are not two forms of reasoning, but one and the same. The demonstrative induction is but that species of syllogism which, getting its minor premise from observed sequences of fact, gets its major premise from the intuition of cause.
412 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
III THE METAPHYSICAL AND THEOLOGICAL APPLICA- TIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY
It is to be lamented that Mr. Mill, after teaching so much valuable truth, and displaying so just an insight up to this point, should then assert a view of our universal judgment of cause, which, if true, would destroy his own science. He be- lieves, after the perverse metaphysic of his father, Mr. James Mill, and of the school of Hume, that the mind has no such universal a priori judgments. He believes that our general judgment of cause is itself empirical, and is gotten simply by combining a multitude of inductions enumerat'wms sinijyl'icis. But these, he admits, are not demonstrative ; and the whole and sole use of all the canons of induction is to lead from these invalid colligations to certain truths. And he has confessed that this is only done by assuming the universal law of cause ; so that his conception of the whole inductive logic is of a process which assumes its own conclusion as its own premise! That he is not misrepresented, will appear from the following cita- tions from his Logic, Book III., Chap. XXI. : "As was observed in a former place, the belief we entertain in the universality throughout natui'e of the law of cause and effect, is itself an in- stance of induction, and by no means one of the earliest which any of us, or which mankind in general, can have made. We arrive at this universal law by generalization from many laws of inferior generaUty." (P. 100.) "Is there not, then, an in- consistency in contrasting the looseness of one method with the rigidity of another, when that other is indebted to the looser method for its own foundation ? " (P. 101.) " Can we prove a proposition by an argument which it takes for granted? " (P. 96.) This question, Mr. Mill then says, he has " purposely stated in the strongest terms it will admit of," in order to reject the doctrine of a behef in causation as a necessary intuitive law, and to assert his (as we think, erroneous) doctrine, which attempts to make the inductive process prove its own fundamen- tal premise. His apology for this violation of the very first
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 413
principle of logic and common sense is, that the belief in causa- tion, while only an empirical induction, is "an empirical law coextensive with all human experience; at which point the distinction between empirical laws and laws of nature vanishes, and the projDOsition takes its place among the most firmly estab- lished as well as the largest truths accessible to science." (P. 103.)
One question dissipates this attempted solution. Is a process of inductive demonstration only valid, then, to one whose em- pirical knowledge "is coextensive with all human experience"? "No. Mr. Mill, for instance, when explaining the proof of a nat- ural law by the " method of difference," made these two correct statements : that this method is rigidly conclusive when its con- ditions are observed ; and that it is by this method the common people really infer the commonly known laws. It appears, then, by his own statement, that a beginner in inductive reasoning, long before he has widened his knowledge until it is " coexten- sive with all human experience," may make, and does make, in- ductions to general laws that are valid. Whence does he pro- cure his universal major premise ? Again : the emjDirical knowledge of the most learned observer in the world, bears but a minute, almost an infinitesimal, ratio to the multitude of con- secutions of events which take place outside of his knowledge. The idea that mere empirical observation can ever establish a law as universal, is therefore delusive. It proceeds upon the supposition that, as the number of agreeing observed instances is widened, the probability grows toward a certainty that their agreement expresses the universal law, because the cases actually tested bear a so much larger ratio to the cases not tested. But it must be remembered, if the intuitive and original character of our judgment of cause be denied, we have no means, except the empirical, to know whether the cases of sequence still untested, and therefore unknown, will conform to our supposed law or not. And the belief arising out of this supposed calculus of probabilities is utterly deceptive. For the number of cases tested, however large, is still, in the mind of the most learned physicist, infinitesimally small, compared with the number of the unknown cases occurring in nature, not to speak of the more multitudinous cases in past ages. When the physicist has ob-
414 INDUCTITE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
served for years, the number of instances empirically tested does bear a larger ratio to tlie number vnth. which he began. True, and this is precisely the delusion which cheated Mr. Mill's mind. But it is the increased ratio of the empirically known to the unknown which is necessary, for the purpose of even, grounding a probability. But this stiU remains infinitesimally small. Mr. Mill obvioiisly has in his mind some conception of concurring ■s^•itnesses, confii-ming each other's testimony. The analogy is plausible, but it should be carefully considered whether it is just and exact. When a court of law would ascer- tain the truth as to a crime, we may suppose that more or less doubt rests on the competency or credibihty of the first witness summoned. But his statement is taken ; yet it is no sufficient ground on which to condemn a citizen. A second witness, whose credibility is also imperfect, is called ; and his statement concurs with the first. If it is manifest no collusion exists, the corre- spondence of his statement with the first lends it confirmation. If many witnesses of this kind, each independent, tell the same story, although neither one would have been trustworthy enough, alone, to condemn a man, yet the concurrence begets a practical certainty, on which a court might even proceed to convict. Now, Mr. Mill's thought evidently is, that a similar cumulative process goes on, as one induction is added to another, Avith re- sults which appear mutually confirmatory. According to him, the uniformity of nature is assumed as the general premise, in each of these inductions. 'But it has to be employed as a major premise, while it is still only an sj,ssumptiou without proof. But this, that, and the other process, grounded in it, tiu-n out so as to correspond with each other and with experience, until at last the inference in favor of it becomes sufficiently cumulative to be taken as a practical certainty.
The remarks already made, when considered, will show that this analogy is deceptive. "Why does the judge, after examining many witnesses, each of imperfect credibility, yet conclude from the concm-rence of their statements, that he has the truth ? Be- cause he deems the number examined such as is nearly exhaus- tive of the whole body of possible evidence. Suppose that judges, after examining even ten such witnesses, were taught that the whole number of spectators of the ci-ime was not, as is custo-
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 415
maiy even in public cases, some twelve, or possibly twenty, by- standers, bnt tliat tlie number of equally near eye-witnesses was ten thousand, and that there was in each of the tinexamined nine thousand nine hundred and ninety, any, even the slightest, tendency to contradict possibly the statement of the ten. The judge would in that case feel that he had no certainty. There is the concurrence of the ten thus far examined? Yes; but there is also some possibility that the next ten may concurrently contradict them ; and the same possibility is repeated with nine hundred and eighty other tens. Had the case been this : the whole number of possible witnesses being twelve, or possibly twenty, ten have been actually- examined and found concurrent Avithout collusion, the cumulative probability arising out of this concurrence of the ten might weigh very potently against any surmise or expectation of a contrary testimony in the two, or even the ten, not examined. This is the case which has deceived Mr. Mill. But it is not the case at all which the inductive rea- soner has in hand. The number of sequences tested by physi- cists bears a most minute ratio to the untested sequences, in which, on Mr. Mill's theory, there is an a priori possibility of a contradictory law. He has himself given us a remarkable con- fession of this. Book III., Chap. XXI, in his assertion that, after all our inductive researches, we stiU have no evidence that this uniformity of nature is the law of the universe. We may assume it only of " that portion of it which is within the range of our means of sure observation."
Again, the postulate of the uniformity of nature would not be, on Mr. Mill's theory, even one that might be provisionally as- sumed, because it is obnoxious at its first siiggestion, and throughout our provisional course of inquiry, to apparent con- tradictions. To the merely empirical eye nature appears vari- able and capricious almost as often as she does constant. So that, had our inductions only an empirical basis, instances of apparent testimony against this general j^remise might midtiply as fast as instances of seeming concurrence in its favor. The real reason that the results of induction are not thus embarrassed is, that true induction is not merely empirical, as Mr. MiU sup- poses. Once more, if the general premise underlying each case of induction is only an assumption, then it is a priori possible it
416 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
may involve an error. If it does, ^vby may not tliat element of error be multiplied and spread itself through the body of con- nected processes in a geometrical degree ? Then, the bodv of supposed science is always Uable to turn out, after all, like the Ptolemaic h^-pothesis of the heavens, an inverted pyramid, an ingenious complication of propositions forced into a seeming harmony by their common trait of involving the radical error? Science has often shown that a hypothetic structure may be widely built out, and may stand long in apparent strength, and yet be overthrown.
We close this refutation with this testimony from Esser, adopted by Hamilton {Logic, Lecture 32, end) : " It is possible only, in one way to raise induction and analogy from mere pro- bability to comj)lete certainty, namely, to demonstrate that the principles which lie at the root of these processes, and which we have ah'eady stated, are either necessary laws of thought, or necessary laws of nature. To demonstrate that they are neces- sary laws of thought is impossible, for logic not only does not allow inference from many to all, but expressly rejects it. Again, to demonstrate that they are necessary laws of nature, is equally imj)OSsible. This has, indeed, been attempted, from the uni- formity of nature, but in vain. For it is incompetent to evince the necessity of the inference of induction and analogy from the fact denominated tJie law of nature, seeing that this law itself can only be discovered by the way of induction and analog}-. In this attempted demonstration there is thus the most glaring 2)etitio prhicipti. The result which has been previously given remains, therefore, intact. Induction and analogy guarantee no perfect certainty, but only a high degree of probability, while all 231'obabihty rests, at best, on induction and analogy, and nothinar else."
Hamilton and his German teacher, Esser, here do two things, one of which is right and the other is wrong. They utterly re- fute Mill's attempt to ground an apodeictic induction in his false metaphysics as to man's primitive judgment. This is the right thing. They also den}' to the inductive logic all apodeictic char- acter. This is their ^^-rong teaching. Surely this conclusion is as much against common sense and the universal practical con- victions of mankind, as it is against their experience. Men as-
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 417
sureclly believe tliat tliej have a multitude of certain demon- strated inductions. They are right in believing so. On these practical inductions, simple and brief in their processes it may be, yet real inductions, men are proceeding %^'ith absolute confi- dence, in their business, every day of their lives. It is by an induction that we all know we shall die. Does any man think his o-svn death only a high probability ? All know death is cer- tain. Here are all the modern triumphs of physical science, Avhich civiHzed mankind regard as much their assured possession as the pure propositions of geometry. No one regards their laws as of only probable truth. The world intrusts its wealth, health, life, to them with absolute faith. But most of the laws of physics are truths of induction. Hamilton's conclusion, then, while right in denying a foundation for their certainty where Mill and his predecessors propose to place it, in the imif ormities of nature, is WTong in allo"^ing to the inductive logic only pro- bable force. He, like the rest, overlooked too much the concern which our primary judgment of causation has in these processes. They did not correctly apprehend the relation of this great in- tuition to them. It is humbly claimed that, in explaining that relation, by means of a rigid and exhaustive analysis of the in- ductive methods, this branch of logic has been reconciled with itself, and with the practical convictions of mankind. Its com- plete exploits of proof are discriminated from its incomplete ones. The former are lifted out of their uncertainty, to the pre- rogative of the syllogism, by showing that they do not conclude from some to all, but from a ujiiversal and necessary- judgment to particulars and individuals. Why should it be thought a strange thing that this primary judgment should be found to hold so fundamental a place at the very corner-stone of the sciences ? The further philosophy is rightly pursued, the more is the unique importance of this great norm of the reason, Ex. nihilo 7iihil, in ah the departments of human thought disclosed. It is the regulative notion of the reason.
In defending the intuitive quality of this judgment, then, we are defending the very being of the natural sciences, and also of theology. This is the principle of the reason, on which both the cosmologic and teleological arguments for the being of a God are founded. Hume, the great finisher of the SensationaKst
Vol. UI.— 27.
418 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
metaphysics, saw that in clenjdug to the mind an intuition of cause, he was undermining those arguments. Teach with him, that this judgment is only an empirical one, learned from expe- rience ; and his cavil against those arguments, that the world, if an effect, is one too singular and unique to be argued about as we argue of common experienced effects, at once becomes for- midable. To undermine theolog}^ was his purpose. But we have shown that his metaphysics also undermines the sciences. The inductive method, on this philosophy of Hume, becomes as base- less and uncertain as he wished theology to be ; and its doctrines are degraded from certainties to guesses. The history of the inductive sciences illustrates this influence. When they were prosecuted by the Boyles, Newtons, and the illustrious company of Christian physicists, whose metaphysic was that of Cudworth, Clarke, and Butler, they gave the world those splendid and solid results which constitute the wonders of modern civilization. But when the votaries of the inductive sciences, like Dr. Huxley, have embraced the empiricism of Hume, Comte, and Mill, they stagger and grope, and give the world, in place of true science, the vain hypotheses of evolutionism and materialism. In as- serting the true nature of induction we have been pleading the cause of science, no less than of theology.
Final Cause and Induction. If we may judge from the gentleman last named, the hostility of the empirical school is particularly directed against the the- istic doctrine of Final Causes. They see how intimately it is connected mth the teleological argument for the being and at- tributes of God. The Aristotelians, it will be remembered, were accustomed to say that an effect, in order to be fully thought, must be considered in its material, \i& fonnal, its efficient, and its, Jinal cause. No intelligent agent acts withoiit an aim ; for he cannot, as intelligent, act without motive. The purpose of coordinating the effect he produces to some end which, in his view, has some value, is implied in his action ; and the supposed value of tliat end is his motive for the volition. In this sense it may be con- sidered as the psychological cause, uhia, of the effect. Tlais is final cause. If the universe is the product of intelligence, and is governed In' intelligence, then it follows that every physical
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 41^
effect lias also a final cause. This is the doctrine which is the especial object of the empiricist's opposition. He is fond of quoting the words of Bacon, Novum Orgcuium, L. II., Aphorism 2: ^^At ex his caxtsa finalls tantam aljest xU prosit, ut etiam sclen- tias corrximpat, nisi in liominis actionihus.^^ But fui'ther exam- ination of Bacon's system would have shown them that it was not the belief in final causes he disapproved, but that illicit as- sumption of a. particular purpose of the Creator in a particular effect, in advance of inductive proof, which he had found cor- rupting physical science in the hands of the scholastics.^ When, for instance, he saw them arguing that the " waters which were above the firmament" must mean a literal transparent ocean of water in the inter-planetary spaces, because God's final cause for placing it there was to arrest and temper the beams of the sun, which otherwise would scorch the planets too much. Bacon very properly objected to this assumption of a final cause in the midst of the inquirj^ into a physical fact. In its proper place he does due honor to the doctrine of final cause. He was too wise to reject it. For it is the meeting-point of theology, philosophy, and the inductive logic. Mr. Dugald Stewart (Yol. III. Collect- ed Writings, Ch. IV., § 6) has elegantly explained Bacon's true position, cited the approbation of Boyle, Cudworth, and Newton for the study of final causes, and shown their importance as a guide to inductive inquiry. Descartes professed to decline their consideration, on the ground that it was presumptuous for a creature so short-sighted as man to undertake to impute designs to God's actions. This objection is met at once by distinguish- ing between the lawful and unlawful uses of this inquiry. To assume that God always has some designed rational end for all his creations and actions, this surely is not presumption, but only the necessary respect for his wisdom; to suppose that he had not always such designs, this would be the presumption — yea, the insult — for it would ascribe to him the action of work- ing when he had no rational motive ; a surmise necessarily dis- paraging to his wisdom. Which particular design God has in a given structure, this we are not to presume, but humbly to learn from his teachings through his works, in such cases as they dis- close their end ; and in all other cases we arc to remain modest ^fiee IJe Augmentis Scient., L. III., ch. -1, o.
420 IXDUCTITE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
in our ignorance. But the doctrine that each thing has some final cause, that a wise Creator did not make it aimlessly, this is the main guide of induction. It is by its light we are guided to the discovery of the laws of cause and effect. The illustration given by Dr. Harvey's discovery of the circidation of the blood is equally splendid and familiar. He himself informed Boyle that he was led to it by the fact that he found in the veins mem- branous valves opening towards the heart, and in the arteries similar valves opening the other way. He reflected that nature never does anything in vain (which is the same thing as saying that every structui'e has some final cause); and he was thus taught that the blood flows inward to the heart from the various parts of the body by the veins, and outward by the arteries. In like manner, the doctrine that every structure has certainly sovie function, is the very lever of the constimction of comparative anatomy. But what is this function but the final cause of the structure ? To discover the function is the main task this sci- ence proposes to itself. This is the end pursued through all the comparative dissections. And when the function, or final cause, is discovered, the physiologist knows that he has discovered a general law, not only of that variety or species, but of all spe- cies possessing that organ. Cuvier argued : No animal devoid of canine teeth -srill ever be found with its feet armed with pre- hensile claws. Why? Because the function of the canine teeth is to masticate living prey ; but nature, after depriving the mouth of siich teeth, and equipping it only with graminivorous teeth, will never perpetrate the anomalj' of arming the feet \nih. claws whose function is to catch living prey. Such is the character of the arguments of this great scienjce. Deny the doctrine of final cause, and it has no basis.
Indeed, if final causes are discarded, there is no longer any basis for any inductive demonstration. The object of this pro- cess, in every branch of science, is to discover a general and permanent lav:. How do we accomplish this? Let the admit- ted answer be repeated: It is accomplished by distinguishing from among the seeming antecedents of a given effect that one which is the "invariable unconditional antecedent" (Mill). For the very nature of inductive logic is to assure us that, when we have truly found this invariable unconditional antecedent in
APPLICATIONS OP INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 421
some cases, it will infallibly introduce that effect in all similar cases. Tliis is what is assumed as tlie " natural law," But how are we authorized to infer this ? By our general premise con- cerning "the uniformity of nature." But the system which dis- cards final cause also denies that there is any intuition of a ne- cessary law of cause. It denies that there is any cognition of an efficient power in cause, for the senses perceive nothing Imt a sequence. It teaches that the belief in the invariability of natural law is itself but an empirical conclusion, and one which cannot possibly be proved to be universal or necessary, since it begins in no necessary first truth, but only in probabilities. Then, it is impossible the mind can validly conclude the con- nection between any antecedent whatever and any consequent to be universal and necessary. For where does that connection abide ? On this system it can abide only in the material things which exhibit ih.e 2)henomena. But they are dead, senseless, un- knowing, unremembering, involuntary matter ; matter which, as it is empirically observed, exhibits itself to us as infinitely vari- able, and unaccountably variable. From such premises the ex- pectation of any permanent law whatsoever is unwarranted, and scientific induction out of the question.
Now, if there were no other ground for invariable uncondi- tional sequence, would an intuitive expectation of the univer- sality of any law of cause be better grounded than this empirical one ? Let this be pondered : our main effort has been to show that this expectation is intuitive, and not merely empirical, and that therefore it is the inductive inference holds good. Could the intuitive or a jyTwrl reason consistently hold this ex- pectation if it saw in a true cause no efficient power ? Obvi- ously not. This would be to expect the first link certainly to draw in the second, when there was no certain connection be- tween them. But again, if efficient power in a second cause is not the expression of any final cause whatsoever, in any intelli- gent agent, would the reason ever regard it as a certain connec- tion between the parts of the sequence V Obviously not. For, the first lesson the reason has learned about the material bodies which are the seats of the plienomena, is, that they are blind, inert, unintelligent. All the education the reason has received about these bodies is, that they are sahject to variation. Ocx
422 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
-wliole discussion is about "effects." But what is effect save change? The very problem of all science is, Nature's changes. How did the reason learn from nature's perpetual variations, then, to trust in the invariability of nature? And especially when this nature is material, and too bUnd to have conscious- ness either of her own changes or stability, of her observance or violation of her supposed laws? To explain this intuitive expectation of the invariability of causal changes, as a healthy act of the reason, there must be somewhere a sufficient cause of the laAv in nature. And the only sufficient cause is the final cause which is the expression of the intelligence which made and governs nature. We believe in the stability of a natural law when we discover it, only because we beheve in the function which a stable intelligence has designed in endowing that thing with that law. Why are we so certain that "like causes always produce like effects " ? Because the same reason tells us that the power deposited in that natural cause was put there by a su- preme intelligence, and, therefore, for a final cause ; and that the wisdom which planned will certainly regulate, on the same con- sistent plan, the machinery of causation there established. The postulates of theism are necessary to ground the inferences of induction. The doctrine of divine purpose, and that of the sta- bility of the law of true causes, are the answering parts of one system of thought. When this is asserted, it is not designed to retract the proposition so often asserted as fundamental, that our belief in the regularity of the law of cause is intuitive, or to represent that judgment now, as a deduction from the proposi- tions of theism. What is meant is this: that while the Creator did fashion the human reason so as to be intuitively necessitated to beheve in cause, that he might be consistent in doing so he also gave it the evidence of his own causation and intelligent design in all his works. The two judgments are com- plementary to each other; the suppression of the latter would leave the other inconsistent. God's constancy to his own ends is the only explanation of that stability, which he has necessitated us to expect in the laws of the second causes by which he de- signs to effectuate those ends. Or else, the alternative explana- tion must be, that the causal ties in j)hysical sequences are eternal and necessary, essentially immanent in the very being of the
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND AN-\iOGY. 423
material bodies acting and acted on, and tliis is fatalism. Let the Huxleys and Comtes, tlien, clioose between this absolute fatalism and the doctrine of final causes. They have no other alternative.
EXPEEIENCE AND ANALOGY.
It has been debated, what relation the popular arguments from experience bear to inductions. If the reader has accepted the view of the inductive logic here taught, he will answer that experimental arguments are identical with inductive. That is to say, they are nothing but popular attempts to reason inductively ; and they differ from scientific inductions only in the simplicity of the process attempted (which is most frequently by the " Method of DijEference "), the homeliness of the cases argued, the smaller number of the particulars coUigated, and the heedlessness or in- accuracy commonly practiced. So far Macaulay was correct in his amusing application of the Baconian method. A moment's consideration shows that the attempt made by the experimental argument is either an imperfect induction jper emimerationem simpltcera, or else it is an attempt to develop a law of cause among experienced instances, by some canon of inference. " It is observed that rains often follow the new moons " (so the popu- lace suppose). "Therefore, the changes of the moon somehow cause rain." Such is the most imperfect and invalid form of the process. In the picture drawn by Macaulay, an attempt is made by the plain squire to apply a canon of inference. " I ate mince pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept awake by indi- gestion all night." This is the comjparentia ad intellectmn in- stantiaruvi convenientium. "I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well." This is the comjxirentia instan- tiarum in proximo quae natura data privantur. "I ate very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening. But on Christmas day I almost dined on them, and was so ill that I was in some danger." This is the covipar- entia instantiarum secundum majus et minus. " It cannot have been the brandy I took with them. For I have drunk brandy for years, without being the worse for it." This is the rejectio naturarum. Our invalid then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the vindemlatio, and pronounces that mince pies do not agree with him.
424 rNDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
So the most of the practical truths men use in their daily life are but easy inductions by the method of difference. That fire biuTis, that water quenches thhst, that alcohol intoxicates, that emetics nauseate — these common judgments are made, and usu- ally made so early and so easily in our experience, that "sve cease to analyze them by comparing our conscious antecedents in the instances when we were burned, or satiated, or intoxicated, or nauseated, "^ith the instances when we were not, and noting that the only difference in the antecedents was the presence of the fire, or the water, or the alcohol, or the emetic.
The question. What is the analogical argument? has been, greatly confused by yarying definitions of the word " analogy." Some of these, as the one from Quinctilian prefixed by Bishop Butler to TJie, Analogy {Ejus haec vis est, ut id quod duhium est ad aliquid simile, de quo non quaeritur, referat, ut incerta certis jprohet), are not incorrect, but are indefinite. Such, also, is Dr. S. Johnson's : "A resemblance between things -VN-ith regard to some circumstance or effects, as when learning is said to enligJden the mind." It would appear that in popular language the word is. often used as a sjmonym of the word Hkeness or resemblance. Things are said to haye analogy because they haye hke proper- ties. It is ob^dous that, if this is all the word means, we haye no use for it. Some, seeing this, propose that where we see be- tween two objects diyersity of quahties and yet a likeness in some one quahty, we shall term these analogous. According to this view, analogy would be resemblance in diversity. But again, it is obvious that we have no use for the term, for it only describes what we have described aheady as partial or incomplete resem- blance. Moreover, the defijiition is fatally defective, in that it fails to signahze the quahties or circumstances in which the anal- ogous things must agree, while differing in others. On that dis- crimination it is obvious the vaHdity of an analogical argument^ from one of these things to the other, must turn. Stewart, in one place, distinguishes resemblance fi'om analogy thus : resem- blance is similarity of property between individuals ; analogy is similarity between species or genera. But he almost imme- diately confesses that this is a distinction without a difierence. The act of comparison by which we colHgate two agi'eeing in- dividuals in a species, does not differ from that by which we
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 425
colligate two agreeing species under a gemis. As Hamilton has so luminously -sliown by liis discussion of " extension " and " in- tension," tlie only difference is, tliat in making the sub-class, we cognize fewer individuals and more agreeing attributes ; and in the larger class, more individuals and fewer agreeing attri- butes.
Hamilton aims, after his favorite teacher, Esser, to discrimi- nate analogy very sharply ; yet his distinction is also unsatisfac- tory [Logic, pp. 450, 455). He teaches that the inference of in- duction is, when from observing that many individuals of a class have a given quality, we predicate it of all the individuals of the class. The inference of analogy is, when from observing that several individuals agree in two or more qualities, we conclude that they agree in all the qualities essential to the class, and we collect them under it. The inference of induction may be illus- trated thus: a class is composed of A, B, C, D, E. We ob- serve in A, B, C, a given property, Z ; whence we conclude the same property qualifies D and E. The inference of analogy would be illustrated thus : We have a class which is defined by the essential qualities X, Y, Z. Examining an individual, A, not yet grouped under this class, we find in it the properties X and Y ; whence we infer, without examining further, that A also has the other property, Z, and thus belongs to the class. Of this description we observe, first, that both inferences are from the some to the all, and therefore, as Hamilton admits, not de- monstrative. The first, which he calls the inference of induc- tion, is in fact sophistical, and has no proper place in logic. For, how came D and E to be in the class supposed, when their possession of the essential class-property, Z, has not yet been ascertained, either by observation or inference ? It must be ob- served that the places of D and E in the class are conceded first, in order to prepare the way for the inference of induction, which extends to them the class-property Z ; whereas, if that property had not been already ascribed, they would not have place in the class at all. Further, if there is any even probable authority for extending the property Z to them, in advance of actual inspec- tion, that authority must come from the second kind of inference, called the inference of analogy. The one inference, then, is only a corollary of the other, instead of being a distinct logical pro-
426 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
cess. This attempted distinction, therefore, gives us no help in defining the argument bv analogJ^ We have on preceding pages explained the real processes of the mind in the ascription of class- attributes and the formation of classes. The remarks there made will sufficiently clear up this subject.
The only mode of making the doctrine perspicuous is to re- strict the word analogy to a particular kind of likeness. While resemblance, the basis of classification, is similarity of properties in single objects, analogy should be defined aspaircllelisvi of re- lations heticeen cases. Kesemblance is between an object and an object, either individiials or classes. Analogy is between a pair of objects and a pair of objects. Both Stewart and Hamilton mention this view of the matter, but seem to mention it only to discard it. But Whately sees the value of this view, and defines analogy as parallelism of relations. The most definite concep- tion of analogy is given by a mathematical equation of ratios. Thus, 3:9: : 4 : 12 ; or 9 -f- 3 = 12 -f- 4. Neither of these pairs of numbers is equal, nor are their sums equal. But there is one relation between 3 and 9 which is identical with a rela- tion between 4 and 12. It is, that in each pair the smaller is one-third part of the larger. The "mathematical proportion," then, is a perfect analogy ; and it gives us the most definite and exact conception. And inasmuch as the relation between the two pairs is not only like, but identical, the exjaression 9 -i- 3 = 12 -^- 4 is a true equation, and may be used as a premise for demonstrations as exact and rigid as any other mathematical proof. Let it, then, be agreed that our nomenclature shall be cleared of confusion by using the word analogy in the sense only of resemblance of relations between pairs, and we shall gi'asj) a tenable conception of the analogical argument.
Belations are multifarious. There may be, between all ob- jects qualified by quantity, relations of quantity, as ratio and equality. There may be, again, betw'een events connected in sequence of time, relations of causality. There ma}' be, between bodies, relations of space; but as space is measurable, these would resolve themselves into the first class. Again, between organisms, there ma}' be relations of function, and these being 'causal, resolve themselves into the second class. We have seen that in a mathematical proportion, identity of ratios may give us
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 427
demonstrated results. So, in a causal analogy, that parallelism of relations whicli is complete and amounts to identity, may give a demonstrative conclusion. What else is the demonstrative induction by the method of diflference ? It is but the establish- ment of full parallel or identity between the causal relation in a pair of terms, the antecedent and consequent, namely, in an observed sequence, and other antecedents and consequents in future sequences not yet observed. And this identity of causal relations is the ground of our belief that the same sequence will recur. This" is what gives us the "law of nature" as to that class of phenomena. But if the parallelism of relations is im- perfect, or imperfectly ascertained, then the analogical inference is only probable ; and the probability diminishes as the paral- lelism of relations weakens.
If this perspicuous view of analogy is true, we are led to re- sults very different from those announced by the eminent logi- cians criticized. But the results, if tenable, greatly simplify and unify this department of logic. Instead of separating the analogical argument from both the experimental and the induc- tive, we find that the analogical is but the common method, including both the others. We have already shown that the experimental inference is simply a plain and brief induction. An inductive argument is simply an inference from that subdi- vision of the analogical argument (from parallelism of relations TDetween two or more pairs) where the relations in question are the causal relations in sequences. The inference from a complete parallelism in causal relations is the apodeictic induction ; the inference from an imperfect parallelism of causal relations is the probable induction, that jper emimeratione7n shnplicem. Pre- vious writers have been mistaken also, in deciding that the analogical argument cannot rise above probability (as we saw Hamilton declare of the inductive). In fact, the analogical argument, like the inductive, which is a branch of it, may be demonstrative, or it may be only probable, according to the completeness of the parallel between the relations compared or its incompleteness.
The Apodeictic Induction. In concluding this exposition, then, it is necessary to remark
428 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
on the looseness and confusion wliicli have prevailed in tlie use of the term induction, as of the word " analogy.*' 1. Sometimes the mere colligation of resembling cases has been called induc- tion. 2. Sometimes the name has been given to the mere ten- tative inference from the some of the obsei^ved cases to the all, including the unobserved. 3. Sometimes it has been used to describe what is in reality no jjfoce^s of argument at all, but the mere formulating in a single proposition of a class of observed facts, as when, having seen by inspection a given predication true of each and every individual separately, we predicate it of the class. Thus Hamilton, more than once. 4. But the induc- tive demonstratiofi is wholly another and a higher matter. It is the valid inference of a law of natui^e from observed instances of sequence, by applying to them a universal necessaiy judg- ment, as premise, the intuition of cause for every effect. It has been often said, as by Grote's Aristotle, for instance, that induc- tion is a different process from syllogism, and is, in fact, pre- liminary thereto ; that induction prepares the propositions fi'om which syllogism reasons. This is true of that induction, abusively so called, which we have just numbered first and third. It is not true of inductive demonstration. It has usually been as- sumed that while induction is a species of reasoning, it is a dif- ferent, and even an opposite, species from deduction. The first and third actions of the mind, abusivel}' called inductions, do indeed differ from deduction ; but they are not argumentatiA^e processes at all ; they do not lead to new truth, either inwards or downwards. They merely formulate in general terms, or in general propositions, iudi\ddual percepts or individual judgments already attained. True induction, or inductive demonstration, is simply one department of syllogistic reasoning, and is as ti'uly deductive as the rest of syllogism ; giving us, namely, those de- ductions which flow fi'om the combination of the universal and necessary intuition of cause, A^dth obsers'ed facts of sequence.
This explanation of the nature of the Inductive Logic power- fully confirms the cautions of its wisest practitioners, as to the necessity of painstaking care in its pursuit. It is a method of ascertaining truth closely conformed to the divine apophthegm^ "With the lowly is wisdom." It is evidently a modest science. Only the greatest patience, candor, and caution in observing, and
ArPLICATIONS OP INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 429
the most lionest self-denial in guarding against the seduction of one's own hypotheses, can lead to safe results. A.fter this review, the charge which Mr. Mill brought against much of the pre- tended inductive science of our day, quoted by us at the outset, appears every way just. What else than unsafe results can be expected from persons who have never truly apprehended what, the inductive argument is, when they venture to employ it, with the most confused notions of its real nature, and under the sti'/nulus of competition, haste, prejudice, and love of hypothesis ? Time and the future have a huge work of winnowing to perform upon the fruits of the busy mental activity of this generation, before the true wheat is gathered into the garners of science.
As Moses and our Saviour epitomized the Ten Command- ments into the one great law of love, so the canons of valid in- duction may be popularly summarized in one law. It is this : So long as all the known facts can he reconciled with any other hypothesis whatsoever than the one propounded as the inference of the induction, even though that other hypothesis be no better than an invention or surmise, tlie inductive argument is invalid to give a demonstration ; it yields only a probability. This rule receives an excellent illustration from the legal rule of " circum- stantial evidence " in criminal trials. And the illustration is so good for two reasons : that there is so close a resemblance, in many points, between inductive reasoning and circumstantial evidence ; and that the great men who, as jurists, have settled the principles of the legal science of evidence, have brought to their problem the ripest human sagacity, sobered and steadied by the consideration that these principles were to have apphca- tion, in dreadful earnest, to the lives and liberty of all citizens, including themselves. Let us suppose, now, a case in which a murder has been committed, in darkness and supposed privacy, with a firearm. No other species of evidence is supposed to be available than the circumstantial. The prosecution therefore collect every, even the most minute fact, and, with great inge- nuity and plausibihty, they construct this hypothesis of guilt: that the dead man was feloniously shot by A. B. So many ob- served facts seem to tally ynih. this, that all men lean to the con- clusion A. B. is probably guilty. But the learned judge instructs the jury that the prosecution are bound to show, not only that
430 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
the hypothesis of A. B.'s guilt may satisfy all the observed facts, but to demonstrate absolutely that it alone can satisfy them ; so that the logical result shall be, not only that we may, but that we must, adopt this as the only true explanation of the circum- stances proven. And the judge will authorize the defence to test that point thus : If another hyj^othesis than A. B.'s guilt, which, as a proposition, is naturally feasible, can be even in- vented, though unsupported by any array of proved facts, which may also satisfy the facts estabhshed before the court, the prose- cution have failed to establish the guilt of the accused. The in- geniiity of the lawyers on that side is no less than was supposed, and the probability of A. B.'s guilt may remain ; biit it is not proved, and the man must be discharged.
This principle of jurisprudence is in strict accordance with the logic of induction. The analysis of the judge's grounds of rul- ing is this : no one can assert that eveinj event, preceding and attending the killing, has been ascertained and stated by the prosecution. That this remark is true, appears sufficiently from the fact that both sides j)ostulate that the killing was done in darkness and in the absence of spectators. Of course, then, the probability, or at least j)ossibility, always remains, that while the facts given in testimony are all true, other circumstances also truly occurred, not appearing in testimony, and so not con- sidered by anybody. But may it not be that, if there were such other circumstances, and if they were established in testimony, we should see them to be material ? They might contain what would refute the hypothesis of A. B.'s guilt, or suggest some other. How shall we be sure, in our ignorance, that the case may not be such, in truth, in its unknown circumstances ? Only by making an induction which shall be jjositivdy exclusive of that other hypothesis ; that is to say, only by showing that any unknown circumstances of the killing, if brought fo light, could not weaken the hypothesis of A. B.'s guilt. And this is not shown as long as circumstances naturally feasible, which would supersede that hypothesis, can be imagined or suggested. In other words, iu order to raise the argument on the circumstances to the grade of a demonstration, it must be like the positive in- duction, by the method of difference. The effect investigated is the killing; the cause assigned is A. B.'s agency. To jjrove
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 431
this lij'potliesis, it must not only be shown that the presence of A. B. plus any cluster of known or unknown antecedents, D, C, E, etc., could cause the killing ; but it must also be shown that the presence of all those other antecedents, D, C, E, etc., minus A. B.'s agency, could not cause the killing. See the Canon of the Method of Difference, p. 398. And as the second killing of the same dead man is impossible, no experiment can be exactly in- stituted to apply the method of difference in this case. The completion of the argument must be by demonstrative deduction. Thus this scientific canon of induction receives an apt illustra- tion from this employment of ifc in the rigid science of juris- prudence ; and the correctness and usefulness of the canon is sj)lendidly evinced in this great instance.
This seems the proper place, also, to state and explain the re- lations between inductive inference and parole-testimony. We will do this by resuming our supposition. Just when the pros- ecutors are in the full tide of their ingenious and very highly probable circumstantial argument to A. B.'s guilt, the defence introduce an eye-witness named M. On examining him, it is evi- dent that M. is naturally competent to have been an eye-witness of the killing, that is to say, that no natural impossibility of his having witnessed it, as from a demonstrated alibi during the night when it happened, exists. But M. testifies that he lodged in the room with the dead man on that night, and saw him killed by another agency than A. B.'s; we ^vill say, for instance, by the dead man's own suicidal hand. The prosecution may, of course, disparage the credihility of this witness by raising the question, Why his testimony has remained so long latent ? Let us, then, to clear away this complication, suppose further, that M. ex- plains this reasonably ; as, by showing that as he rushed horri- fied from the scene of the tragedy through the darkness to sum- mon other "witnesses and assistance, he had been suddenly kidnapped and detained by his own enemies. What is now the effect of this parole-evidence as against the circumstantial ? The learned judge rules that, unless the prosecution have valid grounds for impugning M.'s credibility, their circumstantial evi- dence breaks down wholly before it. They reply that they can- not impugn M.'s credibiHty. The judge then instantly decides that they have no case ; dechnes to hear further argument, and
432 IXDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
if the prosecution will not take liis advice to discliarge the ac- cused bj a " nolle jJ'^osequi,'' instructs the jury to acquit. The industry and ingenuity of the prosecution are no less than they "were. But it is lofficallv "uorthless asrainst the knowledge of an admitted eye-wdtness. The analysis on which this correct con- clusion grounds itself, is similar to the previous. It is admitted by all that this killing may hare been preceded and attended by other circumstances than those ascertained in the circumstantial evidence. Unless the induction is of that exclusive and demon- strative sort which proves that the possible unkno^^-n cu'cum- stances cannot have heen material to the causation of the kiUing, and therefore could not, if known, shake the conclusion that A. B.'s act was the cause; then there is a remaining probability that the cause was not in A. B., but in those omitted antecedents. Hence, when M. testifies, he places the causation there, where confessedly there is room for it to be placed. His testimony is legitimate, and goes with the whole weight of the moral credi- bihty he deserves, to establish the fact against the hypothesis.
We thus learn that unless the induction be positively demon- strative, it must give way in the presence of any adequate intelli- gent parole-evidence affirming a diiferent cause for the phenome- non. Another more popular reason supports this conclusion. Does one say, " The Hving -svitness may be dishonest or deceived ; but my facts and inductive argument are wholly dispassionate, impartial, and valid"? He forgets that his facts also have no better foundation than the professed eye-vdtnessing of some human witness. Does he say, " They are facts ; for I saw them " ? He is but a human vdtness. Or, if he derives his facts from the observations of others, they are mere human vsitnesses. But the facts are a premise of his inductive logic. The inference cannot be more vahd than its premise. It thus appears that it is wholly unreasonable to claim superiority for an induction over testimony, for this is as though one should claim that " testimony is stronger than testimony." The only consistent meaning would be the arrogant assumption that " my testimony is honest and the other's dishonest." This conclusion, that competent testi- mony is superior to any except an absolute exclusive induction, is practically accepted by all sound physicists. Let all the facts previously known tend to refer the effect to a supposed cause, so
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION ANT) ANALOGY. 433
that the scientific world is almost prepared to accept it as a law ; if one competent observer arises, testifying to another actual cause for the effect, seen by him to produce it in a single case, the other hypothesis is withdrawn. For science admits that here is a ease which cannot be reduced under it. An illustrious in- stance will be remembered in the first telescopic examinations of Galileo. He saw that the planet Yenus was gilibous at a time and in a way she would not have been according to the Ptolemaic hypothesis. That one observation, with men of true science, made an end of the Ptolemaic theory. The only alternatives were to surrender it, or to say that Galileo did not see Yenus gibbous at that part of her orbit.
The nature and methods of the inductive logic have now been discussed purely in their formal aspect. So far as the "sdews advanced differ from the best ^I'iters, the difference is in favor of a simplification of the principles, a closer conformity to sound philosophy, and a natural explanation of what had been left by others as either imperfections or mysteries of the results. Es- pecially is it claimed, that the inductive logic is, by our exposi- tion, rescued from that fatal accusation of incompleteness of demonstration, with which the greatest previous logicians, as Hamilton, close their discussions of it. "Whereas they decide so positively, that no inductive inference can rise above probability ; the common sense of mankind has always insisted that some in- ductive inferences do rise above probability, and mankind have, in all ages, persisted in venturing their lives and interests upon some indiictive inferences, without having their confidence in their vaHdity refuted by events. Here was a most awkward contradiction between common sense and philosophy^ This contradiction we claim to have reconciled, by showing that some inductive inferences are apodeictic, not being in truth inferences of an illegitimate order "from the some to the all," but infer- ences in a regular syllogism, from a universal necessary judg- ment. It is always one of the soundest features of a philosophy that it ratifies and explains the conclusions of common sense. Our theor}' of induction also bears this signature of truth, that while it earnestly claims for that branch of logic some demon- strative conclusions, it gives a natural explanation how men, and even able scientific men, are continually advancing with con-
VOL. in.— 28
434 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
fidence so many faulty and erroneous inductions. This is be- cause tlie methods of the demonstrative inductions are few, because they require a rigid compliance with their conditions, and because, amidst the fascinating complications which so many physical problems offer, the observance of these safe con- ditions is often difficult, and demands unusual patience, perspi- cuity, and candor. Especially is the confused state of these sciences accounted for, by the fact that the investigators were proceeding upon erroneous theories of inductive logic, which failed to discriminate the valid from the imperfectly A^alid pro- cesses. Mr. J. S. Mill has treated the subject with superior in- sight, in the main, to any other British or American writer, be- cause he comes after his able competitors, and because he brought to this branch of logic the resources of great learning and acuteness. Now, the reader is requested to note, that while truth has compelled the criticism and correction of his error as to the necessary and universal judgment underlying the induc- tive syllogism, the essential and vital features of his system are retained ; and that in a form even more practical and useful than his. These are : 1, That there is a demonstrative induction. 2, That its essential basis is the universal judgment of cause and effect. 3, That there are no other methods of discriminating the valid induction from the invalid, than the five he enumer- ates ; and that these are only valid when guarded as he directs. The 23ractical applications of his system are obviously not dis- turbed, but confirmed, by the theory asserted here against him, that the fundamental premise is not an empirical but an intui- tive judgment.
The Inductive Argument Illustrated by Application to Cases.
This discussion wiU be concluded by applying the principles of logic taught above to a few physical doctrines which have recently interested the scientific world.
1. That the theory of the equivalency and transformation of energy has not yet been made more than a hypothesis, was in- timated on page 387. What is denied is, that it has been ex- tended as a valid induction to all the energies of inorganic mat- ter. We have never seen, for its supposed extension to vital energies, any portion of evidence whatever, or anything more
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 435
tliau groundless assertion. It cannot claim to be an induction, even as to the forces of inorganic matter, even when tried by the popular criterion. It does not preclude the rival hypothesis, that there are as many permanent and distinct powers in matter, as there are essential properties ; which powers are not annihi- lated on the completion of their effects, but only restored to an equlUhynum, in which they exist still as potential tendencies. This theory is not only not excluded, but accounts for many cases for which the other theory of the "equivalency and trans- formation of energy" does not account. The first also solves successfully the very cases, like that of the absorption of so much sensible caloric, reappearing in the form of so much elasticity, which are claimed are as favorable to the latter. Let us sup- pose that caloric is a persistent and distinct molecular energy, which never really transforms itself into and disappears in elas- tic force ; but that the application of the caloric is only the cause of release of the elastic force from the state of potential tendency to activity ; while the caloric, having done that work, is itself re- manded, for the time, to its former potentiality. Then, the equivalency between the caloric recalled and the elastic force released, would of course follow. It would be the old case of the correspondency of action and reaction. But a more serious defect is, that the theory has not been extended to some ma- terial energies, as that of gravitation, by any collection of se- quences giving even the invalid induction jyer enumerationetn shn2>Ucern . Next, we have seen that the theory- cannot meet the question, AYhat becomes of the forces radiated outwards from the exterior bounds of the universe ; and how, on that theory, can we escaj^e the conclusion that the total aggregate of force, instead of being persistent and identical, as the theory wishes to claim, is diminishing, and tends to total cessation and stagna- tion ? Thus the theoiy fails to meet the gi'and final test stated on p. 405. Nor would any one individual instance of the theory (as this : that it is the heat, and not the distinct power of elas- ticity released by the heat, which lifts the piston in the steam- cylinder) stand the test of either one of the canons of induction. Let the reader attempt it, and see for hiinself. And once more : the ver'tjicat'ioii of the equivalency of what this theory calls the transformed force, has never been attempted even, except as to
436 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
the related energies of caloric and elasticity ; and we suspect the further verification will ever be impracticable.
It is worthy of inquiry also whether this hypothesis, if adopt- ed, would not destroy the very foundation of the inductive pro- cess. That foundation is, " Like causes, like effects." The plu- rahty of effects is accounted for by referring them correctly to their different causes. But, according to this theory, tliere are no different causes — there is but one cause. The search after efficient cause, which has been proved to be the vital problem of induction, must be degraded into the inquiry after the uniform antecedent, an inquiry which, as we showed, could lead to no assured result.
2. The laws of refraction revealed by the spectroscope are now supposed to be so established for all worlds as to be relied on to teach us the chemistry of the heavenly bodies. Let us see first to what extent those laws are demonstrated for the material elements of our planet. The analyst proceeds thus, for instance : "When vapor of sodium is present in an incandescent flame, the lays of white light coming through that flame, being enlarged into a spectrum, exhibit certain black lines in certain j^laces. When the sodium vapor is removed from the flame, those lines disappear from the spectrum cast by those rays. Now, it may be claimed that this is a proof, by the method of difference, the most rigid of all, that sodium always causes those lines in the spectrum. It is conceded that this may be a valid induction, to a certain extent. Let us refer to pages 398-405, and we see that, provided the experimenter can be certain he has made no change whatever in the flame inspected, nor in the refraction, save the removal of the sodium vapor, it is proved that sodium is a cause of those lines. But it is not yet proved to be the o)ily cause, for similar eflects may be produced by more than one cause. Let the analysis be extended, then, to all the sixty-six simple substances catalogued by analytical chemistry, and let it be tested by experiment that none of the others produce the same lines in the spectrum. Then it may be considered proven that sodium is not ojily a cause, but alivays the cause, of those lines, just so far as, and no farther than, it is proved that chemistry has already discovered all the elemental material sub- stances in this world. In the present advanced stage of chemi-
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 437
cal researcli, it is admitted that the probability is very strong that the sodium vapor is the only cause of those particular lines in the spectrum. It is certain, by the method of difference, that it is a cause of them. That is to say, the causation of those lines is certainly' connected with that metal, either directly, by its efficiency of them, or relatively, by the constant connection of both of them with some other efficient still undetected. A law is revealed which may be relied on as to this earth.
But, as Dr. William B. Carpenter cautioned the admirers of the spectrum analysis, in his inaugural lecture before the British Association, the induction does not hold when extended to other worlds. Its invalidity is not now inferred from the facts that the pencils of light from the stars are so exceedingly slender, and that they have to pass through unknown possible influences in penetrating the whole thickness of our atmosphere, nor from tho exceeding difficulty of making so entire a separation of these minute and faint pencils of light in the tube of the spectroscope from other very minute rays, direct or refracted, travelling on lines which vary from them by infinitesimal angles, as is neces- sary in experiments so delicate; for these difficulties concern rather the practical manipulator than the logician. But the chasm in the induction is this : all that the most valid applica- tion of the method of difference can by itself prove is, that A is one efficient of X. It does not disprove this proposition : that nature may contain other efficients of X. It may prove that, coeteris paribus, all A's will produce X. But it does not prove that all X's are produced by A. The concession which we made as to earthly chemistry, that all so-called sodium lines are produced by sodium, rests on a further fact (which is an enumeration of facts only, and not on an induction) that all the other known sim- ple substances have been tried and failed to produce the sodiuin lines, coupled with the probable inference that analytical chemis- try has been carried so far on this earth, it is tiot likely any suljstance capable of producing sodium lines remains undetected among earthly materials. But as to other worlds, we have made no chemical analyses! "We knoAv not what unknown simple substances endued with we know not what properties, would be found there. And obviously, to infer an analysis from this fea- ture of a spectrum of that world's ray, and then reason about
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that spectrum from tliat assumed cmahjsis, is but "reasoning in a circle." As a demonstration, it is worthless. Nor does it seem likely that this fatal chasm in its logic can ever be bridged. All that we can be taught is a possibility of the presence of the same simple substances, in part, in our world and other worlds. This possibility receives some probable confirmation from the fact that some of those substances, as iron and nickel, are found in meteoric stones; that is, if the theory is valid that these are fragments of planetary bodies.
3. Another very important application of these logical princi- ples is to the inductions of geologists concerning the mode of formation of strata and mineral deposits. The rule has just been recalled, that the law, "Like causes, like effects," does not au- thorize its converse, " Like effects reveal the same cause." For, as is so obviously clear, two independent causes may produce effects exactly similar. Now, much of the supposed inductive reasoning of treatises on geology is, in reality, but an application of this vicious converse. Observation shows us a given stratum of rock or indurated sand and slime, resulting from sedimentary deposition from water. The inference is, therefore, all stratified rocks are sedimentary. And some treatises on geology assume this unsafe and invalid surmise so absolutely as to vise the words " sedimentary " and " stratified " as synonyms. A very plain and useful instance of this sophism is given by the case of the Italian savant who inferred an immense age for the strata in a volcanic spot of South Italy, by examining a well. The sides of this little excavation showed certain strata of volcanic earth superposed on lava. The savant's assumption was, that all this earth was formed gradually by disintegration of hard lava ; and as the process is notoriously slow, the thickness of the beds of loose earth denoted a vast lapse of time. Now, had he been certain that disintegration was the only cause of volcanic earth, his inference might have been worth something. But the heed- lessness of his logic was put to shame by a very simple state- ment of fact, made by the peasants. Disintegration of hard lava was not the only cause of volcanic earth. Another cause was dust and ashes, showers from the neighboring volcano. These peasants had been actual eye-witnesses of several such emissions, which, guided by a favoring breeze, had covered
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 439
their fields with an inch or two of new soil in a single night. And by the simple light of this other cause, which the great savant had not thought of, it was clearly shown that the accu- mulation for which he required many scores of centuries, had been the actual work of about two hundred years.
To the candid mind these hints are enough. The most care- ful observer is most fully aware of these facts : that our know- ledge of the terrestrial energies which have exerted themselves in our globe, is imperfect ; that the grade of speed at which known forces are now observed to act, may have been exceed- ingly different at other times and under other conditions of tem- perature and climate ; that the causations which would need to be accurately determined, in order to settle many of these phy- sical questions, were probably complicated beyond all reach of our observation and ascertainment at this late day.
4. The evolution theory presents a most interesting and in- structive case for the application of this logic. Its main points are : that what we supposed to be distinct genera of animated beings did not originate in the creation of first progenitors, from whom all the subsequent individuals descended by a generation which transmitted, by propagation, precisely the properties es- sential to the genus ; but that higher genera were slowly evolved from lower ; that the causes of the differentiations wherein the more developed individuals differ from their less developed pro- genitors, are to be found in three unintelligent physical influ- ences, heredity, the influence of the environment on the being's powers, and the survival of the fittest. The observed facts from which this hypothesis claims to derive its induction, may be grouped under these general statements : that in fact the known genera of animated beings form a continuous ascending scale, from the most rudimental up to man, the most highly organized ; thus suggesting the ascent of organization along this ladder, from a loAver stage to a higher ; that a multitude of organs and Hmbs are actually seen to grow from their infantile to their adult states, under the interaction of their environment and the instinctive animal exertions of them ; that the conditions of animal existence are, in the general, such that the individuals possessing most of the natural vigor, qualifj-ing them to reproduce a strong or a developed j)rogeny, are most Hkely to survive, while the less
440 INDUCTR^E LOGIC DISCUSSED.
qualified perish ; and tliat observed facts in the breeding of ani- mals present cases in which the rule does not hold that " Like produces only its like," but often it produces the slightly imlike, differing from itself by a slight shade of improvement or deteri- oration. These facts, the theory claims, when a very long time is allowed for the slow and irregular, but in the main progressive, action of the forces they disclose, prove that all animated genera can be accounted for as the ultimate progeny of the most rudi- mental protozoon.
The task in hand here is not to give a full refutation of this theory, bvit to criticize it in the light of the logical principles es- tabhshed, simply in order to see whether it is an induction. It appears at once that it has no claim to come under the head of either method of induction, not even of the loosest, the method of agreement. Indeed, it cannot be said to have a single instance, much less an agreeing multitude, in the proper sense of induc- tive instances. To resort for simplification to our notation, let A stand for the aggregate of supposed evolutional agencies, which are the combined cause ; let X stand for the effect, a neio genus. There has not been presented one instance, as yet, in which A has been followed by X, even seemingly, A being ac- companied or unaccompanied by other antecedents, B, C, D, etc. The utmost which can be claimed is, that a few " varieties" have been evolved, but no permanent species or gemis, which can meet the tests of generic character. Even these " varieties " cannot be proved to be the effects of the supposed evolving phy- sical causes, since it does not appear that they have evolved themselves, except when these unintelligent influences were guided by a rational purpose, as that of the stock-breeder or bird-fancier. Again, the theory fails as to man, the rational, and the highest result of the supposed evolution, in that its energies are unintelligent and blind ; but man has a reason. There must be enough in the cause to account for the effect. And it fails as to man and all the lower animals, in that their organs all display, even down to the lowest, the work of thought- ful design and the intelligent selection of final cause ; whereas the evolving energies are all blind and uuintelhgent. Nor has the first instance been found where the influences of "en^dron- ment " have evolved a single new organ or physical faculty, in
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 441
the sense necessary to the theory. The facts observed are these : that when uatnre has implanted the generic organ or function by regular propagation, but in the infantile state, the "environ- ment" has presented the occasion, not the cause, for its growtli, by its own exercise up to its adult strength. The fish's fin grows by beating the water, in this sense ; the bird's wing by beating the air ; the child's arm by the wielding of his toys. But where is the first instance that the environment has evolved a new organ over and above the generic model ? Where has environ- ment placed a new fin on a fish's back, or an additional finger on a youth's hand ? The instances ought to be of this nature to give any show of an induction. And the organ evolved ought to become not merely an individual peculiarity, but a permanent trait transmitted uniformly by propagation.
The canon of the inductive logic requires, again, that all other possible causes, other than the one claimed in the hypothesis, shall be excluded by at least some of the known instances. But the theistic account, which is made entirely probable, to say the least, by arguments in morals and natural theology, presents an- other sufiicient cause in the creative power and wisdom. Since the origin of species antedates, confessedly, all human observa- tion and history, this cause for it is probable, until atheism is demonstrated. Even were the evolution theory an induction from real instances, in which these evolving influences were truly adequate to the effect, there would be no valid induction until the theistic cause was positively excluded by a demonstration of atheism. And to offer the conclusion which would flow from such an induction, when completed, as sufficient for that athe- istic demonstration of the non-existence of a Creator, which alone would complete the induction, this would plainly be "rea- soning in a circle." The conclusion would have to be assumed in order to make out the process leading to it. But supposing there may be a Creator of perfect wisdom and power and full sovereignty, it is always supposable that he may have seen rea- sons for clothing his creatures with those very qualities on Avhich evolution argues against a Creator. Is it said that the regular gradations of organized life suggest the belief that the higher forms were evolved from the lower, along the stages of this lad- der? But the theistic hypothesis suggests, with more j^robabil-
442 iNDucxn'E logic discussed.
ity, the belief that the Creator had reasons for filling all the stages of this ascending scale with genera and species which are yet distinct. To lift the former surmise to the faintest approach to an induction, the latter hypothesis must be precluded.
Once more, the scheme is fatally defective in that it has no verification. Xot a single new genus, or even individual, has been presented, or can be evolved by experiment, to confirm the hypothesis. Indeed, it is impossible, from the nature of the case, that there can be a verification, since the advocates of the scheme admit that the latest evolution, that of man, was com- pleted long before the earhest human history. The most that can be said for this theory is, that it is an ingenious collection of guesses, which bear a fanciful, but deceptive, likeness to real analogies.
So far the pretended argument goes in its simpler form. Its manifest invalidity constrains some evolutionists, as Le Conte, to surrender it. But these assert that deeper researches into the parallelisms of organic relations give a truly inductive ground for their theory. It is claimed that the likeness between the stages which Agassiz, chiefly, disclosed in embryology, pale- ontology, and our existing gradations in natural history, now called the ontogenic, the phylogenic, and the taxonomic grada- tions, estabhshes evolution by a solid induction. The animals now upon the earth form a gradation, through the four grand di-s-isions of radiates, molluscs, articulates, and vertebrates, from the lowest and simplest np to the most complicated and highest. So, evolutionists assert, the li^ang creatures made known by the fossils as once having lived in paleontologic ages, show the same gradation. And third, the transformations through which the foetal organisms, even of the highest species, pass from the ovum to the adult, exhibit the same gradation. The proposed argu- ment is, that these analogies give an inductive proof that species are evolved from species by an equally natural law of evolution.
Let it be again observed that all we need attempt, in criticiz- ing this supposed argument by the principles of induction, is to show that the process is invalid. And we would preface the further criticism by the caveat that we do not admit the parallel- ism of the three sets of instances in the sense claimed by evolu- tionists. The paleontologic series, for instance, in order to sup-
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 443
port this pretended evolutionist induction, should be a series of higher and more comj^lete animal forms succeeding the more rudimental in time. But such it is not. At each paleontologic period, some of the four groups of living creatures are found coexisting, in at least some types of each, and not merely suc- cessive. The palaeozoic strata are found to contain vertebrate fishes, along with the radiates and molluscs of that first period. And, if we may trust Agassiz's assertion, there is no evidence that the embryonic changes of any individual animal of a higher group exemplifies all the gradations from the lowest group up to its own. These mutations of its foetal life only il- lustrate fully the gradations of the species in its own group.
But, wai\ang for the time these questions of fact, Ave show, in this pretended induction, this vital defect : it mistakes an anal- ogy (an imperfect one) in the method of action of certain vital energies for a causal identity. The essential link of a demon- strative induction is lacking. If we take, for instance, the embryonic order of development, all that is proved by the mul- iitude of cases colligated is, that the individual ova are all endued with a vital energy which causes, and thus insures, the groAviih of each individual into the matured type of its own spe- cies. For such, and such alone, is the result, as observed. In no single case has an individual ovuin, be its analogy of mode of development to that of other species what it may, resulted in an evolution into a different species from its own. Hence, there is not a particle of inductive evidence that this causal energy which we see at work is competent to such evolution. Each individual gives an instance of a develoj)ment through an embryonic series. True. But in every instance the develop- ment terminates AA-ithin the strict limits of its own species; and the induction from the latter set of facts is precisely as broad and as inexorable as from the former.
Again, the analogies noted all receive their sufficient solution from another hypothesis, namely this, that they are the expres- sions of a common plan of thought, by which the creative Mind voluntarily regulates its creative and providential actions. Now, as we saw, the conclusion from an induction is not demon- strated, unless the instances collected preclude all other probable, and even possible, hypotheses. Here is the other hypothesis.
444 IXDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
not only probable and intrinsically reasonable, but, in the light of other arguments, certain — the theistic one : that the reason ■why the vital energies wrought in paleontologic creatures in a way analogous to the way they work now is, that the same God created and" governed then, and that he sees good reasons for folloAving, in the different ages, similar types of working. It might be conceded that the analogies under discussion, if viewed alone, would be insufficient to prove the existence and action of a God. Yet they do suffice to show that solution a probable one. This alone is enough to prove the evolutionist conclusion invalid.
The argument, then, is not a demonstrative induction. Here our logical criticism might stop. But it will be instructive to show how it is confirmed by the positive refutation which other laws and facts of natural history inflict upon the evolution theory. This is excluded, as a tenable explanation of the organized uni- verse, by the foUo^sing instances, which do have, what the pre- vious analogies have not, an application in strict accordance with the principles of induction.
1. No existing species has displayed a particle of tendency towards the change in a single truly specific attribute, within the longest period of human history. The mummies, as well as the effigies, of the Hving creatures associated with the oldest Egypt- ian remains, were found by Cuvier and by Kunth specifically identical with the same creatures now existing in Egypt. Re- searches into antiquity have everywhere led to the same result. Now, if evolution of one species from another is to be induct- ively proved, some instances at least tending to the result must be adduced. The fact that all human knowledge through three or four thousand years presents no approach to a single in- stance, is fatal.
2. In paleontology, each species, so far as kno^wTi from its fossils, has remained absolutely fixed during the continuance of its period. It is very true, that a species may be found in a subsequent cosmical period, shoeing resemblances to, and im- provements on, a given extinct species of the previous cosmical period. But this fact makes nothing for evolution, because science shows that there has been, between the two periods and their two sets of hving creatures as two wholes, a clear breach.
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 445
interrupting the natural and regular forces of reproduction. The evolutionist must show some instance where, Avithin the limits of some one cosmical period, a different species has been naturally evolved from one simpler than itself.
3. If the existence of the higher forms of Ufe were accounted for by slow evolutions from the lowest, then the paleontologic history should unquestionably present us with this state of facts : First, with a period of the simplest forms, as the radiates ; then, afterwards, with a period of more developed forms, as moUuscs ; then with the stiU higher, as the articulates; and then with a period of the highest. But the state of the facts is exactly the opposite. All the paleontologic periods give us some of the four groups contemporaneously.
4. The methods of nature, in the formation of the four groups, are essentially different. While some of the species belonging to one group have a higher organization than others, they all display a community of plan in their structure. But when we pass to another group, we meet a different plan. Hence we in- fer that even if we could do what has never been done, find an actual case of the evolution of a species from a lower one of the same group, the barriers separating the groups as grand divi- sions would still be insuperable. Their several plans of struc- ture are too different for the transmutation of one into another.
5. Men speak of organic life as if its different species formed one regular and continuous series "from the monad up to man." This is found to be a misconception. The animal kingdom is composed of a number of partial series. When the attempt is made to range aU these in one single continuous series, fatal dis- locations appear. The line of progress is not a continuous as- cending line.
6. The theory of evolution assigns great force to the influence of "environment," in developing organs into those of a new species. But naturaUsts tell us that they find a number of the most diversified types existing and prospering together for long ages under identical circumstances. But, were evolution triie, the identity of the whole environment ought to be working an assimilation of the various types subjected to it. Again, identi- cal species are found persisting for long ages under the most ■diversified environments. These facts show that there has been
446 IXDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
deposited within eacli species its own form of vital energy, which, resists differentiation, and insists, against any influence of a changed environment, on reproducing only its own type. The rational inference is, that either each species is eternal, an im- possible proposition, or else each points to an extra-natural Power, which deposited its specific vital energy in it at its be- ginning.
And that Pov:ei\ in the last place, was Mind, because every adaptation of organs to their functions, every reappearing an- alogy of structures in successive cosmical periods, every relation instituted between the individual and its environment or its fellow-creatures, discloses thotight. But evolution is claimed to be only a physical process.
Such is the use of the observed facts of the animal kingdom, as sanctioned by the true principles of the inductive logic. The result of this correct colligation is to show that evolution cannot be true.
A leading American evolutionist ^ insists that we shall accept the instance of the cock developed from the egg as the true type of his evolution theory ; and he claims that every such instance gives him an inductive argument by analogy to support that theory. I cite this because it suggests precisely the conclusive points with which I close this refutation of evolution. The in- stance gives me two lines of remark, each fatal to the theory.
First, it betrays the most sophistical and misleading confusion between two concepts entirely distinct; a confusion by which, I observe, evolutionists generally cheat themselves and their readers. They confound development with evolution, which is an essentiallj' different thing. The production of the cock from the egg is a case of development, which is the gradual enlargement and completion of an individual adult organism from its individual specific germ by laws of growth absolutely defined in each case by the limits of the species. Such de- velopment everybody admits, whether a rustic or a scientific man. For the world is full of it ; every animal, including the human, growing to its adult size from its foetal germ, every oak growing from its acorn, every corn stalk from its seed, is an instance of this development. But the proposition of evolution-
' Evolution and its Relation to Religioiis Thought, by Joseph LeConte.
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 447
ists is wholly another matter ; its claim is that whole new species are gradually grown from organic germs which were at first out- side their own limits of species. Now every instance of that de- velopment which we all beheve in takes place strictly within the lines and Hmitations of the energies of its own species, deposited by God in the specific germs. Every instance of evolution of species, had such ever occurred, would have taken place in ex- press violation of these lines and limitations of specific energies. Here is a fatal breach of analogy between the two sets of in- stances. The very point in debate is, whether these distinctive limitations of species uniformly govern in each case of develop- ment? Every instance of development known to science goes to j)rove that they do ; the very point of the evolution hypothesis is to claim that they do not. It is, therefore, but scurvy sophistry to present us these admitted instances of development of individuals as analogical proofs of exactly the opposite law in the evolutional species.
Second, we claim that the case of the growth of the cock from the egg is a fairly representative instance of all the cases in which we find organic nature doing her wondrous work. For every fact marking the origin of the cock from the egg finds its just parallel in a manner in which every other organism in the world, vegetable and animal, has arisen. The essential fact in every case is that the organic germ from which we see the de- velopment proceed, has owed its own existence to a previous adult organism. This universal fact destroys the evolution hy- pothesis and establishes that of the Bible. (See Gen., chapters i.jii.) First, the adults created by God "producing seed after their kind"; then, the subsequent generations developed from these seeds within the strict lines of their limits. For, if the evolution hypothesis has any proof at all, it is the inductive proof. The only data of the inductive argument are observed facts. Where there are no facts to ground it, there is no argu- ment. Here, then, every fact in the world is against the evolu- tion argument. For nobody in the world ever knew of an egg capable of hatching a cock, which was not laid by a previous existing adidt hen. Thus every fact of observation jiroves that organisms began by creation, and not by evolution.
Now the evolutionist may retort that nobody ever knew of a
448 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
lien wliicli was not procliicecl from a previous egg. He vnll say : ^'Here is a full Roland for my Oliver;" tliat lie thus proves the egg Avas before the hen at least, as well as I proved that the hen was before the egg. But I reply: It is not true that nobody ever saw a hen which was not the j^i'oduct of a previous egg. Adam did. But the evolutionist will demur that Adam seeing the hen which never came from an egg is an unscientific assump- tion, because theological, and not to be admitted in this debate (of which last conclusion the only major premise seems to be that nothing theological is true ; which, if admitted, is an equiva- lent proposition to this, viz., that evolutionism is, of course, atheism). But for argument's sake we waive this. The state of the debate would then be : that, while nobody ever saw an egg "which did not proceed from the previous hen, on the other hand, nobody since Adam ever saw a hen which did not pro- ceed from a previous egg. So it would appear at this stage, there are inductions equally good, one proving that the hen was before the egg, the other proving that the egg was before the hen. But, if we may not listen to Adam's testimony, there are other inductive facts fatal to the hypothesis that the egg was before the hen. One fact is this : that in order to produce the adult fowl there must not only be an egg but a hen to hatch it. According to the course of nature (and if there were any evolu- tion it would be a purely natural process) the parent hen's incu- bation is as necessary as the egg. So, then, the hen must be before the egg. But worse yet for evolution, the egg which has not been preceded by the copulation of the male with the hen can never hatch a fowl with or without incubation, natural or artificial. And I rest upon the fact that this is true absolutely and universally of every egg kno'svu to human observation. So, then, it is proved that not only was a hen before the first egg but a cock also. The opposite induction remains without a single fact to build on. It is overthrown by absolutely every fact known to human observation. It is, therefore, equally an insult to logic and to common sense.
Let us make another apphcation of these logical principles, and that the most important of all. It concerns the limits of the ajjosteriori inference from similarity of residts to identity of cause, concerning the origin of the structures composing the
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 449
crust of our earth. If theism is admitted to be not demon- strated, but even possible, then, according to the rules of induc- tion, such inference from naturalness of structure to natural origin is inconclusive. This follows from two of its rules : first, the analogical argument from similarity of result to identity of cause, must give way before competent and credible parole evi- dence. The supposed but invalid argument is : we see natural agencies producing this and that structure ; therefore, all similar structures are of natural origin. But if there be a creative God, there is a different sufficient cause for the origin of the earlier. And if a witness appears who may be naturally competent to testify, his testimony wholly supersedes the evidence of the sup- posed analogy. The only way to uphold it is to attack the credibility of that witness. If his credibility is not successfully impeached, the analogical argument must yield before it.
But such a parole-witness appears in the book known as the Christian Scriptures. It assumes to testify that there is a crea- tor, and that he here gives his own witness to his supernatural creation of the first structures. The value of any induction from naturalness of traits to a natural origin of those structures, must depend therefore upon the other question : whether this witness is competent and credible. Some persons attempt to evade their logical obhgation here by saying, that these are theological ques- tions with which physical science, as such, has no concern ; that they restrict themselves properly to the lights of this department, and, in assigning a natural origin to these structures, speak only for science. But this is a violation of the principles of nat- ural induction, which must necessarily include some adjustment of the relations between analogy and testimony ; seeing the truth of the very facts, claimed as analogical, itself rests on testimony. Further, the questions, whether there is a creator, and whether there have been creative causations, enter into this argument, not as theological, but as natural questions. In their relations to the inductive problem, they are as purely physical questions, as the question whether a given rock is the result of fusion or sed- imentary deposition from water. A moment's reflection will show the justice of this statement. And hence it follows that an a posteriori analogical argument on this topic is entirely frag- mentary and inconclusive, until the claims of this parole -witness
Voi^ III.— 29.
450 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
are entertained and adjusted. The historical and the physical parts of the argument cannot be thus rent asunder and legiti- mately pursued apart.
The second rule of induction which aj^plies to show this rea- soning invalid, is that pointed out on p. 437. If there may be two antecedents, either of which is competent efficiently to pro- duce an effect (naming one of them A, and the effect X), the closest possible induction can only prove that all A's will, cceteris paribus, produce X ; but cannot prove that all X's are produced by A. Now, until atheism is dev%onstrated, another competent cause for natural structures may be supposed as possibly exist- ing in the existence and action of a God. And whatever is the strength of the probable or demonstrative e^ddence that there is a God, from whatever valid quarter drawn, there is just so much probabihty of error in the attempted induction, which assigns a natural origin to all structures. To attempt to exclude the di- vine cause by the force of this a posteriori analogy is to reason in a circle ; because the validity of the analogy depends wholly on the prior exclusion of the divine cause. Second, a wise Cre- ator must have had some final cause guiding his action. We should not be so presumptuous as to surmise in advance what particular final cause prompted a given creative act, but when his own subsequent action has disclosed it, we are on safe ground. It is always safe to conclude that the object for which a wise and sovereign Creator produced a given thing is the object to which we see him devoting it. When, therefore, we see him in his subsequent providence subjecting all things to the reign of nat- ural law, we may safely conclude that, when he created them,, he designed to subject them to natural law. But that which is to be ruled by natural law must needs be thoroughly natural in traits. Hence this Creator must have made the first structures, which in their origin were supernatural, in their properties en- tirely natural. Whence it follows that the inference from natu- ralness of qualities to a natural origin would be, as to those structures, wholly worthless. Let it be repeated also : that whatever probability or certainty there is of God's existence, from any source of evidence, just so much evidence is there of this defect in the naturalistic argument. Or, in other words, to make it conclusive, its advocate must demonstrate, not surmise.
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 451
the truth of atheism. But John Foster has shown that this is impossible.
Third. The argument is pecuharly conclusive as to living crea- tures. If there was a Creator, he created the first individuals of a species to be, by reproduction, the heads of the species. But in order to do this, these first parents must have been created natural. What are the qualities connoted by any name of spe- cies ? The most accurate answer which the science of natural history itself can make is: they are precisely those which are transmitted regularly from parents to progeny in the propagation of the species. Then, these first individuals, in order to fulfil their final cause, to be the heads of their species, must have been, while supernatural in origin, as thoroughly natural in qualities as any of their natural offspring.
Fourth. If this be denied, then we must assign a natural par- ent before the first parent of each species. Thus we should bo involved in an infinite series, in a multitude of instances, without cause external to themselves ; a result which science herself has discarded as an impossible absurdity. Suppose, for explanation, that an observer has found some part of the very organism of one of those first heads of species, which on the theistic scheme, was directly created by God. He would, of course, find in this fossil every j^roperty of the natural structure. Yet he cannot infer thence a natural origin for it, because on the hypothesis it is absolutely a first thing. But suppose that he may assign for it a natural origin. That origin then will be, propagation by birth from prior parents. And should a fossil organ of that parent be found, the same argument would apply again ! Thus we should be driven to a ridiculous regresstis. It is concluded, therefore. Math the most perfect logical rigidit}', that the argu- ment from naturalness of structure to a natural origin is incon- clusive, until the impossibility of creative agency in any age prior to authentic human testimony is demonstrated.
Fifth. This absurd refjressus may be shown in a general way, by testing this analogical argument upon the " nebular hypothe- sis "; that guess which the atheist La Place suggested as only a possible h}"pothesis for the origin of the universe, and which some Christian j^hysicists now seem so ready to adopt, without proof, as the real account of the matter. Let us suppose the
452 KDUCTIYE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
scientific observer from some otlier system watcliing tliis vast in- candescent mass of " star-dust," rotating around an axis of mo- tion, witli wliicli tlie nebular laypotliesis begins. If lie uses the analogical reasoning v,^e are criticizing, lie must proceed thus: riatter is naturally inert ; momentum must therefore be derived irom some prior material force. This rotary motion, which the nebular hypothesis supposes to be the first state, cannot be the first state. Again, vapor implies evaporation. Sensible heat suggests latent heat. Hence this other first state of incandescent volatilization cannot be the first state. Thus, on this logic, be- fore each first state there must have been another first state.
' ' Beneath the lowest deep, Another depth still threatening to devour me, opens wide."
This, then, is the eternity of " Katuralismus " — it is athe- ism.
This wholesome limitation of analogical inference has been sometimes met vdth disdainful resistance. It has been said that it would subvert the very basis of natural science. It is ex- claimed, "If we may not securely reason, 'Like causes, like effects,' the very lever of scientific discovery is taken from us." The answer is very simple : that there is no intention to rob science of her prime organon, "Like causes, like effects." The main drift of this treatise has been to defend and explain it. Only we do not desire to see the votaries of inductive science disgracing themselves by the very shallow blunder (a blunder which the school boy's class-book of Logic points out) of mis- taking an 'all important proposition for its erroneous converse, " Like effects, the same cause." This is reall}- the extent of our caution. The inductive logic is in no danger of being cramped or restricted by theology within the proper domain of natural science. That domain is the known present and the known past of human history, where testimony and experience give us sufii- cient assurance of the absence of the supernatural. In this field natural induction is useful and legitimate ; it has been the hon- ored instrument of splendid and beneficent achievements. Let physicists continue to employ it there, to the full, for the further benefit of mankind and the illustration of the Creator's wisdom and glory. But in the unknown eternit}- of the past prior to human history, it has no place. It is Hke the mariner's compass
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 453
carried into the stellar spaces. We know tliat tlie poles of this globe have a certain attraction for it, and, therefore, on this globe it is a precious guide. But away in the regions of Arctu- rus or the Pleiades, where we are not certain whether the spheres have poles, or whether they are magnetic, we are not authorized to follow it.
One more application will be made, and this to a supposed social and moral induction; in order to exhibit the fitness of the logical canons for ethical as well as physical science. The case is that of the colligation of instances, so often presented by the enthusiastic fanatics in the cause of secular education, as a proof of their proposition that this species of education promotes virtue and suppresses crime. The supposed evidence is, that the statistics of prisons, penitentiaries, and criminal convictions usually show a ratio of illiterate to educated criminals consider- ably larger than the ratio of illiterate to lettered citizens in the commonwealth. The governor of an American commonwealth, for instance, reported that of all the convicts in his state-peni- tentiary for ten years, only a little more than ten per cent, could read and write. And he presented this as a conclusive demon- stration that illiteracy was the cause, and a knowledge of letters would be the sufficient cure, of crime.
Now, a very simple application of the logical criticism dis- closes the in conclusiveness of this popular argument. The effect to be accounted for is, breaches of statute laws. The observed antecedent to this effect is, in a large majority of cases in this State, ignorance of letters. Obviously, this is but an induction per enumerationeiii shnpUcem, which gives no proof whether the sequence gives a i^ost hoc or a j>ro2)ter hoc. The argument offers neither canon of induction to complete the separation. We have in this enumeration nothing whatever to teach us whether the true efficient of the crimes does not lie, hitherto unnoted, be- tween the supposed antecedent, illiteracy, and the effect. The pretended argument gives us no ground whatever for excluding this other obvious hypothesis, that something else may have been the true cause of the crimes, of which cause the illiteracy itself may be also another coordinate effect.
As soon as another equally authentic enumeration is com- pared with the previous one, the justice of this suspicion is fully
454 INDUCTIVE LOGIC DISCUSSED.
confirmed. Furtlier study of tlie statistics of crime slio',vs, that while American prisons contain a larger percentage of illiterate criminals than American society contains of illiterate free citi- zens, yet the ratio of cinininals to the v:hole nuinher of citizens in any given community is unif ormly ya/' larger inhere all, or nearly all, adults can read and icrite, and far smaller where fewer of the adults can read and write. For instance, in Boston, the boastful metropolis of free schools, with scarcely an adult who could not read and write, the census of 1850 showed that the white persons in jails, penitentiaides, and almshouses bore to the whole Avhite population the ratio of one in every thirty-four. But in Richmond, the capital of a State endlessly reviled for its illiteracy, the same classes of whites bore to the whole number of white citizens the ratio of one to every one hundred and twelve ! The difference in favor of the less lettered communities, as revealed by subsequent censuses, is still more astounding; and this, when extended to the whole South, as compared with the North, and as deduced by Northern students of statistics.
Now, were these enumerations of sequences employed in the same illogical way, they would seem to demonstrate exactly the opposite conclusion: that tJie knoioledge of letters causes CTime, and illiteracy causes virtue. This is a sufficiently biting demon- stration of the worthlessness of the pretended induction. The true solution to which the comparison of the two enumerations points, is this : that neither letters nor illiteracy cause crime in America, but another combination of moral causes, to which these states of the population are themselves related as effects. In any given prison will be found a majority of prisoners who cannot read and write. This does not prove that the possession of these arts is preventive of crime, as the other statistics show. But as American society happens to be constituted, the rearing of children without a knowledge of letters has happened to be the usual accompaniment of a domestic condition of penury and moral degradation, while families of substance and domestic morality have usually given letters to their children. Thus it is made j^lain that it is not the illiteracy, but the penury and do- mestic degradation which are the real causes of crime. The illiteracy turns out not to be the cause at all, but an incident or appendage which the domestic habits of Americans have con-
APPLICATIONS OF INDUCTION AND ANALOGY. 455
nected with the real cause, the combination of want and do- mestic degradation.
But when, by the intrusive activity of the civil government, the children of destitute and morally degraded families are uni- versally invested with the arts of reading and writing, without that moral and economical elevation of the parents and children, to work which the State and State schools are so nearly impo- tent, then the result is a fearful increase in the ratio of criminals to the whole number of citizens. The explanation is, that it is the want and family degradation which together is the main efficient cause of crime, and which the knowledge of letters, while those continue, rather aggravates than checks.
SPimiOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS/
IT is believed all tliouglitful Christians are alive to the fact that religious excitements, which consist of temporary move- ments of the emotions devoid of any saving operation of the Truth on the reason and conscience, are equally frequent and mischievous in America. This judgment not seldom expresses itself in very queer and inaccurate forms. Thus : good brethren write to the religious journals grateful accounts of a work of grace in their charges, and tell the editors that "they are happy to say, the work has been purely rational and quiet, and at- tended by not the slightest excitement." They forget that the efficacious (not possibly, tempestuous) movement of the feelings is just as essential a part of a true religious experience, as the illumination of the intellect by divine truth ; for indeed, there is no such thing as the imj)lantation of practical principle, or the right decisions of the will, without feeling. In estimating a work of divine grace as genuine, we should rather ask ourselves whether the right feelings are excited, and excited by divine cause. If so, we need not fear the most intense excitement. This misconception is parallel to the one uttered by public speakers, when they assure their hearers that, designing to show them the respect due to rational beings, and to use the honesty suitable to true patriots, "they shall make no apjDcal to their feelings, but address themselves only to their understandings." This is virtually impossible. On all practical subjects, truth is only influential as it stimulates some j)ractical feeling. There is no logical appeal of the rhetorical nature which does not include and appeal to feeling. Does the orator proclaim, for instance, that waiving all appeals to passion, he will only address his hearers' intellects to prove what is for their interest, or "for their honor," or "for the good of their country"? What is he reaUy doing except aj)pealing to the emotions of desire for wealth, or love of applause, or patriotism?
' From The Presbyterian Quarterly, October, 1887. 456
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 457
In the Southern Preshyterian Review, 1884, I presented a clis- cnssion on tlie psycliology of tlie feelings. I wish to recall a few of the fundamental positions there established . The func- tion oi feeling is as essential to the human spirit, and as ever present, as the function of cognition. The two are ever com- bined, as the heat-rays and the light-rays are intermingled in the sunbeams. But the consciousness intuitively recognizes the difference of the two functions, so that it is superfluous to define them. "Feeling is the temperature of thought." The same kind of feeling may differ in degree of intensity, as the heat-ray in the brilliant winter sunbeam differs from that in the fiery glare of the "dog days"; but the thermometer shows there is still caloric in the most wintry sunbeam, and even in the block of crystal ice. So a human spirit is never devoid of some degree of that feeling which the truth then engaging the intelligence tends to excite. No object is or can be inducement to volition unless it be apprehended by the soul as being both in the cate- gory of the true and of the good. But, that function of soul by which the object is taken as a good, is desire, an act of feeling. "Whence it follows, that an element of feeling is as essential to every rational volition as an act of cognition. The truly dif- ferent sorts of feelings were distinguished and classified. But this all important division of them was seen to be into the pas- sions, and the active feehngs ; between those impressions upon the sensibility of the soul, caused from without, and in receiving which the soul is itself passive, and its spontaneity has no self-determining power (as pain, panic, sympathy) on the one hand, and on the other hand those subjective feehngs which, while occasioned from without, are self-determined by the spon- taneity from within and in Avliich the soul is essentially active, (as desire, benevolence, ambition, etc.)
It may be asked here : Does the writer intend to rest the authority of his distinction between genuine and spurious relig- ious experiences on a human psychology? By no means. The Scriptures are the only sui-e source of this discrimination. Its declarations, such as that sanctification is otAj by revealed truth, its anthropology, its doctrine of redemption, and its examples of saving couA'ersions, give the faithful student full guidance as to the conduct of gospel work, and the separation of the stony-
458 SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
ground hearers from the true. But it is claimed that the psy- chology outlined above is the psychology of the Bible. It is that theory of man's powers everywhere assumed and postulated in Scripture. It gives that theory of human action on which all the instances, the narratives, and the precepts of Scripture ground themselves. Hence these mental laws and facts are of use, not as the mistress, but as the hand-maid of Scripture, to explain and illustrate those cautions which the Bible gives us.
One inference is simple and clear. The excitement of mere sensibilities, however strong or frequent, can oflfer no evidence whatever of a sanctified state. The soul is passive in them; their efficient cause is objective. An instinctive susceptibility in the soul provides the only condition requisite for their rise ■when the outward cause is apphed. Hence the excitement of these sensibilities is no more e\'idence of change or rectification in the free agency, than the shivering of the winter "svayfarer's limbs when wet by the storms. Xow the doctrine of Scriptui'e is that man's spontaneity is, in his natural state, wholly disin- clined and made opposite (yet freely) to godliness, so that he has no ability of -n-ill for any spiritual act pertaining to salvation. But it is promised that, in regeneration, God's people shall be willing in the day of his power. He so enlightens their minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renews their vnlls, that they are both persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ. The very spontaneity is revolutionized. Xow the stimulation of merely passive sensibilities, in Avhich the will has no causal part, can never be evidence of that saving change. Xo evidence of it appears, until the subjective desu*es and the will exhibit their change to the new direction. That fear, that selfish joy, that hope, that sympathy are excited, proves nothing. But when the soul freely exercises a " hungering and thirsting after righteous- ness," hatred of sin, desire of God's favor, love of his truth, zeal for his honor, this evinces the sanctifying revolution.
Shall we conclude then that the excitement of the passive sensibihties by the pastor is whoU}' useless ? This class of feel- ings presents the occasion (not the cause) for the rise of the subjective and spontaneous emotions. This is aU. It is this connection which so often misleads the mental analyst into a confusion of the two classes of feelings. The efficient cause may
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 459
be restrained from acting by the absence of the necessary occa- sion ; this is true. But it is equally true, that the occasion, in the absence of the efficient cause, is powerless to leaving any effect. If the pastor aims to move the sensibilities merely for the purj)ose of gaining the attention of the soul to saving truth, and presents that truth faithfully the moment his impression is made, he does well. If he makes these sensibilities an end, instead of a means, he is mischievously abusing his people's soids.
People are ever prone to think that they are feeling religi- ously because they have feelings round about religion. Their sensibihties have been aroused in connection with death and eternity, for instance ; so, as these are religious topics, they sup- pose they are growing quite religious. The simplest way to clear away these perilous illusions is, to ask AYhat emotions, con- nected "sxdth rehgious topics as their occasions, are natural to the carnal man? These may be said to be, first, the emotions of taste, or the mental-aesthetic; second, the involuntary moral emotion of self-blame, or remorse ; third, the natural self-inter- ested emotions of fear and hope, and desire of future security and enjoyment; and fourth, the emotion of instinctive sympathy. The following conclusions concerning these feelings need ' only to be stated, in order to be admitted.
The £esthetic feeling may be as naturally stimulated by the features of sublimity and beauty of God's natural attributes, and of the gospel-story, as by a cataract, an ocean, a starlit sky, or a Shakespearean hero. Now it is most obvious that the move- ments of taste, in these latter cases, carry no moral imperative whatever. They have no more power to reform the ■will than strains of music or odors of flowers. Yet how many souls are deluded into supposing that they love God, duty, and gospel- truth, because these aesthetic sensibilities are stimulated in con- nection with such topics!
When the ethical reason pronounces its judgment of wrong- fulness upon any action or principle, this may be attended by the feeling of moral reprehension. If it is one's own action which must be condemned, the feeling takes on the more pun- gent form of remorse. But this feeling is no function of the soul's spontaneity. Its rise is pureh* involuntary; its natural
460 SPURIOUS EELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
effect is to be tlie penal retributiou, and not the restrainer of sin.
How completely this feeling is disconnected with the correct regulation or reformation of the T^-ill, appears from this: that the transgressor's will is usually striving Avith all his might not to feel the remorse, or to forget it, Avhile conscience makes him feel it in spite of himself. A Judas felt it most keenly while he rushed to self-destruction. It is the most prevalent emotion of hell, which gives us the crowning proof that it has no power to purify the heart. But many transgressors are persuaded that they exercise repentance because they feel remorse for consci- ous sins. Man's native selfishness is all-sufficient to make him desire the pleasurable, or natural good, and fear and shun the painful, or natural evil. Those desires and aversions, with the fears and hopes which expectation suggests, and the correspond- ing ten-ors and joys of anticipation, may be stimulated by any natural good or evil, more or less remote, the conception of which occupies the mental attention distinctly. Just as the thought- less child dreads the lash that is expected in the next moment, and the more thoughtful person dreads the lash of next week or next month, just so naturally a carnal man, who is intellectually convinced of his immortality and identity, maj' dread the pains, or rejoice in the fancied pleasures, of another life. He may fear death, not only with the unreasoning instinct of the brute, but also with the rational dread (rational, though purely selfish) of its penal consequences. Selfishness, with awakened attention and mental conviction, suffices fully for all this. In all these feelings there is nothing one whit more characteristic of a new heart, or more controlling of the evil wiU, than in the mcked sensuahst's dread of the colic which may follow his excess, or the determined outlaw's fear of the sheriff. Yet how many de- luded souls fancy that, because they feel these selfish fears or joys in connection vnth. death and judgment, they are becoming strongly religious. And unfortunately they are encouraged hy midtitudes of preachers of the gospel to make this fatal mistake. Turretin has distinguished the truth here by a single pair of phrases, as by a beam of sunlight. He says : Whereas the stony- ground believer embraces Christ solely pro T>ono jucundo, the gospel offers him mainly j!?ro hono honesto. True faith desires
SPUEIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 461
aud embraces Christ cliieiiY as a Saviour from sin and pollution. The false believer embraces him onl}' as a Saviour from suflfer- ing and punishment. Holj Scripture is always careful to repre- sent Christ in the former light. His " name is Jesus because he saves his people from their sins." He gives himself to redeera us from all iniquity, and to purify us unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. But preachers so prevalently paint the gospel as God's method of delivering sinners from penal pains aud bestowing the enjoyment of a sensuous paradise, and the guilty selfishness of hearers is so exclusively exercised about selfish deliverance, that we apprehend most men are permitted to conceive of the gospel remedy solely as a homnn j ucundiini, a provision for simply j)rocuring their selfish advantage. It is true that, if asked, Is not the gospel to make you good also? many of them might reply with a listless "Yes." They have a vague apprehension that their grasping the honum jucundum is somehow conditioned on their becoming better ; and they sup- pose they are willing to accept this uninteresting formality for the sake of the enjoyment that follows it, just as the epicure tolerates the tedious grace for the sake of the dainties which are to come after at the feast. But were one to tell this gour- mand that the grace was the real chief-end of the feast, and the eating a subordinate incident thereto, he would be exceedinglv amazed and incredulous. Such would also be the feeling of many subjects of modern revivals, if the Bible conception of re- demption were forced on their minds. Hence, one great reform in our preaching must be to return to the scriptural presenta- tion of the gospel in this particular. A grand reform is needed here. This grovelling, utilitarian conception of redemption must be banished. Men must be taught that the blessing is only for them " who hunger and thirst after righteousness," not for those who selfishly desire to grasp enjoyment only, and to shun pain. They must be made to see clearly that such a concern does not in the least differentiate them from reprobate souls in hell, or hardened felons on earth; not even from the thievish fox caught in a trap.
The fourth and the most deceptive natural feeling of the car- nal man is instinctive sympathy. It will be necessary to state ihe nature and conditions of this feeling. First, it belongs to
462 SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
the passive sensibilities, not to the spontaneous appetencies. It is purely instinctive, appearing as powerfully in animals as in men. Witness the excitement of a flock of birds over the cries of a single comrade, and the "stampede" of a herd of oxen. Next, it is even in man an unintelhgent feeling in this sense : that if the emotion of another be merely seen and heard, sym- pathy' is propagated, although the sympathizer understands nothing of the cause of the feeling he witnesses. We come upon a child, who is an utter stranger, weeping; we share the sym- pathetic saddening before he has had time to tell us what causes his tears. We enter a room where our friends are drowned in laughter. Before Ave have asked the question, "Friends, what is the Jest?" we find ourselves smiling. We see two strangers- afar off exchanging blows ; we feel the excitement stimulating us to run thither, while ignorant of the quarrel. Sympathy is in its rise unintellisrent and instinctive. The onlv condition re- quisite for it, is the beholding of the feeling in a fellow. Third, this law of feeling extends to all the emotions natural to man. We so often connect the word with the emotion of grief, that we overlook its applicability to other feelings, and we forget even its etymology : Tzad-o:;, in Greek philosophy, did not mean grief only, but every exercise of feeling; so aou-ai^trj is to share by spiritual contagion any 7zat%z we witness in our fellows. We sympathize with merriment, joy, fear, anger, hope, benevolence, moral approbation, courage, panic, just as truly as with grief. Fourth, the nature of the emotion -witnessed determines, without any volition of our own, the nature of the feeling injected into us. Sympathy with J03- is a lesser joy. The glow is that of the secondary rainbow reflecting, but iisually in a weaker degree, precisely the tints of the primary arch.
The reader is now prepared to admit these conclusions : that sympathy may infect men with a phase of religious emotion, as of any other ; that the sympathetic emotions, though thus related as to their source, have no spiritual character whatever in them- selves— for they are involuntary, they are unintelligent, they are passive effects on an instinctive sensibility, giving no expression to the Mill, and not regulating it nor regulated by it. The ani- mal feels these sympathies as really as the man.
The reader should notice that these propositions are asserted
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 463
only of the simple sensibility, the immediate reflex of strong feeling Tvitnessed. It is not denied that the capacity of sympa- thy is a social trait implanted by a TNdse Creator for practical purposes. It is the instrumental occasion of many useful results. Thus, upon the excitement of sympathy with grief follow the appetency to succor the sufferer, and the benevolent volition. The first is the occasion, not the cause, of the second. On our natural sympathy with the actions we ^\'itness, follows our im- pulse to imitate. But imitation is the great lever of education. So sympathy has been called the sacred " orator's right arm." Let us understand precisely what it could and cannot do in gaining lodgment for divine truth in the sinner's soul. This truth and this alone is the instrument of sanctification. To Presbyterians the demonstration of this is superfluous. It is impossible for the truth to work sanctification except as it is in- telligentlv received into the mind. Light must reach the heart through the understanding, for the soul only feels healthily ac- cording as it sees. To the inattentive mind the truth being unheard, is as though it were not. Hence it is of prime impor- tance to awaken the listless attention. Whatever innocently does this is therefore a useful preliminary instrument for appl}-- ing the truth. This, sympathy aids to effect. The emotion of the orator arouses the slumbering attention of the sinner, and temporarih' wins his ear for the sacred word. Another influence of awakened sympathy may also be conceded. By one applica- tion of the law of association, the warmth of a feeling existing in the mind is communicated temporarily to any object coexisting with it in the mind ; though that object be in itself indifferent to that soul. The stone dropped into the heated furnace is not combustible, is no source of caloric ; but by contact it imbibes some of the heat which flames there, and remains hot for a little time after it is drawn out. So the mind warmed with emotion, either original or sympathetic, is a furnace which gives some of its warmth to truth or concepts coexisting in it, otherwise cold and indifferent to it. But the warmth is merely temporary.
The whole use, then, of the sympathetic excitement is to catch the attention and warm it. But it is the truth thus lodged in the attention that must do the whole work of sanctification. Here is the all-important discrimination. Attention, sympa-
464 SPUEIOUS EELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
tlietic warmtli, are merely a preparation for casting in the seed of the Word. The preacher who satisfies himself with exciting the sympathies, and neglects to throw in at once the vital truth, is like the husbandman who digs and rakes the soil, and then idly expects the crop, though he has put in no living seed. The only result is a more rampant growth of weeds. How often do we see this mistake committed! The preacher either displays, in his own person, a high-wrought religious emotion, or stirs the natural sensibilities by painting in exciting and pictorial words and gestures, some natural feeling connected by its occa- sion with a religious topic, as a touching death or other bereave- ment ; or he stimulates the selfish fears by painting the agonies of a lost soul, or the selfish desires and hopes by a sensuous description of the pleasures of heaven. Then, if sympathetic feeUng is awakened, or the carnal passions of hope, fear and desire are moved, he acts as though his work were done. He permits and encourages the hearers to flatter themselves that they are religious, because they are feeling something round about religion. I repeat : if this stimulation of carnal and sym- pathetic feeling is not at once and wisely used, and used solely as a secondary means of fixing a warmed attention on didactic truth, which is the sole instrument of conversion and sanctifica- tion, then the preacher has mischievously abused the souls of his hearers. The first and most olivious mischief is the encour- agement of a fatal deception and self-flatter}'. Unrenewed men are tacitly invited to regard themselves as either born again, or at least in a most encouraging progress towards that blessing ; while in fact they have not felt a single feeling or principle which may not be the mere natural product of a dead heart. This de- lusion has slain its "tens of thousands."
The reader mil remember the masterly exposition by Bishoj^ Butler of the laws of habit as affecting the sensibilities and active powers. Its truth is too fully admitted to need argument. By this law of habit, the sensibilities are inevitably diilled by repeated impressions. By the same law, the appetencies and will are strengthened by voluntary erercise. Thus, if impres- sions on the sensibilities are followed by their legitimate exer- tion of the active jjowers, the soul as a whole, while it grows calmer and less excitable, grows stronger and more energetic in
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 465
its activities, and is confirmed in the paths of right action. But if the sensibihties are stimulated by objects which make no call, and offer no scope for right action, as by fictitious and unreal pictures of liiiman passion, the soul is uselessly hackneyed and worn, and thus depraved. Here we find one of the fundamental objections to habitual novel reading. The excitement of the sympathies by warmly colored, but unreal, portraitures of pas- sions, where there cannot possibly be any corresponding right action by the reader inasmuch as the agents and sufferers are imaginary, depraves the sensibilities without any retrieval of the soul's state in the corresponding cultivation of the active powers. The longer such reading is continued, the more does the young person become at once sentimental and unfeeling. The result is a selfish and morbid craving for excitement, coupled with a callous selfishness, dead to the claims of real charity and duty. The same objection lies against theatrical exhibitions, and for the same reason. Now this species of spurious religious excite- ment is obnoxious to the same charge. In its practical results it is fictitious. The merely sensational preacher is no more than a novelist or a comedian, with this circumstance, that he con- nects topics, popularly deemed rehgious, with his fictitious arts. He abuses and hackneys the souls of his hearers in the same general wa}^, rendering them at once sentimental and hard, selfishly fond of excitement, but callous to conscience and duty.
Once more ; spiritual pride is as natural to man as breathing, or as sin. Its only corrective is sanctifying grace. Let the suggestion be once lodged in a heai-t not really humbled and cleansed by grace, that the man is reconciled to God, has " be- come good," is a favorite of God and heir of glory — that soul cannot fail to be swept away b}^ the gales of spiritual pride. Let observation teach us here. Was there ever a deceived votary of a false religion, of Islam, of Buddhism, of Brahmanism, of Popery, who was not in reality puffed up by spiritual pride ? It cannot be otherwise with a deceived votary of a Protestant creed. The circumstance that there is divine truth in this creed, which has no vital influence on his heart, is no safeguard. The only preventive of spiritual pride is the contrition which accom- jpanies saving repentance. Here, also, is the explanation of the
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466 SPURIOUS EELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
fact, that the heart}' votaries of those professedly Christian creeds which liave more of Pelagiauism than of gospel iu thern,^ are most bigoted and most hopelessly inaccessible to truth. Their adamantine shield is spiritual pride, fostered by a spurious hope, and unchasteued by sovereign grace. Of all such self- deceivers our Saviour has decided that "the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom before them."
These plain facts and principles condemn nearly every feature of the modern new measure "revival." The preaching and other religious instructions are shaped with a main view to ex- cite the carnal emotions and the instinctive sympathies, while no due care is taken to present saving, didactic truth to the un- derstanding thus temporarily stimulated. As soon as some per- sons, professed Christians, or awakened " mourners," are infected with any lively passion, let it be however carnal and fleeting, a spectacular display is made of it, with confident laudations of it as unquestionably precious and saving, with the design of ex- citing the remainder of the crowd Tvith the sympathetic con- tagion. Every adjunct of fiery declamation, animated singing, groans, tears, exclamations, noisy prayers, is added so as to shake the nerves and add the tumult of a hysterical animal ex- citement to the sympathetic Avave. Every youth or impressible girl who is seen to tremble, or grow pale, or shed tears, is as- sured that he or she is under the workings of the Holy Spirit, and is driven by threats of vexing that awful and essential Agent of salvation to join the spectacular show, and add himself to the exciting pantomime. Meanwhile, most probably their minds are blank of every intelligent or conscientious ^dew of the truth ; they had been tittering or whispering a httle while before, during the pretended didactic pai-t of the exercises ; they could give no intelligent account now of their own siidden excitement, and, in fact, it is no more akin to any spiritual, rational, or sanctifying cause, than the quiver of the nostrils of a horse at the sound of the bugle and the fox-hounds. But they join the mourners, and the manipulation proceeds. Of course, the sympathetic wave, called religious, reaches them more and more. As I have shown, it is the very nature of sympathy to assume the character of the emotion with which we sympathize. Thus this purely natural .and instinctive sensibility takes on the form of religious feeling^
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Ijecause it is sympathy witli religious feeling in others. The subject calls it by rehgious names — avv-akening, conyiction, re- pentance— while in reality it is only related to them as a man's shadow is to the living man. Meantime, the preachers talk to them as though the feelings were certainly genuine and spiritual. With this sympathetic current there may mingle sundry deep original feelings about the soul, to which, we have seen, the dead, carnal heart is fully competent by itself. These are fear, remorse, shame, desire of applause, craving for future, selfish, welfare, spiritual pride. Here we have the elements of every spurious grace. The "sorrow of the world that worketh death'* is mistaken for saving repentance. By a natural law of the feel- ings, relaxation must follow high tension — the calm must suc- ceed the storm. This quiet is confounded with "peace in believing." The selfish prospect of security produces great elation. This is supposed to be spiritual joy. When the soul is removed from the sthnuU of the revival appliances, it of course sinks into the most painful vacuity, on which supervene restless- ness and doubt. So, most naturally, it craves to renew the illu- sions, and has, for a time, a certain longing for and pleasui'e in the scenes, the measures, and the agents of its pleasing intoxi- cation. These are mistaken for love for God's house, worship and people. Then the befooled soul goes on until it is betrayed into an erroneous profession of religion, and a dead church membership. He is now in the position in which the great enemy of souls wordd most desire to have him, and where his salvation is more difficult and improbable than anywhere else.
The most fearful part of these transactions is the unscriptural rashness of the professed guides of souls. They not only permit and encourage these jDerilous confusions of thought, but pass judgment on the exercises of their supposed converts with a haste and confidence which angels would shudder to indulge. Here, for instance, is a hurried, ignorant young person, no real jjains having been taken to instruct his understanding in the nature of sin and redemption, or to test his apprehension of gospel truths. In his tempestuoiis excitement of fear and sympathy, he is told that he is unquestionably under the influence of God's Spirit. When he has been coaxed, or flattered, or wearied into
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some random declaration that he thinks he loves his Saviour, jojfnl proclamation is made that here is another sonl born to God, and the brethren are called on to rejoice over him. But no time has been allowed this supposed convert for self-exami- nation ; no care to discriminate between spiritual and carnal affections, or for the sul)sideiice of the froth of animal and sym- pathetic excitements ; no delay is allowed to see the fruits of holy living, the onlj' test which Christ allows as sufficient for other than the omniscient judgment. Thus, over-zealous and heed- less men, ignorant of the first principles of psychology, and unconscious of the ruinous effects they may be producing, sport with the very heart-strings of the spiritual life, and that in the most critical moments. It were a less criminal madness for a surgeon's raw apprentice to try experiments with his master's keen bistoury on the patient's jugular vein.
These abuses are the less excusable in any minister, because the Scriptures which he holds in his hands tell him j)lainly enough without the lights of philosophy, the wrongness of all these practices. No inspired apostle ever dared to pass a ver- dict upon the genuineness of a case of religious excitement with the rashness seen on these occasions. Christ has forewarned us that converts can only be known correctly by their fruits. Paul has sternly enjoined every workman upon the visible church, •whose foundation is Christ, to "take heed how he buildeth thereupon." He has told us that the materials placed by us upon this structure may be genuine converts, as permanent as gold, silver, and costly stones ; or worthless and pretended con- verts, comparable to " wood, hay and stubble ;" that our work is to be all tried by the fire of God's judgments, in which our per- ishable additions mil be burned up; and if we are ourselves saved, it will be as though we were saved by fire. The terrible residts of self-deception and the deceitfulness of the heart are dwelt upon, and men are urged to self-examination.
The idterior evils of these rash measures are immense. A standard and tj^pe of religious experience are propagated by them in America, as utterly unscriptural and false as those pre- valent in Popish lands. So long as the subjects are susceptible of the sympathetic passion, they are taught to consider them- selves in a high and certain state of grace. All just and scrip-
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tnral marks of a gracious state are overlooked and even despised. Is tlieir conduct immoral, tlieir temper bitter and unchristian, their minds utterly dark as to distinctive gospel truths? This makes no difference; thej are still excited and "happified" in meetings ; thev sing and shout, and sway to and fro with reli- gious feehngs. Thus these worthless, sj^mpathetic passions are trusted in as the sure signatures of the Spirit's work.
Of the man who passes through this process of false conver- sion, our Saviour's declaration is eminently true : " The last state of that man is worse than the first." The cases are not few which backslide early, and are again " converted," until the process has been repeated several times. These men are usually found most utterly hardened and profane, and hopelessly imper- vious to divine truth. Their souls are utterly seared by spuri- ous fires of feeling. The state of those who remain undeceived, and in the communion of the church, is almost as hopeless. "Having a name to live, they are dead." Their misconception as to their own state is armor of proof against warning.
The results of these "revivals" are usually announced at once, with overweening confidence, as works of God's Spirit. A minis- ter reports to his church paper that he has just shared in a glo- rious work at a given place, in which the Holy Ghost was pre- sent -svith power, and "forty sovils were born into the kingdom." Now, the man of common sense will remember how confidently this same revivalist made similar reports last year, the year be- fore, and perhaps many years previously. He was each time equally confident that it was the Spirit's work. But this man must know that in each previous case, time has ah'eady given stubborn refutation to his verdict upon the work. Four-fifths of those who, he was certain, were converted by God, hove al- ready gone back to the world, and declare that they were never converted at all. The means he has just used in his last revival are precisely the same used in his previous ones. The false fruits wore at first just the aspect which his last converts now wear. Is it not altogether probable that they are really of the same unstable character? But this minister declares positively that these are God's works. Now, the cool, critical world looks on and observes these hard facts. It asks. What sort of people are these special guardians and expounders of Christianity ? Are
470 SPUKIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
they romantic fools, who cannot be taught by clear experience, or are they conscious and intentional liars? The world is quite charitable, and probably adopts the former solution. And this solution, that the representatives of Christianity are men hope- lessly and childishly overweening in their delusions, carries this corollary for the most of worldly men avIio adopt it : That Chris- tianity itself is an unhealthy fanaticism, since it makes its chosen teachers such fanatics, unteachable by solid facts. Thus, the Christian ministry, who ought to be a class venerable in the eyes of men, are made contemptible. Civility restrains the expres- sion of this estimate, but it none the less degrades the ministry in the eyes of intelligent men of the world, as a class who are excused from the charge of conscious imposture only on the theory of their being incurably silly and fanatical.
In the denominations which most practice the so-called " re- vival measures," abundance of facts obtrude themselves which are conclusive enough to open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Instances may be found, where annual additions have been reported, such that, if the sums were taken, and only subjected to a fair deduction for deaths and removals, these churches should number hundreds, or even a thousand members, and should be in a splendid state of prosperity. But the same church-reports still set these churches do"UTi as containing fifty or seventy members. Others, which have been boasting these magnificent processes, are moribund, and some have been "re- vived" to death.
But the men who work this machinery, notwithstanding the fatal condemnation of the facts, are not blind! What are the causes of their jDerseverauce in methods so worthless? One cause is, doubtless, an honest, but ignorant zeal. In the bustle and heat of this zeal, they overlook the unpleasant facts, and still go on, "supposing that they verily do God service." An- other subtile and far-reaching cause is an erroneous, synergistic theology. The man who believes in the efficient cooperation of the sinner's "will with the divine will, in the initial quickening of his soul, will, of course, seek to stimulate that human will to the saving acts by all the same expedients by which men seek to educe in their fellows carnal acts of will. Why not? Why should not the evangelist practice to ei'oke that act cf will from
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 471
tlie man on wliicli lie belieA' es tlie sa\T[ng actiou of tlie Almiglity pivots, by tlie same kind of arts tlie recruiting sergeant practices — the martial song, tlie tlirilling fife and paljjitating drum, the spectacular disj^laj of preyious recruits in their shining new uniforms — until the young yeoman has "committed" himself by taking the "queen's shilling"? That volition settles it that the queen is to make him her soldier. It must be the youth's de- cision, but, when once made for a moment, it decides his state. Thus a synergistic theology fosters these "revival measures," as they, in turn, incline towards a synergistic creed. Doubtless, many ministers are unconsciously swayed by the natural love of excitement. This is the same instinct which leads school-boys and clowns to run to -^dtness a dog-fight, Spaniards to the cock- fight and the bull-fight, sporting men to the pugilist's ring, and theatre-goers to the comedy. This natural instinct prompts many an evangelist, mthout his being distinctly aware of it, to prefer the stirring scenes of the spurious revival to the sober, quiet, laborious work of religious teaching. But it is obvious that this motive is as unworth}^ as it is natural.
Another motive which prompts men to persevere in these demonstrably futile methods is the desire to count large and immediate results. To this they are spurred by inconsiderate, but honest zeal, and by the partisan rivalries of their denomi- nations. These unworthy motives they sanctify to themselves, and thus conceal from their own consciences the real complexion of them. No word is needed to show how unwise and unsuit- able they are to the Christian minister. Here should be pointed out the intrinsic weakness of the current system of employing travelling revivalists in settled churches. No matter how ortho- dox the man may be, the very nature of his task lays a certain urgency and stress upon him, to show, somehow, immediate results before the close of his meeting. If he does not, the very ground of his vocation as a "revivalist" is gone. He has been sent for to do this one thing, to gratify the hopes, zeal and pride of the good people by, at least, a show of immediate fruits. If he fails in this, he will not be sent for. This is too strong a temptation for any mere mortal to endure without yielding. But the prime fact which decides all true results of gospel means is, that the Holy Ghost alone is the Agent of effectual calling ; and
472 SPUEIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
He is sovereign. His new-creating breath " blowetli wliere it listeth." His command to tlie sower of the word may be ex- pressed in Solomon's words : " In the morning sow thy seed; • and in the evening hold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that." The best minister on earth may be appointed by God's secret purpose to the sad mission given to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and even to their Lord during his earthly course, "to stretch forth their hands all the day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people." Hence, this evangelist has put himself under an almost fatal temptation to resort to some illicit expedients which will produce, in appear- ance, immediate results. How few, even of the orthodox, escape that temptation !
An old and shrewd pi-actitioner of these human means of religious excitements, was once asked by a man of the world, "if it were possible he could be blind to the futility of most of the pretended conversions ? " The answer was : " Of course not ; we are not fools." "Why then," said the man, " do you employ these measures?" The preacher answered: "Because a few are truly converted, and make stable, useful Christians ; and the rest when they find out the shallowness of their experiences, are simply where they were before." The worldly-wise preacher's statement involved two capital errors. It assumed that the "re- vival measures " were the effective instruments of the conversion of the genuine few ; and that withoiit these expedients they would have remained out of Christ. This is utterly false. The solid conversion of those souls took place not by cause of, but in spite of, the human expedients. The work was the result of sober Christian example, and previous didactic teaching in gos- pel truths, and had there been no " revival measures " these souls would have come out for Christ, perhaps a little later, but more intelligently and decisively. The mistake as to the second class, "the stony ground believers," is far more tragical. Tliey are not left wJtere they v;ere l)efore ; " the last state of these men is worse than the first." I will not repeat the explanation of the depraving influences sure to be exerted upon the heart ; but I wall add one still more disastrous result. These deceptive pro- cesses usually end in making the s^ihjects infidels. Some who keep their names on the communion rolls are secret infidels;
SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 473
nearly all wlio withdraw tlieir names are open infidels, unless tliej are too unthinking and ignorant to reflect and draw infer- ences. First, ever}' young person who has a spark of self-respect is mortified at being thrust into a false position, especially on so high and solemn a subject. Pride is wounded. He feels that he has been imposed on, and resents it. This wounded pride, unwilHng to take the blame on itself, directs its anger against the agents of the mortifying cheat. But to despise the representa- tives of Christianity is practically very near to despising Chris- tianity. The most earnest and clear-minded of these temporary converts has now what appears to him, Avith a terrible plausibil- ity, the experimental argument to prove that evangelical religion is a deception. He says he knows he was honest and sincere in the noA^el exercises to which he was subjected, and in a sense he says truly. The religious teachers themselves assured him, in the name of God, that they were genuine works of grace. Did they not formally publish in the religious journals that it was the Holy Spirit's work? If these appointed teachers do not know, who can ? Yet now this backslider says himself, " I have the stubborn proof of a long and sad experience, a prayerless and godless life, that there never was any real spiritual change in me." Who can be more earnest than he was? It is, then, the logical conclusion, that all supposed cases of regeneration are deceptive. "Many," he says, "have had the honesty like myself to come out of the church candidly, shoulder the mor- tification of their mistake, and avow the truth." Those who remain "professors" are to be accounted for in two ways. The larger part know in their hearts just as well as we do, that their exercises were always a cheat, but they prefer to live a lie, rather than make the humiliating avowal, and for these we feel only contempt. The minority remain honestly self-deceived by reason of impressible and enthusiastic temperaments. For these, if they are social and moral, and do not cant, we can feel most kindly, and respect their amiable delusion. It would be unkind to distrust it. This reasoning having led them to dis- credit entirely the work of the Holy Ghost, leads next to the denial of his personality. The backslider sinks to the ranks of a gross Socinian, or becomes a Deist or an Agnostic. Let the history of our virtual infidels be examined and their early reli-
474 SPUEIOUS EELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS.
gions life traced ; here will be found the source and cause of their error. " Their name is Legion." He who inquires of the openly ungodly adults of our land, will be astounded to find how large a majority of them were once in the church. They conceal, as well as they can, what they regard as the "disgraceful episode" in their history. Their attitude is that of silent, but cold and impregnable skepticism, based, as they think, on the argument of actual experience. In fact, spurious revivals we honestly re- gard as the chief bane of our Protestantism. We believe that they are the chief cause, under the prime source, original sin, which has deteriorated the average standard of holy living, principles, and morality, and the church discipline of our reli- gion, until it has nearly lost its practical power over the public conscience. Striking the average of the whole nominal membership of the Protestant churches, the outside world does not credit us for anv higher standard than we are in the habit of ascribing to the Synagogue, and to American Popery. How far is the world wrong in its estimate ? That denom- ination which shall sternly use its ecclesiastical authority, under Christ's law, to inhibit these human methods and to compel its teachers back to the scriptiu'al and only real means, will earn the credit of being the defender of an endangered gospel.
One corollary from this discussion is : How perilous is it to entrust the care of souls to an ignorant zeal! None but an educated ministry can be expected, humanly speaking, to resist the seductions of the " re^dval measures," or to guard themselves from the plausible blunders we have analyzed above. And the church which entrusts the care of souls to lay-evangelists, self- appointed and irresponsible to the ecclesiastical government appointed by Christ, betrays its charge and duty.
No man is fit for the care of souls, except he is deeply imbued with scriptural piety and grace. He must have a faith firm as a rock, and humble as strong, with profound submission to the divine will, which will calm him amidst all delays and all dis- couragements that God will bless his own word in his own chosen time. He must have that self-abnegation which will make him willing to bear the evil repute of an unfruitful minis- try, if the Lord so ordains, and unblenchingly refuse to resort
SPUEIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS. 475
io any unauthorized means to escape tliis cross. He must have the moral courage to withstand that demand of ill-considered zeal in his brethren, parallel to the ardor purus civiu^n juve- nium in pohtics. He must have the unflagging diligence and love for souls which will make him persevere in preaching the gospel pubhcly, and from house to house, under the delay of fruit. Nothing can give these except large measures of grace and prayer.
FOAL CAUSE.^
OF the four " causes," or necessary conditions of every new effect, taught by Aristotelians, the last was the "Final Cause," TO T£?.o(;, or zo oh iuexa, "that for the sake of which" this effect was produced. This result, for the sake of which the effect has been produced, is termed "final," because it is of the nature of a designed end ; and " cause," in that it has obviously influenced the form or shape given to the result, and the selec- tion of materials and physical causes employed. Final cause thus always involves a judgment adapting means to an end, and implies the agency of some rational agent.
2. The question. Do any of the structures of nature evince final cause? is the same with the question. Is the " teleological argument " valid to prove the being of a personal and rational Creator ? The essence of that argument is to infer that, wherever nature presents us with structures, and especially organs adapted to natural ends, there has been contrivance, and also choice of the physical means so adajoted. But contrivance and choice are functions of thought and will, such as are per- formed only by some rational person. And so, as material nature is not intelligent or free, such adapted structures as man did not produce must be the work of a supernatural jDerson. This reasoning has satisfied every sound mind. Pagan and Chris- tian, from Job to Newton. Yet it is now boldly assailed by evolutionists.
3. Some attempt to borrow an objection which Descartes, very inconsistently for him, suggested: That "he deems he cannot without temerity attempt to investigate God's ends" {3fedita- tions, iv. 20). "We ought not to arrogate to ourselves so much as to suppose that we can be sharers of God's counsels" {Prm. Phil. i. 28) . The argument is, that if there is an intelligent First Cause, he must be of infinite intelligence ; whence it is presump-
' TMa paper was read before the Victoria Institute, London, Feb. 15, 1886.
476
FINAL CAUSE. 477
tuous in a finite mind to say that, in given effects, lie was prompted by sucli or sucli designs. We are out of our deptli. But the reply is, that this objection misstates the point of our doctrine. We /do not presume to say, in advance of the practi- cal disclosure of God's purposes in a given work, what they are, or ought to be ; or that we know all of them exactly ; but only that he is prompted in his constructions by some rational piir- pose. And this is not presumptuous, but profoundly reveren- tial ; for it is but concluding that God is too wise to have motive- less volitions. Again, when we see certain structures obviously adapted to certain functions, and regularly performing them, it is not an arrogant, but a supremely reverential inference, that those functions were among God's purposed ends in producing those structures; for this is but concluding that the thing we see him do is a thing he meant to do !
4. Next, we hear many quoting Lord Bacon against the study of final causes. They would fain represent him as teaching that the assertion of final causes is incompatible with, and ex- clusive of, the establishment of efficient physical causes. But as these latter are the real, proximate producers of all j:>7ie- 7iomena, it is by the study of them that men gain all their mastery over nature, and make all true advances in science. Whence, they argue, all study or assertion of final causes is inimical to true science. Thus they quote Bacon, as, for in- stance, in the JVovu^n OrgcuvuDX (lib. i. Apothegm, 48) : " Yet the human intellect, not knowing where to pause, still seeks for causes more known. Then, tending after the remoter, it recoils from the nearer ; to- wit, to final causes, which are plainly rather from the nature of man, than of the Universe; and from this source they have corrupted philosophy in wondrous ways."
5. Now, Lord Bacon's own words prove that he does not con- demn, but highly esteems the inquiry after final causes in its proper place, the higher philosophy and natural theology. He is himself a pronounced theist, and infers his confident belief in God from the teleological argument. The whole extent of his caution is, that when the matter in hand is physical, and the problem is to discover the true, invariable, physical efficient of ii class of phenomena, we confuse ourselves by mixing the ques- tion of final cause. Thus, in the Advancement of Learning^ he
478 FINAL CAUSE.
himself divides true science into physical and metaphysical ; the former teaching the physical efficients of efiects ; the latter, un- der two divisions, teaching: 1. The Doctrine of Forms; 2. The Doctrine of Final Causes. And this third, culminating in the- ology, he deems the splendid apex of the pp-amid of human knowledge.
6. In the second book of his work on the Advancement of Learning he says : " The second part of metaphysics is the in- quiry into final causes, which I am moved to report, not as omitted, but as misplaced ;"— (he then gives instances of propo- sitions about final causes improperly thrust into physical inqui- ries;)— "not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province ; but be- cause these excursions into the limits of physical causes have bred a vastness and solitude in that track. For otherwise, keep- ing their precincts and borders, men are extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy between them."
7. In fact, the two imply each other. If there is a God pur- suing his purposed ends, or final causes, he will, of course, pur- sue these through the efficient physical causes. It is the very- adaptation of these to be the right means for bringing God's ends, under the conditions established by his providence, which discloses final causes. It is the physical cause, gravity, which adapts the clock-weight to move the wheels and hands of the clock. Shall we, therefore, say it is contradictory to ascribe to the clock, as its final cause, the function of indicating time? Does the fact that the physical cause — gravity — produces the motions weaken the inference we draw from the complicated adjustments, that this machine had an intelligent clockmaker? No ; the strength of that inference is in this very fact, that here the bhnd force of gravity is caused to realize an end so unlike its usual physical eJBfects in the fall of hailstones and raindrops, of leaves and decayed branches.
8. The evolutionist says, then, that since the physical cause is efficient of the effect, this is enough to account for all actual results, without assigning any "final cause." The lens, for in- stance, has physical power to refract light. If Ave find a natural leyis in a human eye, we have sufficient cause to account for the formation of the spectrum, the function from which theists infer
FINAL CAUSE.
479
tlieir final cause ; and the logical mind Lias no need to resort to a theory of "contrivance" and "final cause" for this organ. Function is not the determining cause, but only the physical re- sult of the existence of the organ. Birds did not get wings in order to fly, but they simply fly because they have wings. As to the complex structures called organs, the evolutionist thinks his theory accounts for their existence, without any rational agent pursuing purposed ends. That just this configuration of a universe, with all its complicated structures, is physically pos- sible (/. e. possible as the result of physical causes), is sufficiently proved by the fact, that it exists as it is ; for theists themselves admit that it is the physical causes which contain the efficient causation of it. These are, as interpreted by evolutionists, slight differentiations from the parent types, in natural repro- ductions (variations which may be either slightly hurtful to the progeny, slightly beneficial, or neutral), the plastic action of environment in developing rudimental organs, and the survival of the fittest. Allow, now, a time sufficiently vast for these causes to have exhibited, countless numbers of times, all possi- ble variations and developments ; under the rule of the survival of the fittest, the actual configurations we see may have become permanent, while all the agencies bringing them to pass acted unintelligently and fortuitously.
9. Such, as members of this institute well know, is the latest position of anti-theistic science, so-called. The whole plausi- bility is involved in a confusion of the notions of fortuity and causation. This we now proceed very simply to unravel. The universal, necessary, and intuitive judgment, that every effect must have an adequate cause, ensures every man's thinking that each event in a series oi phenomena must have such a cause pre- ceding it, however we may fail in detecting it. In this sense, we cannot believe that any event is fortuitous. But the concur- rence or coincidence of two such events, each in its place in its own series caused, may be thought by us as uncaused, the one event by the other or its series, and thus the concurrence, not either event, may be thought as truly fortuitous. Thus, the coincidence of a comet's nearest approach to our planet, with a disastrous conflagration in a capital city, may be believed by us to be, so far as the concurrence in time is concerned, entirely
480 rrxAL cause.
Toy cliance. AVe no longer believe that comets have anv power to "shake war, pestilence or fire from their horrent hair" on oiu' earth. Yet we have no doubt that a physical canse propels that comet in its orbit every time it approaches the earth, or that some adequate local cause "s\Tought that conflagration in the metropolis. But, now, suppose this coincidence of the comet's perigee and the conflagration should recur a number of times? The reason would then see, in the frequency and regularity of that recurrence, a new phenomenon, additional to the indi- vidual ones of comet and fire; a new effect as much requiring its own adequate cause, as each of these demands its physical cause. This regular recurrence of the coincidence is now an additional fact. It cannot be accounted for by fortuity. Its regularity forbids that supposition. The physical cause of each event, comet's approach and conflagi-ation, is adequate, each to the production of its own effect. But the new effect to be ac- counted for is the concurrence. This is regular; but we know that the sure attribute of the results of blind chance or fortuity is uncertainty, irregularity, confusion. The very first recm'rence of such a coincidence begets a faint, jjrobable expectation of a new connecting cause. All logicians agree that this probability mounts up, as the instances of regular concurrence are multi- plied, in a geometric ratio ; and when the instances become numerous, the expectation of an additional coordinating cause becomes the highest practical certainty. It becomes rationally impossible to believe that these frequent and regular concur- rences of the effects came from the bHnd, fortuitous coincidence of the physical causes, acting each separately from the other.
10. The real case, then, is this : each physical cause, as such, is only efficient of the immediate, blind result next to it. Grant it the conditions, and it can do this one thing always, and al- ways as bhndly as the first time. Gra"snty will cause the mass thrown into the air to fall back to the earth, to fall anywhere, or on anything, gravity neither knowing nor caring where. But here are several batteries of cannon set in array to break down an enemy's wall. "What we observe as fact is, that the guns throw sohd shot convergently at every discharge, u2)on a sin- gle fixed spot in the opposing cuitain, -^dth the evident design to concentrate then* force and break down one chasm in that
FINAL CAUSE. 481
-wall. Now, it is a mere mockery to say that, given the cannon and the balls, the explosive force of gunpowder, and gra^-ity, the fall of these shots is accounted for. These physical causes would account for their random fall, anywhere, uselessly, or as probably upon the heads of the gunners' friends. The thing to be accounted for is their regular convergence. This is an addi- tional fact ; the blind physical causes do not and cannot account for it ; it discloses design.
11. The human eye, for instance, is composed of atoms of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, with a few others of phos- phorus and lime. Chemical affinity may arrange an ounce or two of these atoms into a compound, which may be, so far as any determination of that blind cause goes, of any shape, or amorphous, fluid or solid, usefal, useless, or hurtful to sensitive beings. But here are countless millions of reptiles, birds, quad- rupeds, and men, creatures designed to live in the light and air, of whom the men number twelve hundred millions at least, in each individual of whom there is a pair of eyes, except in the imperfect births. Numerous and exceedingly delicate adjust- ments were necessary in each separate eye to effectuate the end of an eye — vision. The pupil must open on the exterior front, and not somewhere within the socket ; the interior of the ball must be a camera obscura. There must be refracting, transpar- ent bodies to bend the rays of light ; achromatic refraction must be produced; focal distances must be adjusted aright; there must be a sensitive sheet of nerve to receive the spectrum ; the sensation of this image must be conveyed by the optic chords to the sensor luTii ; the animal's perceptive faculty must be coor- dinated as a cognitive power to this sensorial feeling ; the brow and lids must be contrived to protect the wondrous organ. Here, already, is a number of coincidences, and the failure of one would prevent the end — vision. Let the probability that the unintelligent cause, chemical affinity, would, in its blindness, hit upon one of these requisites of a seeing eye, be expressed by any fraction, we care not how large. Then, according to the established law of logic, the probability that the same cause will produce a coincidence of two requisites is found by multi- plying together the two fractions representing the tM'O separate probabilities. Thus, also, the joint concurrence of a third has
Vol. III.— 31.
482 FINAL CAUSE.
a probability expressed by the very small fraction produced by multiplying together the three denominators. Before we have done with the coordinations of a single eye, we thus have a pro- bability, almost infinitely great, against its production by physi- cal law alone. But in each head are two eyes, concurring in single vision, which doubles the almost infinite improbability. It is multiplied again by all the millions of the human and ani- mal races. But this is not all. To say nothing of the coinci- dence of means in inorganic and vegetable nature, there are in animals many other organs besides eyes, which, if not as com- plicated, yet exhibit their distinct coordinations. These must multiply the improbability that fortuity produced all the former results ! Thus the power of members and the capacity of hiiman conception are exhausted before we approach the absurdity of this theory of the production of ends in nature without final cause.
12. We look, then, at these combinations of means to results or functions, which unintelligent physical causes could not ac- count for, and we perceive this further fact : Adjustments or co- ordinations are regularly made, in order to certain ends. Tlie nature of the end proposed has determined the nature of the physical means selected, and the combination thereof. Thus, as the ship is evidently designed and purposed for sailing, so is the ear for hearing, and the eye for seeing. The function of sailing has determined the materials and structure of the ship ; the function of hearing, those of the ear; the function of seeing, those of the eye. But the ship-building must be before the sail- ing; the ear and eye must exist before the hearing and seeing. The facts which we have, then, are these : Here are ends, com- ing after their means, which yet have acted causatively on their own precedent means! But every physical cause precedes its own effect. No physical cause can act until it exists. Here^ however, are ends, Avhich exercise the influence of causes, and yet, against all physical nature, are causes before they have ex- istence, and act backwards up the stream of time ! Here is the function of sailing, which has effectively caused a given struc- ture in a ship-yard, before this function was.
13. To solve this paradox, there is onl}' one way possible for the human mind. There must have been prescience of that fu-
FINAL CAUSE. 483
ture function. It is impossible that it can have acted causally, as we see it act in fact, except as it is foreseen. But foresight is cognition ; it is a function of intelligence ; it cannot be less. A mind has been at work, preconceiving that function and the things requisite to it, choosing the appropriate means, purpos- ing the effective coordinations therefor, and thus shaping the work of the physical causes. Tliis is "Jinal cmise.''
14. There is one sphere within which the mind has intuitive and absolute knowledge of the working of final causes, as every atheist admits. This is the sphere of one's own consciousness and will. The man knows that he himself pursues final causes when he conceives and elects future ends, selects means, and adapts them to his own purposed results. But is he not equally certain that his fellow-man also pursues final causes ? Doubt- less. It is instructive to inquire how he comes to that certainty as to his fellow's soul. He has no actual vision of that other's subjective states. Men have no windows in their breasts into which their neighbors peep, and actually see the machinery of mind and will moving. But this man knows that his fellow is pursuing final causes generically like those he consciously pur- sues himself, because he observes the other's outward acts, and infers final causes in the other's mind from the great mental law of "like causes, like effects," by an induction guided by the perfect visible analogy.
15. But when we observe, in nature, these visible actions ex- actly analogous to combinations seen in our fellow-man when he pursues his final causes, why do not the same analogy and induction justify us in ascribing the same solution, — that there are final causes in nature also? Why is not the one induction as valid as the other? There is no difference. It is vain to object, that whereas we see in our fellow a rational j)erson, we see in nature no personality, but only sets of material bodies and natural causations; for it is not true that we see in our neighbor a rational person, competent to deal with final causes. His soul is his personahty ! And this is no more directl}' visi- ble to us than God is visible in nature. "\\^iat we see in our neighbor is a series of bodily actions executed by members and limbs as material as the physical organs of animals ; it is only by an induction from a valid analogy between his acts and our
484 FINAL CAUSE.
own that we learn tlie rational personality behind his material actions. The analogy is no weaker which shows ns God's per- sonality behind the final causes of nature. The question re- turns, VThy is it not as yalid ?
16. Is a different objection raised: That man's pursuit of his final causes is personal and consciously extra-natural, exercised by jDersonal faculties acting from "W'ithout iipon material nature, while the powers which operate eyerythiug in nature are imma- nent in nature? The replies are two: First, in the sense of this discussion, human nature is not extra-natural, but is one of the ordinary spheres of nature, and is connected with the lower spheres by natural laws as regular as any. When the personal will of a man pursues a final cause, he does it through means purely natural ; there is, indeed, a supra-material power at work, coordinating mind; but nothing extra-natural or supra-natural appears. ^Tiy, then, may we not press an analogy so purely natural through all the spheres of nature? Second, our oppo- nents [Eyolutionists, or Materialists, or Agnostics] refute tliein- selyes fatally, for they are the very men who insist on obliterat- ing even that reasonable distinction which we make between the material and mental spheres. They plead for ononism in some form ; they deny that mind and matter are substantively distinct; they insist on including them in one theory of sub- stance and force. They have, then, utterly destroyed their own premise by denying the very distinction between personal mind and nature, on which alone their objection rests. On their ground, our analogical induction for final cause in natiu'e is a jjerfect proof. They admit that our minds consciously pursue final causes. But mind and physical nature, say they, are mani- festations of the same substance and force. Hence, when we see the parallel coordinations of physical causes to futui'e ends in nature, just like those we consciously employ, there is no other inference possible but that nature, like us, pursues final causes.
17. The exception of Hume and his followers of our genera- tion is already virtually answered. He cavilled that the infer- ence from our conscious employment of final causes to the same fact in nature is unsound, because of the difference between a person and a natural agency. Mr. Mill has echoed the cavil,
FINAL CAUSE. 485
while completely refuting it in another place. Mr. H. Spencer has reproduced it in the charge that the inference labors under the vice of anthroi^oviorjyJdsm ; that it leaps from the conscious experience of our limited minds to an imaginary acting of an infinite mind (if there is any divine mind), about which we can certainly know nothing as to its laws of acting; and it unwai- rantabl}' concludes that this absolute Being chooses and thinks as we finite, dependent beings do. The argumentum ad homi- neiii just stated Avould be a sufficient reply. Or we might urge that, if God has made the human mind " after his image, in his likeness," this would effectually guarantee all our legitimately rational processes of thought against vice from antliropomorpli- isrii ; for, in thinking according to the natural laws of our minds, we would be thinking precisely as God bids us think. And, should Mr. Spencer say that we must not "beg the ques- tion" by assuming this theistic account of man's origin, we might at least retort that neither should he beg the question by denying it. We might also urge that the difference between the normal acting of a finite mind and of an infinite one can only be a difterence of degree, not of essence ; that the thinking of the finite, when done according to its laws of thought, must be good as far as it goes ; only, the divine thinking, while just like it within the narrow limits, goes greatly farther. Sir Isaac New- ton knew vastly more mathematics than the school-child ; yet, when the school-child did its little "sum" in simple addition, " according to rule," Newton would have pronounced it right ; nor would he have done that "sum" in any other than the child's method. Once more : the unreasonableness of the de- mand that we sliall reject any conception of the divine working, though reached by normal (human) inference, merely because it may be anthropomorphic, appears thus. It Avould equally forbid us to think or learn at all, either concerning God, or any Being or concept different from man ; for, if we are not al- lowed to think in the forms of thought natural and normal for lis, we are forbidden to think at all. All man's cognition must be anthropomorphic, or nothing.
18. But the complete answer to these exceptions is in the facts already insisted on: that, in reasoning from "finality" in nature
' Theism., Part I , " Marks of Design in Nature. "
486 FINAL CAUSE.
to " intentiouality," we are but obeying an inevitable necessity; we are not consulting any peculiarity of human laws of thought. In the operations of nature, just as much as in our own consci- ousness, we actually see ends which follow after their physical efficients exerting a causal influence backward, before they come into existence, on the collocations of their own physical means, which precede. There is no way possible in physical nature by which a cause can act before it is. The law of phy- sical causation is absolute ; a cause must have existed in order to operate. Hence we are driven out of physical nature to find the explanation of this thing, — driven, not by some merely hu- man law of thought, but by an absolute necessity of thought. The final cause which acted before it existed must have preexist- ed in forethought. Forethought is a function of mind. There- fore, there must be a Mind behind nature, older and greater than all the contrivances of nature. A great amount of think- ino- has been done in the finalities of nature. VTho did that thinking? Not nature. Then God. The only alternative hy- pothesis is that of chance. "We have seen that hypothesis fall into utter ruin and disgrace before the facts.
19. "Were all the claims of the evolutionist granted, this would not extinguish the teleological argument, but only remove its data back in time, and simplify them in number. For then the facts we should have would be these : a few, or possibly one primordial form of animated matter, slowly, but regularly-, pro- ducing all the orderly wonders of life, up to man, through the sure action of the simple laws of slight variation, influence of environment, survival of the fittest. Here, again, are wonderful adaptations to ends. And chance would equally be excluded by the numbers, the regularity, the beneficence of the immense results. The problem would recur : Who adjusted those few, but ancient, elements so as to evolve all this ? Teleology is as api3arent as ever. We may even lu-ge that the distance, the multitude, the complex regularity of the later efiects which we now witness, illustrate the greatness of the thinking but the more. The justice of this point may appear fi'om the fact that there are theistic evolutionists who make the very claim just urged. They advance the evolutionist theory, and in the same breath they stoutly assert that in doing so they have not weak-
FINAI. CAUSE. 487
ened, but improved, the grounds of the teleological argument. However we may judge their concession of this improved the- ory of evolution to be unwise and weak, this other assertion is solid, that they are no whit inferior in knowledge or logic to their atheistic comrades and co-laborers, who pronounce the teleological argument dead.
20. The attempt to account for structures adapted to func- tions by evolution has no pretence even of applying, except in organized beings which perpetually reproduce their kinds; for it is the claim of slight variations in generation, and of the fuller development of nascent new organs by the reaction of en- vironment, which form the "working parts" of the theory. But clear instances of finality are not confined to these vegetable and living beings. There are wondrous adaptations in the chemical facts of inorganic nature, in the mechanism of the heavenly bodies, in the facts of meteorology. Here, then, their speculation breaks down hopelessly. Have suns and stars, for instance, attained to their present exquisite adjustments of re- lation and perfection of being by the blind experiments of count- less reproductions? Then the fossil suns, unfitted to survive, ought to lie about us as thick as fossil polypi and moUusks!
21. The claim that a blind conatus towards higher action, felt in the animal, may have assisted the plastic influence of environ- ment from without in developing rudimental organs, cannot as- sist the evolutionists. They differ among themselves as to the mode of such influence ; they contradict each other. Natural history fatally discredits the claim by saying that the organ must bo possessed by the species of animals before any of them could feel any conatus towards its use. Can seeing be before eyes, even in conception? No. How, then, could eyeless ani- mals feel any conatus to see ? Let no one be deluded by the statement that a blind boy among us may feel a yearning to see. He is a defective exception in a seeing species, who do crave to see because they already have eyes, and who suggest to their blind fellow the share in this desire by the other faculty of speech. It still remains true that the species must have eyes beforehand, in order that individuals may experience a conatus for seeing. But the case to be accounted for would be the be- ginning of such conatus in some individual of a species, none of
488 ■ FINAL CAUSE.
wliich had the organ for the function, and in which, conse- quently, none had even the idea of the function or its pleasures as the objective of such desire. If they resort to the assertion that this conatus towards a function may be instinctive and un- intelligent, the fatal answers are : that their own sciences of zoology and physiology assure us that instincts are not found in cases where the organs for their exercise do not exist ; and that an instinctive conatus, being blind and fortuitous, would never produce results of such regularity and completeness, and those exactly alike in each of the multitvides of a species.
22. But the most utter collapse of the attempt to exjjlain the finalities of nature by the laws of a supposed evolution occurs when we approach those classes of organs which complete their development while the influences of environment and function are entirely excluded; and these are exceedingly numerous. The fowl in the shell has already developed wings to fly with, in a marble case which excluded every atom of air, the rnedmvi for flying. So this animal has perfected a j)air of lungs for breathing, where there has never been any air to inhale. It has matured a perfect pair of eyes to see with, in a prison where there has never entered a ray of light. It has an ajyj^arritus of nutrition in complete working order, including the interadjust- ments of beak, tongue, swallow, craw, gizzard, digestive stomach, and intestine, although hitherto its only nutrition has been from the egg which enclosed it, and this has been introduced into its circulation in a difierent manner. This instance of the fowl has been stated in detail, that it may suggest to the hearer a multitude of like ones. The argument is, that physical causes can only act when in juxtaposition, both as to time and place, wdth the bodies which receive their efficiency. But here envi- ronment and function were wholly absent until the results — wings, eyes, ears, lungs, alimentary canal, — were completed. Therefore they had no causal connection whatever as physical causes. Their influence could only have been as final causes.
23. Perhaps the deepest mysteries and wonders of nature are those jDresented in the functions of reproduction. And to these nature attaches her greatest importance, as she shows by many signs, seeing the very existence of the genera and sj)ecies depends on this. The organs of reproduction present instances most
FINAL CAUSE. 489
fatal to our opponents in all those cases where the male organs are in one individual, and the female in a different one of the same species, and where their development is complete before they either can or do react upon each other in any manner. These instances not only include the great majority of the ani- mal species, but many kinds of plants and trees, or, at least, different flowers of the same tree. The organs are exceedingly unlike each other, yet exactly adapted for future cooperation. This fitness is constituted not only by structure of masses, but by the most refined and minute molecular arrangements. If either of these delicate provisions is out of place, nature's end is disappointed. Must not these organs be constructed for each other? Yet the reaction of environment had no influence on their development, for all interaction has been excluded until the maturity of the structures. Final cause is here too clear to admit of doubt when the cases are duly considered.
24. The argument will close with these general assertions. Our conclusion has in its favor the decided assent of the com- mon sense of nearly all mankind, and of nearly all schools of philosophy. All common men of good sense have believed they saw, in the adjustments of the parts of nature to intended func- tions, final causes and the presence of a supernatural mind. The only exceptions have been savages like the African Bushmen,, so degraded as to have attained to few processes of inferential thought on any subject. All speculative philosophers have been fully convinced of the same conclusion, from Job to Hamilton and Janet, except those who have displayed eccentricity in their philosophy, either by materialism, ultra-idealism, or pantheism. This consensus of both the unlearned and the learned will weigh much with the healthy and modest reason.
25. The postulate that each organ is designed for an appro- priate function is the very pole-star of all inductive reasoning and experiment in the study of organized nature. At least, every naturalist proceeds on this maxim as his general principle ; and if he meets instances which do not seem to conform to it, he at once discounts them as lusns 7iaturce, or reserves them for closer inquiry. When the botanist, the zoologist, the student of human physiology, detects a new organ, not described before in his sci- ence, he at once assumes that it has a function. To the ascer-
490 FINAL CAUSE.
tainment of this function lie now directs all liis observations and experiments ; until he demonstrates what it is, he feels that the novelty he has discovered is unexplained ; when he has ascer- tained the function, he deems that he has reduced the new dis- covery into its scientific place. Without the guidance of this postulate of adapted function for each organ, science would be paralyzed, audits order would become anarchy. The instances are so illustrious, from Harvey's inference by the valvular mem- branes in the arteries to a circulation of the blood, down to the last researches of zoology and botany, that citation is needless for the learned. But this postulate is precisely the doctrine of final cause.
26. Belief in final cause is the essential counterpart to, and immediate inference from, the belief in causation. But this is the very foundation of inductive logic. There is no physicist who does not concur with us in saying that all induction from instances observed to laws of nature is grounded in the " uni- formity of nature." But has this nature any stable uniformity? Is not her attribute variation and fickleness? The first aspect of her realm is mutation, boundless mutation. Or, if she is found to have, in another aspect, that stability of causation necessary to found all induction, how comes she, amidst her miitabihties, to have this uniformity? Her own attributes are endless change, and hlhidness. Her forces are absolutely unin- telligent and uuremembering. No one of them is able to know for itself whether it is conforming to anj- previous uniformity or not ; no one is competent to remember any rule to which it ought to conform. Plainly, then, were material nature left to the control of physical laws alone, she must exhibit either a chaotic anarchy, or the rigidity of a mechanical fate. Either condition, if dominant in nature, would equally unfit her to be the home of rational free agents and the subject of inductive science. Let the hearer think and see. Nature is uniform, neither chaotic nor fatahstic, becaiise she is directed by a Mind, because intelligence directs her unintelligent j^hysical causes to preconceived, rational piirposes. Her uniformities are but the expressions of these purj^oses, which are stable, because they are the volitions of an infinite, immutable Mind, "whose pur- poses shall stand, and who doeth all his good pleasure," because
FINAL CAUSE. 491
all his volitions are guided from the first b}' absolute knowledge and wisdom, perfect rectitude, and full benevolence. Nature is stable, only because the counsels of the God who uses her for his ends are stable.
None but theists can consistently use induction.
The Chaikman (D. Howard, Esq., Vice-President of Chemical Society). — We have, in the first place, to thank the author of this paper, whom we would gladly have welcomed among us, had he been able to leave bis distant home. Having been, a quarter of a century ago, a very distinguished soldier, he has since added to that distinction the further claim upon our recognition which belongs to his position as a professor and deep thinker. It may seem strange that after all these years of discussion we should still have to go back to so elementary a matter as the causes which Aristotle classed as first causes. And yet there are few things which create so much discussion as the question of first cause. I once heard a distin- guished lawyer ask a distinguished physician, in cross-examination, what was the caiise of a man's illness, and the physician answered : "If you will tell me what you mean by 'cause,' I will answer the question." The lawyer, however, thought better of it, and the question was not answered; and we were conseqiiently cheated out of a very important discussion. Doubtless, the barrister was astute enough to know that most men would have fallen into the trap he had laid, and, in describ- ing the cause of the man's illness, have afforded a chance for a clever rejoinder. And so it is in the matter before us. We see men entirely ignoring the very an- cient distinction between the different causes by confusing, under the common term "causes," all those which Aristotle, if not the first to draw attention to, was undoubtedly the first to classify. The more we pursue the question, the more evi- dent it is that, take what view we may of creation, whether we consider the present state of things to have been brought about by evolution, or by a mere single act of creation, we are just as much unable to escape from the argument of final cause in the one case as in the other. We are, in fact, imable to free our minds from the belief that there has been a distinct purpose in nature. It is, I believe, per- f ectlj' true that there is nothing in the belief in evolution to jirevent a full and complete belief in a final power and creative cause, though I qiiite share the au- thor's view of the very incomplete proof of the universality of evolution. There- fore, this question of final cause is by no means one which it is needless to discuss in these days. It is not one, I think, which has been so thoroughly thrashed out that there is no necessity to say any more upon it. There are, however, many here who, I believe, are well able to discuss the subject, and I hope they will give us the benefit of their thoughts upon it.
Me. Hastings C. Dent, C. E., F. L. S. — In offering a few remarks on this sub- ject, I would first of all say that there have been few papers read in this room to which I have listened vnth deeper interest ; and I cannot but regard it as a most important contribution to the transactions of this Society I propose to confine my remarks to a few criticisms, and I may say that there are many points in the paper which are so very clear and plain that I might almost call them axioms. I will draw attention to some half dozen of these, and the first to which I would refer relates to contrivance and choice. In section 2, the author says : ' ' "WTierever nature presents us with structures, and especially organs, adapted to natural ends, there has been contrivance, and also choice of the physical means so adapted. I>i:t
492 FINAL CAUSE.
contrivance and choice are functions of thought and will, such as are performed only by some rational persons. " There is a very admirable illustration of this given in section 7. It is not the old idea of Paley about the watch, but rather an enlarge- ment of that idea. The author says, ' ' Here the blind force of gravity is caused to realize an end so unlike its usual physical effects in the fall of hail-stones and rain-drops, of leaves and decayed branches." Then I come to axiom No. 2, which is to be found in section 8. The author says, "Function is not the determining cause, but only the physical resiilt of the existence of the organ. Birds did not get •nings in order to tly ; 'but they simply fly beca^^se they have wings. " In the same way, we are told in paragraph 12, "Adjustments, or coordinations, are regu- larly made in order to certain ends;" and again, on the same page, "As the ship is evidently designed and purposed for sailing, so is the ear for hearing and the eye for seeing." Axiom No. 3 is given in section 9, where the author saj's, "We know that the sure attribute of the results of blind chance or fortuity is uncertainty, irregularity, confusion ; " and then we have axiom No. 4, a little further down, ' ' It becomes rationally impossible to believe that these frequent and regular concur- rences of the effects came from the blind, fortuitous coincidence of the physical causes, acting each separately from the other. " Again, in the concluding part of section 17, we are told, "The difference between the normal acting of a finite mind and an infinite one can only be a difference of degree, not of essence;" and then we have an analogy between the child's sums and those of Sir Isaac Newton. The fifth axiom is to be found at the end of paragraph 20, where the aiithor con- futes the theory of gradual evolution, or the doctrine of organisms obtaining per- fection. Here the author gives us a splendid specimen of analytical reasoning, by citing the case of the sun and the stars, as to which he says, "Have suns and stars, for instance, attained to their present exquisite adjustments of relation and perfec- tion of being, by the blind experiments of countless reproduction ? Then, the fossil suns, unfitted to survive, ought to lie about lis as thick as fossil polypi and mollusks. " There is one more axiom. It appears at the end of section 21: ' ' Their own sciences of zoology and physiology assure us that instincts are not found in cases where the organs for their exercise do not exist ." May I be allowed, very humbly, to take exception to one item in section 22 ? I would venture to suggest that the argument there employed is weak, because it can be so easily con- troverted or answered by the evolutionists. The author says, "The most utter collapse of the attempts to explain the finaUties of nature by the laws of a sup- posed evolution occurs when we approach those classes of organs which comi^lete their development while the influences of environment and function are entirely excluded, and these are exceedingly numerous. " He then refers to the fowl in the egg, as obtaining all its different organs necessary for the consumption of food, and the other needs of its being. Now, the evolutionist would say the fowl has merely inherited organs which arc transmitted in the egg, and that, consequently, improvement or degeneration takes place after the animal has emerged from the egg-shell ; every creature becoming more complex as the embryonic stage becomes more complicated. I do not know any creature that emerges from an egg without IDOssessing some organs which it could not use while in the egg.
Rev. J. White, M. A. — May I take the liberty of offering a few remarks ? I think that, even if we admit all the evolutionists lay claim to, nevertheless, the teleological argument — that of a final cause for the existence of a rational and in- teUigent Creator— still remains unanswered. Evolution only accounts for the existence of the universe as a going machine, successive generations and variations
FINAL CAUSE. 493
being coutiuually produced, and those generations being perpetuated in a manner beneficial to the creatures generated. I say, admitting all this as an explanation of the natural history of the universe, it still fails to exclude the teleological argu- jnent that the creatures which exist must have had the power of variation bestowed upon them. The creature is put into an environment which enables it to fulfil its functions and to bring about the results we witness; but all this implies design and purpose. It is what could not have occurred by chance or accident. Therefore, I think material evolution does not militate against the belief we entertain, and that it is rational to entertain, as to the universe having been created by a God who had in view the perfection of the creatures by which it is inhabited. Evolution is to be regarded simply as one of the means by which this perfection and improve- ment have been brought about. In point of fact, the whole argument brought by the evolutionists against theism seems to me very like the old illustration which, in accounting for the movement of a watch, went back to the spring and left the origin of that part of the machinery unexplained. These scientific theorists attempt to ex^slain the existence of the universe without a Creator. They merely explain some of the processes, but fail altogether to touch their origin. It is a very remarkable thing how completely all the efforts of human science have failed to explain the origin of anj'thing. Professor Max Mtlller has pointed out that all the attempts to explain the beginning of any language have utterly failed, and that there is not the slightest prospect of our obtaining such knowledge. He adds the remark, that the human intellect seems equally to fail in ascertaining the begin- ning of everything else. Therefore, I cannot think that the argument for evolu- tion— although I admit evolution to be true as far as it accounts for a considerable xiumber of steps in the process by which the creatures of the universe have been improved — does dispose of the teleological argument for a final cause, which the author of this paper has put before us in so admirable a manner.
Mr. Dent. — I should like to ask the last speaker whether he accounts for the appearance of man by evolution ?
Rev. J. White. — My argument was only that, admitting evolution to be entirely proved, and that it could be shown that man was descended from an ape or a tad- ^Dole, still this does not do away with the teleological argument that there is design in nature, and that generation is only a means by which it is worked out.
Mr. Dent. — Does that not go against the statement of Genesis ?
Eev. J. "White. — I only say, supposing the case of the evolutionist to be ad- mitted, still it does not militate against, nor upset, the argument advanced in the paper. This was what I intended to express.
Capt. Fkancis Peteie (Hon. Sec). — I have received the following communica- tion from Surgeon-General C. A. Gordon, M. D., C. B., who is unavoidably pre- vented from being present:
^''Physical causes are the real proximate producers of all plienomena, Sec. 4.
" But the fact that they are so leaves the ultimate cause of those phenomena un- explained. For example, a match applied to gunpowder is the immediate cause of an explosion. But the ^chv of this result is not explained by the occurrence of the explosion.
' ' In physiology we know that each organ in the body performs its o^vn definite function, and none other; also, that the several functions of organs are influenced by immaterial causes, as the emotions, etc. The fact we know; the why remains jnysterious and unknown.
"And so with particular causes of disease, and action of drugs employed in treat-
494 FIXAl, CAUSE.
ment. The fact that definite effects follow the causes and the drugs is matter of experience. The why, — that is, the ultimate cause,— in the one case as in the other, is unrevealed.
^* Materialists assert tJiat the pJienomcna of mind differ rather in derjrce than in Idndfrom tlie 'phenomena of matter.
"As a matter of fact, fxs little is known of the ultimate and occult properties of matter as there is known of the corresponding properties and faculties of mind. As expressed by Baxter : 'Men who believe that dead matter can produce the effects of life and reason are a hundred times more credulous than the most thorough-paced believer that ever existed.' "
The Chaieiian. — I wish the author had been here to have answered the friendly criticisms that have been made ui^on his pajjer. llie point ilr. Dent has called our attention to in regard to the answer of the evolutionist as to the formation and growth of the fowl in the egg, points to one of those curious things that have always passed my comprehension. It is assumed, undoubtedly, for a very good reason, as we see that such is the case in nature, that the influence of heredity is an immense power; but what right have we, from the theorj' of jDure natural selec- tion, to assume anything of the kind ? "What right have we to assume that extra- ordinary persistency of type which is one of the most remarkable characteristics of all animals? Granting, for the sake of argument, that the peculiar transforma- tions undergone by the embrj'o are a proof of the past history of the race, how can. we, from the characteristics before us, form a conclusion as to the cause of this ? But there is, of course, the other possible explanation, that those singular points which are appealed to as evidences of past history, are evidences, not of past his- tory, but of the i^resent position of the animal in the scheme of creation. This is as much in favor of the teleological point of view as it is in favor of the evolutionist. We have to thank the author for a most interesting .paper.
Me. D. MLaekn. — In section 20 of the paper, the author speaks of the "won- drous adaptation in the chemical facts of inorganic nature in the mechanism of the heavenly bodies, in the facts of meteorology, " the slightest derangement of which would be fatal to the whole of the existmg animal creation. Have the evolution- ists attempted to notice or explain the adjustment of the masses, and forces, and distances of the heavenly bodies, as bearing on the argument in favor of tel- eology ?
The Chaiemax. — As far as my reading goes, there is absolutely no modern argu- ment in that direction. Undoubtedly, a few centuries back the alchemists gave us a most interesting history of the evolution of matter, and Paracelsus gave us certain speculations which are not looked upon with respect by modern scientists.
lis. Wise. — We find in the amceba that which corresponds to digestion, repro- duction, and many of the functions of highly organized creatures like ourselves. I have been reading the introductory chapter to Foster's Pliysiology, and he there very beautifully shows that function precedes organization, while a great German physiologist says that organs are simply the localization of functions. I should like to know whether that is true or not ?
The CHAiEiiAX. — I wish some able physiologist were here to answer that ques- tion. For my part I think there is a good deal more of organization in the amoeba than the microscope will show. The differentiation of protoplasm is not to be measured by our powers of perception.
Mb. Wise. — It is said that they are jellies, which are jjurely transparent. Can we in that case discern anything corresponding to organization ?
FINAL CAUSE. 495
The Chairman. — If an apparently perfectlj' structureless piece of jelly performs functions, is not that a proof of organization ? The meeting was then adjourned.
EEMAEKS OX THE FOREGOING PAPER, BY THE REV. R. COLLINS, M. A.
I am miich indebted to the honorary secretary for sending me a proof of Dr. Dabney's paper. It seems to me to be the most liacid and closely reasoned essay upon the subject that I have read.
It is instructive to observe how diffictdt it is for the evolutionists, though they discard the doctrine of final causes, to escape its practical dominancy over their rea- sonings and methods. In their search after modifications in the structure and functions of plants and animals, they are guided, equally with Harvey, by the idea of some object to be accomplished. The evolutionist writes as though Nature were always working up to quasi-final causes, though his theory is that no such direct cause exists, there being no intelligence to plan such intention. Nature accom- pUshes what would be accomplished by an intelUgence having an intention in view, and on the same lines, only by a different method, namely, that wherever Nature by any adventitious accidental change hits upon that which will give a plant or animal a better chance in the struggle for existence, that better chance, to be fol- lowed by an infinite number of better chances (though why so followed we are not- clearly told), establishes a new dj-nasty. The result in the new dynasty is such as would be obtained by intelligent design. Thus the language of design is contin- ually used. For instance (to take up the first evolution article that comes to hand, Mr. Grant Allen's Dispersion of Seeds, in Knoicledgc, November, 1885), we read, "This very sedentary nature of the plant kind renders necessary aU sorts of curious devices and plans, on the jjart of parents, to secure the proper start in life for their young seedlings. Or rather, to put it with stricter biological correctness, it gives an extra chance in the struggle for existence to all those accidental variations which happen to tell at all in the direction of better and more perfect dispersion. " Now here the first intuition of the mind is towards "devices and plans," which then is immediately corrected by the superior ' ' accident " theory. If ' ' accidental variations, which Jiappen to tell " in the direction of more perfect establishment, reaUy produce what would be prodiiced by a wise design, why should we refuse to beUeve the de- sign, and choose the incomparably more difficult theory that "accidental variations" alone, "that happen to tell," have accomphshed precisely what design would accomphsh? What scientific advantage has the "accidental variations" theory over the final cause, which is, after all, practically admitted? How design has worked is another matter. Its method may be a perfectly legitimate subject of in- quiry. It may have worked, perhaps, in part by variations in plants and animals. But when I speak of variations as "accidental," what do I realh* mean by "acci- dental? " Have I any proof that what seems to me to be accidental is not the re- sult of some law or some intention ? Professor Huxley seems to im^jly such a law or laws, and to deny anj-thing actually accidental, when he says, "The whole world, living and not living, is the result of the mutual interaction, according to definite laws, of the forces possessed by the molecules of which the primitive nebulosity of the universe was composed." "If this be true," he goes on to say, "it is no less certain that the existing world lay, jDotentially, in the cosmic vapor, and that a sufficient intelligence could, from a knowledge of the properties of the molecules of
496 FINAL CAUSE.
that vapor, have predicted, say the fauna of Britain in 1869, with as much cer- tainty as one can say what will happen to the vapor of the breath on a cold win- ter's day. " These laws, then, govern what the evolutionists elsewhere call ' ' acci- dents." Whether Mr. Herbert Spencer's " energy " woiald eliminate "accident," strictly speaking, from the universe, or not, I cannot tell. But if so, it explodes the whole of Mr. Darwin's theory, based on the ' ' survival of the fittest, " at least, as it is used by the evolutionists. The only value of Mr. Spencer's ' ' energy, " however, to many of us, is to cover an infinity of nebulous thought ; for the idea conveyed by the word is simply "power for work," wherever found. And it is diflicult to see what we can really establish upon the endeavor to unify in speech or theory the jjower for work of some kind or other that exists all over the ujiiverse. But if there be one such ' ' energj^ "' behind its manifold ramifications, and if it be working out such harmonies and adaptations in nature as would be worked out in obedience to final causes existing in some intelligent intention, is that ' ' energy " blindly-inteUigent or gz^o^Z-intelligent ? or how am I to understand it ? Does it only prompt ' ' accidental variations " ? or does it work on definite lines ? If the latter, where is the "accident "? And if the energy develops final causes, how are we to eliminate from it the attribute of Mind ?
Surely in eliminating the doctrine of final causes from the universe, the evolu- tionists destroy the only real guide we can take for unravelling, so far as we can unravel, the functions of nature. Moreover, they thus deny that which they them- selves practically follow throughout their investigations.
"Accident" 7-ersiis "certainty, ' as a guide to the explanation of the harmonies and adaptations of the universe, seems to be the greatest philosophical paradox conceivable.
MTI-BIBLICAl THEOEES OF EIGHTS.^
WHEN tlie friends of the Bible wdn a yictory over one phase of infidehty, they naturally hope that there will be a truce in the warfare and they may enjoy peace. But the liope is ill-founded. We should haye foreseen this, had we considered that the real source of infidelity is always in the pride, self-^dll and ungodliness of man's nature. So that, when men are defeated on one line of attack, a part of them at least will be certainly prompted by their natural enmity to God's Word to hunt for some other weapon against it. Rational deism, from Bolingbroke to Hume, received a Waterloo defeat at the hands of Bishop Butler and the other Christian apologists, and well- informed enemies surrendered it. But neology raised its head, and for two generations opened a way for virtual infidels. History and biblical criticism in the hands of the Bengels, Delitzschs, Leuthards, have blocked that way, and Tubingen is silent, or at least discredited. Then came the anti-Mosaic geo- logy and evolution — the one attacking the recent origin of man, the flood, etc., the other presuming to construct a creation with- out a creator. These two are now passing into the " sere and yellow leaf." More correct natural science now points with certainty to a deluge, to the recency of the last glacial epoch, the newness of the present face of the continents, and consequently to the late appearance of man upon the earth. Agassiz, M. Paul Janet and Sir William Dawson reinstate the doctrines of final cause and fixed genera of organic life upon their impreg- nable basis.
But we may expect no respite in the warfare. Another hostile banner is already unfurled, and has gathered its millions of un- believers for a new attack upon God's Holy Word. This assault proceeds from the side of professed social science. It appears
' This article appeared in the Presbyterian Quarterly for July, 1888. Vol. Ill 32. 497
498 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS.
in those dogmas of social rights which are historically known as the Jacobinical, and which have been transferred from the athe-" istic French radicals to the free Protestant countries. The object of the Scriptures is to teach the way of redemption and sanctification for sinful man; yet incidentally they teach, by precept and implication, those equitable principles on which all constitutional goyernments are founded. So far as God gaye to the chosen people a political form, the one which he preferred w^as a confederation of little republican bodies represented by their elderships. (Ex. XAdii. 25, 26 ; Ex. iii. 10 ; Xinn. xi. 16, 17 ; Num. xxxii. 20-27.)
When he conceded to them, as it were under protest, a regal form, it was a constitutional and electiye monarchy. (1 Sam. X. 24, 25.) The rights of each tribe were secured against yital infringement of this constitution by its own yeto power. They retained the prerogative of protecting themselves against the usurpations of the elective king by withdrawing at their ovra sovereign discretion from the confederation. (1 Kings, xii. 13-16.)
The history of the secession of the ten tribes under Jeroboam is often misunderstood through gross carelessness. No divine disapprobation is anywhere expressed against the ten tribes for exercising their right of withdrawal from the perverted federa- tion. "When Eehoboam began a war of coercion he was sternly forbidden by God to pursue it. (1 Kings, xii. 2-4.)
The act by which "Jeroboam made Israel to sin against the Lord" was wholly another and subsequent one — his meddling with the di^anely appointed constitution of the church to pro- mote merely poUtical ends. (1 Kings, xii. 26-28.)
Thus, while the Bible history does not prohibit stronger forms of government as sins per se, it indicates God's preference for the representative republic as distinguished from the levelling democracy ; and to this theory of human rights all its moral teachings correspond. On the one hand, it constitutes civil so- ciety of superiors, inferiors and equals (see Shorter Catechism, Question 64), making the household represented by the parent and master the integral unit of the social fabric, assigning to each order, higher or lower, its rule or subordination under the distributive equity of the law. On the other hand, it protected
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. 4Q9
each order in its legal privileges, and prohibited oppression and injustice as to all.
In a word, the maxim of the scriptural social ethics may be justly expressed in the great words of the British Constitiition, "Peer and peasant are equal before the law," which were the guide of a Pym, a Hampden, a Sydney, a Locke, a Chatham, and equally of Hancock, Adams, Washington, Mason and Henry. Their theory assigned to the different classes of human beings in the common- Avealth different grades of privilege and of function, according to their different natures and qualifications ; but it held that the inferior is shielded in his right to his smaller franchise, by the same relation to the common heavenly Father, by the same Golden Kule and the equitable right which shields the superior in the enjoyment of his larger powers. The functions and privi- leges of the peer are in some respects very different from those of the peasant ; but the same law protects them both in their several rights, and commands them both as to their several duties. This theory thus established between all men a moral, but not a mechanical equality. Higher and lower hold alike the same relation to the supreme ruler and ordainer of the com- monwealth, God ; yet they hold different relations to each other in society, corresponding to their differing capacities and fit- nesses, which equity itself demands. Job understood this maxim of Bible republicanism, as he shows (chap. xxxi. 13, 14, 15): "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me; what, then, shall I do when God risetli up ? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him ? Did not he that made me in the womb make him ? " So Paul, two thousand years later (Eph. vi. 9 ; Col. iv. 1). Kuoio: give to your oooXoi those things which are just and equal. The two teach the same doctrine . On the one hand, they assert the relation of superior and inferior, with their unequal fran- chises ; on the other hand, they assert in the same breath the equal moral obligation of both as bearing the common relation to the one divine maker and judge.
The radical social theory asserts, under the same name, a totally different doctrine; its maxim is "all men are l)orn free and equal." It supposes the social fabric constituted of indi- viduals naturally absolute and sovereign as its integers, and
500 AXTI-LIIiLICAL THEORIES OF EIGHTS.
tliis bj some sort of social contract, in entering wliicli individual men act witli a freedom equally complete as to God and each other. It defines each one's natural liberty as freedom to do whatever he wishes, and his civil liberty, after he optionally enters society, as that remainder of his natural prerogative not surrendered to the social contract. Consequently the theory teaches that exactly the same surrender must be exacted of each one under this social contract, whence each individual is in- alienably entitled to all the same franchises and functions in society as well as to his moral equahty ; so that it is a natural in- iquity to withhold from any adult person by law any prerogative which is legally conferred on any other member in society. The equahty must be mechanical as well as moral, else the society is charged with natural injustice.
Every fair mind sees that this is not only a different but an opposite social theory. Yet its advocates are accustomed to advance it as the equivalent of the other, to teach it under the same nomenclature, and to assert that the difference between them is purely visionary. So widespread and profound is this confusion of thought, that the majority of the American people and of their teachers practically know and hold no other theory than the Jacobin one. They assume, as a matter of course, that it is this theory which is the firm logical basis of constitutional gov- ernment; whereas historj' and science show that it is a fatal heresy of thought, which uproots every possible foundation of just freedom, and gi-ounds only the most ruthless despotism. But none the less is this the passionate belief of millions, for the sake of which they are willing to assail the Bible itself.
The least reflection points out that this theory involves the following corollaries: (1), There can be no just imputation of the consequences of conduct from one human being to another in society ; (2), No adult person can be justly debarred from any privilege allowed to any other person in the order or society, except for con\dction of crime; (3), All distinctions of "caste" are essentially and inevitably wicked and oppressive; (4), Of course every adult is equally entitled to the franchise of voting and being voted for, and all restrictions here, except for the conviction of crime, are natural injustice; (5), Equal rights and suffrage ought to be conceded to women in every respect as to
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. 501
men. If any advocate of the Jacobin theory recoils from this corollary, he is absolutely inconsistent, by reason of his bondage to former prejudices and unreasoning habits of thought : so argues John Stuart Mill irrefragably in his treatise on the Sub- jection of Women. If the Jacobin theory be true, then woman must be allowed access to every male avocation, including gov- ernment, and war if she vsdsh.es it, to suffrage, to every political office, to as absolute freedom from her husband in the marriasce relation as she enjoyed before her union to him, and to as abso- lute control of her own property and earnings as that claimed by the single gentleman, as against her own husband. That Mill infers correctly from his premises needs no arguing. If it is a just principle that no adult male shall be debarred from suffrage or office by reason of "race, color, or previous condition of bondage," then indisputably no adult female can be justly debarred from them by reason of sex, or previous legal subjec- tion under the " common law." If it is a natural injustice to debar an adult male from these rights because of a black or yellow face, it must be an equal injustice to debar other adults because of a beardless face. If kinky hair should not disfran- chise, then by parative reasoning flowing tresses should not disfranchise. (6). Last, if the Jacobin theory be true, then slavery in all its forms must be essentially unrighteous ; of which institution the essential feature is, that citizens are invested with, property in the involuntary labor of adult human beings, and control over their persons. The absolute necessity of this cor- ollary is now asserted by all who hold the Jacobin theory in- telligently : as, for instance, by Mr. Mill. They invariably de- duce their doctrine from those principles, and they say, that since those principles are established, argument on the subject of liuman bondage is absolutely closed ; and history gives this curious illustration of the necessity of this logical connection : that the first application of the doctrine of theoretical aboli- tionism ever made was that applied by Robespierre, the master of the French Jacobins, to the French colonies. TVe are told that he prided himself much on his political philosophy, and that one day when he was expounding it in the national as- sembly, some one said : " Monsieur, those dogmas, if carried out, would require the emancipation of all the Africans in the
502 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS.
colonies, wliicli would, of course, ruin tliose precious appen- dages of France." To wliich. he angrilj- replied : " Then let the col- onies jjerish, rather than this social philosophy shall be denied." Of which the result was, in fact, the St. Domingo of to-day.
Now my purpose in this essay is not at all to discuss these two theoides of human rights, or to refute the latter and estabUsh the former. Although such discussion would strictly belong to the science of moral philosophy, and is indeed a vital part thereof, the fastidious might perhaps deem it unfit for a theo- logical review in these " piping times of peace." My sole object is to examine the scriptural question, whether or not the integ- rity of the Bible can be made to consist vrith. the Jacobin theory and its necessary corollaries ; and this inquiry is purely religi- ous and theological. The Christian church as such has no direct didactic concern with it, and no legislative and judicial concern -s^-ith it, except as it furnishes infidelity weapons to assail God's Word. Our church has always properly held, that whenever any science so-called, whether psychological, moral, or even physical, is iised to assail the integrity of the rule of faith, that use at once makes the defensive discussion of that hostile science a theological function, both proper and necessary for the church. I cite from our Confession a notable instance : For centuries the psychological problem concerning the rise of volition has been debated between philosophers, the Scotists approving, and the Thomists denying, the equilibrium and self-determination of the will. • The Westminster Assembly perceived that the Scotists' psychology was employed to sophisticate the revealed doctrines of original sin and effectual calling. They, therefore, in Chaj). ix., " Of Free Will," determine and settle so much of this doc- trine of psychology as is needed to substantiate the Scriptures. So, recently, our Assembly, upon perceiving that a doctrine of mere j)hysical science, evolution, was liable to be used for im- pugning the testimony of Scripture, dealt with that foreign doc- trine both didactically and judicially. They were consistent. For, I repeat, whenever any doctrine from any whither is em- ployed to assail that divine testimony which our Lord has com- mitted to the chui'ch, there the defensive discussion of that doctrine has become theological, and is an obligatory part of the church's divine testimony.
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But my purpose does uot go so far as even tliis. My object is merely to point out tlie coming contest, and to warn tlie de- fenders of the faith of its certainty. My wish is to make all Christians face this plain question : Will you surrender the inspiration of the Scriptui'es to these assaults of a social science so-called? If not, what? That the issue has been made and must be met, I shall show by laying two sets of facts alongside of each other. One is, that the Jacobin theory, alread}^ held by millions and confidently claiming for itself all the honors of re- publicanism and liberty, does assert, and must assert, all the corollaries above stated. The other set of facts is, that the Scriptures deny every one of them, and that with a fatal dis- tinctness which no honest exposition can evade. Doubtless, during this long and tremendous conflict we shall see the same thing repeated which we have seen in recent decades : timid and Tincandid minds, anxious still to "ride a fence " after it is totally blown away by the hurricane of anti-christian attack, attempting to reconcile opposites by various exegetical wrigglings. But we shall again see it end in futility, and candid assailant and candid defender will both agree that the Bible means what it says, and must either fall squarely or must stand by the overthrow of all attacking parties. The rest of our work ^dll therefore be little more than the examination of the actual teachings of Scripture.
1. The Jacobin theory totally repudiates all imputation of the consequences of moral conduct from one person to another as irrational and essentially unjust. It declares that " imputed guilt is imputed nonsense." From its premises it must declar§ thus, for it asserts that each individual enters social existence as an independent integer, possessed of complete natural liberty and full equality. But the Bible scheme of social existence is full of this imputation. I shall not dwell upon the first grand case, the sin and fall of the race in Adam, although it is still determining, in a tremendous manner, the conditions of each in- dividual's entrance into social existence. I add other instances, some of which are equally extensive. " The woman was first in the transgression," for which God laid upon Eve two j^enalties (Gen. iii. 16), subordination to her husband and the sorrows peculiar to motherhood. The New Testament declares (1 Tim. ii. 11 to end) that it is right her daughters shall continue to en-
504 AXTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF EIGHTS.
dure these penalties to tlie end of the world. (See also 1 Peter^ iii. 1-6.) In Genesis ix. 25-27, Ham, the son of Noah, is guilty of an unfilial crime. His posterity are condemned with him and share the penalty to this day. In Ex. xx. 5, God declares that he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. Amalek met Israel in the time of his flight and distress ^dth robbery and murder, instead of hos- pitality. Not only were the immediate actors punished by Joshua, but the descendants of Amalek are excluded forever from the house of the Lord, for the crime of their fathers. (Deut. XXV. 19.) It is needless to multiply instances, except one more, which shall refute the favorite dream of the rational- ists that Jesus substituted a milder and juster law. For this Jesus said to the Jews of his own day (Matt, xxiii. 32-36) : " Fill ye up then the measure of 3'our fathers : . . . that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Yerily I sa}^ unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation." We thus find this principle of imputation extended into the New Testament, by the authority of Jesus himself, as a just principle.
2. Whereas Jacobinism asserts that no privilege or franchise enjoyed by some adults in the state can be justly withheld from any other order of adults, God's word entirely discards this rule. Not to speak of the subordination of women and domestic bond- age (of which more anon), God distributed the franchises iin- equally in the Hebrew commonwealth. The priestly family possessed, by inheritance, certain teaching and ruling functions which the descendants of no other tribe could share. There was a certain law of primogeniture, entitled the right of the first- born, which the younger sons did not share equalh% and which the father himself could not alienate. (Deut. xxi. 15, 16.) The fathers of houses (Ex. xviii. 21 ; Josh. xxii. 14), in A^rtue of their patriarchal authority, held a senatorial dignity, and this evi- dently for life. (See also the history of Barzillai.)
In the New Testament, the apostle Peter (1 Eph. ii. 13) enjoins Christians to submit themselves " to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto
. ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OF EIGHTS. 505
governors, as imto tliem that are sent by him for the punishment of e\al-doers and for the praise of them that do well." Here a distribution of powers between different ranks, emperor, procon- suls, and subjects, is distinctly recognized. " Eender, therefore, to all their dues : tribute to whom tribute is due ; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor." (Rom, xiii. 7.) "Likewise, also, these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." (Jude, 8.) 3. Nothing is more obnoxious to the principles of Jacobinism than what it denounces as " caste." It delights to use this word because it is freighted with bad associations derived from the stories we hear of the oppressive hereditary distinctions of the people in Hindostan. Of course there is a sense in which every just conscience reprehends inequalities of caste. This is where they are made pretest for depriving an order or class of citizens of privileges which belong to them of right, and for whose exercise they are morally and intellectually qualified. But this is entirely a different thing from saying that all the different orders of persons in a state are naturally and morally entitled to all the same privileges, whether qualified or not, simply because they are men and adults. The Jacobin trick of sophistry is to confound these different propositions together ; and when they denounce "wicked caste," the application they make of their denunciation includes not only oppressive inequal- ities, but every difference in the distribution of powers and privileges. Now, the Scriptures recognize and ordain such distribution ; or, if the reader pleases, such distinctions of caste in the latter sense. Such is the stubborn fact. Thus, in the Hebrew commonwealth, the descendants of Levi were disfran- chised of one privilege which belonged to all their brethren of the other tribes; and enfranchised with another j^rivilege from which all their brethren were excluded. A Levite could not hold an inch of land in severalty. (Num. xviii. 22, 23.) No member of another tribe, not even of the princely tribe of Judah, could perform even the lowest function in the tabernacle. (Heb. vii. 13, 14.) These differences are nowhere grounded in any statement that the children of Levi were more or less intelligent and religious than their fellow-citizens. Another " caste distinc- ' tion " appears among the descendants of Levi himself. The sons
506 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OP EIGHTS.
of Aaron aloue could offer sacrifices or incense in the sanctuary. The Levites could only be underlings or assistants to their brethren the priests. Among the sons of Aaron another hered- itary distinction presents itself. The individual who had the right of the first born took the high priesthood, with its superior prerogatives. He alone could go into the Holy of Holies. He alone could offer the sacrifice on the great annual day of atone- ment. But this privilege was limited by a certain hereditary dis- qualification. He could only marry a virgin (Lev. xxi. 13, 14), and Avas forbidden to marry a widow (as his fellow-citizens might legally do), however virtuous and religious. A "caste distinction" is also found among the bondmen, whose subjection was legalized by the constitution. A person of Hebrew blood could only be enslaved for six years. A person of foreign blood could be held in hereditary slavery, although born within the land of Israel as much as the other. It was also provided that the treatment of bondmen of Hebrew blood should be more len- ient. (Lev. XXV. 42-47.) A "caste distinction" was also pro- vided concerning the entrance of persons of foreign blood into the Hebrew state and church. (Exodus XA'ii. 16 ; Deut. xxiii. 3-8.) The descendants of Amalek were forever inhibited. The descendants of Ammon and Moab were debarred to the tenth generation. The Egyptians and Edomites could be admitted at the third generation ; the one, because their patriarch Esau was brother to Jacob, the other, because the Israelites had once hved in Egypt. ^
Let the inference from these histories be clearly understood. It is not claimed that these caste distinctions established by God himself obligate us positively to establish similar distinctions in our day. But the fact that God once saw fit to establish them does prove that they cannot be essentially sinful. To assert that they are, impugns the righteousness of God. Whence it follows, in direct opposition to the Jacobin theory, that should suitable circumstances again arise such "caste distinctions" may be righteous. It will be exclaimed that the New Testament re- versed all this. We shall be reminded of Paul's famous decla- ration (Col. iii. 11) : " Where there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all " ; or this (Gal. iii. 28) : " There is
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. 507
neither Jew uor Greek, there is neither boud nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesiis." But before a literal and mechanical equality can be inferred from these, it must be settled what the Holy Spirit meant by being "one in Christ," and whether the parts which are combined to construct a component unity are not always unequal instead of equal. The latter is certainly the apostle's teaching when he compares the spiritual body to the animal body, with many members of dissimilar honor. The apostle himself demonstrates that he never designed the levelling sense to be put upon his words by proceeding after he had uttered them to subject women in one sense to an inequality by imposing upon them ecclesiasti- cal subordination, and even a different dress, in the church. The Scriptures thus teach that all distinctions of caste are not unjust in the sense charged by the current theory.
4. God's commonwealth was not founded on universal suffrage. That he rejected the Jacobinical principle is plain from the his- tory of the Gibeonites. They were exempted by covenant with Joshua from the doom of extinction, and retained a title to homes for many generations upon the soil of Palestine, and, as we see from 2 Sam. xxi. 6, they were very carefully protected in certain rights by the government. They were not domestic slaves, neither were they fully enfranchised citizens. From the higher franchises of that rank they were shut out by a hereditary disqualification, and this was done by God's express enactment. (Josh. ix. 27.) This instance impinges against the Jacobin theory in two other ways, indicated in our second and thijrd heads. Individual descendants of the Gibeonites, however law- abiding and gifted with natural capacity, did not enjoy ^'■la carriere ouverte aux taleiits" equally with the young Israelites, which the Jacobin theory demands indiscriminately as the in- alienable right of all. And to make the matter worse, the Scrip- ture declares that this disqualification descended by imputation from the guilt of the first generation's paganism and fraud upon Joshua.
5. We have shown that the claim known as that of women's rights is an inevitable corollary of the radical theory. Our pur- pose here is not to debate the wisdom or equity of that claim, but to show what God thinks of it. In Gen. iii. 16, he legislates
508 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF EIGHTS.
for Eve as the representative of all her daughters, putting her in subordination to the authority of her husband: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." If a Hebrew landholder had male descendants when he died, his daiighters inherited no share in his land. They could inherit land in cases where there was no male heir. And this was the legislation, not of Moses, but of God himself. (Num. xxvii. 8.) It is more decisive to add, that the New Testament continues to assign subordination to women. 1 Cor. xi. 3: "The head of the woman is the man." 1 Cor. xiv. 34: "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak ; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law." Eph. v. 22-24: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your oAvn husbands, as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. . . . Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12 : "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence," [ouok abdevzexv di^opb^, "nor to domi- nate man." The concept of usurpation is only implicit in the Greek verb.) 1 Tim. v. 14 : "I mil, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully." Titus, ii. 4, 5: "That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their hus- bands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." 1 Pet. iii. 1, 5, 6 : " Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word they also V\^ithout the word may be won by the conversation of the wives ; for after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands, even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord."
Thus, explicit and repeated, are the precepts of the Scripture on this head. In the new dispensation they are even plainer than in the old. How many thousands of women are there^ professed members of Christ's church, who rid themselves of all these precepts with a disdainful toss, saying: "Oh! Paul was but
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOKIES OF EIGHTS. 509
a cnisty old bachelor. It was the men who legislated thus in their pride of sex. Had women ^\^:itten, all would have been differ- ent." I would request such fair reasoners to look this question steadily in the face. Is this the legislation of men, or of God speaking by men? If they say the former, is not this virtual infidelity ? If the latter, had they not better take care, " lest haply they be found even fighting against God." instead of against a "crusty old bachelor"?
One of the weak evasions attempted is to plead that this sub- ordination of the women of Peter's and Paul's day was enjoined only because of their low grade of intelligence and morality, these female Christians being supposed to be but sorry creat- ures, recently convei-ted from paganism. The apostles refute this, as does chiu'ch history, both of which give the highest praise to the Christian women of the primitive chiu'ch. Espe- cially does the apostle Peter ruin this sophism when he illus- trates the duty of obedience by the godly example of the noblest princesses of Israel's heroic age.
6. The sixth and last issue between Jacobinism and the in- spiration of Scripture is concerning the lawfulness of domestic slavery. The two sides of this issue are defined with perfect sharpness. The political theory says the subjection of one hu- man being in bondage to another, except for conviction of crime, is essentially and always unrighteous. The Scriptures indisput- ably declare, in both Testaments, that it is not always essen- tially imrighteous, since they legitimate it under suitable cir- cumstances, and declare that godly masters may so hold the re- lation as to make it equitable and righteous. I shall not now go fully into the scriptural argument on this point, because my whole object is gained by showdng that the contradiction exists, without discussing which side has the right, and because I have so fully discussed the whole question in my Defence of Yii^ginia and the South. It is only necessary to name the leading facts : («,) That God predicted the rise of the institution of domestic bondage as the penalty and remedy for the bad morals of those «ubjected to it (Gen. ix. 25); {!>,) That God protects property in slaves, exactly as any other kind of property, in the sacred Decalogue itself (Exod. xx. 17) ; (c,) That numerous slaves were bestowed on Abraham, the "friend of God," as marks of the
510 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS.
favor of divine jDrovidence (Gen. xxiv. 35) ; {d,) That the rela- tion of master and bondman was sanctified by the administra- tion of a divine sacrament, which the bondman received on the ground of the master's faith (Gen. xvii. 27) ; {e,) That the angel of the covenant himself remanded a fugitive slave, Hagar, to her mistress, but afterwards assisted her in the same journey when legally manumitted (Gen. xxi. 17-21) ; (/,) That the civil laws of Moses expressly allowed Hebrew citizens to purchase pagans as life-long and hereditary slaves (Lev. xxv. 44-46) ; [g,] That the law declares such slaves (that is, their involuntary labor) to be property. The reader is advised to consult here the irre- fragable exegesis of Dr. Moses Stuart of Andover. He will see that this argument is no construction of sectional prejudice. The New Testament left the institution with precisely the same sanction as the Old. Were there any ground for the plea that the Old Testament also legalized polygamy and capricious di- vorce, which we now regard as immoral, this fact would utterly refute it. For while the New Testament j^rohibited these wrongs, it left slavery untouched. But I also deny that the Old Testa- ment anywhere legalized polygamy and capricious divorce. To charge it in the sense of this evasive plea imj)ugns the inspira- tion of Moses and the prophets. That is to say, it is virtual in- fidelity. And this infidel assault upon Moses and the prophets equally attacks Christ and his apostles. It is vain to advance the theory (which is but the old Socinian theory) that the New Testament corrected and amended whatever was harsh or bar- barous in the Old. For, in the first place, I utterly deny the assertion. The New Testament left the relation of master and bondman just where Moses placed it. And, in the second place, Jesus and his apostles expressly guarantee the inspiration of Moses, without any reservation (see Luke xvi. 31 ; John v. 46 ; Luke xxiv. 26, 27; 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17; John xii. 36; Acts, xxviii. 25 ; Heb. iii. 7 ; 2 Peter i. 21), so that they have embarked their credit as divine and infallible teachers along with that of Moses. Both must stand or fall together. Whenever a person declares that whatsoever he speaks is given to him to speak from God (John xvii. 8), and then assures us that another person has spoken infallibly and divinely, upon ascertaining that the latter has in fact spoken erroneously and immorally, we can only con-
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. 511
demn the former as both mistaken and dishonest. (The bhis- phemy is not mine I) This stubborn corollary every clear mind must draw sooner or later, and not all the rationalistic gloziugs of deceitful exegesis can prevent it. He who attacks the inspira- tion of Moses attacks also the inspiration and the moral charac- ter of Jesus. "No man can serve two masters." Let every one make up his mind honestly either to reject the Bible as a fable, and thus preserve his Jacobin humanitarianism, or frankly ta surrender the latter in order to retain the gospel.
But let us see what the New Testament says concerning the relation of master and bondman. It does indeed command all, if they assume this relation, to fulfil it in a Christian spirit, in the fear of an impartial God. (Eph. vi. 9.) It also prohibits all unrighteous abuses of the relation, whether by masters (CoL iv. 1) or by bondmen. (Col. iii. 22-25.) Slave-holders, like the godly centurion (Luke vii. 2-9) and Cornelius (Acts x. 34, 35), are commended for their Christian consistency, without a word of caution or exception, on account of this relation. The Bedeemer, in Luke xvii. 7-10, grounds his argument to prove that not even the truest Christian obedience can bring God in our debt, upon a logical analogy, whose very point is that the master is legally invested with a prior title to, and property in, the labor of his bondman. In the beautiful parable of the prod- igal son (Luke xv. 19), when Christ would illustrate the thorough- ness of his contrition, he does it by using the acknowledged fact that the condition of the hired servant in the slave-holder's house- hold was the lowest and least privileged, i. e., the do~jlo^ was above the ficadcoro-. The apostles enjoin on bondmen consci- entious service to their masters, even when unjust (1 Pet. ii. 18, 19) ; but so much the more willing and conscientious when those masters are brother members in the Christian church. (1 Tim. vi. 1, 2.) The Apostle Paid holds that, if masters do their duty, the relation may be lawfully continued, and is just and equita- ble. The Apostle Paul remands a fugitive slave to his master Philemon, after that slave's conversion, and that although he is at the time in great need of the assistance of such a servant. And so distinctly does he recognize Philemon's lawful property in the involuntary labor of his fugitive slave that he actually binds himself, in writing, to pay its pecuniary value himself, that
512 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OE RIGHTS.
thereby he may gain free forgiveness for Onesimus. In 1 Tim. vi. 3-5, the apostle condemns such as would dare to dispute the righteous obligation of even Christian bondmen, as proud, igno- rant, perverse, contentious, untruthful, corrupt in mind and mercenary; and he requires believers to separate themselves from such teachers.
The glosses which attempt to evade these clear declarations are well known. They assert that, though Christ and his apos- tles knew that the relation was intrinsically wicked, they for- bore to condemn it expressly, on account of its wide prevalence, the jealousy of owners, the dangers of popular convulsions and politic caution; while they secretly provided for its extinction by inculcating gospel principles in general. Such is the most decent reconciliation, which even the joious and evangelical Scott can find between his Bible and his politics. Every perspica- cious mind sees that it is false to all the facts of the history, dishonorable to Christ, and inconsistent with all true concep- tions of his inspiration and Messiahshij). He and his aj^ostles absolutely deny that they keep back any precept from any con- sideration of poHcy or caution. (John xvii. 8 ; Acts xx. 20, 27.) They expressly repudiate this theory of their mission, as though they had this deceitful theory then before their eyes. They invariably attack other evils, such as idolatry, polygamy, and impurity, which were far more prevalent and more strongly intrenched in prejudices than domestic slavery. They ground the spread and protection of their gospel on the omnipotence of God, not on the policy of men, and reject with a lofty and holy disdain all this species of paltering to sin which this gloss im- putes to them.
The honest student, then, of the New Testament can make nothing less of its teachings on this point than that domestic slavery, as defined in God's word and practiced in the manner enjoined in the Epistles, is still a lawful relation under the new dispensation as well as under the old. Let me be allowed to pause here, and add a few words in explanation of the relation which the orthodox Presbyterian Church in America has always held to this subject. Since domestic bondage is a civic and secular relation, which God has declared may be lawfully held under suitable conditions, the church may not prohibit it cats-
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OF RIGHTS. 513
gorically to her members, nor may she interfere ^vdth the com- monwealth by her spiritual authority, either to institute it or to abolish it. Had her Lord declared it to be intrinsically sinful, then it woiild have been her duty to prohibit it to her members, and to enforce this prohibition by her spiritual discipline, in spite of the commonwealth's allowance, or even positive injunc- tion. The church and her presbyters, then, have no concern to favor or opj^ose this civic relation, but only to protect the integ- rity of her divine rule of faith as involved in the debate con- cerning it. Her only other concern with it is so to evangelize mpsters and bondmen as to make the relation a blessing to both, and to retrench all its sinful abuses. Now, then, if the oppo- nents of this relation object to it and urge its overthrow on the ground that it is economically less profitable or less ^^romotive of economic advantage than the hireling systems of labor, we, as presbyters, have nothing whatever to say, although fully aware that the testimony of facts and the government itself have repeatedly contradicted that position. Had its opponents claimed any legal or constitutional arguments entitling them to meddle with it or restrict it in States other than their own, we, as presbyters, should have been absolutely silent. Had its op- 23onents asserted that we were grievously neglecting the duties of the relation and permitting abuses of it so as to impair the happiness of our dependent fellow-creatures, and to displease the God of the poor, we, as Christians, should have bowed meekly, as to the faithful rebuke of friends, and should have been thankful for their aid and instruction to teach us how to use the relation more righteously and mercifully. It is when they assert that the relation is intrinsically wicked, and that even its maintenance without alnises is to be condemned by the spir- itual authority of the church and prevented by her discipline, that they obtrude the issue, and the one issue, which we, as presbyters, are entitled and bound to meet; for they thereby assail the morahty, and thus the truth, of those Scrif)tures which God has given to the church as her testimony, which, if she does not uphold, she ceases to be a cluirch, and "they teach for doctrines the commandments of men," which Christ prohibits his church either to do or to endure. What I thus declare con- cerning this last point of domestic bondage I now also assert
Vol. I:i.-33.
514 AXTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OF BIGHT^;.
conceruiiig the five previous ones. Tlie chuix-li has no commis- sion to advocate or to oppose any pohtical doctrines, logical or illogical, Jacobinical, republican, or royalist, as such. It is only when they are so advanced as to taint the integrity of her divine rule of faith that they concern her, and then her concern is only to defend the testimony her Lord has committed to her, which she must do against " all comers," • be their pretest what it may.
It is from this point of view that I say it behooves the watch- men upon the walls of Zion to consider and estimate the extent of the danger now arising from this source. If they observe intelligently they will see that peril is portentous. They will detect this radical theory of human rights and equality, born of atheism, but masquerading in the garb of true Bible republican- ism, everywhere teaching corollaries — which they teach inevita- blv because they follow necessarily from their first principles — which contradict the express teachings of Scripture. We see this theory passionately held by millions of nominal Christians in the most Protestant lands, perhaps by the great majority of such, with the blind and passionate devotion of partizanship. Every sensible man knows the power of political paiiizanship as one of the most difficult things in the world to overcome, by either truth or conscience. Hence, we have no right to be sur- prised that this collision between the popular political theory, so flattering to the self-will- and pride of the human heart, and so clad in the raiment of pretended philanthropy on the one part, and the Holy Scriptures on the other ]3art, requiring men, as they do, to bow their pride and self-T^ill to a divine author- ity, has become the occasion of tens of thousands making them- selves blatant infidels, and of millions becoming virtual unbe- lievers. Those who wish to hold both the contradictories have indeed been busy for two generations wearing veils of special pleadings and deceitful expositions of Scripture wherewith to conceal the ine%itable contradiction. But these veils are con- tinually wearing too thin to hide it, and the bolder minds rend them one after another and cast them away. The only perma- nent effect of these sophisms is to damage the respectability of the Christian bodies and scholars who employ them, and to de- bauch their own intellectual honesty. Meantime, the authority
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OF RIGHTS. 515
of Holy Scripture as an infallible rule of faitli sinks lower and lower with the masses of Protestant Christendom. Is it not now a rarity to find a Christian of culture who reads his Bible with the full faith which his grandparents were wont to exercise ; and when an educated man now-a-dajs avows that he still does so, dok.3- he not excite a stare from other Christians? The recent history of the church presents startling instances of this departure of her spiritual power and glory. When the fashion of the day betrayed the excellent Dr. Thomas Scott into the insertion of the wretched sophism exposed above in his commentary on the Epistles, the "Evangelical party" in the Anglican Church was powerful, respectable and useful. It stood in the forefront of EngHsh Christianity, boasting a galaxy of the greatest British divines, statesmen and scholars. Now who so poor as to do it reverence? Komauizers, Eitualists, Broad Churchmen, in the Anglican body, speak of it as a dead donkey, and glory over its- impotency. So the great evangelical Baptist body was a glori- ous bulwark of the gospel in the days of Robert Hall, Eyland^ and Andrew Eidler. To-day we see it so honey-combed witL rationalism that Mr. Spurgeon can no longer give the Baptist Union the countenance of his orthodoxy; and he testifies that attacks may be heard from its pulpits upon every distinctively evangelical point. What is it that has so wofully tainted these- once excellent bodies ? Is not a part of the answer to be found here : that the Quaker Clarkson, with his pretended inner light his preferred guide rather than God's Avritten word, and his So- cinianizing theory of inspiration in attacking the British and. New England slave trade (which deserved his attack), alsO' attacked the relation of domestic servitude with indiscriminate^ rage, and supported his rationalism Avitli arguments of human, invention, piously borrowed even from French atheism ? British. Christianity, awakened at last to tardy remorse for the bad emi- • nence of their race as the leading slave catchers of the worlds was seized with a colic-spasm of virtue on that subject, and very naturally sought to atone for its iniquities in the one extreme by rushing into the other. Thus it not only aimed to seize the glory of suppressors of the African slave trade — a glory which belonged to Virginia, first of all the commonwealths of the Avorld, by a prior title of forty years — but became fanatically aboli—
516 ANTI-LIBLICAL THEORIES OF EIGHTS.
tionist. Then tlie prol^lem for evangelical fanatics was liow to reconcile their anti-scriptural dogma with the Scriptures. With this problem Exeter Hall Christianity has been wrestling for fiftj years by the deplorable methods above described, and while they have not made the reconciliation, they have suc- ceeded by those methods in making the world skeptical of their sincerity, and in sowdng broadcast the seeds of a licentious rationalism. Their pupils, when taught to interpret the unpal- atable poHtical truth out of the declarations of Jesus, Moses and Paul, continue to use the same slippery methods to interpret the unpalatable theological truths also out of the Bible, as deprav- ity, predestination, gratuitous justification, inability, eternal retribution.
The most sorrowful aspect of the matter is that, as fast as the candor of these Christians forces them to recognize the contra- diction as real, they usually elect to throw their faith overboard rather than their politics. This election they not seldom carry out openly, but more often covertly and gradually, giving up first their faith in plenary inspiration, then in the Mosaic inspiration, at last in the Bible itself, and employing progressive forms of exegetical jugglery, to ease themselves down from the lower posi- tion to the lowest. Perhaps the most melancholy and notorious of such election is that seen in the great American divine and expositor, who has done more than any other Presbyterian to spread the humanitarian theology through the bulk of his de- nomination, whose doctrines indeed, overflowing the earlier and safer teachings of the senior Alexander and Hodge, have covered them out of sight in the present current of religious thoiight. This great man declares deliberately and solemnly in his pub- lished works, that were he shut up to the alternative between ac- cepting the sense of Scripture so obvious to the old interpreters, which recognizes domestic servitude as a relation which may be lawful under suitable conditions, or of sun-endering his political opinions on that subject, he should throw away his Bible in order to retain those opinions; and he solemnly warns that class of expositors represented by Drs. Hodge, Thornwell and N. L. Kice, that they had better stop their efforts to substantiate that exposition of Scripture, because if they succeeded the only effect would be, not to defend old institutions, but to drive all right-
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. 517
minded Cliristians like himself into infidelity. Let the reader look also at the case of Bishop Colenso, who, when he had expended the whole learning and labor of his latter years in attacking the inspiration of the Old Testament, which in his ordination vows he had sworn to defend, expressly accounted for and justified his course by the fact that he had adopted the new humanitarian poHtics. The reader may see a more flagrant in- stance nearer home. Ingersoll, the son of an Old School Pres- byterian minister, glories in trampling his father's Bible in the mire of foulest abuse. He tells the public that his abohtionism is a prime mo\dng cause mth him to spurn Christianity.
Such is the outlook. On the other side, adverse circumstances virtually paralyze all the human powers which should be arrayed in defence of the Bible. Doubtless, many divines remain in the countries and communions infected who see the truth and be- lieve it. They are called conservative, and wish to be considered so. But the only element of conservatism which they call into action at this critical juncture is caution, a caution which prevents their jeopardizing their ovm. quiet and prosperity by coming to the front and meeting the insolent aggression of the new opin- ions. They dissent, but practically they acquiesce. They com- mit the same mistake in tactics which General Charles Lee com- mitted one hundred and ten years ago at the battle of Monmouth, and which he himself expressed so pungently in his impertinent reply to his commanding general. When Washington met him retiring instead of attacking, as he had been ordered, he asked him, with stern dignity : " General Lee, what does this mean ?" To which the witty Englishman replied: "I suppose it means that I am imbued vdth rather too much of that rascally virtue, caution, in which your excellency is known to excel." Wash- ington was cautious, but he knew when to be cautious and when overcaution became the most fearful rashness, and vigorous au- dacity the only true prudence. There seems no encouragement to expect that these more enhghtened friends of Scripture in- spiration will employ the Washingtoniau tactics in the impend- ing conflicts. History teaches us that thus far in its preliminary stages, while still possessed of the superior weight of character, position, and even numbers, they have in every instance so mis- placed their caution as to give the victory to which they were
518 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOKIES OF EIGHTS.
entitled to the insolent and aggressive minority. How will sucli men act now that that minority has become a majority flushed with triumph ?
Thus circumstances make it, luimanly speaking, certain that there is but one small quarter of Protestant Christendom from which frank opposition to the new opinions is to be expected. The current sweeps too strongly, the error is too popular. Such determined opposition as would be adequate to stem it would be too inconvenient. Xow the circumstance which is so untoward for the cause of truth is this, that the conquering section in America, in order to carry out its purposes, found it desirable to load that obscure district of Christendom with mountains of obloquy, heaped on it with a systematic and gigantic diligence for more than a generation, and they have succeeded to their heart's content in making that district odious and contemptible throughout the Protestant world. Thus, whatever of hard- earned experience, whatever of true insight, whatever of faithful and generous zeal the good men of that section may desire to bring to the defence of the common Christianity, the world is determined beforehand to reject. " Can any good come out of Nazareth?" The world has been told, that of course warnings and declarations coming from that quarter have a perverse source. This will be believed. All that the enemies of the Bible need do to neutralize our honest eflbi-ts in the great de- fence will be to cry, " Oh, those are the extravagances of a sour pessimist!" or, "These are but the grumblings of defeated malice and spite against the righteous conquerors!" Now, that an indi^ddual servant of God and truth should be subjected to such taunts is of exceedingly little moment. The momentous result against the interest of the truth is, that the only part of the king's army which is in condition to do staunch battle for his truth is to be discounted in the tug of war. Thus the enemy of the truth has adroitly succeeded in so arranging, beforehand, the conditions of the campaign as to neutralize the powers of resistance, and, humanly speaking, to insure the victory for him- self, because the professed friends of the truth will be crushed for want of that sturdy assistance which they themselves had pre- viously disabled by slanders, prompted by their own interested purposes. There will be seen in the result the grimmest " poetic
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS. '519
justice " of divine providence. But tlie Lord still has faithful servants, and the truth still has steadfast witnesses, who will recognize no duty as superior to that of maintaining Christ's testimony against all odds.
The facts just stated show that the struggle cannot but be long and arduous. The friends of truth must therefore "with good advice make war." While never shirking ecclesiastical discus- sion when the aggressiveness of error challenges them to it, their chief reliance for victory must be upon the faithful preaching of the old-fashioned gosjDel and upon godly living. Like the martyr church of Eevelation they must " conquer by the blood of the Lamb and by the testimony of Jesus, and by not loving their lives unto the death." Divisions in the ranks of the defenders of the truth, professedly united up to a recent date, are a dis- couras;ino; sisrn : but the general decline in the standard of Chris- tian living which these have imbibed as an infection from the rationalistic side is a far more ominous sign ; " the battle is the Lord's, not man's." He will not deem it worth his while to work a victory for the sake of a mere dead ecclesiastical orthodoxy, which is to be as barren of the fruits of holy living as the code of its assailants. If the communions which profess to stand up for the integrity of Scripture have the nerve to resume strict church discipline, to enforce on their professed members a strict separation from the world, and thus to present to it a Christian life beautiful and awful for its purity as of old, they will conquer. If they lack this nerve and shirk this purification of themselves, they will be defeated ; they will also be corrupted ; and after a deceitful season of bustle and pretended Christian progress, having the form of godliness but denying the power thereof, a wide and long eclipse will come over Protestant Christendom, the righteous jiidgment of a holy God. His true people, per- haps for dreary generations, will be his despised and scattered ones mourning in secret places; and when his times of revival shall return again he will raise up new instruments of his own.
The friends of truth must contend in the spirit of humility. "God resisteth the proud, but giveth strength unto the lowly." They will, of course, recognize themselves as still possessed of the honorable trust, God's truth ; they must, of course, believe those who assail them as less honored with this noble trust than
520 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOWES OF RIGHTS.
themselves; for else what cause have they to couteud? But they must always remember the apostle's word, "What have ye that ye did not receive ? Now then, why do ye glory in it as though ye had not received it ? " If we really have this loyalty to Scripture and to him who gave it, it is of grace. It is God's inworking, not our personal credit. Had he not wrought it in us, "the natural mind," which is just as native to us as to the other sons of Adam, would doubtless be prompting iis, like other rationalists, to treat the old gosj)el claims as "foolishness." And there is a special reason for such Christian modesty in the case of Southern Christians. The fact that we are now standing on the side of Christ is due in part to a train of secular circumstances with reference to which we had no free agency, and therefore no personal credit. Providence ordained that the modern ration- alism should select as its concrete object of attack our form of society and our rights. God thus shiit us u\) to the study and clear apprehension of the religious issue, and decided the side we should take in the contest. But on the other hand, the sophism is obtruded at this point which is just as siUy and ab- surd as pride in us would be misplaced. This asserts that our claim of a mission to testify for God's truth against any pro- fessed Christians is necessarily the sinful vainglory in us. Ac- cording to this absurdity the piirest church on earth could not dare to testify that any other professed communion of Christians, even prelatists, papists, Greeks, Socinians, were any less ortho- dox than themselves. And if these are no less orthodox, what right has this purest church to contend against any of them ? " God resisteth the proud," but we apprehend also that he does not hke sham charity and contemptible logical dishonesties.
Since the opinions and practices hostile to the Scriptures are so protean, so subtile, and so widely diffused, there is no chance for a successfitl defense of the truth except in uncompromising resistance to the beginnings of error ; to parley is to be defeated. The steps in the "down-grade" progress are gentle, and slide easily one into the other, but the sure end of the descent is none the less fatal. He who yields the first step so complicates his subsequent resistance as to insure his defeat. There is but one safe position for the sacramental host: to stand on the whole Scripture, and refuse to concede a single point.
ANTI-BIBLICAL THEOEIES OF RIGHTS. 521
As to the secular and political doctrines which involve the points of assault upon the rule of faith, the church's true posi- tion is wholly defensive. She has no secular institutions, good or bad, to advocate as her ecclesiastical mission. That is sim- ply and solely to deliver the whole revealed will of God for man's salvation. She has no spiritual power to make anything sin, or anything duty, which the Bible has not made such. But if she would not walk into the fatal ambuscades of the enemies of Scripture, she must have a clear and exact perception of the extent of this defensive duty. When encroachers tisurp spirit- ual authority to lay upon the consciences of Christians any extra- scriptural doctrine or requirement, they thereby make that en- croachment a part of their ecclesiastical code. And they thus make it the right and duty of the friends of truth, in the exer- cise of their spiritual and ecclesiastical power, to examine and reject such new doctrine claiming to be spiritual and ecclesias- tical. The friends of truth are to do this, not in order to en- croach upon, but to protect, liberty of conscience in God's chil- dren. Failing to understand this part of their defensive duty, they betray the cause entrusted to them to the cunning aggres- sion.
It is the fashion to say that the metes and bounds between the kingdoms of Christ and of Cresar have always been, and must continue to be, very undefined and vague. This I utterly deny. They have, indeed, been constantly overstepped, but this is because there have always been churchmen greedy of power, worldly-minded and dictatorial. Men demand of us that we shall draw an exact dividing line between the two jurisdic- tions, defining everywhere the points at which they meet. The demand is preposterous, because the two kingdoms are not spread upon one plane, but occupy different spheres. There is no zigzag mathematical line to be drawn in such a case, but the clear space separating the two spheres is all the more easy to be seen by honest eyes. It is pretended that there is great room for debate between fair constructions of the famous rule that church synods must handle and determine nothing except what is ecclesiastical. I am sure the wise men who stated it saw no room at all for such debate. I remember that when they selected these words for their rule, they had also declared
522 ANTI-BIBLICAL THEORIES OF RIGHTS.
that Holy Scripture was the sufficient and sole statute-book of Christ's ecclesia. Hence, their rule means plainly that church synods must handle and determine just what Holy Scripture de- termines, and nothing else ; and they must determine what they handle precisely as Scripture does. Is not that distinct enough? Or, if any one seeks further definition, it may be found very sim- ply in this direction. Let us premise first, that whatever is ex- pressly set down in Scripture, and whatever follows therefrom by good and necessary consequence, are binding on the Chris- tian conscience. Now, all possible human actions must fall in one of these three classes : (1,) Actions which Scripture posi- tively enjoins; (2,) Actions which Scripture positively forbids; (3,) Actions which Scripture leaves indifferent. In the. first case, church courts are to enjoin all that God enjoins, and no- thing else, and because he enjoins it. In the second case, they are to prohibit what he prohibits, and on the ground of his au- thority. In the third case, they are to leave the actions of his people free to be determined by each one's own prudence and liberty, and this because God has left them free.
MOl^ISM.^
MONISTS postulate tlie doctrine, tliat tlie result of a true jihilosopliy ought to be to unify the whole system of hu- man thought, by ultimately resolving all the multiplicity and diversity of beings into one single substance, and all effects into the power of its single energy. They think this true, real being a Mo'yo:;, and the whole universe of spirit and matter, in its realit}', an absolute monad : duality even, of real being, they cannot be reconciled to ; plurality of distinct powers, they think unphilosophical. Hence it must be true, somehow, that either the multiplicity and diversity must be only apparent; or these beings must be only apparent, or else modal and temporary manifestations of the one absolute Being. The highest problem of all monistic sjstems is to make this resolution of the many into the One by some speculation. On this we remark :
1. The monistic tendency has been, in fact, widely influential in philosophy for tAvo thousand four hundred years. It was the animating principle of tlie Eleatic school five hundred years be- fore Christ. Zenophanes, announcing the unity of deity, also denied that real being could either begin to be or cease to be. This central doctrine obviously imposed on his school the task of either accounting for temporal and changing beings as modal manifestations of the one, eternal substance, or with his suc- cessor Zeno, denying flatly that temporal and differing things had any true being or were anything more than delusions ; or, with Heraclitus of resolving all, both the absolute One, and the temporal many, into one stream of endless becomings and end- ings.
Plato's later metaphysics, after he had refined away from the sober, Socratic influence, unfolded strong monistic tendencies.
' A lecture delivered before the American Association of Christian Philosophy at University Place, New York City.
523
524 MONISM.
He went ever nearer to the ideal scheme of resolving the being of God, the eternal Toop, into idea; and matter, as well as finite mind, into the emanations of the eternal ideas. When we pass to modern philosophy, the pantheistic scheme of Spinoza reappears as rigid and complete monism. Its main postulates are, that only eternal and necessary Being can be real ; that its actual be- ginning in time, ex yiiJiilo, is imjDOSsible ; that absolute and neces- sary Being can be but One ; that hence, all seeming individual, temporal, and differing beings, must be but modal manifestations of the eternal One; and that we must accept this explanation even as to phenomenal entities so opposite as mind and matter, good and evil, virtue and vice.
German idealism in all its jDhases, from Fichte, through Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, to Hartmann, glories in being Monist, and disdains all systems which do not tend to this result. Its whole effort is, under one scheme or another, to identify the world of thought known in subjective consciousness, the world known as objective and the eternal mind as one. To this day after all the hopeless self-contradic- tions and mutually destructive refutations of these schools, pub- lishing their own futility, we see the monistic tendency capti- vating the larger part of German philosophy, and disposing its authors to deny the name of true philosophers to all who refuse to speculate for the monist result, even when the names are as illustrious as those of Beid, Joufii'oy, Hamilton, Cousin and McCosh.
Perhaps the most surprising evidence of the pertinacity of the tendency is that seen in the materialistic philosophy, so called, of our own age, from Hartley and Priestley, to H. Spencer. Auguste Comte's positive philosophy is a stark attempt to estab- lish monism, by reducing all science and philosophy and the- ology at once, to the science of sensible j^benomena and their physical laws. Instead of seeking, with the idealists, to merge the objective world into subjective thought, he attempts the opposite : to reduce all thought to physical energy. Plerbert Spencer, discarding both spmt and God, attempts to construct his whole universe of mind and nature out of matter eternally existent, and material force eternally persistent. He asserts the very essence of monism ^vith the sharpest dogmatism, declaring
MONISM. 525
tliat our system of tliouglit cannot liave any pretension to be a pliilosoplay until it lias explained every being and every effect in the universe as tlie outcome of one substance and one force.
2. We will now place ourselves in the monist's point of view, and endeavor to represent fairly whatever seems to him specious or plausible in favor of his conclusion. He urges that the function of philosophy is to unify thought. The rudiments of cognitions are given to the unscientific mind in the form of individual, suc- cessive, diverse, or even discordant percepts. The business of the science of mind is to explain and so to unify these into sj'stem ; to show how they compose one whole of thought. Thus : the forming of a simple judgment in the understanding is a unify- ing act of thought, it places one subject and one predicate in the unity of a single affirmation in thought. Again, what is the mind's act in forming a concept or general idea of a class? By comparing acts it collects individual objects made known to it in perception, which have agreeing marks or attributes, into a single cognition, which represents the common marks of all. The concept is thus a unification of many into a more complete one. So, the logical process of proof (by syllogism) also pur- sues this unification in thought, continually bringing the lower and more diverse and numerous propositions in the conclusions under the logical control of the fewer and higher premises, until all are unified under the primitive judgments of the reason. The old realist theory of general ideas, again, reigned nearly unquestioned from Plato to Koscelin ; that in every concept there must be besides the individuals denoted by the class name, an e)U! reale, either ante res individfias, or in rehus connoted by that term. Now add the undisputed rule of the logicians : that in- tension of concepts varies inversely with their extension ; that as the larger genus includes more individuals than any one of its species, it expresses fewer of those attributes which differen- tiate species and genera from one another. Hence, at the top of the generalizing process there must be a sumvium gemis, in- cluding in its concept all individual beings of all genera and species, but connoting onl}- the one attribute of existence. Then ought there not to be, answering to this sinmmon gentis, an ens realissimxwi, i?i rebus and also in this case, ante res? Is not
526 MONISM.
this monism? Does not this show us the whole peripatetic scheme tending to that cidmination ?
Once more, it was the glory of the metaph3^sical thought of Greece that in spite of the prevalent polytheism of the myths and poets their philosophy led them up to monotheism. Zeno- phaues, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Plotinus, were monotheists; they correctly unified their thought by tracing the whole cosmos of effects to a single divine, absolute Cause, as to their efficient source. Should they not have completed the process of unifica- tion by tracing all phenomenal being up to the one absolute Sub- stance ? This is what monism is attempting to complete. When all the better part of Greek philosophy became Christian, the attempt of all the better divines to combine the doctrine of the Trinity with monotheism resulted in "Monarchianism." The personality of the Word and Spirit was acknowledged, but the person of the Father was held forth as Movr^Apxr^, the substantive source of the other two persons whom he perpetually and eter- nally emits from himself by a process of self-differentiation. Why should we not extend this genesis to all other individual beings ?
Finally, consistent unity throughout must be the characteristic of any system of truths. Hence, since philosophy should aim to systematize all the spheres of truth, it should seek their unity in an alisolute monism. Such is the plea ; let us now examine its validity. Our position is, that these affirmative arguments are only specious, and that the theory is as erroneous as it is hurtful to sound thought and philosophy.
3. Monism is to be rejected, because, [a.) Its inevitable corol- lary must be either atheism or pantheism. If there is no being that is real in the universe, except the One, the absolute Being ; if all phenomenal beings are but Diodl suhslstendl of this one, then it must include God along with all creatures (so called) in substantive oneness. Only by saying there is no God, can this rigid conclusion be avoided. It is not said that every monist has avowed either, or that all of them have seen clearly whither their speculation will lead them. It is not forgotten that even a Hegel deemed he could honestly conform to the Lutheran Church. But none the less is the corollary as unavoidable as it is simple.
MONISM. 527
The power of the practical tendency is seen in such facts as these : that most monists, Greek and modern, have been pan- theists; that Spinoza's, the most perspicuous and exact of all systems of monism, was as rigidly pantheistic ; that when the amiable Sclileiermacher had once been imbued with Hegel's monism, his plan of Christianity at once sunk to a pan-Chris- tism, or baptized pantheism.
Xow, therefore, every argument against atheism or panthe- ism is an argument against monism. Against either scheme the objections «re numerous and momentous. Pantheism is prac- tical atheism.
(b.) Monistic speculations are obviously the results of an over-eager craving for simplification. But this tendency has ever been the snare and plague of science, the mother of loose hypotheses, the unwholesome excitant of the scientific imagina- tion, the tempter to false analyses and hasty inductions. In this case, it has prompted the monist to assume far more than his premises authorize. It is perfectly true, for instance, that all truths should be interconsistent ; and that, so far as the hu- man mind has grasp to see their relations, a correct system of truths will make them appear so. But it has never been proved that they must all express attributes of one single substance, or laws of one single force, in order to be interconsistent. The laws of two distinct spheres of being cannot lack harmony with each other merely because distinct ; all that is requisite here is that they do not positively clash. But especially is this to he pondered : that the providential control of the One Almighty over both the departments of being, material and spiritual, is all that is needed to unify their laws, and insure harmony to their interactions. Hence, it is proven, there is no need to pre- dicate anything more than this supreme providence to insure full harmony of truth in the philosophy which attempts to ex- plain the universe. The all-controlling will of the One God gives all the monism true thought requires.
(c.) The place, time and manner in which monists set up their darling principle stamp their proceeding as more fatally un- scientific. From the Eleatics to the modern idealists, they tak& up the monistic hypothesis as a first postulate at the begin- ning, instead of a final induction or conclusion at the end>
528 MONISM.
Thus, tlie former begin tlieir yery first construction by postulat- ing that real existence cannot be beginning existence or ending existence. Spinoza places as his first proposition the assertion that true substance must ineyitably be absolute and unbegin- ning. Later and more idealistic pantheists all Tirtually set out with the postulate that the objectire must be reduced to the subjective, whether facts permit it or not, as the recent materi- alists all begin, with equal imperiousness, by resohing that the subjective shall be merged in the objective.
But surely it is time philosophy had learned the lesson of true induction, that science should obey its facts instead of dic- tating them! Mental science is just as much a science of ob- servation as physical, only its facts are to be observed in the field of consciousness, instead of the outer material world. These facts of consciousness are to be carefully and impartially watched, compared, noted in many agreeing instances, and veri- fied, until we are certain we have the generic facts of man's mental nature, and not some irregular exceptions ; just as the astrono- mer, the chemist, the botanist, estabhshes his facts of the stars, the molecules, and the flowers. Then has philosophy data, and then only ; data from which she can proceed to construct mental science. It is very true that these data of mental facts will in- clude more than the mere sensationaHst allows, sense-percep- tions and their coUigations; they will include primitive judg- ments of universal, necessarj- truth. But the claim of every proposition to be ranked among these must be tested by the in- fallible criteria of primariness, universality, and necessity. Only then can they take their places as unquestioned tmths. The hcense of the monists may be best seen by supposing that some other science had presumed to proceed in this way. Let us suppose, for example, that chemistry had resolved to be monis- tic in spite of nature's facts; that, fascinated by love of hypo- thesis and the seductions of a false simphfication, she had be- gun thus : Since God is one, I will suppose, as of course, that matter, which is the creative effluence of his eternal unit-thought and power, must be one also ; that so perfect a cause could not have been so inconsistent as to create any matter inferior in its essence to the most perfect; that science must unify itself; and chemistry is not truly unified until she holds all apparently
MONISM. 529
different masses of matter to be only modifications of one origi- nal simple substance, and all its molecular changes mere varia- tions of one and tlie same force. So this chemist proceeds to say: Lead is gold, and sulphur is a modification of gold, and iron is also a phase of gold ; for my science shall have but one simple substance at its soiu'co. It will not matter to him that no mortal has ever seen sidphur or iron transmuted out of gold or into gold. It will give him no pause that after the final analy- ses of the crucible, the menstruum, and the galvanic current, after the most refined and almost spiritual tests of the spectro- scope, the iron and sulphur appear as obstinately ultimate and simple and separate substances as the gold itself. It does not matter to him ; he will hold his monistic fancy in spite of facts, or the total absence of facts. There shall be but one ultimate substance of matter, so he postulates. What v/ould have been the scientific worth of such a chemistry? History answers: It could give us the silly dreams of alchemy. It could befool gen- erations of patient students into the worthless search for the "powder of projection," which should transmute lead into gold. But the modern chemistry which has endowed civilized man with his amazing power over nature has proceeded in exactly the opposite way: by humility, not by dogmatism; by asking nature for her facts, and listening meekly for her answers, in- stead of dictating what they shall be, in order that they may gratify a love of imaginary symmetry. Thus our true science, instead of a material monism, has given us sixty-four simple substances, each irreducible into the other. Why did One First Cause make so many? True science answers that she does not know. Her modest, but beneficent, province is not to solve captious questions of this kind.
So, a true philosophy must accept the facts given by nature, in the sphere of consciousness and observation, and must follow those facts whithersoever they logically lead, if this be to a dual- ism of matter and spirit, instead of trying to distort the facts to suit a preconceived postulate. Philosophy must not stumble at mysteries, but only at contradictions ; for every one of her lines of light leads out to some point in the dark circumference of mystery.
((I.) Here it is claimed is the fatal defect of all monistic
Vol. m. — 34.
530 MONISM.
schemes : thej disclose hopeless contradictions of our necessary laws of thought and truths of experience, as their inevitable corollaries. Thus Spinoza, having assumed that all real exis- tence must be absolute existence, and therefore one is obliged to teach that modes of extension and modes of thought can both qualify and at the same time be the /7av; and thus, that phe- nomenal beings as real and true to our experience as any a jjrlori cognition, or as this very Uav itself, are both modes of the One, although a pai-t of them are qualified by size, figiire, ponderosity, impenetrability, color ; and the other pai-t universally and utterly lack every one of these qualities, and are qualified by thought, sensibility, desire, spontaneity, and self-action. But this is not a mystery, it is a self-contradiction. The quahties of matter and extension cannot be relevant to spirit, nor those of thought, feel- ing, and volition to matter. They utterly exclude each other. Descartes was right : the common sense of mankind is right in thus judging. The proof is that just so soon as we attempt to ascribe intelligence and will to matter, or quahties of extension to spirit, utterly absurd and impossible fancies are asserted.
Spinoza teaches us that the Absolute Being must inevitably have an immutable sameness and necessity of being so strict as to necessitate its absolute unity. Yet he has to teach, in order to carry out this monism, that this monad exists, at the same instant of time, not only in numberless diversities of mode, but in iitterly opposite modes, as for instance, as soHd, liquid and gaseous at the same instant. All that science teaches us is, that modes may siicceedeach other in the same matter, as when a given mass of H" O exists, first as ice, afterwards as water, and after that as vapor or steam. Or, worse yet, that this One so necessary, eternal and absolute in its unity, may at the same moment of time, hate a Frenchman and love a Frenchman in the two modal manifestations of German and Gaul, and may hate sin and love the same sin in the two manifestations, at the same moment, of good souls and bad souls! Tet this same Spinoza could not admit that infinite, eternal power and ^\dsdom can make a beginning of real being objective to itself. Truly, this is "straining out the goat and swallowing the camel."
Or, if we pass to the more recent forms of monism, we find them all from Fichte to Hartmann, recognizing the necessity for
MONISM. 531
tlieir theory of reducing all our objective modifications of soul to the subjective by some shadowy process of " return upon itself," or self-limitation. The two parts of consciousness are iiTeducible. No better practical proof of this need be asked than that each successive attempt has been a hopeless failure. "Who — what monist even — is now satisfied with Fichte's plan for such reduction ? or with Schelling's ? or with Hegel's ? or with Schopenhauers ? or with Schleiermacher's? or with Hartmann's ? The writer was personally assured by Hermann Lotze before his death that Schleiermacherism was vanishing out of Ger- man philosophy and "would leave no results whatever." In- deed the scheme of the latter, viewed aright, is a confession that to reduce all objective mental modifications to the subjective o^igld to Ijc for philosophy an impossible task. For in order to attempt the task after the failures of his predecessors, he i& fain to make this process a function of unconsciousness! It is effected before the absolute comes to consciousness, and in order that it may come to consciousness. But philosophy should be the science of consciousness. We are required to beheve that the phenomenal universe, everywhere teeming with thought, knowledge, conscious, intelligent will, is the result of ]3rocesses in a Thing, which knew nothing, yet filled a universe with know- ledge. But this desperate final resort of Hartmann suggests the simple proof that the reduction attempted is impossible. Thus, the most palpable and impressive conviction human minds have of the reality of objective things is that gained when we know them as limiting our ot\ti volitions, or as affecting us with con- scious impressions when we know we did not produce these by our vohtion. A scribe moves his hand briskly ; it is stopped by the edge of the desk, and that sharply enough to produce some pain. Now, he is conscious that he did produce that motion of his hand by his o-^-n subjective volition. He is equally conscious that he did not produce the solid obstruction and the pain by his o^vu subjective volition. If he does not cer- tainly know these two facts, he knows no content of conscious- ness whatever. Even Hegel's staining point for a philosophy is gone.
Aijain, men must think their own volitions the most clear and definite function of their selfhood, the most certainly subjective
532 MONISM.
of all tliclr subjectivities. Wlien tliej are distinctly conscious of modifications of mind not self-jyroduced, they consequently liave here the most positive evidence of the not-self. It is easy to sec how the ideal monist will be inchned to answer when we jjress him with the question : How is it that we are unconscious of this process of reduction by which the not-me identifies itself with the me, if it really takes j^lace in thought? His escape must be to remind us of that doctrine of Leibnitz, endorsed by Sir William Hamilton, that there may be some modifications of thought out of consciousness, or back of it. But, first, the only instances of such unconscious j)i'ocesses ever verified by psychology are merely of those inchoate risings of relations be- tween cognitions, which are in order to definite cognitions — as, for instance, the unthought ties of suggestion which influence the rise of associated ideas into conscious thought — which them- selves never become explicit judgments; and second, that it is the very nature of rational volition that it must be conscious ; if not conscious, it is nothing. But it has been sho-s\Ti how it is chiefly the presence and absence of conscious volitions which demonstrate to us the reality of the not-me and its distinctness from the me.
(e.) But there is one intuitive judgment so uniformly disre- garded by all monists, that it deserves to be signahzed apart. This is the necessary judgment that action must imply an agent, as qualities imply an underlying substance. And hence com- mon sense declares that a series of actions or functions of a substance cannot constitute the being of that substance. It must exist as substance, in order to act, or have processes take place. To this rule the intuitive common sense of all the world bears witness. When they see an action, they know there must be an agent, and that the agent is something substantive, not identical with its acts, but the source of them. The whole scientific mind of the world proceeds on the same intuitive belief. Physical action must imply physical agents. The series of actions science always regards as not identical with the agents, but as proceed- ing from them. When the theory was surrendered, for instance, that electricity is a fluid sliding over the surface of electrical bodies, it followed that the whole scientific mind of the world demanded the conclusion that it is a molecular energy of some
MONISM. 533
substance — possibly an uukowu one. TvTien t.io undulatory theory of liglit was adopted, the scientific mind of the world at once adopted as the necessary consequence the existence of an ether filling all the interstellar spaces, and even transparent flu- ids and solids. For why? Has the ether ever been touched, seen, weighed, smelt? No. But the necessary law of the reason compels men to believe that if there are undulations, there must be soiaething to undulate, and that the mere action cannot actu- ally constitute the being of this thing.
But this simple dictum of necessary truth mouists con- stantly discard. It seems to cost them no effort to go in express opposition to this ine^dtable judgment. For instance, Herachtus thinks that the mere act of becoming may constitute the being of the most permanent and substantive things in the universe, rocks, planets, indi^ddual souls, God himself. Plato when leaning to ideahsm, thinks that somehow, blrj itself, deemed by all other Greek schools an eternal, self-existent substance, may be only an eternal emanation of the One : being constituted, namely, of his archetypal thought. That is, a mere function of a spiritual substance may actually be a material substance. Platonic realists find the generic lies only in the general con- cepts which God thinks; and j'et believe one of these "gene- rals," while a true thing, truer indeed than any individual of the genus, exists cmte res individuas. This delusion coTild only be made possible by the absurdity we combat. When we come to modern monists we find Spinoza attempting to account for all finite substantive things as mere modes of development — func- tional acts of the absolute Thing To //«v. So German idealists propose, one way or another, to construct all substantive spirits, including God, out of a series of acts of consciousness. They would fain have us beHeve that the solid rock, deep down in the mountain, has its being actuaUy constituted of the self -limitation of some consciousness somewhere.
The theory only makes its first pretended movement by defying the common sense of mankind. PossiKy a poor excuse might be found for this utter blunder in the case of the Greeks, in the fact that their nomenclature was vacfue. It made Obaia stand for being or entity, nature and substance. But men had no excuse after the Latin had so exactly defined the difference
534 MONISM.
"between mere esse, essentia, and substantia. An act lias esse^ or e»titj, Y.'liile going on. But it is an opposite kind of entity from substance.
In favor of monism there is left, tlien, onl^'tlie craving for exces- sive simplification, and the repugnance to the mystery of the origin of contingent beings. Against it stand the fatal contradictions to necessary intuitions and real facts of experience. !}.lonism asks : How does even an infinite agent produce an actual beginning of real beings ex nihilo f Sound philosophy must answer : It does not know; it cannot explain that action to human comprehen- sion. But sound philosophy can show that this is no objection, l^ecause it can be proved that such explanation lies beyond the conditions of human knowledge. Those conditions understood, we see that we had no right to expect to be able to comprehend the beginning e:c nihilo of contingent being, nor to stumble at the fact. The human mind is equally incompetent to see how the wonder was ^Touglit by omnipotence, and to say he could not work it. If the fact that he did work it is proven a pode- riori, or testified by his own word, sound reason acquiesces in the fact unexjDlained.
For what are the Hmits and conditions of human knowledge ? We will not say -svith the sensationahsts, that they are simply the limits of sense-perceptions and their combinations in mem- ory and association. We hold as firmly as any transcendental- ist, that there are also certain primitive judgments and intuitive abstract notions in the reason, not collected from sense-percep- tions and experience by any mere process of generalization, or I)y any deduction, but rather the conditions a jy^ioi'i for formu- lating all valid perceptions and deductions. But while these rational first cognitions are not causally derived from sense-per- ceptions, they can find their occasions noichere save in sense-per- ceptions. This is the vital truth established by Locke amidst so many half-truths and errors. For instance : The mind can never have derived its abstract notion of power in cause, and its intuitive behef that every beginning phenomenon must have its own efficient cause, from watching a phenomenon foUow its antecedent. But none the less, the mind would never have enounced this judgment and notion to itself, had it not seen in- stances of effects, either by the consciousness or the bodily senses.
MONISM. 535
Thus, even these highest and regnlatiye truths, white not expe- riential in their evidence, are conditioned on experience for their Joccasions.
Is not this a fair inference, that our competency to judge the metes and bounds of a causal power must be hmited to cases within man's experience ? But of actual beginnings of contingent existence, either material or spii'itual, man has no experience and no observation ; and he can have none. Not of any material beginning, since physics teaches us that every atom of matter was already existing before man appeared in the universe, and that all seeming beginnings of masses or bodies have been merely the collecting and joining or organizing of atoms already existing; not of any spiritual contingent Being, since sense-perception teaches us nothing direct concerning spirits that are immaterial, but they are directly known only in consciousness. But consci- ousness is the subjective faculty. Now, no soul can ever know or realize by consciousness its own beginning, because it must already have begun to be in order to have consciousness ; nor its own ending, because in the ending of its being would be the ex- tinction of consciousness. It is only the Mind which never be- gan and can never end, the Eternal, Self -existent One, which can by any possibility construe to itself finite beginnings and endings.
We say to the monist, then : Pause ; both you and we are out of oiu' depth ; we are in a region of ontology where we can safely neither affirm, nor deny, nor comprehend, nor explain. Let us lay our hands upon our mouths. The conclusion of the matter is to confess with the apostle (Hebrews xi. 3), that the doctrine of the beginning of contingent being is one of faith, not of phil- osophy : fliartc iyoo~Jnev •/.azr^pziadai zoh^ auoi^a^ p-^/iazi dedo ec^ to fiTj ix cc.r^oaiyar^ zd 6h~ous'ja Yeyouivac. And here is strong evi- dence of his acqiiaintance -^dth the whole range of speculative human thought. He says at once to the Pythagorean, the Ele- atic, the atomist, the Platonist, the Stagyrite: Yain men, you are out of your depth. The same inspired caution is as good for Sfjinoza and the most modern idealist or monist.
THE FACULTY DISCOURSE/
Young Ladies and Gentleman :
ONE year ago it was your good fortune to be instructed in the importance of moral and mental honesty by one whose whole private and public life has been an incorporate example of his noble theme.^ You saw, indeed, the frame once so in- stinct with vigor and nerve whenever the call of dutv and danger inspired him, now bent under the premature weight of years and unrewarded toils; you heard the voice which could once ring like the clarion in the forefront of battle, unstrung by soitow and lassitude. But you beheld the manly spirit disdaining at once the infirmities of the flesh and the depression of defeat, glowing as strongly and brightly as in the days of his prime. You should account it one of the richest boons of providence to your youth, that you had the jprivilege of hearing him bear his witness to the supreme claim and worth of honor and truth. The heart that can swell wdth generous applause at such a career, and with eager aspiration to imitate it, is ennobled by its emotions and instructs itself more grandly than the pen or tongue of the writer can teach it. I know well, that no words I shall utter will carry the endorsement of such a heroic life, yet the momentous importance of his theme justifies me in renewing it in another of its aspects.
There are truths so fundamental to the welfare of mankind, that they cannot grow trite, as there are names of such immortal glory that it can never be commonplace to cite their authority. Such a name is Washington's and such a truth is the one I now quote from his valedictory letter to the American people.
" Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morahty, are indispensable supports.
' A discourse at the Commencement of the University of Texas, 1889. Deliv- ered by appointment of the faculty to the students. ' Lieutenant General D. H. Hill.
536
THE FACULTY DISCOTJESE. 53T
In vain would tliat man claim the attribute of patriotism, wha should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these foremost props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician equally with the pious man ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. . . . Let us with caution in- dulge the supposition that morality can be sustained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can j^revail in exclusion of religious principles. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
This thesis I might substantiate by several arguments, begin- ning with the one advanced by " the father of his country." If the reverence be lost which should hedge the inviolable sanctity of oaths, what defence have we left, for either good name, property or life when these are drawn into the courts of justice ? If pro- bity and tliG righteous fear of the judge of all the earth be lost, we have no longer a guarantee for the integrity of our magis- trates or the fidelity of the executors of the laws. It has been well argued that mutual confidence is the cement of society and of the commerce of men in their affairs, but for this confidence there is no basis but integrity and fidelity. It is these qualities which inspire the industry, the frugality and the order whence flow the wealth, numbers and strength of the commonwealth. Virtue is the only foundation of the family and the only guide in the rearing of the young for future citizenship.
But it is not necessary to pursue the demonstration. The most conclusive proof may be seen in the fate of two contrasted societies ; such, for instance, as the commonwealth of the Kiowas or Comanches in America, with either of the cantons of Protestant Switzerland. Why is the former ill-housed, ill-clad, half-starved, miserable, and pauperized, and tending toward an ignoble extinction ? Yet tlieir goodly heritage was in the fertile prau'ies and under the genial skies of this Texas, while the latter inheriting a narrow and stony territory under a rude sky, and iron bound by the savage Alps, has had for centuries a history of happiness, plenty and power with the promise of indefinite prosperity hereafter. Because the Swiss are Christians and
538 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
moral ; wliile the savao;es were pagan and %dcious. Because the well grounded apprehension of wicked aggressions suppressed all the beneficent exertions of their natural aspirations, and left them to indolence, violence, systematic theft, and the neglect of domestic duties. The source of savagery is sin. The same vice will in time sink any prosperous, civilized society into the same despicable misery. 'We may be reminded that these sav- ages retain along with their vices, certain virtues, fortitude, bravery, and loyalty to engagements of their plighted faith to friends; that in this last quality they set an example which many more civilized men would do well to imitate. These praises so far as they are just, only confirm our conclusion, so ruinous are bad morals to men's sociai welfare, an utter desertion of such virtues would make even existence impossible. Some virtues must be maintained by self-interest even to furnish the conditions for the gregariousness of the savages. Should these also be discarded, their absence would SjDeedily bring the end of their misery and their existence.
But I do not propose to argue formally what no one will avowedly dispute. I propose rather to explain and enforce. And, first, I must beg you to beware of inferring from my urgency in asserting civic and personal morality as all essential means for free government and social welfare, that this is the sole ground of moral obligation. The maxim, that " Honesty is the best poUcy," has been repeated so often, there is ground to fear many have concluded that the goodness of the policy is what makes the honesty. When once this grovelling conception is adoj^ted, there is a speedy and fatal end, both of the formal correctness of action promoted by this reasoning of expediency, and of all true inward moral principles and desert. The quality of the action is decided exclusively b}' the complexion of its inward motive, fie who has done the thing right in form, not supremely because it is right, but because it is politic, has no virtue in that act; all the credit he can claim is that of shrewd- ness and regulated selfishness. Not until the sentiment of duty for its own sake and from reverence for the all j^erfect God, in whose holiness virtue is impersonated in its perfect beauty, becomes the ruling motive of our acts, do virtues even begin in us. Nor will the doctrine of expediency long suffice to retain
THE FACULTY DISCOUESE. 539
€ven the dead and soulless image of it in the outward conduct. All our observation tells us that soon after honesty comes to be valued for the goodness of its policy, the same politic calciila- tions begin to impel men to all dishonesties. The explanation and reason ought to be very patent.
The internal motive of these morals of expediency is, after all, nothing else than selfishness, refined and regulated. But selfishness -when dominant is sinful, the fruitful mother of every kind of sin, injustice, envy, cruelty and oppression. Can one cast out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of de^^ls ? Nay, verily; the parent chief will only propagate and cherish his own kind. In vain will you plead with an intellect per- verted and darkened by this passion of selfishness, that he ought to see even the most self-denying act of equity apparently most damaging to self-interest will yet result in the final, and broadest experience in advantage to self. This is truth ; such a truth as the infinite, beneficent, and unselfish intelligence of God can see clearly and can delight in. But it is one which your selfish, politic mind, will not and cannot beheve in. Such a mind concludes thus, under subtile and forcible temptations: " Yes ! of course, honesty is ahvays the best policy for other peo- ple to pursue towards me, and frequently for me towards them. But this dishonesty will be my best policy now ; for my superior .shrewdness will enable me to reap the benefit of it, without the bad consequences it might entail on more bungling hands." Thus under this false philosophy each man advises and expects his fellow to pursue the good policy of honest li^ang, while each one secretly proposes to depart from it for his own advantage. The whole company sink into hypocrisy and moral iDutres- cence.
If this discourse, young gentlemen, is to be worth any more to you than a decent and pretentious deceit, it must succeed in im- pressing reason and conscience Avith the stern and inexorable necessity of the highest and purest standard of civic morality for citizens of all elective and free republics. Unless I succeed in doing this, I shall have done nothing more than amuse or weary you. Give me then, I pray you, your candid attention to a few lines of thought of entire simplicity and obvious truth, which I am about to present. While civil government is in its
540 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
highest aspect the ordinance of our Maker for our good and his honor, on its human side it is to be viewed as a moral associa- tion of equals formed for their common and equitable good. The commonwealth is not entitled to engross to itseK aU rights or to claim to be the source and dispenser of all privileges and duties. Both the individual and family are before the common- wealth. Thej exist and hold their rights not bj its authority or sufferance, but b}' the direct authority and gift of the God who created both them and it. The commonwealth exists for the good of the families, not these for its behoof. The servant shall not be above his master. It is, then, only a part of the func- tions of social life which pertain to the commonwealth to be exercised or decided by it. But as to these, its legitimate functions and powers, the citizens hold to each other the moral relation of a great co-partnery. A part of their heritage of powers they have cast in as subscribers to the common stock. The one duty of this political firm or co-partnership and of each of its partners in his pubUc actions, is to pursue the common and equitable good of the firm, and that alone. It is on this firm, as a whole, losses must fall. To the firm belong aU the gains and profits of the common functions performed for it. These gains are to be aU distributed among aU the co-f)artners according to the equities of the compact which created the co- pai-tnership. Each partner is honorably free to employ the time, efibrt, and capital which he did not subscribe to the firm, and which remain individually his own, for the private behoof of him- self and family.
But if he uses the name, credit, or capital of the firm for pri- vate ends, as for ventures of which the losses will be thrown on the firm and the gains conveyed to his own indi^ddual pocket, he is a swindler. The dishonesty is so patent that a court of equity would legally enjoin it, and give relief to his defrauded partners. The whole community of merchants would concur in " sending him to Coventry." He would take his proper place, in their estimation, as a virtual thief.
No other rule of honesty can be found for the citizen in aU his public or ci^dc acts, as a member of the great pohtical co-part- nership of the commonwealth in voting, legislating, buying and selling with the State and the performance of stipulated official
THE FACULTY DISCOUESE. 541
duties. How, now, do the practices, prevalent in America, stand this plain and recognized test ? "What shall be said of him who aims to make his politics pay? Of him who demands, for what the commonwealth needs to buy, more than the market-price would enable him to extract from the private dealer ? Of him who, at the polls or in a legislature, votes for a measure of class privileges designed to rob his fellow-citizens for the benefit of the class to which he belongs? Can any complication of these measures of wrong-doing, and blindness of a corrupted public sentiment, veil this moral obliquity from an honest mind ? Some one may attempt to escape the condemnation by exclaiming: " Oh ! this is a theory of civic virtue too abstract and puritanical for a real world ! ! " This I deny, with emphasis. The assertion combines a sophism and a direct historical falsehood, with an insidt to their fellow-citizens. There are yet men, and public men, who act up to this theory of civic obligation. Well is it for America that there are, else our civilization would be doomed to the destiny of the Comanche!
A Washington, a Jefferson, a Henry, a Madison, a Monroe lived up to this standard, and ever disdained to adopt a lower one. He who understands the history of the country knovv^s that but for the confidence of the American people that their trusted leaders held this standard, federal institutions would have been impossible on this continent. Every other man can live up to the same standard unless he deliberately prefers gain to prin- ciple. But the deplorable prevalence of the lower standard of civic morality which in the exactly parallel relations of a co- partnership would stamp any man as a scoundrel, discloses a principle of human nature, of jDrofound moment here.
This is the tendency to do wTong in associated, more readily than in individual acts. The director of a business corporation sanctions for the agents of the company, exactions and oppres- sions which he would be ashamed to perpetrate personally on his neighbor. The Puritan, who in his own household is a stickler for Sabbath observance, is a well-pleased stockholder in the lucrative railroad which tramples God's Sabbath law in the dust with insolent boldness every week. The same delusion misleads the public acts of nations. There is probably nowhere a people which can count more persons of exalted dignity and
542 THE FACULTY DISCOUESE.
genuine piety among its members, or which is as generally guided by honesty and truth as the English people. But this was the nation which in its organic capacity, sought to monopo- lize the African slave trade for nearly a hundred years, which waged the two iniquitous opium wars in China, and is to-day, by virtue of the triumj)h of its Christian arms, coining its Indian revenue out of the crime and self-destruction and idiocy of the Chinese people ; which in 1861, was too righteous to recognize an independent Confederacy, entitled by its own international law to recognition, because tainted with the sin of slave-holding, and which yet had been eager in 1846 to recognize the republic of Texas, tainted with the same sin, if she might thereby crip^^le her rival, the United States.
This guilty hallucination concerning the veniality of associated sins is easily explained. The "s-ictims of the wrong are out of sight of the perpetrators, and do not obtrude their misery and their reproaches with an inconvenient indiAaduality. The wrong- doers can sin without directly soiling theu" own dainty fingers; they get the wrongs perpetrated by the official hands of paid agents, who can say they have themselves no responsibility. The ■^Tong-doers imagine that responsibility and guilt are so subdivided among the multitude that only an infinitesimal share attaches to each one. This is, indeed, a very shallow delusion. It has been long ago exploded by the wise man, when he said : " Though hand join in hand, yet shall not the ^vicked go un- pimished." This simple thought refutes it ; that if the supreme judge once allowed this rule of subdi'S'ision, e^dl men would only need to associate a sufficient number of accomplices in each transgression in order to rob him of all practical control. Even the plain and unrefined justice expressed in our criminal stat- utes exposes the falsehood. By that law the guilt of a collective concerted sin is not di"\dded, but multiplied. If twelve men con- spire to murder one, the law makes twelve full murderers ; for each is held such, as an accessory before the fact.
But none the less does this delusion everywhere cheat the consciences of men. They flatter themselves that the guilt of associated wrongs inflicted by the j^opular majority is venial, or practically nothing.
As we combine these conclusions, they give us a deduction
THE FACULTY DISCOURSE. 543
concerning our topic as alarming as it is true. Its liigli stand- ard of civic virtues is essential to the welfare of the state. Its maintenance is also extremely difficult, and beset by peculiar and subtle temptations. It is a quahty very hard to keep, and easy to lose. But the people which loses it is ruined with a most loathsome ruin.
The solemnity of this dilemma is fui'ther enhanced by another social law Avhich I aim now to explain. T»^e have just seen that it is natural to men to allow themselves far more moral Hcense in their associated and pubhc acts than in their individual and jDrivate. But, on the other hand, the example set by poHtical parties and rulers, in those public acts in which they so easily allow themselves immoral licenses, is the most powerful influ- ence, forming, for good or evil, the moral character of the peo- ple. Thus speaks Mr. Calhoun, in his precious Disquisition on the Philosophy of Government, while contrasting the two theories of popular or elective government :
"For of all the causes which conspire to form the character of a people, those by which power, influence, and standing in the government are most certainly and readily obtained are by far the most powerful. These are the objects most eagerly sought of all others by the talented and aspiring, and the pos- session of which commands the greatest respect and admira- tion. But just in proportion to this respect and admii'ation will be their appreciation by those whose energy, intellect, and posi- tion in society are calculated to exert the greatest influence in forming the character of a people. If knowledge, wisdom, patri- otism, and virtue be the most certain means of acquiring them, these quahties will be most highly appreciated ; and this would cause them to become prominent traits in the character of the people. But if, on the contrary, cunning, fraud, treachery, and party devotion be the most certain, they will be the most highly prized, and will become marked features in their character. So powerful, indeed, is the operation of the concurrent majority in this respect, that if it were possible for a corrupt and degener- ate community to establish and maintain a well-organized gov- ernment of the kind, it would, of itself, piu'ify and regenerate them ; while, on the other hand, a government based wholly on the numerical majority would just as certainly corrupt and de-
544 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
base the most patriotic and virtuous people. So great is tlieir influence in this respect, that just as the one or the other ele- ment predominates in the construction of any government, in the same proportion will the character of the government and of the people rise or sink in the scale of patriotism and viiiue. Neither religion nor education can counteract the strong tend- ency of the numerical majority to corrupt and debase the people."
Well did Thomas Fuller exclaim : " Oh, what a legislative power hath the example of princes ! " Let the populace witness the winning of the prizes, which most stimulate the desires, by the arts of slander, sophism and bribery. Let them see the prac- titioners of corruption and peculation crowned A\T.th wealth and the applause of the crowds and even the flatteries of sycophantic priests of rehgion. Let them have the examples of fraudulent constructions and broken pledges set them by the supreme heads of earthly authority ; and nothing can result from the principles of imitation and ambition but a flood of vice which mil either cor- rode and dissolve the foundations of free government, or sweep them before the torrents of national convulsions.
There is another consideration which intensifies the lU'gency of the peril. No human engine of moral degradation is so effec- tive as the subjugation of a people formerly free. It unstrings the moral character by dishonoring it, and taking away ruth- lessl}' the " point of honor," around which self-respect and pride are centered. By the burning resentments for the ^vrongs per- petrated upon the conquered, it suggests the most seductive temptations to adopt illicit methods of rehef or retaliation. It subjects its victims to losses and miseries, which they can neither resist by manly force nor endure without intolerable sufferings. The escape from this cruel dilemma seems to be found only in frauds. Hence chicanery has ever been the weapon of the subjugated. It was doubtless this lesson, taught by all history, which prompted our wise forefathers to prefer a government of free consent, to one of force. But the artifices and tricks by which the unhappy victims relieve themselves for a time, from the wrongs they suffer, minister the succor at a deadly cost — that of their own manhood and ci"\dc virtue. Un- happily the illustration of this danger is too near at hand.
THE FACULTY DISCOUESE. 545
We have seen tlie peace, property and order of our common- "wealths so imperiled by the changes in suffrage forced upon these States, that the citizens saw no escape from ruin except in those arts of the weak by which this suffrage might be illicitly controlled. Even rehgious men justified these arts. They said they were the only means left them to save their property, their families, and even their lives from a fate as loathsome as threat- ening, and society from anarchy. They pleaded that "necessity knows no law." With the unfailing versatility and ability of the southern character, they had often succeeded to the vexation and disajDpointment of their rulers. Yes ! But they have also succeeded in teaching themselves, their opponents and posterity a lesson as fatal as anarchy ; the art and custom of debauching the purity of elections. No statesman has ever doubted that this custom, once established, must be the destruction of free elective government. It poisons the stream of authority at its fountain head. Will this art, first adopted under the supposed stress of necessity, be laid aside when the necessity ends? Alas, No! Neither by its inventors, nor by their opj)onents thirsting and burning for retaliation. The recurring exigencies of party contests will ever seem to the rivals another necessity, justifying the resort to the same crooked weapons. Their pre- vious use will appear to compel their further use. Will they not be repeated until just government becomes a fiction ? Will not white men learn to use these weapons against white oppo- nents, appearing in their eyes as detestable and dangerous as the negroes against whom they were first forged? One glance at this question shows us that supreme fortitude, -v^dsdom and j)urity would scarcely be sufficient to meet it. Will a conquered and dispirited people exert these heroic qualities ?
The general aspect of our institutions and another illustration of this burning question, is not sectional, but of continental dimen- sions. This is the civil service reform which was to replace the dangerous and corrupting " spoils system " of appointment to office. A few years ago both parties which had previously waged war on each other by means of this system, seemed to concur in putting it aAvay. With the levity of party rivalry, they challenged each other to concur in the much applauded reform ; and sought to see which could out-grimace the other in affected
Vol. III.— 35.
546 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
zeal for it. Presidents uttered pious lioinilies upon tlie law and promised its execution, " in a convenient season."
But, " can men drav*^ out leviatlian with a liook ? or his tongue with a cord which they let down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn ? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens"? The monster is not to be thus subdued. Let us consider for a moment what means will be requisite for the real and eifective introduction of the better system. There needs to be a party, self-denying and virtuous enough, upon win- ning an arduous and costly presidential campaign, to leave all the offices, except those properly vacated for the unfaithfulness of their incumbents, undisturbed in the hands of the existing officers, and those officers poKtical opponents. For, let us sup- pose that the winners should expel them, and seek to justify theii'act by pleading that these occupants of office had come in as spoilsmen, by partisan appointment, and that, therefore, the seats of power must be cleansed of them before a jDermanent be- ginning of the cleaner system could be made. Then on the next turn of the wheel of political fortune, the opposite jDarty, now new victors, would be sure to condemn that act as one of parti- san greed, to be retaliated by another expulsion. Thus the true reformer could never begin. Each party would be heard as now jDrofessing loyalty to the principle, but postponing its real application for another political revenge.
Is there a party, is there a body of citizens m this country, rich and strong enough to win a presidential campaign, mag- nanimous, pure and patriotic enoiigh to perform the labor of the contest and yet to forego the official spoils of the victory when won for the sake of a principle ?
Is my question answered with an incredulous smile ? If no such virtue can be found among us, then the fate of elective government here is sealed.
To any mind which conceives aright the relation of the pres- ent sj'stem to parties, aspirants and the people of the countr}' severally, this conclusion is too plain to be contested. Accord- ing to the theory of constitutional government, the sovereignty abides in the people, and they depute so much of their power as the constitution stipulates to the rulers whom they choose to elect in the free exercise of their own judgments, and all offi-
THE FACULTY DISCOURSE. 547
cial powers are to be liekl and received for the ser^ace and behoof of the j^eople whose money pays their salaries. But according to the "'spoils system," the people's money is paid to office holders, nominally indeed for their services to the people, but actually for their partisan services to the successful aspirant, who is most probably inimical to the true rights and interest of the people, whom he thus dominates. As long as human nature is human, we must expect these hirelings of party to press the designs of the leaders who are to reward them, with every art of fraud, sophism, slander, and bribery. Are they not themselves already bribed by the prospect of rewards to be paid ? The his- tory of the last fifty years in the United States, since a victorious demagogue shamelessly announced the rule that "to the victors belong the spoils of office," confirms the reasoning too mourn- fully to permit debate. As well might a people have expected freedom under the late Roman emperors, whose "Praetoriaa Cohorts" set up the purple to the highest bidder, as under a, system where the leader of the camp usurps the people's money to hire these mercenary hosts of officials, to liro wheat, delude^ and bribe them, by whose plunder they are to be rewarded, not for serving, but for ensla^dng their masters, the people. Either America must find citizens numerous enough to compose a majority, intelligent enough to see the j)ei'il and its only remedy, and self-denying and magnanimous enough to bear all the ex- pense and toil of this gigantic struggle against official tyranny wielding the powers and revenues of the continent, and willing to do all this ^"ithout any partisan reward, purely for the sake of country, truth and right ; or the doom of free institutions in. America is fixed. Our coming history is destined to pass, like that of the Roman republic, through a series of civic corruptions, and wars to a similar end.
The commonwealths of modern times have slowly emerged from savage conditions, and the elevating power has been, in its real source, moral. The real difference between the lowest and the highest social state of national masses is much less than men imagine. The submersion into barbarism is a pos- sibility much nearer and more facile than we think. Our pre- sent civilization is, after all, only supported by a crust which is but thin. It is luxuriant and rank, like the vines and gardens which flourish on the rich volcanic soils of New Zealand, with
548 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
tlie devouring fires raging or smouldering but a few feet below. The green is, perhaps, the more rich, and the growth the more rapid, because of the very heats which arise from the sulphur- ous abysses of fire below, and not, like the vegetation of health- ier climes, from the clear and temperate warmth of a genial sky. Thoughtless men rejoice in .the rank promise of the crop. But each imprudent stroke may begin a fissure through which the mad fires will burst out, widening the fatal rent by their own fury, until the verdant growth is fii'st shrivelled, and then en- gulfed in the lake of flame below. This risk ever}' public man in our country is now running by ever}' act which weakens the pubhc virtue. Let men beware. The fires are not far below our surface. Their mephitic fumes are infecting the up^^er air. Their mutterings are audible beneath our feet. The man who weakens the thin crust by any stroke assaulting or undermining the integrity of public and social life is the enemj' of his coun- try and of his kind.
What is the lesson of general history, but that every nation or commonwealth which has fallen, has fallen reall}' by its own vices? Outward assaults have been only the occasions; their decays of virtue the only efficient causes. Thus sank Assyria, Egypt, Persia, Israel, Greece, Kome, Spain, Bengal, and impe- rial France, and Poland. Thus, in a sense, fell our own Con- federacy ; not, indeed, by Aaces greater than those of its assail- ants, but by defects of the higher virtues reqiiisite for so ardu- ous a contest. There is no doubt but the Southern people were more religious and conscientious than their opponents. When Providence has a design not to destroy a people, but to pmify and elevate them, he has often employed as his instrument a people more wicked than themselves. But we had a whole world to resist. Notwithstanding the fact that we were called, -vvith eight millions of white people, to defend our States against the combined proletaries and wealth of America and Europe, Had the moral tone of the whole jieople been as high as that of their best exemplars, the}' would have been unconqiierable. They fell, not before the millions of bayonets which confronted them, but by reason of the more mischievous economic here- sies which their rulers applied to their finances and diplomacy, and yet more by force of the relaxed morals which these fatal errors of policy j^roduced. My j^roof is this :
THE FACULTY DISCOURSE. 549
To point joii to that minority of citizen soldiers, so well rep- resented by Stonewall Jackson, wliose devotion to duty and their country was lionest and active. Let lis suppose the whole of the small armies we were able to keep in the field, animated by their intelligence, bravery and courage, and sustained by the rest of the eight millions at home mth equal public spirit and devotion to duty. Would they ever have been overpowered even by a whole world in arms? Had ever}^ private in the rank and file of those terrible battalions been a Jackson, and the whole directed by the consummate wisdom of a Lee, they would have cut through the multitudinous hosts of mercenaries, as the armored war-ship pierces the froth upon the turbulent waves. Lord Macaulay tells us of Cromwell's L'onsides. He ascribes their prowess not so much to the strict drill which that great soldier imposed upon them, as to their high morality and reli- gious faith. He tells us that both in England and upon the con- tinent, they not only overcame every corps that dared to meet them in the shock of arms, but shattered and destroyed it. Such L'onsides had our armies of Jackson been. The state, all infused with these men's virtue, had been absolute, invulner- able, the Achilles of the nations, not from a baptism in the Stygian flood of lucre and deceitful arts, but panoplied from the arsenals of eternal truth and justice, whose king and Lord is the God of providence.
I have spoken of the lesson of universal history. To him who reads it aright, there is one deeper truth which grounds and accounts for the one I have cited. History is but the evolution of God's will. Its events arise under his permission or direc- tion, and must in the final issue conspire to execute his ends. But he is the God of truth and purity. He has founded all his numerous works of nature upon the eternal rules of truth and order, and shall he not thus found, still more, his government of moral creatures? The invisible atoms of chemistry, in all their infinite number and countless combinations obey ^\dth unerring correctness their laws of union. The germs of organic life all reproduce after their kind, with universal fidelity. Planets and suns in all their deviovis circles through the skies, observe their time "svith mathematical exactitude. In the more augiast sphere of the spiritual conscience, the same law of truth reigns abso- lute and unquestioned by the right reason. Shall not this God
550 THE FACULTY DISCOURSE.
impose tlie same rule upon tlie destiny of Lis responsible crea- tures and make tlie universe know that it is righteousness which exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people ?
Young gentleman, we of the generation which is about to pass off the arena, must revert to you in terms of anxious and solemn affection. We leave you a momentous and difficidt task, the restoration of the cause of constitutional freedom, which is the same as the cause of pure morals, which was compromised in our unfortunate hands. Dare Ave after our disastrous failure, lift our heads before you as advisers, as monitors ? Our justifi- cation is to point to our wounds, our premature gray hairs, the hundred battle fields watered with our blood or sweat, the thick strewn graves of our companions, our broken fortunes, and to claim that we did what we could to save your heritage for you. Had we all possessed the higher vii'tues of our dead heroes, we should have saved it for you instead of leaving it in jeopardy. Perhaps no qualities short of the purity, courage, and devotion, in which some of us eame short, vdU. suffice to you for the task of rescue and redemption which you are to undertake.
The better part of my powers was spent in the faithful en- deavor to aid in forming my mother commonwealth to the virtues which ennoble and fortify the state. She is in bonds and in widow's weeds, and alas ! and alas ! trailing her garments of woe in dishonor. Having no more a place there, I have brought such powers as remain, half-broken and spent, to the service of your State, in whose broader domain, and under whose brighter sun and more youthful and cheerful ausj)ices, we trust a hapjjier end may be achieved.
We old men stand before you with awful reverence — you who are the rulers of the arena henceforth — and as we lower the point of our weapons, sorely tried in our combats, before you, we say, with the ancient gladiators: '' J/oriiuri Salutamzis": all hail to you ! not Caesars guilty of your country's blood, but Quirites, her free and true defenders. Take the weapons forged of adamantine truth from our faihng hands. May they be more prosperous in the new grasp than in the old. But for this result there must be one supreme legend emblazoned on your stan- dards and your hearts : " Let all your ends be your God's, your country's and the truth's." "In hoc aigno vinces."
THE STAOARD OF ORDOATIOK^
IT is a pungent affliction to me to read two overtures from the resj)ected Presbj'teries of Wilmington and East Han- over, asking of tlie General Assembly tlie repudiation for our church of its time-honored and most vital attribute, an educated ministry. Those who advocate this revolution are doubtless moved by laudable zeal to multiplj^ ministers faster, and thus to extend the operations of our church more rapidly. This zeal is commendable, but it out-runs all discretion.
Surely it ought to be enough to bring cautious men to a stand to wdtness the sweeping and summary way in Avhich it is jDroposed to forsake the whole j^ast policy of our church on this point. One of their amendments requires that when presbyte- ries proceed to ordain ministers they shall ndt-.t^tiire them to exhibit any classical scholarship whatever, lior iany knowledge of philosophy, nor of either of the languages of inspiration. Here are whole continents of those acquirements our wise fathers deemed essential, swept away by one rash touch of a pen ! ! ! This takes one's breath away.
The overture does indeed indicate a compensation, when it says that such requirements, out of place at ordination, are to find their appropriate position at licensure. I seek in vain for any consolation in this deceptive intimation. For, first, the arrangement proposed, if carried out in good faith, would be utterly illogical. According to our constitution, licensure is an advancement merely j)rovisional and contingent; it merely makes the licensed man a " probationer fur the ministry," and leaves him a mere layman invested with no franchise of office, whom the presbytery may degrade at its discretion without any judicial trial whatever. But it is ordination which makes the man official presbyter and herald, and that for life. Here, then,
' From the Christian Observer, of May, 1891. 551
552 THE STAXDAKD OF OEDIXATION
is tlie vital step of tlie goveruiug presbj-teiy. Here, then sliould be the crucial tests of fitness. To neglect them here, and remit them to the previous non-essential stage is, both in the classical and popular sense of the word, preposterous.
This inversion would of itself ensure neglect of proper tests throughout the whole coru'se of trial without anj more bad legislation ; but when we come to the new provision for licen- sure, the last ghost of a consolation vanishes. For presbyteries are forbidden to require any Latin exegesis, and are authorized at their discretion to dispense with every other test of classical, philosophical, and biblical scholarshijD. Everybody who knows presbyteries knows that this dispensing power, if granted, would usually be exercised. Thus, our time-honored requirements of real education are first kicked out of the rules for ordination. Conservative men are told that they shall be consoled by find- ing these requirements in the rules for licensure. But when we come to them, we find them virtually absent there also. Thus, practically, they are kicked adroitly outside of our church.
Moreover, were the requirements faithfully retained at licen- sure, the change would work the worst possible exjjediency ; for it would offer a tacit premium to the probationer to cease his liberal studies in the interval between licensure and ordination, which is the verv time when he ouscht to be most diHs;ent in them. He is thus deUberately invited to become a poorer scholar just as he approaches the fuller responsibilities of his arduous vocation. I know not what expedient could be adopted better suited to teach our young ministers a j^ractical contemj^t for scholarship.
I would oppose this perilous innovation with all my might by these fiu'ther arguments.
I. The manner in which oui' presbyteries are already employ- ing the existing provision for licensing and ordaining "■extra- ordinary cases,'' renders any change utterly needless, even from the point of view of the innovators. This useful provision is doubtless much abused, so much so that without any further loose legislation, all the half qualified men whom the loosest lover of change desires, may easily find their way into our min- istry. The pro-^dsion is plainly intended by the constitution to meet this case only: Here is a Christian gentleman who ex-
THE STANDAED OP ORDINATION. 553
hibits, in addition to holy cliaracter, experience, wisdom and piaidence, and the aptness to teach and talent of command re- qiiired bj the Apostle of Timothy, thorongh mental culture, and intelligence as acquired and attested in some other educated profession, svich as the law, medicine, or the professor's chair; which thorough culture acquired in a different direction, may be honestly accepted as a real equivalent for classical and Hebrew- istic learning,
"The law hath that extent, no more."
But how do we see it applied ? To such cases as these : To some zealous middle aged man who has no culture, and never will have any in either direction, neither in classical English literature, nor in the ancient classics, nor in the languages of inspiration, nor in sciences, medicine, nor law. Here is a younger man who is said to be a good fellow, but "^dthout income, who thinks he cannot get his own consent to go through the long course of studies required by our book, so he claims to be made an "extraordinary case;" when the only thing "extraordinary" about him is, that he lacks the pluck and conscientious industry which alone could give assurance of permanent usefulness in the ministry, for a person deprived of early education. Here is another young man who, without any thorough culture, has some natural gift of fluent, plausible speech, in whose favor some congregation sends up to presby- tery the assurance that he preaches abundantly well enough for them. The soft-hearted presbytery makes him an " extraordi- nary case," when they ought to have foreseen that the most cer- tain and ordinary result would be that this fluency, unchastened by thorough mental discipline, is going to be his snare and his min. And here is another uneducated man, a very good fellow, who has a sweetheart, and who thinks he must marry at once, and that he never could stand the jDostponement required by a thorough course of study. So some kind presbytery makes him an " extraordinary case," with the most regular and ordinary result of forever spoihng the career of him and a very amiable young woman.
These are no travesties. I make here two points — the door into our ministry is already made too ^\^ide, instead of needing to be further widened; and, secondly, "if these things be done
554 THE STANDARD OF OEDINATION.
in the greeu tree, what will be clone in the dry?" With our present explicit and strict laws, we already have a mischievous looseness. The adoption of the loose laws demanded by the revolutionists in the hands of such presbyteries as ours, will gradually result in total looseness. Practically, we should have no barrier at all against an ignorant ministry.
II. The overture asserts that their design is "to remove those barriers for which no sufficient reason can be found either in the word of God, or in the dictates of human expediency, that now debar from our ministry many men who are qualified both by nature and by grace for the exercise of its functions."
I expressly take issue with this declaration as to every propo- sition and every intimation it includes. I shall show expressly that each one is a mistake, and is contrary to the facts. What are the supposed needless barriers ? The overture defines them for us : a knowledge of the Latin language, of philosophy, of science, and of the languages of inspiration. I assert that none of them are "barriers" to the fit minister, but suitable require- ments. I assert that in fact no qualified man is kept out of the Presbyterian ministry by these supposed barriers. Some sup- 2)ose they are kept out by them ? Yes. But the fact that they allow these proper requisitions to estop their j)rogress is the j^erfect demonstration that they are not qualified men. These righteous requirements never kept the carpenter, John D. Mat- thews, nor the penniless plow boy, John H. Pice, nor the mid- dle aged sailor, Dr. Harding, out of the ranks of oar learned ministry. And let us notice the cardinal omission of the over- ture in its enumeration of qualifications. It mentions qualities of nature and qualities of grace, but the Bible and the Constitu- tion of our church insist on a third which the overture adroitly omits. This is acquired knowledge. "The priest's lips should keep knowledge." Every line of Scripture which touches upon the topic teaches us that native vigor of faculty can be no sub- stitute for the acquired knowledge to be employed in the sacred profession, any more than the muscular symmetry of a carpen- ter's two arms enables him to build a wooden house without tools and lumber.
Our church has pro"\dded a mode of entrance into the ministry for all proper extraordinary cases. To all other candidates she
THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION, 5o5
offers pecuniary assistance wliicli she will continue for seven years, if necessary, until the scholastic requirements are ob- tained. Whence it follovv's as matter of fact that no man whom God has called is "debarred" from the ministry by these re- quirements. The things which really debar such supposed cases are self-sufficieucy, the arduous nature of the calling, impatience, indolence. And these, when indulged, prove them not to be " qualified by grace."
But I can tell brethren, from an intimate acquaintance of forty-seven years with candidates and theological education, how numerous young men of real value are deterred from our ministry. It is Ijy a natural disgust at the facility and unfaith- fulness with which its honors are hestowed. Let the reader rep- resent to himself the kind of young Christian whom we ought to wish to get into our ministry. He will be one distinguished for strictness of conscience, thoroughness of effort, high and noble aspirations, intelligence, and an exalted reverential con- ception of the sacred office. Is not this the kind of young man we want ? Well, as an eager spectator, he sees the presbyteries shirking a part of their duty in trying their candidates, and many of these candidates consequently shirking much of their duty in study ; known in colleges as the self-indulgent, slack- twisted student, and unfaithful reciter in class, and consequently an unenergetic herald of salvation. The honorable young man is disgusted, grieved, chilled, and repelled. He no longer feels any aspiration to belong to ranks whose honors are thus dis- paraged, and bestowed as easily upon the unworthy as the worthy.
But if that young man witnessed what our Constitution designs, the strict and honest requirement of good scholarship and exalted Christian diligence ; if he saw that the honors of the calling were hard to win, and worth winning, his sanctified ambition would be fired. He would remain eager to press into these worthy ranks.
This is human nature. Society and universities are full of illustrations of this powerful principle. When I began to teach in Union Seminary, in 1853, there were eleven students. In 1880, there were thirty-eight, and these were not drawn from inferior sources, but from the best Christian material of the
556 THE STANDARD OF OEDINATION.
States. I do know, that the main influence under God which wrought this improvement was the increase in that institution of the thoroughness of the course of studies and strictness of the examinations.
The overture asserts " that no sufficient reason can be found in the word of God," for the constitutional requirements of our book. This I expressly contradict. Hear the words of the Saviour: "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch." He tells the heralds of the cross they must be "like unto householders who bring forth out of their treasure things new and old." The Apostle says : " They are stewards of the mysteries of God." They must be " apt to teach." They must be "workmen who need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of tnith." They must " continue in reading and in doc- trine, giving themselves wholly to them." "Thou, therefore, which teachest another, teachest not thou thyself? " As elders, they must be " aljle tnen, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness." (Ex. xviii. 21.) The first heralds of the new dispensation, notwithstanding their gifts of nature and of grace,, were kept by their divine Master under three years' tuition.
What, now, is the plain amount of these precedents and ex- press commands? It can be nothing less than this, that every minister must have, in addition to endowments of natural faculty and grace, an acquired knowledge, competent to teach the system of divine truth correctlj- and fully, and to defend that system by refuting all gainsayers. But that system is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The Holy Spirit gave these in the Hebrew and Greek languages. It is these alone which are our infalliblo rule of faith, not any ver- sion, however honest and respectable. Every judicious student of exposition knows that when the question is raised upon him, whether a given explanation of a given text presented in EngHsh by a pious Scott, or Henry, or Eyle, or Alexander is really the mind of the Spirit, that question is not fully settled until the original is examined. No teacher has full right to adopt and indorse such uninspired explanations unless he is able to test them by the originals, at least with the help of text-books and lexicons.
Does one say the piety and the concilience of these English
THE STANDARD OF OKDINATION. 557
expositors give a good probabilit}' that tliey explain the mind of the Spirit correctly ? Let us grant it. But can that teacher ■who can give his pupils but a probability of what is the real mind of the Spirit, be called a "workman who needeth not to be ashamed, correctly dividing the word of truth " ? Plainly not. Will one say the great mass of the laity cannot learn Greek and Hebrew and have only their English Bibles? I reply : So much the more reason is there that their authorized teachers shall be able to go to the real spring heads of truth.
But a much more important point remains. In construing the mind of the Spirit contained in any precept of Scripture, it is absolutely necessary to take into account the state of facts environing the men who first reviewed the precept. For in- stance, our Lord commanded his disciples to procure an upper room for his last passover, and "there to make ready" for it. Must they understand this express commandment as requiring them to provide chairs on which to sit around the supper table ? Such would unquestionably be the meaning of the command to "make ready," upon the servitors of a modern supper. But we know very well, as the disciples knew, that our Lord did not mean chairs, but did naean the customary dinner couches. Now how are we so sure of this? Because we know with perfect certainty, though chiefly from uninspired witnesses, that chairs at meals were not then customary in Jerusalem, while these couches were generally used instead. The state of facts known to the disciples and their Lord must interpret to them the mean- ing of his precept. Now, then, when we hear the Lord and his apostles requiring ministers to be able expounders of Scripture, we know that he meant the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, be- cause we know that these were the languages in which believers then had the Scriptures, and in which the Holy Ghost had given them.
We are now at a point of view from which we easily see the sophistry of a favorite argument of the innovators. They ex- claim, Paul authorized the church at Ephesus, under Timothy's moderatorship, to choose any male member their minister Avho possessed the aptness to teach and other qualifications. He might be a merchant or an intelligent mechanic. Paul did not require him to learn any dead language or foreign literature.
558 THE STANDARD OF OEDINATION.
What riglit have we to requh-e it now? Why not do as Paul did ; elect any pions mechanic, merchant or farmer who knoM's the Enghsh language, and has good natural gifts?
I reply, that this woidd be Tirtually doing exactly the oppo- site thing to what Paul did. Here was the all-important fact conditioning Paul's requirements ; that the Greek language (the more important of the two languages of inspiration) was the native vernacular of that sensible Ephesian mechanic ; to us it is a learned dead language. Hebrew was also a living vernac- ular to most Jews. Now, then, this Ephesian minister was already possessed, even from childhood, of a competent and correct knowledge of the main language of inspiration. Its syntax was perfectly familiar to him by daily usage in his busi- ness and reading. The idiomatic force of its phrases was as clear to him as our English is to us. Moreover, all the social usages, civic institutions, religious opinions and customs of the day and country, which were the subjects of perpetual allusion and illustration in the sacred writings, were equally familiar to him.
But now that copious language is to us a dead language, all those familiar facts and usao;es in the licjht of which it was so perfectly easy for that Ephesian mechanic to understand the meaning of the apostles, all has passed away, and is to us matter of learned antiquarian research. How much laborious classical study is needed to put one of us English-speaking citi- zens abreast "svdth that Ephesian mechanic in the knowledge of that language and all those facts and usages which were his familiar knowledge, but to us must be the learned science of antiquity. I confess as to myself that I do not believe that my classical and biblical studies, continued through a long and laborious life have brought me up to the practical level of that fortunate Greek mechanic, as to the correct apprehension of the Greek Scriptures.
But, when the ajDOstle required of the ministers of that day a certain competency to teach the gospel, we must understand him as requiring a similar competencj^ of all ministers of all subse- quent ages. It would be mere dishonest paltering with the pre- cept to understand it otherwise. If the passage of the languages of inspiration and the usages of the day and country out of
THE STANDARD OF OEDINATION. 559
vernacular use into antiquity calls for more study from us, in order to attain that grade of competency, then it must be ours to give that additional study. How can the honest mind dispute this conclusion ? Dare we say to our divine Lord that because the right performance of a duty has, in his providence, become more laborious, we shall shirk a part of it, and put him off with half-way service ? Surely not. We see, then, that this plausible argument is deceitful ; it " keeps the word of promise to the ear, but breaks it to the sense." Under the pretence of nominally following the apostles' method it introduces a principle exactly opposite to theirs in practical effect.
The duty of apologetic defence against errorists, so solemnly laid upon the pastors by the apostle, presents a powerful argu- ment. Hear him, 2 Tim. iv. 2, "Keprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." Titus i. 9, " That he may be- able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." The pastor is required to be competent, not only to instruct his flock in the revealed science of redemption, but to defend their faith by refuting and convincing all assailants. He must be able to do this " with all doctrine." How much ocoaaxal'.a then must this pastor have ? Just so much as the assail- ants of the gospel employ against it. If he is a good knight he must be so armed and equipped as to be able " to meet all comers." Now when we remember how rapidly the provinces of human knowledge are extended, and how audaciously infidela use the resources of every province to attack the gospel, is this a time for the faithful Avarriors of Christ to be divesting them- selves of any part of their armor or weapons ? Take not the mere letter, but the true spirit of the scriptural injunction, and we see that this Bible principle must require of pastors con- tinually widening qualifications instead of contracted ones, as the expansion of secular knowledge furnishes the enemies of the cross with new and varied weapons. " To whom much is given, of them shall much be required." This is the law of Christ's kingdom and the measure of our responsibility. We Americans of this age are continually glorying in the lyrivilege of our fuller light and cidture. Is this only braggart lying, or do we really believe that Ave do enjoy this privilege of an advanced age ? If we say the latter, then we are bound to admit that the fair prin-
560 THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION.
ciple of that requirement whicli demanded competency of earlier ministers demands of us continually higher competency and wider knowledge. Scripture expressly requires us to be a better educated ministry than any that ever went before. Is this a time, then, for diminishing the learning of our ministers ? It is going backward exactly when the Master says go forward.
In one word, if anything is made clear in the Bible concern- ing ministerial duty, this is clear : that Christ has appointed the pastors and evangelists of his church to be the teachers of reli- gion to men, the appointed school-masters of the world in the one science of theology. But as Lord Bacon shows, this is the splen- did ajiex of the whole p;)Tamid of human knowledge. It is the mistress of all sciences to whom all the rest are tributary, his- tory, ethnology, zoology, geology, literature, and especially philosophy, her nearest handmaid. The mistress must dominate all and rule all lest, becoming insuiTectionary, they should use their hands to pull down the foundations of her throne. The teachers of the supreme science must not be ignorant of any other science. They ought to be strong enough to lead the leaders of all secidar thought ; for if they do not, the tendencies of the carnal mind will most assuredly prompt those secular leaders to array their followers against our King and his gospel.
Let us pause to see how practical this is, and how true. Somebody is asking, why may not a sensible good man, well acquainted with his English Bible, suffice to instruct his plain neighbors in this science of redemption ? Possibly he might suffice if he and they were the only sorts of people in the world. But they are not. Our world is also full of authors, legislators, lawyers, physicians, scientists, historians, antiquaries, philoso- phers, all equipped with the resources of learning. Just so surely as Satan is hostile to Christ and the carnal mind is enmity against him, these learned classes will refuse to let this plain pastor and this plain people alone. Just so surely as hawks will eat pigeons, the very spirit of this " progressive learning" will insure perpetual interference by every channel which this intel- lectual activity opens up. As surely as this pastor lives, he "udll have to defend his plain people from all these j)retentious assaults. And he will find that the less education his j^eople
THE STANDAED OF OEDIXATION.
561
have the more educated skill will lie have to employ to save them from seduction. Moreover, the learned assailants also have souls which need salvation, very sinful, miserable souls. This pastor owes missionary duty to them; in order to teach the supreme science to the learned does not he himself need to be learned ?
Surely, then, this is no time to reduce the education of our ministers when every other profession is making gigantic efforts to increase this learning, and when the sister denominations, once satisfied "vnth an unlettered ministry, are just learning the wiser lesson taught by our example in the past, and are making gigantic efforts to secure for themselves a learned ministry.
The untimeliness of this retrograde movement is powerfully illustrated in the matter of the Hebrew lancrua^e. A new law is now proposed, the effect of which may be to exclude all know- ledge of this language from every Presbyterian minister of the coming generation, and must be to make the knowledge of it rare among them. And this is proposed at the very time of day, not only when this remains one of the languages of inspiration, but when it is rapidly becoming again a hving language in Christendom, having weekly newspapers published in it and translations made into it from Enghsh literary and infidel books • when the language is more studied than ever in great institutions of learning, and especially when Hebrew philology and criticism are just becoming the prime arsenal w^hich furnishes the weapons to attack God's church. Is not this overture a fearful anachronism ?
III. It is asserted that no reason for our standard of educa- tion can be found in "the dictates of human expediency." This again I expressly deny.
The whole experience of the patristic ages, and of the re- formed churches for three hundred years, is on my side. In the Latin church the languages of inspiration were dead languages. The people had the word of God onl}^ in versions ( Veins Itala and Vulgate), but take notice! The method of recruiting the ministry was precisely that now recommended to us and now followed by the churches which we arc bidden to imitate. Some ministers, as Jerome, were learned ; the majority were not. TJiat icas the viinistry ichich created the whole 2>oj)lch apostasy!
Vol. III.— 35
562 THE STAKDAED OF ORDINATIOX.
That was the ministry wliicli invented the fatal errors of human priesthood, baptismal regeneration, real presence, and sacrifice in the supper, apostolic succession, monkery, jDrelacy, celibacy of clergy, persecution, penance and indulgence, false miracles, pelagianism, saint worship, idolatry-, purgatory, and popery. The close reading of church history convinces any sober student that it was the ignorance of these men concerning the languages of inspiration and Hebrew archaeology which was the main oc- casion of their fatal errors. Ought not this lesson of history to be vast and black enough to open the eyes of Protestants?
I assert that the strength, usefulness and respectability of the Presbyterian Chuix-h are chiefly due under God to her standard of education in her ministry. Had she adhered more faithfully to her legal standard she would be just so much stronger than she is.
It is well knowji that the innovators take the data of their supposed argument fi-om expediency, from the apparent progress of sister churches which do not reqiiire a learned ministry. They suppose that these churches are thus enabled to multiply minis- ters more rapidly than we do, and that this is the valuable cause of their more rapid growth.
This argument is wholl}' deceptive. The growth of a church is, in fact, the consequence of a large complex of various causes. That must, therefore, be a fallacious argument which jDitches upon one of these causes and assigns to it the whole result. If the superior growth is sound, the most effective cause of all is undoubtedly the secret agency of that Spii'it who is sovereign, and " bio weth where he listeth." A Presbyterian must be the last man to dispute this. Then, it is bad reasoning for him to put the main stress upon any external trait, since all of them must be of very subordinate force. It Avoidd, perhaps, be more correct for him to infer that it is the superior pray erf ulness, zeal, and holy living of these churches which make them more pros- perous, if they are more prosperous. Or it may be the great fact that mankind are born carnal must make the Presbyterian Church less popular, whatever hne of expediency it might adopt, because it presents, to the world only the simple church order of the Bible, and the strict and humbling doctrines of or- thodoxy stripped of all the accessories which might conciliate
THE STAXDAKD OF ORDINATION. 563
bigotry, ritualism, or self-rigliteousness. This would have to be settled before a safe inference could be di'awu.
Is it argued that the other churches present us with really useful ministers, devoid of classical training ? I am happy to grant this. But I have two answers. These honored ministers would have been yet more useful with a Presbyterian training ; and second, our Presbyterian rule would have saved those churches from the incumbrance of that larger number of un- trained ministers at the other end of the scale who have done more harm than good.
I urge again, that before we throw away our time-honored system to imitate these churches, it is all important that we ascertain how much of their supposed rapid progress is real and solid. An honest sifting of statistics would result in a sur- 23rising shrinkage.
I ^vil\ recall an authentic incident of this. In the early stages of this ill-starred discussion against our educational stan- dard, it was asserted that in a given commonwealth where the Presbyterians could count only eleven thousand communi- cants, a sister denomination, with an uneducated ministry, claimed seventy-five thousand. But when close inquiry was made of a competent and learned leader of that denomination in that State, he answered that those statistics had been gotten together irresponsibly upon a spread-eagle plan, and that, com- ing down to hard-pan, his denomination had about fifteen thou- sand actual communicants!
There is a vital reason for this shrinkage in the very nature of an uneducated ministry which furnishes me another powerful ar- gument. American Protestantism is characterized by a peculiar evil which I may describe by the term " spurious revivahsm." It has been often called the "New Measure System." The com- mon mischief resulting from all its forms is the over-hasty re- ception into the communion of the churches, of multitudes of per- sons whom time proves to have experienced no sjjiritual change. This disastrous result is in some churches wrought without the machinery of sensational excitements, as where Pelagian or rit- ualistic teachings encourage men to come in heedlessly and coldly upon a mere profession of historical faith. In most cases, however, these mischievous accessions are brought about.
564 THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION.
by sensational liuman expedients. The ill-starred artists stimu- late natural remorse and the merely sympathetic excitements of the natural feelings, and deceive themselves and encourage their victims to be deceived into mistaking these agitations for the real and saving work of the Holy Spirit vnih a criminal reck- lessness. They overlook the vital distinctions which the relig- ious guide ought to make, which I have pointed out in the twen- ty-first article of my CMected Dimtissions, Yo\. I., in exposition of 1 Cor. iii. 10-15.
This lamentable art has grown in America to great dimen- sions ; the victims of its deception are to be counted by myriads. Its effects for good are so evanescent, that a religious profession has become contemptible in the eyes of critical worldly men. Many churches are loaded down with dead members. Church disciphne becomes impracticable. This nominal membership in- cludes tens of thousands of silent infidels who have inferred from the manifest deceitfulness of their own hot religious experi- ence the deceptiveness of the gospel itself. The average stan- dard of Christian morals is degraded throughout the country. The experience of a long hfe compels me sorrowfully to testify against this method of accessions as the grand peril and curse of American Protestantism. It has shorn the gospel among us of the larger part of its purifying power, and Christ of his honor, until our average Protestantism can scarcely boast of higher moral results than American jiopery. The mortifying result is, that after ninety years of boasted activity and asserted success in this species of evangelism in these United States, breeding ancl good manners, domestic purity, temj^erance, business morals and political morals, are at a lower ebb than in any nation in Protestant Christendom. The evil has become gigantic, and de- mands solemn j^rotest and resistance.
I know it is an unpopular thing for a minister of the gospel to bear this witness. But it is true. And my regard for that account which I must soon render at a more awful bar than that of arrogant public opinion demands its utterance. Now, rational investigation and the induction of facts concur to prove that a lowering of the education of the ministry is ever the main pro- moter of this spurious revivalism.
There are certain motives which make it popular with ita
THE STANDARD OF OEDIXATION, 565
practitioners in spite of tlie hard lessons of experience and the cautions of God's word. Those motives are of a coarse na- ture. Thej are the love of power, the ambition to count num- bers, the hasty lust for ^asible success, the cra\'ing for theatrical excitements, with mistaken zeal for the good cause. In a free country the only antidotes for this mental disease are an en- lightened conscience and the refining influence of mental cul- ture. Many uncultivated spirits revel in these mental intoxica- tions, but to the man of refined culture they are odious and repellant. It is of more importance to say that it is the accu- rate knowledge of theology, psychology and exegesis which en- ables the true scholar to discriminate between these spurious ex- citements and spiritual excitements. It is the half-taught Chris- tian heated with misdirected zeal and untrained in the analysis of motives who is ever prone to make the fatal confusion. In- deed we find the craving for this power over the crowd is so seductive, that many are swept away by it who ought to know better. And none seem to be safe from the unwholesome infec- tion unless they combine most thorough conscientiousness with high mental cultivation and a right knowledge of church his- tory. So long as we fill the pulpit with half-educated men, we need expect nothing else than the obstinate prevalence of this coarse counterfeit method, notwithstanding all the demonstra- tions of past experience.
This explanation is exactly confirmed by the facts. Which are the denominations most notoriously characterized (and cursed) by these "new measure" revivals, so-called? Precisely those which permit an uneducated ministry, and among them the most obstinate practitioners of the false method will never be found in the persons of their best educated pastors. If we are un-willing to have our church corrupted and blighted by this false fire, we must raise, instead of lowering, oiu* standard of ministerial education.
Since 1861, our church and church courts have been blessed with a delightful unity and harmony of orthodox doctrine. Is there any one who is willing to part with this happy harmony ? But there is a consideration infinitely more exalted and sacred than our own religious enjoyment. God has committed to us as a chiu'ch the one true doctrinal testimonv. Ho has made it our
566 THE STANDARD OF ORDDs'ATIOX.
solemn duty to maintain it, and it alone. This is our steward- sliip ; we have to give an awful accoimt for it. But I assert that the only guarantee of doctrinal unity and orthodoxy, next to the iuworking of God's Spirit, is a thoroughly educated ministry. The ministry are the main teachers of the churches' doctrinal system. When they diyide, they infallibly diyide the people. Again, I proye by both reason and fact that the only human safe-guard, under God, for orthodox unity is the requirement of thorough education in pastors.
Consider : Our Scriptural, Calyinistic theology has eyer been to the opinionatiye a stumbling block, and to the carnal mind foolishness. Its doctrines are profound. They inyohe the most fundamental points of riyal philosophies. The root principles of the opposing systems of theology* are intricately related to each other and to these philosophies. In order that a man may be intelligently and logically grounded in the Calyinistic system, and able to distinguish all erroneous plausibilities from it, he needs to haye his faculties disciplined by the highest philological and logical training. Again, our candidates for the pastoral office need to be kept together, and kept together long, during this formatiye period, while they are constiTicting for themselyes theii* permanent systems of thought. Students educate each other more than their professors educate them.
Every active-minded young man comes to the Seminary with some doctrinal crotchet of his own. If he is left to nurse it by himself it becomes the root of dissent and of dissension. But in Ms three years' intercourse the friction of other minds rubs off the angle, and the man is saved from what would have j^roved a mischievous tangential movement. He learns to walk fi'eely and of his own choice in the King's established highway. The whole body of students is kept under the guidance of the church's most enhghtened and approved teachers long enough to estabhsh them in the straight jDaths.
And let facts speak. The Southern Presbyterian Church, by virtue of her requirement of thorough training, enjoys orthodox harmony. The churches who admit uneducated ministers lack it. The confession of Alexander Campbell was notorious, "that in his communion all sorts of doctrine were preached by all sorts of men." The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is now agitated by doctrinal dissensions.
THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION. 567
I greatly resj^ect the immersionist churches, known as " Mis- sionary Baptist." Many of their ministers preach the soundest doctrine. Some of their congregations present the best stan- dard of Christian morals and discipline which I see anywhere in our backslidden land. But I have myself heard in Baptist pulpits all grades of doctrine, from Pelagianism, through evan- gelical Arminianism, up to strict Calvinism. Hear Mr. Spur- geon's testimony on this point against his own denomination in England. So even in the Southern Methodist Church the greatest theological antagonisms are found. Some are moder- ate Calvinists, the most are evangelical Arminians. I have heard some avow the deadliest dogmas of Pelagius, by reason of their lack of theological learning, ignorant of the fact that John "Wesley, in his treatise on original sin (against Dr. Taylor, of Nor-\\dch), had condemned them as sternly as Turretin, Edwards or Hodge.
I must now remind my readers that when the innovators argue "from the seeming success of a partially educated ministry in other churches, they forget a cardinal difference between our constitution and theirs. It is this : They all have a wide safety escape through w^hich to rid themselves of their clerical failures. Our Constitution gives us none. Our principle is. Once a min- ister, always a minister. A man whom we ordain may show bimself upon trial to be half furnished, or unfurnished ; he may lose all relation to any congregation as either pastor or stated supply ; no company of God's people chooses him to be either teacher or ruler to them ; still we make him until death a full presbyter and minister, with power of rule in Presbytery, Svnod and Assembly, over Christians who refuse to elect him as their representative. He cannot be stripped of this power except by judicial process, or upon his ot\ti request by a semi-judicial process.
But in the Methodist Church, when an inadequately furnished minister e^'inces his lack of acceptance, and ceases to serve a pastoral charge or a district, he ceases to be a member of the Conference. He is no longer a ruler in their church, but be- comes virtually a lay-preacher. Or else a similar result is reached by putting him on the sujDerannuated hst. The Mis- sionary Baptist and CampbeUite communions are independent
568 THE STANDARD OF ORDINATION.
in cliurcli government, and this gives tliem the same safety- valve. The ill -furnished minister, when he ceases to be a pas- tor, practically ceases to be a rnler, for there is no authoritative church court above the pastoral charge.
We find, then, that while these powerful churches have a wide front door for the entrance of the ministers, the}' save themselves from the disastrous consequences of a partially edu- cated ministry by keeping open a very wide back door. We have no back door at all ; yet some would have us imitate the imprudence of these churches without their safe-guard. They seem to find, practically, that they need a very wide back door indeed.
I was conversing with a distinguished Baptist divine con- cerning the numbers and power of his denomination in one of the great Southern commonwealths. He said that they counted six hundred ministers. I asked him how many were engaged in actual ministerial work? He replied. About two hundred. In my astonishment I exclaimed, Then what are the four hun- dred doing ? He answered that many were teaching, many farm- ing; some were practicing medicine; a few were lawyers; and many, from age or infirmity, were doing nothing. A similar in- quiry as to the Methodist ministry in a large commonwealth gave like results.
Much more might be said. I trust enough has been said to convince the sober reader that what our church needs is a more faithful and strict execution of our rules by the presb^-teries, in- stead of a degradation of them ; well would it be for oiu: church to listen at this juncture to the voice of her dead fathers. Dr. John Holt Eice, Sr., was undoubtedly one of the greatest and wisest of his illustrious generation of great men, perhaps the one Yirginian entitled to a place abreast with Thomas Jefferson in transcendent abilities, learning, and vigor of style. I wish every Presb^derian could now read his masterly essay upon the evils of an uneducated ministry, in the Vtrg-lnia Literary and Evangelical Magazine^ Volume VIII.
THE IMMORTALITY OF TIIE SOUL/
THEY to whom the Bible is a sufficient rule of faith have this great question happily settled for themselves. For in the gospel, life and immortality are clearly brought to light. The doctrine is expressly asserted in a multitude of places, and is necessarily impHed in the whole moral system which the Bible teaches.. But unfortunately there are now many who hold the word of God as not authority. Christendom is infested with schools of evolution and materialism, which attempt to bring this great truth in doubt by their "philosophy, falsely so- called," and which mislead many unstable souls to their oa\ti undoing.
To such as will not look at the clear light of Scripture, we propose to offer the inferior hght of the natural reason. The sun is immeasurably better than a torch, but a torch may yet save the man who has turned his back on the sun and plunged himself into darkness, from stumbling over a precipice into an unseen guK. We claim that we are entitled to demand the attention of all such doubters to the rational argument ; for as they have set up philosophy against the Bible, mere honesty requires them to listen to philosophy, the true philosophy, namely :
There is certainly probable force in the historical fact that most civilized men of all ages and countries have believed in the immortality of their souls, without the Bible. Even the American Indians have always believed in the Great Spirit, and expected a futiu-e existence in the happy hunting grounds. The ancient pagans universally believed in gods and a future state, except where they were corrupted by power and crime hke the later Romans and Athenians, towards the verge of national putrescence. Their mythologies express the real forms of
' From The Presbyterian Quarterly^ of October, 1892.
570 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
their original popular beliefs. Their philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, held the immortality of the sovl free from the fabulous coloring of the myths, but upon more solid and rational grounds. The fact that the ancient Egyptians certainly expected the future existence, not only of the soul but of the body, is manifest from their extraordinary care in embalm- ing and preserving all the corpses of their dead. The ancient and the modern Chinese believe firmly in the future existence of the dead, otherwise their ancestor-worship, which is nearly the whole of their practical religion, would be an absurdity. The Indian races are firm believers in immortality, except as the pantheism of the Buddhist doctrine modifies their hope of an individual personal consciousness beyond death. The Scy- thians, Goths, and Scandinavians were firm believers in a future existence. The whole Mohammedan world holds immortality and a certain form of future rewards and punishments, just as distinctly and firmly as the Christian. "We are also entitled to use the fact that immortality has always been the corner-stone of the Bible religion, among both Hebrews and Christians of all ages, as the factor in this historical argument. For this religion has either a divine origin, or it has not. To those who hold the former origin the question of immortality is settled ; those who deny its divine origin must, of course, teach that Christianity, like the other religions of mankind, is the outgrowth of some natural principles of reason and feeling belonging to human nature. Our argument is, that on this lower ground Christianity must still be admitted to be the most highly developed, the most beneficial and the most intellectual of human religions. So that the question which agnostics are bound to ansAver is this: How comes this highest and noblest development of the religious thought of mankind to grasp the doctrine of immor- tality most clearly and strongly of all, unless there be in the human essentia a rational basis necessitating such a conclusion ? And here is presented the point of this logic from the almost universal coiisoisus of mankind. How is it that nearly all men, of the most different ages and religions, when they think, are lead to think to this conclusion, concerning a fact purely in\'isi- ble and beyond the range of all earthly exijerience? There must be rational and active principles in human nature controll-
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 571
ing tLis result of the thought of mankind. Is it not a strange fact and one entitled to give men pause, that the supposed materialistic results of recent speculations, claiming to be sci- entific and advanced, bring their civilized advocates precisely to that lowest and grossest ignorance concerning man's spirit and destin}' which characterizes the stupidest and filthiest savages in the world, Australian Blacks, and African Bushmen? It is these wretches nearest akin to brute beasts, who do the least thinking of all human beings, who are found to have thought downward to the same blank and grovelling nescience, which this pretended advanced science glories in attaining.
Let not the followers of Auguste Comte and of Beiichner and Spencer claim to be the original positivists and agnostics. The honor of their conclusions was anticipated long before precisely by those members of the human family lowest down towards the level of the ostriches and gorillas.
The proposition which soundest reason teaches us is this : that while the bodies of men after death return to dust and see corruption, their souls which neither die nor sleep have an immortal subsistence, which is continued independent of the body in individual consciousness and activity. This, of course, involves the belief that the earthly human person includes two distinct substances, an organized animal body, and an immaterial spiritual mind. It is of the continued substantive existence of this latter we are to inquire. Obviously the preliminary ques- tion must be concerning the real existence of such a spiritual substance in man. For if there is such a thing in him, it is at once a matter entirely credible that this thing may continue to exist, after the body is dissolved. It is a question for evidence ; and affirmative evidence, if found, is, in the nature of the case, fully entitled to our credence. In order to determine the pre- liminary question it is desirable to clear away certain very shal- low misconceptions, and to settle certain principles of common sense.
What do men mean by a substance ? The correct answer is in general, that substance is that permanent underlying tMng to which our minds refer those clusters of properties, or qualities which our senses perceive. What the bodily senses immediately perceive is the qualities — the mind's own power of thought always
572 THE IMMOKTALITY OF THE SOUL.
leads it to believe in the underljiug substance. Let ns take a most familiar instance: A sensible cliild says, "I liave an orange." If we ask him how he knows he has one, he will say: " I see it, handle it, smell it, and taste it." Jnst so ; ^dth his eves he sees the yellow color, rough surface, and spherical shape ; with his fingers he feels also its shape, its pimpled sur- face, and its solidity ; with his nostrils he smells its odor ; ^ith the gustatory nerves in his mouth he tastes the flavor of the juice. Thus all that his bodily senses directly give him, is a cluster of qualities, yellowness, roughness, roundness, moderate solidity, fragrance, savor. But this child knows that he has in his hand something more than an associated cluster of qualities, a sub- stantial orange. His common sense cannot be embarrassed by reminding him that he has not eyed or fingered, or smelt, or tasted, substance, but only properties. This child will answer: " That may be true, yet my mind makes me know that there is substance under all these properties." For while I see yellow- ness, if I should ask myself the question. Yellow what? I should try to answer, yellow nothing. This would be almost idiotic. If I know there is yellowness, then my mind makes me know there must be a soviething yellow. If I see roundness, I know there must be a something that is round, and so with all the other properties. If you forbid me to judge thus that there is a substantial orange in which all these properties abide, 3'ou will practically make me idiotic. I gave one simple instance. The same facts are true concerning every perception which rational human beings have concerning every concrete object.
This principle of common sense has also another class of applications. T\'henever we see actions or functions going on, we must think an agent in order to account for them. It does not matter whether we see the agent or not; if we know the actions or functions are going on, our minds compel us to believe that there is an agent producing them. Let us supjDose for instance, that a clear-headed country child or red man, who bad never seen nor heard of a church bell, shoidd come to a town and there hear one ringing. His mind would prompt him to ask : " What makes that sonorous noise, the like of which I never heard before ? " He is compelled to believe before he sees anything, there is some substantive agent that makes the
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 573
noise, though as yet unknown to him. Try to persuade him out of this conviction ; ask him : Do you see anything making the novel noise? No. Then why not conclude that nothing makes the noise ? He will answer : because I am not an idiot ; I hear the noise ; if there were nothing there could be no noise to hear ; I must know there is a substantive thing, an agent producing' noise ; otherwise noise could not be.
Now, these are the simple j)rinciples of common sense, which inevitably and universally regulate the thinking of every human being who is not idiotic or crazy, about every object of sensible knowledge. If the reader doubts this, let him watch the per- ceptions and thinking of himself and his fellow-creatures until he is fatigued and satisfied.
We come now to the simple application. Every man is abso- lutely conscious that he is all the time thinking, feeling, and willing ; then there raust be a substantial agent which performs these functions. Every man is conscious of powers and proper- ties, of thought and feeling ; then he is obliged to know there is a substance in him in which these powers and properties abide.
But what do we mean by the notion of substance? We are so familiar by perception with material substances, that possibly thoughtless persons may conclude that we have no valid notion of substance, except that which possesses the material proper- ties, such as color, weight, solidity, size, shape; and such a thoughtless person, though compelled to admit that where so much thinking, feeling, and willing go on there must be a sub- stance which thinks, might conclude hence that this substance must be material, the body, namely, or some part thereof. But the use of a little grain of common sense corrects this folly. Anybody knows that air is a substance as truly as granite rock, but air has no color nor shape, nor do we find out by our senses that it has any weight. Every person not idiotic believes that light is a substance, or else a motion in a substance, ether. But this ether has no color, or shape, or weight, nor is visible or tangible, nor did anybody ever smelL it, or taste it, or hear it. Yet all teachers of physics tell us they are as certain of its sub- stantial reality as of that of granite rock. For why ? Because our common sense makes us know that, if there were not such a substantive thing as ether, there could never have been any
574 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
light for anybody to see. Thus we prove that the gross quali- ties of matter are not necessary to the rational notion of true substance. We are bound to believe in substances which have not those material properties. Then human souls may be one real kind of substances.
Does some one ask, What, then, belongs to the true notion of substance ? Our common sense answers, It is that which is the real thing, a being possessed of sameness and permanency, the enduring basis of reality on which the known properties abide. This description includes spirit as fairly as matter. We assert, that we shall find spirit to be that kind of substance which has no material sensible properties, but which lives, thinks, feels^ and acts.
Suppose, now, some student of material science should tell us- that none of his scientific observations have detected any spirit in any human anatomy. He means the observations made by his bodily senses. Now, how idle and silly is this ! Of course, the bodily senses do not detect the presence of spirit, since it is correctly defined as a true substance, which has no bodily jDro- perties. This talk is just as smart as that of the booby who should say: "I don't believe there is any such substance as air in that hollow glass globe, because my e^-es don't see anything in it; and when I poke my finger into it, I don't feel anything; and when I poke my nose and my tongue into it, I neither smell nor taste anything." Of course he does not, because what is. air? A gas transparent and colorless, without solidity, tasteless and odorless. Yet everybody except that booby knows that that glass globe is full of a real substance named air, for its presence there is proved by other reasonable evidences to common sense. So it is mere babble for the materialist to say that the jjresence of spirit is not attested to him by the observation of any bodily sense. For the question is, may there not be in man another substance not possessed of sensible, material properties, and yet as real and as permanently substance as any stone or metal ?
Let our common sense now take another step in advance. When I am directly conscious of a thing, I know it as absolutely as I can possibly know anything. If I were to doubt my own consciousness, I should have to doubt everything else, because everything I know is known to me only through the medium of
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 575
this consciousness. I now assert tliat the reality of the spiritual substance in me, is known to me by my immediate conscious- ness, and must be so known, every time I know anythiug out- side of myself. For, the reality of the self whi^h knows, is necessarily implied in the act of knowing everj'thing else than self.
We are here stating the simplest possible truth of common sense. Let us take the plainest instance possible. We hear a wide-awake child exclaim: "I see the mule!" Who sees it, child? I do. Then there must be a vie to do the seeing even more certainly than there is a mule to be seen. Child, if you are certain there is a mule, then you are still more immediately certain there is a me, a self, an ego. As soon as you state this the child sees that it is and must be so, unless he is an idiot.
This is exceedingly simple. Yes, so simple that no doubt the child often looks at mules, trees, houses, etc., without stopping to think about it. But when he is stopped by the question, he inevitably thinks it. He is more certain of the existence in himself of the ego, the substance which thinks, than he is of the reality of any and everj'thing else about which he thinks.
These views of common sense are so simple, so easy, so indis- putable, that people are tempted to overlook how much there is involved in them. Let us pause then and review. We have found that wherever we see properties we must believe in sub- stances to which the mind refers these properties. Wherever we see action going on we must believe in substantive agents. Sensible material properties are not necessary to a true and per- manent substance. Since every man is conscious of much think- ing, feeling and choosing, he must believe in the real existence in himself of a substantive agent which does this thinking, feeling, and acting. If he did not believe in the reality of the me which sees and thinks, he could not believe in anything he saw or thought. Therefore he knows there is in him a thinking sub- stance, more certainly than he knows anything else or every- thing else in the world; and these principles of common sense are so sim]3le, so fundamental, so regulative of all thinking and knowing that if j'ou could realh' make any man deny their force you would make that man an idiot. So direct and perfect is our demonstration.
576 THE IMMOETALITY OF THE SOUL.
The doTibter may replj: "Of course, so miicli is indisj)uta- ble, I must know there is a substance in me which thinks ; but may not that substance be body, the whole sensornuvi or nervous structure inside the bones and muscles? or the brain? or the little cluster of lobes between the top of the spinal marrow and the base of the brain ? or the j^ineal gland in the centre of that cluster?" This is a fair question, and it shall be fairly met. \\G know the properties of matter j^retty well through the -pev- ception of our bodily senses. The inquiry now must be, whether we cannot know through the ^perceptions of consciousness the ■essential projierties of this something which thinks. When we have informed ourselves certainly of these, we can compare them with the material properties, and decide this plain question of common sense : Whether or not the two kinds of 2)ro2)erties are enough alike to helong jpossihly to the same kind of suh stances?
As intimated, we learn the properties of material things by the observations of our bodily senses. "We learn the properties of the something in us that thinks, chiefl}' by the observations of consciousness, and also by watching and comparing the act- ings forth of the thinking agent in our fellow-creatures. Now, we are actually told that some are silly enough to assert that no observations are valid except those made upon outward things by our senses. When a child uses his eyesight to look at an orange, he finds out correctly that it is yellow. When he uses his ears to listen to the bell, he finds out certainly that it is sonorous. But they think this child finds out nothing certain concerning the being within, which does the seeing and listen- ing, by watching its inward consciousness, because, jorsooth, this is not sensuous observation ! How stupid this is may ap- pear by a plain question : would that child's hands and ears tell him anything about the properties of the orange and the bell, unless his sense perceptions of them were reported in his consciousness? Suppose he were asleep when the bell rang. These sonorous wavelets would pass through the air r,nd agitate the tympanum and inner nerves of his ear just the same, but the child would know nothing about the bell. Why not? Be- cause his consciousness does not take in the sound. Suppose that child is awake, and you hold the orange before his eyes, but his mind is so monopolized with an entrancing vision of nezt
' THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 577
Saturday's picnic tliat be fails to notice it at all. Again, liis eyes tell liini nothing about tbe orange. Wbj not? He "was not at- tending to it, wbicb is to say, tbe perception of it did not enter bis consciousness. It is only by tbe mediation of consciousness tbat tbe observations of tbe senses tell us an^-tbing certain. Tben it is tbe testimony of consciousness wbicb is immediate and primary, wbile tbat of tbe senses is secondary and depend- ent. If tbe observations of consciousness are not to be trusted, tboso of tbe senses are for tbe stronger reason not to be trusted.
Hence it follows, tbat of all tbe tbings wbicb we certainly know, tbe tbings of tbe inner consciousness are tbe most certain. J'irst, tben, I am immediately conscious tbat tbe sometbing in me wbicb tbinks and feels, tbe self or ego, is all tbe time com- pletely identical; bowever I may notice it at different times, I am conscious of its complete sameness; for instance, I go to sleep, tbat is, my bodily senses sbut tbemselves up and for a time remembered consciousness is suspended. I wake, consci- ousness revives, and immediately I know tbat it is tbe same identical self wbicb went to sleep some bours before. Sleep bas made a deep gap in my sensations and my remembered tbougbts and feelings ; but I am certain it bas made no gap at all in tbe sameness of tbe self. For, again, I am conscious of feebng tbe heat of fire, tben afterwards of feeling tbe intense cold of tbe iioi*tb wind ; or at one time of being f rigbtened by a malignant bull, and afterwards of being charmed by a mocking-bird; now of looking at an ugly clod, tben of looking at tbe splendid sun. ]S^ow heat and cold are opposite sensations ; fear and pleasure a,re opposite emotions; tbe ugly little image of tbe clod ex- tremely different from the image of tbe sun ; but I know tbat tbe self, tbe me, which experiences these different and opposite sensations and thoughts is completely the same. I believe in its perfect continuous identity; and let the reader notice that this belief cannot be a result from any process of comparison or reflection; because I must be sure beforehand of tbe sameness of the mind which does the comparing, or else the comparison is worthless, and concludes nothing. For instance, suppose two pairs of two children's eyes in separate rooms were looking at two apples ; could there be any comparison determining which apple was the larger? What would the dispute be worth be-
VoL III.— 36.
578 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
tween tlie two little fools, each repeating that his apple was the big- ger ? Let one and the same pair of eyes look at both apples, then, only comparison is possible deciding which is the bigger apple. I purposely make these instances perfectly simple. They are fair, they convince lis that the conviction of the mind's ovm identity has to be presupposed in order to authorize the mind to draw any other conclusions, by any process of reflection or comparison whatsoever. So that the first and most certain truth which I am obliged to know, concerning the something in me which thinks, is its perfect identity, its absolute sameness. But I see that nothing organized has this perfect sameness. No animal body, no tree, or plant remains the same two daj-s, every one is losing something and gaining something, growing, d"«dn- dhng, changing. Even the rock and the mountain change. The rain and the frost are continual!}- washing ofl" or scaling ofl:' parts. But I repeat; especially is perpetual change the attribute of every living, material organism, change of size and form, and even of constituent substance. Now, none of those who deny the spirituahty of the mind ever dream of saying that thought can be the function of inorganic matter. No, they try to say, thought may be the function of organized matter, of matter most highly organized. But they admit that the most highly organized material substances are those which change most quickly. I make, then, this point : the self ^vhich thinks must be immaterial, because it possesses absolute identity, and no organized hodj of matter ever remains the same, in that high sense, two days together. In the second place, I know that the something in me which thinks is an absolute unit. This is involved in its identity. It is impossible for me to think of this 9716 as divided or divisible. I am conscious it is undergoing constant changes or modifications in the form of different succes- sive thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and vohtions; but I know that this me is the unit-centre in which all these meet and out of which all my vohtions go. I experience a variety of mental modifications, bxit each one of these is qiiahfied by the same absolute unity. If I trj' to think of my sensation, my idea, my feeling, my volition, divided into halves or quarters, the state- ment becomes nonsense to me. But with all matter the case is exactly opposite; the smallest body of matter is divisible into
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 57^
smaller. Each part subsists as an aggregation of smaller parts. The properties of matter are all divisible along with its masses. The whiteness of this wall may be literally divided along with the substance of the plastering into the Avhiteness of a multitude of points in the wall. Let an electrified steel rod be cut in two, we have two electrified rods ; so the electricity may be subdi- vided along with the matter itself; but each afiection of the mind is as complete a unit as the mind is. Thus I am bound to think that mind is immaterial. In the third place, my per- ceptions make me acquainted with the attributes of matter, and I perceive that they all belong to one class ; they are all attri- butes of extension. The smallest material bodies have some size, all must have some shape or figure, they all weigh some- thing, though some are lighter than others, they all subsist in the form either of gasses, or lic[uids, or solids. Most of them have colors. But when I turn to mind and its processes, I know that none of these attributes of extension can apply to them at all. Let us make the attempt. Let us try to say that this fine mind is finer than that other, because it has a circular or elliptical shape Avhile the inferior one is three-cornered. Attempt to explain the fact that Mr. Calhoun's mind was greater than a peasant's because it was so many inches bigger, or so many pounds heavier. Let us attempt to give figure to our thoughts and feelings, or color, saying that some are three- cornered, some square, some circular, some red, some blue, and some black. Let us try to think of the top and bottom of a sentiment or a volition as we do of the top and bottom of a brick or a house. We speak of arguments sometimes as solid, but what we mean is that they are logically valid. We know that we cannot think them solid iu the material sense of stones or wooden blocks. The very attempt to fix any attribute of matter upon mind or upon its processes becomes mere idiotic nonsense. This shows that the attributes of matter are not and cannot be relevant to mind. Why ? Because they are opposite substances. Mind is pure, immaterial spirit ; all the bodies our senses see are extended, divisible, ponderous, figured, in a word material.
In the fourth place, when I watch m^-self I am immediately conscious of my free-agency. In certain respects I choose for
580 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
myself what I attempt to do ; nobody and nothing outside of seK make me choose what I choose. The me, the thinking self, has this remarkable faculty of power, of self-determination. Thus self is an original spring-head of new actions and effects. Let no one deceive himself with the shallow notion that this power of fi'ee-agency is merely unobstnicted execution by the muscles and members of purposes or volitions put into the soul. This is but half of the fact ; the soul is fi-ee in forming those volitions. It is not forced to them, but is self-determined in them. Minds are originators of new actions and effects. Xow matter has not and cannot have such free-agency. Science pro- nounces absolute inertia to be the first law of matter. Experi- ence shows that if a material mass was once lying still it will be still in the same place forever, unless a force from without pushes it. If it is moving in any line with any given speed it is obhged to move on thus forever, unless something outside of itself stops it. Matter can receive effects ; it can transmit them ; it never originates any effect. It is impossible to conceive of matter as exercising intelhgent choice, endowed with rational free-agency. He who tries to think thus of matter makes himself to that extent idiotic. But mind has fi*ee-agency, it chooses, it originates. Therefore mind must be a different sub- stance from matter, an opposite substance. Mind is spiritual, matter is corporeal.
In the fifth place, corresponding to our conscious free-agency is our consciousness of our accountability, or moral responsi- bility for our conduct. This is an immediate conviction of our conscience which it is impossible for us to escape. It is equally impossible for us to ascribe accountabiUty to material bodies. If I, by a volition of my free-agency, strike and wound the head of a man without provocation, I know it is a sin for which I am morally responsible. The wounded man knows it, every spec- tator knows it. Another man when walking in the forest has his head struck and wounded by a falling branch which the wind blows fi'om a tree ; this is not a sin but an accident ; neither the wind nor the dead branch is accountable for it. The man woidd be idiotic to seriously judge either of them morally responsible. Here then is the crowning contrast between mind and matter: minds are accountable because they are intelligent and free-agents ;
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 581
material bodies cannot be accountable; tlierefore we conclude again that minds and bodies are opposite kind of substance. Minds are immaterial substances distinct from the bodies wliicli they inhabit for a time. They are indeed combined in the ani- mated human person in a mysterious and intimate manner. Such combinations are credible, for similar ones frequently occur. But the two substances combined must be distinct, because it is impossible that any essential attribute of the one substance can be attached in thought to the other. Now let no one say that this is but a metaphysical argument. In the sense of such charges I deny it. It is not metaphysics, but the unavoidable conclusion of common sense. I ask the reader to go over these five steps again carefully. He will find that there is not a single position assumed which every man does not know to be true by his own necessary consciousness without being a philosopher at all. Every point in my argument is one of those necessary principles of knowledge which are found universally regulating the thoughts of all the people in the world who are in their right minds, principles of thinking which no man can reject from his mind without reducing himself towards the position of a lunatic or an idiot. It is from these simple principles I have drawn the conclusion that the mind, the something in us which thinks, is not a mere function or quality of something else, but a true permanent substance in itself; and since all its essential properties are the opposites of those of material bodies, souls are distinct kind of substance, immaterial spirits. I invite the reader to break these conclusions if he can do it honestly and truthfully. The more he tries the more he will be convinced that he cannot, because the premises are the necessary first facts of knowledge, and the conclusions follow by the force of common sense.
This fact that our spirits are naturally monads, shows that they will never cease to exist, by a powerful analogical argument. They may be justly called spiritual atoms, single and indivisible, in the same high, absolute sense with the ultimate atoms of mat- ter. All science teaches us that no such atom of substance, once brought into existence by the Creator, is ever annihilated. This is the fixed conclusion of the material sciences themselves, as astronomy, chemistr}-, ])hysics, and biology. Xone of these
582 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
sciences know of any kind of destruction of beings except disso- lution and separation of tlieir parts. The parts still exist as really as before in new states and places. "When a piece of fuel is consumed in the fire, it is only ignorance wliich supposes that any of its substance is annihilated. All educated persons know that though the fuel is consumed, every atom of it still exists ; science is able to catch and weigh every one of them. The min- eral atoms remain in the ashes ; the watery atoms have floated upward as vapor ; a part of the carbon particles are sticking in the chimney-flue in the form of soot ; another part is floating off in the form of smoke, as volatilized matter, and a part in the form of transparent carbonic acid gas; not an atom ceases to exist. Every fact in the whole range of experience goes to prove that not an atom of existino; substance is annihilated in the greatest changes known to man ; they only change places and states. Why then should j^eople suppose that any change can annihilate the spiritual atoms — rational souls? He who igno- rantly thinks that death does so, has the whole analogy of human science and knowledge asjainst him. On which side then does the burden of proof lie ? Manifestly on the side of the unbe- liever. Every probability is against him : he must bring iis posi- tive proof on the opposite side demonstrating that souls are an- nihilated at death; otherwise the whole powerful probability arisinsf out of this analoarv remains in force in favor of immor- tality, and I assert there is not a spot in all the realms of human knowledge where the materialist can find one real ray of rebut- ting evidence. Every fact of physical science is against him; every doctrine of mental science is against him. He discredits the resurrection of Moses, Lazarus, Jesus, and Tabitha as fabu- lous. Then according to him, not a single witness has ever come back from the in^asible region beyond the grave to testify whether men's souls live there or not.
I admit that I have not yet proved the immortality of the spirit positively and affirmatively. But I have sho^vn that this proposition is credible and may be capable of proof. For, since spirits are substantive beings, and distinct kind of substances from bodies, the destruction of the bodies they inhabit no longer presents any necessary evidence that the spirits are destroyed by bodily death. It is just as possible and credible that the
THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL. 583
•deatli of tlie bodies may liave no more influence on tlie continu- ing existence of tlie spirits than the stripping oflf of a child's clothing has upon his personal life. I am ready to admit that the first impression made on our sensations when we witness a death is different. The death of a human bod}^ is very impress- ive and awful. When we see the marble complexion, the glazed eye, the absolute and final arrest of sense and motion, the irre- j)arable change from visible activity to dissolution and dust, it is not surprising that the first impression should be, with us sensuous creatures. This is the end of the whole being. The fact that the spirit of the deceased never returns in the ordinary course of nature to tell us whether it is still alive and active, awes the imagination, and suggests to the fancy the negative. But here we must remember how frequently the first sensible impressions are entirely delusive, and how they are contradicted by reason and fuller observation. The first impression with the child Avheu he sees the acorn drop from the tree and he frozen in the wintry earth, is that the acorn is dead. It is hard for him to believe that this little dry fragment of matter is the germ of a tree which will live for centuries a monarch of the forest. Nearly all the actual exploits of chemistry and" electricity are equal surprises, wholly contrary to first impressions. Who sup- posed at first that gas tar, a thing black, stinking, and filthy, contained all the glories of the aniline dyes, until Hoffman proved it? How hard is it to believe that all the planets ex- cept two are much larger than this huge globe of ours, when they appear to us nothing but minute points of Ught in the noc- turnal sky! Yet the astronomers prove by strict mathematics that they are larger than the earth. A.11 intelligent persons see so many instances of the falsehood of these first impressions on sensation and fancy, that they cease to regard them as any tests cf truth. We know that we must look bej^ond them for more reasonable proofs, and the question for us is, whether facts and reason do not prove that the immaterial spirit survives the death •of the body.
The answer is, Tes.
For, first, strong probable proof appears in this fact, that the identity of the living spirit does certainly remain unchanged throughout sundry great changes undergone by the body. We
584 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
know that every human body changes from a 'living /(jetics to a. living infant. It then changes into a grown man in his full vigor. It then passes into the decrepitude of age. But these impressive changes in the conditions of the body result in no change in the identity of the spirit which inhabits it. This is conscious of its own sameness throughout the changes. Hence there is a clear probabiHty that the next change, bodily death, also may not interrupt the being of the living spirit. The body not only grows, but it may lose half its substance by emaciation from sickness ; it may lose a whole limb by wounds or amputa- tion ; but the spirit consciously hves on without change or di- minution of spiritual powers This shows it to be probable that the final amputation, cutting off all its hmbs from its use, will not interrupt the spirit's life. Indeed, we are assured by physi- ologists that there is a constant change in the material molecules which make up our bodies at any one time. Every tissue ex- periences wear and tear and nutrition. Particles which yester- day were vital parts are now '■^ necrosed ^^ and are expelled out of the system as alien matter, while their places in the living tis- sues are taken by new particles which yesterday belonged to a different vegetable or animal. It is every way probable that there is not one single molecule at this time in our bodies which was there some years ago. But while, between these two dates, our bodies have undergone this sweeping change, and those of that previous j'ear have as literally and absolutely retiu'ned to their dust as will the corpse of the fi-iend whom we bury to-day, our spirits are certain of their unchanging Hfe and identity. In one word, ever}' man's body is daily undergoing gradual death; this makes no change in the life and identity of the spirit. Hence the summary death of such a body presents no real evi- dence of the destruction of the spirit.
Second, Every time we go to sleep and awake we have probable proof that the spirit remains awake after the sleep of death. We are famihar with this nightly change. It does not fi-ighten us or impress the imagination. But let us consider it as a rational man would, should it have come to him as an entire novelty. When we grow drowsy we are conscious of approaching insensi- bility. The senses are all ceasing to act and closing up. If the mind had no experience to teach it better and listened to the first
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 585
impression it would doubtless conclude : "This insensibility will be final; this last moment of consciousness is the last I shall ever exj^erience." But every morning serves to correct this awrful impression. Every awakening teaches us that this mimic death of the body has not in the least interrupted the Hfe and conscious identity of the spirit. Hence the probability grows strong that the deeper sleep of death will not interrupt it, that this also will have its sure awakening.
Third, It is urged by materialists that so far as all experience goes the thinking being is dependent for all its perceptions upon its bodily sense organs and for the execution of all its volitions upon its nerves and muscles; hence they would have us infer that the soul is entirely dependent on its body for all its know- ledge and activity, which is practically being dependent on the body for its existence, since without either knowledge or activity the soul would be practically non-existent. But how does the soul use its bodily organs of sense and motion? Obviously in the same general mode in which it uses external instruments.
The soul feels external bodies with its arms as it would feel bodies somewhat more distant with a stick. The soul sees lu- minous objects with its eyes just as it sees with a telescope or opera-glass. It hears sounds with its ears, much as it hears them with an ear-trumpet. The blind man does not lose hi& power of feehng by dropping his stick. The huntsman does not lose sight by breaking his field-glass nor the sense of hear- ing by losing his ear-trumpet. We know perfectly well that these bodily organs are not our minds but only instruments which our minds employ ; therefore the loss of the instruments does not imply the destruction of the mind : it only leaves us in ignorance as to the other instruments of knowledge and action, which the mind will learn how to employ when it shall lose these bodily ones. But more correct thought shows us that the spirit in its disembodied state will most probably not need or employ any organic instruments of perception. The only reason why she needs them now is probably because she is immured in an animal body. Her case is that of a state prisoner, who is con- fined, for a time within the walls of a castle. He has been allowed five loop-holes in these walls in order to hold some in- tercourse with the outer world. At death the liberator comes-
586 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
and proposes to demolish tlie roof and walls of his prison. Shall the prisoner be so thoughtless as to complain and object that in destroying his walls they are depriving him of his loop- holes, in consequence of which he will be able to see nothing of the outer world? The answer is plain: the only reason he needed loop-holes was that the wall imprisoned him ; now that it is gone he needs none. He has free unobstructed light and vision all around him.
FoartJi, The independence of the separate thinking substance is more strongly proved by this fact : that a number of its higher functions are performed without any dependence upon any bodily organ. Our eyes are the instruments with which we receive vis- ual perceptions ; through the ears we receive the acoustic ; through the fingers the tactual ; through the nostrils the olfactory ; through the palate the gustatory. But our abstract general ideas, our cognitions of God, of time, of space, of infinity, of subjective consciousness, are ministered by no sense organ. Every avenue of sense may be locked up or disused, and yet these highest functions of spirit are in full activity. The animated body is still there, but it is contributing nothing to these most important functions of soul. Especially does the sj^irit assert its essential independence in its self-prompted volitions. We will rest this argument more especially upon that well known class of volitions whose object is not to move any bodily organ or member, but to direct the mind's own attention at will to its own chosen topic of inward meditation ; and Avhose impulse does not come at all from an}^ outward impression, but from the preference and pur- pose of the mind itself. Every man knows that his mind fre- quently performs these acts of voluntar}^ attention prompted by nothing outside the mind, and directed to nothing outside of it. Here are cases of the mind moving itself, with Avhich the body has nothing to do. The mind in these actions is as virtually disembodied as it will be when it shall have passed at death into the spirit world.
Some recent physiologists do indeed assert, in the interest of materialism, that we are partly mistaken in these facts. They say that every action, even the most abstract and subjective, in the mind is attended wdth brain action in the form of some mole- cular changes or readjustments in the nerve filaments and the
THE IMMOET.\XITY OF THE SOUL. 587
particles of grej matter forming tlie outer surface of tlie cere- brum. They would have us believe that when a man, meditat- ing with closed eyes, revives the mental idea of the horse or the tree which he saw a year ago, there is as real nerve action, and indeed the same nerve action, in the brain as that bj means of which he first got his visual perception of that object. They would have us believe that when we think our most abstract cog- nitions of God or eternity, there must be as real brain action as when we are hearing the sound of a trumpet. Thus they would make out our premises to be false, denying that the mind per- forms any functions of thoughts or volitions independently of brain motions.
When we ask them how they prove all this, we find there is no valid proof, and the theory remains a mere wilful, idle guess. We ask them. Has anybody ever seen these motions of nerve matter and changes of relative position between filaments and particles of grey matter? They confess, Xobody. They con- fess that they will be too minute to be perceived by the human eye. They know that no human eye ever had, or ever can have, an opportunity to watch them, because no vivisection could un- cover the ganglia at the base of the brain, where they imagine these things go on, mthout instantly killing the subject of the experiment. Their indirect arguments are nothing but vague suppositions. The only real source of the fancy is the stubborn determination to reject the teaching of common sense that there is a separate spirit in man, and to make him no more than a material animal. Their real logic amounts only to this worth- less argument in a circle : We do not choose to admit the exist- ence in man, no matter how strong the proofs, of anything ex- cept animated matter. We are conscious that a great deal of thinking goes on in man ; therefore animated matter does it all ; therefore nothing exists in man except animated matter. This theory of universal molecular brain actions has never lieen proved, it is only guessed ; it never can be j)roved.
But were it necessary, we might admit that coordinate nerve actions in the brain attend and wait upon every, even the most wholly abstract, process of mind, without in the least weakening our fourth argument. There are three remarks to which we ask the close attention of the reader, either one of which is sitfficieut
588 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
to prove this. First, the wonderful faculty of memory must be accounted for, whatever theory is adopted. This materialistic theory must teach, as it avowedly does, that the brain is liter- ally and materially the storehouse of memory. It must teach that the way ideas are retained in memory is this : A new mark is imprinted on a portion of the brain matter when the idea first comes through sense-perception ; and the reason why the idea remains in memory, and may be revived in recollection, is that the mark remains permanently on the brain matter, like a scratch, for instance, made by a diamond upon a pane of glass ; and the immediate cause why the idea revives again in recollec- tion is this, that the portion of brain matter has moved again with a counter-movement, the exact reaction of that which took place when the mark was first printed on it.
Some of them give us descriptions of v/hat they suppose the action and counter-action of the mark to be which are all as imaginative and as truly mthout proof as the history of Jack the Giant-killer and his beanstalk. The most popular guess is this, that when the sense-impression first came into the brain it caused a change of adjustment between the ends or tips of certain nerve filaments and certain Httle masses of grey matter. So when the idea is revived in recollection, this results from the reactionary change of position between those little masses and nerve filaments. We care not to discuss the particular shape of any of this idle dreaming. According to its authors every idea received into memory and stored up is represented by a distinct material mark upon a material mass. Now one remark breaks- all this down into hopeless folly, viz., that the brain is a limited body while the power of human memory is indefinite and un- limited. The more ideas an educated man has the more new ideas he can acquire. Some great men know a hundred or a thousand times as much as other stupid and thoughtless people. But their brains if they differ in size at all are only larger by a few ounces at most. Voltaire had a multitude of ideas and a marvelous memory. His brain was one of the smallest found in a grown person. What is the use of saying that the mark printed on the brain by each idea may be very small? When the number that may be printed is absolutely unlimited the surface must get full no matter how small each mark, long before
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 589
the stock of ideas in memory is completed. Now add another fact, that it is most probable no idea once gained by the mind is ever lost wholly from the memory, but that all remain there un- conscious and latent, and capable of being revived by some mental stimulus of suggestion during our future existence : this theory of material nerve markings becomes worthless and idle.
Second, Every man's mind knows that it usually directs its own attention by its own will. "When he is lying in darkness with closed eyes he thinks of absent and abstract ideas of God, of duty, of eternity, and not because he is made to do so by physical causes, but because he chooses. He directs his own at- tention to these supersensuous thoughts. We know that some- times men's minds do drift in involuntary reverie, but we know that men can stop this Avhen they choose. We know that in most cases the mind directs its own thoughts, that it is not led by the nose, by exterior physical causes, but guides itself by its subjective will. Now let it be granted that all our mind pro- cesses, even the most supersensuous, are accomxpanied hy mole- cular movements in the brain. Consciousness gives the highest of all evidence. This assures us that if there are any such mole- cular movements they are only consequences and not causes of the supersensuous actions of the mind. It is the mind that starts the process, it is the brain which responds. Let us sup- pose that never having seen horses and mounted men until recently it so happens that every time that we have seen the men they were mounted upon their horses; thereupon some chopper of logic like these materialists begins to argue : Gentle- men, you have never seen those men except upon their horses; you have never seen the men move but what you saw the horses move with them ; therefore you are bound to believe that the man and the horse are the one and the same being, that each is the literal Centaur. We should reply to him : Nay but oh fool ! have we not seen that it is the men who govern the horses, that the horses only move when the men spur them ; therefore we know without waiting to see the man dismount that the horse is not one and the same being with the man but an inferior being and the servant of the man.
Thii'd, We know that we are free-agents better than we know
590 THE IMMOKTALITY OF THE SOUL.
auj pliysiolog}', false or true. We know that we are free-agents even better than we know tliat we have vitalized brains inside our skidls, for we know our free-agencv bj immediate conscious- ness; but we know everj fact of outward observation only as it is reported through this consciousness. Now if this material- istic theory of thought were true, we could not be free-agents. Every thought, feeling, volition, which arises in us would be the effect of a material movement. But matter cannot have any free-agency ; and if matter thus governed iis we could have none, our very nature would be a lie. Our own hourly experience gives us a perfect illustration of this argument. Our minds do have a class of ideas and a class of feelings whose immediate causes are found in certain movements of our corporeal nerve organs ; they are what we call sensations. And about having them, when once those nerve organs are impressed by any exter- nal body beyond our control, we have no free-agency at all. If the norther has struck us, we have no more free-agency about feeling chilly, if a stone thrown by a bully has struck us, we have no more free-agency aboat feeling pain, if another man holds a rose under our nostrils, we have no more free-agency about smelling fragrance than if we w'ere machines or blocks of stone. The knowing subject, mind, has indeed gotten the idea, the feeling ; but it has gotten it from a material nerve organ ; hence the mind wields no freedom in having "it. So, if this ma- terialistic theory of thought were true, if all our supersensuous thoughts, feehngs and volitions were propagated from material nerve organs, we could have no free-agency anywhere. But wa know we are free-agents to a certain degree.
At this point the solution becomes easy with those cavils against the spirituality and immortality of the soul, which are drawn from the results of concussions of the brain, suspending consciousness, and of lunacy and dotage. If the reader has attended to the remarks last made he will easily see that these facts do not i^rove the soul to be the brain. The}^ o^^lj prove that in our present life the soul uses the brain as its instrument for a j)art of its processes. In dotage it is the bodily organs which are growing dull and decaying; this is the reason that recent impressions made through the senses are weak and con- sequently transient. But the facts impressed by sensation in
THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL. 591
previous years, when the old man was in his bodily prime, are as strong and tenacious as ever. The old man forgets where he laid his pipe half an hour ago, but he remembers the events of his youth with more vividness than ever. This proves that the decaj' is only organic. Were it spiritual it would equally obliterate early recollections and recent ones. Again, in the infirm old man, while the memory of recent events seems dull, the faculties of judgment and conscience are unimpaired. His advice is as sound as ever, his practical wisdom as just. The best scientific men now regard all cases of mental disease as simply instances of disease in the nerve-organs, which the mind employs while united to the body. Borrowing the language of pathology, cases of lunacy are but "functional derangements" of the mind. There is no such thing as " organic disease " of the spirit. Whenever the wise physician can cure the nervous excitement by corporeal means, sanity returns of itself to the mind. If lunacy continues until death, it is because the disease of the nerve organ remains uncured. The mind is not released from the disturbing influences of the incurably morbid action of its instrument until the mysterious tie which unites mind to body in this life is finally sundered.
Another objection may here be noted: that a parallel argu- ment may be constructed to prove the spirituality and immor- tality of the souls of brutes. The higher animals seem to have some mental faculties, as sensation, passions, memory, and a certain form of animal spontaneity. It is asked : Why do not the same arguments prove that the cause in brutes which per- ceives, feels, remembers and acts, is a distinct spiritual sub- stance, and therefore capable of separate and independent sub- sistence without the body ? One answer is, suppose they did ! This would be no refutatioii. The conclusion might clash with many of our prejudices, might surprise us greatly, might perhaps dictate a change in much of our conduct towards the animals. If the premises of a given reasoner are found to prove another conchision in addition to that which he had asserted from them, this is no proof at all that his argument is invalid. Let us sup- pose that a prosecutor of crime has argued that certain estab- lished facts prove John and Thomas to be guilty. It is no an- swer to cry that the same facts would also prove Richard to be
592 THE IMMOETALITY OF THE SOUL.
gtiiltj. What if tliey do? It is still iDroved tliat Jolin and Thomas are guilty. The only change in the case is that we now find the guilt extends further than was at first asserted. But in the second place, an argument for the spirituality and immortal- ity of the higher animals will be found very defective when com- pared with the full argument for man's immortality. The heads of argument which we shall hereafter urge for the latter, are found to have no application to the brutes. But they are far the strongest arguments. The real nature of that principle in them which feels and remembers, is very mysterious to us; the me- dium of speech is lacking between us and them. The real nature of the brute's faculties is extremely obscure to us, and for this reason we are ignorant of what becomes of that principle when their bodies die. But the nature of the human faculties we can know thoroughly, and therefore we are able to infer what be- comes of that spiritual substance endowed with those high facul- ties when men's bodies die. But obscure as is the nature of the sentient principles of brutes to us, it seems very clear that they lack those faculties and powers on which our argument, as to man, is chiefly founded.
Brutes have sense-perceptions, sensibihties, and memory. But there is every reason to believe that their memory is only of individual ideas of particular material objects. They never form rational, general concepts ; they cannot reason concerning collec- tive classes of things. They think no abstract, general truths ; they have no judgments of taste or of conscience. Of all these, which are the truly spiritual functions of mind, of all notions and judgments of the beautiful, of the sublime, the obligatory, the morally meritorious, the regulative principles of logic, the rational purposive volition, they seem as incapable as is a vege- table. But these are precisely the functions of human minds, which, we are conscious, go on independently of corporeal or- gans. These are our crowning proofs of the spiritual indepen- dence of human minds.
Fifth, Our argument for man's immortality must now involve as a j)remise another great truth, the existence of a rational, personal God. We shall not pause to argue this, because it needs no argument. Men can only deny it at the cost of out- raging every principle of common sense. The very existence of
THE IMMOKTALITY OF THE SOUL. 593
a temporal universe proves an eternal God. The universal or- der of this universe, the appearance of design and contrivance everywhere in it, prove the existence of an intelligent and wise Creator. Every function of conscience within us recognizes a righteous, divine Ruler above us. Since the Creator is wise, we know that he had rational purposes for all that he has created. Therefore we know that if man had been made only for a brute's destiny, God never would have given man capacities and facul- ties so much above the brute's, so useless and out of place in a temporal and corporeal existence. The brute's instincts, animal sensibilities, and partial memory of particular ideas, coupled with his lack of reason, lack of forecast, lack of conscience, in- capacity for religious and abstract knowledge, and lack of all desire for them, qualify him exactly for a temjDorary, corporeal life. But man's rationality, his unavoidable forecast concerning the future, his moral affections and intuitive judgments of duty, merit, and guilt, his religious nature, his unquenchable hopes and desires for unlimited moral good, are utterly out of place in a creature destined to only an animal and temporal life. No sensible man Avho believes in a God can believe that the Creator has made such a mistake. Does a rational man furnish sails to his ploughs, destined only to turn the soil of his fields, or cart- wheels to his ships, destined only to navigate the water, or ea- gles' wings to his gate-posts, planted fast in the soil?
Human experience fuUy confirms the verdict of Solomon, that the rational man who seeks his chief end in the enjoyments of the mortal life always finds it "vanity of vanities." Did not the wise Creator know that? Did he also perpetrate a vanity of vanities in creating a being thus needlessly endowed for a mere mortal existence, or dare we seriously charge upon him the re- proach which the human anguish, in view of this futility and the death which ends it, only suggested : "Lord, wherefore hast thou made all men in vain"? Nay, this were blasphemy. To assert man's mere mortality is a parallel outrage upon all that is noblest in his nature. This outrage evolutionism, the recent and fashion- able form of materiahsm, attempts to perpetrate. We ask it, whence man's mind with its noble and immortal endowments? It has to answer that it is only a function, evolved from mere mat- ter, through the animals. Just as Dr. Dar^s^in accounts for the
Vol. III.— 37.
594 THE IMMORTALITY OP THE SOUL.
evolution of the linman hand from the fore paw of an ape, so all the wonders of consciousness, intellect, taste, conscience, volition, and religious faith, are to be explained as the animal outgrowth of gregarious instincts and habitudes cultivated through them.
To any man who has either a single scientific idea touching the facts of consciousness, or a single throb of time moral feel- ing, this is simply monstrous. It, of course, denies the exist- ence of any substance that thinks, distinct from animated matter. It utterly misconceives the unity which intuitively must be found underhdng all the processes of reason in our minds. It over- looks utterly the distinction between instinctive and rational motives, thus making true free-agency, virtue, moral responsi- bihty, merit and moral affection, impossible. It supposes that as the sense-perceptions and instincts of the beast have been expanded by association and habit into the intellect of a Newiion,. so the fear and habit of the beast cowering under his master's stroke, or licking the hand that feeds and fondles him, are the sole soui'ce of the noble dictates of conscience and virtue. The holy courage of the martj-r, who braves the fire rather than violate the abstract claims of a divine truth, is but the outgrowth of the brutal tenacity of the mastiff, when he endures blows, and torments rather than unlock his fangs from the bloody flesh of his prey. The heroic fidelity of the patriot, in the face of the grimmest death, is but the quality of the dog which will fetch and carry at his master's bidding. The disinterested love of Christian mothers, the heavenly charity which delights to bless an enemy, the lofty aspirations of faith for the invisible and eternal purity of the skies, the redeeming love of Jesus, all that has ever thrilled a right soul with deathless rapture of admira- tion and elevated man towards his divine father, are destined to have neither a future nor a reward, any more than the fragrance of a rose, or the radiance of the plumage of the bii'd, or the ser- pent's scales. After a few years, all that shall forever be of the creature endowed with these glorious attributes, -svdll be a handful of the same dust which is left by the rotting weed. The sjiirit which looked out through Newton's eye, and read through the riddles of the phenomenal world the secrets of eternal truth and the glories of an iufijiite God, went out as utterly in ever- lasting night as the light in the eye of the owl or bat, that could
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 595
'onlj blink at the sunliglit. These are the inevitable conclu- sions of evolutionism, and they are an outrage to the manhood of our race. What foul juggling fiend has possessed any culti- vated man of this Christian age, that he should grovel through so many gross sophistries in order to dig his way down to this loathsome degradation? The ancient heathens worshipped brute beasts, but still they did not forget that they were them- selves the offsj)ring of God. It remained for this modem paganism to find the lowest deep, by choosing the beast for his parent, and casting his God utterly- away.
/SU'i/i, Pursuing this argument from the wisdom of God, we jprove yet more clearly that he designs man for immortahty by this marked human trait, that the faculties of man's spirit are so formed as to be capable of unhmited improvement and progress. The case of the brutes who are not designed for im- ^nortality is opposite. They can be trained and improved up to a certain verj' narrow limit, but there the progress stops. <Some of their instincts are very wonderful, but the earliest gen- erations had them just as fully as the latest. Neither individ- ual animals nor races are capable of making continuous progress, tind doubtless the bees of Abraham's day built their honey-comb just as mathematically as those of our enlightened century. We presume that the literary pigs of the ancients were just as well educated as those of the modern showmen. The mahouts of King Porus of India, trained their elephants to be precisely as sagacious as those of Barnum, and the ancient Hindoo jugglers managed their snakes and dancing monkeys so as to present the same surprising tricks exhibited by the moderns. But with man it is wholly otherwise. He also like the animals has a body and a few animal instincts. These are capable of improve- ment, precisely like those of the brutes, within certain narrow limits. Gymnastic exercises enable the athlete to run somewhat faster, jump somewhat higher, lift somewhat heavier bui'dens, and wrestle or box somewhat better than common men ; but his advancement in all these particulars is cut short by very narrow boundaries. He cannot pass beyond these any more than the ancient Greek. No corporeal dexterity is acquired in our day beyond that of the ancient jugglers and gymnasts. When we pass to the faculties of man's spirit, we find all different.
596 THE IMMORTALITY OF TEE SOUL.
These can be improved indefiuitely and without any hmitation. whatever. The more the mind learns the more it can learn. When an Aristotle or a Cuvier has extended his knowledge be- yond that of the peasant a thousand fold, he is better able than ever before to make further acquisitions. The same fact is true of the race. Each generation, ma}^ if it chooses, preserve all the acquisitions both of faculty and knowledge made by parent gen- erations, and may add to them. When we compare the powers of civilized man with those of savages, the former appears almost as a demigod to the latter ; but civilized society is now prepared by \drtue of these acquisitions to advance from its present j^osi- tion with accelerating speed. Recent events prove this ; for the last forty years have witnessed an advancement in knowledge and power equal to the previous hundred years.
Why does an all- wise Creator endow our mental faculties with capacity for endless advancement unless he designs us for an endless life ? Observation teaches us that wherever God jjlaced a power in the human essentia, he has appointed some legitimate scope for its exercise. It is incredible that he should have given this most spleiidid power to man had he intended to make it futile by cutting short man's existence. When we visit a niirsery farm, where the little scions of apple trees and the great shade trees are cultivated for sale, we see that the nurseryman has planted them one foot apart in rows not more distant than corn- rows ; but we see by experience that it is the nature of these trees to grow continually until each one occupies an area of forty feet in diameter. How is this ? This nurseryman is surely cultivating these scions with express view to their trans-planta- tion into another and wider field of growth, otherwise he is a fool.
Seventh, The argument is crowned and made unanswerable by considering man's moral faculties. These centre in the follow- ing intuitive and necessary rational judgments, which are uni- versal among right-minded men, and more indisputable if j)ossible than the axioms of logic and geometry. We have an intuitive notion of moral good and evil, of the distinction be- tween virtue and vice, right and wrong, which cannot be ex- j)lained by or reduced into any other notion. Every man, not insane or idiotic, knows self-evidently that he is under obhga-
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 597
tiou to do the riglit and avoid tlie wrong. Every man knows that there is good-desert in doing the right and ill-desert in doing the wrong. Every man feels the satisfaction of a good conscience Avhen he does the right disinterestedly, and the sting of remorse when he does evil. Take this set of judgments and sentiments out of a man's spirit and he ceases to be a man.
The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, gives us this inge- nius argument for immortality from this moral principle, "We know that it is our duty to practice all virtue and avoid all vice, as well as we know it is our duty to practice any virtue." That is to say, our judgment of obligation commands us to be' morally perfect. Every sincerely good man is sincerely striving to be better and better, and no enlightened conscience will ever be sat- isfied short of moral perfection. This is then the voice of God, our maker, in our reasonable souls ; and it is a voice of divine command. But experience teaches us that nobod}^ has ever at- tained moral perfection in this mortal life.
Then surely there must be a future life in which progress in virtue may be made unto perfection. If God has not provided such a future state for us, he would never have laid this high, command upon our souls. What should we think of his justice and equity if, after limiting our bodily growth to twenty-five years and fixing our bodilj' decay at three-score and ten, he had then commanded us every one to grow to be twenty feet tall? Nobody grows to much more than six feet in seventy years. How can we be commanded to grow to twenty feet if seventy years are the limit of our existence?
In the next place, our necessary judgment of demerit for sin and our sentiment of remorse make us all know that punishment ought to follow sin. Everybody expects that punishment will follow sin. We know that God is the fo\intain-head of moral obligation and the supreme moral ruler. We know that he wields a providential government over us. This is a truth so obvious as to force itself upon the dark mind of the pagan em- peror Nebuchadnezzar, that God doeth his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of this earth; and that there is none that can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou ? On the one hand it is entirely agreeable to reason and conscience to regard the miseries of this life as the punish-
598 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
ments, or at least tlie chastisements, of sin; but on tlie other hand, if there is no future life reason and conscience ought to pronounce these earthly punishments the whole punishments of sin.
Our intuitions ought to make us believe that, as this mortal life terminates, our penal debt is fully paid off, the ill-desert of sin satisfied and extinguished, and the creature, lately a trans- gressor, cleansed of its ill-desert and guilt. As the mortal ap- proaches death, remorse ought to dechne, and relax its pangs, so that in the moment of death the soul should be absolutely freed from death and fear and self-rebuke, and quit existence in a state of perfect moral peace.
But such is never the case vrith. dying men, unless their intel- lects are oppressed by delirium or coma, or their consciences seared as with a hot iron. The soul of the dying man, if in a rational state, knows that its debt of punishment for sin is not fully paid. It knows that earthly sufferings are only the begin- ning of that payment. Conscience is not satisfied, but denoun- ces the ill-desert of the soul more clearly and awfully than ever before. Fear and remorse are not assuai^ed, but increase their torments, and culminate in the last dreadful period of exit from this world. Such is the experience of every rational soul in dy- ing, who has not drugged himself with some deadly delusion, unless he is calmed by the hope of pardoning mercy in the Di- vine Judge whom he knows he is to meet beyond the grave. These moral convictions of dying men are dictated by the most universal, the most necessary, the most fundamental judgments of human reason. Were there no such fact of a future existence to ground them, reason itself would be a lie, and man incapable of moral conclusions.
It is very well known how materialists endeavor to break this testimony of nature itself to immortality, by crying that this fear and remorse are merely the results of superstitious fictions w^orking upon the ignorant imagination. This explanation is as silly as it is false to rational consciousness. It is but the same "which is advanced by the pagan atheist Ovid : Thnor fecit deos. ]\Ir. Edmund Burke sufficiently exploded the miserable sophism by the scornful question, Qui s fecit tityior em? Xo one is afraid, unless he believes there is an object to be afraid of.
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 599
The belief iu the reahtj of the object must be present before- hand, in order to generate the fear. Every man who is not try- ing to cheat himself knows that these moral judgments, which are so solemnly reinforced by death, are functions of the reason and not of the fancy. The imaginings of superstition with its morbid terrors are the abuse and travestj^ of these moral senti- ments, and not their source.
There is another broad moral fact which completes the de- monstration, both of a future life and of future rewards and j)unishments. When we compare Our fellow-men together wel see that they do not all receive their equal deserts in this life. Here wickedness often triumphs and innocence suffers. The wicked " spread themselves like the green bay tree," their strength is firm and there are no bauds even in their death ; but the righteous are afflicted every morning and chastened every evening. Not seldom the purest human lives are darkened during their larger part by unkindness, calamity, or bereavement, and are terminated by a painful disease culminating in yet more painful death. No compensation comes to them, but the exist- ence which was continued under the twilight of suffering ends in darkness. When we set these afflicted lives over against the prosperity of the wicked there remains a moral mal-adjustment abhorrent and frightful to every moral sentiment, unless there is to be a more equitable settlement beyond. These facts are im- pregnable. Righteousness deserves reward, and sin deserves punishment. There is a righteous God who rules this world by his providence. His benevolence and equity make it impossible that he should visit earthly miseries upon any moral agent ex- cept as the just punishment of his sins. Since all of us suffer more or less, all of us are more or less sinners, as our own con- sciences fully testify ; but men are not punished in this life in due proportion to their relative guilt. Therefore it must be that God completes the distribution of penalties in a future life. To deny this then is to impugn the existence or the holiness and jus- tice of God ; it is a burning insult to him, near akin to blasphemy.
Such is a moderate statement of the rational arguments which prove the immortality of our spirits and our accountability be- yond death for our conduct. The course of the proof also shows that the denial of our conclusion would make mankind
600 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
practically brutes ; for wlion we liave proved that there exists in the human person a rational and spiritual substance, the spirit, we have virtually proved man's immortality. Prove sucessfully that man does not possess this distinct spiritual substance and lie is made a mere heast. He may be a more refined beast than an elephant, a pointer dog, or a monkey, but still he is only a beast. That which alone differentiates him from brutes is gone.
It is known that there is a vain philosophy, which avows itself materialistic and which yet pretends to find something in this evoluted and improved animal to which to attach a temporary moral personality, moral sentiments, and moral accountability. We assure such vain thinkers that their attempt is futile. When we try it at the bar of common sense and sound philoso- phy^, it meets these crushing refutations. Our mind is nothing but a refined function of a material organism, and its highest sentiments are nothing but animal instincts grounded only in organic sensibilities, evoluted into some advanced forms ; then it is impossible there can be any valid concept of the moral good higher than that of mere animal good. It is also impos- sible that there can be any moral motive directing and restrain- ing actions. Where there are no moral motives there can be no just responsibiht}'. Again, if all man's high sentiments are but advanced evolutions from animal instincts there can be no rational free-agency. Has the hen, for instance, any rational free-agency when impelled by her instinct to incubate her eggs ? But where there is no rational free-agency there can be no just moral responsibility.
An all perfect God is the only adequate standard of righteous- ness, as his preceptive will is the only sufficient practical source of obligation. Without an omniscient administrator and a future life no adequate administration of justice is possible. Thiis the logic of philosophy proves that when God, spirit, and immortality are expunged morality becomes impossible.
The great sensuous masses of mankind will reach the same result by a simpler and shorter path. " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." We may be assured this will be the logic of the average man when taught materialism: "The scientists teach me that I am only a refined beast. Then if I choose, I
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 601
maj act as a beast ; tliere is no hereafter for me. Then I shall be a fool to deny myself anything I desire out of a regard for a hereafter. Experience teaches me that what they call wicked men may live very prosperously in their wickedness provided they are a little politic in observing a few cautions. Then there is no penalty for that sort of wickedness in this life, and as there is no future life, there is no penalty for it anywhere. Why should I not indulge myself in it ? There is no such thing as an omniscient God, consequently I am free to do an}i}hing and everything I desire, pro\dded these short-sighted men do not 'catch me at it.'" Indeed, why should your materiahsts stop short of this unanswerable logic? "The scientists tell me that I am only a refined beast, and that my fellow-men are the same. A beast cannot be guiltj^ of crime, and it is no crime to kill beasts ; why then may I not kill any human beings whom I find it convenient to murder? Why may I not kill any of these scientists who have taught me this instructive lesson, provided I gain anything by it?" Practically, the result of this materialism always has been, and always will be, to disorganize human so- cietv, to let loose the flood-gates of crime, and to destroy civil- ization. In imperial Rome skepticism and materialism became the prevalent doctrines. With what result ? History answers : The butcheries of Nero and his successors, the death of public virtue, and the utter putrescence of the once glorious Roman re- public, which left it Hke a rotting behemoth to be torn to pieces by the Goths and Huns. Again, materiaHsm became the domi- nant creed of the ruling faction in France in 1790. With what result? The fruit was the "Reign of Terror," which in five years annihilated fifty -two billions of francs of French wealth, made the streets of her cities run with the blood of judicial mur- ders, perpetrated in the name of hberty more outrages and crimes against human rights than the autocratic Bourbons had wrought in five hundred years, and plunged Europe in two de- cades of causeless wars. Again in 1871 the International Com- munists, a faction of materialists, gained temporary' possession of Paris. The consequence was a carnival of plimder and mur- der, until President Thiers crushed them out by force. Surely it is time then to learn that the tendency of this doctrine always has been, and always must be, by turning men into brutes, to
602 THE TlMRtfORTAXITY OF THE SOUL.
turn earth into a hell. There is no adequate restraint upon the wicked tendencies of man's fallen nature short of the authority of an omniscient, almighty God, and the fear of the righteous awards of immortality.
Shall all these stern lessons of history and of common sense be rebutted by the assertion that quite a number of our scien- tific evolutionists and materiahsts are quite nice, decent gentle- men? Xo doubt. But what makes them such? The tradi- tionary influences and habits of action resulting from that very Christianity which they are seeking to destroy. Their good citizenship is a temjaorary impulse commimicated to them from God-fearing ancestors. Let them succeed in obliterating the belief in God and immortality, society vnYL find too late that the whole sotu'ce of the restraining impulse has been lost. The intellectual progeny will tend to become monsters, vrith. the irre- sponsible ferocity of beasts energized by the powers of perverted rationality. Does a George Eliot, for instance, tell us that she still leaves an adequate object for the moral homage of her materialists in the noble concept of the " aggregate humanity," the worthy object of the humanitarian viiiues ? What is aggre- gate humanity? Where is it? According to her doctrine that huge part of the idol, which is composed of the past generations, is nowhere, is rotting in annihilation. According to her, the part of the idol which is to come in future generations is only an aggregate of beasts, a suitable object truly for moral homage! And worse still, this j^art is as yet a non-entity; and when it shall have become an actuality her votaries, whom she invites to worship it, will have become non-entities. Bah! Can the inso- lence of folly go further than this? Or are we told that these most decent scientists are doing nothing but following the lights of inductive science and bowing loyally to the truths of nature, wherever they meet them? We know that, so far as they array their zoology and histology as proofs of materiaUsm, they are not paying loyal homage to the truths of natural science, but misconstruing and j)erverting them. We know that their at- tempt to disprove the existence of our rational spirits by means of the very exercise of the rational faculties can only turn out a logical suicide. It is as though one said to us, we have now proved experimentally that there are no eye-balls in human
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 603
heads. We ask, gentlemen, by what species of experiments do you prove that assertion ? They answer, By a series of nice experiments made with onr visual faculty. But if there are no eye-balls there is no visual faculty. Such experiments would be impossible. The analogy is exact. If these scientists did not possess a mind, endowed with supersensuous rational facul- ties, impossible to be the functions of mere material organism, faculties which are the indisputable signatures of distinct spir- itual substance, the experiment of his biology would mean nothing to him. He tliinks he is sacrificing at the altar of pure scientific truth. He deceives himself. He is sacrificinfj to an intellectual idol. Solomon tells us of men, who, while "scat- tering fire-brands, arrows and death," said, "Are we not in sport?" Ghastly sport it is! By what title can these mistaken interpreters of nature flatter themselves, that they are not scat- tering the fire-brands, arrows and death which their doctrine has. always hitherto strewn among the nations ?
INDEX.
Abstract ideas and primitive trutlia denied | and yet built upon by positivists, 43 ; th.e attempt to prove them empirical, 45 ; the | tests of, 47.
Agassiz, influenced by the positive philosophy, 31.
Agnosticism and immortality of the soul, 570.
Analogy, metaphysical and theological appli- cation of, 412, and experience. 423 ; what is, 424 ; definition of, 425 ; true view, 426. j
Anti-Ohristian science, cau^e of its rise, 116. | caution against, 116 : caution against based i upon the threatening attitude of many physi- cists towards revelation, 118 ; its tendency towards skepticism. 121 : the wide diffusion of its poison. 122 ; should not be allowed to boast of immunity from error, 124 ; its con- stant fluctuations and changes, 126 ; its large element of hypothesis. 125 : its incomplete- ness, 127 ; best antidote for, 134 : the caution against criticised by Dr. Woodrow, 137 (see Woodrow); facts proving its evil, 148.
Anti-theological attitude of perrerted science proved, 148 ; pergonal testimony, 148 ; in- consistencies into which believers have been led, 14S.
Anthropomorphism, H. Spencer's objection to doctrine of final cause, 485.
Appetencies, inherent and functions of sub- jective activity, 217.
Appetency, distinguished from sensibility, 280.
Aristotle and the inductive method, 125.
Arminianism, Wesley and Watson depart from worst extremes of, 182.
Artificiality of manner, the estimate of it, 89 ; its sinfulness, 90.
Association cannot account for the feelings, 287.
Atheism, fostered by positivism. 29 : Lord Bacon on the tendency towards in philoso- phy, 156 : tendency towards in pushing Ood back in the line of causation, 112 ; the ulti- mate tendency of naturalistic theories, 133, 135.
Atonement, the, and Wesleyanism, 183.
Augustine quoted on nature of concupiscence, 226.
Authority In religion, sources of, 119 : value. 121.
Bacon, Lord, on "final Cause." 477 ; on " in- ductio Sunplicis Enumerationis," 173 : on tendency in philosophy towards atheism. 156 ; not the author of the inductive method. 349 ; method, 353 ; doctrine of " Final Cause," 419 ; " Novum Organum," 124.
Barnes on slavery, discussed by Bled.'^oe. 63.
Bible, the, and geology, 91; its improper de- fence, 93: its authority in matters of science, 95 : how its testimony as to creation must be un lers'.i.ofi. i;7; Rome an enemy to a free, 72 ; sneered at by scientists, 161 ; teaches scientific facts in popular language, 96 : inde- pendence of science, 98. (See Infallibility and Revelation.)
Biology, its place in the positive philosophy, 26.
Blackstone's theory of civic ethics, 303.
Bledsoe (A.) his antecedents, 61 ; on slavery.
62 , commended, 69 ; his philosophy, 181 ; his- tory of, 181 ; relations to the church, 182 ; es- tablishes the Southern Revieic, 182 : seeks a doctrinal meeting point for Calvinists and Arminians, 182 ; recognizes connection be- tween theory of frte- agency and doctrines of grace, 183 ; attempt to justify God in per- mitting sin, 184 ; a new statement of an old error, 184 : conditions under which his rea- soning would be sound, 185 : fails to perceive distinction between sensibility and desire, between motive and inducement, 185 ; omits fact of permanent, subjective, disposition in his analysis of Iree-agency, lt6 : practically asserts scieatia meiiia, 18T ; misunderstands true nature of argument from God's fore- knowledge to certainty of the Creator's will, 188 ; mistakes the nature of free-agency, 189; teaches a theory that leads to blank Pelagian- ism, 190 ; talks like Hobbes and Spinoza, 19U ; oa infant salvation, 192 ; on the dogm* of baptismal regeneration, 193 ; misjudges Westminster Assembly, 193 ; departure from Wesley and Watson on original sin, 195 ; re- gards "the condition of infants a misfortune, not original sin. 196 ; regards inherited de- pravity only a misfortune, 197 ; position as to infant damnation disproved, 197ft' : logical result of his view of free-agency, 200 ; de- parture from Methodists on -'perseverance of the saints," 205 ; iuconsistencies, 207 : prac- tical effect of teaching his views, 208 ; on free-agency, 211 : the mischief his views exert, 211 ; his errors and their insidiousness, 212 ; accuses the author of ignorance and im- becUity, 212 : is mistaken. 213 ; and self- contradictory, 213 ; ignores subjective dis- position in discussing the rise of voUtton, 213; views on contingency of responsible volitions, 214 ; inconsistency and incoherency, 214 ; on thamind as cause or efficient of volition, 214; on distinction between motive and induce- ment, 216 ; his reasonings against Edwards, 219 ; does not understand what the Calvinist means by efficient motive, 219fl' ; resents the charge of Pelagianism, 222ff ; claims that he holds the Wesleyan Theology, 229 ; on Adam's holiness, 230 ; his Wesleyanism in a pitiable pUght, 331 ; special theory of free-agency, 235 ; wrongfully charges the author with not discussing it. 236 ; use of the term " motive," 237 ; repudiates Edward's definition of free- dom, 238 ; answer to argument from man's consciousness as to origin of volitions, 241 ; answer to argument from character, 343 ; objections rebutted, 244 ; his view of inten- tion or design, 244; distinguishes 'logical certainty" from "causal certainty," 252 ; re- sists argument from God's foreknowledge, 250; his evasion, 253: evasion of the argument for true theory of volition from regeneration, 261 ; evasion of the rcdiictio ad absurdum of his theory of the wtLl. 262 ; his effort to change theissue of the debate, 264 ; his notion of cause and effect. 265 : his petitio principii, 265 : forced to a sensationalist analysis, 266. Boyd. H. H., views on union of United Synod of the South, 166.
605
606
INDEX.
Brown, Dr. Thomas, on the emotionp, 271.
Biictmer, Dr., declares the ideas of God and science incompatible, 168.
Buckle, philosophy of, 143 : Hiatnry of Civiliza- tion reviewed. 22 ; influenced by the positive philosophy, 30.
Bunsen's views on the age of man. 127.
Butler, Bishop, on the laws of habit, 464.
Calhoun, John C, and slavery, 66.
Calvinism, and Arminianism. a meeting point sought for by Dr. Bledsoe, 182 : taught in the Thirty-nine Articles, 193.
Cana, miracle at, 173.
Carpenter, Dr., on the unreliability of geologi- cal theories, 158; on the spectroscotie, 163; on relation of science and revelation, ]C9 ; caution in respect to spectrum analysis, 437.
Causation, and association, 63 ; distinguished from fortuity, 479; the law of, and inductive demonstration. 378 ; a necess4ry intuiiion of the reason, 378, 38U ; Mills's doctrine of, 412 ; disproved, 413 ; value of the true doctrine of, 417 ; reason for the hostility of the empirical school, 418.
Cause and effect, the law of, 129 ; converse not true, 130 ; law of not to be reversed, 131.
Cause, Final, 476. (See Final Caim.)
Causes, nature of physical, and their induc- tion, 376 ; the chief question, 376 ; the need for a true psychology in determining the question, 377 ; the fundamental character of the question, 378 ; the law of causation a ne- cessary intuition of the reason, 378, 380 : the properties of substances, 379 ; the grounds for beUeving their permanency. 380 ; properties not permanent that can produce effects, 381 ; distinction of accidentia and attributa, 379, 381 ; the varying effect of permanent proper- ties considered, 386; 'the equivalency and transformation of energy," 387, 434 : judg- ment of believed by Mill to be empirical, 412 ; Mill's view disproved, 413 ; value of the right view of, 417 : " Final Cause," 418. (See Causation.)
Certainty, distinguished from compulsion, 190.
Character, ground of, and relatioa to rise of volitions, 243.
Charters, origin of, 330.
Church and State, 320 ; different theories of relation, 323.
Church courts, their fallibility, 116.
Circiinistantial evidence, rule governing, 170 ; application of the principle to creation, 171.
Civic ethics, the various theories of, 302 : as that of natural liberty and social contract, 302 ; the theistic, 303 ; the legitimist, ,305 : refutation of the latter, 306 ; the social con- tract theory refuted, 307 ; is false to facts, 307 ; is atheistic and unchristian, discards moral distinction, lacks basis of facts, and is illogical, 308 ; is attended by evil results, 309 ;' cannot account for certain powers, 310 ; proper theory, 311 ; Hobbes' error, 312 : his- torical proof, 313 : the Declaration of Inde- pendence misunderstood. 314 ; equality mis- understood, 315 ; logical results of the Ja- cobin doctrine, 316: our inaUenable rights, 317 ; revolution, 319 ; relation of church and state, and persecution, 320 : theories of rela- tion of church and state, 323 ; development of the doctrine of religious liberty, 326.
Civic morality, 530 ; need for and beauty and desirability of, 539.
Civil liberty, what is, 311 : Bledsoe on, 62.
Columbia Seminary, or Dr. Dabney's memo- rial, 138 ; Judge Perkins's endowment, 140.
Common sufficient grace. 183.
Compulsion, distinguished from certainty, 190.
Comte's. Auguste, philosophy, 142, 143 ; on the uniformity of nature, 372 ; Cours de Philo- sopliie Fo.sitire examined, 22 ; Guizot's view of, 23 ; the pretended founder of positivism, 22 ; his arrogance and tyranny, 23 ; conceit.
24 ; denies and then uses psychology, 25, 36 ; the jiractical results of his philosophy, 60.
Concupiscence, is it sin ? 225 : Augustine on, 226.
Confession of Faith and Catechisms a doctrinal covenant. 130.
Consciousness, testimony of to the origin of volitions, 241.
Contrivance a function of thought, 476 : argu- ment fiom, for a Gcd, assailed by evolu- tionists, 476.
Cori)oratiOus, personal responsibiUty not oblit- erated by, 540.
Corporations, private, iDoUtieal tendencies of, 329 ; origin of, 330 ; what they are. 331 : pro- per reasons for, 332 : not needed in America, 333 : dangers, 334 : State laws, 337 : speci- mens. 338 ; feudal system, the, 329 ; reasons against, 33S ; (1) wastefulness, 340 ; (2) wr ng- ful use of money power, 341 ; (3) undermine domestic and personal independence, 342 ; (4) seriously affect the general virtue, 343 ; by corrupting legislators, 343 by avoiding responsibility, 344 ; by multiplying chances for secret fraud. 346.
Cosmogony, theories of, 105; relation to geology, 147.
Creation must be a miracle, 28, 40 ; relation to scientific hypotheses, 107 : traits of natural- ness in, 109 ; proper conception of, 114 ; theo- ries of, 118 ; bearing of the doctrine of, 128ff; sufficifUtly accounts for what lies beyond authentic history, 130 ; the doctrine of, and its relation to, theories of cosmogony, 148 ; Moses' account must be accepted and bowed to by science, 152.
Damnation of infants, the accusation of Dr. Bledsoe. 192.
Darwin, philosophy of, 143, 147.
Dead languages, Rome's reason for using, 70.
Death, relation to doctrine of immortality, 583 ; does not destroy the soul, 584ff.
Declaration of Indejjendence, the true meaning of, 313.
Deduction and induction, current use of the terms, 349.
Deluge, modern theory of, 118.
Depravity as regarded by Wesleyanism, 183 ; the Bible teaches, 197 ; native, as related to the emotions, 295 ; meaning of 297 ; proof of, 298ff. ; remedy for, 301.
Descartes' objection to doctrine of Final Cause, 476.
Desire and sensibility, distinction between, 185.
Determination of the will, how brought about, 238, 240 : distinguished from the self-deter- mination of the soul, 2 to.
Development theory, the, 119.
Disposition, permanent, subjective, an impor- tant element in free-agencv, 186 ; relation to motives and actions, 18? ; is it itself sin, 200ff; objections answered 203 ; its place in the rise of volition, 213 ; Dr. Bledsoe on, 215 : a priori to the operation of inducement. 218 ; relation to responsibiUty, 233 ; relation to the motives, 284.
Education, Roman Catholic, 70 ; sinister mo- tives, 78 ; true purpose, 79.
Education for the ministry, standard of, 551. (See ordination.)
Edwards' argument concerning the certainty of the acts of free-agents, 187 ; not free from confusion in distinction between subjective motive and objective inducement, 219 ; use of the term motive, 237 ; use of the term ne- cessity, 237 ; deanition of freedom, 238 : blemishes in his argument, 239.
Elect infants who die in infancy, meaning of the phrase, 193.
Emotions, the, subject usually neglected. 271 ; Brown's classification, 271 ; McCosh's classi- fication, 273 ; objections to these classifica-
INDEX.
607
tions, 272 ; importance of the discussion. 273 ; relation of feeling and thought, 274- 279 ; number of the terms expressing feoling, U75 : difference in degree. 276 : relation to the judgment, 277 : need to properly i-eparate liungency or agitation from the etseuce cf the feelings. 278 ; the simple, original, char- acteristic elements of. 2x0 : sensibility and appetency distinguished, 280 : grounds of this distinction, 281 ; conditions tmder which feelings arise, 283 ; relation to cognition, 284 ; to habitus, 284 : present themselves in pairs, 286 : the associational theory of Hart- ley et al., 287 : and its refutation, 288 ; the theory from self-calculation after experience, and its refut.ition, 290 ; the author's classifi- cation, 291 ; the moral quality of, 294 : may they be used as sthnulus ? 294 ; manifestation of purpose, or ' final cause." in the structure of, 295 ; relation of depravity to the other feelings, 295 ; Kant's view of depravity, 295 ; proof that depravity is a spring of feelings and volitions, 297 : from consciousness, 297 ; from early development in childhood, along with reason, etc.. i98 ; from its universality, 299 ; from its resistance to duty, Jove, and all inducements to the contrary, 299 ; the rem- edy for the disease, 301; spurious religions, 456.
Emulation, proper use of, 294.
England, positivism in. 22.
Equdlity, false claim of, 315.
Equilibrium of the will in the Arminiau theo- logy, 182.
Equivalency and transformation of energy, the doctrine of, 387 ; disproved, 434.
Esser's testimony as to induction and analogy, 416 ; definition of analogy, 425.
Ethics, civic. (See Vii'ie.)
Ethnology, modern theory of, 119.
Evolution, 119 ; application of the inductive method to theories of, 439. et seq.
Evolutionists deny the teleological argument, 476 : their account of results, 473 ; their claims, even if granted, do not destroy the argument. 48U : but they do not api)ly, 487.
Exact scit nces, 162
Excitements, spurious religious, their fre- quency, 456 ; tbe true psychology of, 457 ; are excitenients always useless ? 458 ; feeling religiously and feeling about reliprion, 4.59 ; feeling and the will. 401' ; Turrettin's testi- mony, 460 ; sympathy and religion, 461 ; proper use of sympathy, 463 ; influence of habit. 464 ; spiritual pride, 465 ; "new meas- uie,'' revival', 466 ; methods and objections, 467 ; ulterior evils, 468 ; the attempted justi- fication. 472 ; proved sophistical, 473 ; practi- cal results, 473.
Experience and analogy, relation to induction, 423.
Extraordinary cases, provision for, 552 ; pro- vision abused, 553. (See Ordinatiun.)
Fall, the consequences of, upon man's mind, 116.
Fallibility of church courts, 116.
Fatalism, a result of the positive philosophy, 28.
Feeling (see Emotin.is), relation to thought, 274.
Final cause and induction, 418 ; essential to inductive demonstration, 420 ; definition of, 476 ; do the structures of nature evince? 476 ; Descartes' oVijection to doctrine of. 476; Bacon has been misjudged, 477 ; physical causes and final cause, 478 ; the evolutionist's method of accounting for results, 478 ; position of anti- theistic science. 479 ; the confusion of fortuity and causation, 479; the two distinguished, 480; illustrated by the eje, 481 ; the relation and adaptation of means to end, 482 ; this ac- counted for only by prescience, 483 ; objec- tion of Hume and others answered, 484 ; Spencer's charge of anthropomorphism, 485 ;
answered, 486; evolutionists' claims do not de- stroy the argument from Final Cause, but only push back its data, 486 : evolutionists' claims, however, do not apply, 487 ; Final Cause shown clearly in reproduction. 488 ; doctrine shown by the common sense of mankind, 480 ; principles of induction, 489 ; beUef in causation, 490 ; comments upon the author's views, 491.
Fleming on induction, 362.
Foreknowledge, nature of God's, 188 : relation to free-agpncy and origin of volitions, 248, 2.^0 : doctrine of mediate, 256, 257.
Fossils, pre-adamite, 106 ; teaching of, 174 ; origin of, 175.
Free-agency and positivism. 34 ; and responsi- bility, 184 : permanent, subjective, disposi- tion an important element, 186 ; misunder- stood by Dr. Bledsoe, 189 ; Alexander, (A.), on the will. 184, 185 : relation to God's word, 191 ; importance as a problem in phil- osophy, 211 ; Dr. Bledsoe's recognition of this. 211 : the mischief of his views, 211 ; Bledsoe's view of, 235; fundamental impor- tance of the doctrine, 236 ; nature of the dis- cussion of, 236 ; distinguished from free-wiU, 238 ; relation to origin of volitions, 239.
Freedom. Edwards' definition of, 238 ; defini- tion of the Confession, 239.
French Eevolution, the, and Civic Ethics, 313.
Geology, and the Bible, 91 ; proper method of defining the relations between, 91 ; the arro- gance of geologists, 92 ; the w wisdom of the Bible's defenders, 93 ; the fickle policy of pro- fessed defenders of the Bible, 94 : the Bible's degree of authority, 95 ; proper concessions to be made, 97 ; burden of proof in discussion rests upon the scientist, 100 ; reasons there- for, 101 : bearing of the doctrine of creation, 107 ; changes in theories of, 125 ; modem study of tends to naturalistic opinions. 139 ; different theories of, 140 ; decisioB for none, 144 ; theories of unreliable, 158 ; Dr. Carpen- ter on. 15 9; its classification, 160.
Government, radical theory of, 499. (See Iii{!hts.)
Grote's interpretation of induction, 350 ; im- pugns the inductive methods, 404.
Guizot's judgment upon Comte, 23.
Hamilton. Sir Wm. . on distinction between sensibilities and conative powers, 218 ; on the emotions, 271, 280 ; on application of induc- tion and analogy, 416 ; definition of analogy, 425; on the inductive method, 356; looseness of use of terms, 428.
Hartley's theory of the emotions, 287 ; refuted 2S8.
Hitchcock's argument as to natural laws, 110.
Hobbes' theory of causative efiiciency of mo- tive, 217 ; view of Civic Etliics. 312.
Holiness, concreated, Bledsoe's views of, 230 ; relation to volition. 244.
Hume's argument, 38 ; unreasonable, 111.
Huxley, philosophy of, 143, 147.
Hypothesis, a leading element in current phy- sical science, 126.
Idealism, German, and Monism, 524.
Identity of the spirit, 578, 583.
Immortality of the soul, 569 ; the universal belief of, 569 ; the Greek philosophers', Buddhists', Mohammedans' and others' views,
570 ; this universal belief must be accounted for by agnostics, 570 ; the inquiry as to im- mortality turns upon the question of the existence of a spiritual substance in man,
571 ; substance defined, 572 ; ajiplication, 573 ; objection of material science that spirit has never been seen, 574 : answered, .'>74 : the relation of consciousness, the thinking self, 575,578; may this substance be material? 576 ; the difference in the properties of material
608
INDEX.
and spiritual substances, and of their appre- hension, 576, 579 : identity of the Kro, 577 : its absolute unity. 578 ; its classitication of pro- perties, 579: its free-agency. 579; its accounta- Dility, .580 : the doctrine of immortality, credi- ble and capable of proof, 5>2 ; the relation oi death, 583 ; the immaterial spirit survives bodily death, 583; proved (1). by the continued identity of the living spirit. 583 ; (2). by the re- newal of consciousness after sleep. 584: (3), by the relation of bodily sense and organs to the spirit, as its external instruments, 585 : (4). by the fact that many of tlae highest func- tions of the soul are performed without de- pendence upon any bodily organ, 586 : objec- tion of materialists to the last argument, 586 ; answered, 587flf : (5). by the existence of God. 592: (6), by the spirit's capacity for unlimited improvement and progress, 595 : (7), by the nature of man's moral faculties. .596 : the denial of these proofs would make man a brute. 600 ; the practical resiilt of disbelief in immortality. 600 ; shown in history, 601 Impiitation. doctrine of repudiated by Jacob- inism, 503. Index expurnatorirs, 75.
Inducement and motive, distinction between, 185 : not perceived by Dr. Bledsoe, 190 : rela- tion of disposition to, 218. {ape Motive.) Induction and deduction, current use of the
terms, 349. Induction, the fundamental ground of, 489. Inductive demonstration, what is. 349. Inductive method, not first invented and used
by Bacon, 124, 151. Inductive Logic Discussed, 349 ; vague opinions of its nature, 349 ; this vagueness accounted for, 35u ; the disagreements of professed logicians. 3.50 ; as Grote, 351 : St. Hilaire, 352. 356 : Whewell, 352, 360 : TJeberweg. 353 ; Lord Bacon's method, 353 : JliU's verdict on the Baconian Organum, 3i5 : Sir Isaac Newton's advance, 356 : Sir William Hamilton's view, 356 : Archbishop Whateley's iuterpre'ation of the true method, 358 : and the difficulties in his svllogism. 3.59 : Lord Macaulay's view,
362 : Fleming's, 362 ; Mco'o^h's, 363 : Bowen's,
363 ; Porter's, 363 : Dugald Stewart's, 363 : Will's, 366 : Mill's view inconsistent, 3P8 : ignores effects which are negative. 309 : benefits of this historical re\ie.w, 370 : the uniformity of nature considered, 371 ; how induction cannot be a demonstration, 374 : but what it does teach, 375 : the inductic'n of physical causes, 376 : a true psychologv necessary to explain, 377 : the law of causa tion the foundation of inductive demonstra- tion. 378 : the permanency of the properties of substances, 379 ; grounds for believing their permanency, 380 ; the varying effects of permanent properties considered. 386 : the equivalency and transformation of entrgy. 387 ; the aim of real induction. 3.^9 : the in- duction from agreeing instances remains probability only, 391 ; reasons therefor, 3hi> : the methods of induction. 394; "method of agreement," 396: "method of differences," 398 ; a combination of these two, 400 : "method of residues," 401; ' m»thod of corresponding variations," 402 : this enum- eration exhaustive, 403 : when these methods are insufficient. 405 ; the verification. 405 : induction in syllogistic form. 408 ; metaphys ical and theological application, 412 ; Jlill's doctrine of cause disproved 414 : Ksser's and Hamilton's views, 416 ; value of right doctrine of cause, 417 ; final cause and induction, 418 : reason for the hostility of the empirical school 418 ; Bacon quoted, 419 : i^-ithout final causes inductive demonstration has no basis, 420 : the results of intuitive expectation of universality of law of cause. 421 ; experience and anology, 423 ; relation to induction, 423 : definitions 'of analogy, 4'24 ; the true yiew.
426 ; the apodeictic induction, 427 : looseness of terms, 4'28 ; the caution necessary in apply- ing induction, 428 : the comprehens-ive law, 429 ; analogy of the courts, 430 : relation of parole testimony. 431 ; summary of the dis- cussion. 433 : illustration by application to theory of " equivalency and transformation of energy," 434 : to theories based upon spectro- scopic phenomena. 4.36 ; to geology, 438 : to theories of evolution, 439 : to ethical prob- lems. 453.
Infallibility of the Bible, not to be surrendered, 122 ; the ground of its acceptance as a rale of faith and life, 123 : not recognized by scientists, 151 ; how approximated by science, 152.
Infant salvation. 192.
Inspiration, best method of defence, 138 ; dis- credited by certain physicists. 119 ; the prac- tical effect of Jacobinism upon one's views of, 516 : " Innate ideas." 42.
Intuitive beliefs, observation and experience not the proof of, 48, 49.
Jacobinism, 500. (See Rights.) Jacobin, doctrine of civic Ubertv, 314 ; logical results of, 316.
Kant, on the emotions, 271, 295.
Language, its relation to literature and civiliza- tion, 7] ; its special relation to religion, 71.
Legal Profession, Morality of, 1 ; theory of, 2 ; not merely commercial or pecuniary. 4 ; not justified, professionally or morally, in ad- vocacy of cause known to be unrighteous 4 ; evil shown by present state of ad- ministration of justice, 5 : by the tendency to descend to still lower grades of expedients and usages, 7 : and the temptation irresisti- ble. 9 ; by the fact that it gives an unlawful view of a court of justice, 10 ; which is con- cerned with truth and right, and is not a de- bating society, 11 ; by the shifting of respon- sibiUty which it involves, 13, 16 : and by the evil done to one's own virtue by the advocacy of that which is known to be evil, 18.
Legitimist theory of civic ethics, 305.
Leibnitz and Locke, 41.
Liberty, and slavery, 61 ; definition of, 62 ; re- lation of civil and natural, 311.
Liberty, religious, development of the doctrine, 326.
Locke, on the emotions, 280.
Lubbock's, Sir J., views of origin of our civiliza- tion. "27.
Lyell, Sir Charles, on the world's age, 101, 141, 144, 158, 160.
Macaulay. Lord, on the inductive method, 362.
Man. age of, upon the globe, 118.
Master and slave, is the relation right ? 64.
Materialism, the result of the positive phil- osophy, 142, 27.
Uaterialistic philosophy and monism, 524.
McCosh on the emotions, 271 ; on induction, 363.
Memorial on seminary instruction, 137 ; its treatment, 138.
Metaphysics repudiated by positivism, 37 ; and yet used, 38 ; need for it, 40.
Method of difference, the common method, 424.
Mill, John Stuart, Logic reviewed, 22 : influ- enced by the positive philosophy, 30, 57 ; on absolute truths, 52 : philosophy of, 143 : on generalizing from experience, 173 : testimony against false physical science, 350 : disparage- ment of the Baconian method, 355 : state- ment of the inductive logic, 366 ; defects, 368 : on the uniformity of nature, 372 : fol- lows the perverse metaphysic of Jamts Mill, and Hume, 412.
Miller, Hugh, on the world's age, 101, 103.
Mind of man, the, impaired by the fall.
INDEX.
609
Mohammedanism and the imnDortality of the sovd, 570.
Mohna, and the doctrine of mediate foreknow- )edf?e, 257.
Monad, the spirit a, 578, 581.
Monism, statement of the doctrine, 523 ; its in fluence and early teachers, 523 ; seen also in German idealism and matf rialism. 5J4 : the arguments offered to substantiate, 5'25 ; these arguments examined, 526 : the doctrine leads inevitably to atheism or pantheism, 526; is the result of an over eag»r craving for sinjplifica- tion, 527 ; is unscientific in place, time, and manner, 527 : contradicts the necessary laws of thought and truths of experience, 530 : de- nies the intuitive judgment that action must imply an agent, 532.
Moral evidence for the truth of the Bible, 123 ; its nature and conditions, 124flf.
Moral faculties, their relation to immortaUty, 596i
Morality of the legal profession, 1.
Morell's Speculative Philosophy reviewed , 22.
Moses and the Westminster Confession's inter- pretation of, 179.
Motive and inducement, distinction between, 185 : not perceived by Dr. Bledsoe, 190.
Motive, its efficiency, 216 : distinguished from inducement, 216 ; distinction has been over- looked in philosophy, 210, 218 ; results of wrong views of its relation to volition, 217, 218.
Motives, relative, strength of. 267 : Bledsoe's view of, 267 ; the true view, 263 ; the term as used by Bledsoe, 233. 237 ; distinguished from inducement, 237 ; what is an efficient ? 237 ; not properly distinguished from inducement by Edwards, 239 ; motives, subjective, deter- mine the morality of volitions, 274
Mysticism, in the early church, 117.
Naturahsm and positivism, 22, 29 ; exaltation of, by the physical sciences, 118; its atheistical tendency, 128 ; the author accused of a wrong use of the word, 159.
Naturalness, traits of essential in a creation, 131 ; proved, 132 ; to deny is belief in infinite series of finite organisms, 132 ; the argument from, 143 ; traits of in an immediate creation, 144 ; traits of, reasons for in creation, 164 ; do not invaUdate supernatural origin of the world, 166 ; Prof. F. H. Smith's views, 169.
Natural theology, discarded by Dr. Hooker, 43.
Nature, the interpretation of, according to Lord Bacon, 354 ; uniformity considered, 371. (See Causes, physical.)
Nature, uniformitv of. Mill's theory, 415.
Nebular hypothesis, the, 119, 126, 163.
Necessity, the term not objectionable when properly interpreted, 237 ; meaning of, 241.
Negroes, enfranchisement of and Jacobinism, 316.
Newton, Sir Isaac, on the inductive method, 356.
Oaths, the sanctity of based in reUgious obliga- tion, 537.
Omnipotence and wisdom of God sufficiently account for creation, 134.
Ordination, the lowering of the standard of, 551 ; arguments against, 562 ; extraordinary cases already provided for, 552 ; the grounds for seeking a lowering considered. 554 ; the standard in Paul's day, .557 : the demands of modern culture in other professions, 561 ; the results in other churches considered, 561.
Original sin, and infant damnation, 194 ; Wesley and Watson on, 195 ; proof of, 197ff ; Bledsoe on, 229 ; Wesley on, 229, 248 ; relation to true doctrine of volition, 260.
Palmer, B. M., words of, 165. Pantheism, the necessary corollary of monism, 526.
Parole-teBtimony and induction, 431 ; on evolu- tion, 449.
Passion, proper meaning of, 276.
Pelagianism, Dr. Bledsoe accused of, 222 ; what is. 222 ; Dr. Bledsoe's acceptance of its prin- ciples. 223S' ; Bledsoe's view of relation to volition, 256 ; position of Dr. Taylor, 230 ; of Bledsoe, 231 ; Watson on, 232,
Perseverance of the saints, Bledsoe's doctrine of, 205, 247, 248.
Philosophy of volition. (See Volitimi.)
Philosophy, the positive. (See Positivism.)
Physics, the theological relation of, 156.
Policy or expediency, not the test of right, 6.
Political rights, incidentally taught in the Scriptures', 498. (See Rights.)
Politics and religion, 536.
Polygamy, and slavery not comparable, 63.
Popish hterature, etc., 70.
Porter. Noah, on the emotions, 271, Q80 ; on in- duction, 363.
Positivism, its pretext, 24 ; its claim, 24 ; its fundamental character and principles, 25 ; its classification of human science, 26 ; its corol- laries, 27 ; rank materiahsm, 27 ; rigid fatal- ism, 28 ; its influence on the Continent and in Great Britain, 29, 30 : productive of atheism and irreligion, 29 ; its power illustrated in the case of John Stuart Mill, 30 : and of Thomas Buckle, 30 ; and of Dr. Hooker, 31 ; influence in America, 31 : leads to despair, 32 ; its affectation of philosophic calmness, 32 ; its bigotry, 32 ; its baseless character exposed, 33; it is arrayed against rudimental instincts of man's reason and conscience. 33 ; it misstates the history of the human mind, 34 : it makes an impotent defence of man's free agency, 35 ; it scouts all metaphysical sciene, 37 : and yet must needs use it, 38 ; the relationship to exploded vagaries, 38 ; one-sided and frag mentaiy in its observations of the efl'ects in nature, 41 ; it despises abstract ideas and primitive jiidgments, 43 ; and yet of necessity bnllds every thing upon ihem. 43; its reason- ing concerning intuitive behef a or judgments, 48, 50, 51 ; vicious view of association, 53 : false claim of the greater fruitfulness of phy.'ical sciences, 57 ; is itself not "positive," 58 ; its unhappy results and inefficiency, 60 ; the name affected by modern philosophy, 117; definition of, 141; relation to monism, 524.
Protestantism andieUgious discussion, 73 ; and free inqmry, 74.
Psychology, reason and need for, and results of, 37, 40, 377 ; used by the positivist, 38, 43 ; that of c< mmon sense, 45.
Pulpit style, simplicity in, 80 ; causes for viola- tion of, 81 ; need for, 82 ; not opposed to the demands of a true rhetoric, 82 ; is natural, 8.3; demanded by the preacher's topic and aim, 83 ; by the nature of the soul's operations, 84; by the acknowledgments of those who are perverted, 85 ; by the preacher's subject and purpose, 85 ; simplicity not baldness, 87 ; its consistency and appropriateness, 88.
Reason, rudimental instincts of, repudiate posi- tivism, 33.
Regeneration, and true theory of volition, 260.
Religion and political prosperity, 536.
Religious excitements, spurious, 4.56.
Representative government, doctrine of, taught in Scriptures, 498.
Responsibility, personal, for official acts, 16.
Responsibility and disposition. 233 ; and free- agency. 236 ; of individuals for acts of cor- porate bodies, .540.
Revelation, its independence of science, 98 ; may use iUnstrations, 98 ; threatening atti- tude of physicists towards. 118 ; the hostile and depreciatory posture and tone of physi- cists, 119 ; entitled to the ground until dis- proved, 127 ; its adequate account of pheno- mena, 128.
610
INDEX.
Revivals of religion, falsely bo called, 456 ; (see Excitements), new measurefl in. 466 ; methods and objections, 467 : practical re- sults, 472, et seq ; new measures, 565.
Bevolution, when right and under what circum- stances, 319.
Eights, Anti-Biblical Theories of, baeed in en- mity to God, 497 ; assuming new forms, 497 : proper theory incidentally taught in S. S., 498 : radical theory of, 499 ; accepted, through thoughtlessness, in America, 500 ; corollaries of this theory, 500 : woman suffrage, 501 : slavery, 501 ; can the Jacobin theory and the Bible stand together, 502 ; the theory repudi- ates the general doctrine of imxjutatiou, 503 ; denies distinctions of franchise or privilege,
504 ; abhors what it wrongfully calls "caste,"
505 : demands universal suffrage, 507 ; neces- sitates " woman's rights,'' .507; denies the law- fulness of slavery, 509 ; the danger of the theory, 514 ; effect upon faith, 516 ; especially in inspiration, 516 ; the duty of right-minded Christians, 618; especially as to the beginnings of error, 520.
Roman Catholic literature and education, 70.
Rome and literature and education, 70 ; an enemy to a free Bible, 72 ; and discussion, 78 ; opposed to free inquiry, 73 : and private judgment, 73 : punishes wisdom and truth, 75, 76 ; whom she condemns, 75, 77 ; her fal-^e claims rebutted, 76, 78 ; true purpose in her educational methods, 79.
Sanctification and the sensibilities, 458.
Science, classitication of Comte, 26 : natural, and theology, 91 ; the authority of the Bible, 95 ; conclusions not delinite and perfect, 100- 105 : caution against anti-Christian, 116 ; ten- dency to become anti-theological, 118 : ac- counted for, 118 ; substituted by some for revelation, 119 ; its imperious attitude, 119 ; unwarranted accusations, 120; practical claim of infallibility, 121 : should not be allowed to boast of immunity from error, 124 ; its ad- vances admitted, 124 ; but certain claims dis- proved. 125 ; its hypotheses, 126 ; changeable- ness, 126 ; its incomjileteness, 127 ; burden of proof rests upon it, 127 ; all not opposed, 141, 144, 145, 150 ; physical has an anti-theological tendency, 145 ; but tendency may be counter- veiled, 146 ; reasons for anti-theological ten- dency, 146 ; claimed by Dr. Woodrow to be silent as to origin of forces and agents. 147 ; the evil tendency claimed to be in the student, not in the science, 148 ; natural, objection to its introduction into a seminary course of study, 138 ; grounds of objection, 138. 139 ; its fallibility, 151 ; uncertainties of, 151 ; is still correcting itself, 151 ; relation to revela- tion, their " metes and bounds," 144 ; their relation in respect to fallibility and infalli- bility, 151 ; not upon a level as sources of knowledge, 152 : theological relations of, 156 ; idea of, declared by Bflcher incompatible with the idea of God, 108 : anti-theistic, position of, 479.
Scientia media, Bledsoe on, 187 ; origin of the doctrine of, 256 ; repudiated by Rome, 257 ; disproved, 258 ; by the fact that it ascribes to God inferential knowledge, 258 ; by its con- sequences, 259.
Scientists, their usual arrogance. 151 ; not always true to the inductive method, 151.
Second table of the law and the legal jirofes- sion, 1.
Self-determining power of the will, Bledsoe's views of, 184.
Sensibilities, reUgious, (See Excitements.)
Sensibility, and desire, distinction between, 185 ; and functions of, 280.
Sensualistic philosophy, the, 117,141,142, held by John Stuart IVIill, 30 ; its inconsistency, 50.
Sin, origin of, and Bledsoe's theiry of holiness, 245 ; relation to free-agency and rise of voli- tions, 260.
Skepticism, metaphysical, 38 ; of some modem scientists, 121 ; universal, not the result of skepticism concerning some teachings of science, 149.
Slavery. 61 ; arguments for, 62 ; defect in, 62 ; and ijolygamy. 63 ; the only solution of poli- tical questions connectt-d vrith, 64 ; mistaken method of debating, 64 ; its abstract lawful- ness or unlawfulness the question, 64 ; the constitution, 65 ; need for proper considera- tion, 66 ; moderation and soundness needed at the South in discussing, 66 ; arguments that are unsound, 67 ; and Jacobinism, 501, 509 ; the Bible doctrine, 509ft'.
Smith, Prof. F. H., on doctrine of "natural- ness" in a creation, 169.
Sociology, its place in the positive philosophy, 26.
Sophistry is falsehood. 8.
Soul, The Immortality of, 669. (See Immor- tality.)
South, true policy of, in reference to slavery, 68.
Spectroscope, its revelations considered, 163 ; theories based upon the, 436 ; Dr. Carpenter's caution, 437.
Spinoza's pantheism, 530.
Spontaneity, man's, 34.
Stahl on civic ethics, 304.
Stewart, Dugald, on induction, 363 ; system baseless. 365 ; akin to Hume's philosophy, 365.
Style, simplicity in pulpit, 80 ; naturalness, 83.
Substance, what is, 571 ; the teachings of com- mon sense, 572.
Supernaturalism, demanded and implied in nature, 40.
Syllogism, the age of the, 349 ; applied to the inductive method, 408.
Sympathy, relation of, to religious affections, 461 ; proper use of, 463.
Taylors's, Dr., Pelagianism, 2.30, 231. Teieological argument for God's existence, 476. Theodicy, Bledsoe's sophistical, 61, 181, 189, 190. Theological Seminaries, management of, 137. Theology, and science, 91, 156 ; is it a human
science ? 153. Thirty nine Articles, the, and Calvinism, 193. Thought, feeling the temperature of, 274. Tenth, the power and triumph of, 136. Turretin on religious emotions, 460. Twisse's Dr., views on decrees of God, 193.
Ueberweg's interpretation of Aristotle, 353.^ United Synod of the ' South, terms of union
with, 165. Unity of the spirit, 578, 581.
Vernacular tongues, why disused by Rome, 70.
Vicariously, aman may not do wrong, 12.
Volitions, not uncaused, 184 ; follows subjective motive, 185, 187 ; God's knowledge of, 187 ; the philosophy of, 211 ; relation to disposi- tion, 213 ; in the mind the etScient or cause, 214 : Bledsoe's view of this. 214, 215 ; Bible psychology on the rise of, 218 ; how they arise in a free agent, 239 ; the answers of three classes, 240 : the testimony of consciousness, 241 ; of character. 243 ; proofs of the correct- ness of the author's view, 241 ; from con- sciousness, 241 ; from character 243 ; objec- tions answered, 244 245 ; from the certainty of influence, in education etc., 246 ; from the rational and moral nature of free volitions,
246 ; from a proper test of man's free choice concerning his x-ummum honum, 247 ; from the nature of God and all rational beings,
247 ; from God's foreknowledge, foreordina- tion, prediction and providence relative to acts of free agents. 248 ; from true doctrine of regeneration, 260 : from the results of the adoption of the opposite, 261 ; their morality
INDEX.
611
determined by subjective motives, 274 ; rela- tion to free-agency, 282.
Watson's modified Arminianism, 182.
Weslej , John, nearer trutli than early Armin- ianism, 182 : OD original sin, 239, 248.
Wesley anisui's teaching as to depravity, 181.
Wesleyans. iinconscioiis orthodoxy of many, 183.
Westmiuster Confession on Creation, 177. 178.
Whateley's, Archbishop, objection ti the Aris- totelian syllogism of induction. 3.57 ; his ex- planation of induction, 358. objections, 3^9.
Whewell's interpretation of Aristotle, 352. 3G0.
Wisdom and omnipotence of God sufiiciently account for creation. 134.
WUl. the equilibrium of the, 182, 184 : the Wes- leyan view of its ability, 183 : Edwards on the, 183 ; Bledsoe on the t elf -determining power of, 184 ; what Calvinists mean by " the corruption of the,'" 281 ; the meaning of the term, 236 : free, an ambi«iiou8 term, 238 ; the right theory of, 241. (See Frcc-agcncy and Volition.)
Woman suffrage necessary if the Jacobin theory of government be accepted, 501, 507 ; argu- ments against, 507.
Woodrow, Dr. James, criticism of the caution
against anti- Christian science, 137 : charges that the author disallows and rejects all physical science, 140 : a misconception, 140 ; charges with ignorance, 141 : misunderstand- ing and contradictions, 142 ; letter to, 143 ; amazing misapprehension'and misconception, 145 ; declares natural science to be silent as to origin of forces and agents. 147; claims that Ihe anti theological tendency is in the student, not in the science, 148 ; led into in- consistencies. 148 ; accuses the author of teaching universal skepticism, 149 ; this charge a bhmder, 150 : degrades the know- ledge of God through revelation to the level of the knowledge acquired through the physi- cal sciences, 152 ; wrong view of theology, 153; opposed to the Confession, 153 ; claims that God B children may ask and enjoy spiritual guidance when they study God's works as well as his word, 154; fulfils a prophecy of the evil of teaching science in a theological chair. 15.5; heips sco'u upon the idea that science has any theological tendency, 154 ; accuses the author of culpable ignorance, 155, 157 ; the charge refuted, 155 ; personali- ties, 1(55. World, the age of the, 101, 104.
Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library
1 1012 01129 8843
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Phil. i. 28
- Num. xxxii. 20-27
- Eph. vi. 9
- Col. iv. 1
- Gen. iii. 16
- Genesis ix. 25-27
- Deut. XXV. 19
- Deut. xxi. 15
- Josh. xxii. 14
- Eph. ii. 13
- Num. xviii. 22
- Lev. xxi. 13
- Lev. XXV. 42-47
- Col. iii. 11
- Gal. iii. 28
- 2 Sam. xxi. 6
- Josh. ix. 27
- Num. xxvii. 8
- 1 Cor. xi. 3
- 1 Cor. xiv. 34
- Eph. v. 22-24
- 1 Tim. ii. 11
- 1 Tim. v. 14
- 1 Pet. iii. 1
- Gen. ix. 25
- Exod. xx. 17
- Gen. xxiv. 35
- Gen. xvii. 27
- Gen. xxi. 17-21
- Lev. xxv. 44-46
- Luke xvi. 31
- John v. 46
- Luke xxiv. 26
- 2 Tim. iii. 16
- John xii. 36
- Heb. iii. 7
- 2 Peter i. 21
- John xvii. 8
- Col. iii. 22-25
- Luke vii. 2-9
- Luke xvii. 7-10
- Luke xv. 19
- 1 Pet. ii. 18
- Acts xx. 20
- Hebrews xi. 3
- 2 Tim. iv. 2
- Titus i. 9
- 1 Cor. iii. 10-15
Volume IV Discussions
Introduction
Bx «yii) .U3 i«yu V.4 — '
Dabney, Robert Lewis, 1820-
1898. Discussions
j^. X. 'DaSney.
DISCUSSIONS
Robert L. Dabney, d. d., ll d.
RECENTLY PROFESSOK OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AND FOR
MANY YEARS PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY
IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
IN VIRGINIA.
EDITED ]5V
C. R. V AUG HAN, D. D.
PliOFKSSOH OK TIIKOr.OfiY INfNION TIIKdI.txaCAL SKMINAKY. VIK(;iXI.V.
VOL. I V. SECULAR.
CRESCENT BOOK HOUSE Mexico, Mo 1897.
Copyritrht by S. B. ERVIN. Mexico. Mo.
1W7.
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE.
This volume of Dr. Dabney's "Selected Discus- sions," is the last of the four orig'inally contemplated. Though it is called •'Secular/' because a large proportion of the articles are of a secular character; yet doubtless it will be all the more appreciated because of the greater variety given in the addition of a goodly number of relig- ious articles and poems.
He who has either of these volumes has a mine of
thought in which to delve: he who has all has a reservoir
of intellectual and spiritual food seldom equaled in the
writings of any one man.
S. B. Ervin.
COXTEXTS.
PAGE
The New South. ....... 1
Letter to 0. 0. Howard, Chief of Freedmex's Bureau, 25
Abstractionists, . . . . . ' . 46
Crimes of Philanthropy. ..... 53
Defense of Dr. Dabnevs Narrative of the First Battle of
Manassas, ....... 71
Narrative of Col. J. B. Baldwin, of his Secret Interview with
Abraham Lincoln in 1861. Disclosing the Origin of the V/ar. 87
The Real Cause of the War, . 101
The Duty of the Hour. ..... 108
The United States as a Military Nation, . . . 123
Stonewall Jackson, Lecture. ..... 149
The Ne(;ro and the Common School, .... 176
The State Free School Syste.m Imposed upon Virginia by the
Underwood Constitution. ..... 191
Secularized Education. ...... 225
Review of "Wilson's Slave Power in America,"' . - . 248
State Free Schools, ...... 260
Commendation of the Study of Philosophy, Lecture, . . 281
Labor Unions, the Strike and the Commune, . . 294
Depression OF American Farmino Interests, . . 321
The Dollar of the Daddies. ..... 341
Economic Effects of the Former L-a.bor System of the South- ern United St.\tes. ..... 354
Memoirs of Francis S. Sampson, D. D., . . . . 392
True Courage. A Memorial Sermon on the Death of General T. J.
Jackson, June, 1863. ...... 435
A Memorial of Lieut. Col. John T. Thornton of the Third
Virginia t^avalry, C. S. A . . 453
Nature Cannot Revolutionize Nature, . . . 470
Samuel C. Anderson, of Prince Edward. .... 476
Women's Rights Women, ...... 489
Latest Infidelity. A Reply to Ingersolls Position, . 506
The ATTR.A.CTI0NS of Popery, ..... 540
The Influence of False Philosophies upon Ch.\racter and
Conduct, ....... 568
San Marcus River. ...... 577
Death of Moses. ....... 579
B.A.PTISMAL Hy.mn. A Monody. The Dying Christian, . 584
A Sonnet to Lee, ...... . 587
Gen'l T- J. Jackson. An Elegy, ... . . 588
Annihilation. ... .... 594
First Texas Brigade at the Wilderness, . . . 598
THE NEW SOUTH.
A Discourse delivered at the Annual Commencement of Hampden Sidney College, June 15, 1882, before the Philanthropic and Union Literary Societies. Yoiino- Geurlenieii of the rhilaiirhropic and Union Societies,
And Ladies and Gentlemen of the Audience:
You will credit my expression of sincere embarrassment at this time when you consider that I am attemptino- a species of discourse somewhat unwonted to a preaclier of the (Jospel. and yet more, that I am placed here only as a species of Lirnier Res- sort. We all had hopes that another gentleman would repre- sent the two Literary Societies, better fitted to entertain and instruct this assemblage. But disappointment left the place, at a very late jieriod, unfilled, and we were threatened with having this imjiartaut part of our literary anniversary left a mere blank. I stand here, therefore, in the formula of your ex- ercises very much in the place of that "infinitesimal quantity," which the algebraist places equal to zero in his e(]uation. with- out appreciable error.
This fact might have led me to decline the untimely etfort. but we who are passing off the stage of public action owe a sym})athy to the young who are entering on it, which should forbid our withholding any service or evidence of affection they may ask of us. It is this which has forbidden my saying No to yaur request.
In your case there is another weighty consideration which ought to reinforce your claim on us for a deep sympathy. This is found in the momentous difficulties of the Arena on which the young men af the coming generation are called to act their part. And yet another thought crosses the mind. Ought the knowledge of the difficulties which are before you to stimulate the expression of our interest, or ought it to dictate a modesty, which should silence us as advisers of ;)ur young countrymen? For it is by our hands that these ci-uel conditions of youi' life- problem have been transmitted to vou. The heritage of freedom
2 THE NEW SOUTH.
>.uicli our fathers left us, we have not been able to bequeath to you. As memory reYerts to my youth, when I stood where you now stand, it presents a contrast which might well seal my lips with grief and shame. Then my honored father and grand- father were just going oft the stage, the one a soldier of the first war which won our independence, and the other of the sec- ond war which confirmed it, both examples of that citizen boi- diery which had been the glory of America, plain, simple, un- pretending, but incorruptible. And Virginia the.i stood. v» ith untarnished escutcheon, poor indeed from the burdens of two wars, and the legislative exactions of her partners in the Union, clad mostly in homespun, but still the "great and unterrified commonwealth" which extorted this tribute from Cornwallis in his hour of victory: ''mother of Statesmen and States," whose humblest citizen knew no master except God and the law of his own State's election, whose banner had never trailed before a conqueror, by whom no federal obligation had ever been dis- honored, and no creditor ever defrauded of one penny; with a credit as solid as gold in the emporiums of trade; the firm and prudent mediator between federal power and the too impatient spirit of her sisters. Thus did our fathers transmit Virginia to our guardianship, the warrior-virgin, like the Pallas-Athene of Phidias, as she stood before the Parthenon, flashing the rad- iance of her golden helm and full-orbed shield across the Saronic gulf and Aegina and Salamis, to far off Maegara and Argos.
But we, vac nobis miserrimisl deliver her over to you, not. How? a pallid, w^oful widow, deflowered by subjugation, dis- membered of her fair proportions, her weeds besmirched even by her own sons, virtually governed by the votes of an alien and barbarous horde, forced into her bosom by her late partners, now her ravagers, against her constant protest!
As I rememiber this I ask myself, should not men who have so failed in their charge, who have suffered the glorious heritage of their fathers to be so marred in their hands, cover their faces and be silent?
But our sons, whom our weakness, or else our hard fate, has left disinherited, seem not to be ashamed of us! They ask, they encourage us to speak. This is my apology for presuming to speak to-day to the "New South," and of the New South.
THE NEW SOUTH. ^
Oni- otlier apology is, that in the endeavor ta save the liberties transmitted by our fathers, we did what we could. And in proof of this justifying- plea, we can point to the forms prema- turely bent, and the heads whitened by fatigue and camp dis- eases, to the empty sleeves, and wooden legs, and tD the Con- federate graves so thickly strewn over the land. Our apology is, again, that while we were contending for the rights and inter- ests of the civilized world, nearly the whole world blindly and passionately arrayed itself against us. Such was the strange I)ermission of l^rovidence, that we, while defending the cause of all, should be slandered and misunderstood by all. But why should I say this fearful dispensation was strange? when we see that from the days of the Christian martyrs until now, mankind have usually resisted and sought to destroy its true benefactors. So it was; we had the world against us. There was, after all, little exaggeration in the description which the Confederate soldier at Missionary Ridge, with the humorous exaggeration of his class, gave of his own case. Said he: No misgi^ang of our linal delivery had ever disturbed him until at the early dawn of that disastrous battle, as he was standing post on the advanced picket on Lookout Mountain, just when the stars were beginning to pale before the grey dawn, and all na- ture stood hushed in expectancy of the coming king of day, the solemn silence was broken by the words of command, rolling from the Yankee headquarters over the forests in these terms: ''Attention, World! Nations, by the right flank, forward! Wheel into line of battle." Yes, we had the world against us. And this is one item of i^roof for that fact which completes our apology for failure; that subsequent events have shown we were attempting to defend and preserve a system of free gov- ernment which had become impossible by reason of the change and degeneration of the age. We did not believe this at the time, for we had not omniscience. Nay, it was, at that time, our duty not to know it, or to believe it, even as it is the duty of the loyal son not to believe the disease of his venerable mother mortal, so long as hope is possible; not to cease the ef- forts of his love, and not to surrender her to death while love and tenderness can contest the prize. We had received this free government from our fathers, baptized in their blood; we
4 THE NEW SOUTH.
had received from them the sacred injniictioii to preserve it. We had witnessed its beneficent results. Of all men it was our duty to feel ourselves most bound by the maxim of the Roman republican, IVon\fas est de Republica desperare. The changes had silently taken place, which rendered our fathers' system too giood for those who were to execute it; and yet it would have 'been treason to truth and right for us to despair of the better possibility, until the impossibility stood sternly revealed. Thus the task which duty and Providence assigned us was. to demonstrate by our own defeat, after intensest struggle, the unfitness of the age for that blessing we would fain have pre- served for them. Hard task, and hard destiny to attempt the impossible! but one which has often been exacted l)y a mys- terious Providence from the votaries of duty. Yet it gives us this hard consolation, that inasmuch as the survival of our old sys.tem had become impracticable, failure in the effort to pre- serve it might be incurred without dishonor.
And there is this concurrence in the justification of the Oonfederates, and the justification to which you, the "New South," will soon have to appeal for your actions: that both apologies are correctly drawn from the ;same premise. Be cause the old free system has become impossible for your times; therefore you will be justified in living and acting under an opposite one. There will be an apparent paradox in this: that you shall applaud and revere your fathers for their determined opposition to forms and principles, which you shall recei\e and even sustain. But the paradox v/ill be only in seeming. Your justification will be found where we find ours; in the fact that the institutions which it was our duty to defend, because they still existed, it will be your duty to surrender, because you have learned by our innocent calamity that they cannot hereafter exist. "A new South" is inevitable, and therefore it will be mght for you to accept it, though it was our duty to fight to prevent it. It may be the son's duty to-morrow to "bury the dead mother out of his sight," whom it was the father's most sacred duty yesterday to endeavor to keep alive.
Tlie government our fathers left to us was a federation of sovereign States. As such they emerged from the war of the revolution, and were recognized by Great Britain. As such
THE NEW SOUTH. 5
they met in c-onventioa to devise a ^'closer union." As such they debated and accepted or rejected the terms proposed therefDr (for some ^States at first did exercise their unquestion- ed sovereignty in rejecting the new union.) By their several and sovereign acts they created a central federated govern- ment, with limited powers strictly defined, and deputed to this common agent certain powers over their own citizens, to be im- partially exercised for the equal behoof of all the partners. All other powers, including that af judging and redressing vital infractions of this federal compact, they jealously and express- ly reserved to themselves or to their people. To the outside world they were to be one, to each other they were to be still equals and independent partners. Each State must be a re- public, as distinguished from a monarchy or oligarchy, but in all else it was to be mistress of its own internal forms and regu- lations. The functions of the general government were to be few and defined, its expenditures modest, and its burdens in time of peace light. Such was the form, of government insti- tuted for themselves by our free forefathers; and well fitted to their genius and circumstances, as communities of farmers, inhabiting their own homes, approaching an equality of condi- tion, and having upon the whole continent no one city of con- trolling magnitude or wealth.
But this century has seen all this reversed; and conditions of human society have grown up, which make the system of our free forefath^ers obviously impracticable in the future. And this is so, not 'because the old forms were not good enough for this day, but because they were too good for it.
1. I would place as the first of these adverse conditions the silent substitution, under the same nomenclature, of anoth- er theory of human rights, in contrast with, and hostile to, that of our fathers. Those wise men did indeed believe in a certain equality of all men; bur it was that which the British constitu- tion (whose principles they inherited) was wont to express by the maxim: that every British citizen "was equal before the law." The particular franchises of the peer and the peasant were very uneijual. but in this important respect the two men were '*e(iual before the law," that the peasant's smaller fran- chises were protected toy the same law which shielded the peer's
6 THE XEW SOUTH.
larger one. This is the equality of the golden rule, the equal- ity of that Bible which ordained the constitution of human so- ciety out of superiors, inferiors and equals; the equality of the inspired Job (ch. 31: 13-15) who in the very act of asserting his right to his slave, added: -Did not he that made me make him? If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid- servant when they contended with me. what then shall I do when God riseth up?" This is the equality which is thoroughly consistent with that wide diversity of natural cai)acities. vir- tues, station, sex, inherited possessions, which inexorable fact discloses everywhere and by means of which social organiza- tion is possible. But in place of this, the equality taught by Hampden. Yane. Pym. Melville, and the Whigs of 1776. our modern politician now teaches, under the same name, the equal- ity of the Jacobin, of the ''Sans culotte," which absurdly claims for every human the same specific powers and rights. Yes. your Greeley teaches, as the equality of Republicanism, the very doctrine of the frantic Leveller Lilburn. whose book these great English Republicans caused mot your tyrannical Stuart but the commonwealth's-men) to be burned in London by the common hangman I
Our fathers valued liberty, but the liberty for which they contended was each person's privilege to do those things and those only to which God's law and Providence gp.ve him a mor- al right. The liberty of nature which your modern asserts is absolute license; the privilege of doing whatever a corrupt will craves, except as this license is curbed by a voluntary "social contract." The fathers of our country could have adopted the sublime words of Melville: Lex: Rax. The Law is king. Or have said with Sir Wm. Jones:
Men constitute a State: And sovereign Law, that State's collected will.
O'er thrones and globes elate. Sits Empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown. The fiend (Construction) Z'Mrr<f//(?« like a vapor sinks.
And even the all-dazzling crown. Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
But now. by this new Republicanism, the supreme law is
THK KEVV SOUTH. 7
the will or caprice of what happens to be tlu major mob, the suggestiou of the demagogue who is most artful to seduce.
These are a few items of the new creed, which has stolen the nomenclature of the old. Since it is a the3ry at all essen- tial points antagonistic to the old, its prevalence cannot but supplant those sound institutions which were the natural out- growth of the orthodox doctrine.
2. When our former constitution was adopted, America contained no metropolis, not even any city of note; there were a few trading tawns. of which each State had one or more, and of which neither had any effectual ascendancy over the others. Hence State equality wa.s practicable, and could be effectively something more than a name. But now% the great emporium of this continent has made herself, by virtue of natural advantages co-operating with partial legislation, commercial mistress of all, and asserts a financial ascendancy which brings the busi- ness aud the welfare of the whole country to her feet. It used to be said that in England "all roads lead to London." So, in this vast continent, all railraads tend to New York, or those which vainly attempt to reject her dominion soon feel it in the form of empty trains and vanished revenues. Now, in view of tlut truth announced by Solomon, that ''money answereth all thiiigs," can a sensible man persuade himself that political in- dependence and equality can permanentl}' remain in a land where financial despotism has become established? "The bor- rower is servant to the lender." The political subjection must, sooner or later, follow the financial.
3. Our century has witnessed a general change of social conditions by means of the marvelous applications of science and mechanic art to cheapen transportation and production. Once the commonwealth owned all the highway's by water and by land, and each private citizen might become a carrier if he chose, .Sow the highways are the jn'operty of great carrying corporations, who command more men as their disciplined em- ployes than the government's own standing army, before whose revenues the whole incomes of commonwealths are paltry trifles; to whose will legislatures hasten to bow. Each of these roads points virtually to New York. To that city, yes, to one corner of Wall S^roet in that city, center all their debts, their leans, their revenues, their chief management.
8 THE NEW SOUTH.
This centralization is as remarlvable also in tlio idoducinjjj ai-ts. The time was when manufactures wci'c literally domestic — the occupatixms of the people tn their homes. The industrious ]»roducin<;- citizen was a "free-holder," a name wluse A'ital sig- nificance to Bi'itish liberty our times have almost for<>()tten. He dwelt under ills own I'oof-tree. He was his own man; he was the fee-sini]»le owner of the homestead where his })roductions were created 'by the skill and labor of himself and his children, a|)prentices and servants. X:)w all this is chan<;'ed; the loom is no longer heard in the home; vast factories, owned 'by monopo- lists for whom the cant of the age tias already found their ap- l)ropriate name as "kiings of industry," now undersell the home products everywhere. The axe and hoe which the husbandman wields, ;)nce made at the country forge, tlie shoe jtlaced on his mule's feet, tlu' jdow witli which he turns the soil, the very helve in his tool, all come from the factoi-y. The home indus- try of th(^ housewife in l)i-(nving Ikm- own yeast can hardly sur- A'ive, but is sup]ilanted by your factory "baking powdei-s," in which chemical adulterations may liave full play. Thus pro- duction is centi-alized. Cajxital is collected in c;)mm«ndiiig masses, at wlio;se bidding the free-holding citizen is sunk into the multitudinous hiriddng proletariat. Conditions of social or- ganization ai'e again producf^d, fully iiarallel to the worst re- sults of feudalism, in their incomjiatibility with rejjublican in- stitutions.
4. From these changes have resulted the extreme ine(|uuli- ties of fortune, expenditures and luxuiy wiiich now deform American society. When our late coiistitution was (^nacted, American citizens enjoyed a general equality of fortune and comfort, which made a real, republican (Mjuality of rights prac- ticable. The only aristocracy recognized was that >f intelli- gence and merit. The richest citizen was only a farmer, some- what more abounding than his neigli))or, in the bi-eadth of his fields. A British writer, endeavoring to trace in the republican society the existence of a gentry, could find no greater incomes than those of Washington, of Mt. Vernon, and Carroll, of Car- rollton, each reaching possibly |20,0()0 jier annum. And the Mt. Vernon mansion appeared in his eyes so modest that he spoke of it as ''the cottage," inhabited by the proprietor. But
THE NEW SOUTH. 9
now I some of oiii- "kings of indnstiy" count rlieir incomes b.v almost as many dollars per day. Set the more than rejial lux- ury of a \'anderbilt, in his gaudy palace, beside the hirtding laborer in his sordid tenemenl lodging, who is Ms theoretical equal! Yes, the starving hireling's vote, who does not know whence to-morrow's potatoes are to come for the i)au})er din- ner of his ragged children, shall count f )r precisely as uuicli as the vote of a Vanderbilt. This is the theory. And ihis wretch is so exalted by luis manhood sutfrage, is he? as to be thoroughly content with the monstrous inequality of enjoy- ments and to hearken to no cravings of envy or rancour, when he sees this rampant luxury tiaunted before his misery? And this lorldly millionaire, pampered by his immeasurable abun- dance, will feel no lust of jvower, no am'bition to add civic do- minion to the plutocratic whicli he already possesses, and he will be satisfied to have the ignorant vote of his hireling weigh precisely as much as his own in every legislative act touching his tenure of his millions? He who knows human nature sees that to expect this is nuM-e ci-aziness. This enormous ineciual- ity in wealth will seek to protect, to assert itself in politics. But our new-fangled Rei»ublicanism asserts that, politically, the ^'anderbilt shall be tln^ precise equivalent of the pauper. It leaves the rich man no legitimate form for the assertion of his superior weight or the protection of his superior interests in the State. Wealth, then, must seek for itself illegitimate forms. And in obeying the inevitable impulse through these illegal ways, it must corru|)t itself, and the institutions :)f the land.
5. The press has been looked to as the safe guardian of popular institutions. It has been called by an p]nglish \\'hig "the fourth estate of the Realm. " But the intiuences under which the political press in America operates constitute this also (me of the fatal hindrances ro the subsistence of wise, free institutions. The powerful jouinals must be also the creatures of money. The conditions of journalism are such that (mly a vast capital can float a journal into a safe and permanent hav- en of success. Literature is a commodity, money buys and sells it. Let the genius of an Addison, a Bolingbrooke, a Junius, a 3Iacaulav, all be combined on the one side, with all the richest
10 THE NEW SOUTH.
resources of historical learning to publish the political truths which happen to be unpopular without a great capital; and let commercial capital give its supp3rt to the pen of the most ig- norant demagogue to propagate the crudest absurdities in which capital supposes it has a selfish and corrupt interest, you suall see the wisdom of true statesmanship, embellisii^d by all the graces of scholarship consigned to an unread obscurity in this coantry, while the vulgar stupidities of error shall visit e^■e^y table and claim every eye. Mammon wills it so, and Mammon rules.
The reason is because the leading presses of the couinier- cial centers are either the tools of parties and used for exclu- sive partisan purposes, or else they are. like the c;Uico mills, mere joint-stock cancerns for money making. Either ,vay, the result is the same. The contents of the journ:'.l are not dictat- ed at all by truth or right, but solely by self-interest. What doctrine shall it assert? Only that which advances the strength of the faction, or which attracts the more numerous subscrib- er's. Thus the press instead of being the guide, bec9mes the mere sycophant of misguided public opinion. Let only any political heresy begin to be current enough to become an ele- ment of danger to sound institutions, and thenceforward it is the interest and business of the great journals to give it their support. To resist and explode it "would not pay."
6. One more change only, my time permits me to state, which C3ncur.s to render the system of our fathers a thing cf the past. This is the invariable extension of the suffrage, which has attended every political change in America. This trait has characterized not only the violent revolution through which we have passed, but every modification of constitution made by the States. We even see it working with equal certainty in the re- form measures of once conservative England. In every case where a State constitution has been opened to change, that change has been towards universal suffrage, unless this ex- treme had been already reached; and in no single case has a restriction of suffrage been even attempted. There is a reason for this fated law of progress downwards in the nature of the demagogue, and it may be said in passing, that this presents us the fatal weak pDint in the theory of popular government.
THE NEW SOUTH. 11
The selfish calcuhitions and instincts of these courtiers of Kinj;- Mob, ahvaj's prompt them to advocate every extension, no matter how unwise or destructive, and seal their lips from oji- posing it. Their calculation runs thus: Here is a new class whom some one has proposed to enfranchise. I know, as does everj' sensible man, that it is a folly. But perhaps the proposal may prevail. Hence, I cannot afford to appose it, for shouid it prevail, the newly enfranchised, when they come to the polls, will remember my action against me. But if I am a forward advocate of it, their gratitude will make them vote for me. Thus the craziest and most ruinous proposition to create a new class of voters, always has zealous assertors, and for the same reason it meets with no opposers who are effective.
Such were the avowed motives (with sectional hatred and revenge) which prompted our conquerors to fix on the South- ern half of the country that last extreme of political madnes^s, the universal and unqualified suffrage of the slaves. And how deadly in their potency these motives of self-seeking are, we may see in this fact, that they even silence the protest of our own politicians! There is not one of them w:ho does not know that this measure is inevitably pregnant with the corruption and overthrow of honest, popular government; yet there is not one of them, who is a candidate for votes, who has the nerve to say what he thinks, or to demand a reversal of the criminal blunder. But when the leaders of the very people who are the first victims of this wrong, are too much intimidated to lift a finger for its correction, whence shall deliverance from the fa- tal incubus come? There will be no deliverance until suft'rage shall have been so foully corrupted by this and its other per- versions, that a despairing and ruined people take refuge frcm its intolerable tyrannies in the will of an autocrat, and the ig- norant and venal cease to vote only when and because all will be forbidden to vote.
Whether just and free institutions can co-exist in such a country as this, with its vast population and inequalities o-f condition, along with this extravagance of universal suffrage, needs no debate. Do you remember the prophetic letter of Lord Macaulay to Mr. Randall, of Xew York? Do you rememiber the homely instance by which a greater than Macaulay, and a more
12 THE NEW SOUTH.
liiophetic statesmau, was wont to close Ms arguments in favor of that sheet anchor of liberty, free-hold suflfraue? Mr. Ran (lalph used to exclaim: '"Sirs, the empty sack does not stand upright." In an advanced material civilization like ours, ev- ery political action touches property somewhere. If the vote which represents no property is made of equal weight with the vote which represents large property, then, with such inequali- ties of wealth, with such ostentatious displays of the luxury of the few }ji(iuing the envy af the impoverished many, just so surely as men are men. greedy in desire, selfish and unright- eous, and the more unrighteous where their crime is wrapi)ed up from the eye of conscience in the folds of associated action, two results must follow, are already following. The attempt of the proletariat and their demagogues to use their irresponsi- ble suffrage for plunder; the resistance of the capital-holding minority to this plunder. But for this resistance, though it be as inevitable as the instincts of self-preservation, your radical theory offers no recognized, legitimate mode. Radicalism or- dains that the small shall be equal to the large; the dependent shall counterweigli the independent; the vote which has noth- ing to lose, shall dispose of the vote of him who has all to lose. The result is. that self-defense invents illegitimate nudes, and the unrighteous assault on property is met by the illegal use of property to protect itself and to intiate itself until the moral corruptions wrought in our politics fester to putrescence and dissolve the body.
As we thus lo )k back upon the social revolution which had established itself in our century, we see that political revolu- tion had become unavoidable. The assault on our rights and institutions was but the first wave of the cataclysm. It swejit over our best resistance, because there were other waves be- hind it which are desfined in turn to (•()n(]uer our romiuerDrs. He is a shallow man, indeed, who supposes that the rev(dution will pause at its present stage, leaving the conquering section ascendant, and rendering this unstable eciuilibrium of the mo- ment permanent. No. we have now seen but the first act of the drama, and it has been a tragedy. The curtain has falleu for the time to the music of a miserere, whose jarring chords have fretted the heartstrings of such as Lee and his comrades into
THE NEW SOUTH. 13
death. It mav well liappeu that after rhe fashion of the mimic stage, the next rise of rhe curraiu may be accompanied by the garish lights of a deceitful joy, the blood stains of the recent tragedy covered with fresh saw dust, and the new act:M's ush- ered in with a burst of gay melody. But the other acts are ro foll'ow. May they not be tragic also?
That popular suffrage does not now really govern this conn try, that it is notoriously a marketable cammodity, that rlie United States have really ceased already to be what they pre- tend, a federation of republican States, no clear sighted man doubts. Under a thin veil of radical democracy, the govern- 'menr has already become an oligarchy. Are not Srate conven- tions traded off by the magnates as openly as blocks of rail- road bonds? Are not legislatures bought as really and ;ilmosr as 'Openly as cargoes of corn? Are not "corners" made in jioli- ties by which the weaker caititalists are sold out, as really as in the pork market? It is Washington or Wall street which really dictates what platforms shall be set forth, and what can- didates elected and what appointments made, not the peoi)le of the States. Some of you may have heard of the incident which happened in our neighboring town, in that year when our South- ern conservatives, in their wisdom, made Horace Greeley their standard-bearer, hoping, it seems, like the superstitious Jews, to "cast out devils through Beelzebub, the chief of the devils"; to retrieve the cause of order and right through the arch in- cendiary and agitator of the country. Several hopeful souls were arguing his success from the many signs of his acceptance with the people. It was said, whole radical towns, whole Union Leagues in the northwest were coming over to Greeley. A sagacious banker standing 'by quietly shook his head. Our friends, almost vexed at his skepticism, asked: "Why? do not all these accessions, with the Southern support, promise him success?'' His answer was: "Gentlemen, I do business in Wall Street, and Wall Street does not want Greeley." And so the country did not have Greeley, and Greeley did not liave the presidency he coveted, but went aside to die of chagrin.
So Wall Street saw in the third term im])erialism tliinly masked, and as its oligarchs preferred to be mast(M-s tliem- selves, rather than have Grant their master and ours. Wall
14 THE NEW SOtTTlt.
Street sent to Chu-ago and nominated Garfield as its convenient Iny-figure. l>ut liaving carried its main point it really cared A'erj little abont tiie clioice between him and Hancock, and for a time did not trouble itself. So the people were about to elect Hancock. Eut yne line morning this simple minded "beefeater" perpetrated the faux pas of endorsing the greenback victory in Maine. And now that Wall Street saw that the Hancock regime was committed to "soft money," it did trouble itself, and woke up and put its hand to the canvass. It would none of Hancock and his soft money, and so the people could not have Hancock nor he have the presidency.
Obviously the government now ascendant in the cauntry while "Republican" in name and ultra-democratic in theory, is an oligarchy in fact. Extremes often thus meet. Nothing can be more fallacious than thai viev.-, advanced by some of our conciliatory statesmen, which represents the recent revolutions as only a temporary- excitement and partial fit of excess from which the institutions of the country will re-act under prudent management and regain their old constitutional status. There will be no re-action in that sense. The morbid causes which were so potent to overthrow will yet more certainly be power- ful enough to resist and suppress the weak efforts of a crip- pled, prostrate constitution. The obstacles between us and a return to past precedents are too mountainous. Consider for instance, that "spoils system," now strong with a generation's growth. If it is to be perpetrated, this of itself makes popular constitutional government impossible. For every intelligent man sees that it converts office-holders from servants of the peo- ple to paid agents for circumventing the people's will at the polls, paid with the money of the people they help to enslave. This is the very signature of despotism, that the citizen's money is taken to bribe agents for suppressing the citizen's will. Under this system the office-holders are the pretorian co- horts of the usurper.
But let one think out now the conditions essential to the realizing of that "civil service reform," which each party pre- tends to promise, but which neither party purposes, as the ap- propriate remedy for the spoils system. One of the requisite conditions is that one of these parties upon ousting the other
THE NEW SOUTH. l5
from power shall exercise the self-denial and magnanimity to leave all their rival's appointees, except those expressly pun- ishable fov official malfeasance, undisturbed in their offices and salaries. For if the victorious party is to signalize its acces- sion, won, we will suppose, on the promise of civil service re- form, by expelling all the office-holders of the opposite and de- feated part3% this will not be lo inaugurate the whjlesome remedy, but only to repeat the abuse. And thus they would more than ever ensure at the next turn of the wheel of fortune that their reinstated rivals would imitate their vindicative ex- ample, turn out all their new appointees and again postpone the happy change. Let us suppose, for example, that the peo- ple should again elect a conservative President and that he should not, like poor Mr. Tilden, submit at the bidding of Wall Street to the robbery of himself and the people of America, but should be inaugurated; shall he magnanimously leave every ap- pointee, though an agent or a tool of the present spoils system, undisturbed? Then there is no official reward for his support- ers who have toiled for his election. They must have worked for naught but an idea, a prompting of pure patriotism. Whence is the money to come to wage the campaign when all will have been notified in advance that there will be no way for them to repay themselves out of the public crib? It is well known that a national campaign now costs as much as a military one, and that money is to it as essential as ''the sinews of war." Does any party in America possess this lofty patriotism? Will eith- er party thus work for nothing? But let us suppose that the incoming conservative shall make a pretext that the office-hold- ers he finds in place have been there as "spoils-men," and turn them out to make room for his supporters; then the inevitable result is that the opposing party will denounce him as a traitor to his own civil service reform, and devote themselves to retalia- tion. Such are the obstacles which beset the abatement of this peril in America. "Canst thou draw out Leviatiian with a hook, or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose?"
Such are the fatal influences which obstruct all return and ensure the progress of the revolution. There is a new era and hence there must be a "New South."
16 THE NEW SOUTH.
What manner of thing shall it be? To pragnosticate or prophecy is not the prooer part for us to phiy who fell with the old South. For us a more modest part is appropriate. We shall claim our prerogative forever of defending our own prin- ciples, which a decadent country has pronounced too elevated for it to tolerate, and of consulting oui- own self-respect. Jus- tice to you requires that we shall leave y;)u to guide your own destiny in that new and untried sea into whicli you are launcli- ing.
But there are some principles whicli we may safely incul- cate on you, because whatever else may change these cannot change. The glory of our old indei)en(lence and its history. \\\ii beneficence of the confederate principles of our old c »nstitu- tion, concurred to teach us an exalted, peihajts an overwean- ing appreciation of the value of sucli political institutions. But we do not forget that other peaple have had other forms of government, aristocratic or regal, and under them liave had their share of the domestic virtues, of patriotism, of civilization, of Christianity. (But under the illicit and dirty oligarchy of which our ])i"esent regime is a virtual specimen, no pe3ple has ever had or can ever have anything but corruption, ignominy and vice.) Our best pra^'er for you is. that out of the present foul transition, a good Providence may cause some new order to arise tr)leral)le for honest men. The changes implied in the in- troduction of this new order may be accepted by the old con- federates as old age. as infirmity, or as a not distant death. They must be accepted by me as the inevitable. But the prin- ciples of ti-utli and rigliteousness are as eternal as their divine legislator. These must be uplield under all dynasties and forms. Here, in one word, is the safe pole-star for the "New South"'; let them adrjpt the scriptural politics, assured that they will ever be as true and just under any new regime as under the one that has passed away: "That righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." That "wisdom and knowledge shall be the sta'bility of thy times, and strength of salvation; the fear of the Lord is His treasure.'' That "he that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth ihe gain of oppressions, that sliak(4h his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and
THE NEW SOUTH. 17
shutteth his eyes from beholding evil; he shall dwell on high; bis place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks."
Some of the applications of these unchanging principles are obvious to experience guided by truth. Permit me briefly to unfold three of these to you, which are shown to be timely and momentous by the special temptations to which a subju- gated people are exposed while passing of necessity under a new and conquering system. One of these plausible tempta- tions is to conclude that the surest way to retrieve your pros- perity will be to BECOME LIKE THE CONQUERORS. Tliis is an in- ference as false as it is specious; the fact that your fathers are conquered may ground a good inference perhaps, that you should seek to be in some respect^ unlike us. May you be un- like us in being more fortunate I But a very brief observation of history will teach you that violent aggressors, in overthrow- ing their rivals, also usually prepare their own overthrow. Their calamities are only postponed to the second place. The Jacob- ins overthrew Louis XVI., but Bonaparte crushed the Jacobins, and Europe crushed Napoleon. Shall this be the best reparation for the miseries of the fall of the Confederacy; that you shall share, for a few deceitful days, the victors' gains of oppression, to be overwhelmed along with him in his approaching retribu- tion? Be sure of one thing, "his curses will come home to roost." In order to escape the fearful reckoning, you must not only make yourselves unlike as but unlike them.
"The North triumphed by its wealth." Here is the tempta- tion to the New South, to which I already see ominous sympt- oms of yielding, to make wealth the idol, the all in all of sec- tional greatness. I hear our young men quote to each other the advice of the wily diplomat Gorstchacoff, to the beaten French: ''Be strong." They exclaim: Let us develope! de- velope! develope! Let us have, like our conquerors, great cities, great capitalists, great factories and commerce and great populations; then we shall cope with them.
Now here is a path which will require of you the nicest dis- crimination, and the most perspicacious virtue and self-denial. On the one hand it is indisputable that under our modern, ma- terial civilization, wealth is an essential element of national greatness. The commonwealth which presents a sparse and
18 THE NEW SOTJTH.
impoverrsiied population, in competition with a rich and popu- lous rival, will come by the worse in spite of her martial vir- tues; and may make her account to be dependent and subordin- ate. Hence to develope the South is one of the plainest duties of patriotism. To increase its riches is one way to increase its power of self-proteetion. And a knowledge, and hardy, dili- gent practice of the industries of production are among the civic virtues which it behooves the New South to cultivate. So much is to be asserted on that side.
But on the other side the deduction that all our section has to do is to imitate the conquering section in that one of its qualities by which it got wealth; to make the appliances of production the all in all; to exclaim as so many do of factories, and mines, and banks, and stock boards, and horse-powers of steam, and patent machines, ''These be thy gods, O Israeli'' This would be a deadly mistake. Does not history teach that ^'wealth is the sinews of war?" jes, not seldom; but it teaches at least as often that wealth and material civilization have been the emasculators of nations and the incitements of their enemies at once, only ensuring the deeper destruction for the rich and cultivated people. Our own overthrow is near at hand to teach us this lesson, for we were the richer section sub- jugated by the poorer, which was shrewd enough to hie on the pauper proletaries of a hungry world upon our wealth as their prey. Ek) some of you exclaim: "What, the South the richer section?'' Very likely many of you are already so indoctrinated in that tuition of lies, against which I shall have to caution you anon, that this will be news to you. Xevertheless is it true: the South was by one-quarter if not one-third, the richer sec- tion, as was proved by the stubborn evidence of the census re- turns of the government itself, as managed by our enemies.
The wisdom of the Xew South, then, must be in pursuing the sharp line which divides the neglect from the idolatry of riches. If they be pursued as an end instead of a means, they become your ruin instead of your deliverance. If riches when acquired are employed to enervate your manhood with costly pomps and luxuries instead of being consecrated to the noble uses of charity and public spirit, the richer the New South be- comes the weaker she will be. The problem you have to learn
THE NKW south. i^
is how to combine the possession of g^reat wealth with the per- sonal practice of simplicity, hardilioid and self-sacritice. That people which makes seltish. material jiood its (xod, is doomed. In this world of sin the sjjirit of heroic self-sacritice is the es- sential condition of national greatness and hapi)iness. The only sure wealth of the State is in cultured, heroic men, who intelligently know f^eir duty and are caLmly prepared to sac- rifice all else, including life, to maintain the right. Well then did the President of the Confederacy utter these golden words, that "the spirit of self-sacrifice is the crown of the civic vir- tues." I know that there is a generation, "O, how lofty are their eyes and their eyelids lifted up," who boast tliat their cuteness is in pursuing the "main chance," and who flout this virtue of disinterestedness as a wealc folly; and yet for lack of this virtue their prosperity is ever perishing and their material civilization is ever, like the tawdry pyrotechnics of some popu- lar feast, burning out its own splendors into ashes, darkness and a villainous stench of brimstone. Tlie New South then needs wealtli, but it also needs men, high-minded men. unde- bauched by wealth, who, like the "high privates" of the Con- federate ranks, shall know how to postpone ease and the de- lights of culture for the invincible endurance of hardship and danger.
2. Subjugation presents to the honorable conquered man another alternative of temptations. The one is that of moral disgust, prompting him to turn with proud disdain from all concern with public affairs, and wrap himself like a hermit in the folds of his own self-respect. It is to the best natures that this is most alluring; how attractive is the thought 'of thus eas- ing one's infinite disgusts? How plausible the argument which says: Let those who have by fraud or force usurped the helm bear the responsibility of wrecking the ship. But the error of this resort is that it neglects the claims of patriotism and robs the State, in the moment of her need, of the virtues and facul- ties most essential to her deliverance. These unbending spirits who cannot be reconciled to disgrace are the very ones that .can now be least spared. To conquer the burning repugnance to all the loathsome incidents of misconception, slimy slander, corruption and ingratitude with which one must meet in serv-
20 THE JvfEW SOUTH.
ing a state under the eclipse of subjugation, this may be a cross as bitter as death. But how many of our noblest and best have already borne the cross of death in the same cause?
The alternative temptation is yet more seductive to the more supple temperament. This is to exaggerate and pervert the plea of acquiescence in the inevitable; to cry, "Oh there is no use nor sense in cantending against fate,'' and on this ar- gument to act the trimmer and turncoat. How much easier is this to the pliable temper? And it may be, how profitable to the pocket. It is so sweet a relief to the lassitude which such a mind experiences at being ever in the self-respecting the righteous and the unsuccessful minority. Ah, how tiresome is it to such a man to hold up the standard of principle wiien it is unsustfiined by the breeze of popularity! Poor soul, how his arms ache, and how do they crave rest in the ai^is of the cor- rupt majority.
But even by the light of that policy, which such men make their pole-star, it would be better, while recognizing the in- evitable, still to cleave to moral consistency and principle. For I surmise that when you seek a market for your capacities in the fonim of the new regime, its managers will tell you that turncoats are decidedly a drug in that market. The demand is utterly overstocked, the market glutted. It is the men who have convictions and who cleave to them, who are the article in demand; in demand even with political adversaries, who, themselves, have no principles. For such men, however venal, soon learn the truth that the turncoat who could not be trusted to cleave to his principles, can as little be trusted to stick to the master who has bought him.
3. It behooves the New South, in dismissing the animosi- ties of the past, to see to it that they retain all that was true in its principles or ennobling in its example. There are those pretending to belong to this company who exclaim: ''Let us bury the dead past. Its issues are all antiquated, and of no more practical significance. Let us forget the passions of the past. We are in a new world. Its new questions alone concern us." I rejoin: Be sure that the former issues are really dead before you bury them! There are issues which cannot die without the death of the people, of their honor, their civiliza-
TllK NEW SOUTH. 21
tion and their greatness. Take care that you do not bury too much, while burying the dead past: that 3'OU do not bury the inspiring memories of great patriots, whose actions, whether successful or not, are the eternal glor}' of your race and section ; the influence of their virtues, the guiding precedents of their histories. Will you bury the names and memories of a Jackson and Lee, and their noble army of martyrs? Will you bury true history whose years are those of the God of Truth?
There is one point on which you insist too little, which is vital to the young citizens of the South. This is, that he shall not allow the dominant party to teacli him a perverted history of the past contests. This is a mistake of which you are in im- minent peril. With all the astute activity of their race, our conquerors strain every nerve to preoccupy the ears of all America with the false version of affairs which suits the pur- poses of their usurpation. With a gigantic sweep of mendacity, this literature aims to falsify or misrepresent everything; the very facts of history, the principles of the former Constitution as admitted in the days of freedom by all statesmen of all par- ties; the characters and motives of our patriots; the i)urposes of parties; the very essential names of rights and virtues and vices. The whole sway of their commercial and political ascen- dancy is exerted to fill the South with this false literature. Its sheets come up, like the frogs of Egypt, into our houses, our bed chambers, our very kneading troughs. Now, against this deluge of perversions I solemnly warn young men of the South, not for our sakes, but for their own. Even if the memory of the defeated had no rights; if historical trutli had no preroga- tives; if it were the same to you that the sires wliose blood fills your veins, and whose names you bear, be written down as traitors by the pen of slanderous history, still it is essential to your own future that you shall learn the history of the past truly. For the institutions which are to be, however unlike those wliich have been, must have a causal relation to them: must be in some sense the progeny of them. The chrysalis is very unlike its progeny, but none the less its traits determine those of tlte gorgeous butterfly. The acorn is not like a tree, yet its s])ecies determines the shape and qualities of the mon- arch of the forest. To-morrovv''s configuralion of the planets
22 THE NEAV SOUTH.
may be very dissimilar from that of to-day, but it will be rigid- ly couseqiiential thereon. Hence the astronomer who miscon- ceives and mi.sstates the positions of the jrbs to-day. must in- evitably err in his prediction of their conjunctions to-morrow. So if public men will gratify their spite, or revenge, or lust of sectional power by misrepresenting the late events, they there- by condemn themselves t3 fatal bluiiderings and mistakes in prognosticating that future which can only be the caused se- quel Li) this. If you w^ould not be mere blunderers in your new constructions, then you must understand aright the structure of those recent actions on which they must found themselves. You will seek to learn them, not from a Greeley or a Henry Wilson, but from a Stephens and a Davis. While yoti do not allow your judg^'ment to be hoodwinked by even the possible ex- aggerations of our own patriots, still less will you yield your minds to the malignant fables of those partisans wlio think they can construct history as unscrupulously as a political ring. Our age presents the strange instance of a numerous party, who think they can circumvent the resistless forces of truth by ^systematically misnaming facts and fallacies, who are deliber- ately building a whole system of empire on the substitution of light for darkness and darkness for light, of good for evil and evil for good, calling that master in our government which was servant, that patriotism which was treason, and that treason which was true, law-preserving patriotism, and that aggres- sion which was righteous defense. If you wish to be buried deeper than thrice buried Troy beneath the final m:)untains of both defeat and shame, go with these architects of detraction. They are but arraying themselves against that unchangeable God who has said: ''The lying tongue is but for a moment, but ,ihe lip of truth shall be established forever."
I have admitted, young gentlemen, that constitutions and laws may change, but honor, justice and right are immutable. Be loyal to these in all novel emergencies, and you will act safely. If this virtue, the foundation of all the civic, exists in you, it will, it must manifest itself most plainly in reverence and enthusiasm for the heroic and the self-sacrificing of your own people and State. Their actions have placed the right be- fore you incorporate'. >vith all the definiteness of outline and
THE NEW SOUTH. 23
vividness of coloring which belong- to concrete realities. Their actions concern your hearts by virtue of all the ties of neighbor- hood and patriotism. As long as the hearts of the New South thrill with the generous though defeated endurance of the men of 1861; as long as they cherish these martyrs of constitutional liberty as the glory of their Stare and its history, you will be safe from any base decadence. If the generation that is to come ever learns to be ashamed of these men because they were overpowered by fate, that will be the moral death of Virginia, a death on which there will wait no resurrection. But I do nor fear this.
I recall what my own eyes witnessed at the last great civic pomp in which I was present. This was the installment of that statue of Jackson near 3ur State capitol, which Virginia re- ceived as the tribute of British statesmanship and culture to her illustrious dead. At this ceremonial there were gathered almost the whole intelligence and beauty of what was left of tile old commonwealth. As the long processiau wound through the streets marshaled and headed by General Joseph E. John- ston, under the mild glory of our October sun, while the at- mosphere was palpitating with military music and the whole city was gone upjn its house-tops, it was easy to pen-eive that all eyes and all hearts were centering upon one sole part of the pageant, and this was not the illustrious figure that headed it, the commander in so many historical battles, bestriding his charter with his inimitable martial grace; nor was it the clus- ter containing the remnant of Jackson's statf. We might have supposL'd that we would receive some reflected distinction from the luminary to which we had been satellites so near, and that some romantic curiosity might direct itself to those who had habitually seen him under fire, heard, and borne those orders which had decided memorable victories, and bivouacked under the same blanket with him; but no eye sought us. Then came hobbling a company of two hundred and thirty grizzled men with empty sleeves, and wooden legs, and scarred faces, and hands twisted into every distortion which the fiery fancy of the rifle-ball could invent, clad in the rough garb of a laboring yeomanry, their faces bronzed with homely toil: this was the company for which every eye waited, and as it passed the
24 THE NEW SOUTH.
mighty tlirono; was moved as the trees of the forest are moved by the wind, the multitudinous white arms waved their superb welcome, and the thundering cheer rolled with the column from end to end of the great city. It was the remnant of the Stone- wall Brigade I That was the explanation. This wa.>< the tribute which the sons, the daughters, the mothers of Virginia paid to -sturdy heroism in defent And as I saw this my heart said with an exultant bound. "There is life in the old land yet!"
TO MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD."
Chief of the Freedmen's Bureau, Wasliiiin^foii.
Sir: Your high official trust makes you, in a certain sense, the representative man of the Xarth, as concerns their dealing with the African race in these Ignited States. It is as sucli that I venture to address you, and through you all your fellov citizens on behalf of this recently liberated people. My pur- pose is humbly to remind you of your weighty charge, and to encourage you to go forward with an enlarged philanthropy and zeal in that career of beneficence toward the African which Providence has opened before you. Rarely has it fallen to the lot of one of the sons of men to receive a larger trust, or to en- joy a wider opportunity for doing good. At the beginning of the late w\ar there were in the South nearly four millions of Africans. All these, a nation in numbers, now taken from their former guardians, are laid upon the hands of that govern- ment of which you are the special agent for their protection and guidance. To this nation of black people you are virtually father and king; your powers for their management are unlimit- ed, and for assisting their needs you have the resources of the "greatest people on eartli." Your action for the freedmen's good is restrained by no constitution or precedents, but the powers yon exercise for them are as full as your office is novel. We see evidence of this in the fact that your agents, acting for the good of your charge, can seize by military arrest any one of their fellow-citizens of African descent, for no other offense than being unemployed, convey him without his consent, and without the company of his wife and family, to a distant field of industry, where he is compelled to wholesome labor for such remuneration as you may be pleased to assign. Another evi- dence is seen in your late order, transferring all causes and in- dictments in which a freedman is a party, from the courts of law of the Southern States to the bar of your own commission-
1 Appeared in New York Weekly News, Oct. 21, 1865. 25
26 MAJOK GEJ>iEEAL HOWARD.
ers and .siib-cuinmissiunei's for adjudication. I beg you to be- lieve that these iustanc-es are not cited bv me for the puppase of repeating tlie cavils against the justice and consistency of the powers exercised in them, in which some have been heard to indulge. My purpose is not to urge with them that there is no law by which a free citizen can be riglitfully abridged <of his liberty of enjoying the otium cuf?i dignitate so long as he ab- stains fram crime or misdemeanor therein, merely because he wears a black skin, while the same government does not pre- sume to interfere with the exercise of this privilege by his white fellow-citizens, even though they be those lately in rebel- lion against it; tliat this military arrest and transferrence to the useful though distant scene of compulsory labor, is precise- ly that penalty of "transportatijn" which Southern laws never inflicted, even on the slave, except for crime and after judicial investigation; that these commissioners for adjudicating cases to which freedmen are parties, are in reality judges at law, ap- pointed by you, for every city and county in eleven States, and empowered to sit without jury, and to decide withaut regard to the precedents or statutes of the States; which would exhibit 3'our bureau as not only an executive, but a judicial branch of the government, established without constitutional authority, and that a hundred fold more pervasive in its jurisdiction than the Supreme Court itself; and that this "order"' has, by one stroke of your potent pen, deprived eight millions of white people of the right of a trial by jury, guaranteed to them by the sixth and seventh additional articles of the United States Coustituti3n, in every case where a freedman happens to be a party against them. I repeat, that I have not adduced these instances for the purpose of urging these or such like objec- tions; (it does not become the subject to cavil against the pow- ers exercised by his conquerors), but only to impress you with the obligation, which the fullness of your powers brings upon you, to do good to your charge upon a great scale.
I cannot believe that means will be lacking to you any more than powers. At your back stands the great, the power- ful, the rich, the prosperous, the philanthropic, the Christian Xorth, friend and liberator of the black man. It must be as- sumed that the zeal which waged a gigantic war for four years,
MAJOR GEN^ERAL HOWARD. 27
wliicli expended three thousand million of dollars, and one mil- lion of lives, in large part to free the African, will be willing to lavish anything else which may be needed for his welfare. And if the will is present, the ability is no less abundant among a people so wealthy and powerful, who exhibit the unprecedented spectacle of an emersion from a war which would have been exliausting to any other people with resources larger than when they began it, and who have found out (what all previous statesmen deemed an impossibility), that the public wealth nia}' be actually increased by unproductive consumption. With full powers and means to do everything for the African, what may he not expect from your guardianship?
The answer which a generous and humane heart would nuike to this question, must of course be this: that it would seek to do for the good of its charge everything 7vhich is possible. But more definitely I wish to remind you that there is a mini- mum limit, which the circumstances of the ease forbid you to touch. Common sense, common justice says: that the very least you can do for them must be more than the South has accomplished, from wliose tutelage they have been taken. To this measure, at least, if not to some higher, your country, pos- terity, fame, and the righteous heavens, will rigidly hold you. The reason is almost too plain to be explained. If a change procured for the Africans at sucli a cost brings them no actual benefit, then that cost is uncompensated, and the expenditure of human weal which has been made was a blunder and a crime. Thus it becomes manifest that the measure for the task which you have before you, is the work which the South accomplished for the negro while he was a slave. The ques- tion, how much was this? is a vital one for you; it gives you your starting i»oint from whicli you must advance in your career of progressive philanthropy. Listen then.
First, for the physical welfare of the negro the South has done something. A rapid increase of population and longevity are a safe index of the prosperous and sane condition of the bodies of a people. The South has so provided for the wants of the negro that his numbers have doubled themselves as rap- idly as those of the whites, with no accessions by immigration. The census returns show that the South so cared for him that
28 MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD.
the percentage of congenital defects and diseases, these unfail- ing revealers of a depressed physical condition, idioc}', blind- ness, deafness, dumbness, hereditary scrofula, and such like ills, was as small as among the most prosperous Northern States. The South gave to her negro men, on an average, a half pound of bacon and three pounds of breadstuffs per day, be- sides his share in the products of his master's kitchen-garden, dairy and orchard; and to the women and children at a rate equally liberal. If, in some neighborhoods, the supply was less bountiful than the above, there were a hundred fold more in which it was even more abundant. The South gave ta every negro, great and small, a pair of shoes every winter, and to the laboring men an additional pair at harvest. She clothed them all with a substantial suit of woolens every winter, an addition- al suit of cotton or flax eacli summer, and tw-^ shirts and two pair of socks per year, while the adults drew their hat and blanket each. She furnished each negro family with a sepa- rate cottage or cabin, and, during the severe weather, with about one-third of a cord of wood per day, to keep up those lib- eral fires on which his health and life so much depend. She provided, universally, such relief for his sickness that every case of serious disease was attended by a physician with nearly the same promptitude and frequency as the cases of the plan- ters' own ^ives and daughters; and in all the land never was a negro fastened to his bed by illness but' he received the per- sonal, sympathizing visits of some intelligent white person be- sides; master, mistress or their agent, who never went to his couch empty-handed. His dead universally received decent and Christian burial, where the bereaved survivors were sooth- ed by the oflQces of Christianity. The South so shielded the negro against destitution, that from the Potomac to the Gulf, not one negro pauper was ever seen, unless he were free, and not one African poorhouse existed or was needed. Her system secured for every slave, male or female, a legal claim upon the whole property, income, and personal labor of his master, for a comfortable maintenance during any season of infirmity brought upon him by old age, the visitation of God. or his own imprudence, however protracted that season might be: a claim so sure and definite that it could be pursued by an action at law
MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD. 29
upon the slave's behalf; a claim so universally enforced and ac quiesced in, that its neglect, or the death of a helpless slave through destitution, was as completely unknown among us as cannibalism. The South met that claim, which the free labor- ing men of other lands have so often had sorrowful occasion to argue, amid pallid famine, and with the fearful logic of insur- rections and bloodshed, the claim of "tlie right to labor," and has met it so successfully that she has secured to every African slave capable of labor, without even one exception among all her millions, remunerative occupation, at all times, and amid all financial convulsions and depressions of business. That is, she has found at all times such occupation for all of them as has procured for them, without excessive toil, a decent nminten- ance during their active years, an adequate and unfailing pro- vision for old age, a portion for their widows, and a rearing of their children. The South has so far performed these duties to the bodies of the Africans that no community of them havi^ ever, in a single instance, amid any war, or blight, or drouth, or dearth, felt the tooth of famine on its vitals, or so much as seen the wolf, destitution, at its door.
For tlie culture of the negro's mind and character, the South has also done something. She has not, indeed, fallen in- to the hallucination that the only processes of education are those summed up in the arts of reading and writing — facts which were not prevalent among those literary dictators of the ancient world, the compatriots of Pericles and Plato — nor has she deemed it a likely mode to communicate these useful arts to the ebony youth, to gather three hundred of them into one pandemonium, under a single overtasked ''school-marm" or bald-pated negro, and dub the seething cauldron of noise, con- fusion and "negro-gen gas,'' a "primary school.'' But thou- sands and tens of thousands has she taught to read (and of- fered the art to ten-fold more, who declined it from their own indolence), through the gentle and faithful agency of cultivat- ed young masters and mistresses, a process prohibited. I boldly assert, quicunque vult by no law upon the statute-book of my State, at least. But this tuition, extensive as it has been, is the merest atom and mite, in the extensive culture which she has given to the African race. She received them at the hands
80 MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD.
oi: British and Yanlvee slave nadei-s, besotted in their prime- val jungles, for the spontaneous fruits of which they lived in common. Slie taught the whole of tliem some rudiments of civilization. She taught them all the English language, a gift whieli, had they been introduced intj the Northern States as free men, in numbers so large, they would not have received in three centuries. She taught all of them some arts of useful la- bor, and as large a portion of them as any other peasantry learn- ed the mechanical arts. With the comparatively small excep- tion of the negroes upan large estates, belonging to non-resi- dent owners, the South has placed every negro bo^' and girl, during his or her growth, under the forming influence of white men and ladies, by whom tliey have been taught some little tinctures of the cleanliness, the decencies, the chastity, the truthfulness, the self-respect, so utterly alien to their former savage condition, and a share of courtes}' and good breeding which would not disgrace any civilized people. Of the young negresses, who would otherwise have grown up the besotted victims of brutal passions, the great majority have been, at some stage of their training, introduced by the South to the parlors and chambers of their women, from wham they have learned to revere and imitate, to some degree, that grace and purity, that sweet humanity and delicacy of sentiment which glorify the Southern lady above all her sex; and under her watchful and kindly eye. has her dark-skinned sister been taught the agencies and domestic arts which make woman a •blessing in her home. The boys and youths, by the same in- fluences, have become the humble, yet affectionate, compan- ions of their masters, and have imbibed some of their intelli- gence and principle. Herein was the great educational work of the South, potent and persuasive as it was simple. By her system, every man and woman of the superior race, yea, every child, was enlisted in the work of the culture of the inferior, and the whole business of domestic life was converted, by inter- est and affection alike, into a schooling of the mind and char- acter.
This culture has been so far successful that the African race, lately rude savages, was raised to such a grade that, ac- cording to high military authority in the United States, they
Major gisneral Howard. 31
were flt to make armies as efficient as those recruited in lav "great, free aud enlightened North"; and in the judgrment of a powerful party in that country (a party which embraces the major part of that particular corner which has the prescrip- tive right of knowing everything), they have been made, under Southern tutelage, fully equal to the rights and duties of voters and rulers, in the most complicated of governments. Now, fe'eling that it does not become a subject of that government, one recently conquered by the great North, to dispute its dt'cfa on these points, I shall of course assume that they are correct. Here, then, is what the Soutli has done for the development of the negro's mind.
Nor has our section neglected that noblest and highest in- terest of all races, the spiritual interest of the negro. She has diffused among the blacks a pure gospel. She gave him the Christian Sabbath, and fortified the gift with laws and penal- ties, capable of being executed in his behalf against his dwu master — laws so efficacious that enforced Sabbath labor was almost utterly unknown to him. She gave him a part in every house of worship built throughout her border (for never have I heard of one church in all these States where the slaves were not admitted along with their masters), besides building more tem})les for his exclusive use than the Christianity of the Nortli has built for Pagans, in all Hiudostan and China together. She has given him evangelical preaching, unmingied with the poi- son of I'niversalism, Millerism, Socinianism, Mormonism, or with the foreign and disastrous element of politics. Far nearly all the church-members of tliis people are connected witli the great orthodox and evangelical denominations; and having been a preacher to Africans for twenty years, I have never yet heard a sermon addressed to them, or heard of the man who had heard it, in which the subject of abolition or pro-slavery was obtruded on their attention by a Southern minister. In one word, the South has so far cared for their souls as to bring five hundred thousand of them into the full communion of the church, thus making them at least outward and professed Christians — a ratio as large as that prevailing among the whites of the great. Christian North.
These facts concerning the work of the South for the
32 MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD.
slaves, I give without tlie fear of contradiction. The son of a shiveholder, an owner of slaves by inheritance, reared and ed- ucated among- tliem, laboring for them and their masters all my professional life, I know whereof I affirm. Every intelli- gent citizen of tlie .S3uth will substantiate these statements, as within the limits of moderation, and as only a part of those which might be made.
When I claim that the South did thus much for the Afrt- cans, I am far from boasting. We ought to have done much more. Instead of pjiuting to it with self-laudation, it becomes us, with profound humility towards (lod, to confess our short- comings towards our servants. He has been pleased, in His sovereign and fearful dispensation, to lay upon us a grievous atfiiction, and we know He is too just to do this except for our sins. While I am as certain as the sure word of Scripture can make me concerning any principle of social duty, that there was nothing sinful in the relation of master and slave itself, I can easily believe that our failure to fulfill some of the duties of that righteous relation is among the sins for which God's hand now makes us smart. And it does not become those who are under His discipline to boast of their good works. No; verily we have sinned; my argument is that you must do more for the negro than we sinners of the South have done.
[ have written wittingly- the words, yov. must do it for them. The South cannot. Your people have effectually dis- abled them therefor. They have done so by taking away our wealth. The South is almost utterly impoverished, and is able to do little more than to keep destitution from her own doors. But a more conclusive reason is the alienation which the armed and clerical missionaries of the North have inculcated in the breasts of these people, lately so atfectionate and contented. The negroes have been diligently taught that their masters were their enemies and oppressors, that their bondage was wicked and destructive of their well-being, and especially that tlie religious teachings of all Southern ministers were ''doc- trines of devils," because they would not shout the shibboleth of abolition. The consequence is that the black race will no longer listen to the Southern i)eople, or be guided by them. Take as evidence my own instance, which I cite precisely for
MAJOR OENKRaL HOWARD. 33
the reason that it is not in the least peculiar, but reflects the conimou experience of all ministers and people here. Before the advent of your armies, plantation meetings were held week- ly in the ditferent quarters of the congregation, on Saturdays, in working time, cheerfully surrendered by the masters for that purpose, which brought religious instruction within two or three miles of every house. They are now all at an end. Six years ago my congregation pulled down the substantial house, built by their fathers only thirry years before, with walls as solid as living rocks, which was entirely adequate to hold the whites, and replaced it by a larger. One prominent reason was that it was not large enough to hold the servants also. They constructed in the new house three hundred commodious sit- tings exclusively for the blacks. Last Sabbath, under a bright and cheerful sun, those sittings were occupied during public worship by precisely three persons; and at the afternoon serv- ice, held in a chapel-of-ease, primarily for the blacks, there was not one present. Thus the North has prevented the South from doing its former work for the good of the African; consequent- ly it must make its account to do it all itself.
But while I assert this, I would bear my emphatic testi- mony against the falsehood and injustice of the charge that the Southern people wish to cast off and ruin the negro, in a spirit of pique and revenge for his emancipation. That they regard this measure as neither just nor wise, is perfectly true. But they have promised to acquiesce in it as a condition of peace; that promise they intend faithfully to keep; and they universally regard slavery as finally at an end. There is noth- ing more manifest than that the North, amid the flame and heat of all its animosities, knows and feels that this people will not be the one to break its new covenant, hard as its conditions are; and that the freedom of the late slaves and the authority wliich has dictated it are secured from attack by us. And I boldly testify that this magnanimous people has not voluntarily withdrawn Its humane Interest from the blacks; that it ear- nestly desires their prosperity; that it wishes to give them em- ployment and opportunity, and to co-operate in their mainten- ance as far as possible; that they do not cast off the negroes, but it is the negroes who cast them off. Yea, the people of
34 MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD.
the South are this day extending to tens of thousands of black families a generous sympathy in the midst of their own heavy losses and deep poverty, which we challenge the Christian world to surpass in its splendid philanthropy: in that we still refuse to cast off those families, although, by reason of the in- cumbrance of old persons, sick, and little children, their pres- ent labor is worse than worthless to us, and we know we shall receive no future recompense in the labor of the children we are thus rearing gratis for other men as independent of us in future as we are of them. And this is done (oftentimes in spite of a present requital of insolence, misconception, ingratitude and a petty warfare of thefts and injuries) by Southern gentle- men and ladies, who appropriate thereto a part of the avails of their own personal labors, undertaken to procure subsistence for their own children. And this is done, not in a few excep- tional cases, but in a multitude of cases, in every neighbor- hood of ever}' county, so that the numbers of destitute freed- men under which the able hands of your Bureau now faint, are not a tithe of those who are still maintained by the impover- ished people of the South. And this is done simply because humanity makes us unwilling to thrust out those for whose happiness we have so long been accustomed to care into the hardships of their new and untried future. And unless you can expect this delicate sentiment to exhibit a permanence which would be almost miraculous under the "wear and tear'' of our future poverty, I forewarn you that you must stand pre- pared for a tenfold increase of your, present responsibilities, when these families are committed to you. That tenfold bur- den you must learn to bear successfully.
Having shown you the starting point of that career of beneficence to the African, from which you are solenmly bound to Grod and history to advance, I now return to strengthen the already irresistible argument of that obligation. If the South, with all its disadvantages, has done this modicum of good to this poor people, the North, their present guardians, with their vast advantages, must do far more. The South was the infer- ior section (so the North told us) in number, in wealth, in prog- ress, in intelligence, in education, in religion. The vSoutli (so the North says) held the Africans under an anti(]uated, unright-
Major general Howard. ;^5
(>(>iis ;iud niiscliievous relation — that of domestic slavery. The North now has them on the new footing, whioh is, of course, precisely the right one. The South was their oppressor; the North is their generous liberator. The South was hagridden in all its energies for good (so we were instructed) by the "bar- barism of slavery"; the North contains the most civilized, en- lightened and etficient people on eavth. Now, if you do not surpass our poor performances for the negro with this mighty contrast in your favor, how mighty will be the just reproba- tion which will be visited upon you by the common sentiment of mankind and by the Lord of Hosts? If you do not suii)ass our deeds as far as your jjower and greatness surpass ours, how can you stand at His bar, even beside us sinners? He has taught us that "a man is accepted according to that which he hath, and not according to that which he hath not." To this righteous rule we intend to liold you, as our successors in the guardianship of the negro.
If there are any who endeavor to lull your energies in this work, by saj'ing that the negro, being now a free man, must take care of himself like other people; that he should be thrown on his own resources, and that, if he does not provide for his own well-being, he should be left to suffer, I beseech you, in the behalf of humanity, of justice and of your own good name, not to hearken to them. I ask you solemnly whether the freed- men have an "even start" in the race for subsistence with the other laboring men of the nation, marked as they are by dif- ference of race and color, obstructed by stubborn prejudices, and disqualified (as you hold) for the responsibilities of self-sup- port, to some extent, by the evil effects of their recent bondage upon their character? Is it fair, or right, or merciful to com- pel him to enter the stadium, and leave him to this fierce com- petition under these graA^e disadvantages? Again, no peasant- ry under the sun was ever required or was ever able to sustain themselves when connected with the soil by no tenure of any form. Tender our system our slaves had the most permanent and beneficial form of tenancy; for their master's lands were bound to them by law for furnishing them homes, occupations and subsistence during the whole continuance of the master's tenure. But you have ended all this, and consigned four mil-
36 MAJOR GENERAL HO WAED
lions of people to a condition of homelessness. Will the Xorth thus make gipsies of them, and then hold them responsible for the ruin which is inevitable from such a condition?
But there is another argument equally weighty. By adopt- ing the unfeeling policy of throwing the negro upon his own resources, to sink or swim as he may, you run too great a risk of verifying the most biMng reproaches and objections of your enemies. They, in case of his failure, will argue thus: 'That the great question in debate between the defenders of slavery and the advocates of emancipation was whether the negro was capable of self-control: that the former, who professed to be more intimately acquainted with his character, denied that he was capable of it. and solemnly warned you of the danger of his ruin, if he was intrusted with his own direction, in this coun- try, and that you, in insisting on the experiment in spite of this warning, assumed the whole responsibility. Sir, if the freedmen should perchance fail to swim successfully, that ar gument would be too damaging to you and your people. You cannot afford to venture upon this risk. You are compelled by the interests of your own consistency and good name, to take effectual care that the negro shall swim; and that better than before. In the name of justice, I remonstrate against your throwing him off in his present state, by the inexorable fact that he was translated into it, neither by us, nor by himself, but by you alone; for out of that fact proceeds an obligation ux>on 3-0U. to make your experiment successful, which will cleave to you even to the judgment day. And out of that fact proceeds this farther obligation: that seeing you have persisted, of your own free will, in making this experiment of his libera- tion, you and your people are bound to bestow anything or ev- . erything, and to do everything, except sin, to insure that it shall be, as compared with his previous condition, a blessing to him. For, if you were not willing to do all this, were you not bound to let him alone? When the shipmaster urges lands- men to embark in his ship, and venture the perils of the deep, he thereby incurs an obligation, if a storm arises, to do every- thing and risk everything, even to his own life, for the rescue of his charge. If, then, you and your people should find that it will require the labors of another million of busy hands, and
MAJOli GENERAL IIOWAKD. 37
the expenditure of three tliousand millions more of the national wealth, to obviate the evils and dangers arising to the freedmen from your experiment upon their previous condition: yea, if to do this, it is necessary to make the care and maintenance of the African the sole business and labor oif the whole mighty North, you will be bound to do it at this cost.
And I beg you, sir, let no one vainly think to evade this duty which they owe you in your charge, by saying that per- haps even so profuse an expenditure as this, for the benefit of the Africans, would fail of its object; because they hold that making a prosperous career is one of those things like chewing their own food, or repenting of their own sins, which people must do for themselves, or else they are impossible to be done; and that so no amount of help can make the freedmen pros- perous as such, without the right putting forth of their own spontaniety. For, do you not see that this plea surrenders you into the hands of those bitter adversaries, the Pro-Slavery men? Is this not the very thing they said? This was precisely their argument to show that philanthropy required the Africans in this country should be kept in a dependent condition. If your section acquiesces in the failure oif your experiment of their liberation on this ground, what will this be but the admission of the daumiug charge that your measure is a blunder and a crime, aggravated by the warning so emphatic, which your op- ponents gave you. and to which you refused to listen?
T'ut I feel bound, as your zealous and faithful supporter in your humane task, to give you one more caution. The objectors who watch you with so severe an eye have even a darker sug- gestion to make than the charge of headstrong rashness and criminal mistake in your experiment of emancipation. They are heard gloomily to insinuate that the ruin of the African (which they so persistently assert must result from the change) is not the blunder of the North, but the foreseen and intended result! Are you aware of the existence of this frightful inuendo? It is my duty to reveal it to you, that you may be put upon your guard. These stern critics are heard darkly hinting that they knov/ Northern statesmen and presses who now admit, with a sardonic shrug, that the black man, deprived of the benignant shield of domestic servitude, must of course parish
38 MAJOK GENERAL HOAVAED.
like tile red luau. These critics are heard iiiferriu«i- that the true meaniuji" of Northern Republicanism and Free Soil is, thai the white race must be free to shoulder the black race otf this continent, and monopolize the sunny soil, which the God of na- tions gave the latter as their heritaj^^e. They take a sort of grihi pleasure in pointint>- to the dead infants, which, they say, usual- ly marked the liberatinj^' cjurse of your armies through the South, in displaying the destitution and mortality which, they charge, are permitted in the vast settlements of freedmen un- der your care; in insinuating the rumors of official returns of a mortality already incurred in the Southwest, made to your gov- ernment, so hideous that their suppression was a necessity; and in relating how the jungles which are encroaching upon the once smiling ''coasts" of the Mississippi, in Louisiana, already enveioi)e the graves of half the black population in that State! And the terrible inference from all this, which they intimate is, that the great and powerful North only permits these disasters because it intends them; that, not satisfied with the wide do- main which I»rovidence has assigned to them, they now pretend to liberate the slave whom they have seen too i)rosperous under his domestic servitude, in order to destroy him, and grasp, in addition, the soil which he has occupied.
Now, sir, it is incumbent on you, that the premises on which, with so dangerous a plausibility, they ground this tre- mendous charge, be effectually contradicted by happy and bene- ficent results. You must refute this monstrous indictment, and there is only one way to do it, by actually showing that you conserve and bless the African rac(\ multiply their numbers, and confirm their prosperity on the soil, more than we have done. I repeat, the North must refute it thus. For, of course, every Northern man. while indignantly denying and abhorring it, admits (what is as plain as the sun at midday) that if the charge were indeed true, it would convict his people of the blackest public crime of the nineteenth century; a crime which would be found to involve every aggravation and every ele- ment of enormity which the nomenclature of ethics enables us to describe. It would be the deliberate, calculated, cold-blood- ed, selfish dedication of an innocent race of four millions to annihilation; the murder, with malice prepence, of a nation!
MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD. 39
not by the comparatively merciful process of the royal Hun, whose maxim was, that ''thick grass is cut more easily than thin," summary anassacre; but by the slowly eating cancer of destitution, degradation, immorality, protracting the long agony through two or three generations, thus multiplying the victims who would be permitted lo be born iinly to sin, to suffer and to perish; and insuring the everlasting perdition of the soul, along with the body, by cunningly making their own vices the executioners of the doom. It would include the blackest guilt of treason being done under the deceitful mask of bene- faction and by pretended liberators. The unrighteousness of its motive would concur with its treachery to enhance its guilt to the most stupendous height; for upon this Interpretation of the purpose of the North, that motive would be, first to weaken and disable its late adversary, the South, by destroying that part of the people which was guilty of no sin against you, and then, by this union of fraud and force, to seize and enjoy the space which (rod gave them, and laws and constitution guar- anteed. This, indeed, would be the picture which these ac- cusers would then present of your splendid act, that you came as a pretended friend and deliverer to the African, and while he embraced you as his benefactor in all his simple i-onfidence and joy, you thrust your sword through and through his heart, in order to reach, with a flesh wound, the hated white man who stood behind him, whom you could not otherwise reach. The deed would receive an additional shade of blackness from every reproach wliich the North has ever uttered against us for our supposed oppression of the black man, from every profession of your superior humanity toward him — from every assertion of your superior civilization, light and rhristianity. For is it not the righteous penalty of the servant who knew the will of his Divine Master and did it not, to be beaten with many stripes? If the North should, indeed, after all its claims of the traits which exalt a people, have this most accursed deed fastened upon it, then would be fulfilled against it that awful wai'uing which the Son of (rod thundered against the most boastful o-f tlie abuseis of His teachings: "Thou Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell." And on the face of all the earth there has been no people since that doomed
40 MAJOK GENERAL HOWARD.
race who said: "His blood be upon us and our ebildren." against whom the voice 3f impartial history has pronounced deeper execrations than those which would await rou. Once more, could such a crime be perpetrated and tlie dire judgments of Grod fail to follow? Could your posterity h^pe ro escape the fated tread of that divine retribution which hitherto has pur- sued, with inevitable steps, the crimes of all the nations, from the primeval East to tlie farthest West, with the double scjurges of God?
Up. then! honorable Sir: Yea, I would exclaim through yuu: Up: thou great. Christian North: cleanse thy skirts from this foul charge; deliver thy children from this fierce indigna- tion of heaven by the splendid liberality and success of your etforts for the freedmen. Up and silence yjur accusers, by lift- ing these Africans, with the strong hand of your beneficence, to your own prosperity. Do not listen to these boding asser- tors of the impossibility of the exploit: but so lavish your en- lightened care and labor, and wealtli and love, as to compel im- possibility itself.
The conclusions to which, I trust, you liave now come with me, are briefly these, that the Xorth is bound by the l3gic of events and of its own acts to become the chief guardian and nui'se of the freedmen. That the South is. without its own fault, disabled from doing more than a very little of this work in future. That the North must d3 more for them than the South ever did. and that in the proportion of her own superior- ity over us. as that superiority is asserted by herself, and of the advantage and justice which freedom possesses, according to her, over slavery, that the Xartli cannot throw on the Afri- can, unaided, the task of securing Ms own destiny, nor plead that the attainment of social prosperity is a thing which can- not be done for those who do not effect it for themselves; be- cause these are just the p Dints which the South urged against this change and which the North denied in insisting upon it, and because you alone are the authors of the change. That your section has thereby incurred a sacred obligation to bestow on the African a well being higher than that of the state from which you took him, no matter how much it may cost you. And that, if the North fails in this, it confesses itself an enormous criminal.
MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD. 4l
Here, then, is your task, anil these are its conditions. There is no more sincere aid wliich I can renih'r you in it than to ^ive you a sober sketch of its real difficulties, and with this I shall close.
One of 3'our difficulties is in the thriftlessness of the Afri- cans themselves, and their want of intelligent foresight; a trait which was caused, not by domestic servitude, but by the savage condition from wliicli they were taken, and whicli we had i>ar- tially corrected when they were taken out of our liands. (For this is just the character which all savages exhibit, and espec- ially those of the torrid climes, wliich know U) winter.) Our system assigned an effectual remedy for the misc.hievous ef- fects of this trait by making it the interest and duty of every slave owner, and of all his adult childien and heirs to teach the servant care and industry, and to guard against his thriftless- ness. How you are to repair it under your system I, of course, must not presume to dictate. I will only venture to say that the correction of it must manifestly require a vast amount of careful and patient tutelage of a multitude of hands. The cen- sus returns of 1850 gave the South two hundred and eighty thousand slave owners. Every one of these, with their wives, many of their adult children and a multitude of overseers and agents were interested teachers and guardians of the Afiican, and many of them exceedingly diligent, and devoted all their time to this work. Hence it is manifestly a very moderate es- timate that your bureau must employ in the tutelage and guar- dianship of these helpless people not less than a quarter of a million of persons, and as the powerful motive of interest and property is extinguished they must all be of better average character than Southern slave owners to do their work as well without that motive as these did with it. They must be all of thorough integrity and intelligence.
Another of your difficulti(^s will be found in tlu' enormous misconceptions which now fill the minds of the freednien. Tlie mischief of one of these I have already indicated. It suited your purposes, during the season of strife, diligently to teach the negro that the white people of the South were their op- pressors and enemies. Well, sir, they have learned your les- son effectually, and will not speedily unlearn it. The conse-
42 MAJOR ge:n^eral Howard.
quence is that yon have thereby stripped yourself of the aid of eight inillioiis of white people in your ardnons task, and these the white people among whom the larger part of rlie freedmen still live, among wham alone are to be found persons familiar with African character, and among whom alone has there ever been, or will there ever be an ingenuous personal affection for individuals of that race. We have lost the ability to guide, counsel, or instruct them.
The lai-ger part of them evidently confound liberty with li- cense; and to them, liberty means living without earning a liv- ing. Accustomed to see their masters performing little man- ual labor (because they were necessarily occupied with the more imp(>rtant, and often more arduous, labor of superintendence), the freedmen assume that, to be free, is to be like their masters in the former particular. They forget this little difference, that a man cannot be usefully occupied in the labor of superintend- ence, when he has nobody to superintend. Your first task, sir, will be to convince them of this mistake, and, as I have proved, you are bound to do this, without causing or iiermitting them to suffer any painful conse(iuence of this error.
Your emissaries, armed and clerical, diligently taught them that all the labor rendered by them in servitude was in- compensated; and that every dollar of the proceeds of that la- bor taken by the landholder, was a robbery from them. (A good and certain home and livelihood at all times, sustenance for their families, provision for their decrepitude, and main- tenance for those they left behind them are, in the eyes of these philosophers, no compensation at all, even f )r that labor which is least skilled; because, I presume, they were ;so secure and regular. And it is the established doctrine of the Abolition school, that, while labor is entitled to wages, capital is not; in accordance with which truth, those good people, as is well known, always lend out their money for nothing, and pay away the whole profits of their costly factories in wages to opera- tives.) The consequence of this doctrine amang the freedmen is this: They argue that all the property in the country being the fruit of their unrequited labor, they may now help them- selves to a fair return, wiienever and how^ever they can. Hence a habit of what we old fashioned Southerners used to call
MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD. 43
"theft," wliicli renders tbem of i-atliei- doubtful utility as liii-ed laborers. You will have a great deal of trouble, sir, in cor- recting this mistake; and again, I urge that j'ou are bound to do this, without permitting or causing the freedmen to taste any of its bitter consequences. For, I reason of this as of all other misconceptions which they learned of you, that you are solemnly bound not to let them suffer for what was your error. What, will you punish them for believing you? It would be a monstrous iniquity. You have tliis taslc then, gently to edu- cate them out of this innocent mistake of stealing everything which conies to their hand, by "moral suasion," without stocks, whipping posts, jails, or any such harsh measures; and mean- time, to generously repair all the evil consequences of those thefts, to themselves or others, out of your own inexhaustible pockets. Do you not think, sir, that to elTect this the "school- master" will have to go "abroad" pretty considerably?
Thus one mischievous mistake chases another through their ignorant minds, fostered by designing and malicious men; and each one is a fatal obstacle in that path of sober industry where alone their welfare is to be found. You have a great task, sir, in causing them to unlearn these misconceptions. How many embarrassing self-contradictions your people will have to make in performing that task, it is not for me to indicate.
Another of your difficulties will be ifound in the necessity for the displacement of a very large part of the black labor and population in many districts of the South. My own county may be taken as a fair example of the other parts of Virginia. There were in it about eight thousand blacks. Our wisest men of business are unanimous in declaring that under the new sys- tem of hireling labor, the industrial pursuits of the county can- not employ profitably more than one-third (some say not more than one-fifth) of the former labor, at prices which will give sub- sistence to the blacks. And their opinion is manifestly correct, because every business man who is questioned, individually, declares that he is constrained to reduce the labor employed by him in some such ratio. Now, this fact is not cited by me to argue from it the superior economy and productiveness of the former system, in that it was able to employ, upon the same soil, in a remunerative manner, three times or five times as
44 MAJOR GENERAL HOWARD.
much hibor. (Aud that the empluymeut of it was remunerative is proved beyond a cavil by the prosperity jf enipk)yers and la- borers.) The only use I make of the fact is to show that two- thirds of this black population should at once emigrate; or it becomes unemployed, destitute, suffering and vicious. But the local attachmeuts of the African are predominant; and that spirit 3f adventure and enterprise, which carries the Virginian to the front wave of every tide of pioneer population, is as for- eign t(> his nature as frost is to his fervent native clime. The temper of the negro is to do just what he has been used to, aud nothing else. Here, sir. y )u have a problem which will tax 30ur ingenuity and f(»rce; how to displace two-thirds of the half million of blacks in Mrginia to a new soil, when they do not wish to go, have no capital, and are deficient in knowledge and thrift; and tj do this without a result of widespread desti- tution, domestic distress, disease and death.
But, perhaps, the greatest of your difficulties is the one which has been hitherto least appreciated — the novelty of your task. You, sir, are appointed to do whait no other mortal has hitherto dDue successfully: to transmute four millions of slaves, of an alien race and lower culture, all at once into citizens, with- out allowing them to suffer or deteriorate on your hands. You have no precedents to guide you. You cannot resort to the pages of political history to find there the lights which may show you your momentous duties. But there is no other guide in political science. The machinery of maral causes, which forms a political society', is too complex for any finite mind to foresee, by its a priori speculations, what wheels tn^III be moved b}' the spring which he touches. His only safe guide is the experience of previous results under similar conditions. If he attempts to act beyond this his action is, in the worst sense, experiment; a blind guess, leading him by haphazard to un- forseen results. In the sciences of material things, these ex- periments have been useful and are legitimate. The philosopher may properly deal thus with his metallic ore; he may venture his unproved hypothesis concerning it; he may submit it to new solvents, or acids, or fires; oftentimes he will find that his hy- pothesis is false and leads to nothing; but sometimes he will find that it is the occasion of stumbling upon the key to one of
Major genekal tiowARi). 45
nature's precious secrets. Now, his justiticatiou is tliat the ore which lie eats with corrosive acids, or melts iu his furnace, suf- fers nothing in this blundering process of questioning after new truth. It has no nerves to be fretted under his handling; no heart to be wrung; no sentient or intellectual destiny to be perverted or destroyed under his mistakes, and, above all, no immortal soul to be lost in his hands. But, in social science, mere experiments are crimes; for the subjects of them are im- mortal intelligences, endowed by God with a moral destiny, with hearts to bleed under errors, and never-dying souls to be lost. Fearful, then, is the responsibility of him who handles a social revolution new in the history of man. He must march; yet he cannot know" whether or not the path which he selects will lead him over the bleeding hearts and ruined destinies of his own charge. For such, the only adequate director is the Spirit of God; and his best resort is prayer. To that resort I sincerely and solemnly commend you; and close by subscribing 'myself. Your very obedient servant,
ROBERT L. DABNEY, Sept. 12, 1865. Prince Edward County, Va.
ABSTRACTIONISTS.'
There are two ways o'f reasonino- about human affairs. One is, to bring- measures to the test of fundamental principles, and abide by their decision firmly. The other is, to inquire: "What is the dictate of policy, of expediency, of present utility?" There are two classes of minds in the world: the speculative, and the practical. The former seeks to analyze its objects of thought, to arrive at ultimate truths, and from those truths, to deduce its practical conclusions. The other only considers prop- ositions, in the light of their practical consequences as perceiv- ed by itself. The former looks at general laws: the latter at im- mediate results.
Now the latter class of people have applied to the former, in these days of ours, a name, which is at least new in its pres- ent sense: abstractionists. It is subject of joy, for the sake of the credit of the Church, that this name was first invented among politicians; but it is to be lamented, that the Church's people have, to her disgrace, borrowed the name with its con- temptuous meaning, from the politicians. An abstraction, projxM-ly understood, means, a proposition considered as naked and gvneral, stripped of all the accidental circumstances which belong to 'a\\\ individual case under it. But the idea which some of those seem to have, whO' use the word as a term of contempt, is that it is just something* which is abstruse. Those who know what they mean by it, if there are any such, probably intend by abstractions, speculative principles, as opposed to ipractical conclusions.
Among the many good results of popular government in church and state, there is this unfortunate one: that its usages tend to teach the governing minds to despise speculative thought, and reason only from present expediency. It is the popular mind, with which they have to deal: and that mostly in the fugitive form of oral address, or the flimsy newspaper ar- gument, where the whole result intended, is a momentary im-
1 Appeared in "Presbyterial Critic," June, 1855. 46
aSstraotionists. 4*7
pressioii. The minds addressed, are not trained to speculation, and could not comprehend it. Hence, public men are tempted to disuse it, till they become incapable of it themselves; and all profundity and breadth of view are neglected, or even de- spised, in reasoning of public affairs. Men aim only to catch the public ear by some shallow argument of present expediency; and brand all appeals to more fundamental truths "as abstrac- tions,"— gossamer speculations unworthy to bind the strong eommon sense of practical people. Thus, it is proposed, in fed- eral politics, to institute some measure, the argument for which is present utility. Its opponents object, that it is not within the legitimate scope of the federal instirutions; and to institute it would be a virtual breach of constitutional compacts. "Ah," says its advocate, "that is one of your 'abstractions.' Isn't the measure a good one in its practical elTect? Then why not adopt it?" Or, in church affairs; one good brother proposes, that the Church shall take into its own official hand, the business of education, and imbue it proper!}^ with the Christian element. Another brother objects, that to educate is not tlie divinely ap- pointed function of a church. "Why," asks the first, "don't you admit that all education ought to be Christian education?" "Oh, yes," says the respondent; "but it is the function of Chris- tian parents; combining, if necessary; but as parents, not as presbyters." "What of that?"' says the first; "our church schools are very good things: very harmless things as yet: and where is the difference between a combination of certain men as Christian parents, to make and govern a certain sort of school, and a combination of the :same men as presbyters to nuike the same sort of school?" "There is the difference of the princijtle involved," it is answered; "and it is never safe to admit a false principle." "Pshaw," says the first; "that is nothing but one of your 'abstractions.' "
The term is intended to be one of contempt. It is sujiposed to describe something uncertain, vague, devious, sophisliral : as opposed to that which is positive, sensible and rt^iiable. The "abstractionist'' is represented as a man, fanciful and unrelia- ble; who pursues the intangible nioonshine of metapliysical ideas, until he and his followers "wander, in devious ma/.es lost." But if any of the men who attempt abstractions arc vague
48 ABSTRACTIONISTS.
or sophistical, is it because they use abstract propos-itions ; or because they misuse them? If men choose to be careless or dis- honest in their thiuldug; — if they will mix or vary the terms of their propositions, or commit any other logical errors, they will be erroneous, however they may reason. And we assert, as an offset to this reproach, that no truths can be general, except those which are abstract: for by the very reason that concrete propositions are concrete, they must be particular, or indivi- dual; and therefore no deduction made from them, can have any certainty when it is attempted to give it a general application. The concrete is best for illustration, but for general reasoning it is useless: and all gentlemen who are accustomed to boast, that they are not '^abstractionists," thereby confess that their arguments are only illustrations. If they wish to glorify their logic therein, the}' are welcome.
But that any educated man should indulge in this slang of the hustings and the demagogue, is derogatory to his own intel- ligence, and his fraternity. For every man of information ought to know-, that abstractions are the most practical things in the world. His reading ought to remind him how directly the most abstract truths have led on to the most practical conclusions; how inev^itably they work themselves out into practical results, and how uniformly the most practical truths depend for their evidence on those which are abstract. There is no branch of human science, which does not teem with illustrations of this. Our anti-abstractionists would probably consider it rather a shadowy question, if they were called to debate whether or not Galvanism and Magnetism are generically distinct or like; two somethings impalpable, invisible, imponderable, which we hardly know whether to call substances or not. Yet, on the an- swer to that question depended the invention of the Magnetic Telegraph, with all its very practical results, in the regulating of the prices of breadstuffs, the catching of fugitive rogues, and the announcement of the end of dead emperors. Latent caloric strikes us as a rather abstract thing: a something which no hu- man nerve ever has, or ever will feel, and which the most deli- cate thermometer does not reveal. And about this shadowy something, a very shadowy proposition has been proved by your contemptible abstractionists : namely, that in certain cases, sen-
AiisTkAtJTto^ts'rs. 4^1
sibie liejit becomiug latent, iucivasas elasticit.^v. This is tlie ab^ stractioii which revealed to mankind the secret steam engine; and which now propells our boats, spins our cloths, grinds our flour, saws our lumber, ploughs the ocean with our floating palaces, whirls us across continents in the rail-cars, and some- times scalds or cripples us by the score. A rather practical thing, is this abstraction.
Or, let us take illustrations from the moral sciences. Ev- ery well informed man ouglit to know that the abstract ques- tion, whether general ideas are substances, c )nception, or names, once almost threw p]uroi)e into fits, armed universities, and even commonwealths against each other, and probably cost John Huss his life. \\'hether what we call causation is a real and necessary connexion, or merely an observed sequence of events, is a very abstract question: but it makes all the dif- ference between a God and no (lod: yea, all the difference be- tween the blessings, civilization, wholesome restraints and hap- piness of religion, and the license, vice, atrocity and despair of Atheism. Indeed your thorough Atheist, is the only true and ccmsistent anti-abstractionist. Jonathan Edwards' work on the wall, is usually thought rather an abstract book, on a rather ab- stract subject. Its great question is, whether volitions are cer- tain, according to the prevalent bent of the dispositions, or self- determining. But the answer to this abstract question decides authoritatively between Calvinism and Pelagianism. Presby- terians, we think, have found the latter quite a practical mat- ter! Can human merit be imij^ited to another human being, in (rod's government, as it is in man's? "A very useless, unprac- tical (juestion," you say. "I don't care to speculate in such unsubstantial merchandise.'' Well, from the aflirmative an- swer to that question Thomas Aquinas deduced the grand sys- tem of Papal Indulgences. Here is an abstraction aut of which grew a good many important matters: such as a good many mil- lions of crowns transferred out of the pockets of good Catho- lics, into those of "his Holiness the Pope"; — the zeal of Luther against Tetzel, and thence the Keformation — with English lib- erty and through that, American: with a good many other very practical affairs. But enough. The most abstract propositions have often divided nations, and led to wars, revolutions, and
50 ABSTRACTIONISTS.
convulsions: just as that abstraction, ^'whether a man can rif^htfully own as property, the labor of a fellow man without his voluntary consent." now threatens our nation wdth fratrici- dal and suicidal war. There is no practical truth, in the evi- dence of which an abstract one is not concerned. There is no abstract truth which may not lead, by lofjical necessity, to prac- tical results. How unthinking, and iiinorant ought a man to be, in order to utter an honest, sincere sneer against dealings and dealers in abstractions? Very sinpid indeed. Again; such sneers are always inconsistent. Every man is an abstractionist, except perhaps the materialist — atheist, who does not believe there is any God, because he has never seen Him, or that he has any soul, because he cannot handle it. Those who contemptu- ously disavow it, only do so' when the abstractions are against them; and strenuously use similar abstractions, on their own side. How literally has this been verified in federal politics? In truth, no man can help it; for the foundation of every man's right, theory, or project, whatever it may be, is on an abstract principle. And the veriest red-R(^i)ubliran of them all, who thinks he has trampled down every abstraction, still relies on his own favorite ones, to sustain his radicalism. Says the Agrarian: ''Here is my rich neighbor, who has more than he can possibly use. or even waste. How much better to take away a part, and give it to me. who need a little capital to en- able me to be a producing citizen. You will thereby benefit me, the state, and my rich nt^ghbor himself : for he is so rich that it is an actual injury to him." You object, that the rights of property are in the way; and that it is of more fundamental importance to the state, that those rights should be protected, and that every man should be certain of the rewards of his in- dustry, than that property should be etiually distributed. These ■Ai-i' m his eyes, nothing but abstractions. Why should a citizen be kei)t back from obvious and present advantage, by the goss- amer threads of those abstract rights? So he helps himself liberally to his neighbor's property, and thus becomes a man of property himself. And now. lol he forthwith invokes those ab- stract rights of property, to defend his new acquisitions against other red-Republicans, as greedy as himself, but still poorer. But the serious and lameniablc point about all this decry-
ABSTRACTIONISTS. 51
iii^ of abstractions is. that where it is intelligently and delib- erately uttered, it is thoroughly profligate. What is it all, but a demand that principle shall give way to expediency? All the principles of morals, in their last analysis, are abstractions. The distinction between right and wrong is an abstraction, as pure and disembodied as was ever presented by metaphysics. And in short, the difference between an honest man and a scoundrel, is but this: that the former is governed by a general principle, which is an abstraction, in opposition to the present concrete prospect of utility; while the latter is governed by his view of present expediency, in opposition to the general princi- ple. What else do we mean by saying that a man is unprinci- pled? In the eyes of such a man, the restraints of a constitu- tion which he has sworn to support, are abstractions, whenever they seem to oppose the present dictates of expediency. All those broad and wise considerations, which show how much more important is a consistent adherence to general principles, than the gain of a temporary and partial advantage by their vio- lation, are but abstractions. And with the same justice, though with greater impiety, it rndght also be said, that the immutable principles of eternal rectitude, to which flod coinpels all the interests of the universe to bend, at whatever ooist of individual misery, are abstractions. What, for instance, is the i)rinciple. which constitutes the necessity for an atonement? What, ex- cept that necessary connexion, which the unchangeable perfec- tions of God have established between the abstract guilt of sin, and the penalty? ''Now here is a penitent man,'' says the Socinian; "a wondrous pious, proper man: he is never going to sin any more: (the self-determining power 'Of his own will has decided that.) Who will be the worse for his pardon? Why should he go to perdition, poor fellow, for a mere abstraction?" All this sneering has ever sounded mournfully in our ears, as a revelation of the unscrupulousness of the age. And to be called an abstractionist, has we confess, been always received rather as a compliment, than a rei)roach. It puts us in ad- mirably good company; — along v.ith all the profound thinkers, and the stable, noble souls, whose brave motto has been ^'Obsta principiis." And when the philosopliic historian shall come to write, in future ages, the. hist orv of the Decline and Fall of the
52 ABSTRACTIONISMS.
Empire Republic, lie will mark it as the most giorioiis tnbute to the public virtue of one school of our statesmen, that they were branded by unthinking or unscrupubus adversaries, as Abstractionists. And let none say, that in these words, we have violated that delicate neutrality towards national parties, which becomes a religious periodical. The honor of both the great parties of the nation, equally approves and demands the senti- ment. For the sneer would have seemed as profligate and odious in the ears of a Hamilton or a Marshall, as in those of a Madison or a Calhoun.
"But. is there not a style of reasoning, which calls itself general and abstract, which is, in fact, unreliable, misty, and deceptive? This," some will say. ''is what we mean by abstrac- tions.'' Well, good reader, you express your meaning very un- fortunately. When next you hear men using propositions, which they suppose general, in a manner vague and sophistical, we pray 3'ou, in the name of intelligence, sound lo^c. and sound principle, do not express your dissent, by saying that they are abstractions, say simply that they are untrue.
THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.'
If this phrase appear to auy reader paradoxical, a very lit- tle reflection will convince him that it is only so in appearance. For, the greatest organized wrongs which the civilized world has seen perpetrated in modern times, upon the well-being of mankind, have been committed under the amiable name of hu- manity. Xo despotic government now avows the ruthless pur- pose of self-aggrandizement and of the gratification of hatred and the lust of power; but its pretense is always the good of society', and the welfare of the governed. The wars of the ''Holy Alliance," which drenched Europe in blood at the beginning of this century were all undertaken nominally for the peace and liberties of Europe. No demagogue confesses, in popular gov- ernments, the greedy ambition or avarice which proves to be his secret motive: but he seeks only the good of the "dear peo- ple," while he betrays them into mischievous anarchy or legis- lative atrocities.
The religious persecutions, which have made nominal Chris- tianity the scourge of humanity, have all professed the same kindly purpose. When the excellent St. Augustine first exerted his influence and logic to make them respectable, he argued against the Donalists, that, as the parent chastises a wayward son to save him from the ruin of his vices; or as a physician rouses the lethargic patient by pungent cataplasms, so the church, the guardian of souls, might lovingly rescue her way- ward children from the curse of heresy, by imprisonments, fines and stripes. And this is the argument of persecution in all ages. All the racks, the funeral pyres, the aiitos da fe with which the Inquisition blackened Europe, were justified by this plea of love. Men were slain with protracted and exquisite tor- tures, out of mere humanity, and to save their beloved souls at the expense of their sinful flesh. It was from the same amiable impulse that Simon de Monfort went from the devout participa- tion in the Lord's supper, to the storming and sack of Albigen-
1 Appeared in "Ttie Land We Love:' December, 1866. 53
54 THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.
sian towns, and ilie butclicrv of tlicir women and children. These enormities of a darker age are now as much deplored by enlightened and liberal Catholics as by Protestants themselves The crusades against the Moslems also, justified their incon- ceivable barbarities, in part by a humane pretence: It was the protection and assistance of Holy Palmers, in their pilgrimages to the sacred places in Palestine, which moved the crusaders, along with zeal for the honor of Christ's sepulchre.
Another instance is presented by the cobnial enterprises of the Spaniards and I'ortugese in tropical America. In all these voyages and wars, which entailed upon the feeble aborigines the untold horrors of extermination, a devout and philanthropic enthusiasm was an active cause. Columbus himself was as much a missionary as a votary of science, in his life-long dreams of discovery. He proposed to the King and Queen of Spain the extension of the blessings of the gospel, as much as of their em- pire, as the end of his projects; and wherever he and his suc- cessors landed upon the soil of America, they set up the cross alongside of the banner of Castile. Of the Spanish adventurers, Prescott says: "Their courage was sullied with cruelty; the cruelty that flowed equally — strange as it may seem — from their avarice and their religion; religion as it was understood in that age, the religion of the crusader. It was the convenient cloak for a multitude of sins, which covered them even from himself. The Castilian, too proud for hypocrisy, committed more cruel- ties in the name of religion, than were ever practiced by the pagan idolater or the fanatical Moslem. The burning of the infidel was a sacrifice acceptable to heaven, and the conversion of those w^ho survived, amply atoned for the foulest offenses. It is a melancholy and mortifying consideration, that the most ancompromlsing spirit of intolerance — the spirit of the Inquisi- [or at home, and of the Crusader abroad — should have emanat- ed from a religion which preached peace on earth, and good will towards man!" So, the contrast between Pizarro and his tw^o partners, for the conquest of Peru, begins by invoking in the most solemn manner, the names of the ''Holy Trinity and our Lady the Blessed Virgin.'' — "In the name of the Prince of Peace," says Eobertson, "they ratified a contract, of which plunder and bloodshed were the objects." Of the same tran-
1'IIE CRIIMES OF PlIILANTHltOPY. 5")
gaetion Prescott reinarks: "The invocation of heaven Vv'as na- tural, where the object of the undertaking,^ was, in part, a re- ligious one. Religion entered more or less into the theory, at least, of the Spanish conquests in the new world." * « * "It was indeed a fiery cross that was borne over the devoted land, scathing and consuming it in its terrible progress; but it was still the cross, the sign of man's salvation, the only sign by which generations yet unborn were to be rescued from eternal perdition."
Thus it would seem the piety of Christendom has projected itself upon Asia and America as a flood of rapine and destruc- tion. Nor can the Anglo-Saxon race of Protestants claim ad- vantages over the Peninsular, in the results of their enterprises in America, as to the aborigines. They crossed the ocean pro- fessedly in pursuit of freedom, religious liberty and cirilizatiou. The consequence of their appearance has been likewise the ex- termination of the red man.
But the missions planted by ecclesiastics in tropical Amer- ica presented a still more glaring perversion. Until the begin- ning of this century, in some of these missions, military expe- dirions were annually equipped by the holy fathers, against the neighboring pagan tribes, piously termed cazas de las almas. "hunts for souls," for the purpose of capturing as many per- sons as they could, and subjecting them to a compulsory bap- tism and training. These involuntar}- converts were then dis- tributed among the families of the priests or the Christianized Indians, to be trained by servitude to habits of industry and morality. Thus, armed men were seen, in the name of human- ity and mercy, assailing and burning towns, murdering help- less families, and dragging the wretched survivors into bondage with all the ferocity of the African slave-catcher.
When the cruelties of these various forms of religious fa- naticism are considered, it is not allowable to account for them by asserting the conscious hypocrisy of the perpetrators. From the days of Saul of Tarsus until these, many a persecutor could doubtless say, that they ''verily thought" they ought to do these things. In many a scourge of humanity, the evidences of sin- cerity have been unquestionable; and the general inteerity of
56 THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.
character has served only to enforce the rigor of their deter- mination.
In the instances which have been now cited, other pur- poses haA'e been mixed with those of philanthro'py, and have perhaps been thv main ones, whilc^ the humane designs were secondary. liut yt4 more remarkable examples have occurred, where the most cruel intlictions which have cursed mankind, have sprung out of the express purpose to contmbute ta his wel- fare; and where the very apostles of hummity have shown themselves the most vindictive towards their fellow men. The reader of history will recall to mind that the African slave trade, with all its jierpetual intestine wars, its burnings, mas- sacres and rapes, its chains and dungeons, and the horrors of the "middle passage," originated in a compassionate plan of the benevolent r>arthoIom(Mv Las ("asas, to relieve the Indians of the Spanisli Islands from the burden of slavery. It was his sympathy with their suftVrings, which caused him to invent this expedient, of substituting the h.irdier Xt^gro under the yoke.
But the eminent instances of the crimes of philanthropy are those O'f our own age. And among these, none stands higher in this bad eminence tlian the ''reign of terror ' under the ascen- dency of the French democrats, at the close of the last century. The first revolution in France was especially the work of its infidel, humauitaiian p]iiloso})liers; who taught the perfecti- bility of human nature, th(^ natural I'igiits and e<iuality of man, and the intrinsic injustice of all distinctions of rank; who traced to these all the 'miseries of human society, and heralded tlie ei-a of political equality as a second golden age. The motto of the fiery democrats trained in their school was, liberty, equality^ fraternity. They boasted that their missi(Ui was to restore to all orders of men, through the potency of these principles, that universal happiness and harmony, plenty and love, of which civilized societies had hitherto been cheated through the ma- lignant cunning of priests and magistrates. Well, they over- turned the throne, the nobility, the altar, the constitution; they held in their hands the naked constituent elements o'f the com- monwealth, to renijuld them as they listed, and to give the full- est application to their principles; and the result was the Reign of Terror. Marat became the organ of tlu' party of "liberty,
THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY. 57
equality, and fraternity" through the press; and the ferocious Danton through the tribune. The former through iiis newspa- per, V Ami du Peuple, croaked his perpetual demands f jr blood, like a ghoul, saying that it would never be well with the cause of fraternity, until two hundred and sixty thousand heads fell before it. This was the precise number of the human heca- tombs, which this apostle of humanity demanded, ty satiate his Moloch. Danton, on the other hand, mDunted the tribune, which was the pulpit of this new gospel of philanthropy, to thunder his demands for accelerating the guillotine, or author- izing the September massacres. And it was ever in the name of this amiable cause, that Robespierre, that incarnation jf snaky cruelty, devoted :fresh thousands to murder. It is not necessary to repeat the pictures of this seaison: the very term. Reign of Terror, carries to every student of history a meaning more descriptive of misery, cruelty, crime, and agony, than any details could convey. The total of these sacrifices, as coolly giv- en 'by the socialist Proudhomme, tells the tale better than rhet- oric can do it; it was one million and twenty two thousand, made up as f^dlows: of the guillotined in Paris, eighteen thou- sand; victims slain or executed in Lyons, thirty-one thousand; murdered by the ferocious Carrier at Nantes, thirty-two thou sand; slain in battle, niasisacre, and execution, in miserable La Vendee, nine hundred and forty thousand. Of this total, about fort^-five thousand were women and children!
From that day to this, the Jacobin pai'ty have unfailingly exhibited the same frightful comttination of philanthroiwc cant, with a truculent ferocity of spirit. '"With their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips." And this manifestation is, if possible, only the more conspicuous, amidst the professed Christianity of Old and New England. Do these pretended assertors of the rights of man organize themselves as Chartist clubs? Then we see them wielding, as their chosen instruments, against all who presume to question the safety and wisdom of their plans, fiery invective and denun- ciation, the incendiary's torch, and secret assault or assassina- tion. Or does the Jacobin creed embody itself again in tlie professed "Liberal Party" of Bright on the other side of the At- lantic, and of his cousin-germans— the progressives — on this side? Then the same contrast is displayed between the atrocity
.1^ THE CRIMffiS OF PHILANTHROPY.
of their spirit, and the humanity of theii' pretensions, by the zest with which the latter have perpetrated, and the former have apphiuded, the recent horrors in tbe hite Confederate States. Humanity, in their mouths, means, favor to those who assist their overweening and headstrong projects, with ruth- less injustice and violent jjersecution, robbery, arson and mur- der, to all who presume to doubt their propriety.
This recent type of Jacobinism illustrates the cruelty of humanitarian philanthropy in our day, by two of its favorite schemes, abolition of negro slavery, and the Peace Society. The former, in the British colonies, has just glorified its zeal for hu- man welfare, by converting a number of thousands of prosper- ous fellow citizens into paupers and exiles, and a race of con- tented, useful, and impro^dng peasantry, into savages; while it is now, on this side of the ocean, '-in the full tide of successful experiment," advancing towards the same benevolent result. The former have been engaged for thirty years, in painting the horrors of war, in describing with moving words, the prodigal waste of human happiness and life which attends it, and in de- nouncing even defensive war, as an invention of the devil, ut- terly unworthy of a Christian nation. It is also the same men usually, who declaim against the harshness and barbarity of the capital punishments denounced against the chief crimes by our criminal laws. Xow the plain people amongst us, who draw their maxims of common sense from the Bible, have questioned, from the first, the genuineness of this humanity; it appeared to them a little queer, that those special advocates of forbearance, were almost always peculiarly overbearing in their temper towards dissentients, that they were very intolerant in their ad- vocacy of tolerance, and very belligerent in the tone in which they urged peace. The true animus of the party was correctly foreshadowed by the spirit of one of its members, who appear- ed, a quarter of a century ago, to advocate the Peace Principles, at the bar of a dignified ecclesiasUcal assemblage in America, and to enlist its support for them. In his bustling labors in the lobby, he declared that Christianity forbade to the individual, and to society, all violent resistance of injury; that to retort the intended suffering on the aggressor was inconsistent with true humanity: and that all which was necessary to disarm assault, was, for everybody to practice a determined passivity and non-
THE CHIMES OF PHILA NTFIROPY. 59
resisting love. The members of the body which he addressed were then characterized by a sturdy, old-fashioned sense, for which it has unfortunarely not been since so causpicuons. Thev attempted to induce the ardent man to bring Ids princiijles lome to his own person, in such a case as the following: "Suppose that some son of Belial should attack you without provocation, in the absence of all legal protection, and with evident purpose of injury to life or limb: what would you do?" ''I should de- clare my purpose of non-resistance," he replied, "and appeal with confidence to his conscience. It is the sight of resistance, which gives resolution to the rising impulses of aggression; a thoroughly peaceful attitude will surely awaken the better na- ture of an assailant, and make him relent, before he strikes." "Yea, but," said they, ''there are men in whom conscience and the better nature are effectually seared, who would only be en- couraged by the pi'ospect of non-resistance." "Still," answered he, ''I would retain my passive attitude, and display the majesty of meekness, so that it would be impossible for him actually to strike." And these boastful words he uttered with an air of angry assumption, as foreign from his professed meekness as it was evidently adapted to provoke assault. The next day, the ecclesiastical body agreed, out of respect for the cause of hu- manity which he professed to advocate, to hear his views. He urged them with much warmth and self-confidence, to adopt resolutions committing themselves to his theory; and when the O'bjections of sober good sense were urged, flew into a furious passion, deno-unced his opponent.:^, and flung himself out of tlie house in true fighting temper.
This incident gives a correct type of the combined ignor- ance of their own hearts and of other men's, and errors of rea- soning, 'by which this sect is infested. And it foreshadowed pre- cisely, the fiendish temper with which they have themselves met the shock of real resistance. When they found a people who begged to be excused from the intrusions of their unauthorized meddling, and the propagation of their pet schemes of philan- thropy, these peace-society men, who denounced even defen.sive war an inhuman crime; who — shuddered, sweet souls! — at the sight of a drop of the criminal aggressor's blood, and preferred that it should be spared even at the cost of the blood of the in- nocent; who were busy sending committees to the Czar as the
00 THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.
head of the first military monarchy of Europe, to teach him how wicked bayonets were, and remonstrating with the King of Dahomey against his royal slave-hunts; these opponents of cap- ital punishments, who, more merciful than the "Father of Mer- cies," declared that it was quite cruel that he who sheds man's blo3d should have his blood shed by m;in; these superfine sen- timentalists, paused in their sanctimonious pastimes, and, al- most to a man, passionately joined the clamor of the party, who demanded the extermination of their fellow citizens, for the high crimes of daring to have opimions of their own, and as- serting their own prescriptive rights. It was precisely from this quarter that the loudest howl for plunder, murder, fam- ine and conflagration came! Abundant proof this, that the I'ul- ing motive of such philanthropy is not love, but an intensely selfish love of power, mental conceit, and hunger for applause.
This phenomenon is as curious as it is mortifAing to the true friend of humanity. Hence the explanation of it is inter- esting, and, if it can be accomplished, profitable to all such. An attempt will be made towards the explanation, by setting worldly philanthropy in contrast with true Christianity. Al- though the former is perpetually borrowing the name and lan- guage of the latter, it will appear that they are contrasted in their principles, and the principles of godliness will help to ex- plain those of the counterfeit.
Philanthropy proposes as its end, advantage to man. Christianity declares that man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever. Its doctrine is that "(^lod hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked also for the day of evil''; that "of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things; to whom be glory for ever and ever." Its one precept is: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and thy nenghbor as thyself."
It is very true that the humanitarians, clamorously reject this great proposition as an odious dogma. Just here, then, they and God join issue. They say that since disinterestedness is the property of every virtuous act, and selfishness is the hate- ful root of vice, in all other beings, it would be immoral in God, thus to propose Himself as His own supreme end, and to arro- gate to Himself the services of all creatures, exhausting their well-being upon Himself. They urge that this would be selfish-
tJtE CRiMfiS Ot* l*HlLA^THttOt»y. 6l
ness more enoiinous than that of sinful men, just as its claims are more vast. They exclaim that this scheme makes God the great egotist of the universe. On the conti-ary, they display tlieir own scheme in enviable contrast for its disintererstedness, as making the welfare of our fellow men the chief end.
These cavils against the Christian law assume that it is in- trinsically wrong for a being to direct his aims to liis own well- being. But this is not true. There is a sense in which self-love is lawful, even for a creature; yea, the absence of it may be positive sin. There is another reason why the selfishness of fallen man is criminal : It is because a question of prior right intervenes. Our Creator puts in claims to the fruits of our ex- istence, which are superior to all others; and therefore it is sin to be supremely selfish, because it robs our Maker of that which we received of Him. But God is indebted to none for His ex- istence and powers. He alone is eternal, uncaused, and inde- pendent. Obviously then, it is invalid to reason that, because, in a creature, supreme egotism would be an odious crime, there- fore it would be a vice in the uncreated God. That regard for one's own well-being which, even in the creature, may be a proper subordinate end, may be in the Creator a most righteous supreme end.
But Christianity can defend itself with more positive ar- guments upon this point. God, being immutable, is ever actuat- ed by the same motives. But when His eternal purpose of crea- tion and providence subsisted in His mind, "before He had made the highest part of the dust of the earth," or laid the foundations of the heavens. He must have been self-moved there- to; for the irrefragable reason, that nothing else existed besides Himself, to be a motive. Is it said that creatures, the future recipients of His beneficence, were present in thought, and were the motives of His pui'pose? The reply is at hand, that they existed as yet, onl}^ in His purpose; which purpose was the ex- pression of His own subjective desire and impulse alone, seeing nothing but Himself existed. Hence the very purpose to create creatures to be the recijnents of His bounty, was simply the re- sult of self-gratification, because the perfections of nature thereby indulged were infinitely benignant. But whatever was God's motive in the earliest eternity, is His motive still; for He is without 'S'ariableness, or shadow of turning."
62 THK CK1M;ES of rillLANTilliOPY.
When it is remembered that we are creatures, it is easily concluded, that our highest duty is to God. He is the author of our existence, our powers, ^ur happiness, and supporter of our nature. He is our proprietor, in a sense so high that all other forms of ownership almost vanish away, when set beside God's. He is, moreover, by His own perfections, the pr^perest object of all reverence, homage, and suitable service. Ko that, mani- festly, it is the highest virtue in the creature, that he should offer to God the supreme tribute of his being and service. But if it is obligatory on the creature to offer this, it cannot be wrong in God to accept it.
Hence, we repeat, God's most proper ultimate end, in all His creation and government, is the gratification of His own adorable perfections in His acting. And the creature's highest duty is nor chiefly to seek his own good, or that of his fellow- creatures; but the glory of God. He is the center, in whom originated all beings, and to whom all should tend. His will and glory is the keystone of the whole moral order of the uni- verse. As it was the gratification of His infinite activity which originated all creature existences, with all their powers of do- ing and enjoying, so it is His self-prompted desire to diffuse His infinite beneficence, which is the spring of all the well-being in the universe. And here is the conclusive answer to the cavil which we have been discussing: How can it be selfishness in God to make the gratification of His own nature His supreme law. where that nature is infinitely unselfish and benevolent? In this light, the objection is seen to be of a piece with that w'retched philosophizing which argues, that, because the losing mother, the sympathizing benefactor, are actuated by their own subjective inipuls(\ in succoring the objects of their kindness, and find pleasure in the act. therefore ir is not disinterested. Common sense, as true philosophy, replies: aye, but is not the pleasure itself a. pleasure in disinterestedness? What higher definition of a disinterested nature can be given, than to say that its most instinctive pleasure is in doing good?
Thus, as God's own most suitable end is the satisfaction of His own excellent perfections; s:) the creature's chief end is to glorify and enjoy Him. This benevolent (Jod has, of course, given the duties of benevolence to man a large place in the law which he has enacted for men; but even in our freest acts of
THE CKIMKS OF PHILAiSTHnopy. 63
beneficence to oiu- fellows, we are required to have a reference siipreiuely to Him whose creariu-es they are. Love to oiir neigh- bor is to be a corollary from love to our God. We are chiefly to seek His glory in their good, as in our own; and these are al- ways in complete haraiDny. Hence it follows that whenever man makes his own. or Ms fellows' good his diief end, he neces- sarily comes short of that good; and the only way to gain it, is to seek the higher eijd. Nor is there a paradox, when we thus say, that in order that man may truly attain his own well-being, he must truly prefer something else to it. Is it not a parallel, and an admitted truth, to say, that it is only when the virtuous man ])refers some better end than applause, in his actions, that they are truly virtuous and deserving of applause? An instruc- tive instance of this grear law of our well-being is found by every one in common life. Who has not experienced this: that the days and the efforts which have been especially devoted to our own enjoyment, have usually disappointed us of enjoyment, while the days, which we devote primaiily to duty, are thicldy strewn with wayside flowers of unexpected pleasure?
Christian philanthropy derives its efficiency, no less than its purity, from this, that it all flows froaii the Christian's love of liis (rod. He is an object, who never disappoints us, who never changes nor forgets; who never shows Himself forgetful or neglectful of our affectionate service; who never disgusts our efforts by unworthiness; and who has pledged the most gen- erous reward to every true act of lunnanity. But if we make man our chief end. he usually shews himself, soon, unworthy to be our end. He alienates our love; he disgusts us by the follies and crimes which cruelly counteract our efforts for his good; he renders us indignant by his ingratitude. Such an idol as this can never animate us with a devotion, which will rise to the pure and enduring self-sacrifice of Christian charity. Hence, if for no worse reason, worldly philanthropy is ever fee- ble, unsteady, evanescent.
But it is time to pursue, in turn, this part of the contrast. The latter si-heme proposes as our most proper and virtuous end, not (Jod's glory; (this would be, say they, to make God the infinite egotist) but man's good. Advantage to man is its high- est aim. And this, the humanitarian claims, is true disinter- estedness. 'Y:\\\^ forbids titHisliuess as the ruling motive to man,
H t^D cMMeS oil PHlLANTIil?Ol»V.
as it disclaims it for Grod. (Might they not as well say at once forbids it to God, also; and thus disclose their real impiety?) This, therefore, they urge, is the true, the morally beautiful and amiable theory of life.
Let us see. By what logic can it be justly denied that whatever is made our highest ultimate end is practically made our God? It is nothing to the purpose that names and titles are politely exchanged, and man is still called the creature, and Jehovah the God. Virtually, the aggregate of humanity is made our true divinity, by being made our moral end; and Je- hovah is only retained (if retained at all) as a sort of omnipo- tent conveniency and Servitor to this creature-God. Further, this result is immediately seen to be involved; that, inasmuch as the philanthropist is himself a part of this aggregate human- ity, "by nature equal" to any other part, he is a part of his own God! He liimself is, in part at least, his own supreme end! Is there no inkling of a supreme egotism here?
But now, if humanity is our supreme end, and if this hu- manity is as truly embodied in one individual of the race, as in all, and if each individual is "by nature equal"; by what valid argument shall that man be refuted in the interests of philanthropy, who shall choose to say, that he recognizes in that humanity embodied in himself, his own nearest, and most attainable end? He may plausibly' add, tliat nature herself sanctions this conclusion, by the powerful and instinctive princi- ple of self-love which she has implanted; and yet more forcibly, that since man's finite powers can only serve this aggregate humianity, by serving some individual or indi\-iduals within it, and efforts directed equally to the whole must be wholly nuga- tory; and since nature has given to each man more efficient means to influence his own destiny than that of any other man, and more direct responsibility therefor, it is ob^ious that his truest virtue will be to seek his own personal good, in prefer- ence to that of any, or of all others? Such is precisely the process, stated with analytic precision, which passes in an in- volved and semi-conscious form, through the minds of myriads af the children of this world, determining them to the supreme indulgence of selfishness. Is not this but an expansion of the process by which Hobbes, that "Leviathan" of infidel philoso-
The crimes of philanthropy. 65
phers, concluded, thiu the normal state of man was a contest of each individual's supreme self-love against each other's?
And now, by what argument shall it be refuted, from the humanitarian premises? Will men attempt it, by adopting the scheme of Jonathan Edwards, which defined virtue as "love to being in general,"' and required the first love to be given to the greatest aggregate of being? Will they say that one should prefer the good of mankind to his own, because the race offers a larger aggregate of humanity than the individual? This will hardly be ventured at this day, after the extravagant deduc- tions of Godwin's Political Justice have displayed the absur- dity of the theory. But besides, since the devil and Ids angels are exceedingly numerous, and creatures majestic in natural endowments compared with man. it is probable that they pre- sent a greater aggregate of being than mankind; whence it would follow, that we are morally bound to prefer the welfare of demons to that of men. Shall the theory be amended, then, by saying that it is the largest aggregate of virtuous being, only, which claims our preference, and first love? Then, first, suffer- ing humanity would share least; because ours is a guilty and depraved race; and usually, men's miseries (and so their need of philanthropic aid) are in proportion to their sins. And sec- (uid: since God presents immeasurably the largest aggregate of virtuous being, this leads ns back to God as our supreme end; l)recisely the result which the humanitarian desires to shun.
Or will the refutation of inordinate selfishness be sought from the more harmless theory of Jouffroy; that, as the human i-eason, educated by experience, compares the instinctive de- sires of its fellow men for their personal good, with its own, it recognizes their eqtiality, and generalizes the law of the golden rule, as the proper moral order of the whole? The ready answer is, that if this is the moral order, then it is recognized by the ■pure reason as the obligatory order. But obligation implies an obligator; so that, by this process again, we are led back to God; and our virtue is made to consist in conformity to his supreme will. But,. if the moral is rightfully the dominant faculty in man, does not this also make God our supreme end?
We reaffirm the charge, that on humanitarian grounds, an absolute selfishness is a logical conclusion; so that the boast of disinterestedness which tliey make, is found hollow; and the
66 THE CRIMES OF PHIL AJS' THRO PY.
reproach they attempt to cast upon Christianity is retorted up- on themselves. It is a isigniflcant confirmation of this charge, that tliis egotistical conclusion has been expressly avowed by one school among those most subtile of anti-Christian philoso- phers, the G-erman Idealists. This party, asserting that the whole materials of human thought are to be found in the data of our consciousness alone, then declare, that consciousness gives us naught but our own ideas, that what we delusively call the objective sources of our sensations and perceptions, are nothing more than the necessary limitations of our own thought and feeling. Thus no evidence remains for the existence of an 'Outer world of either mind or spirit distinct from the conscious self; and the only universe Which remains is the something which thinks. Self, God, the world, are reduced to one; and that one is not a personal being, but an eternal impersonal pow- er of thought. "Now," says the German Pantheist, in the last refinements of his frightful theory; ''since I, God, humanity, are one, let either God or humanity be the proper end of exist- ence, since these are only developed consciously to me in my- self, self is the nearest and properest object to receive this su- I)reme homage; and absolute self-gratification is my highest ra- tional end. Whatever I happen to prefer is to me, the truest and chiefest good; whatever I happen to will, is the highest right."
Hence the reflecting man need not 'be surprised to find these humanitarians, who set out with the proudest boasts of benevo- lence,' end with the most engrossing selfishness. The highest professors of this creed have ever been the most cruel of men.
The inipotency of this system for good is farther explained by comparison with another law of Christian benevolence. As the latter is founded on the love of God, for its motive, and looks to a future recompense for its personal reward, so it re- quires the Christian who "would go about doing good," to re semble his Saviour in his spirit of self-sacrifice. Says the Apos- tle John: "Hereby perceive we the love (of God) because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren"— and Paul, suffering for God's people, "filled up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ, in his flesh for His body's sake, which is the church." It is true that to purchase atoning merit, or make satisfaction to Divine jus-
ITIE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY. 67
tice for others' guilt is a liijj;li pivrojijative, iu which the suti'er- iiig:s of the Son of (lad must be forever unapproachable. But in the lower sense, there is a true analogy between the work of the ''Man of Sorrows," when he "bare our grief, and carried our sorrows," and the beneficence of his followers. In all their efforts to relieve human isuffering Christians must suffer vicar- iously: they can only lift olf the burden of a fellow man, by bearing a part of it themselves. Their philanthro])ic ministry is destined to be, like the humiliation of their Redeemer, essen- tially a. season of trial; although clieered by not a few of those glimpses of solace drawn by hope from "the gloi-y that should follow," which caused Christ, in the midst of His toils to "re- joice in spirit." The glory and blessedness are chietiy future, and are with (rod. Now these are the conditions of a life of true philanthropy; and the Christian's faith arms him with forces which enable him to fulfill them. But not so the phil- anthropy of the humanitarian. Its good element is nothing more than the natural law of sympathy. As this word indicates, this reflected emotion shares the pain by which it is excited; but the effort to relieve that pain is also succeeded by an instinctive j)leasure, which in man's imperfect heart is never wholly dis- interested, but involves some elements of iself-love, and appe- tite for applause. So it appears that the calculated end of all such acts of beneficence is this personal pleasure. Does one say, that sympathy also acts by an instinctive and involuntary impulse? True; but can an uncalculating instinct be relied on. to produce and regulate a systematic life of benevolence? Nay verily — man will never be nerved to the habitual, sustained en- durance of suffering, by an impulse to personal pleasure: it is contradiction.
One other fact remains to be mentioned, which the humani- tarian studiously ignores, but which the Bi'ble asserts. None but God can truly elevate fallen and sutfering humanity. Death, and all the ills which are its foretastes, caime 'by sin; and sin reigns in human hearts, with a dominion which nothing but oin- nipotent power can break. All that human love can do is to labor with God. as humble instruments, looking and praying that He may give "the preparation of the heart," and lift \\\i the sufferers by a true and permanent restoration. Moreover, if our toils are a failure as to their objects, by reason of the withhold-
68 THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.
ing of this sovereign agency, they cannot be a failure as to God's glory and our recompense. These are sure, whether the sufferer rise or sink, if our efforts are made in iove and faith. But now, it is manifest from this great truth, as it is shown by actual ex- perience, Xh^lfailure must be the result of all unbelieving phil- anthropy, in the end. Its objects refuse to be rescued thorough- ly; or they sink again. In asserting this, we take our stand up- on the field of history, and boldly ask: where is the human de- vice for the amelioration of man's sin and misery, which has not terminated, sooner or later, in failure? Where is the form of liberal government, the moral reform society, the temper- ance society, the agency of civilization, which has accomplished its work, and preserved it? But when this worldly philanthropy fails, as fail it must, what is to solace' its mortification, its dis- appointed self-love, its indignation at the unworthiness of its objects?
Another application of the fact of human depravity re^ mains; it affects the philanthropists themselves, as well as their !>bjects. Their justice, benevolence, and sympathy are imper- fect fragments amidst the ruins of their fallen nature. These ruins, none but God can reconstruct; and this He does through the grace revealed in Christianity. The discussion has hither- to 'been conducted upon the assumption claimed by the human- itarians, that the motives prompting their intervention were in- nocent; and all that has been hitherto urged is their insuffi- ciency. But this is not the whole of the argument. God's in- fallible truth declares that all men, the philanthropists and the sufferers, the pliilosophers and their pupils, are fallen creatures; that true righteousness is overpowered in them by sin, that the partial good impulses which remain as the reliques of paradise are inferior and weak, and that the various elements of selfish- ness are in the ascendant in every unregenerate will. Partial impulses of social affection, of generosity, of sympathy, of hon- or, illuminate in different degrees the natures of these men; and far be it from us to deny their sincerity, but they are not in the permanent ascendant. Sin is the ruler and tyrant of all natural hearts. Now, if these things are indeed so, and the hu- manitarians obstinately refuse to admit them, their blindness to the nature of their own motives only aggravates their reck- lessness, and the danger of mischief. Is their intervention for
THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY. 69
tlieir suffering fellow men prompted by genuine sympatln'? Let it be admitted; but this principle is unstable; and so surely as they are men, the other principles, love of power, iDve of ap- plause, conceit, pride, ambition, self-righteousness, or some of them, are mingled in some ratio, in every beneficent action. Let the unworthinetss or ingratitude of the objects, or mortifica- tion of failure, or opposition concerning the methods of benevo lence, supervene, and how easily, how naturally, do the move- ments of philanthropy slide into those of the malignant emo- tions. Thus is generated the monster, fanaticism; in which all that remains of the beneficent purpose is a pretext, to blind the mind of the fanatic to the true nature of his emotions, and to sanctify to himself all their enormities. The cold and glittering enthusiasm of the imagination is coimbined with the malignant passions of self-displaj^, lust of power, and hatred; and the whole, borrowing the sacred name of philanthropy, goes forth upon its destroying career.
The true character of this fanaticism may be disclosed by easy tests. If love were tlie true spring of its pretended zeal, tliat benignant emotion ought to dis])lay itself consistently, in the general life, and especially in the daily practiced duties of home and family, which should hold the first place in every healthy conscience. But when the private life of your fiery de- claimer against social wrongs is examined, it is usually found to be characterized by domestic harshness, injustice and selfish- ness; his wife, his children, his servj'.nts, feel little of that abounding beneficence which he delights to ventilate abroad concerning the wrongs of the distant and unknown. On the other hand, the men of practical kindliness, who actualh^ exer- cise a generous and self-denying benevolence, in that home- s[)here, where benevolence is most practicable, are seldom found among these self-constituted assertors of the wrongs of human- ity. Moreover, let any individual among the pretended objects of his sympathy be brought to their own door, and thrown upon this actual help; he will be very likely to find it a most unsub- stantial dei)endence. The fiery philan-fhropist will speedily reach him that while he is very willing to gratify Ms malice by scolding his opponents, or his pride by parading his benevo- lence, he has little thought of sacrificing either his own money or convenience for the sufferer.
70 THE CRIMES OF PHILANTHROPY.
F'rom this pisition, the mischievous and corniptiiij? effects of preached crusades against organized siocial systems which are supposed to be evil, receives a facile explanation. Chris- tianity and its true ministers make it their main business to ad- dress the individual; and their topics are his own duties and sins. They separate him, they tell him his spiritual necessities; they say: "Thi»u art the man"; they tfMcli him to make his own spiritual amendment his chief care. Thus, by sanctifying each individual, human society is effectually regenerated; and or- ganic evils easily disappear. Hut when once the pulpit is per- verted to declaim habitually against the public sins of com- munities, and to agitate for their reform, the individual is en- couraged to loise sight of his own errors (the only ones he is re- sponsible for, or able to reform), and to occupy himself with the wrong-doings of others. But these are of course, painted in constant contrast with his own rectitude; so that this preaching, in.stead of inculcating humility and sanctity, is nothing but a aninistratian of spiritual pride, arrogance, and hatred. And hence its popularity. It is much more agreeable to an evil heart, to be reniind(Hl of its own superior excellence, and to be invited to the work of reviling its opponents, than to be sum- moned to the toils of self-discipline, the mortifications of per- sonal contrition, and the crucifixion of carnal affections.
REPLYOFR. LDABNEY, I). D,
To the Letter of General Joseph E. Johnston, Criticising Dr. Dabney's Narrative of the First Battle of Manassas. To the Editors of Richmond Dispatch, June 21, 1861 .
(Tentleiiieii: Accident recently brought to my attention the remarks published in your paper .of March 24:th by General Jo- seph E. Johnston upon the narration of the part borne by the Stonewall brigade in the battle of Manassas contained in niij life of (leneral T. J. Jackson. So far as these corrections have revealed error in my statements, I receive them thankfully, and shall not fail to employ them, as soon as it is in w\\ power, for the perfecting of the accuracy of my narration. The high posi- tion and services of General Johnston, which none honor and appreciate more ci)rdially than myself, do indeed render it al- most a presumptuous attempt to question the correctness of any of his representations, especially when made by one in my ob- scure place. But even to such a one the reputation for integrity of purpose, at least, is very jtrecious. I therefore beg leave to exhibit in your columns some of the testimonies by which I sup- pose myself to be sustained in the statements made. 1 hope ev- ery reader will be charitable enough, when he examines these witnesses, to conclude that, if I have been misled, it wjjs with- out evil intentions, and was not unnatural with such guides be- fore me. I shall take up the points which I purpoise to notice mainly in the order of General Johnston's letter.
1. But first, I must endeavor to acquit myself of the charge of disparaging some of General Jackson's comrades, whom, if I knew my own thoughts, I was only seeking, in my bungling way, to honor. General Johnston says: "This account of the battle does great injustice to General Beauregard, and to Bee's and Early's brigades ;vnd their commanders. General Jackson's great fame is in no degree enhanced by such disparagements of his associates." The reader is requested to bear in mind the following genera] caution against such impressions contained
72 REPLY OF R. L. DA15NEY, D, D.
in iny preface, page 0: "And especially would I declare that, in relating the share borne by General Jackson's comrades and subordinates in his campaigns, I have been actuated by a cordial and friendly desire to do justic-^ to all. If I shall seem to any to have done less than this, it will be my misfortune, and not my intention." But it is more to the point to refer to my words oi) page 215 of the narrative: ''The other twa" (reserve bri- gades) "were those of Generals Bee and Jackson, and the hero- ism of these two was sufficient to reinstate the wavering for- tunes of the day," etc. Bee i-s mentioned first, and with the same approbation as Jackson. Is tliis a disparagement? On page 218. I say of Bee and Evans: "For two hours these two officers, with five regiments and six guns, had breasted the Fed- eral advances." etc. (I had before stated th:it this advance was nf 20,000 men.) Does tliis disparage Bee? On page 222 I at- tempt in my poor way to describe Bee's heroic end. exactly as it was detailed to me by those who saw it, in the most honora- ble words I could find. Oeneral Early and his brigade are men- tioned by name, but their exploits are not described fully, be- cause they acted on another part of the field, and had no special connection, as Bee had, with the movements of my own subject. Jacksion. And finally, on page 228. to guard against any pos- siWe apprehension unjust to others, these words are inserted: "The object of this narrative has been to give such a sketch of the whole battle as to make the part borne by the Stonewall brigade and its leader intelligible. -r.wA to give fuller details of the conduct of the General who^e life is the subject of this work. The reader will not infer from this that all the stubbtrn and useful fighting was done by Jackson and his command. Other officers and other brigades displayed equal heroism, and con- tributed essentially to the final result," etc.
2. General Johnston questions my correctness in the ac- count I gave of the surrender of C:>lonel Jackson's command to him at Harper's Ferry. The point of difference between them was. that whereas General Johnston claimed to relieve Colonel J., at once, the latter refused to surrender his trust until au- thorized in some sliajje to do so by those who had committed it to him — his State authorities. And the point of difference be- tween General Johnston and me now is that I say Colonel J. was inflexible, and actually continued to hold his pawer until,
REPLY OF R L. DABiSTEY, D. D- 73
oppoi-tunely. the anrliority to transfer it raiuc in tlie sliapo of an eudorsenieut of General Lee on a paper; wliile General John- ston says: "There was no display of inflexibility on Jackson's l»art/" that he was euli<;hted by Majjr Whiting, and that my representation "does injustice to General Jackson's character.'' I did not conceive that it was my business as a historian to re- liect whether the incident was favorable or unfavorable to Gen- eral Jackson's character, but to tell the exact trutli as it haj*- jieucd. That I did not misrej)reseut it is shown by the letter wliicli (Jeneral Johnstjn himself quotes, saying: "Until I re- ceive further instructions from Governor Letcher or (Jeneral Lee I do not feel at liberty to transfer my command to anothei*. and must therefore decline publishing- the order," etc. ' I have had the very letter containing General Lee's endoi'sement — which happily solves the diflflculty — in my p3ssession. (I re- turned it to Mrs. J., who doubtless has it now.) And if any one questions whether Colonel J. had receded from his i)ositi(»n before receiving it. I would suggest that he ask the fact of his aid. Colonel James Massie, 3f Lexington, Va.
8. I now pass to another point. General Jidinsron. dis- senting fr.om any o])inii)n that it wdiild liave been better to marcli the remainder of the Army of the Valley direct to the bar- tlefield from PieduiDut statiou, instead of waiting upon con- fused and dilatory trains of cars, sa^vs: "The fact that tlu^e tro'opvsi were two days in marching twenty-three miles from (Winchester to Piedmiont) shows that they could not have marched thirty-four miles, from Piedmont to the scene of ac- tion, in less than two days, and that the only hope of getting tliem into the battle was by the railroad.''
I had spoken of Jackson as having made a forced march of thirty miles from Piedmont, which is charged as an error, liut I expressly re})resented that march as beginning, uot at \\'in- chester. but neu'th of Winchester (p. 211). But grant a slight error of miles here. From Piedmont ta Gainsville is twenty- six miles, and by a map furnished me from the bureau of Gen- eral Gilmer of the Engineers, Gainsville is four miles from Groveton b;v turnpike. So that the distance to be marched on foot, to get intj action, was thirty miles, not thirty-four. Now. General Jackson, on that occasion, marched to Piedmont in one day. Why could not the rest of the troops do the same? They
T4 F.EPLY OF K. L. DABXEY, D. D.
left Wiiu-liester ;rt 12 m. Thursday. The third day brought ex- actly midday d the great battle. The next March, in short days. General Jackson marched his army seventy-five miles in three da^vw. and fought the battle of Kernstown besides. Why could not the remainder of the Army of the Valley march fifty- three miles (General Johnston's measure to Groveton) in three days, when there was no battle to fight by the way? My opin- ion was. obviously, not grounded on the supposition that the rrooj)s were to be allowed to dawdle along the road in a man- ner which General Jackson's brigade ]»roved to be unneces- sary. As to the destitution of food ar riedmont, xhjse who ques- tion the fact are respectfully referred to tlie officers and men of the Thirty-eighth Virginia regiment (foi- instance). They will receive from tliem statements which will account very fully for my impression on that subject. No explanation of the fact was advanced by me.
4. The next point of General Johnston's criticism is my account of General Beauregard's first plan o'f action and its re- linciuishment. If the reader will collate the different para- graphs in which I state that matter (from pp. 218 to 217) he will find that my representation was substantially this: That General B.'s original plan had been to take the aggressive and attack at Centerville, but S3 few of the troops of General J. had arrived by Saturday night that he was com])elled to postpone it; that when the enemy took the initiative, Sunday morning. General B. still recimimended the carrying out of ^so much of tliat original plan as to advance our right and center on Center- ville as sojn as the enemy's ]»urposf to direct his main attack on our extrtMue left was perceived, which suggestion General J. accepted; that corresponding orders for sucli a movement of the right and cf'uter were actually issiied. and that tliey miscar- ried; that when the fact became apparent that thoise orders were not executed in suflicient time, the generals necessarily relinquished that excellent plan, and wisely contented them- selves with bringing up everything within reach for the imme- diate support of the left. Let the reader now consider the fol- lowing authorities hy w^hich I attempted to guide myself, and I think he will feel that I have committed no serious error, and certainly no intentional one:
General Ewell, then brigadier (whose letter I have before
REPLY OF K. L. DABNKY, D. D. 75
me), savis: "His (B."s) plan for sonic time, as explained in f re- fluent inferviews with his brigade coniiiianders, had been ta move forward his ri<;iit and center, and attack." Next (leneral B., in his otiticial report, says that at 4:.'i0 a. m. of the 21st (Sun- day) he lordei-ed these ti'oops to be in readiness. (\Vhicli order General Kwell states he received and observed.) Next, in an- other part of his report (Jeneral B. istates that he thonjiht an attack by his rij^ht winjj; and center was the best means of re- lieving his leftj an<] tliat the dispositions were submitted to General Johnstcm, and the orders issued. Next, a letter from General B. to (General Ewell, July 2(5, ISOl, has the following words: "I do not attach the slif^htest bhtinie to you for the fail- ure of the ULovement on Centerville, bnt to the jj^uide, who did not deliver the order to move forward, si'ut at about 8 o'clock a. ni. to General Holmes, and then to you — corresponding in ev- ery respect to the one sent to (lenerals -I ones, Lonostreet, and Ivonham — only their movements were snbordinate to yours." * * * "I am fully awaiv that yon did all that could be ex- pected of you or your command. I mereh' expressed my re- gret that my original '}»lan conld not be carried into effect, as it would have been a most coniplete victory witli only half the trouble and fighting. The true cauise of countermanding your forward movement after you had crossed was that it was then too late, as the enejny were about to annihilate our left flank, and had to be met and checked there, for otherwise he would have taken us on the flank and rear, and all would have been lost." ''N. B. — The order sent you at about 8 a. m. to commence the movement on Centerville was addressed to General Holmes and 3'ourself, as he was to support you; but being nearer Camp Pickeus, the headquarters, than Union IMills, where you were, it was to be communicated to him fii'st, and then to you; but he has informed me that it never reached him." Tlius wrote Gen- eral Beauregard to General Ewell five days after the battle. If I understaud the points of General Johnston's objections to my rendering of the facts hei'e given, they are these: First. That I err in rei)resenting the giving of the orders to advance the right and center as occurring when the Yankee attack on the left was developed; whereas, says General Johnston, they were then countermanded. (10:;')0 a. m. is the hour lie gives.) And Becond. That I disparage General Beauregard by representing
76 REPLY OF U L. DABXKY, D D.
him as doing a foolish and ruinous thing, which, had lie done it, would have kept six brigades out of tiie fight, and surely lost the ddy. Xow, the reader should note that it is not I, but Gen- eral Johnston, who gives 10:80 a. m. as the earliest hour at which lunidquarters knew where the -main Yankee attack was to be. (I, for my part, should not have dreamed of making so disparaging a statement.) I didn't presume bo mention the hour. But I represented Greneral B. as still entertaining the jmrpose of advancing his right and center after it was perceived our left wa;3 to be the main point of attack, and as the best means of relieving it. Does not General Beauregard's letter bear me out? General J. says General B. could not have list- ened for the thunder of his batteries on the heights of Center- ville, for none was sent there. Does not General B.'s letter de- clare that /le thoti^ht he had sent some there? Last, says Gen- eral J., six brigades would have been kept out of the fight. These six were Holmes's, Ewell's, P^arly's. Jones's. Longstreet's, and Bonham's. I reply, (5) five were kept out. Early's w^as the only one of the six actually engaged on the left. Holmes's, the only one of the rest which reached the ground, was in position, but did not fire a musket. But take General Johnston's own figures, whicli show that at half-past 10 o'clock a. m. he learned, at once, that the orders for the advance of the right and center had miscarried, and that the main A'ankee attack was on the left. Could not Generals. Bonham, Longstreet, Jones, and Ew- ell, still have marched three miles and a half to Centerville, having been in readiness to do so since half-past 4 a. m.? Jack- son held the key to the position on Young's branch until 3 p. m., and certainly received no aid from these brigades.
5. The next, and doubtless the main point with General Johnston, is the oinnion advanced by General Jackson and de- fended by me — that the pursuit sliould have been pressed, and Washington threatened. General Johnston justifies his cav- alry for not pursuing farther, because, says he, ''it was driven back by the solid resistance of the United States infantry." In the same paragraph he says: "The infantry was not reciuired to continue the pursuit, because it would have been harrassing it to no purpose. It is well known that infantry unencumbered by baggage trains can easily escape pursuing infantry." Thus we are told in the same breath that the Yankee infantry was
REPLY OF R. L. DABNEY, D.D. 77
running so fast that it was useless for the conquering Confed- erate infantry to fatigue itself by trying to overtake it; and that the Yankee infantry was at the same time standing so staunchly as to beat off Radford's regiment of cavalry, and to make attack by all the Cbnfederate cavalry (J. E. B. Stuart's regiment, etc.) improper. If the Yankees wei'e making so bold a stand, was not that a place for the conquering infantry to strike'.'
But 'farther: The Yankee resistance by which Colonel Rad- ford's onset was momentarily arrested (he being temporarily unsupported) was not solid, and .-hould not have put an end to the pursuit. The evidence is in a letter from Colouel Delaware Kemper, of the artillery, now under my eye, which states that "immediately after the repulse of the enemy'?; tiual attack he accompanied Colonel Kershaw" (who then was followed by his own and Cash's South Carolina regiment) "in pursuit of the enemy along the turnpike. About dark we arrived within 300 or 400 yards of the suspension bridge over Cub Run, and found the fugitives along the turnpike crowding across the bridge, mingled with the Yankee troops who were retreating by the Sudley road, which intersects the turnpike just west of this bridge. I opened fire upan these masses and elicited no reply; but in a few minutes not a Yankee was within range, all having fled towards Centerville, leaving in our hands fifteen or sixteen pieces of artillery, many wagons, etc." Thus Captain Kemper, pursued beyond the point at whic-h oiu- cavalry was temporarily checked, showing that it should have gone on. With reference to the recalling of infantry from the pursuit to meet an imag- inary advance of Yankees on our extreme right. General John- ston simply flouts the whole statement, and says:
''No troops were recalled from the chase, and sent seven or eight miles, by night or day, to meet an imaginary enemy." When the reader considers the following testimony his breath will probably be as nearly taken away by this as mine was. 1 have under my eye a letter from Colonel R. E. Withers, com- manding the Eighteenth Virginia regiment, from which I ex- tract the following words:
"The Eighteenth Virginia was the first regiment which crossed Bull Run in pursuit. Kershaw's Second South Carolina and Cash's Eighth South Carolina following almost immediate- ly. The officers of these (3) three regiments had a rapid con-
78 KEPLY OF R L. DABNEJY, D D
saltation, and agreed upon tlie mode of advance, and speedily I>iit the men in morion, moving by columns of companies on each side of the pike. Before proceeding very far, however, I received, through an officer of General Beauregard's staff, an order of recall, directing me to march my regiment back to the Stone bridge. About the time we reached the bridge another officer rode up, and inquired as to the condition of my regiment and its capacity for further service. My reply was that the men were wearied and hungry, but that the bss of the regi- ment in battle had not exceeded forty or fifty, and that we were ready to perform any duty which might be deemed neces- sary. He then told me that 'the General" had just received in- formation that a heavy column of the enemy was advancing in the direction of Union Mills, threatening an attack on Manas- sas junction, and as all the trooiis had been withdrawn from that place, it was in great danger. This was just before sun- set. We immediately started for Manassas, and pushed forward as rapidly as the exhausted condition of the men would permit. When we reached the 'McLean House,' near Manassas, we were met by orders directing us to go to Camp Walker, on Bull Run a short distance above Union Mills; which >place we reached about midnight. The next morning we were ordered back to Manassas, and thence to our former position near Ball's ford, on Bull Kun. where we bivouacked in the rain, and remained until Tuesday evening, or Wednesday morning. ♦ * * | presumed that several other regiments received orders similar, as they also were marched back to Manassas, and one or two of them to Gamp Walker." So far Colonel Withers. Colonel H. A. Carrington, then of the Eighteenth Virginia, says: "We. af- ter sunset, marched seven miles in the direction of our lines on the right, when the rumored advance proved to be unfounded, and the regiment was permitted to rest for the night. The next day, in a drenching rain, we were marched back to the battle- field, and camped on the banks of Bull Run within one-quarter of a mile of the scene of confiict.''
With reference to the question of pursuit and of threaten- ing Washington City, let us first consider how far my position extends. On page 236 this is rery distinctly defined in the fol- lowing words: ''They (the generals) are not to be condemned by history because they did not take Washington, but because
KEPLY OF R. L. DABNEY. D D. 79
they didn't try." Even this qualified opinion I should uever have presumed to advance before the public on my own judj^- ment or on that of the amateur sohliers and newspaper critics, whom General Johnston so justly despises. Ir was only when I was confirmed in it by the great authority of General Jack- son that I ventured to advance it; and my motive was only t(j defend his credit, after stating, as the truth of history compelled me to do, the fact of his expressing such opinions. It was in May or June, 1802, that, being alone with General Jackson in his quarters, I ventured to mention the general expectation and desire of our troo'ps at Manassas to endeavor at once to im- prove our victory, and to ask him whether that desire was ig- norant and foolish. His brow immediately knit, and striking his little writing table with his hand, he replied: "The neglect of the attempt was a deplorable blunder. Did you know, that on the morning after the battle 10,000 fresh troops reached Manassas, expecting nothing but to be led against the enemy?" I replied:
"I myself saw large arrivals, for I had gone with our wounded from the battlefield to the Junction, and witnessed the coming in of nearly a mile of cars clustered with soldiers like swarming bees, all cheering and shouting, but I did not know how many of them there were." General Jackson said: "Yes, sir, there were ten thousand of them." He then proceeded briefly, but emphatically, to state the leading ideas on which I grounded the discussion in my book. As my word anay go for nothing in this matter, I may here say in passing that if any one doubts whether I represent General Jackson's opinion aright herein, he can satisfy himself l)y resorting to the Hon. Alexander Boteler, to wliom (}(meral Jackson expressed sub- stantially the same view^ in July, 1S(;2, at Harrison's lauding. General Johnston thinks that had Jackson estimated the policy at Manassas as I represent him, he could not have refrained from expostulating. All I can say is, that I heard him say what I 'have above stated. Poni' days after tlie battle (he being then under General Johnston's orders), I heard some one ask him the (jucstion why the cufMuy were not ])ressed? wIkmi he i*ei)lie!l. with a (luiet smile, and a caution which; suppn^ssed even the faintest intimation of his jtrivate opini(Hi on his countcnanct', "You will have to ask that of (Jciieral Johnston." liiil in 1S()2
80 REPLY OF n. L. DABNET, D.t).
I heard General Jaeksou, wheu uo ioiigei' under Jiis urdei\s. ex- X>ress the strong dissent stated above. I suppose the exphina- tion is to be found in his well known subordination, silence, and modest}^ towards suj)eriors. And if I have been in error as to the number of fresh troops, the mistake was General Jack- son's, and not mine. The same fact may account, in part, for the statement, on page 239, that the Confederate forces had grown in autumn to an aggregate of 60,000. Has General Johnston, after all, denied this? It is not my purpose so much to argue the polic}' of pursuing our victor}' at first Manassas as to exhibit the supposed evidences of facts claimed in my narrative. But it may be said that if the opinion supported in my book is erroneous, it is an error which is found in very large and very good company. It finds plausibility in the exalted authority of General Jackson. I have never conversed with more than one intelligent Southerner who did not share it with me. It receives countenance from many of high authority among our conquerors. Many readers will recall, for example, the admission of the Yankee Brigadier-General Prentice, cap- tured by General Beauregard at Shiloh, who frankly declared that in failing to improve our victory at Manassas we had lost our opportunity; that the United States had just then reached the temporary limit of their existing munitions and means; that the temper of the nation would probably not have en- dured farther disaster; but that now all was changed, and our chance had passed away. The common sense of the people, Xorth and South, reasoned that if the Confederates could not (for some reason, whatever it might be) so improve the hour of most brilliant success as to cripple the powers of their ad- versary for future aggression, then obviously their gallantry must be vain in the end, and must fail before superior num- bers. It was this thought which encouraged the North as they recovered from their fright. It was this which filled thought- ful men with foreboding among us. General Johnston points to the failure of the invasions of 1862 and 1863 as proofs that he judged wisely. I point to the fact that Generals Lee and Jackson and the Government judged successes should thus be followed up as proof that the same opinion was not absurd in 1861. I point also to the fact that the invasions of 1862 and 1863 both came verv near being successful. The former, ac-
REPLY OF R. L D.\B>rF.Y, D D. 81
coi'diiio- ro the best officers, was only defeated by the stragglinj^ of our sDldiers. The latter broughr the Yankee empire to the A( rgi of ruin, as they very plainly felt at +he tinn . lUit my chief answer here is that the case of 1801 was wholly diflt'erent from the two subsequent, and the reasoning from them to it is very much as though one should argue that because iu two cases com planted in November did not thrive, therefore he did right to neglect planting in April. In 1862 and 1803 the Yan- kees had had time to prepare and to equalize their inferior ma- terial to arms by drill and experience. In 1801, when both were inexperienced, was the time for us to employ our superior morale. General Johnston, referring to our victories at second Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, says: "On these occasions tlie forces defeated were ten times as numerous as those repulsed on the 21st of -Tuly. 1801. and their losses twenty times as great." He has told us that McDowell brought 10,000 against him. Does he mean to say that Burnside or Hooker had. either of them, 400,000? McDowell's loss was es- timated by (feneral Beauregard at some 1.000. Was Hooker's 80,000? He doubtless uses the words ''defeated''' and ''repulsed'' intentionally. Did Hooker or Burnside retire across the Kap- pahannock in so much greater dis;)rder than McDowell fled to tlie I*otomac? But to the facts: General Johnston declared that the troops could not have been subsisted on the country of the vicinage in an advance on Alexandria, because the army of McDowell, passing over it twice, had doubtless stripped it bare. He forgets that this army was commanded by General Scott, who, recreant as he was to his native land, did not con- duct war on savage methods; that he sent out his troops fully supplied for the march; and that their Hight was itoo fright- ened and rapid for foraging. Tlu' fact is, tliat they left the resources of the vicinage untouched. It was on my return to Centerville after the battle that I found a herd of sixty beeves on a farm a mile from the village, which had been precluded fi'om their intended market iu Alexandria by the hostilities. And I have the testimony of Golonel Mosby that the neighlvor- hood would then have al)undanlly supplied a marching army. As to distance, the engineers of the Orange and Alexandria railroad state that ^lanassas junction is twenty-seven nriles from Alexandria. The distance by turnpike is not much' dif-
82 REPLY OF R. L. DABNEY, D.D.
fereiil; uiid the Stuue bridge is by that I'oad nearer Alexandria than is the junction. My estimate of the disorganized condi- tion of the Yankee troops after the battle is denied on the au- thority of the reports of their general oflflcers; and we are told of three divisions unscathed of battle. Let the reader con- sider if my impressions were not excusable in view of the fol- lowing facts: First. The public has not yet forgotten the lively descriptions of Mr. Kussel, the correspondent of the Lon- don Times, by whose truthful pictures the Yankees were so in- tensely mortified. He was surely not a mere heedless, unpro- fessional relator like me. He had carefully studied, as an eye- witness, the great operations of the Crimean war. Next, I will give some facts which will show the real condition of the Y'^an- kee reserves, and of those bodies of their troops which are re- ported as having retired in so steady and orderly a manner. In a letter from Colonel Del. Kemper, relating to his pursuit aibove mentioned, are the following words: ^'I subsequently learned that these troops were under General Burnside, who claimed that they were retiring in good order until the artil- lery fire above spoken of created the stampede, which he did not pretend to deny. Their failure to respond to my fire mates me doubt their previous good order." A mile south of Center- ville lived (and I hope still lives) an excellent gentleman named Thomas Stuart, whose Christian hospitalities many a sick and hungry Confederate blessed. He remained on his own premises the whole of Sunday, the 21st. He told me that when the stream of fugitives and vehicles came back, a reserve division of Federal infantry was drawn up across his fields; that as the confusion increased they began to waver; that they were then broken merely by the influence of their own comrades' flight, and a'bout sunset they joined their rout, flying so precipitately as to leave his fields scattered over with knapsacks, etc., in such quantity that on the-morrow, he and his servants turning out in the rain, hauled in a granary full of them for the Con- federate officers. Y^et no armed Confederate had come within cannon shot of these brave reserves. Mr. Stuart was visited by numerous Confederate officers on Monday, and in fact arrested by one of them in a moment of misunderstanding, and rudely carried to the guardhouse at Manassas. Is it said such facts were not known at headquarters? I reply by the question:
R1??LY OF R L. DABNKY, D. D. 83
Ought not lieadquartei's to liave been better infoiineJ llian an obscure person like nn^? Do nol coninianders employ efficient iseouts? Again, General McDowell, on his return to Centerville, called together his general officers and advised with them. After debate, it was resolved to fall back on the lines of Arlington. But when the generals sei)arated, and went to the ii]ac(\s where their several divisions had been ordered to bivouack. they found them all silent and vacant — their troops had come to the same conclusion much more i)romptl.v. Again, there was a reserved division advanced to tlie little village ;)f (Termantown, six miles back of Centerville. This body broke at the sight of their fug-itive comrades, and concluding that the Confedei'ates, with bloody bayont^s, were close beliind the crowd, wisely took the r;)ad aliead of their brethren, instead of letting" them pass and covering their retreat. I quote again from Colonel Kemper: "Soon after the close of the war, I re- turned to my home in Alexandria, Va., and learned from gen- tlemen, residents of that city, that no c:)nsiderable body of men returned to Alexandria from ^Nlamissas in a state of organiza- tion; and that the garrisons of at least some"^ of the forts cover ing Alexandria and Washington spiked their guns in expecta- tion of the coming of the Confederates."
I trust that, with such statements before me, I may be pard(med for believing notwithstanding Yankee assertions, that their army was disorganized.
AYith reference to the fortifications at Washington, the navigable river, and the ships-of-war, I ]»resume that the ex- pectation entertained by sensibh^ nu-n, who hoped that an at- tempt w:)uld be made to imi»rove our success, was that so lu- cidly explained as his own l)y (Colonel Mosby. It was, not that we should sit down in Alexandria, to be pelted out <by ships-of- war, n )r that we should stu}tidly besiege foi-ts without a siege apparatus, but that, remembering the J'otomac ceases to be a navigable river ai Washington, and that the forts on the north and east sides of the city had no existence until aftei-wards, un- der ^IcClellan. we should do what Lee and -Jackson did in ISOli — promptly cross above Washington, avail ourselves of our su- periority of cavalry (McDowell had but six companies, almost totally disorganized, at the first collision, July ISth). place our- selves between the city and the routed army and General Put-
84 REPLY OF R. L. DABNEY, D. D.
terson, and effectually' interrupt the railroad lines to Washing- ton, while we put ourselves in communication with the South- ern party in Baltimore. // was this which we hoped to see at- tempted; and we thought that there was enough reason to hope that it wauld result in the hurried evacuation of Washiugron, and so, in great political and moral results, to indicate the pol icy of a prompt and vigorous exi>eriment.
This leads to the question of fact as to the expectation ac- tually prevalent in the army. General Johnston does not "be- lieve that this bombast was really uttered in the army." (The allusion is to the passage on p. 233. The rhetoric I relinquish undefended, as becomes a decorous author at the bar of criti- cism; and the more cheerfully as it is not my own. The fact is, that / heard this very simile uttered by one of the ablest and most enlightened men in Virginia, and connected with the army. It so struck my uncultivated taste that when, long af- ter, the narrative was written it ran off the end of my pen spontaneously.) He was led to believe that our troops thought the war finished, and so went home without leave in crowds. My impression was that the men wished to pursue their suc- cess; that the desire to go home was a consequence and not a cause of the inaction which followed. Let the reader see if this impression was not natural, with such testimonies as the fol- lowing. Colonel Kemper: "In regard to the sentiment of the army on the subject of the failure to pursue our routed enemy, I can speak positively only of my own deep disappointment, but will add my ■belief that the disappointment was shared by all my acquaintances, and prevailed entirely throughout the army. We had not then learned that the whole duty of an army is to obey orders and ask no questions. The widely-extended disposition to go home, so justly represented by our generals, was, I believe, developed by the conviction which necessarily soon became prevalent that the campaign was ended."
Colonel Robert E. Withers, of the Eighteenth Virginia, writes: "I can only say that so far as I was cognizant of the wishes and expectations of the troops, they certainly. anticipat- ed and desired a speedy advance on Washington; and it was only after the lapse of some days, when it was evident that no such advance was contemplated, that the demoralizations and desertions became so troublesome. Such was certainly the case
REPLY OF R. L. DABNEY, D. D. 85
in our brigade, and I have good reason to believe tliai fhe same condition of things existed in other portions of the army. In this connection I will state that I have just had a conversation with Colonel Mosby on this subject, who coincides fully in my opinion, and states that when the cavalry was advanced to Fairfax Courthouse on Tuesday (the second day after the bat- tle). General Elzey's brigade accomi>anied the cavalry advance, and were in an efficient and serviceable condition, apparently anxious for a rapid advance on Washington. Colonel Mosby also believes that if the entrenchments in front of Washington should have proven too formidable to encounter, no difficulty would have been experienced in compelling the evacuation of the city by a flank movement, crossing the Potomac above Washington, thus interposing our army between Patterson and the city, and with our cavalry occupying the line of the Balti- more and Ohio railroad, our great superiority in that arm of the service would have rendered this movement almost certainly successful."
Colonel Carrington says: ''My tirm conviction is that our army generally favored a prompt and energetic pursuit and im- provement of our victory." * * * ''The disposition of of- ficers and men to return home was very strong after they be- came satisfied that there would be no onward movement," etc. Thus, also, testifies a letter frcmi Dr. Richard P. Waltim. then a surgeon in the field.
One more point remains to be noticed, (xeneral .lohnston says: "No troops were then encamped in the valley of Bull Run, or nearer to the battlefield than four or five miles. The dead had been buried, so that ladies visited the field without inconvenience."
If the "then" relates to the date of greatest mortality, this may be true. But I was possessed of testimonies which I rhought justified me in believing that the opposite was true long enough to do the mischief to the health of the troops. The dead men had been buried, but the horses had not. The ani- mal remains of Yankee cami)s, as well as slain men and ani- mals, infected the country foi- miles.
Then as to the facts: Wc have seen that Colonel Carring- ton states the Eighteenth A'irginia encamped until Tuesday evening "within quarter of a mile of the scene of the conflict."
86 REPLY OF R. L. DABNEY, D.D.
Then Cocke's wliole bii^ade was eiuaiiiped tDi- more than a week at Cub Run bridfje. just where the battle ended, in the midst of a painful ettluviuni. Colonel Camngton says: "Hlev- eral other brigades besides Cocke's were encamped in the im- mediate vicinity of the battlefield."
It is perfectly true that after the health of the regiments was infected, many of tliem were removed to healthier spots. But both the sickness and the mortality continued great. Let such facts as these show the condition of at least a part of the army. The lamented General Chavles S. Winder told me in May or June. 1802. that he came to the lines of General John- st )n after the battle as Colonel commanding a ^^outh Carolina regiment 000 strong. He was directed to stop at Bristoe and encamp at Broad Run. He staid there until the fever had made such ravages that the most he could parade were 300. In the same brigade with the Thirty-eighth Virginia was a Xorth Carolina regiment. In this there were not enough well men to nurse the sick, and details were made from other regi- ments to help them. The Eighteenth Virginia went to Manas- sas with TOO bayonets. In August, according to report of the
surgeon, it was reduced to . It was only once under fire,
and the maximum of its loss at that time has been already giv- en in the citation from Colonel Withers.
But it is time tliar Tliis communication was closed, and I end it with repetitions of respectful consideration for the em- inent services, virtues, and position of General J. Two reasons alone have induced me to break that silence in reply to which is usually the most decorous for an author whose published works are subjected to criticism. ( )ne is the interest of truth ; the other is the interest of the widow and orphan of General Jackson; for I might well fear that the adverse opinion of so eminent an authoi'ity as General Joseph E. Johnston would limit, if not wholly arrest, the sale of the work which is design- ed to aid in relieving these defenseless persons. While, on the one hand, it would be unprincipled in me to seek their pecun- iary advantage at the expense of the just fame of General John- ston, or any other; on the other hand. I am sure that he would regret any unintentional injury to the prospects which was not necessary to the defense of truth. R. L. DABNEY.
MEMOIR OF A NARRATIVE RECEHED OF COLONEL JOHN B BALDWIN,'
OF STAUNTON, TOUCHING THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR.
By Rev. R. L. Dabnev, D. D.
(The followiuo; paper from the able pen of Rev. Dr. K. L. Dabuey will be read with deep interest, and will be found to be a valuable contribution to the history of the origin of the war.
It may be worth while in this connection to recall the fact that when soon after the capture of Fort Sumter and Mr. Lin- coln's proclamation, a prominent Xortliern p )litician wrote Colonel Baldwin to ask: "What will the T'ni(m men of Vir- irinia do now?" lu* immediately rejjlied: ''There are now no Union men in Virginia. But those \<\\k) were Tni )n men will stand to their arms, and make a fight which shall go down in history as an illustration of what a brave people can do in de- fense of their liberties, after having exhausted every means of pacification.")
In March, 18G5, being with the army in I*etersburg, Vir- ginia, I had the pleasure of meeting Colonel Baldwin at a small entertainment at a friend's h;iuse, where he conversed wirli me some two hours on public affairs. During this time, he detail- ed to me the history of his ])rivate mission, from the Virginia Secession Convention, to Mr. Lincoln in April, 1801. The facts he gave me have struck me, especially since the conquest of the South, as 3f great importance in a history of the origin of rhe war. It was my earnest hope that Colonel Baldwin would reduce rlieiii into a narrative for publication, and I afterwards rook measures to induce him to do so, but I fear without effect. Should it a])pear that he has left such a narrative, while it will confirm ilie subsrantial fidelity >f my narrative at second liand. it will als;) supersede mine, and of this result I should be ex- tremely glad. Surviving friends and ]iolitical associatei^ of Colonel ISalilwin iiuist have heard him narrate the same inter-
1 From Southern Bistorical Society Papers.
88 COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mr. Lincoln.
esling- facts. I would rainestly invoke^ their recollcctioii of his .statements to them, so as to correct me, if in any point I mis- conceived the author, and to confirm me where I am correct, so that the history may regain, as far as possible, that full cer- tainty of whitli it is in danger of losing a part by the lamented death of Colonel Baldwin. What I here attempt to do, is to give faithfully, in my own language, what I understood Colonel Baldwin to tell me, according to my best comprehension of it. His narration was eminently perspicuous and impressive.
It should als > be premised, tliat the ^'irginia Convention, as a body, was not in favor of secession. It was prevalently under the influence of statesmen of the school known as the "Clay-Whig." One of the few original secessijnists told me that at first there were but twenty-five members of that opin- ion, and that they gained no accessions, until they were g-iven them by the usurpations of the Lincoln party. The Conven- tion assem'bled with a fixed determination to preserve the Union, if forbearance and prudence could do it consistently with the rights of the K^tates. Such, as is well known, were, in the main, Colonel Baldwin's views and purposes.
But i\Ir. Lincoln's inaugural, with its liints of coercion and usurpation, the utter failure of the 'Teace-Congress," and the rejecti(m of Mr. Crittenden's overtures, the refusal to hear the commissioners from ^Ir. Davis' (Tovernment at Montg'omery, and the secret arming of the Federal Crovernment for attack, had now produced feverish ai>preliensions in and out of the Conventiju. Colonel Baldwin considei-ed ^Mr. Wm. Ballard Preston, of ^lontgomery County, as deservedly one of the most influential members of that body. This statesman now began to feel those sentiments, which, soon after, prompted him to move and secure the passage of the resolution to appoint a formal commission of three ambassadors from the Convention to Lincoln's Government, who should communicate the views of Virginia, and demand those of Mr. Lincoln. (That commis- si(m consisted of Wm. B. Preston, Alex. H. H. Stuart and Geo. W. Randolph. We will refer to its history in the sequel.) Mean- time Mr. Preston, with other original Union men, were feeling thus: "If our voices and votes are to be exerted farther to hold Virginia in the I'nion, we must know what the nature of that Union is to be. We have valned Union, but we are also
COLONEL BALDWIN S INTKRVIEW WITH MR. LINCOLN. 80
Vii'<,niiinns, nnil we lovo the riiioii oiilv as it is based upon the Constitution. If the j)o\v(m- of the Tnited States is to be per- verted to invade the ri^lits of States and jf tlie i)eople, we would support the Fed(^ral (Jovernnient no farther. And now that the attitude of that (Jovernnient was so ominous of usur- pation, we musi lcnov\- whither it is goin^, or we can jro with it no farther." Mr. Preston es})e('ially detdared that if he were to become an a^ent for holding- Vir.uinia in tlie Union to the destruction of lier lionor, and of the liberty jf her peojde and her, sister States, he would rather die than exert that aj;ency.
Meantime Mr. Seward. Lincoln's Secretary of State, sent Allen B. ]\ra<irud(M% Esq., as a confidential messenp;er to Rich- mond, ta hold an interview with ^h\ Janney (President of the Convention), ^Iv. Stuart, and otluM" intluential members, and t ) urge that one of them should come to Washin»;ton, as [U'omptly as possible, to confer with ^Ir. Lincoln. Mr. ^lagrnd- er stated that he was authorized by Mr. Seward to ;say that Fort Sumter would be evacuated on the Friday of the ensuinj; week, and that the Pawnee would sail on the followinji' Monday for Charleston, to effect the evacuation. Mr. Seward said that secrecy was all imj)oi'tant, and ^^■hile it was extremely desira- ble that one of them shituld see Mr. Lincoln, it was ecpially im- portant that th(^ public should know nothin**' of the interview. These j^entlemen held a conference, and determined that as each of them was well known in Washington by person, the re(juired secrecy could not be i)reserved if either of them went. They therefore asked Colonel Baldwin to go, furnished with the necessary credentials to Mr. Lincoln. He at first demurred, saying that all his public services had been to Virginia, and that he knew notliing of Washington and the Federal politics, but they replied that this was precisely what qualified him, be- cause his presence theie would not excite remark or suspicion. Cnlonel Jialdwin accordingly agreed to the mission, and went witli Mr. Magruder the following night, reaching Washington llie next morning by the "Accpiia Creek route" a little after dawn, and driving direct lo the house of Mr. Magruder's broth- er. (These gentlemen were brothers of General J. B. Magruder, of Virginia.) These prefatory statements prei)are the way for Colonel Baldwin's special narrative.
He stated that after breakfasting and attending to his
90 COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mk. Lincoln.
tailet at the liouse of Captain Magruder, he went with Mr. A. B. Magruder, iu a carriage, with the glasses carefully raised, to Seward, who took charge of Mr. Baldwin, and went direct with him to the White House, reaching it. he thought, not much after nine o'clock a. m. At the door, the man who was acting as usher, or porter, was directed by ('obnel Baldwin's com- }>anion. to inform the President that a gentleman wished to see him on important business. The man replied, as Colonel Bald- win thought, with an air of negligence, that he would report the application of c )urse, but that it would be useless, because the President was already engaged with very important per- sonages. Some card, or such missive, was given him, and he took it in. He soon returned with a surprised look, and siiid that the gentleman was to be admitted instantly. Colonel Bald- win accordingly followed him and Mr. Seward into what he pre- sumed was the President's ordinary business room, where he found him in evidently anxious consultation with three or four elderly men. who appeared to wear importance in their aspect. Mr. Seward whispered something to the President, who at once arose with eagerness, and without nuiking any movement to introduce Colonel Baldwin, said bluntly, in substance: "Gen- tlemen, excuse me. for I must talk with this man at once. Come this way. sir!" (to Colonel Baldwin). He then tojk him up stairs to quite a diflerent part of the house, and into what was evidently a i)rivate sleeping apartment. There was a handsome bed. with bureau iind mirror, washstaud. etc., and a chair or two. Lincoln closed the door and locked it. He then said: -Well. I suppose this is Colonel Baldwin, of Virginia? I have hearn of you a good deal, and am glad to see you. How d' ye. do sir?" Colonel Baldwin presented his note of credential or introducticm. which Lincoln read, sitting upon tlie edge of the bed. and sjiitring frcmi time to tini-e on the carpet. He then, bioking inquiringly at Colonel Baldwin, intimated that he un- derstood he was authorized to state for liis friends iu the Vir- ginia Convention the real state of oi)ini(m and purpose there. Fpon Colonel Baldwin's portraying the sentiments which pre- vailed among the majority there. Lincoln said (lueruloiisly : ''Yes I your Virginia i)eople are good I'nionisrs. but it is al- ways with an if! I don't like that sort of Lnionism." Colonel Baldwin firmly and respectfully explained, rhat in one sense
COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mk. Lincoln. 91
no freeman cDuld be more than a eendirional Union man, fur The value of the Union was in that eipiitabh' and beneficent (\)Uslitntion on which it was founded, and if this were lost, "Union" mijiiit becouie but another name for mischievous op- pression. He also ^ave Mr. Lincoln assurances, that the de- scription which he was making- of the state of opinion in Vir- ginia, was in perfect candor and fidelity, and that he mi^^^ht rest assured the i^reat body of Vir<iiuia, in and )ut of the Uonven- tion, would concur in these views, viz: That allhoujih strongly opposed to a presidential election upon a sectional, free-soil platform, which they deplored as most danj»er >us and unwise,' Mrjiinia did not approve of makinj? that, evil as it was, a casus belli, or a ground for disrupting the Union. That much as Mrginia disapproved it, if Mr. Lincoln would only adhere faithfully to the Constitution and the laws, she would supi>ort him just as faithfully as though he were the man of her choice, and would wield her whole moral force to keep the border ►States in the Union, and to bring back the seven seceded States. But that while much difference of opinion existed :)n the ques- ti<m, whether the right of secession was a constitutional one, all Virginians were unanimous in believing that no right ex- isted in the Federal Government to coerce a State by force of arms, because it was expressly withheld by the Uonstitutian; that the State of \"irginia was unaninn)usly resolved not to asquiesce in the usurpation of that power, as had been declared by unanimous joint resolution of her present Legislature, and by the sovereign Uonvention n )w sitting, according to the tra- ditionary principles of the State; that if Virginia remained in the Union, the other border States would follow her example, while, if she were driven out, they would probably go with her, and the whole Sautli w )uld be united in irreconcilable hostility to his (TovernnuMit; and that the friends of peace desired to have a guarantee that liis i)olicy towards the seven seceded States would be pacific, and would i-egard their rights as States; with- out which guarantee the Uonventiou could not kccji tlu^ jieople in the T'nion, even if they w:)uld.
Lincoln now sh )wed very plainly that tliis view was dis- tasteful to him. He intimated that the peoj)le of the South were not in earnest in all this. He said that in Washington he was assured that all the resolutions and speeches and declara-
92 COLONEL BALDWIN'S INTERVIEW WITH MR. LINCOLN.
lions of this tenor from the Soutli wei-e hut a '•^aine of h^af^" intended to intimidate the adminisriati )n parry, the ordinary and holh)w expedient of politicians; that, in short, when the (rovernnient showed its hand, there wonhl "be nothing in ir hni talk." Colonel Baldwin assured him solemnly that such advisers fatally misunderstood the South, and especially \'ir- ginia, and that upon the relinquishment )r adoption of the pol- icy of violent coercion, yeace or a dreadful wai- would inevita- bly turn. Lincoln's native good sense, with ('olonel Baldwin's evident sincerity, seemed now to open his eyes to this truth. He slid off the edge :)f the bed, and began to stalk in his awk- ward manner aci-oss the cham'ber, in great excitement and per- jilexity. He clutched his shaggy hair, as thougli he would jerk out handfuls by the roots; he fi-owntnl and contorted his fea- tures, exclaiming: "I ought to have known tliis soonerl Ymi are too late, sir, foo late'. Why did you not come here four days ago, and tell me all this".'*" turning fiercely upon Colonel Baldwin. He replied: "Why, Mr. President, you did not ask our advice. Besides, as soon as we received permission to ten- der it, I came by tlie first train, as fast as steam would bring me." ''Yes, but you are too late, I tell you, too lateV Colonel Baldwin understood this as a dear intinmtion that the policy of coercion was determined on, and that within the last four days. He said that he therefore felt im})elled, by a solemn sense of duty to his c )untry, to make a final effort for impress- ing Lincoln with the truth. "Never, " said he to me, "did 1 make a speech m\ behalf of a client, in jeopardy of his life, with such earnest solemnity and endeavor." "And," he added, "there was no simulated emotions; for wlu^n he perceived from Lincoln's hints, and from the workings of his crafty and satur- nine countenance, the truculence of iiis jiurpose. his own soul was filled with such a sense of the coming miseries of the coun- try, and of the irreparable ruin of the Constitution, that he felt he would willingly lay down his life t:) avert them." He en- deavored to make the Bresident feel that Providence had placed the destiny of the country in his liands, so that he might be forever blessed and venerated as the second Washington — the savior of his country — or execrated as its destroyer. What policy, then, did the Union men of Virginia advise? We be- lieve, answered Colonel Baldwin, that one single step will be
OOLOITEL BALDWIN^S INTEUvrEW WITFI MR. LINCOLN.
i)H
sufficient to paralyze the secession movement, and to make the true friends of the I'nion mastei-s; of the situation. This was a simple proclamation, firmly pledging- the new administration to respect the Constitution and laws, and the rights of the States; to repudiate the power of coercing seceded States by force of arms; to rely uimn conciliation and enlightened self- interest in the latter to bring tlieni back into the Union, and meantime to leave all questions at issue t:i be adjudicated by the constitutional tribunals. The obvious ground of this pol- icy was in the fact that it was not the question of free-soil which threatened to rend the country in twain, but a well grounded alarm at the attempted overthraw of the Constitu- lion and liberty, by the usurpation of a power to crush States. The question of free-soil had no such importance in the eyes of the people of the border States, nor even of the seceded States, as to become at once a casus belli. But, in the view of all par- ties in the border States, the claim of coercion had infinite im- portance. If, as Mr. Lincoln had argued, secession was uncon- stitutional, coercion wa;s moi'e clearly so. When attempted, it must necessarily take the form of a war of some States against other States. It was thus the death-knell of constitutional Union, and so a thorougli revolution of the Federal Govern- ment. It was the overthrow of the reserved rights of the States, and these were the only bulwark of the liberty of the people. This, then, was the real cause of alarm at the South, and not the claim of free-soil, unjust as was the latter; hence, all that was necessary' to reduce the free-soil controversy to harmles.s and manageable dimensions, was to reassure the vSouth against the dreaded usurpation of which free-soil threatened to be made the pretext. This, Colonel lialdwin showed, could easily be done by a policy of conciliation, without giving sanction to what ^Ir. Lincoln's administration chose to regard as the heresy of secession! The Government would still hold the Union and the Constitution as perpetual, and the separate attitude of the seceded States as temporary, while it relied upon moderation, justice, self-interest of the Southern people, and the potent mediation of the border States to terminate it. "Only give this assurance to the counrry, in a i)roclamation of five lines," said Colonel Baldwin, "and we i»ledge ourselves that Virginia (and with her the border States) will stand by you as though you
9-1: COLONEL BALDWIN^S USTTERVIEW WITH MR LINCOLN.
v^ere our own Washington. Ba sure am I," he added, "of tJiis, and of the inevitable ruin which will be precipitated by the op- posite policy, that I would this day freely consent, if you would let me write those decisive lines, you might cut off my head, were my life my own, the hour after you signed them.'"
Lincoln seemed impressed by his solemnity, and asked a few questions: "But what am I to do meantime with thosf? men at Montgomery? Am I to let them go on?'' "Yes, sir." I'pplied Colonel Baldwin, decisively, "until they can be peace- ably l)i-ouglir back." "And open ("luirleston. etc.. as ports of entry, with their ten per cent, tariff. What, then , would be- come of tuy tartfff This last question he announced with such emphasis, as showed that in his view it decided the whole mat- ter. He then indicated that the interview was at an end, and dismissed Colonel Baldwin, without i»romising anything more definite.
In order to confirm the accuracy of my own memory, I have submitted the above narrative to the Honorable A. H. H. Stuart. r\)loiiel Baldwin's neighbor and political associate, and the only surviving member of the commission soon alter sent from the Virginia Convention to Washington. In a letter to me, he says: "When Colonel Baldwin returned to Richmond, he reported to the four gentlemen above named, and to Mr. Samuel Price, of Greenbrier, the substance of his interview with Lincoln substantially as he stated it to you?''
I asked Colonel Baldwin what was the explanation of this remarkable scene, and especially of Lincoln's perplexity. He replied that the explanation had always appeared to him to be this: When the sev^n Gulf States had actually seceded, the Lincoln faction were greatly surprised and in great uncertainty what to do; for they had been blind enough to suppose that all Southern opposition to a sectional President had been empty bluster. They were fully aware that neither Constitution nor laws gave them any right to coerce a State to remain in the Union. The whole people, even in the imperious North, knew and recognized this truth. The New York Tribune, even, ad- mitted it. violent as it was, and deprecated a Union "pinned to- gether with bayonets." Even General Winfield Scott, the mili- tary "Man Friday," of Federal power, advised that the Govern- ment should say: "Erring Sisters, go in peace." So strong was
coLONKL Baldwin's interview with mr. Lincoln. 95
the conviction, even in the Northern mind, that sncli jonnials as Harper's Weekly and Monthly, shrewdly mercenary in their whole aim, were notoriously courting- the secession feeling. New York, the tinancial capital of America, was well known to be oppDsed to the faction and lo coenion. Tlu^ previous Congress had expired without daring to pass any coercive mea- sures. The administration was not at all certain that the pub- lic opinion of the American i>eoi)le could be made to tolerate anyrhing so illegal and mischievous as a war of coercion. (Sub- sequent events and declarations betrayed also how well the Lincoln faction knew at the time that it was utterly unlawful. For instance: when Lincoln launched into that war, he did not dare to say that he was warring against States, and for the purpose of coercing them into a F'ederal Uni )n of force. In his proclamation calling for the first seventy-five thousand sol- diers, he had deceitfully stated that they were to be used to sui>port the laws, to repossess Federal property and places, and to suppress irregular combinations of individuals pretending to or usurping the powers of State (Tovernments. The same was the tone of all the war speakers and war journals at first. They admitted thar a State could not be coerced into the Union; but they held that no State really and legitimately desired to go out, or had gone out — "the great Union-loving majority in the South had been overruled by a factious secession minority, and the Union troops were only to liberate them from that violence, and enable them to declare their unabated love for the Union." No well informed man was, at first, absurd enough to speak of a State as ''committing treason" against the confederation, the creature of the States; the measure was always spoken of as "Secession," the actors v/ere "Secessionists." and even their ter- ritory was ''Secessia." It remained for an ecclesiastical body, pretended rei)resentative of the Church of the Prince of Peace, in their ignorant and venomous spirit of persecution, to apply the term "treason" first to the movement in favor of liberty.) The action of the seven States, then, perplexed the Lincoln fac- tion excessively. On the other hand, the greed and spite of the hungry crew, who were now grasping the power and spoils so long passionately craved, could not endni-e tlu' th )ught rh;»t the l)i-ize should thus collaj)se in tln^r hands. Hence, when the administration assembled at Washington, it probably had
96 COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mr. lincoln.
no very detinite policy. Seward, wlio assiiiued to do the think- ing for them, was temporizing. Colonel Baldwin supposed it was the visit, and the terrorizing of the "radical Governors," which had just decided Lincoln to adopt the violent policy. They had especially asserted that the secession of the seven States, and the convening and solemn admonitions of State con- ventions in the others, formed but a system of bluster, or, in the vulgar phrase of Lincoln, but a "gauu^ of brag"; that the Southern States were neither willing nor able to fight for their own cause, being paralyzed by their fear of servile insurrection. Thus they liad urged ujjon Lincoln, that tlie best way to secure his party triumph was to i)recipitate a collision. Lincoln liad probably committed himself to this ])olie3', without Seward's ]u-ivity, within the last four days; and the very men whom Col- onel Baldwin found in conclave with him were probably intent upon this conspiracy at the time. But when Colonel Baldwin solemnly assured Lincoln that this violent policy would infal- libly precipitate the border States into an obsfinate war, the natural shrewdness of the latter was sufficient to open his eyes, at least partiall}', and he saw that his factious ciounsellors, ])linded by hatred and contempt of the Soutli, had reasoned falsely; yet, having just committed himself to tliem, he had not manliness euougli to recede. And above all, the policy urged by Colonel Baldwin would have disappointed the hopes of leg- islative ])lund('r, by means of inflated tariffs, which were the real aims for which free-soil was the mask.
Thus far Colonel Baldwin's narrative proceeded. The con- versation then turned ux)on the astonishing supineuess (or blind- ness) of the consel'vatives, so-called, of the Xorth, to the high- lianded usurpations of their own rights, perpetrated by Lincoln and Seward, under pretext of subduing the seceded States, such as the suspension of habeas corpus, the State prisons, the ar- rests without indictment, and the martial law imposed, at tlie beck of the Federal power, in States called by itself "loyal." 1 asked: "Can it be possible that the Northern people are so ig- norant as to have lost the traditionary rudiments of a free gov- ernment?" His reply was, that he apprehended the Northern mind really cared uotliing for liberty; what they desired was only lucrative arrangements with other States.
The correctness of Colonel Baldwin's surmises concerning
COLONEL Baldwin's intfrview with mr. Lincoln. 07
the motives of Liiicohr.s policy receives these two confirmations. After the return of tlie foi-mei- to Hichiiiond. rlie Conventiau sent the commission, which lias heen described, composed of Messrs. Wni. B. Preston, A. H. H. Stuart, and Geo. W. Ran- dolph. They were to ascertain definitely what the J*resident's policy was to be. They endeavjied to reach Washington in the early part of the week in which Fort Sumter was bombarded, but were delayed by storms and hi<ih wat(M-, so that they only reached there via ]>altiniore, Friday, April 12th. They appear- ed promptly at the White House, and were i)ut off until Satur- day for their formal interview, although Lincoln saw them for a short time. On Saturday Lincoln read to them a written an- swer to the resolutions of Convention laid before him, which was obviously scarcely dry fr:>m the pen of a clei-k. "This pa- per," says ^Ir. Stuart, "was ambiguous and evasive, but in the main professed jjeaceful intentions." Mr. Stuart, in answer to this paper, sj)oke freely and at laroe, "ur<i:in<4- foi-bearance and the evacuation of the forts, etc." Lincoln made the objection that all the goods would be imported through the ports of Charleston, etc., and the sources of revenue dried up. "I re- member," says Mr. Stuart, "that he used this lumiely expres- sion: 'If I do that, what will become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!' But his declarations were distinctly jjacific, and he expressly disclaimed all purpose of war." Mr. Seward and Mr. Bates, Attorney General, also gave Mr. Stuart the same assurances of peace. The next day the commissioners returned to Richmond, and the very train on which they traveled carried Lincoln's j)roclanintion, calling far the seventy-five thousand men to wage a war of coercion. "This proclamation," says Mr. Stuart, "was carefully withheld from us, although it was in print; and we knew nothing of it until Monday morning, when it appeared in the Richmond pa- pers. When I saw it at breakfast, I thought it n)ust be a mis- chievous hoax; for I could not believe Lincoln guilty of such duplicity. Firmly believing it was a forgery, I wrote a tele- gram, at the breakfast table of the Exchange Hotel, and sent it to Seward, asking him if it was genuine. Before Seward's reply was received, the Fredericksburg train came in, bringing the Washington papers, containing the proclamation."
The (tiher confirmation of Colonel liald win's hypothesis
98 COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mr. lincoli?.
was presented a few weeks after the end of the war, in a cur- ious interview with a personal friend and apologist of Seward. The first volume of my life of Jackson had been published in London, in which I characterized the shameless lie told by Heward to the commissioners from Montgomery, through Judge Campbell, touching the evacuation of Sumter. This friend and apologist of Seward said that I was unjust to him, because when he promised the evacuation, he designed and thought him- self able to fulfill it; but between the making and breaking of the pledge, a total change of policy had been forced ujxtn the administration, against Mr. Seward's advice, "by Thad. Stevens and the radical Grovernors." Seward, abolitionist, and knave as he was, still retained enough of the statesmanlike traditions of the better days of the republic, to know that coercion was unlawful, and that a war between the States was, of course, the annihilation of the Union. It suited his partisan and selfish designs to talk of an "irrepressible conflict," and to pretend contempt for "effeminate slavocrats"; but he had sense enough to know that the South would make a desperate defense of her rights, and would be a most formidable adversary, if pushed to the wall. Hence, Mr. Seward, with General Scott, had advised a temporizing policy towards the Montgomery government, without violence, and Mr. Lincoln had acceded to their policy. Hence, the promises to Judge Campbell. Meantime, the radical Governors came down, "having great wrath," to terrorize the administration. They spoke in this strain : "Seward cries per- petually 'that we must not do this, and that, for fear war should result. Seward is shortsighted. War is precisely the thing we should desire. Our party interests have everything to lose by a peaceable settlement of this trouble, and everything to gain by collision. For a generation we have been 'the outs'; now at last we are 'the ins.' While in opposition, it was very well to prate of Constitution, and of rights; but now we are the gov- ernment, and mean to continue so; and our interest is to have a strong and centralized government. It is high time now that the government were revolutionized and consolidated, and these irksome 'States' rights' wiped out. We need a strong govern- ment to dispense much wealth and power to its adherents; we want permanently high tariffs, to make the South tributary to the North; and now these Southern fellows are giving us pre-
Colonel Baldwin's interview with mr. Lincoln. 99
cisely the opportunity we want to do all this, and shall iSewaid sing his silly song of the necessity of avoiding war? War is the very thing we should hail I The Southern men are rash, and now profoundly irritated. Our plan should be, by some artifice, to provake them to seem to strike the first blow. Then we shall have a pretext with which to unite the now divided North, and make them fly to arms. The Southerners are a braggart, but a cowardly and effeminate set of bullies; we shall easily whip them in three months. But this short war will be, if we are wise, our sufficient occasion. We will use it to destroy slavery, and thus permanently cripple the South. And that is the stronghold of all these ideas of 'limited government' and 'rights of the people.' Crush the South, by abolisliiug slavery, and we shall have all we want — a consolidated government, an indefinite party ascendancy, and ability to lay on such 'tariffs and taxes as we please, and aggrandize ourselves and our sec- tion!"
These, Mr. Seward's apologist declared to me, were the reasons which, together with their predictions and threats of popular rage, converted Lincoln from the policy of Seward to that of Stevens. Hence the former was compelled to break his promise through Judge Campbell, and to assist in the malig- nant stratagem by which the South Carolinians were con- strained ''to fire on the tiag." The diabolical success of the ar- tifice is well known.
The importance of this narrative is, that it unmasks the true authors and nature of the bloody war through which we have passed. We see that the Radicals provoked it, not to pre- serve, but to destroy the Union. It demonstrates, effectually, that Virginia and the border States were acting with better faith to preserve the T^nion than was Lincoln's Cabinet. Colonel Baldwin showed him conclusively that it was not free-soil, evil as that was, which really endangered the T'nion. but coercion. He showed him that, if coercion were relinquished, Mrginia and the border States stood pledged to labor with him for the restoration of I'nion, and would assuredly be able to effect it. Eight slave-holding border States, with seventeen hireling States, would certainly have wielded sufficient moral and ma- terial weight, in the cause of what Lincoln professed to believe the clear truth and right, to reassure and win back the seven
100 COLONEL Baldwin's interview with mr. Lincoln.
little seceded fc?tates, or, if they became lojstile, to restniin them. But coercion arraigned fifteen against seventeen in mu- tually destructive war. Lincoln acknowledged the conclusive- ness of this reasoning in the agony of remorse and perplexity, in the writhings and tearings of hair, of which Colonel Bald- win was witness. But what was the decisive weight that turned the scale against peace, and right, and patriotism? It was the interest of a sectional taritf 1 His single objection, both to the wise advice of Colonel Baldwin and Mr. Stuart, was: "Then what would become of my tariffs?" He was shrewd enough to see that the just and liberal free-trade policy proposed by the Montgomery Government would speedily build up, by the help of the magnificent ^Duthern staples, a beneficent foreign com- merce through Confederate ports; that the Northern people, whose lawless and mercenary character he understood, could never be restrained from smuggling across the long open fron- tier of the Confederacy; that thus the whole country would be- come habituated to the benefits of free-trade, so that when the schism was healed (as he knew it would be healed in a few years by the policy of Virginia), it would be too late to restore the iniquitious system of sectional plunder by tariffs, which his sec- tion so much craved. Hence, when Virginia ofl'ered him a safe way to preserve the Union, he preferred to destroy the Union and preserve his tariffs. The war was conceived in duplicity, and brought forth in iniquity.
The calculated treason of Lincoln's Radical advisers is yet more glaring. When their own chosen leader, Seward, avowed that there was no need for war, they deliberately and malig- nantly practiced to produce war, for the purpose of overthrow- ing the Constitution and the Union, to rear their own greedy faction upon the ruins. This war, with all its crimes and mis- eries, was proximately concocted in Washington City, by North- ern men. ^^ith malice prepense.
THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Wa all know, that tlie professed purpose of the war party was to preserve and restore the Union over all the States. But the disclosures made above hy Colonel Baldwin of the aims of the head of that party, are sufficient to prove that the real pur- l)ose was far Jther than the pretense: — to enlarge and perpetuate the power of his faction. This had just seized the reins of Federal power by an accident, being in fact but a minority of the .American people. This people had condemned it to a righteous exclusion from power for forty years. Its leaders were weary, envious and angry with their long waiting, and hungry for the power and the spoils of ottice. These cunning men were fully conscious that their tenure of power, won by luck and artifice, would be precarious and brief. The old party of Federal usurpation and centralization had dubbed itself, by a strong misnomer, the Whig party. The people, at ten presi- dential elections, or congressional issues, had rejected their pr )ject. At length, despairing of Wctory by its old tactics, it had thrown itself into the arms of the later born and despicable party of the Abolitionists, who iiad at last succeeded in their purpose of raising, in numerous States, their designed tempest of fanaticism. Thus the older and larger party gave itself away to the younger, smaller, and more indecent one; and by this traffic the two had won in November, 1800, an apparent success, so far as to make its leader a minority President. The manipulators well knew their danger from "the sober second thought" of the American people. It was but too pi-obable that the elements of justice and conservatism, unfortunately di- vided in 1800. would reunite in 1801 to restore the Constitu- tion. Hence, "had they great wrath," because they knew their time was short. They knew that something more must be done to ijitiiime the contest between fanatii-ism and conservatism, or iiieir glorying would be short.
The hasty secession of South Carolina and the six Gulf States, although justified by the avowed revolutionary section-
101
102 THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.
alism of the new party in power, gave them their coveted oppor- tunity. The conspirators said to each other: ''Now we have our game. We will inflame fanaticism and sectional enmities by the cry of Union and Kebellion, and thus precipitate a war between ihe States. Inf^r armor silent leges. Our war will be short; for we believe these Southern slavocrats much more boastful than valiant; and. chiefly, we will paralyze their re- sistance by lighting the fires of servile insurrection, plunder, arson, rape and murder in their rear. Rut this short war will suffice for us. to centralize Federal power, overthrow the Con- stitution, fix our high tariffs and plutocratic fiscal system upon the country and secure f^r ourselves an indefinite tenure of power and riches.'' Such were precisely the counsels by which such leaders as Senator Pomeroy, Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, Grov- ernors Morton, Currin. Andrews, etc.. hectored the ignorant and vacillating chief of their party into war, against the advice of real Union men Xorth and vSouth, and especially against the views of his own Premier, William H. Seward. This man, while the most unscrupulous of trafficers, and the chief archi- tect of the new faction, knew well, as did all statesmen and constitutional lawyers, that the Constitution gave the Federal Government, the creature of the Federated States, no right to coerce the seceded States, its own sovereigns and creators. He was older than his supplanters in his own faction, and however unscrupulous, was too much imbued with the precedents, prin- ciples and feelings of the older and better days, to bring him- self at once to the atrocity of kindling a war between the States; hence. Mr. Seward had adopted the smoother and wiser policy. He had induced his chief to make an ambiguous de- liverance in his inaugural. March 4. ISOl. He believed that he would be able so to direct the plans of his presidential tool as to make him adhere to the pacific jM^licy. P.ut he was mis- taken. The more forward and heady conspirators gathered in Washington, wrested his tool out of his hand, and turned it against him.
These new advisers were aware that a Federal executive had no more constitutional or legal right of his own motion to attack a seceded State, than the poorest constable in the most obscure township. But they were in too much haste to wait for the semblance of authority from a congressional force bill, un-
THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 103
autlioi-ized and flimsy as such a semblance would be. Nor did they feel certain that even their rump Congress would be per- suaded to enact a war against sovereign States no longer in the Federation, nor represented in their body, nor subject toM, their jurisdiction. The Senators and Eepresentatives of seven States would be absent; but those of the great Union-loving Border States, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Arkansas, would be present. Such a rump Congress might indeed include a number of the admirers of Andrew Jackson, but they would be too just and clear sight- ed to claim the precedent of his force bill of 18.38 against South Carolina, even though they did not regard it. as true history will, as the mere expression of a tyrannical temper and of personal hatreds in that famous renegade to the principles of the party which elected him. For that force bill was direct- ed against a State which claimed to be still in the Union, while nullifying within her own borders an unjust Federal law. It was wholly another thing for the Federal Government to de- clare war against seven seceded States, no longer under their authority, but withdrawn from it by sovereign acts more for- mal and legal than those which had made them parties to the T'nion. Therefore the consj)irators saw that a war must be precipitated without the semblance of law, and against law and the Constitution. By what expedient? By that of an auda- cious and gigantic lie I They knew that in fact every stej) and act of self-defense taken by the seceded States had been an act of formal, legal statehood executed by constitutional au- thorities, the same, to-wit. which had first made those States members of the Federal Union. But rhey would impudently discard this great fact and call those actions illegal riots, the doings of insurrectionary individuals assembled against the law. They would rely upon the hot arrogance of triumphant fanaticism and the revival of passions which they themselves had "set on fire of hell." to overlook this essential difference. Thus they would seemingly bring this terrible usurpation of their President under the scope of his authority to enforce laws and suppress illegal violence. So he was made to begin his famous war proclamation of April, ISGl. which made the most dreadful strife of modern times, with a stupendous false-
10-4 THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.
li )()(!. On that foul fDundatioii rest all llu' subscijuciit ci'inies (»f cuei'L-iou aud reconstruction.
That this war wa.s made, not to preserve a constitutional Union, but solely to promote the aims of a faction, is continned by these further facts. Its puriK)se was clearly betrayed by the final re])ly of ^Ir. Lincoln to Colonel Baldwin's noble ap- peal for conciliation: "What, then, will become of my tariff?'' He might as well have said out aloud, that he was making this war, not to preserve a Union, but to enforce his projected high taritt". Next, every thoughtful nnm. North and South, friend or foe of the Tnion. knew perfectly well that the Montgoauery Confederacy of seven States must be short lived if it remained alone with:)ut the border States. If I may borrow a new term of finance, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to "freeze out" this weak association. By giving them a useless in- dependence, making them feel the inconveniences of separation, and holding peaceably and steadily before them the benefits and j)rotection of the old. just c;)nstitutional T'nion. So 3Ir. Seward knew; and on this belief his i)olicy was founded. So the Virginian statesman and ardent lover of the I'nion, Alex- ander H. Stewart, assured ^Ir. Line )ln. So Cohtnel Baldwin; so ex-Governor Mjrehead. of Kentucky. My jxiint is then, that the seven seceded States could have- been brought back with certainty by pacific means. For the T'nion, no war was needed. It was made solely in the interest of the Jacobin party.
Secessionists and L^nion men alike knew that the Mont- gomei"y Confederacy could not stand, without the accession of the great border States. But the latter were still firm friends of the Union. They judged, like the secessionists, that the abolition and free-soil movement was sectional, mischievous, insulting, and perilous; but they had calmly resolved not to make it a casus belli, wicked as it was. They had distinctly re- fused to go out of the I'nion on that issue. They jtledged them- selves to supi)ort ^Ir. Lincoln l(»yally and legally, though not the President of their choice, and to conciliate the seceded States provided the crime of coercion was foreborne. But they assured Mr. Lincoln that this usur]>ati )n and crime would in- fallibly drive them, though reluctant, into the secession camp. Thi« made it perfectly plain that peace meant a restored Union, while war meant disunion. But the Jacobins needed a war for
THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 105
their owu factious euds. There was nothing- they disliked so much as a Union peaceably restored. Therefore they preferred The tactics which would insure war. and that yu the most gigan- tic scale, rarlun- than peace and union. Their problem was how to make sure of the spilling of blood. Thus while those pa- triotic and unii)n-loving statesmen, Messrs. Stewart and Bald- win, were pleading with Mr. Lincoln not to coerce, because co- ercion would precipitate certain disunion and a dreadful war, they were })roducing upon the cunning and malignant minds of the Jacobin leaders a conclusion exactly opposite to the one they desired. Those minds said to themselves: "Just so; therefore we will coerce, because it is wdv which we craA'e, and not a righteous T'nion."
The history of the peace-congress confirms this explana- tion. It will stand in all history to the everlasting glory of Vir- ginia, that she proposed this assemblage, as a special agency for harmonizing ditferences and restoring a true Union. She sent to it her wisest patriots, irrespective of })aity, headed b\ the great ex-President, John Tyler, illustrious for hit-; exjier- ience. purity, courtesy and fairness, lint the Jacobin leaders had resoIv(Ml that there should be no peace; and this ^^^thout waiting to see what terms of cunciliatiou iuight be f jund. It is a historical fact, that definite instructit)ns went forth from their head in advance, that the etforts of the Peace Congress must be made abortive. The motive was not concealed: that the partisan interests of the Jacobins were adverse tj such a peace. Other leaders as Senators Chandler, of Michigan, and Wade, of Ohio, etc., declared with brutal frankness, that the case requir- ed bb)od-letting, instead of peace. Therefore, this last effort of patriotism and love for the Union was an entire failure.
The withdrawal of the seven States from Congress left the Jacobins a full working majority during the months of Jan- uary and February. They had everything their own way in Congress. But every effort for peace and union uu^de by the patriotic minority, represented by Senator Cnttenden. of Ken- tucky, was systenuitically repelled. Even when the coini)ro- mises proposed were transparently wortliless to the South, they were refused. The final word of Jacobinism was: "No com- promise at all, fair or unfair, but absolute submission, or war and disunion." The utmost pains were taken to teach the bor-
106 THE TRUE PURPOSE OF THK CIVIL WAR.
der States and the friends of the Union that they should have ni terms save abject submission to such constructions as the Jaco- bin party might see fit to put upon a rent and outraged Con- stitution. The proof is complete.
Argument is scarcely needed to denunstrate that the in- famous reconstruciion measures were taken, not in the inter- ests of a true Union, but 'O-f this Jacobin faction. For their architects brutally disdained to conceal their object. For in- stance, one of their leaders, Alban Tourgee, in his "Fools Er- rand," expressly declares that the purpose of reconstruction was to elect another Jacobin President, otherwise jeopardized by the reunited Democracy, thrnugh the help of the negro suff- rage. And he declares that the ])roject was short-sighted, and destined tD ultimate failure. Mr. Tourgee has here slandered his brethren. Their reconstruction measures, in their sense of them, were an entire success.— and did just what they designed. — helped them to elect a series of Jacobin Presidents and to fix their parties and policy upon the country. True; those measure.*? placed the noblest white race on earth beneath the heels of a foul minority constructed of a horde of black, semi-barbarous ex-siaves and a gang of white jdunderers and renegades. It infected the State governments of the South with corruption and peculation. It injected into suffrage, in the Southern States, a spreading poison, which gives a new impulse to the corruptions of the ballot, already current among themselves, so that the disease is now remediless. P>ut what did the Jaco- bins care for that? They had gained their end. more Jacobin Presidents, more class legislation, a surt^ reign for the plutoc- racy.
According to ;Mr. Lincoln's theory, a State could nat go out of the Union, and any act of secession is ipso facto void and null, being but the deed of an illegal riot, and not of a legal body. Hence all the States were legally in the Unian through- out and after the war. Hence, when armed resistance ended, nothing was necessary to reinstate the so-called seceding com- monwealths in their full Federal status, except their submis- sion to the chastisements and the changes laid down for them by the will of their conquerors. The subjugated States had all made that submission humbly and absolutely. Nothing should have been wanting, therefore, to reinstate them, except the
TilE TRUE PURPOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR. 107
witness of the Chief Executive of these facts. That witness had been borue expressly and fully by General Grant himself and the President.
Mr. Lincoln's man Friday, Andrew Johnson, now President by the accident of murder, continued to stand precisely upon his master's avowed platform. Why not? The whole coercion party professed to stand on it! The war had been fought through upon that ipretended platform. Why should not An- drew Johnson simply reinstate these chastened sisters in the T'nion, by his executive action especially, seeing they had never been out of it, could not be out of it, and had fully accepted their chastisement? But that simple course meant the follow- ing result: T/ie war Dttnocrats of the North, rallying the Southern people to themselves, would elect a Democratic Presi- dent! There is the whole rationale and cause of the infamy and treason of reconstruction. And this explanation stamps the whole war, with all its butcheries and miseries as a gigantic lie; and this result has given a perfect justification to every measure of resistance taken by the States assailed. Such was the final judgment of that Union-lover and reluctant Confederate, that great Christian soldier, Robert E. Lee, as he went down with stately yet tragic steps, towards the toinb and the judgment bar of the omniscient and holy God, in whom he believed. Victoria, Texas, Dec, 189G.
THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.'
Yjun^ ffeiitleiiien of the Euiueueaii and niilaurliropic So- cieties: I am here to-day in response not only to yonr call, but lo an inijieraliyc^ spntinient. This is the sense of the value of the younj; men of the South, and their claims upon every pa- triot. When I remember how your class has lately striven and <lied for us — liow this seat of learning;-, like every other slirine of the Muses, was emptied at the call of a bleeding; country, I feel that you have earned a claim ujion our symi)athies and aid, wliich cannot be refused. Xor was this devotion of our youth the less adminible — in my eyes it is only the more touchinji' — because it has pleased the divine dis])oser. in his mysterious and awful i)rovidence, to deny you that success which you hoped. It has pleased Heaven tliat you should be so disappoint- ed of your deserved victory, as tliat fools should say you have bled in vain.
But be assured, that as the afflicted cliild is ever dearest to the mother's heart, your disasters only cause your country to l)ress you closer to her bosjni. Amid her cruel losses, her chil- dren alone remain her last, as lier most pierious possession; and it is only from their eneri-ies. their virtues, their forritude under obloquy and oppression, that she hopes f;)r restoration. We assuredly believe, young gentlemen, that no drop of blood, generously shed in the right, ever wets our mother earth in vain.
Tlu^ vision of tlie harvest from this preci )us seed may tar- ry, but in the end if will not fail; and we wait for it. The holy struggle may meet with seeming overthrow. lUit if our im- mediate hope is denied, amidst ihe manifold alternatives oi Al- mighty Providence, some other iei()mi)ense is provided, which will gladden and satisfy the hearts >f oui- chihli-en. if not ours, in God's own time and place.
Now that this exi)ectation may net fail, it is mnnlful that you cherish jealously, the virtues ami principles which ennoble
1. (Jommeucement Oration before the students of Davidson CoUcKe. June, 1868.
108
TriK DUTY OF THE HOTJU. lOO
your cause. Your steadfast and uudebauclied liearts uiusi \w tlie nurturluii' soil to j)reserve tlie prfM-ious seed of uiai'tyr blood, durin*;' tliis winter of disaster, tr» the appointed summer of its resurrection. The ur<iency, the solemnity of this seasou of darkness and dan<;er. warn me that it is no mere literary pas- time, but a hijj;h and serious duty which should occupy this hour. Pardon me, then, for passin«>- to a topic wliicli is fuuda- mental, at once to the dearest liopes, of your country, and of its dead heroes. I would employ this season of communion with my youug fellow-citizens, in utterinjij my earnest warning to them, of a danger and a duty arising out of the misfortunes of our country — a danger most i)ortentous to a thoughtful mind, a duty ]>eculiarly incumbent on educated men.
T/ii's danger may be expressed by the fearful force of con- quest and despotism to degrade the spirit of the victims. The correlated duty is that of anxiously preserving our integrity and self-respect. A grajihic English traveller in the P^ast, de- scribes the contrast, so striking to us, between' the cowering spirit of the Orientals, and the numly independence of the citi- zens 'O'f fr-ee States in Western Europe. These have been raised in commonwealtlis wliicli avouch and protect the rights of in- dividuals. They are accustomed to claim their chartered lib- erties as an inviolable heritage. The injuries of power are met by them, with moral indignation and the high purpose of re- sistance.
J'ut the abject Syrian or Copt is affected no otherwise by Turkish oppressions tlian by the incursions of nature's resist- less forces: the whirlwind or the thuiulerbolt.
The only emotion excited is that of passive terror. He ac- cepts the foulest wrong as his destiny, and almost his riglit. He has no other thought than to crouch, and disarm the lash by his submissiveness. And if any sentiment than that of helpless panic, is excited, it is rather admiration of superior power than righteous resentment against wrong. He who is the most ruth- less among his masters is in his abject view the greatest.
When we remember the ancestry of these Orientals, w^e ask with wonder w^iat has wrought this change? These are the children of those P]gyptians who under Sesostris, pushed their conquests from Thrace to furthest Iml, bt^youd the utmost march of Alexander and wlio, under the Pharoahs, so i:)ng cou-
ilo
THE DtlTY OF THE HO tjR.
tested the empire of the world with the Assyrian. Or they are the descendants of the conquering Saracens, who in hiter\ages made all Europe tremble. Or these Jews who now kiss the sword that slays them are the posterity of the heroes who, un- der the Macabees, wrested their country from Antiochus, against odds even, more fearful than Southern soldiers were wont to breast. Whence, then, the change?
The answer is, this mournful degeneracy is the result of ages of despatism. These base children of noble sires are but living examples ol the rule, that not only the agents, but the victims of unrighteous oppression, are usually degraded by their unavenged wrongs: a law which our times renders so sig- nificant to us.
Illustrations of the same rule also may be found in the more familiar scenes of domestic life. Few observing men can live to middle life without witnessing sad instances of it. We recall, for instance, some nuptial scene, from the distance of a score of years. We remember how the bridegroom led his adored prize to the altar, elate with proud affection. We recall the modest, trembling happiness of the bride, as she confi- dently pledged away her heart, her all, to the chosen man whom she trusted with an almost religious faith. Her step, diflSdeut yet proud, the proprieties of her tasteful dress, her spotless purity of person, her sparkling eyes, all bespoke self-respect, aspiration, high hope, and noble love. They revealed the thoughts of generous devotion with which her gentle breast was filled.
Had one whispered at that hour, that the trusted man would one day make a brutal use of the power she now so con- fidently gave, she would have resented it as the foulest libel on humanity. Had the prophet added, that she was destined to submit, tamely and basely, to such brutality, she would have repudiated this prediction also with scorn as an equal libel on herself. But we pass over a score of years. We find the same woman sitting in an untidy cabin, with a brood of squalid, neg- lected children around her knees; her shoulders scantily cov- ered with tawdry calico, her once shining hair now wound like a wisp of hay into a foul knot. She is without aspiration, with- out hope, without self-respect, almost without shame. What is the explanation? She has been for years a drunkard's wife.
TliE bUtT Oi' TfiE HOtJil. Ill
She wa,s wholly innocent of her husband's fall. Long has she endured unprovoked tyranny and abuse. Not seldom has she been the helpless victim of blows from the hand which was sworn to cherish her. Often has she meditated escape fronj her degrading yoke; but the unanswerable plea of her helpless children arrested her always. She has found herself tied to a bondage where there was neither escape or resistance; and these wrongs, this misery, has at last crushed her down into the degraded woman we see. The truthfulness of this picture will only be denied by those who judge from romance without experience, not from facts.
We need only to look a little at the operations of moral causes on man's nature to find the solution of these cases. We are creatures of imitation and habit. Familiarit}' with any ob- ject accustoms us to its lineaments. The effect of this ac- quaintanceship to reconcile us to vice, has been expressed by Pope in words too trite to need citation. And the fact that one is the Injured object of repeated crimes does not exempt him from this law, but, as will be shown, only subjects him the more surely to it. Not only is every act of oppression a crime, but the seasons of despotism are usually eras of profuse and outbreaking crime. The baleful shadow of the t3'rant's throne is the favorite haunt of every unclean bird and beast. And if the oppressing power be the many-headed monster, a tyrant faction, this is only more emphatically true. At such a time the moral atmosphere is foul with evil example. The vision of conscience is darkened and warped. The very air is unhealthy even for the innocent soul.
For the common mind the standard of rectitude is almost overthrown In the guilty confusion, liut this is the considera- tion of least weight. A more momentous one is found in the law of man's sensibilities. The natural reflex of injury or as- sault upon us is resentment. This instinctive emotion has evi- dently been designed by our Creator, as the protector of man in this world of injustice. Its function is to energize his powers for self defense. Uut its nature is active; In exertion is its life. Closely connected with this is the sentiment of moral disappro- bation for the wrong character of the act.
This emotion is the necessary correlative to approbation for the right: so that the former cannot be blunted without
ll^ THE DUTY OF THK HOUR.
ecjually blunting the latter. The man who has ceased to feel moral indignation for wrong has ceased to feel the claims of virtue. Xor is there a valid reason for your insensibility to evil, in the fact that you yourself are the object of it.
Now when a man is made the helpless rictim of frequent wrongs when his misfortunes allow him nothing but passive endurance, resentment and moral indignation give place to sim- l)le fear. And this by two sure causes; not only is the very power of sensibility worn away h\ these repeated and violent abrasions; not only is the nature dulled by the perpetual vio- lences to which it is subjected, but that activity being denied, whicli is the necessary scope of these sentiments of resistance, they are extinguished in their birth. The soul which first rose against injustice with the quick and keen sense of wrong, and heroic self-defense; at last loutaliztMl by its very injuries, sub- sides into dull indifference or abject ]»anic. Should it not make the thoughtful patriot shudder to com])are the present temi)er of the people with that of the revolutionary sires, who be- (juea tiled to us the liberties we have forfeited? \Mth how quick and sensitive a jealousy, with what generous disdain did they spurn at the imposition of a tax of a few^ pence, against their rights as Englishmen; while we seek to reconcile aunselves with a jest or sophism to wrongs a thousand fold as onerous. In the words of IJurke, ''In other countries the people judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipated the evil, and judged of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augured miisgo vera men t at a distance, and snuffed the reproacli of tyranny in every tainted breeze." But we. their miserable chil- dren, are compelled to inhabit the very miasm and stench of extreme oppression, until oui- tainted nosti-ils almost refuse the ■oflice, and leave us unconscious, while stiHed by the pol- lution.
We need not go so far to find this startling contrast; we Juive only to compare our present selves with ourselves a few yt^ars ago to find fearful illustrations of the working of these influences. Let us suppose that on the evening of July 21, 18(">1, I had stood befoi'e that panting citizen soldiery, which had just hurled back the onset of our gigantic foe, and that I had de- nounced to them that seven short years would find them tamely
tllE DUTY OF TIIK HOUR. 113
acquiescing- iu rlie unutterable wrongs since heaped upon us: in tlie insolent violation of every belligerent right, in the sack of their homes, in the insult of their females, in the treacherous arming of their own slaves, in their subjection to them; with what anger and incredulity would they not have repelled me? Let us suppose that I had made the imputation that some day they would consent to survive such infamy: that it would be possible for them to make any other election than that of death, with their faces to the foe, rather than isuch a fate; would they not have declared it a libel upon the glories of that day, and upon the dead heroes, even then lying with their faces to the sk}'? But we have consented to live under all this, and are even now persuading ourselves to submit to yet more! Do you remember that unutterable swelling of indignation aroused in us by the first rumor of outrage to Southern women? How that you felt your breasts must rend with anguish unless it were solaced by some deeds of defense and righteous retribu- tion? But we have since had so illstarred a tuition by a multi- tude of more monstrous wrongs, that the slavish pulse is now scarcely quickened by the story of the foulest iniquities heaped upon a defenseless people. Thus does our own melancholy ex- perience verify the reasonings given.
But, my hearers, this deterioration of the moral sensibili- ties does not place man above the prouiptings of selfishness: it rather subjects him more fully to them. We may not expect that the sense of helplessness and fear will reconcile him to suffer with passive fortitude, without a struggle. As well might we look to see the panting stag bear the bit and spur with (piietude. The instinct of self-preservation goads the oppressed to attempt some evasion from their miseries; but their only re- maining means is that common weapon of the weak against the strong — artifice. Every down-trodden people is impelled al- most irresistibly to seek escape from the injustice which can no longer be resisted by force, th-rough the agency of concealments, of duplicity, of lies, of perjuries. The government of the op- pressor is therefore a school to train its victims in all the aris of chicanery and meanness. Mark, I pray you, the cruel al- ternative to which it shuts them u]). They must suffer with- out human help or remedy, evils unrighteous, relentless, almost intolerable; evils which outrage at once their well-being and
114 THE DtJTY OF THE HOUK.
their moral sense; or they must yield to temptation and seek deceitful methods of escape. And the only motives to move them to elect suffering rather than dishonor are the power of conscience, the fear of God, and faith in the eventual awards of His justice. What portion of any people may be expected to persevere in this passive heroism without other support?
In answering" this question we must not forget the inex- pressible seductiveness and plausibility of that temptation. It pleads with the injured victim of wrong, that his oppressors had no moral right to inflict these evils: That their injustice and treachery forfeit all claim upon his conscience: That to de- ceive them is but paying them as they desen'e in their own coin. An embittered hatred, which pleads its excuse from a thousand unprovoked injuries, impels the sufferer by a sting as keen as living fire, to seek the revenge of deception: the only one in his reach. And last, the specious maxim, "That neces- sity knows no law," completes the triumph of the temptation with the plea, that the endurance of this tyrant's unmitigated will is impossible, and therefore the case justifies the means of evasion.
Xow I need hardly pause, before this assembly, to say that all this pretended argument is a guilty sophism. You know that, however plausible it may be, it is grounded in a profane forget- fulness of God, of his holy will, and of his omnipotent govern- ment over oppressors and oppressed. You see how it involves that maxim of delusion, of whose advocates the Apostle de- clared "their damnation is just"; that the end sanctifies the means. At the day when God shall bring him into judgment, no man will dare to obtrude these specious pleas, for his viola- tion of the eternal principles of truth and right— principles on which repose the w^elfare of all creatures and the honor of God, principles whose sanctity only finds illustrations in the very evils which man experiences from their breach. But none the less do we find anticipations of seduction verified by ten thou- sand lamentable lapses from honor among our suffering people: in their tampering with ensnaring and oppressive. oaths; in the evasion of pecuniary obligations; in the deceitful avowal of pretenses abhorrent at once to the political pride and principles of our country. The facts are too melancholy to be pursued.
Meantime the efficiency of all these seductions is made
*HE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 1 15
more fearful by the causes wliicli hedge lour young men uji from wholesome activities. There is no longer a career for their in- dividual energies. Scarcely any profession offers a prize worthy of their exertions. If they turn to agriculture, or the pursuits of the merchant or artisan, the ruin of trade and the crushing burden of unequal taxation compel them to labor for a pittance. Hence the danger tliat they will succumb to an apathetic despair. We see too many of our youth whose forti- tude should sustain a fainting, sinking country, sitting down in skeptical doubt to question the control of Divine Providence, or sinking into an indolence which they persuade themselves is inevitable, and seeking a degrading solace in epicurean ease. Take heed, gentlemen, lest these insidious discouragements transmute the sons of the heroes of Manassas and Shiloh, as the despotism of arbitrary rulers has charge, into the modern Rom- an. In the Eternal city we see the descendants of that race which gave laws and civilization to a conquered world, now in tlie words of their own sensual poet, '^Porci de grege Epicuti, cute bene curata^'^ filling their idleness with the criticism of cooks and singing women. Kather than risk the yielding to this, arise and go forth, sturdy exiles, to carve out a new career on some more propitious soil.
It has been made my duty by my appointed pursuits to ex- amine the history of previous concpiesrs; and it is my deliberate conviction that no civilized people have ever been subjected to an ordeal of oppression so charged as ours with all the elements of degradation. I have explained how the unrighteousness of the despotism becomes a pottmr influence for temptation, ^^'e experience a domination, the iniijuity of which is declared by every patriot of every previous i)arty, and constantly avowed by the very men that impose it uji to the day. when their reason was swept away by the torrent of revenge and the lust of dom- ination. Our people have been violently thrust down from the proudest ancestral tradiiions. and highest freedom boasted by any commonwealth on earlh, to the deepest humiliations and most grinding exactions. They have been overpowered, not by manly force, but by filthy lucre, whicli bribed the }»rolitaries of the whole world to crush us. We stooped our banners, not like the conquered Gaul and Briton to one who knew how, debellare uperbos, forcere victis; but to a rabble w ho are not ashamed to
116 THE DUTY OF,THE HOUli.
confess that their fourfold numbers and tenfold resources were unable to subdue us, until they had armed against us all the mercenaries of Europe and our own poor slaves besides. And to crown all, the favorite project is to subject us, not to the con- queror only, but to these alien serfs, to be invested with our plundered franchises. Thus are our people robbed not only of their possessions and rights, but of their dearest point of honor. Now, every one experienced of human nature knows that when you break down the chosen point of honor, the man is degraded to a brute unless he is sustained by the vital grace of God. Thus it appears that the influences and temptations by which con- quest depraves its victims are now applied to our people in their most malignant efficacy. The lesson which we should learn from this fact is that we should be watchful in an equal degree to preserve our own rectitude and honor.
For, young gentlemen, as the true dishonor of defeat lies only in this deterioration of spirit, so it is the direst wrong which the injustice of the conqueror can inflict. A brave people may, for a time, be overpowered b}' brute force, and be neither dishonored nor destroyed. Its life is not in the outward organ- ization of its institutions. It may be stripped of these and clothe itself in some diverse garb, in which it may resume its growth. But if the spirit of independence and honor be lost among the people, this is the death of the common weal: a death on which there waits no resurrection. Dread, then, this degradation of spirit as worse than defeat, than subjugation, than poverty, than hardship, than prison, than death.
The law on which I have commented has ever appeared to me the most awful and obscure of all those which regulate the divine providence over men and nations. That the ruthless wrong-doer should be depraved in his own soul by his crimes, that he should find a part of his just penalty in the disorders and remorse infused in his own nature by his acts; this is a dis- pensation as adorably righteous as it is terrible. But that not only guilty agent, but guiltless victim should, by a law, almost natural, find his moral being broken down; that a necessity which his will had no agency in procuring should subject his heart to an ordeal so usually disastrous:— this is indeed fearful. ''Clouds and darkness" here surround him. Yet "justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." One thing I cleariy
THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 117
infer hence, that he has ordained the virtuous man's life in this wiclced world, to be often a battle, in which he may be called "to resist unto blood, striving against sin." We learn from these mournful histories how it may be our duty to sur- render life, rather than conscience and moral independence. Man's first duty to himself is the preservation of his own vir- tue. His prime duty to his God may be said to be the same. For how shall the depraved creature fulfill that "chief end," lilorifying God? With no little seeming then was it argued of old, that a dishonored life was no life indeed; so that the im- position of unavoidable degradation of soul was equivalent to the Maimer's decree dismissing us out of tlie scene of defiled ex- istence. Here is the most plausible excuse of that antique self- sacrifice, by which the heroic souls of the Pagan world claimed the privilege of escaping subjugation, and defying the oppres- sor by a voluntary grave. For they knew not the only power by which the inw^ard stain of oppression can be countervailed. They had never heard of gospel grace; of regeneration and adoption; of a hope anchored beyond the grave; of a reward in glory ennobling all suffering and endurance for conscience sake. Let us not, however, palliate the errar of those who thus re tired from life's battle without the word of supreme command of the Captain. But from this danger of the soul's subjugation along with that of the body, we may infer the duty and privi- lege of preferring the surrender of life ti the desertion of duty. It is yours, young gentlemen, to boast among the alumni of your college, more than one illustrious instance of this fate, which may prove so enviable compared with ours. First among these, I am reminded of one, whose youthful face, then ruddy as that of the hero of Bethlehem, is filed in the memories of my first visit here. General Ramseur. Nowhere, in the rich record of Southern chivalry, can there be found the name of one who nu)re deliberately resolved for death rather than forfeiture of duty and honor. Twice within a few weeks, at Winchester and Fisher's Hill, his command had yielded to numbers, in spite of his most strenuous and daring exertion. On the morning of the battle of Belle Plain, which began so gloriously for the Con- federates, while marshalling his troops for the strife, he ex- horted them to stand to their colors, and calmly declared that if they had any value for his life they would henceforward be
118 THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.
staunch; for lie was resolved never to participate with them in another flight from their foes. It was with this deliberate pur- pose he joined battle. But as the bravest are ever the most gentle, this stern resolve did not exclude the thought of the do- mestic tie, which his country's call had sundered almost as soon as it was bound around his heart, and of the infant which had never received its father's kiss. His courage was only rein- forced by these remembrances. For. as he began the onset, in the second movement of the tragedy, he exclaimed to the offi- cers near him, "Now, gentlemen, let us sd fight to-day as to finish this campaign; I want to see my first born." After per- forming his whole duty during the changeful day, he saw all the line upon his left giving way. AVith his own command he strove to stem the torrent of enemies; and when they, too, broke in panic he refused to tlee with them, but busied himself in rallying a few determined spirits like himself. When the last fugitive left the field they saw him with a handful, breasting the whole jmrsuing h )st. until, according to his pledge, he fell with his face to the foe. Let this example inspire you to endure as he fought, and you will be secure against all the degradations of defeat.
This degradation, then, does not necessarily accompany our prostrate condition. Divine I'ravidence often makes the furnace of persecution the place of cleansing for individual saints. Why may it not be so for a Christian people*? Why may not a race of men come forth from their trials, like the gold seven times refined in the fire, with their pride chastened, and yet their virtues purified'? This can be from the only cause which sanctifies the sufferings of the Christian, the inworkings of the grace of God. Nothing is more true than that the natural effect of mere pain is not to purify, but tj harden the sinful heart of man. exasperating at once its evils and its miseries. The cleansing Word and Spirit of God alone interpret its suf- ferings to it and convert them into healthful medicines of its faults. So it is the power of true Christianity, and that alone, which can minister to us as a people the wholesome uses of ad- versity. The salvation of the life of the Southern society must be found by taking the Word of God as our constant guide. But it may be asked: To what course of action should this spirit of unyielding integrity prompt us? The answer from
THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 119
those infallible oracles is easy. While you refrain from the suggestion of revenge and dispair, and give place as of neces- sity to inexorable force, resolve to abate nothing, to concede nothing of righteous conviction. Truckle to no falsehood and conceal no true principle; but ever assert the right with such means of endurance, iself-sacrifice and passive fortitude as the dispensation of Providence has left you. If wholesale wrongs must be perpetrated, if wholesale rights must be trampled on, let our assailants do the whole w^ork and incur the whole guilt. Resolve that no losses, nor threats, nor penalties, shall ever make you yield one jot or tittle of the true or just in principle, or submit to personal dishonor. And let us remember, young gentlemen, that while events, the success of ruthless power, the overthrow of innocence may greatly modify the expedient, '^hey have no concern whatever in determining the right. The death of a beloved child may determine its mother to bury its decay- ing body out of sight, even to hide in the wintry earth that which before she cherished in her bosom; but its death will never make the true mother repudiate its relation of paternity to it, or deny its memory, or to acquiesce in any slander upon its filial loveliness. You must decide, then, each one for himself, what things must be conceded to the necessities of new events, and what things must be disclaimed as contaminating to the un- conquered soul. May I not safely advise, that, in making these decisions you should always refer them to that standard of judgment which we held before our disasters, as the truer and worthier one; rather than to that standard to which we are seduced by their humiliations? Judge then from the same prin- ciples (however new their special applications) from which you would have judged in happier years when your souls were in- spired by the glorious traditions of your free forefathers, and saw the truth in the clear light of your conscious manhood; not as men would have you judge, from hearts debauched by de- feat, and clouded with shame and despair.
We are a beaten, conquered people, gentlemen, and yet if we are true to ourselves, we have no cause for humiliation, however much for deep sorrow. It is only the atheist who adopts success as the criterion of right. It is not a new thing In the history of men that God appoints to the brave and true the stern task of contending and falling in a righteous quarrel.
120 THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.
Would you find the grandest of all nanie.s upon the roll of time? You must seek them among this "noble arm}- of mai't3'rs/' whose faith in God and the right was stronger than death and defeat. Let the besotted foals saj that our dead have fallen in a ''lost cause." Let abandoned defamers and pulpit buffoons sjay that theirs are "dishonored graves." I see them lie in their glor\- with an illustrious eomfjany: with the magnanimous Prince Jonathan, on Mount Gilboa. and the good king Josiah in the vale of Megiddo; with Demo.stheues and Philopoemen; with Hannibal, the pillar of Carthage; with Brutus and Cato; with the British Queen, Boadicea; with the Teuton Herman; with Harold, the Saxon, on Hastings field; with Wallace, with Kosciusko; with one grander than all, our own Jackson. We have no need, sirs, to be ashamed of our dead; let us see to it that they be not ashamed of us. They have won the happier fate, ''taken away from the evil to come, they have entered into peace; they rest in their beds, each one walking in their up- rightness." To us they have bequeathed the sterner trial of as- serting, by our unshaken fortitude under overthrow, the princi- ples which they baptized with their blood. I^t the same .spirit which nerved them to do. nerve us to endure for the right; and they will not disdain our companionship on the rolls of fame. Before I end, let me invoke the aid of the gentler sex, whose sympathizing presence I see gracing our solemnities. The high mission of woman in society has been often and justly argued. But never before was the welfare of a people so dependent on their mothers, wives and sisters, as now and here. I freely de- clare that under God my chief hope for my prostrate country is in their women. Early in the war, when the stream of our noblest blood began to flow so liberally in battle, I said to an honored citizen of my State, that it was so uniformly our best men wha were made the sacrifice there was reason to fear that the staple and pith of the people of the South would be per- manently depreciated. His reply was: "There is no danger of this while the women of the South are what they are. Be as- sured the mothers will not permit the oftspring of such martyr- sires to depreciate."
But since, this river of generous blood, has swelled into a flood. What is worse, the remnant of the survivors, few, sub- jugated, disheartened, almost despairing and, alas, dishonored,
THE DUTY OF THE HOUR. 121
because the.v have uot disdained life, uu such terms as are left us; are subjected to every influeuce from without, whicli cau be maliiiuantly devised to sap the fouudatijns of their manhood and degrade them into fit materials for slaves. If our women do not sustain them they will sink. Unless the spirits which rule and cheer their homes can reanimate their self-respect, con- firm their resolve, and sustain their personal honor, they will at length become the base serfs their enemies desire. Outside thcnr homes, everything conspires to depress, to tempt, to seduce them. Do they advert to their business affairs? They see be- fore them only loss, embarrassment, and prospective destitu- tion. To the p9litics of their country? They witness a scheme of domination and mercenary subserviency where the sacrifice 'of honor is the uniform condition of success. Only within their homes is there, beneath the skies, one ray of light or warmth to prevent their freezing into despair.
TJiere, in your homes, is your domain. There y^?^ rule with the sceptre of affection, and not our conquerors. We beseech you, wield that gentle empire in behalf of the principles, the patriotism, the religion, which we inherited from our mothers. Teach our ruder sex that only by a deathless love to these can woman's dear love be deserved or won. Him who is true to these crown with your favor. Let the wretch who betrays them be exiled forever from the paradi.se of your arms. Then shall we be saved, saved from a degradation fouler than the grave. Tie it yours to nurse witli more than a vestal's watchfulness, the sacred flame of our virtue now sj smothered. Your task is un- obtrusive; it is fperformed in the privacy of home, and by the gentle touches of daily love. But it is the noblest work which mortal can perform, for it furnishes the polished stanes, with which the temple of our liberties must be repaired. We have seen men building a lofty pile of sculptured marble, where columns with polished shafts pointed to the skies, and domes reared their arches on high, like mimic heavens. They swung tlu^ massive blocks into their places on the walls with cranes and cables, with shout and outcries, and hugh creaking of the ponderous machinery. But these were not the true artisans: they were but rude laborers. Tlie true artists, whose priceless cunning was to give immortal beauty to the pile, and teach the dead stones to breathe majesty and grace were uot there. None
122 THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.
saw or heard their hibors. In distant and cjniet workrotnns, where no eye watclied them, and no sliout jiavo ,sij;nal of tlieii' motions, they plied their patient cliisels ishiwly with genth^ touches, evoking- the forms of beauty which hiy liid in the blocks before them. Such is your work; the home and fireside are the scenes of your industry. But the materials which you shape are the souls of men, which are to compose the fabric of our church and state. The jiolitician, the professional man, is but the cheap, rude, day laborer, who moves and lifts the finislied block to its place. You are the true artists, who endue it with fitness and beauty; and therefore vours is the nobler task.
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION'
\vt'. VI. — 1. Preliminary Report on the Eigth Census, 1800. By Jos. C G. Kennedy, Superintendent. Washington: Government Printing Ottice. 1862.
2. Message from the President of the United States to the two Houses ff Congress, at the ("oniniencement of the Second Session of tlie Thirty-eighth Congress; with tlie Reports of the Heads of Departments, and Selections from accom- panying Documents. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1864.
The ability of a people for military exploits depends, in modern times, upon two classes of circumstances, the material aud the moral. Among the former, the most important are, the numbers of its poi)ulation, the magnitude of its revenues, its manufactures, commerce, and agriculture, and its geographical position. The moral qualities which make a military nation are, natural bravery, love of glory, intelligence, independence, fortitude, and, above all, virtue and devout religious faith.
The authors and ])oliticiau;s of the North usually point, with much exultation, to the war against the Confederate States, which closed in 1865, as a splendid proof of their mili- tary prowess. Since that triumph, it has been customary with them to claim that the Ignited States stand in the first rank, if not at the head of the great military powers of Christendom; and that they may safely venture to cope with the greatest of those powers. That war is su])posed to prove that the TTnited States are able, with ease, to place a million of combatants in the field, and a jtowerful navy upon tlie water, for any contest which affects the national heart. We propose to bnng this boast to the test, by a review of some facts and figures, touch- ing th(- jtarties to the recent Avar. We hope thus to reach a correct estimate of the real material resources of the United States for a great war, at this time, and of the aptitude which
1 Appearefl in Southern Review. Baltimore. Oct, 1869
133
124 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
the Northern people have disclosed for iiiilitarv enterprises.
The first fousideration is obviously a comparisan of the population and prL>duetion of the two parties tp the late con- test. According to the census of 1800 (the year before the con- test began), as prepared by the North itself, the Northern States and territories had then a population of twenty-two million eight hundred and seventj'-seven thousand (22,877,000). This aggregate includes a few hundreds of thousands of negroes, but none of the Indian tribes. The Confederate States had a pop- ulation of eight million seven hundred and thirty-three thou- sand (8,733,000). But of these, three million six hundred and sixty-four thousand (3,064,000) were negroes; so that if they are deducted, we have only five million (5,000,000) whites to sustain the struggle against twenty-two million, (22,000,000). Northern politicians are bound to admit the fairness of at least such a deduction; because they uniformly say that slavery is a weakening institution, inimical to national strength. We, in- deed always argued (wliat this war abundantly confirmed) that a slave-holding nation was stronger for war than a hired-labor State, of numbers ecjual to the free and slave together; because the devotion of the bondmen to productive laboi- both released a large number of freemen for military employments, and gave them a higher tone. But the Northern statesman cannot use this plea; because he has always denied these facts, and assert- ed the contrary. He is therefore obliged to count out the Southern slaves, and to compare the belligerents as five mil- lion (5,000,000) against twenty-two million (22,000,000). He is obliged, also, to estimate these five million (5,000,000) as a peo- ple far inferior to the rest of Christendom, in their morale; for has he not proved to his own satisfaction, in his descants on the 'barbarism of slavei-y,' that this institution invariably renders the masters lazy, effeminate, selfish, petulant, and insubordin- ate? The case which we have to inspect is, therefore, for the North, this: that twenty two millions (22,000,000) ot tlie best people in Christendom managed souuliow to beat five millions (5,000,000) of the meanest.
In this estimate of numbers, we have not counted Kentucky or Missouri as Confederate States. Both parties claimed them; the North actually possessed them, during the whole war, with their territories, resources, and population. A few thousand
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. 1 SK
from each State preferred exile to subjugation, and enlisted in the Confederate armies. These, with the recruits from Mary- land, were far more than counterbalanced by the large defec- tions from the Confederate cause in East Tennessee, Northern Arkansas, Western Xortli Carolina, and Northwestern Vir- ginia.
But we have not yet reached the fair comparison of mater- ial strength. The campaigns of 18()1 w^re only tenative; the real *'tug of war" had not yet come. But before May, 1862, the Northern armies were in permanent occupancy of all Western and Middle Tennessee, of nearly the whole of Louisiana, of parts of Florida, of the coast of South and North Carolina, of Eastern and Northern Virginia. This occupation continued until the end of the war. The population thus excluded from the support of the Confederate cause cannot be exactly esti- mated; but it was certainly more than twelve hundred thou sand (1,200,000). Thus the Confederates bore all the real brunt of the struggle, with three million eight hundred thou- sand (3,800,000) white people. The fighting men were not ab- solutely limited to this source, for some of them came from within the hostile lines; but, of course, no material resources, and few men, could be relied on from a territory in the perma- nent occupancy of the enemy. The real problem which was solved, then, was. how twenty-two million (22,000,00(0 of the best people in Christendom managed, in three years, to beat three million eight hundred thousand (3,800,0(H)) of the mean- est.
But the material resources were even more unequal than the numbers. The Confederate States were rather planting than agricultural communities; their customary industry pro- duced rather those things which are the basis of Northern com- merce, than the wheat, the beef, the wool, the horses, which sustain large armies. The North had far the larger portion of the commerce and manufacturing arts. It retained the nation- al army, navy, arsenals, treasury, government. The South had all these to create, in the progress of the struggle.
But, secondly, it is pleaded that a people inhabiting a large country, have, in their forests, i-ivers, mountains, and especially in the distances which armies must pass over, a defense against the invader, which almost compensates for any inferi uity of
12G THE UNITP.D STATES AS A MILITARY NATlO^t.
force. This argumeDt was not true, iu the case of the Confed- erate people. Xew circuDistances, with their geographical position, wholly neutralized these advantages. Of these, one was the advantage which th'e invader had of railroads; by which he almost annihilated distance, and overcame weight and bulk, in transporting the materiel of war. The Confederate States were sufiflciently supplied with railroads for all the military purposes of the invader. Ketreating armies usually attempted, of course, to dismantle these roads; but the repair of any dam- age thus hastily done, was eas}' and quick work to a numerous people, abounding in industrious mechanics, and iu machinery and materials. Thus, as an invading army was enabled by its military successes to advance, the captured raih'Dads in its rear, •quickly repaired, and easily defended, brought its base of ope- rations i^ractically up to its rear. It was, thus, relieved of this, formerh', the great difficult}' of extended invasion.
The decisive circumstance which robbed the South of the defensive advantages of its wide territory was, the superiority of its enemies up3n the water. The North retained the use of the whole national navy. While the South was chiefly a plant- ing community, the North was manufacturing and maritime. Hence the multiplication of ships and sailors, which continued and increased her naval superiority, was easy and rapid for her. This cause also enabled her, by her blockade, to exclude the Confederates from all f jreign sources of supply. The naviga- ble water was therefore, all, the territory of the North. The ocean and the gulf, which bounded two sides of the Con- federate States, belonged to their invaders, furnishing them a cheap and swift way of approach, secure from assault. This fact rendered the whole sea and gulf shores bases of opera- tions for Federal armies. It made all an exposed frontier, and brought the enemy upon it all, as though he had embraced these two sides, as he did the other two, with conterminous territodes of his own. The reader may represent to himself the significance Df this fact, by imagining the inland kingdom of Bavaria assailed at once on four sides, by Austria, Switzer- land, and the German States, all united under a single will. The professional soldier will comprehend the disastrous position of the invaded country, wlien he considers that the invader thus had two pairs of bases of operations, at right angles to
tHE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. \'>7
each other; whence it resulted that from whatever interior base a Confederate arniv might set out to defend its frontier, its line of operations must needs be exposed, paralh'l to one of these Federal bases, and liable to be struck at right angles, by a force advancing from it.
But, worse than this, the Confederate territories were pene- trated, in nearly every part, by navigable rivers, opening either into the sea, which was the territory of the North, or into the Northern frontier. On the east, the Potomac, the Rappahan- nock, the York, the James, the Roanoke, the Neuse, the Cape Fear, the Savannah, and on the south, the St. John's, the Ala- bama, the Brazos, stretched their navigable waters far into the interior; while the Mississippi, which is itself an inland sea, floating the greatest war-ships, jjassed out oi the United States below Cairo, through the midst of the Confederacy, to the Gulf, which, again, belonged to its enemies. The Tennessee and the Cumberland, with their mouths opening upon the Northern frontier, in winter navigable for warships, as well as trans- ports, curved inwards, near the heart of the Eastern quarter. The Arkansas and Red rivers opened the States west of the Mis- sissippi. The difficulties of invasion were also unexpectedly re- moved, for the North, by the new decision given to the ques- tion, whether shore-batteries could command a channel against ships of war. Military authorities had usually answered this question in the affirmative. The answer was now reversed in favor of the North. When ships were only of wood, and pro- pelled only by winds, a motive power gentle (except when it as- sumes the unmanageable violence of the tempest), variable, and uncertain, artillerists might well boast that shore-batteries would usually destroy the ships opposed to them. But when the ship has within itself an unfailing motive power, as steady as the breeze and as swift as the tempest, and when it is coated with an iron plating, which, if not absolutely impervious to cannon-shots, at least delays for a long time the ruin of the frainework, all is changed; it may expect to brave the bullets of shore-batteries with impunity, and to pass them without the rroi:bl. of silencing them. Thus, the forts designed to proteci New Orleans, Mein]»his, and Vicksburg, were, in each case, passed by the Federal steamers without being reduced; and that which thev were designed to defend was seized in spite of
128 THE UNITED STATES ASA MILITARY NATION.
them; so that rlieir leteution became useless or impracticable.
Xow the naval supremacy of the North having been assert- ed upon all these streams, it was the least part of the evil, that all their fertile valle3's were exj)osed to ravage, and the wealthy cities on their Banks, to capture. Each of the rivers became a new and secure base of operations for invading armies. Diffi- culties of distance were almost annihilated. Xo interior base from which C3nfederate armies could operate toward their own frontiers, to extrude the invader, remained secure from attack from one or another of these rivers. Hence it was, that defen- sive victories were usually fruitless of permanent results.
The justice of this view is sustained by the fact that all the rivers 7vere opened to the ingress of Northern armies and fleets (save a small portion of the Mississippi between Vick^burg and Port Hudson) without much difficulty, and before the real "tug of war" began. By May, 1862, they were all occupied; and the illusory advantages of territory and distance for the invaded, were all lost. The extent of the Confederate territory no longer interposed an}' difficulty to the invaders, except the demand for a plenty of money and mechanics.
The M/r^subject of comparison is, obviously, the size of the armaments which the rivals were able to put into the field. To appreciate the amazing disproportion, the reader must ponder a few figures. According to the report of the Adjutant General of the United States, two million five hundred and thirty thou- sand (2,530,000) soldiers were employed by laud, during the course of the war. The whole population of the North subject to military duty, but not in service, had also been enrolled, and the number was found to be two million seven hundred and eighty-four thousand (2,784,000). These facts reveal the curious result (of which use will be made hereafter), that, had no for- eigners been employed in their armies, the North would have had, on land, neariy half (2,530,000 against 2,784,000) of their whole male population of military age, actually under arms. But the actual strength of their armies, at the close of the war, is very accurately fixed by the returns of volunteers mustered out of service. These were one million thirty-four thousand (1,034,000). So that, adding the regular army, we find that they employed, at one time, one million seventy-two thousand five hundred (1,072,500) combatants, on laud, ''to crush the
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. 129
ivlK'llion.'" Tims, something- more than one doughty warrior to every four white Confederate souls (including all the soldiers, :ild men, sick, women, children, babies, and cowards), and at least one fighting man to every two Confederate souls adhering in any sense to that government during the whole of the last year of the war, were required to conquer their resistance! This vast host was served by one horse or mule fur every two men in the field; and it destroyed draught animals at the aver- age rate of five hundred (50()) per day. It was ministered to by one thousand and eighty (1,080) sea and river transports, at a daily cost of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars (1120,000) for their navigation alone. It was furnished during rhe war with nearly eight thousand (8,000) cannons, and nearly twelve millions (12,000,000) of small arms; while the masses of cartridges, shot, shell, and gunpowder were fabulous.
To the efforts of this Xerxean ho.^t must be added those of the navy of the United States. This arm employed, in the course of the war, one hundred and twenty-six thousand five hundred and fifty-three (12(),55;i) sailors and marines; besides the countless mechanics and servants about the naval arsenals and depots. T'he Report of the Secretary, under date of Decem- ber 5, 1864, gives the following "General exhibit of the navy, including vessels under constructian," to-wit: No. (luns. Tons.
118 Screw steamers especially constructed for
naval purposes 1,120 1(59,231
52 Paddle-wheel steamers es'i>ecially construct- ed for naval purposes 521 51,878
71 Iron-clad vessels 275 80,596
119 Screw steamers, purchased, captured, etc.,
fitted for naval purposes 611 60,380
171 Paddle-wheel steamers, purchased, captui--
ed, etc., fitted for naval purposes 921 78,762
112 Sailing vessels of all classes 850 69,549
671 Total 4,()10 510,396
588 T )tal navy, December, 18(13 4,443 4(57.967
83 Actual increase for the year 167 42,429
Now against these, place the following numbers of the Con-
130 THE UNITKD STATES AS A MILITARY NAtIoN.
federate armies. The aggregate of all the levies made during the whole war. was about equal to the available force present for duty at one time with their enemies; that is; to say, about six hundred and sixty thousand (660,000), or one-fourth the whole number enlisted by the North during the war. If we estimated the Confederate force effective for duty at any one time by this ratio we ishould give them less than one hundred and twenty-five thousand (125,000) soldiers in actual service, the day their armies were strongest. When we remember that many of their levies were from districts soon occupied perma- nently by their enemies, to which therefore no provost-marshal could ever go to reclaim absentees, we might reasonably con- clude that the number of Confederates actually in the field at any one time bore a still smaller ratio to the total of levies. But the superiority of the Confederate administration, with the higher patriotism of the people, wonderfully couutei-poised this disadvantage, and enabled the government to present, in May, 1864, about two hundred and sixty-four thousand (264,000) combatants to Mr. Lincoln's nine hundred and sev- enty thousand (1)70,000), the number he had under arms at that time. But it was impossible for the Confederacy to mobilize, for campaigning, as large a ratio as their enemy did. They had the same length of frontier to guard; they were therefore com- pelled to reserve for garrisons and posts a far larger part rela- tively to their whole force. Hence, while General Grant, as commander-in-chief, was able to put in the field, for aggressive purposes, six hundred and twenty thousand (620,000) men in May, 1864, Mr. Davis opposed him with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand (125,000) in the several active armies.
The disproportion of forces, and the relative character of the rival armies, may also be illustrated by the numbers actually arraj'ed against each other in several battles. At the critical turn of the first battle of Manassas, the official reports of Gen- erals McDowell and Beauregard show that the decisive grapple for the key of the battle-field was made by six thousand five hundred (6,500) Confederates against twenty thousand (20,000) United States troops, including several regiments of regulars. The Confederates won it. At Sharpsburg, thirty-three thousand (33,000) Confederates repulsed ninety thousand (1)0,000) Federal- ists. At Chancellorsville, thirty-five thousand (35,000) Confed-
THE UNITED STATS'^ AS A MILITARY XATIO>r. 131
erates beat Gen. Hooker, witli the "tiuest anuy upjii tlie planet." In the Wilderness, Gen. Lee met (Jen. (Irant's one liundred and forty-two th'onsand (142,000) with tifty, tlionsand (50,000) and withont any accessions to this nnniber, continued to breast the Federal ai-niy increased (save as the Confederate shot had thin- ned it) by sixty thomsand ((10,000) more. In the battle of Win- chester, in the autumn of 1S(>4, Sheridan only won a dearly boug-ht victory from Gen. Early, by hurling tifty thousand (50,- 000) npcni his twelve thousand (12,000.) In the clo.siing struggle (xen. Lee's thirty-three thousand (.'W.OOO) w(M-e not dislodged fram Petersburg and Richmond until their assailants were again increased to one hundrtnl and eighty tin)usand (180,000.) And finally, the remnant of Lee's heroic army did not surrender to this enormous host until it wa.s reduced to less than eight thousand (S,000) muskets. Tlu^ aggregate of men i>aroled at Appomattox was made up of s;)nie twenty or more thousand (20,000) stragglei-s, and men on detached service, who came in, to avail themselves of tlie suj)posed ])acificatioii, after the ter- mination of military ojterations.
To this disparity of forces upon land, and overwhelming su- periority upon the water, must be added the advantages derived by the North from theii- blockade. This crippled the Ganfederaey, both in its military and in its financial efforts. The true basis for credit, upon whidi alone the ''sinews of war" could have been borrowed in Euro])e (where alone they existed for the new government) was in the Southei-n cotton and tobacco. ^Ir. Davis's administration sliDuld have had not only the large and jii-eeious crop of ISOO, but an (Mpial cioj) in 1861, and successive ones in 18(52 and 18(5.'^ only diminished in bulk, but enhanced in price, upon whidi to found, at once, a system of foreign loans, and an all-i>ersuading motive f :>r foreign recog- nition. Only in L8(il, did tlie stress of domestic wants become ISO urgent as to arrest all other tillage, for the production of ])rovisions. Now the blockade never wholly arrested shipments of cotton; but it gradually became stringent enough tr> impose upon them a tax in the foi-m of losses by capture, or of bribes to Federal officials, sufficient to disappoint effectually these great [)Ui'poses. The financial right arm of the Confederacy was tied uj). Again, the blockade imposed such difficulties upon importations that, although they continued almost to the
133 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
last, they were limited to a few of the iiure couipaet articles which nurturcnl the war; and these were supplied in the most scanty and inade(|uate degree. Thus, the wt^akin- combatant was kept, in a measure, unarmed and unfed, dui-ing the unecjual struggle.
Fourthly. To give a correct estimate of Northern prowess in this war, Ihe trutli must be told — whicli rs not pleasant to the pride of the Confederates — that tlieir armies, apart from their deficient numbers, were never formidable in their char- acter. The Cjufederate glory was dependent moi-e on the weakness of their assailants, than on the intrinsic vigor of their defense. This assertion, true though distasteful, will be sub- stantiated by these two facts: first, that the people of the ^outh were never roused to what professional soldiers call a poi)ular resistance; and secondly, that tli(- gDvernment never had a really organized and diiscii)lined army. As to the first, their enemies did indeed wage their war in a ruthless way, which gave abundant motive and justification for jtopular war- fare; that is, for turning every mah^ of the invaded c(nmtry into a S'oldiei- without the fornuility of enlistment, and for teaching him ti) regaid every invader as an outlaw, to be assail- ed by any means, and in every place. Hut the Southern people never availed themselves of that right. Amidst all the unutter- able horrors of the raids, the burnings, the wanton and ruinous ravagings, the honu- [)eoj)le of the South uuiiutained a singular neutrality, and submitted with an unaccountable (piiescence, leaving all def<'ns(^ and vengeanci', alike, to the organized sol- diery. Federal officials came and went al )ng \'ast lines of transixtrtat'ion; cavalrynum who had given the country people every reason to regard and treat them as wolves, traversed the regit)U:s they had desolated; bummers rode away with their spoil, secure from ambuscade unless sduic movable c:)lunin of the regular Confederate armies, under sonu' Morgan, CiJuantrel, or Mosby, happened to be near. The citizens — i)lundered, ravaged, murdered — rarely avenged themselves by becoming guerillas.
This singular (piietude ;)f a spirited pe()i»le was to be ac- counted for by several causes. Perhaps the most operative of these was the quixotry of the government; which, in its eager desire for the reputation of a civilized and honorable belliger-
THE tjNlTJ:t) STATKS AS A MILITARY NATION 188
euf, nnifoiinly iie<;lectt'(l ;iiul (liseouiajic'd sucli citizcii.s ;is pio- posed to resort to those rij^lits of nature wliicli the ontra«;es of the invaders justified. Tlie i)eo])]e. nioieover. were stran«;ers to war and bloodshed. Two generations of ])rofonnd peace at home, had made ease pleasant, and personal viMijicance ablior- rent to their habits. Their character was (inlet, law-abidinj>\ kindly, in the hij;hest decree. Their hijih civilization, and the standard of material comfort and safety to which they were accustomed, had dis(|ualified them for seekin<>' the rou<;h and turbulent vengeance of the guerilla And then, the men of hardihood and spirit had responded at first to the call of their country, and were in the regular armies. So it was, that the Northern invader was almost wholly free from that species of anno^'ance which, when combined with the resistance of organ- ized armies, becomes so terrible — popular warfare.
Next, when we asserted that the armies of the Confeder- acy, inadequate in size as they were, never showed themselves truly good armies in (]uality, we did not im]tugn the gallantry of the bulk of the men c()m])osing them. Themorale opioid v, jo is a thing of comparative estimate. It may be very true (as this discussion will evince) that, compared with that of tln^ Xortli, the morale of the Confederacy was lofty and brilliant. I'ut it must be confessed that, com])ared with the historic standard, the Confederate people and soldiery were not, as a whole, a heroic body. The war found them in a transition state. Very many, perhaps the most of the reputable men (with nearly all the women) still cherished the hardy virtues and ennobling spir- it of Revolutionary grandsires. Yet the cori-upting coitartner- shij) with the North had continued just a generation too long. The leaven of a sensualistic morality and civilizati :)n was at work all through the South; the contagion had already tainted multitudes. Hence, althougli in the moment of first enthusiasm the people seemed to rally almost as one man to the call of liberty raised by the undebauched s})irits. yet when the stress of danger and toil came, many proved themselves craven. The Confederate armies certainly included a class of i)atriot soldicMs the noblest which this age can ])roduce, under any clime. Tliis class was numerous; it embraced, perhaps at all stages of the war, a majority of the levies. But there was also a large ele- ment of baser metal; men who begrudged their sacrifices for
134 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
liberty, aud shii-ked danger. And as deatli thinned tlie ranlvs of the original armies, this worse material became relatively larger.
But the fact, that the Canfederacy never had a really good army, can be explained abundantly, without depreciating the gallantry of the Confederate people. It never had the leisure, nor the skilled officers, to organize a thorough army. The pop- ulation, though gallant, was ignorant of w^ar, by reason of two generations of peace. Tlie fewest men aie born soldiers, like the Jacksons, the Ashbys, the Sterling Prices, the Forrests. For ordinary mortals, it is a hard and long lesison, t3 learn that untiring sclf-dfMiial. rliat devotion to duty, that study of detail, that carefulness, iliat self-government, that talent of command, that intelligiMirt- in the arts of attack and defense, which must be added to jteis )nal courage, to make the good of- ficer. Nothing can teach that lesson to them, except long ex- I^erience in actual service. Now the Confederacy was comp<^ll- ed to organize into armies a larger jjortion of its men than any modern nation has been able to keep in the field. It was ybligeu to emplo}' thousands of officers, where it had only a few score - the graduates of West I'oint, and veterans of the little army of Mexico — competent. There was not in the cjuntin' a tithe of the practical knowledge of military duties which was necessary to organize and instruct the armies raised. That so much w'as done, to approximate such bodies of unwarlike men towards the character of regular armies, shows an extraordinary gal- lantry and aptitude f >r war, in the Southern people. But the armies nevei- had (Miough competent officers to make them, as wholes, well drilled or well organized forces. At the beginning of the campaigns of 1.S02, they had more nearly attained this character: thenceforward, while individuals ac(|uired the exper- ience and hardihood of veterans, the regiments gradually lost their regularity of movements, and tactics were more and more at a discount. Southern officers and soldiers uniformly testi- fied that the drill of the Northern regiments (except when confused by attack) was better than their own. But the Northern army mnsi have been but a sorry standard of com- parison in this paiticular, since they had a part of the same difficulties to overcome in extemporizing their forces. The most experienced Southern officers confessed that it was the
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. 135
rai-esr spectai-le to see their advancing regiments preserve sneli an alignment in their onset as to deliver anything like a col- lective «hock again the enemy. Usually, the onset was the rush of an impetuous mob, in which the quick men were one or two hundred yards in advance of the slow. It was the tes- timony of the soldiers, that the front line, if supported by a second line of battle in the rear, must always make its account, when tired into by the enemy, to receive also at least a partial tire from their own friends; because no Confederates were ever sufficiently under rhe control of rheir ofHcers, ro hear Northern bullets whistle, without returning them. In the best Confed- erate regiments, during the excitement of battle, eager sugges- tions from privates were as loud, and as intiuential, as com- mands from their officers.
This lack of drill was the necessary result, not only of a de- ficiency of officers, but also of the cruelty of the emergency. Troops must needs be hurried to the front before their train- ing was completed; often, before it was begun. T'avalry horses were taken from pasture or i)lougli to-day, and employed in action to-morrow. Kecruits were .sent to the front the day they were enrolled, and wert^ merged at once in active forces, who.se exacting duties in the march, the picket, and the line of battle, left them not one moment for drill, during a whole half year. Troops ceased to go into winter quartei^s; for the cam paigns extended through winter and summer alike. The very lack of instruction and drill necessitated a four-fold exposure of the efficient officers; so that the army was at length almost wholly deprived of its mon^ capable and experienced leaders, by deatli or capture. And. to crown all. the government had laid a foundation for defective discipline, by making the officers elective. From all the.se causes it came to jiass that the ('on- federate armies, while disjjlaying great gallantry on the part of a majority of their uhmi. had scarcely enough discipline and drill to entirlt^ them to the name of regular armies. This de- ficiency was confessed by the highest jtossible authority, that of (ien. Lee himself. This c(msumniate soldier, speaking of the advantage of perfect drill and unity of action, and declar- ing that he believed this advantage so great, as against either of the forces then engaged, as to be almost incapable of exag- geration, pointed to it as the natural remedy for his inferiority
136 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
of numbers, lint tlieu, pausing, lie added, with accents of sig- nificant sadness: "But I cannot give tliis drill to my army, because the enemy has my officers in his prisons."
The Federal authorities were exempt, in the task of form- ing their armies, from the most of these difficulties. They had, first, the whole standing army of the I'nited States, as a nucleus and model for their military crystallization. They had the ma- jor part of the instructed officers. They were able to draw mer- cenary officers from all the armies of Europe. They, as the aggressors, could choose their own time for the initiative, and needed not to move their new armies until they thought them ready, while the defendants must, perforce, move to meet them, prepared or unprepared. And especially, the invaders, having their own populous country and all the world to furnish num- bers, were able to keep their new levie*> in the depots, until they were drilled. It was easy for them to have enough men at the front, and enough also in the camps of instruction.
The work which the North had to do, therefore, was only to beat forces of one-fourth their own number, or less; and these untrained to war. They should have found the Confederate armies almost as little formidable in their quality as in their size.
Fifthly. The credit of the North for this exploit must also be aftected by this fact, that while they had at the outset twen- ty-two millions (22,000,000) against five millions (5,000,000), and during the real crisis of the war, twenty -two millions (22,000,000) against three million eight hundred thousand (3,800,000), they did not deem these odds sufficient, but eagerly sought the aid of the rest of the world. They believed them- selves, if we may infer from their actions, unable to crush this feeble adversary, without drawing from the Southern slaves armies as large as all those of the Confederacy, and from Europe hundreds of thousands of her proletaries. The Fed- eral Secretary of War tells us that he mustered out of service about one hundred and seventy thousand (170,000) negro com- batants. These were recruited almost exclusively from the slaves of their enemies. When Gen. McClellan, during the Presidential canvass of 1864, nshamed of so savage and dis- graceful a dependence, promised that he, if made President, would disband the negro trooi>s, Lincoln himself ridiculed his
I'HE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. 13t
pi'omit^e; saying- that this would deprive tlie riiion cause of the aid of two hundred thousand (200, (MM>) men. and would thus render its suecess hopeless. That is to say, the head .of the Fed- eral T^nion judged that its twenty-two niillion.s (22.000.000). backed by all the mercenaries of Europe, would be unable to conquer these three million eight hundred thousand (3.800,00(1) Confederates, without the aid of two hundred thousand (20(1,- OOOj partially reclaimed, black savages!
It would, perhaps, be hard to find documentary data, from which to learn the exact number of foreign recruits in tlie Xoithern armies. We can show that this element was very large. .Vll well-informed persons know that every country of Western Europe was canvassed by "emigration-agents," who, under this thin disguise, were recruiting officers for the North ; and that a large part of that human stream, which flows annu- ally into the United States, was, during the war, directed into the I'nion armies. Not only were foreigners found in every regiment; whole brigades, as that of Meagher, and even divi- sions, a.s that of Blenker, were composed exclusively of Irish men or of (Germans. In the prison depots of the Confederates, half, at least, of the captives gave evidence of foreign birth. The Secretary of War at Washington gives us the nationalities of fifteen thousand seven hundred (15,700) men buried in the military Golgotha of that caipital. Of these, he tells us, four thousand nine hundred (4,f)00) were native white soldiers, four thousand one hundred and eighty (4,180) were negroes, and six thousand six hundred ((),()00| wei-e foreign-born. Either the native-born must have been more chary of exposure to wounds and disease, than the foreign-born; or else, in the armies whicli sent their disabled men to Washington, there must have been more foreigners than native whites in tlie ratio of nearly seven to five. Once more. The reports of the war and navy de- partments of the Washington (lovernment show an aggregate of two million six hundred and fifty-six thousand (2,(>5(j,000) men, actually engaged, at different times, in the military and naval service of the war. But the whole number of men capable of military d\ity. in the "loyal" Sratt^s. who had not been drafted, was two million stn-en hundred and eighty-four thousand (2.784,000.) Whence, if tho.se States had done their own fighting, it would follow that nearly half their men must
138 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
have beeii for a rinn^ in senicr. Bur tlu- iinifoiiii tcsriiiimiv ;-)f travelers and <-irizen.-< was. that the walks of civil life in tlie Xoi-ih exhibited a very .slight depletion of their eustoniary throngs. While, in the South, every assenihlatie, at chureh. at the seats of justice, in the streets of towns which were not military p:)sts. gave striking evidence of the absence of nearly all the arms-bearing men. at the North, a very small part of the home poituhition was absent in the camps. Now, the only solution of this riddle is, that their levies were filled chiefly with foreigners, rutting these data together, it seems very jilain that less than half in the Northern armies were native citizens. In other w )rds. these tweuty-tw) million (22.000.000). after recruiting their armies with two hundred thousand ;200.()00) negroes, were not able to con(]uer the three million eiglit hundr(^d thousand (:l.s0().(i(i(ii. uiiiil they liad associated with them half a million of foreigners. The North f )und it necessary to call all the world to its help, in order to overpower its feeble adversary!
But, sixthly, the whole story is not yet told. Even this whole people, with the negroes and all the world to back them, acknowledged themselves unable to subdue the resistance of their little foe. by any ordinaiy methods of warfare recognized among civilized nations. They were compelled to add to these the most ingenious combination of savage and illegitimate ex- pedients, to undermine the adversary whom they could not meet in fair and etjual battle. One of these was the incarcer- ation of unarmed citizens, captured in the pursuits of civil life, who migli; }uM-rli:ince either l)ec()me T'onfederate soldiers afterwards, or might aid some soldier or soldier's family with their industry. Another was the exclusion by blockade of medicines for the sick; a barbarity unheard of before amiuig polite nations. The calculation was. that the stroke of cold steel or disease, in the body of the gallant adversary, might be aggravated unto death in the more instances; and that the pestilence might ravage the h;)me ])o]>ulation. unchecked by the skill of the physician. Anothei- was the destruction of food and the implements of industry, among the peaceful citizens of the South. It was cunningly calculated, that by these means, some brave enemies at the front might be recalled home bv the harrowing news of famine at their beloved hearth-
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITAltY NATION. 139
stones, 01' that, at least, tlicii' arms iiii<i,lit be paralyzed by (he anguish; and rhat sonu* others nii^ht be starved out by lack of rations. AVhat did it matter that helpless women, little chil- dren, aid men who had shed their blood for the tlag of the United States, rho iiooi- negroes, innocent in every sense, of the war, might perish of the dire but undeserved doom of famine? No matter, if there was a chance thereby of wea.k- ening some of those few brave arms, which they so much dreaded in battle. History will never disclose the ruthless and universal diligence of the North in this work of destruction. It was for this it needed its million (l,(l(»().(M)(l) of destroyers. Its only lu>pe was to make the dearth as wide as the hostile country. Its politicians boasted with an amiable wit, that if the prowess of neither (Jen. ^NlcClellan. nor liurnside, nor Hooker, nor (Irant, could prevail to ''crusli the rebellion," they had enlisted one, more all-conipiering than the whole of them, general starvation. Scarcely a county in the interior of tlie largest Southern State escai)ed this systematic ravage. Wherever the Northern troops went, work-animals were stolen or slaughtered, with all other live stock; all i>louglis and other implements of husbandi-y biokeii; mills and faitories burned; tanneries destroyed, witli llieir hides; and the blessed bread, sacred gift of divine IM-ovidence to man, either burned or trampled under the horses' feet. The sweeping ravages of Sheridan, in Virginia, under the express orders of the com- mander-in-chief, and of Sherman in South Carolina and (leorgia, will never be forgotten while history has a verdict to utter. The flatterers of these men boasted that the desolation was to be so utter that the crow flying across the wastes would be compelled to carry his own rations! And if it was not so complete, the only reason was, that the industry of even North- ern malice wearied of the work of destruction.
These methods, and not the Federal arms, were, in truth, the wea]ions which wrought the ruin of tln^ (\)nfederacy. Its little armies never were beaten; they were, in fact, dispersed by the difticulties of subsisteiici'. They did not yield to the force of arms, but to the efficacy of these savage and cowardly means.
One moi-e artitice of barl)arism remained. l)y which the gigantic enemy could supidement his lack of prowess; the vio- lation of the cartle for the exchange of prisoners. As soon as
140 THE TJNITED STaTKS AS A MILITARY NaTIOI^.
the >\'asliiii.i;toii Goverimitint eanie to iimkn-stand the task it had niideitaken, and to perceive its advantage in wearing out the adversary which it could not meet in a fair field, it began to seek pretexts for evading its own engagements for this ex- change. Ultimately, it came to act upon the policy of holding every dreaded Confederate, whoui it captured. It mattered not to it, that a larger number of its [)wn men were left to pine or die in captivity. At last, when, early in 18(15, the argu- ments or the frank concessions of the Confederate Government had removed the last pretext for delaying the general exchange, "Butler the Beast" was selected by the Federal (xeneralissimo, as a fitting tool, to write a letter so insolent, and so unworthy of a soldier, that it was calculated all intercourse must, per- force, be interrupted, and thus, the doors of the prisons be final- ly closed u]»on the captured Confederates, until their aid would be too late for their cause. "The lieast," disgraced a little after by his master, expressly disclosed this design I And the commander-in-chief, with equal candor, declared, that if the fifty thousand (50,000) ('onfederate soldiers, whom he held, were released, and added to the armies of their country, its conquest would be impossible. He manifestly counted it for nothing, that this exchange would restore' to his ranks fifty thousand (50,000) of his own braves! This, he felt, would be no equivalent; the conquest of that number of Confederates would require an addition of three hundred thousand (."{(MMIOO) negroes, or mercenaries, or native Northerners.
Here, then, is the exploit of the Northern people; that twenty-two million (22,000,000), possessed of every material advantage, aided by two hundred thousand (200,000) negroes filched from the South, and by all the mercenary adventurers of the world besides, were able to overpower three million eight hundred thousand (:>,S00,000), after three years, and after they had added to all the legitimate ap])liances of civilized war, all the savage expedients of bad faith, ravage, sack, and disease. In the sober light of these facts and figures, the claim of i)rowess for the North, in this war, is infinitely preposterons. That it did not crush its puny antagonist within the first six months, is subject of burning reproach. That it admitted itself unable to crush him at all single-handed, and was compelled to invoke
THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION. 141
the aid of all Eur(»j)e. of tlu' pool' ii<\!i>i-o, of savajic artiticc. and bai'baritics loii^ discarded by rivilized iiiau; this should make it silent forever, as to the glories ;)f this war. It is, for it, the most mortifying' exhibition of national impotency. wlneh mod- ern history dist-loses, anywhere this side of China.
But still it is pleaded, that if the North failed to display siji,nal prowess in the Held, ir did nevertheless carry throu<;h this ji^reat wai- with sjiirit and deteiniinati )n; and did actually overcome, somehow, a great resistance. Even European ob- servers, iji'norant of facts, seem to admit that, if for nothing; else, the North is to be dreaded for its i)erseverauce, its me- chanical industry, and its financial resources. The plain state- ment of a few truths will also remove this conclusion. It will be seen, tliat the cost at which the victory over the Confed- erates was won is a financial burden, which effectually inca- j)acitates the United States from ajj^ain fijihting with money; that the Northern ])eople, in a moment of reckless i)hrensy, purchased their revenge by crip})lini'- themselves; and that the ruinous jirice paid for their triuni])h leaves their financial credit in as ugly a condition as their military. They, more than any other people, account moui^y to be 'the sinews of war.' On that calculation, the ability of the i)eoj)le for future wars is to be measured by its ability to pay additional taxes, and to con- tract further loans in the money-markets of the world, for mili- tary enterprises. If the Ignited States can get as much more money (and can find among Southern negroes and foreign emigrants another seven hundred thousand (700,000) of 'gud- geons,' to l)e befooled), then, perhaps, they are competent to the con(p]est of another spirited little nation of four or five million souls. Such seems to be the measure of their ])romise for military exploits in the future. There is sonu4hing impres- sive to the bystander, in the exhibition of tremendous effort. If it be granted that the athlete can do again and again what we have just seen him do. he is invested in our eyes with a very portentous aspect ; we feel that he would be a terrible fellow to have upon our hands. But when we discover that the I)resent ett'orts (than which none less would have savml him from being beaten by his little adversary) are so far beyond nature, that they have ruptured a blood-vessel or an intestine, and crixjpled him for life, we degrade him from a formidable
142 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
antagonist to a broken duwu champion. Onr panic is ertectually cured.
To appreciate, then, the financial resources of the United States for further military enterprises, tlie experienced public man will examine the following points: the existing burdens of debt, which must still be provided for, whatever new one may be incurred; the cost of the existing administration, to the people; the ability and disposition yf the people for tax- paying; the economy and eflftciency of the present administra- tion; the present state of the national credit, with the probable influence upon it of a great increase in the national indebted- ness; the unity and patriotism of the popular feeling; and all these, compared with similar elements of strength in the nations which are to be the probable antagonists.
What then are the existing burdens of debt, which the United States must carry through any future wars? At the end of 1808, the recognized debt of the Federal Government was three thousand and eighth-six and a half millions of dollars (P,080,438,G:35). Nearly the whole of this accrued in the four years jf the Confederate war. This total includes the current treasury notes, called greenbacks (which are the Clov- ernment's i)roniises to pay), and the certificated debt not A'et bonded. The annual interest upon this debt, which must be raised by taxation, is one hundred and forty and a half mil- lions (|140,424,00()j; of which the larger part is paid in coin, although the loans were received by the Grovernment in depre ciated paper. To pay this debt, the United States have thirty- four and a third millions of souls (in 1800, 34,288,870). Let this debt be compared with that of the leading I'owers of Christendom, especially those of Western p]urope. England owes a national debt of three thousand six hundred and forty- two millions of dollars (P.n42,()00,()00), and pays upon it an annual interest of one hundred and twenty-six millions of dol- lars (|126,000,()()0). To bear these burdens, there are in the IJritish Isles about twenty-nine millions (29,000.()00j of souls; but they have, in the remainder of the British Empire, one hundred and fifty-four millions (154,000,000), who are com- mercially tributary to them, and thus supply the ability to pay taxes sixfold above their numbers. It must be remembered, also, that while the British debt is the gradual result of a
'THE UNITED STAtES AS A MILITARY NaTIOJST. 14!^
number of great wars and glorious enterprises, continued for generations, which have added vast territories and untold wealth to the Empire, the debt of the United States was nearly all incurred in four years, as the price of tlie desjlariou of the fairer half of their home domain.
The Empire of Austria has thirry-five and a half millions (35,oU(),()00j of souls. Its national debt is about one thousand four hundred and nineteen millions of dollars (|l,419,0U0,UUUj. Austria is usually regarded as the most burdened and paralyzed of the great Powers of Europe. France, with its dependencies, has a population of forty-four and a half millions (44,500,000). Its national debt is two thousand two hundred and forty-seven millions of dollars (|2,247,000,000). All these great Powers feel that, in the burdens of their debts for former wars, they haA'e given caution to uiankind for a pacific behavior in the future.
But the real burdens of the people of the United States have not yet been disclosed. The (xovernments of the several States acknowledge an aggregate of debt, amounting to about three hundred and fifty-seven millions (|35T,000,()00). This should be added, because it is a part of the load the people have to carry; the payment of interest and principal must be provid- ed from the taxes of the same tax-payers who pay the Federal debt. So, in comparing the burdens of the United States with those of its neighbors, fairness requires the same addition to be made; because here, this Federal, and these State Govern- ments only perform, together, the same functions which in EuroiJe are rendered to the people by the central governments. The State debts, then, must be added.
But this is not all. It is very well knt)wn that the >»'orthern people were s.o averse to military service, that enlistments were, in most cases, procured only by high bounties. When the Central Government began to draw imperative requisitions for men on the States, the local authorities, instead of simply drafting the required numbers from among their own militia, almost universally made arrangements for purchasing merce- naries to supply their quotas; thus relieving their own citizens from the dreaded service. The pi-ice usually ])aid, t) wards the end, for the human cattle for Confederate shambles, was not less than hfteen hundred dollars each. A sorry coninu'ntary,
144 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
by the way, ui)uii rlie coui-a^e and parriorisni of that peoph', that so large a bribe was needed to persnade them tit "save the life of the nati;)u."' But thus it came to pass, that not only the States, but cities, counties, country towns, and even the rural subdivisions called, a mono- tliat peojtle. townships, raised loans, and purchased substitutes. Laws were passed to authorize them to make such loans, and to levy the taxes necessary to lirovide for theii- interest. Mrtney had indeed been raised, in many cases, for internal improvements, in the same mode; and similar loaus for canals and railr tads remain as a part of the popular burdens. The aggregate of these bounty-debts cannot be estimated by us, from any evidences in our reach; but some data will be given to enable the reader to approximate it. The city of Philadelithia alone, it is believed, owes a debt of forty- f mr millions |S44. ()()(). (KKli. chit-tly fitr bounties. It was a very ••loyal" city. I; claims about six hundred thousand (OIKt.Ood) souls. The State of New York admits a bounty-debt of its cwn of twenty-six millions (.^iMi.ltOO.lMMI). \\\\\ cities, counties and townshi})s. within the State, have also their own little debts fur this and similai- objects, in additi »n. The Comptroller of the State Treasury received inconijdeti^ rctni-ns of these local debts, from which he made an aggregate, at the end of last year, of eighty-three and a half millions (f83,500.(»(M)i. The State of New York claims a jtopulation of three million eight hundred thousand (:5.S(M(. ()()(»). The two instances of this city and this State, may indicate how the- local burdens have accrued. A few othe]- items may aid in our apjiroximatitm. The Federal Secretary of Wax informs us tliat. in the latter part of tin- war. there were one hundred and thirty-six thousand (l.'>r>.()(Ml) re-enlistments of the veterans houorably discharged. It is W(41 known that these usually received the highest boun- ties. If we place them at fifteen hundred dollars each, these cost the Xoithein people two hundred and four millions (1204,000,0(10). The system of bounties was general from May, ]S(;:*>, until the end of the war. The (Government itself fixed the minimum ]»rice of a man at three hundred doihirs. Ity appointing that sum as the cost of an exemption from the draft. But it is well known that few substitutes were pur- chased at so cheap a rate. The Secretary of AYar informs us that after May 1, 1868, there were one million six hundred and
TnE TTNITED STATES AS A MILITAUY NATION. 14^
tliiii y-t'om- tlioiisaiul (l,G34,()(Hr) ciilisrinciirs. Phu-iiij; the cost of each of these eiili-stiiieuts at tluee luiiulred doHars, which is far below the averaj^e bounty, soinebDdy had to i)ay for them foui- hundied and ninety millions (|4no.()0().()(l(l). The "boun- ty-jnm})eis/ as is well known, peipeli-ated imnuMise frauds; and the number of bounties paid tliem was far larger tliaii tliat of the enlistments.
We are thus convinced that this lui^e "unknown (quantity" in the problem, the local and State bounty-debt, cannot be less than many hundreds of milli >ns of dollars. But in estimating- the actual linancial burden which tlie people of the United States must carry, through any future war, all this must be added. It was a part of the cost of the Confederate war. The interest and principal of it must be paid by the same people who have the Federal debt to jjay. If the policy, pursued by the (xovernment as to the local obligations incurred in the war of the Kevolution, is again to prevail, all these bounty-debts should be assunu^l and funded by the InittMl States. Already this claim is heard in many (juarters. The recognized State and Federal debts, as w(- have seen, amount to three billion four hundred and forty-three million d )llars (13,443,195,000). It is most manifest, that the total mass of public debt now resting on the American people (nearly the whole incurred in the late war), for the payment of wliicli ]U'ovision must be made l)y taxation, must be at least four billions jf dollars (.|;4,()()(),()()0,()()()). Mv. Andrew Johnson, late President of the United States, and an ardent advocate of the war, always aftirmed constantly, that tlu:> total cost of the war, to the tax- payers, would prove to be live billions (|5,000,000,000). He, of course, is good authority. And the interest on this debt is fromy?7'^ fo seven and one fifth per centum'.
Some may be so thoughtless as to sujtpose that repiidiation would lift this vast incubus off the shoulders :)f the nation. The fatal objections to rebelling that deliverance by that mode, are, first, that nobody would lend his money for the s(Mond war to a debtor who so treacher )usly rid himself of his ol)ligations for the first; wlienct^ tlie national credit would ai once succumb; and. secondly, that the annihilation of so many securities of j)ublic debt would immediately ])i'oduce a financial convulsion, at which the private wealth Df immense numbers at the North,
146 THE UNITED STATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
already' to a very large extent speculative aud factitious, would collapse, like a soap bubble pierced with a straw. The over- burdened credit of the government cannot be lifted up by repudiation.
Another burden which the people of the United States must carry, through any future war, along with the interest of its existing debt, is the cost of its present administration upon the peace establishment. In the year 1868, the Federal income was about three hundred and seventy-six aud a half millions $376,000,000), and the expenditures were about one million (1,000,000) more. We have seen that one item of this expen- diture was the annual interest upon the debt, one hundred and forty millions and a half (110,500,000). This left something more than two hundred and thirty-six millions (^236,000,000) as the cost of the military, naval and civil service. But the goyernments of the States, which are an unavoidable part of the public burdens, cost last year nearly seventy-six and a half millions (76,500,000). Adding tliis sum. we find that the Ameri- can people actually paid to their governments, the last year, four hundred aud fifty-three millions of dollars (|153,000,000i. And this was exclusive of the support of religion (with which the governments, State and Federal, profess to have nothing to do), and exclusive also of the costs of municipal administra- tion, and of the larger part of the cost of the national education, which are paid for by the people separately. Nor is the interest on the vast bounty debts included.
Let this burden be compared with those borne by the lead- ing nations of Europe, which are usually believed to tax the strength of their subjects as severely as nature can well endure. Austria, with a million (1,000,000) more of people than the United States, pays her government annually two hundred aud thirty-eight and a half millions of dollars ($238,500,000). The forty four millions (11,000,000) of Frenchmen are taxed, in all, three hundred and eighty-five millions (385,000,000). The British Empire collects a national revenue of three hundred and thirty-seven millions (337,000,000). It appears, therefore, that the people of the United States now have the most costly and onerous system of government to sustain, and the heaviest taxation, in a season of profound peace, of any people in Chris- tendom. But the most startling fact is, that their money goes
THE UNITED STATES AS A MrLITARY NATION. 147
SI) vei y short a waj towards defending the coiintrr. Whih- Ansirii!, out :)f the revenues above uientioned, i»ays tlie interest on her debt, and tlie whole cost of jj;()vernnient, islie sustains also rwo hundred and forty-four thousand (244,00(1) armed men, as her peace establishment; France, four liundred and fifty- eiirht thousand (458,000), and England., two hundred and six thousand (L'0(J,000). But the United States, with an income larger by one-fourth than the largest of them, and a home pop- ulation whose government should cost little, seeing the people in theory govern themselves, sustains only fifty-six thousand (Mght liundred and eighty-one (5(»,881) soldiers, sailors, and marines, to defend the country! Tlie comparison of this mili- tary establishment with that of (Ireat Britain, is especially damaging, because that empire, like tlie United States, has no conscrii»tion, and raises its armies by enlistment and pay. How friglitful must be tluit incompetency, disorder, and peculation, wlncli, out of revenues so immense, effects so little for national defense!
In the United vStates a smaller population actually pays a larger sum than in any of the old despotisms of Europe. It is thus demonstrated that tlie taxation must be luore onerous here than in any of them. Let this be illustrated in a few^ par- ticulars. The municipal government of the city of Xew York, with about nine hundred thousand (900,000) people, costs twenty-two millions of dollars (|2l',000,000) annually, in addi- tion to the State and Federal imposts. Tlie taxes of the citizens of the State of Xew York exacted by State laws, amount to twelve dollars (fl2) annually for every soul. There are town- ships in that State where the Federal, State, and local taxes make six per centum upon the total values of all the property of every si)ecies, rated at a full valuation. The incoiuie tax of Great Britain is now (if we mistake not) two and a half pence on the i)ound sterling of clear income, which is but little over one per centum. The income tax of the Ignited States is five per centum. This tax in (treat Britain yielded, last year, not (juite thirty millions of dollars (!it;aO,000,000); in the Ignited States, thirty-tliree millions (|:{:^,000.0()0). lint the former country, with its hundred and fifty-four millions (154,000,000) of commercial tributaries, is live times as able to pay an lucomi* tax as the United States.
148 THE UNITED 8TATES AS A MILITARY NATION.
It may be objected to this surprising picture, that it canuot be consistent with the ehistic prosperity of this teeming, new country. Tlie reply is, that tlie country is not now either elastic or prosperous. The burden of taxation is actually crushing it into a collapse. All industrious classes, who do not make their gains at the expense of others, are sensibly overburdened. The traffic of the country is unhealthy, and the circulation of com- modities is extravagantly costly. Notwithstanding nominal high wages, the laborer is more and more depressed; and in our great metropolis every tenth human being is a pauper in midsummer!
Now if the people of the United States, with inferior num- bers and ability for enduring taxation, are, in this time of peace, Iturdened with a larger debt, heavier taxes, and a more costly, j.rodigal, and inetticient government, than any of their great neighbors, it is plain they are financially hel])less for great military enter])i-ises against those neigli])!)rs.
But let this argument be enlianced by a view of the present state of the national credit. The only currency of the people is a depreciated paper, based, not on a capital stock of specie, but on the promises to pay of this overburdened debtor, the (rovernment. And meantime the bonds of the United States, bearing six per cent, interest in specie, fluctuate in London from seventy-two to eighty-three in the hundred; while the scrip of the British national debt, paying an interest of only three and a \i^\i per cent., sells almost at pari The present burdens of the people so obviously tax their utmost strength, that the credit of the Grovernment staggers under those burdens in the hour of peace, and in the glow of recent victory. Let a grave danger arise, bringing the certainty of another great addition to this monstrous load, aiul tlu^ whole fabric of public credit would dissolve at once into ruin.
The Washington Government, if it is wise, will therefore cultivate a very pacific demeanor towards all its powerful neighbors. And it will be further inclined to this prudent policy, if it considers the tendency of its methods for conquer- ing the South, and for treating it when conquered, to make the ex-Confederates trustw^orthy and istaunch supporters of its flag under the burdens and trials of another war. The lesson to be drawn from this review of the "situation" is, therefore, obvious- ly one ol peace.
STONEWALL lACKSON.'
A lecture delivered in Baltimore in November, 1872, by Rev. Dr. R. L. Dabney.
(Anything from the able pen of Dr. Dabney concerning Stonewall Jackson would be read with interest. His 'position as Chief of Statf, his intimate personal relations with the great chieftain, and his study of his character and his campaigns when acting as his chosen biographer, peculiarly fit Dr. Dab- ney to tell the story of Jackson's life, or to delineate his char- acter. We are confident, therefore, that our readers will thank us for giving them the following j^aper, even though there may be dissent from some of the views presented. We print it just as it was originally delivered, only regretting that we are com- pelled by the press upon our pages to divide it into two parts.)
I am expected to speak to-night of Stonewall Jackson. The subject sounds remote, antiquated, in these last days. How seldom does that name, once on every tongue, mix itself now-a- days, with the current speech of men? Is it not already a fos- sil name, almost? I must ask yju, in order to inspect it again, to lift off sundry superincumbent strata of your recent living memories and inttn-ests, to dig down to it. (Jreat is tlie con- trast wrought by the nine calendar years which have inter- vened since the glory of conquering Jackson, and the sequel "Jackson is dead," were blown by fame's trumpet from Chan- cellorsville over all lands, and thrilled the praecordia in every Southern bosom. Then, the benumbing shock which the words struck into our hearts, taught us how great and heroic this man had made himself, how essential to our cause, how foremost in all our hopes. And when his great Sujjerior said (with a mag- niinimity whicli matches Jackson's heroism), "Tell him he has 'o^st his left arm; but I have lost my right arm"; all men felt. "Yea! Lee has lost his right arm; the cause has lost its right
\ From •Southern Historical Society Papert." April. May. 1883. 149
150 STONEWALL JACKSON.
anil." And the thickening disasters wliich that h)ss soon en- tailed, taught them, educated them, for a time, to appreciate Jackson's as the transcendant fame of all our war. It sounded in every true heart; it echoed in us from the thunder of the final downfall. But now, who recalls it to his speech?
Why this? Was that fame an empty simulaceum worthy only to be a nine-days' wonder, or was his devotion a blunder? Or are our people changed, so as to be no longer able to appre- ciate that devotion? We hope not, for it were a sad thing for them, betokening moral death, decay and putrescence, that they should become incaj)able of a heart-homage to this name. We hope not.
But it is already anti(]uated; for the world moves fast in these times. Many things have happened in these times, to stir, to fatigue, to wring our hearts; great wrongs to be endured passively until endurance obtused the sensibility, multiplied tragical wails of friends sinking in the abyss of poverty and obscure desipair; a social revolution; a veritable cataclysmus, which has swept away our old, fair, happy world, with its pleas- ant homes fragrant with ancestral virtues and graces, and has left us a new w^orld, ais yet chiefly a world of quicksand and slime; with no olive tree, alas, as yet growing. Yes; we have lived long in these nine evil years; to us they are a century of experiences. We are odl, very old, superannuated perhaps, those of us who remember eTackson, and the days when he fought for freedom. Will you not then bear with our garrulity a little, should we even babble of our hero? For it is a pleas- ant thing to recall those old days of wearing the grey, with a Jackson to lead us to assured victory, when we were men as yet ; with rights and freedom of our own, slipping then indeed from our too inept hands, yet enough our own still to fight for; when we had hope, and endeavor and high emprise, insipired by our leader's example; and hardship and danger for the cause, endured cheerily, as a sport; when we had a country, loved all the more proudly that she was insulted and bleeding. The memory of those days is bright; but it is attended by a contrast most black and grim. Ovei- against that splendid past, there glooms the shadow of the Mammon-Molock, named by mockery, "reconstruction," with its most noisome iscalawag odor, reeking of the pit. The joy of this reminiscence must be
STONEWALL JACKSON. 151
then a mixed joy, and the duty assigned me, while sacred and not unpleasing — never shall it be unpleasing to us to celebrate the fame of Jackson; for Aim the shadow touches not — yet a duty difficult and sad.
I remember well, that naught except a circumstance is deem- ed by you to have endowed this hand with any fitness to re- fresh the characters of that fame; the circumstance of a brief association with his person during the most glorious part of his career. You would fain hear from me what manner of man he appeared to one who was next to him, the ordinary mouth- piece of his will, the sharer of his bivouac and his morsel, who got the nearest glimpses through the portals of that reserve, which no man might enter, who watched closely, and he may even venture to affirm, intelligently, the outworkings of the secret power within. This so reasonable desire of yours I pro- pose to satisfy, not by presuming to name and catalogue his at- tributes, analytically, by my judgment, or conceit, as may be — for this would be to regard you as pupils, rather than patrons — nor yet, by studying the cumulation of superlative, laudatory epithets, — for this would imply that I deemed you not only pu- pils, but gullible' — but by painting before you some select, sig- nificant action of Jackson's own, wherein you may judge for yourselves as freely as other spectators, what manner of man this was. And I exhort you to expect in this description no grace, save the homely one of c/ear iruf/i:' homeU' it may be and most ungamished, yet truly what my eyes saw and my ears heard. For is not this tlie quality most worthy of him who would portray Jackson? And should the narrative have, with its other unskillfulness, that of a certain egotistn, I pray you bear in mind, that the necessity of this emerges in a man- ner from my task. For what is my qualification therefor? save that it was my fortune, along with many worthier men in the ranks to behold (not my merit to do) some of these wonders whereof you would fain hear; and when you ask for the testi- mony of the eye-witness, the hunrble Ego must needs speak in the egotistical first person.
And first, that I should ever have been invited to be next his person at all, was characteristic of Jackson. He, who was an alumnus of the military academy at West Point, and noth- ing but a professional military man all his life, was least bound
152 STONEWALL JACKSON.
in professional trammels. This rrair he signified, in part, bv his selection of successive chiefs for his staff, none of whom had even snuffed the classical air of West Point or Lexington, my intended predecessor and actual successor (J. A. Armstrong and C. J. Faulkner), and the next successor (A. S. Pendleton), but chiefly by the selection of me, a man of peace, and soldier Df the Prince of I'eace, innocent, even in youth, of any tincture of military knowledge. Herein was indeed a strange thing; That I, the parson, tied to him by no blood tie, or interest, and by acquaintanceship only slightest and most transient; that I, at home nursing myself into partial convalescence from tedious fever, contracted in the performance of my spiritual functions among the soldiers of the previous campaign; that I. conscious only of unfitness, in body and mind, for any direct help to the cause, save a most sore apprehension of its need of all right- eous help, and true love to it; that such an one as I should, in the spring of 1862, be in\ited by him to that post. Verily, had not all known "this is a man that doth not jest," it should have seemed to me a jest. But the wisest men, speaking most in God's fear, replied to me: "See that thou be not rash to shut this door, if it be that God harh o}iened unto thee." And / feared to shut ti, until he. by whom the call was uttered, should know how unfit I was to enter in. Further than this, in ver\" truth, my mind went not.
But if you would hear on what wise Jackson was wont to .speak, these are iha ipsissima verba:
"Near Mt. Jackson, April 8th, 1862. ' ^My Lear Doctor:
"The extra sessiim of our Legislature will prevent Mr. Jas. D. Armstrong, of the Virginia Senate, from joining me as my A. A. General. If the position would be acceptable to you, please take the accompanying recommendatiDn to Kichmond, get the appointment, and join me at once, provided you can make your arrangements to remain with me during the re- mainder of the war. Your rank will be that of Major. Your duties will re(iuire early rising and industry. Please let me hear from you at once.
"Very truly your friend,
"T. J. JACKSON."
STONEWALL JACKSON. 153
Now, is not the fashion of these words a very revelation to him who will consider of the fashion of the man? He has time to tell that which is essential, but no word more. He makes it known, that his war means work, and is no dilettan- tism, or amateur soldiering. Nor is it the warfare of gallant bar- barians, wherein much castrameutal laziness or even license can redeem itself by some burst of daring and animal phrensy; but "early rising and industry.'' "Now, wilt thou, or wilt thou not?" And, if yes, then let thy act fuUow thy assent without dallying. But yet, only on one condition must the ''yes" be said to such as him, to remain uuchanged ''during the renuiin- der of the war." He who would aspire to work and fight as Jacksan's next assistant, must be one who would not look back after he had put his hand to the plough; but one, who like his master, came to stay with his work until it wa« ended, except, perchance. God should first end him.
Thus then went I, to show Jackson why I might not enter into this door of service, and yet seem no recreant (in staying out) to my country's needs. I found him at a place, gateway of the mountains that befriended him, named of the vicinage Con- rad's Store; the Shenandoah tlood before liim, and beyond, mul- titudinous enemies thronging — lield at bay, checkmated, gnash- ing vainly up(jn him; while he, in the midst of din and march- ing battalions, going to the watch-post, and splashing squad- rons, splashing through mire most villainous, and of snow- wracks and sleet of the ungenial spring, — of ''winter lingering in the lap of spring," — stood calm, patient, modest, yet serious, as though abashed at the meanest man's reverence for him ; but at sternest peril unabashed. After most thoughtful, yea, fem- inine care of food and fire for me, he took me apart saying, "I am glad that you have come." But I told him that I was come, I feared, uselessly, only to reveal my unfitness, and retire; al- ready half-broken by camp-disease, and enervated by student's toil. "But Providence," replied he, "will preserve your health, if he designs to use you." I was unused to arms, and ignorant of all military art. "You can learn," said he. "When would you have me assume my office?" "Rest to-day, and study the 'Articles of ^A'a^,' and begin to-morrow." "But I have neither outfit, nor arms, nor horse, for immediate service." "My quar- termaster shall lend them, until you procure your own." "But
154 STONEWALL JACKSON.
I have a graver disqualification, which candor requires me to disclose to you, first of mortals; I am not sanguine of success; our leaders and legislators do nor seem to me to comprehend the crisis, nor our people to respond to it; and, in truth, the impulse which I feel to flv our of my sacred calling, to my countr\''s succor, is chiefly the conviction that her need is so desperate. The effect on me is the reverse of that which the old saw ascribes to rhe rars when rhey believe the ship is sink- ing." "But," saith he, laughing; "If rhe rats will only run this way, the ship will not sink." Thus was I overruled.
You will remember that rheory of his character, which most men were pleased to adopt, when he was first entrusted with command: ''This man," said they, "is true, and brave, and religious; but narrow and mechanical. He is the man to lead a fighting battalion, under the direction of a head that can think; but strategy, prudence, science, are not in him. His very reserve and relucrance ro confer resulr from his own con- sciousness, that he has no faculry of speech nor power of thought, to debate wirh orher men." Had I been capable of so misjudging his silence and modesry, as to adopt this theory, his career must ere this have blown it all into thin air; the first Manassas and Kernstown, and the retreat before Banks had al- ready done thaf, for all save fools. All who served under him had already learned that there was in him abundant thought and counsel, deep and sagacious. He asked questions of all; sought counsel of none; "gave no account to any man of his matters." Once only, did council of war ever sit for him, to help him to "make up his mind." And it was then, by their inferior sagacity, made up so little to his liking, that he asked such aid no more. Power of speech there was in him also, as I witnessed; such truly eloquent speech, as uttered quickly the very heart of his thought, and could fire the heart of the list- ener. But he deemed rhar rhe conrrovej^sy he waged was no longer parliamentary; rhar rhe only logic seemly for us at that stage, was i\ieuliima ratio Regum To such respondent as the rimes then appointed unto him. the cannon peal, and the charg ing yell of the "men in grey," were rhe reply, which ro him seemed eloquent: all else was emptier rhan silence.
But instead of leading you to a brief review of his whole career, which would perforce be trite, because hurried, I would
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describe to you so-nie one of the exploits of liis genius, which best illustrates it. One of these I suppose to be Port Republic. Let me, then, present it to you.
To comprehend the battle:? of Port Eepublic, you must re- call the events which ushered them in; the defeat of Milroy at McDowell in the early May of 1802, that of Banks at Winches- ter; the concentration of Generals Fremont and Shields towards Strasbourg to entrap Jacksan at that place; his narrow escape, and retreat up the great Valley to Harrisonburg. He brought with him, perhaps, a force of twelve thousand men, footsore from forced marches, and decimated by their ov.n victories. ?^o more succors could come to Jackson from the east; tlie coil of the snake around Lee and the Capital was becoming too close for him to assist others; and all that the government expected of Jackson was, to retreat indefinitely, fortunate if he could at once escape complete destruction, and detain the pursuers from a concentration against Richmond. Such was the outlook of affairs upon the 8th of June. On the 11th of June, both the pursuers were in full retreat, broken and shattered, fleeing to shelter themselves near the banks of the Potomac, while Jack- son was standing intact, his hands full of trophies, and ready to turn to the help of Lee in his distant death-grapple with Mr- Clellan. Such was the achievement. Let us see how his genius wrought it out.
The skill of the strategist is in availing himself of the na- tural features of the country, which may be helpful to him. In this case these features were mainly the Blue Kidge mountains, dividing the great Valley from Piedmont, Virginia; the Slien- audoah river, a noble stream at all times, and then everywhere uufordable because of its swolleu state; and the Great Valley Turnpike, a paved road extending parallel to the mountain and river, from the Potomac to Staunton. From a point east of Strasburg to another point east of Harrisonburg extends the Masanuttin mountain, a ridge of fifty miles length, parallel to the Blue Ridge, and dividing the Great Valley into two val- leys. Down the eastera of these, usually called the Page-county valley, the main river passes, down the other passes the great road. Up this road, west of the Masanuttin mountain was Jack- son now retreating, in his deliberate, stubborn fashion, while Fremont's 18,000 pursued him. Up another road parallel, but
156 STONEWALL JACKSON.
on the eastern side both of that mountain and of the main river, marched Shields, with his 8,000 picked troops. Neither had any pontoon train, for Banks had burned his in his impotent flight in May. Why did nut Shields, upon coming over from the Piedmont to Front Koyal, for the }>urpose of intercepting Jack- son in the lower valley, at once crof^s the Shenandoah and place himself in effectual concert with his partner. Fremont? He had possession of a bridge at Fron-t Royal. They were endeav- oring to practice a little lesson in the art of war, which they fancied they had learned from the great teacher, Jackson, whicn they desired to improve, because it was learned, as they soreiy felt, at the cost of grievous stripes, and indignities worse than those of the dunce-block. But their teacher would .show them again, that they were not yet instructed enough to descend from that "bad eminence." Let me explain this first lesson.
The Blue-Ridge, parallel to the great Valley road, is pene- trated only at certain "gaps," by roads practicable for armies. On the east of it lay the teeming Piedmont land, untouched by ravage as yet, and looking towai-ds the capital and the main army of the Confederacy. This mountain, if Jackson chose to resort to it, was both his fastness and his '"base of operations"; for the openings of its gaps ottered him natural strongholds, unassailable by an enemy, with free communication at his rear for drawing supplies or for retreating. When Banks first pur- sued him up the Valley, he had turned aside at Harrisonburg to the eastward, and seated himsi'lf behind the river at Con rad's Store in the mouth of Swift Run Gap. And then Banks began to get his first glimpse of his lesson in strategy. He found that his coveted way (up the great Valley road) 7in7s now parallel to his enemy s base. Even into his brain did the in-
convenience of such line of advance now insinuate itself, and he paused at Harrisonburg. Paused awkv;ardly, with the road open to his coveted prize, Staunton, the strategical key of the commonwealth, with not a man in gray there to affright his doughty pickets: the quarry trembling for the expected swoop of the vulture. Forward, General Banks. Carpe diem; the road is open I But Banks would not forward — could not I There was a poised eagle upon the vulture's flank, with talons and beak ready to tear out the vitals beneath his left wing. Shall Banks face to the left and drag the eagle from his aerie,
STONEWALL JACKSON. 157
and then advance? Let him try that. Then, there is the water- tlood in front to be crossed, only by one long, narrow bridge, which would be manifestly a bridge of Lodi, but not with ob- tuse, kraut-consuming Austrlans behind it. And there is the mountain, opening its dread jaws, right and left, to devour the assailant. Xo. Banks cannot even try that! What then shall he try? Alas, poor man, he knows not what; he must consider, sitting meanwhile upon that most pleasant village of Harrison- burg, amidst its green meadows. Is not the village now his verital)le dume-stool for the time, where he shall sit, reluctant, uneasy, "swelling and snubbing," until it appear whether he can learn his horn-book or not? And it was while he was there sitting, the horn-book not mastered, that Jackson like the tor- nado, made his first astounding gyration, his first thunder-clap at McDowell, away on the western mountain, his second echo- ing to it from Front Royal on the far east, his crowning, rend- ing crash at Winchester. And Masters Banks and Shields find themselves with incomprehensible smoke and dust, clean out- side the school-room, yea, the play-ground, they scarcely know how (they "sto )d not on the order of their going"), with eyes very widely glaring, yet with but little light of speculation in them.
This was lesson number first. And now say my masters to each other, ^'This lesson which cost us so dear, learned by buffet- ings so rude, yea, even kicks, with the bitter chorus of inex- tinguishable laughter of rivals, shall we not profit by it? Shall we not use it in our turn? Yea, we will not be always dunces: we will let people see that we can say, at least, that lesson again. The lion will retreat surlily, after he brake the toils at Strasburg, up the great Valley road, growling defiance, huge ribs of the prey between his jaws. Fremont shall closely pur- sue his rear with IS.OOO. and Shields shall advance abreast, be- tween him and the mountain, with S,0()(), to head him off from his rock-fastness. We shall circumvent him in the open field; we shall confound him on the right hand and the left; the one shall amuse him in front, when he stands at bay, and the other shall smite him by guile under the ribs; and we shall take his spoils.'' And, therefore, it was that Shields crossed not the river below, at Strasburg, but remained apart from his mate.
They forgot that it is the prerogative of genius, to have no
I'^^S STONEWALL JACKSON".
need to repeat itself; its resources are ever new; it can invent, can create upon occasion. It is dull dunce-hood, whick only knows how to repeat the lesson that has been well beaten into it. The Southern Lion, then, marches surlily up the great Val- ley, turning at bay here and there, when the whelps dog his heels too insolently, with a glare and a growl instructive to them to observe a wholesome interval; while Ashby, ubiqui- tious, peers everywhere over the Masanuttin, upon the advance of Shields — burns bridge after bridge, Mount Jackson bridge. White House bridge, Columbia bridge, entailing continued in- sulation upon him. The mighty hunt reaches Harrisonburg. Will it turn again eastw^ard to the mountain? Shields shall see, he reaches Conrad's store. There is the old lair, the muni- tion of rocks, but no Jackson seeking t3 crouch in it; only the bridge leading to it (and which alone could lead' him out of it), just in flames. Evidently Jackson will teach some other les- son this time, and Shields and Fremont must learn it. at what cost they may. He will turn ea7>tward again, and resort tD the river and the mountains, whose floods and forests he will make light for him, even as "the stars in their courses fought against Sisera,"' but under conditions wholly novel.
Now that you may comprehend Jackson, I must endeavor to make you see this region of Port Republic, as nearly as may be. Behold then the side road from Harrisonburg to that til- lage, passing over sundry miles of those high hills, common to calcareous regions, (lofty as the highest viewed from the north- ernmost end of your Druid Hill Park), mostly parallel to each other, and at right angles to the road, clad also frequently with woodlands upon their summits, the vales between filled with farms. Close at the foot of the last of these ridges flows the shining river, here running almost due east, as does the great mountain parallel to it, three miles away. Look thitherward, and between you and that green rampart you see, first the water, then smooth meadows far below you, spreading wider to the left, away to Lewiston, until their breadth expands almost to a mile; while underneath you stretches the long bridge, and nest- les the white village amidst the level fields. Beyond, the forest begins, thick, tangled and bosky, pierced by more narrow, ser- pentine, but easy roadways, than your eye would suspect, and spreads away, rising into hills as it recedes towards the true
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mountain foot. Just below the village comes a sparkling tribu- tary, South river, deemed scarcely worthy of a bridge, and min- gles its waters at the angle of the little green with its elder sis- ter; while the one broad thoroughfare leads up the village and away to the southwest to Staunton; and the other, fording the lesser stream to the left, plunges into the forest to seek Brown's Gap. Look now, far away to the east, where river and moun- tain begin to lose themselves in the summer haze. You per- ceive that the tangled wilderness, after embaying one more modest farm below Lewiston, closes in upon the bank of the stream, ending for many miles, champaign and tillage, and al- lowing but one narrow highway to Conrad's Store, fifteen miles away. Such is your landscape from your elevated outlook northwest of the river; and this is the chess-board upon which the master hand is to move knights and -castles, not Ms own merely, but also his adversary's.
Saturday, the 7th of June, Jackson led all his troops to those high hills northwest of the river, posting half of them three miles back, under Ewell, to confront Fremont, and the re- mainder upon the heights overlooking Port Republic, while he himself crossed the bridge and lodged in that village. That evening Fremont sat down before Powell, and Shields, perceiv- ing that he must seek Jackson still farther, pushed Ins army up the narrow forest road from Conrad's Store, and showed its head at Lewiston. Thus, Jackson's army and Fremont's w^ere upon the one side of the river, Shield's and the village upon the other. To cross it there remained now but the one passage, which lay under the muy^zles of Jackson'is cannon, for all the bridges above and below had been burned.
Fremont and Shields would now, therefore, apply the old strategy, which red tape once deemed appropriate for the super- ior numbers. They would surround Jackson on sundry sides, with divided forces, from different directions, and thus crush him. The lessons of the old Napoleon had not been enough to teach them; this new Virginian Napoleon will, perhaps, illum- inate their obtuseness, but with light too sulpliurous for their delectation. This old plan, attempted against a wakeful and rapid adversary, ca})ablc of striking successive^ blows, only in- vites him "to divide and cdnqucr." This Jackson will now Icai-li them in his own time, and it shall be lesson humbei' second.
160 STONEWALL JACKSON.
They shall uever strike rogether; iiay, Shields shall never strike at all. but he stricken: thus hath the master of the game al- ready decided.
Shall Jackson, then, hold Shields at arms' length, and strike the larger prey, P"'remout. first? This the impassable river and the dominant position of his artillery overlooking the bridge, enabled him to do. He might have driven back Shields's co-operative advance in the meadows beneath, by a storm of shells, while he assailed liis partner three miles away; and Shields might have beguiled the day, by looking helplessly over at the smoke surging up over the tree-taps, and listening to the thunder of the battle rolling back to Harrisonburg with Fremont's defeat; or, by reckoning when his own time would come, if that better pleased him. Shall Jackson, then, strike Fremont fir-st? "^Yes," said Ewell: ''Strike the larger game Urst." But Jackson said, "Xo. The risk is less to deal first with the weaker. In a battle with Shields, should disaster per- cliaiur befall us. we shall be near our trains, and our way of retreat; and true courage, however much prudent audacity it may venture, never boasts itself invulnerable. But if an in- auspicious attack were made on Fremont, the defeated Con- federates would have i)ehind them a deep river, to be crossed only by one narrow bridge, and a line of retreat threatened by Shields's unbroken force. Again, Shields defeated, had but one difficult and narrow line of retreat, between the Hood and the mountain, and might be probably destw»yed. Fremont, if defeated, had an open country and many roads by which to re- tire; and could not be far pursued, with Shields's force still un- broken threatening our rear." Thus argued Jaclcson, but only to himself, then; he was wont to give no account of his meas- ures to others.
Shall Jackson, then, pre})are to deal with his weaker adver- sary, by withdiawing all his arms to the Southern side, burn- ing the bridge behind him. and iluis leaving Fremont an idle spectator of Shields's overthrow? Again, Xo; and for two rea- sons: First, this would permit Fremont to crown all those dominating heights on the north side, with his artillery, so that Shields, though still sejiarated from his friends by the water, miglit enjoy the etfectual shelter of their guns. And second, supposing Shields dealt with satisfactorily, then it might be
STONEWALL JACKSON. 161
desired to pay the same polite attentions to Fremont; and Jack- son meant not to de[>rive himself t:)o soon of the means of ac- cess to him. Shields, then, shall be tirst attended to, on the south side; but yet the bridge not destroyed, nor the heights be- yond surrendered.
Paper No. 2.
(Conclusion.
This ])Ian, then, is clear even to the civic apiii'ehcnsion, as ottering fewest risks and largest ])r()mise — in a word, the per- fection of sagacity; and witli s) many men in gray as might matcli two-fold numbers of enemies (odds ratlier favorable, if not light and trivial, compared with the customary), it seems to promise safely. Perhaps some may even say that these reason- ings are clear and just, even too much so to imply peculiar genius in Jackson. Remember, friend, Columbus and his egg. Jackson's performance hath illustrated this problem for you, made it all plain, which to him was all novel, urgent, and to have its right soluti:)n by him alone invented, then and there, under pressure of dire responsibility and penalty :)f portentious ruin and numifold destruction. Tlipse, friend, thou wouhlst not have found propitious or helpful for clear meditation and judg- ment the night of that 7th of June. Jielieve me, the pi-oblem did not then seem easy, or even soluble to us, as men whispered by the watch-fires, with bated brt^ath: "Jackson is surrounded.'' Our eyes, then beclouded witli appiehtmsion, confused, saw no light; but he, clear-eyed and s('i-en(\ with genius braced by his steadfast heart and devout faith, saw all possibilities, and whence deliverance might dawn out of seeming darkness. And these two chiefest ti-aits of greatness I recognized in Jackson through these transactions: First, that urgent and critical peril did not agitate nor confuse his reason, nor make him hang vacillating, uneasy and impotent to decide between the alterna- tives, but only nerved and steadied his faculties; that he ever thought best where other men could least think. Second, that he knew how to distinguish the decisive [wints from the un- essential, and, grasping tlutse with ircm strength, to form from tliem an iutlexihle conclusion.
162 STONEWALL JACKSON.
Events, then, had showed Jacksoii these things by the close of Saturday, June the 7th. Why did he delay to strike this time, so unlike his wont? The 8th was ''the Sabbath of the Lord," which he would fain honor always, if the wicked would let him. Not by him should the sanctity and repose of that bright, calm Sabbath be broken. When I went to him early, saying, "I suppose, General, divine service is out of the question to-day?" his reply was, "Oh, by no means; I hope you will preach in the Stonewall Brigade, and I shall attend myself — that is, if we are not disturbed by the enemy." Thus I retired, to doflf the gray for the time and don the parson's black. But those enemies cherished no such reverence. As at the first Manassas, and so many other pitched battles, they selected the holy day for an unholy deed. They supposed that the toils were closed again around the prey, and w^ere eager to win the spoils before they escaped them. Shields, then, imoves first to strike Jackson's rear, a detachment of cavalry, v^ith two cannon in front, who sweep away the pickets witli a sudden rush, dash pell-mell across the lesser river, into the street, almost as soon as the fugitives who would tell their coming. Then is there at headquarters mad haste, Jackson leaping into the saddle and galloping (the pass even now scarcely open) for the bridge and his army; Statf fiollowing as they may; one and another too late (as Colonel Crutchfield, our Chief of Artillery), and captured in mid street; a few yet, more too late, and wholly unable to fol- low; I, of course, again doffing the black to don the gray, among these last. Right briskly did those invaders (bold, quick men, for Yankees), occupy the village, plant cannon at each end of it, spy out Jackson's trains, and begin to reach forth the hand to grasp them, while we, cut off and almost powerless, make such resistance as we may. Haste thee. Master Sliields. "What thou doest do quickly!" forNEMESisis coming, and thy time is short — too short, alas! for Shields, for mortal man; for lo! yonder, one hath clattered through the bridge, and bounding up the heights where the forces lay, pressed his steed with burning spurs, Ills visage all aglow and blue eye blazing, and shouts: "Beat the Long Roll!" Drums roll with palpitating throb; men spring to the ranks, cannoneers harness; and ere Shields can brush away the flimsy obstacles between him and the trains, al- ready Jackson conies streaming back with Poague's battery and
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Fulkersou's tall riflemen — streamiii<i' down tlic hill, :i ll,isliiii>; Torrent. There is one crash of thunder, n\e rin^iu<;- vollev, one wild yell; the bayonets gleam througli the shadowy cavern of the bridge, and the thing is done. Hostile cannon lie disabled, horses weltering around them in blood; intruders flee pell-mell, splashing through the stream, whither they came; while Jack- son stands alone, aver on the green hillside, still, calm, and rev- erent, his hand lifted in prayer and thanksgiving that the village is won again. But it is only for a moment, for he knows what more remains to be done. He remounrs the heights, and there, sure enough, is Shields's army advancing up rlic meadows from Lewiston, ranks dressed, banners flying, in all the bravery of their pamp. Jackson utters a few quiet words, and Poague a guns, reinforced by others, remove to the next hill, depress their grim muzzles, and rain down an iron storm across the river, which lashes Shields back to his covert.
Jackson trusted Providences and here Providence took care of him in a most timely way. Our Colonel Crutchfield, detained amidst his captors in the village street, shall tell how the inter- vention looked from his point of view. The cavalry Colonel com- manding Shields's advance had only just disarmed him, when a Yankee vidette, wha had ventured a little up the Staunton Road, came hurrying back, his eyes glaring with elation, and ex- claimed: "Colonel Carrell! you have as good as got Jackson's trains; they are right above here, in sight; I have seen thous- ands of the white wagon-covers shining! You have nothing to da but ride forward and take them'." "Yes!" avouched Crutch- field's despairing thought, "he has them! There are no train- guards, and those white sheets, as I wofully know, are the cov- ers of my ordnance-train, c antaining all tlie artillery ammuni- tion and most of the other for the whole army. Colonel Carrell may not remain heie permanently, but nathing can prevent his riding thither and doing irreparable mischief before Jackson's return."
Such was also the Yankee's thought, for he immediately or- dered a strong squadron of his cavalry to go uj) and cajiture those trains. So the horsemen formed in c »lumn and advanced up the street, leaving Colonel Crutchfield in silent des[tair. liut near the head of that street they were met by a discharge of can- ister at close quarters. The balls came ricocheting down the
164 STONEWALL JACKSON.
road amidst tlie liorses" lejis, and back caiue the coluiim in head long tiight, with a tempest of dust. Said Crutchfield's thoughts to him: "Did those cannons drop from the slcies? Did the an- gels fire them? I tliought I was artillery-chief to that army, and had posted all the guns, and I thought I knew tliat there was no artillery there." Kut none the less did the mystenous guns hold their post, despite the cannonading of the Yankee batteryaccom- panj'ing their advance; and whenever the attacking column of cavalry was advanced, lash it back to the side-alleys with canis- ter-shot until Jackson re-occupied the village.
The explanation was that there was a new battery, that of Captain Carrington, of Albemarle, just arrived, which Colonel Crutchfield had found so partially equipped and so absolutely unskilled, that he had relegated it with the baggage, and thus had actually discounted it in his mind as anything more tlian baggage. Two guns of this battery had been brought forward, with fragments of the fleeing Confederate pickets for supports, and with that audacity which, as Jackson taught, was on some occasions the most timely discretion, had made its little fight and saved the trains.
But now the cannonade answers back from Cross-Keys, where Fremont crowds upon Ewell, endeavoring to keep his part of the rendezvous. How the fight raged there through the day, while Jackson vibrated thither and back, watchful of all points, I need not detain you to relate; for your history-books may tell you all this, as also how Ewell hurled back his adver- sary, and held his own stoutly at all points. One little thing I may relate, not flattering to myself, which may be to you a reve- lation of Jackson's mind, (and may also be taken as an example of the scant encouragement which suggestions from subordin- ates usually met). As he sat upon his horse, scanning the re- gion whither Shields had retired, I moved to his side and asked: ''There is, then, a general action at Cross-Keys?" The answer was an affirmative nod. "Then General Shields will not be blind to the impin-tance of his co-operating in it; he will sure- ly attack you again to-day?" Hereupon he turned upon me. as though vexed with my obtuseness, with brows knit, and waving his clenched fist towards the commanding positions of the artil- lerv near him. said: "No. sir; he cannot do it, sir. I should tear Mm to pieces!" And Shields did not do it, because he could not!
STONEWALL JACKSON. 165
The two Yankee Generals have now had their forwardness a little rebuked; are taught to keep their places quietly until they are wanted. The Sabbath-eve has descended as calmly as though no blood or crime had polluted it, and Jackson has rest- ed until the mid-night hour ushers in the working day with a waning moon. He then addresses himself t'o his work and takes the aggressive. The trains are sent over to Powell to carry rations to his hungry men and to replenish the guns with their horrid food; a foot bridge is prepared for the infantry over South river, by which they may be passed towards Lewiston. Ewell is directed to creep away at daybreak, from Fremont's front, leaving only a skirmish line to amuse him, and to concen- trate against Shields. Colonel Pattou, one of the two com- manders wIdo are to lead this line, is sent for to receive his per- sonal instructions from Jackson. "I found him," says Colonel Patton, "in the small hours of the night, erect, and elate with animation and pleasure. He began by saying: 'I am going to fight. Yes, we shall engage Shields this morning at sunrise. Now, I wish you to throw out all yjur men before Fremont as skirmishers, and to make a great show, so as to cause the enemy to think the whole army are behind you. Hold your position as well as you can; then fall back when obliged; take a new po- sition; hold it in the same way, and I will be back to join you in the morning.' " Colonel Patton ren)inded him that his brigade was small, and that the countiy between Cross-Keys and the Shenandoah afforded few natural advantages for protecting such manoeuvres. He therefore desired to ku'ow for how long a time he would be expected to hold Fremont in check. He re- plied: '"By the blessing of Providence, I hope to ibe back by ten o'clock.'"
Here then we have the disclosure of his real plan to which he makes no reference in his own otficial report. He proposed to finish with Shields, peradveuture to finish Shields, by ten o'clock. P^ive hours should be enough to settle^« accdunt, and he would then go straight back to see after P^remont. \\y ten o'clock of the same day he would meet his retreating skirmish lin(^ north of the river, arrest the retrograde UKtvenu-nt and be ready, if Fremont had stomach for it, to tight a second pitched battle with his army, more than double the one vanquished in the morning. As to the measure of Shield's disaster, it was to
166 STONEWALL JACKSON.
be complete; dispersion and caprure of his whole force, with all his material. As Napoleon curtly said at the battle of Rivoli, concerning the Austrian division detached around the mounrain to beset his rear: "//j- sont a nous;" so it seems had Jackson decreed of Shields's men: "They belong to us." This the whole disposition of his battle clearly discloses. I hare described to you the position which Shields had assumed at Lewiston, with his line stretching from the forest to the river. Behind him were a few more smooth and open fields; and then the wilder- ness closed in to the river, tangled and trackless, overlooking the position of the Federal line in height, and ali)wing but one narrow track to the rear. It was a true funnel — almost a cul de sac. These then, were Jackson's dispositions. (General Kich- ard Taylor, with his Louisiana Itrigade. accompanied by a bat- tery of artillery, was to jdunge into the woods by th )se tortuous tracks which I have mentioned, to creep through the labyrinths, avoiding all disturbance of the enemy, until he had passed clear beyond his left, was to enfilade his short and crowded line, was to find position for his battery on some commanding hillock at the edge of the copsewood, and w^as to control the narrow road which offered the only line of retreat. The Stonewall brigade was to amuse the enemy meantime, in fruit, until these fatal adjustments were made, when the main weight of the army should crowd upon them, and the}' should be driven back upon the impassible river, hemmed in from their retreat, cannonaded from superior positions, ground, in short, between the uj/per and nether millstones, dissipated and captured. This was the moraing's meal with which Jacks in would break his fast. Then, for his afternoon work, he designed to re-occupy his formidable position in front of Fremont upon the north of the river, and either fight and win another battle the same day, or postpone the coup de grace to his second adversaiy until the next morn- ing, as circumstances might dictate.
Such was the splendid audacity of Jackson's real design. Only a part of it was accomplished; you may infer that only a part of it was feasible, and tliat the design was too audacious to be all realized. I do not think so; only two trivial circum- stances prevented the actual realization of the whole. When the main weight of the Confederate army was thrown against Shields he was crushed (though not captured) in the space of
STOTSTEWALL JACKSON. 167
two hours. Again, Fremont had been, on the previous day, so rou^i^hly handled by Ewell, with six thousand men, that he did not venture even to feel the Confederate positron, guarded real- ly only by a skirmish line, until ten o'clock the next day, and such was his ovrn apprehension of his weakness, that as soon as he learned Shields's disaster definitely, he retreated with haste, even though there was now no bridge by which Jackson might reach him. Why then a performance so short of the magnifi- cent conception? The answer was in two little circumstances. The guide who thought he knew the paths by which to lead Gen- eral Taylor to the enemy's rear (a professional offlcer of the en- gineers) did not know; he became confused in the labyrinth; he led out the head of the column unexpectedly in front of instead of bej'ond their left, and General Taylor concluded he had no choice but to hold his ground and precipitate the attack. That was blunder first; a little one seemingly, but pregnant with dis- appointment. And here let me remark upon a mischievous specimen of red-tapeism, which I saw often practiced to our det- riment, even sometimes by Jackson, who was least bound by professional trammels. It was the employing of engineer offi- cers, with their pocket compasses and ijretty, red and blue cray- on, hypotlietical maps, as country guides; instead of the men of the vicinage witli local knowledge. Far better would it have been for Jackson had he now inquired among Ashby's troopers for the boy who had hunted foxes and rabbits through the coppices around Lewiston. Him should he have set to guide Taylor's brigade to the enemy's rear, with a Captain's com- mission before him if he guided it to victory, and a pistol's muzzle behind his left ear in case he i)layed false.
The other blunder was, in appearance, even more trivial: The footbridge, constructed 'by moonlight, and designed to pass four men abreast, proved at one point so unsteady' that only a single plank of it could be safely used. Tlius, what was designed to be a mas^^ive column was reduced from that point onward to a straggling ''Indian file." Instead of passing over the infanti'y in the early morning, we were still urging them forward when the appointed ten o'clock had come and gone, and the first attack on Shields, made with forces wholly in- adequate, had met with a bloody repulse. Jackson, burning with eagerness, had flown to the frcmt as soon as the Stone-
168 STONEWALL JACKSON.
wall bi'ijiade was passed over, leaviii<>;- to nie a strict iiijmicti(»n to lemaiu at the bridge and expedite the crossing of the oth- er troops. First the returning trains, mingled in almost inex- tricable confusion with the marching column, was to be disen- tangled, amidsr iiinch wrong-headedness of little Q. M.'s swollen with a mite of brief authority. This effectually done; the defect of the bridge disclosed itself. Can it not be speed- ily remedied? No; not wirhour a total arrest of the living stream, which none dared to order. Then began I to suggest, to advise, to urge, that the bridge be disused wholly and that the men take to the water en masse (kindly June waterj. For altlijugh it was Jackson's wont to enlighten none as to his plans; yet even my inexperienced ear was taught by the can- non thundering at Lewiston, that we should all have been, ere this,, there; not pothering /i(jr<;, in straggling Indian tile, ^^'ell did I know how Jackson's soul at that hcjur would avDUch that word of Xai)oleon: ''Ask me for anything but tinie^'' But no: "Generals had their orders: to march by the bridge." "They would usurp no discretion." I'unctilious obedient men they! "keeping the word of ])r()mise to the ears, but breaking it to the sense." ^^'ell. in such fashion was the golden opporttmity lost; and Jackson, at uiid-day. instead of returning victorious to confront Fremont, must send word to his skirmisli line, to come aw^ay and ]»nni the bridge l)eliind them, while he rein- forces liis battle against Shields and crushes down his stubborn (yea right gallant) resistance, with stern decision. Thus he must content himself with one vict(u-y instead of two, and in that one, chase his enemy away like a baffled wolf instead of ensnaring him wiiolly and drawing his fangs.
Who can hear this story of victory thus organized and al- most within the grasp — victory wliich should have been more splendid than Marengo — so shorn of half its rays, without feel- ing a pungent, burning, sympathetic disappointment"? Did not such a will as Jacks(m's then surge like a volcano at this de- fault? No. There was no fury chafing against the miscarriage, no discontent, uo rebuke. Calm and contented, Jackson rode back from the i»ui-suit and devoted himself to the care of the wounded and to prudent precautions for protectioii. '"God did it.'''' That was his philosophy. There is an omniscient Mind which purposes, an ever present Providence which superin-
STONEWALL JACKSON. 169
tends; so that when rlie eveut has finally disclosed his will, the iijod man has fonnd onr what is best. He did not know it before, and therefoie he followed, with all his might, the best lights of his own inipeifect reason; but now that (lad has told him. by the issne, it is his part to stndy aeqniesrenc-e — Such was "Stonewall Jackson's way."
This, my friends, is a bright dream, but it is passed awa.y. Jackson is gone, and the cause is gone. All the victories which he won are lost again. The penalty we pay for tlie pleasure of the dream is the pain jf the awakening. I profess unto von tliat one of the most consoling thoughts which remain to me amidst the waking realties of the ijresent, is this: that Jack- son and other spirits like him are spared the defeat. I find that many minds sympathize with me in the species of awful curiosity to know what Jackson would Itave d.ine at our final surrender. It is a strange, a startling conjunction of thoughts: Jackson, with his giant will, his unblenching faith, his heroic devotion, face to face, after all, with the lost cause! What would he have djne? This questiiui has been often asked me, and my answer has always been: In no event could Jackson have survived to see the cause lost. What, you say: would he have been guilty of suicide? Would he. in the last-lost- battle, have sacrificed him.self upon his country's funeral pyre? Xo. But I believe that as his clear eye saw the approaching catastrophe, his faithful zeal wjuld have spurred liini to strive ao devotedly to avert it that he would either have overwrought his powers or met his death in generous forgetfulness (not in intentional desperation) on the foremjst edge of the battle. Forhiin there wasdestined to be no subjugationi The (rod whom he served .so well was too gracious to his favorite S3n. Less faithful servants, like us. may need this bitter scourge. He was nu^eter for his reward.
Yes, there is solid cousolalion in tlie thought: -lackson is dead. Does it seem sometinu's as we stand beside the little ffreen m:)und at the Lexington graveyard, a right pitiful thing, that here, beneatli these few feet of turf, garnished with no memorial but a faded wreath (faded like the cause he loved) and the modest little stone i)laced there by the treuibling hand of a weeping woman (only hand generous and brave enough
170 STOXEWALL JACKSON.
even to rear a stoue to Jackson in all the broad land baptized bj his heart's bhiod). that there lips all this woi-ld eonraius of that great glory. That this pure devotion, this niatehless cour- age, this towering genius are all clean gone forever out of this earth; gone amidst the utter wreck of the beloved cause which inspiied them. Ah. but it was more pitiful to see a Lee bear- ing his proud, sad head above that s^d, surrounded by the skeleton of that wreck, head stately as of old. yet bleached prematurely by irremediable sorrow, with that eye revealing its measureless depths of grief even beneath its patient smile. More pitiful to see the great heart break with an anguish which it would not stoop to utter, because it must beh;ild its coun- try's death, and was forbidden of God to die before it. But pitifulest of all is the sight of those former comrades of Jack- SJn and Lee. who are willing to live and to be basely consoled with the lures of the ojtpressor. and who thus survive not only tlieir country, but their own manhood. Yes. beside that sight the grave of Jackson is luminous with joy.
I well remember the only time when I saw him admit a DroguDstic of final defeat. It was a Sabbath day of May, 1862, as bright and calm as that wliich ushered in the battle of Port "Rt^public. We were riding alone, slowly, to a religious service in a distant camp, and communing of our cause, not then as superior with inferior, but as friend witli fi-iend. I disclosed to Jackson the grounds of tlie a]»])rehensions which I always harbored in secret, but which I made it my duty to conceal, after the strife was once unavoidable, from every mortal save hitii. He defended his more cheei-ful hojies. He urged the sur- prising success of the Confederate goveinment in organizing armies and acquiring material of war in the face of an adver- sary who would have been deemed overwhelming, and espec- ially the goodness of Divine Providence in giving us. so far. so many deliverances. I re-asserted my apprehensions with a pertinacity which was. perhaps, uncivil. I pointed out that the people were not rising as a whole to the height of the ter- rible crisis. That while the minority (all honor to them) were nobly sacrificing themselves in the breach, others were venal and selfish, eager to depute to hii-eling substitutes the glor- ious privilege of defending their own homes and rights, and tu make a sordid traffic out af the necessities of the glorious
STONEWALL JACKSON. 171
martyrs who were at the front dyiii};' for them. Tliat it was at least questionable whether such men were not predestined slaves. That the government was manifestly unequal to the arduous enterprise and entangled in the plodding precedent.? of dull mediocrity, instead of rising to the exertion i>f lofty genius and heroism. Witness, for instance, the deplorable mili- tary policy which left our first critical victory without fruits; a blunder wliich no government would be allowed by a right- eous Providence to repeat often, with impunity; because it is as truly a law of God's administi'ation, as of his grace, which is expressed in the fearful question: "How can ye escape who neglect so great salvation?" That neither government nor people seemed awake to the absolute necessity of striking quickly in a revolutionary war like ours; l)ut they were settling down to a regular, protracted contest, in wliich the machinery of professional warfare would gradually, but sureh', abolish that superiority- of the Southern citizen-soldier over the Yankee mercenary, which the honor and courage of the former gave him while both were undrilled; a routine- war in which we should measure our limited resources against their unlimited ones, instead of measuring ijatrioric gallantry against slug- gishness. That the final issue of such a struggle must be the exhaustion of our means of resistance by gradual attrition, which would render all our victories unavailing. At length, as I enlarged upon the points, Jackson turned himself upon his saddle towards me and said, with a smile which yet had a serious meaning in it: "Stop, Major Dabney; you will make me low-spirited!" He then rode in silence for some moments, and said as though to himself: "T don't profess any romantic indifference to life; and certainly, in my own private relations, I have as much that is dear to wish to live for, as any man. Bnt I do not desire to survive the independence of my country.'' These words were uttered with a profound, pensive earnest- ness, which eft'ectually ended the debate.
Jackson prayed for the independence of his country; or, if that might not be. he desired not to survive its overthrow. (xod could not grant the former, for reasons to be seen anon, wherefore he granted the latter. The man died at the right time. He served the purpose of the Divine Wisdom in his generation. He went upward and onward upon the ftood-tide
172 STOiNJiWALL JACKSON.
(;t' his fume aud <:^i-earue.ss. uutil it i-caclied its vei-y acme; and tlieuce lie weut up to liis rest. After that ca.iiie the ebb-tide, the stranding-, aud the wreck. This, surely, is a siuj;ular mark of Heaven's favoi-. lifting him almost to the rank of that ante- diluvian hero "wlio walked with God. and he was n^t; for God took him.*' When his fame and success were at their zenith, never yet blighted by disaster; when the cause he loved better than life was most hopeful; wlien ht- liad just performed his most brilliant exploit, and cuuld lea\e his counti-y all jubilant with his j)raise. aud glowing witli gratitude for his deliver- ance; before the coming wje had iiroj(^cted upon his spirit even the fringe of that sliadow whidi wonhl liave ])een to him cold- er than death — that was the time fdi- Jackson to be translated. The otlu'r thing, which alone would liave been better — to lead his counti-y on fi-oni triumph t t triumiih to final deliver- ance— to hang up his sword in the sanctuary, and to sit down a freeman amidst the people he had saved — fhat we would not permit God to effect; and that we were not tit to liave such deliverance wrought for us. even by a Jackson, this God would demonstrate before he took him away; for tlie true great man is a gift from lieaven. informed with a portion of its own life and tire. Some small critics liave argued that gi-eat men are born in their times; that tlu^y are mere impers (nations of the moral forces common to their contemporaries. This, be assured, may be true of that species of little great men. of whom Shakespeare writes, that "they liave greatnes.s thrust on rliem." The true hero is not made by his times, but makes f/iem, if indeed nial(M-ial of greatness he in tlieiii. They wait for him, in s )re need, perhaps, of his kindling touch, groping in P'erilous darkness towards destruction, for want of his true light: they produce him not. God sends him. There be three missions for such a true great man among men. If "the in- i(iuity of the Amorites is already full."" the Great Power, the wicked great man. Caesar or Xapoh^ »n. is sent among them to seduce them to their ruin. If they be wortliy of greatness, and have in them any true substance to be kindled by the heroic fire, the good hero, your Moses or Washington, shall be sent unto them for deliverance. If it be not yet manifest t :> men whether the times be the one or the other. Amoritish. utterly reprobate, and fit only for anarchy or slavery, or else with
STONEWALL JACKSON. 173
seed of nobleness in them, and capable of true glory (though to Him who commissions the hero there be no mystery nor contin- gency wliich is not manifest), then will he send one, or perad- venture several, wlio shall be touchstones to that people, to "try them so as ])y tire,'' whether there be worth in them or no. And then shall this Ood-sent man show forth an exem- ])lar to his pe;i]»l('. whidi shall be unto them a test, whether th.ey, having eyes, see, or see not the true glory and right, and whether they have hearts to understand and love it. And then shall he bring nigh deliverances unto them, full of prom- ise and hope, 3'et mutable, which are (xod's overtures saving unto them: "Come now and let us reason togetliei-. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of tlie land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Will ye, or will ye not? Thus was Jackson God's interrogatory ro this people, saying to them: ''Will ye be like him, and be saved? Lo, there! AYhat would a nation of Jacksons be? That may ye be! How righteousness exalteth a people! Shall this judg- ment and righteousness 'be the stability of thy times, O Con- federate, and strength of thy salvation?'" And these mighty deliverances at .^lanassas, AMncliester. I'oi-t Kepublic. Chick- ahominy. Fredericksburg. Chancellorsville, were they not mani- fest overtures to us to have the (xod of Jackson and Lee for our God, and be sav«^d? ''Here is the path; walk ye in it."
And what said our ])e()ple? Many honestly answered. "Yea, Lord, we will"; of whom the larger part walked whither Jackson did, and now lie with him in gloiy. lint another part answered, "Nay," and they live. :)n sudi terms as we see, even s'lch as they elected. To them, also, it was plain that Jack- son's ti'uth and justice and devotion to duty wei-e the things that made him great and unconquerable. Kven the wicked avouched this. Therefore a nation of sucli like men must needs be uncon(|uerable and free, liut they would not be free on such terms. Nay; they preferi-ed I'ather to walk after their own vanities. Verily tliey huve their reward! Let tlie c)ntras! appear in two ]»oints. -lackson writes thus to his wife:
"You had better not sell your coupons from the" (Gonfed crate) "bonds, as I undcM'stand tliey ar(» paid in gold; but let the Confederacy keep the gold. Citizens should not receive a cenrof gold from the government when it is so scarce."
174 STONEWALL JACKSON.
Set over agaiust this the spectacle of almost the mauy, ex- cept the soldiers, gone mad at the enhancement of prices with s])ecu]ation and extortion, greedj' to rake together paper money, mere rags and trash, while such as Jackson were pour- ing out money and blood in the death grapple for them. Take arofher: He writes to his wife, Christmas, 1862, in answer to the inquiry whether he could not visit her, and see the child upon whicli he liad never lojked, while the army was in winter- quarters:
"It appears to me that it is better for me to remain with my command so long as the war continues, if our ever-gracious Heavenly Father permits. The army suffers immensel}- by absentees. If all our troops, officers and men, were at their posts, we might, through God's blessing, expect a more speedy termination of the war. The temporal affairs of same are so de- ranged as to make a strong plea for their returning home for a short time; but our Grod has greath' blessed me and mine dur- ing my absence; and whilst it would be a great comfort to see you, and my darling little daughter, and others in whom I take special interest, yet duty apjiears to require me to remain with my command. It is most important that those at headquarters set an example by remaining at the post of duty."
Look now from this picture of steadfastness in duty to the multitudes of absentees and of stalwart young men shirking the army by every slippery expedient. So these answered back to God's overture: "Mammon is dearer than manhood, and in- glorious ease than liberty." The disclosure was now made that this people could not righteously be free, was not fit for it, and that God was just. Jackson could now go home to his rest. He in the haven, the ebb-tide might begin; he safely housed, the storm of adversity might burst.
The thing to be most painfully pondered then, by this peo- ple, is: Whether the fate of Jackson, and such like, is not proof that we have been weighed in the balances and found wanting? How readeth the handwriting on the wall? Not hopefully, in verity of truth, if Truth, which heroes worship, be indeed eternal, and be destined to assert herself ever. Jack- son, alas, lies low, under the little hillock in Lexington grave- yard, and Lee frets out his great heart-strings at tliis world- wide vision of falsehood and vile lucre, cruel as sordid, trium-
STONEWALL JACKSON. 175
phaut, iinwliipped of justice; while tlie men who i-ide prosper- ously are they who sell themselves to work iniquity, and who say "Evil, be thou my goad." Yea, these are the men whom the people delighteth to honor; to wliom ihr clnirches and min- isters of God in this land bow down, juorlaiming: "Verily suc- cess is divine; and Might it maketli right; and the Tower of this world, it shall be God unto us." And while the grave of heroic Truth and virtue has no other memento than the humble stone placed there by a feeble woman's hand, pompous monu- ments of successful wrong affront the skies with their altitude, ''calling evil good and goad evil, and putting darkness for light and light for darkness." We fear that when Truth shall re-as- sert herself it will go ill with this generation.
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
Dr. L. R. Dickinson, Editor Planter and Farmer. — Dear Sir: I have read the essays of "Civis" in your December, Jan- n;iry and February numbers with profound interest, and with general approbatian. Concurring fully with him in the oppo- sition to the whole theory of primary education by the State, I also feel the force of his views concerning the negro and the common school. For some year;? I have had strong convic- lions of the falsehood and deadly tendencies of the the Yankee theory of popular State education; and I confess that the in- IhuMii-e which prevented my lifting up my voice against it was, simpl}-, the belief that so puny a voice could etfect nothing against the prevalent "craze" whicli has infected the country on this subject. You may conceive, therefore, the satisfaction with which I saw ''Civis'' take up the cause of truth in the col- umns of \\\^ Eeligious Herald, and subsequently in the Planter and Farmer, and my admiration for his moral courage, elo- quence and invincible logic. With such champions, the cause of truth is not so hopeless as I feared. ^Vith equal satisfaction I have seen the Kev. Dr. John Miller, long an honored citizen of Virginia, and a gallant soldier in her arni}^ arguing the same truth in the Tribune, with even more tlian his wonted terse- ness, boldness and condensed logic There is another sign that the cause of truth is not wholly lost: this is the new zeal of the self-constituted protectors of this Yankee heresy in Virginia, in circulating arguments and pleas for their error. These docu- ments have had no other etfect on my mind than to awaken the wish that, if we must, perforce, have this false system imposed on us by our conquerors, any executive agency, created to ad- minister the ill-starred plan, might at least have the modesty to stick to its appointed business, and not waste the money of the people in the attempt to manufacture among the people an er- roneous public opinion. It is enough to be taxed heavily, against my judgment, for a quixotic project, which can never
176
tM;te NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 177
do iiie or any one else any ^ood. I am unju.-i;tly forceJ to su;-- render my money; but I beg leave to preserve the privilege of doing my own tliinking. At least, I do not propose docilely to receive mj^ opinions on it from those, who, in advocating the system, are also advocating their own official emoluments.
While speaking of the general subject, I am tempted to notice a recent argument which is tiaunted before us: this is, the rapidly increasing popularity, which, it is claimed, the plan is winning at the South. The reply is, that if this popularity is growing, it exactly confirms the argument of "Civis," that the system is agrarian, corrupting, subsidizing the people and de- bauching their independence. Imperial donatives to the Roman populace became very popular; true, but they poisoned the last good element of Roman character, and helped to complete the putrescence of the empire. I fear it is only too true, that this cunning cheat of Yankee state-craft ti alluring the poor, har- assed Southern parent; and that he is yielding to the bait, which promises deceitfully to relieve him of his parental re- sponsibility. A bribe, alas, may become easily popular in de- cadent times.
But, you asked for my opinion of this fearful question of the negro in our common schools. It is not necessary for me to repeat the points so strongly put hy'Civis.'"' To one of them onl}', I would add my voice: the unrighteousness of expending vast sums, wrung by a grinding taxation from our oppressed people, upon a pretended education of freed slaves; when the State can neither pay its debts, nor attend to its own legitimate interests. Law and common lionesty botli endorse the maxim: "A man must be just before he is generous." The action of the State, in wasting this money thus, which is due to her creditors, is as inexcusable as it is fantastical. I do know that not a few of our white brethren, before the war, independent and intelli- gent, are now prevented from educating their own children, be- cause they are compelled to keep them in the corn-field, labor- ing from year's end to year's end, to raise these taxes to give a pretended education to the brats of the black paupers, who are loafing around their plantations, stealing a part of the scanty crops and stock their poor, struggling boys are able to raise. Not seldom has this pitiful sight nmde my blood boil with in- dignation, and then made my heart bleed with the thought:
178 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
"How mournfully complete is that subjugation, which has made men, who were once Virginians, submit tamely to this burning wrong?" "The offense is rank, and smells to Heaven." Thank Grod, that I have only to pay, and have nothing to do with the imposition, collection and disbursement of this shameful exac- tion.
The argument by which they endeavor to reconcile us to it is always this: "Negro suffrage is a fixed fact; Virginians cannot help it; and if the negro is to share in governing the State, our interest is to qualify him for doing so, by educating him." To this argument many well-meaning men reluctantly yield. My first remark upon it is : That I am not at all clear, that candor, or truth, or self-respect will allow any Virginian thus to accept the impossible onus, which conquest seeks to impose on us. Radicalism thrusts upon us this fatal innova- tion of negro suffrage; and then requires of us a promise that we will undertake to makf it work safely and beneficently. 1 beg leave to demur from making any such promise. I do not tnean to divide with the conqueror the ofius of his ruthless and murderous crime against liberty and civilization. He has com- mitted it; let him bear its responsibility. If it is not undone, it will destroy both American liberty and civilization. If I could prevent that result, I would; and if I believed that I could, 1 would promise to try. But, knowing that I cannot prevent that result, and that no human power can, unless the crime be re- tracted, I do not mean to make a deceitful promise, or to divide the damning responsibility of the crime with its perpetrators. If I saw a ruthless quack proposing to divide a man's carotid artery, in a mad surgical experiment, and he should ask me to promise to tie it up, so as to remedy the murder he was com- mitting, I should tell him that, however anxious to save the life of his victim, I was not able to do it by tying up a carotid ar- tery, and could not promise. If he persevered in murdering the man, he must bear the guilt alone.
For, second: the pretended education which Virginia is now giving, at so heavy a cost, to the negroes, is, as a remedy for negro suffrage, utterly deceptive, farcical and dishonest. The tenor of the argument concedes, what every man, not a fool, knows to be true: that the negroes, as a 'body, are now glaringly unfit for the privilege of voting. What makes them
'tttE NKGkO Aisrb TilE 60MkON SCHOOL. tV§
unlit? kSiuIi things as these: The inexorable barrier of alien race, color, and natural character, between them and that other race which constitutes the bulk of Americans: a dense ignor- ance of the rights; and duties of citizenship: an almost universal lack of that share in the property of the country, which alone can <4ve responsibility, jjatriotic interest and independence to the voter: a general moral grade so deplorably low as to per- mit their being driven or bought like a herd of sheep by the demagogue: a parasitical servility and dependency of nature, which characterizes the race everywhere, and in all ages: an al- most total lack of real persevering aspirations: and last, an obstinate set of false traditions, which bind him as a mere serf to a party, which is the born enemy of every righteous interest of our State. Let the reader look at that list of ailments. Not an item can ))e disputed. Now. our political quacks propose to cure them, and that in such time as will save the Commonwealth before the infection becomes mortal. And liov\'? V>y such an infusion of (not education, but) a modictini of the arts of read- ing, writing, and cyphering; which are at best uncertain means, only, for educating; and that, such a modicum as the kind of teachers and schoiols Virginia can now get, will infuse through the wool of such heads. Does any sane man really believe this remedy will do that vast work? Nay, verily, "Leviathan is not so tamed." Or, to return to the former trope, we may use the exclamation of John Randolph against a weak book, which was proposed to him, as an antidote for the malignant ability of Bolingbroke's infidelity. "Venice treacle, and syrup, against ArsenicV Whether this remedy will save us, may be settled by an argument of fact, unanswerable to every patriotic Vir- ginian. The Yankees have had this "nostrum" of free school education, in fnll force, for two genei-ations. Has it reared up among them, out of white people, a jjopular mass fit to enjoy universal suffrage? Did not this very system rear us that very generation, which, in its blind ignorance and brutal passion, has recently wrecked the institutions of America; has filled our country with destitution, woe and murder; and, with a stupid blindness, only equalled by its wickedness, has stripped its own Commonwealths, in order to wreak its mad spite on ours, of the whole safeguards for their own freedom and peace? These are the /ruits of this Yankee system of State primary educa-
180 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
tiou, as working ou a white race. Will it work better ou a black race? I have not yet learned enough of that type of "intelligence" which this system seems to foster, to repudiate my Saviour's infallible maxim, "the tree is ku3wn by its fruits." The Yankee has bragged so much of his "intelligence," of his floods of books and oceans of newspapers, that some Southern people seem "dazed" by the clamor. Well; there may be "fus- siness," there may be plenty of self-conceit, and flippancy; but I stand simply and firmly 'by this impregnable fact : This sys- tem has not given the Yankee true wisdom enough to prevent his destroying the country and himself. What mere self-delu- sion is it, to dream that it will give this quality to the negro?
But, third: There are causes peculiar to the negro and the South, which leave us no hope that this so-called system of free schools will produce even as much fruit as in Xew England or New York. One is the fact which "Civis" has so boldly stated: The black race is an alien one on our soil; and nothing except his amalgamation with ours, or his subordination to ours, can prevent the rise of that instinctive antipath}' of race, which, history shows, always arises between opposite races in prox- imity. Another cause is the natural indolence of the negro character, which finds precisely its desired pretext, in this pre- tended work of going to school. Still another is the universal disposition of the young negro to construe his "liberty" as meaning precisely, privilege of idleness. It was easy to see that the free school must needs produce the very result which it is usually producing, under such exceptional circumstances; not education, but discontent \sith, and unfitness for, the free negro's inevitable sphere and destiny — if he is to have any good destiny— manual labor. With such teachers, such parents as the negro parents, and such material, it was hopeless to expect any really beneficial knowledge of the literary arts to be dif- fused among this great mass of black children. The only thing the most of them really learn is a fatal confirmation in the no- tion that "freedom" means living without work, and a great enhancement of the determination to grasp that privilege. The one commanding and imperative necessity of the young negro at the end of the war, in the eyes of any sober philanthropist, was this: that he should be promptly made to learri some way to earn an honest living. The interest which the Common-
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 181
wealth had in his quickly learning this \atal lesson, was peril- ously urgent, as I shall show. Instead, then, of giving any ne- gro over five years old a pretext of any sort for evading his righteous and beneficent lot of manual labor, we should have bent every energy of statesmanship and government to the task of somehow keeping the grown negroes at their work, and mak- ing sure that the young ones w^ere taught to work. To this end nearly all the practical talent and energy should have been bent. The police administration should have been so omnipo- tent and energetic as absolutely to cut off the possibility of a negro family's subsisting by plunder — vagrancy should have been rendered impossible by stringent laws, apprenticing the loafer to an industrious citizen. The tolerance of idleness in children approaching adult age, by their parents, should have been made a misdemeanor, justifying the intervention of the magistrate. J^uch a system of stimuli, if made effective, must have been harsher than domestic slavery. I reply, yes: but in imposing it, we should be but imitating our conciuerors, who ordained that the wise, kindly, benevolent, yet efficient system of the South should give place to their more pretentious but oppressive system. We are fully justified by the rights of self- preservation, to imitate their severity. Here is a parable which expresses accurately the folly Virginia has committed. She saw a neighbor of her's, named, we will say. Smith, who was very rich, and who also had a large family of healthy children. Smith is using a part of his abundance, in sending all of his children to school. Now Virginia is not ricli, but desperately poor; and it will be "touch and go" if some of her children do not actually starve before the year is out. Moreover, Virginia's children are in so feverish, unhealthy a state, that confinement uith books is likely to have no effect, except brain-fever. But the old lady sees Smith"*; gang passing her door to school every day, ^ith envious eyes. She feels that somehow "book-larnin" is a social distinction. She hears Smith's children "chaffing" hers about their inferiority of privilege, and she can stand it no longer. So she completes her own bankruptcy to buy an outfit of "store clothcis," and school-books, and sends all her children. Luckless urchins! what they needed was wholesome food and medicine, not books and confinement. The result of this blind disregard of times and differences, and abilities, is, that about
182 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
the time famine and the sheriff are both knocking at the old
lady's door, her children are sent back to her. in raging delirium
from brain fever, either helpless, or rending each other in their
plirensy.
question fairl\- in the face? It makes me shudder — ^and the
Does any one demur, that this picture is extravagant? Then, he has not begun to see the fearful peril of our situation. Indeed, I feel sure that bad as is the present state of Virginia (in consequence of the abolition measure forced upon us) far the worst is yet to come. What are we to do with this young generati(m of negroes now growing up? Have men looked that free school is one of the most tragical features in the coming drama. Let these facts be considered. This coming generation will be a numerous one. Men. like ''Civis,'' are evidently nurs- ing the secret hope that it will not; and to my mind it is one o<' the most painful evidences of the atrocity of the wrong per- petrated on Mrginia by her conquerors, that good, patriotic, philanthropic. Christian men here see the evil fruits of that crime looming up so fearfully, as actually to find a grain of pri vate consolation in the hopel that a race of human beings among us are advancing to the miseries of extermination. I do not find fault with the hape; it is natural — I shall naturally and justifiably hope that my wilful destroyer may x>e'rish before he murders me — I condenm the oppression which has left good and wise men no solace except in that hope. They scan the bills of mortality in Southern cities with a sigh of relief. Doubtless city-life is a devouring gulf for the poor freedman, but Virginia is a rural State; and in the country, the lazy freedman multi- plies, unstinted by his povei'ty. The climate is genial, the win- ter is short, the jjersimmons and blackberries span the larger part of the year; the "'old hares" are prolific; the old freedmen, once slaves, still do about half work, and produce some pro- visions; and above all, the process of eating up the white peo- ple by petty pilferings is still far from completed. So, between these various resources, country negroes manage to sustain these low conditions of existence, which enable so low a race to multiply; and they multiply on, as yet, very much as in old times. This perilous incoming generation will be a numerous one.
The next fact is, thatMff neo;ro is n creature o^ Imbit, Those
THE NEGUO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 188
whose characters were formed in slavery still carry with them two habits gained there; one, tliat of work (though gradually re- laxing); the other, that of loyalty and affectionate respect for "their white folks." The new generation cherishes neither. I know of only one or two, of either sex, who are engaged in any self-supporting- labor — they live on their parents, or on pilfer- ing. Does one see any of them apprenticed to any useful trade, or in the regular employment of any business man? I have with me the testimony of the planters; they tell me that, in hiring hands, they always seek middle-aged ones, who were trained in slavery; the younger are not worth hiring, if they ever offer. I have with me the testimony of the middle-aged freedmen, the fathers and mothers themselves. Their complaint is, that the "young ones have no idea of work — they do not know what real work is — what is to become of them, the Lord only knows." All who know the negro character are aware also of that infirmity of purpose which, almost universally ren- ders them inefficient parents. They are either too weak or in- dulgent, or they are brutally and capriciously severe. Hence, the usual law of negro families is, a low state of parental and filial qualities, dissatisfied parents, and insubordinate children — it was always so upon the plantations, except as the master or overseer guided and reinforced the father's rule; it is flag- rantly so now. The ugliest feature of this coming day is, that the young negroes are evidently growiuj; iij3 with a restive, surly, insolent spirit towards the whites, in place of that close family affection, feudal loyalty, and humble pi-ide in their su- periors, which once united masters and servants. How can it be otherwise? The family tie is gone forever — the "carpet bag- ger" has played his accursed game upon the negro's passions. Suffrage and the free school awaken in the young negro foolish and impossible aspirations, which are fated to disappointment, and whose disappointment he will assuredly lay to the door of his white rivals, lately his kindly protectors. One needs only to walk by the way. to see this change of temper. The ex- slave greets his former "white folks" with a smile of genuine pleasure, and with all the deference of old times. But his son and daughter pass without speech, or with a surly nod, and as- sert their independence by shouldering white children from the sidewalk. What, meantime, is the temper to which these white
184 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
young people are growing up? They also are strangers to the family feeling; they know nothing of the kindly responsibility and patronage begotten by the former dependence of the ser- vants; to them these insolent young blacks are simply stran- gers and aliens, repulsive and abhorred. The sons of the he- roes who fell at Manassas and Gettysburg are not likely to im- bibe from widowed mothers traditions which will make them very tolerant of "negro impudence."
The State of Xew Jersey has emancipated her slaves re- cently enough, for men naw living to testify to the effects of the measure. The aecount that I have uniformly heard from her citizens is this: That the negroes reared in slavery continued to be useful, but that when this generation had passed away, business men ceased, as a general rule, to employ negroes in any permanent contract of labor. They were found too fickle, uncertain and indolent. Ask a New Jersey farmer to employ a negro for his permanent farm help, and he would answer with a smile at your absurdity. After a time negroes almost ceased to be seen in rural districts; they drifted into taverns, barbers' shops and other places where ''jobs" could be picked up. What right have we to flatter ourselves with a different result in Vir- ginia.
Now an industrious community can endure a certain per- centage of idlers, but if it be increased too much, they poison the community. The body politic is, in this, like the natural body, a certain amount of poison in its circulation can be en- dured, and eliminated by the emunctory organs, but if the poi- son is in larger quantity, the man dies. When the generation of freed-negroes, which works feebly, has passed away, can the white people of Southside Virginia endure the pilfering of a body of negroes more numerous than themselves, who will work not at all? And when the white people are at last driven to the end of all patience by intolerable annoyances, and the blacks are determined to live and not to work, collision cannot but en- sue. What shall we do with that generation of negroes "edu- cated" to be above work? I see no other prospect, humanly speaking, except the beginning of a war of races, which will bring back the provost marshal, and the government of the bayonet, and will, indeed, make us eager to welcome them.
But even if this danger is evaded, I object to this whole
THE NKGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 185
scheme of State education for negroes, because, if successful, it can only result in wrono-. In every civilized country, there must be a laboring class. The idea that this universal "educa- tion," so-called, is to elevate that laboring class into a reading body, and still leave them laborers, is a vain vision. The peo- ple who are addicted to manual labor are never going to be students, as a body. It is not so in boasted Prussia, nor in boasting New England. Laborers, if taught the arts of letters in their youth, disuse them in their toiling manhood. The brain which is taxed to supply the nervous energy for a day of man- ual labor, will have none left for literary pursuits. If our civ- ilization is to continue, there must be, at the bottom of the so- cial fabric, a class who must work and not read. Now, grant that that the free school does all that its wildest boasts can claim; that it elevates the negroes out of this grade. Then the only result will be, that white people must descend into it, and occupy it. Where then is the gain? I, for one, say plainly, that I belong to the white race, and that if I must choose be- rween the two results, my philanthropy leads me to desire the I)roisperity of my own people, in preference to that of an alien race. I do not see any humanity in taking the negro out of the place for which nature has fitted him, at the cost of thrusting my own kindred down into it. No amelioration whatever is effected in the country taken as a wliole; but an unnatural crime is committed to gratify a. quixotic and unthinking v,i=0Tcliet.
Again: Let us grant that free schools effect all that is claimed for the elevation of the negro; that he is actually fitted for all the dignities of the commonwealth, and for social equal- ity. Then, will he not denumd it? Of course. Here then, is my concluding ,^/7^w/«a. If these negro schools are to fail, they should be abolished without further waste. If they are to suc- ceed, they only prepare the way for that abhorred fate, amal- gamation. If the State School Board are working for any- thing, they are working for this; here is the goal of their plans. The most solemn and urgent duty now incumbent on the rulers of Virginia, is to devise measures to prevent the gradual but sure approach of this final disaster. The satanic artificers of our subjugation well knew the work which they designed to perpetrate: it is so to mingle that blood which flowed in the
186 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
veins of our Washingtona, Lees, aud Jacksons, and which con- secrated the battle iSeids ot the Confederacy, with this sordid, alien taint, that the bastard stream shall never again throb with independence enough to make a tyrant tremble. These men were taught by the instincts of their envy and malignity, but too infallibly, how the accursed work waiS to be done. They knew that political equality would prepare they way for social equality, and that, again for amalgamation. It is only our pride which hides the danger from our ejes. A friend from Virginia was conversing, in London, with an old English navy surgeon, who was intimately acquainted with the British West-India Is- lands. He assured the Virginian that the "reconstruction acts" tended directly to amalgamation, and would surely result in it if persevered in. ''Never," exclaimed my Virginia friend, ''In our case, our people's pride of race will eft'ectually protect them from that last infamy." "Had ever any people," replied the ex- surgeon, ''more pride of race than the English? Yet they are amalgamating in Jamaica. We have the teachings of forty years' experience in this matter; when your emancipation has become, like ours, forty years old, you will see." The Virginian was silenced. Even now, after ten years of the misery and shame of subjugation, one has only to open his eyes to see the crumbling awa}^ of the social barriers between the two races. The nearest and heaviest share of this curse of mixed blood will, of course, fall upon the conquered States themselves; but the revengeful mind will have the grim satisfaction of seeing the conquering States reap their sure and fearful retribution from the same cause. Eleven populous States, tainted with this poison of hybrid and corrupted blood, will be enough to com- plete the destruction of the white States to which they will be chained. The Yankee empire will then find itself, like a strong man with a cankerous limb, perishing by inches, in chronic and hideous agonies. The member which spreads its poison through the whole body can neither be healed nor amputated, all will putrify together.
Is there any remedy? This is the question which will be urged, and those who think with me are listened to with dis- favor, chiefly because people do not like to be reminded of a shameful and miserable future, which they suppose to be un- avoidable; they prefer to shut their eyes and enjoy the rem-
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 187
nants of pleasures which are left them, without disturbauce. We shall be asked: Why sj)(^ak of these thiugs, unless there cau be shown a remedy? There might be a remedy, if the peoi)le and their leaders were single-minded and honest in their action as citizens. The key-note of that remedy is in ^'impartial sutt"- rage." In endeavoring to remedy the dangers of the common- wealth, we must remember that we are a conquered people, and have to obey our masters. Otherwise our straight road toack to safety would be at ouce to repeal negro-suffrage. Rut our masters will not hear of that. What is called "impartial suff- rage" is, however, permitted by their new Coustituticm. We should at ouce avail ourselves of that perniissioil, and without attempting any discriminatijn on grounds of ''race, color, or previous condition of bondage,'' establish qualifications both of property and intelligence for the privilege of voting. This would exclude the great multitude of negroes, and also a great many white men. And this last would of ilself be no little gain, for many more white men have the privilege than use it for the good of the State. Agiiiu, the very misfortunes of the time give us this advantage now, for drawing back from the ultra- radicalism of our previous legislation: that the mass of white men are now so impressed with the dishonor and mischiefs of negro suffrage, the majority of those white voters having no property, w-ould, even joyfully, surrender their privilege, tar- nished and worthless as it is, if thereby the negro could be ex- cluded. This constitutes our opportunity. To this saving ref ')rm there is just one real obstacle, and that is, the timid self-inter- est of the office-seeking class. I take it for granted that every sensible man in Vii-ginia thinks in his heart that negro suft'rage is a deplorable mistake. But many wish to be elected or ap- pointed to office. These begin to calculate, under the prompt- ings of timid selfishness: "While I should be very glad to see thi;s wholesome reform, it will not be prudent for me to ad- vocate it; because, should a movement for it, advocated by me, perchance fail, then all the classes whom that movement pro- posed to disfranchise of this useless and hurtful privilege, will be offended with me. So, when self-love desires to be elected to some place of emolument, they will remember me and vote against me. Hence, I cannot move in that reform, however desirable." This isthe real difficulty, and the only real difificulty,
188 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL.
in the way of this blessed step towards salvation. If all the men who now cherish aspirations for office, could onl}- he made to act disinterestedly — to forget self, to resolve to do the right and wise thing for the Commonwealth, w^hether they were ever voted for again or not, the whole thing would be easy. There are a plenty of intelligent young men in Virginia, now without property, who would joyfully join the freeholders in voting to disfranchise themselves for this great end, to make a command- ing majority. So that the question, whether the State can be saved from this perdition, turns practically 3n this other ques- tion (as indeed the fate of Commouwealtlis always practically does), whether her people can for once act with a real honest disinterestedness. If the people and their leaders are capable of that, they can save themselves; if not capable, nothing can save them. And perhaps the verdict of posterity will be, that they were unworthy of being saved. It will be well for all to look this view of the matter fully in the face. Especially is it necessary for the farmers to see precisely where the deliverance and the obstacle to it lie.
The other branch of our remedy should be to reform our school system, both for blacks and whites, back towards the system of our fathers in Virginia, just as fast as possible. I mean the system which prevailed in Virginia up to 1860. I know that all the self-constituted, pretended advocates of free education disparage^ that system as miserably partial and in- efficient. But our fathers knew what thej w^ere about, much better than was sujiposed. "Young jieaple f/iink old folks are fools, but old people kno7v that young ones are." Did that old system produce perfect results? Xo. Xo system in imperfect human hands ever produces perfect results. Did it teach every adult in the State to read and write? No. Buf neither will the new one. That is, the new system will no more be able to overcome the inexorable law, that the mass of those addicted to manual labor will not and cannot addict themselves to the literary arts, than our fathers were. And after all the fuss and boast, and iniquitous expense, "the upshot" will be that there will still be just as many adults in the State, who practically will not read, and who will forget how, as before. And there will be far fewer to use their art of reading to any good pur- pose. How often will men stubbornly forget that the art of
TIIK NKGRO AND THE COMMON SCHOOL. 189
reading is not education^ but only a very uncertain means of education. With that class for which the free school especially provides, it is usually a worthless means. The feasible and use- ful education for that class is the development of faculties which takes place in learning how to make an honest li\ino'. My prediction is already verified in Massachusetts, the very home of the State-school humbug. The annual reports of their own school superintendents confess it. A large part of the rural laboring population, still do nat read, have forgotten how to read, do not care to know, and care not a stiver whether their children know. (Here, by the way, is the cause of this new furor for ''compulsory education"). Tried by this sober and truthful standard, I assert that the comparative fruits of our old system fully justified its excellence. Again I demand that the "tree shall be known by its fruits." That was the system which reared the Virginians of 1861: that glorious, enlightened gen- eration of men, which comprehended so clearly the vital im- portance of the great doctrine of State sovereignty, while the Yankee hordes, reared up under this be-ipraised system of free schools, iguorantly trampled on it with beastly stupidity and vio- lence: that glorious generation whicli contended for the right so firmh% so temperately, as to win the admiration of the world: that generation Avhieh, when moderation availed no longer, formed the heroic armies which followed Jackson and Lee to the last. Yes, it was the old Virginia system that reared the yeomanry which filled those immortal ranks with such a body of privates — so virtuous, so enduring, so brave, so intelligent, as no other generals ever commanded. Yes, "let the tree be known 'by its fruits." The tree that bore "the rank and file" of the Stonewall brigade was good enough for me. It may be pruned, it may be watered and tilled, and thus it may be im- proved. Our true wisdom will be to plant it again.
This old system evinced its wisdom by avoiding the pagan. Spartan theory, which makes the State the parent. It left the parent supreme in his God-given sphere, as the responsible party for providing and directing the education of his own ofl- spring. This old plan, instead of usurping, encouraged and as- sisted, where assistance was needed. It was wise again, in that it avoided creating salaried offices to eat up the people's money, and yet do no actual teaching. It was supremely wise, in that
190 THE! I^EGRO AND TJtfE COMMON SCPtOOL.
if cut the Grordian knot. "Eeliginn in the State school," which now 'baffles British and Yanlcee wit. It set that insuperable difficulty clear on one side, by leaving the school as the creature of the parents, and not of the State. It was wise in its exceed- ing ecenomy, a trait so essential to the State now.
I would have our rulers, then, avail themselves of another circumstance growing out of our calamities, to disarm the over- weening zeal of the State school men. We can truthfully say to them: "Your system, whether best or not, is simply imprac- ticable for Virginia. You see that she has stretched taxation to the verge of confiscation; and yet her debt cannot be paid and that costly system carried on." Let two separate ''Literary funds," then, be created, one for whites and one for blacks, each separate, and each replenished from the taxation of its own class. Let "each tub stand upon its own bottom." Instead of the State undertaking to be a universal creator and sustainer of schools, let it invite jiarents to create, sustain, and govern their own .schools under the assistance and guidance of an inexpen- sive and (mainly) unsalaried Board, and then render such help to those parents who are unable to help themselves, as the very limited school tax will permit. And let the existence of .some aspiration in parents or children be the uniform condition of the aid; for without this condition it is infallibly thrown away. "One man may take a horse to w'ater, but a hundred can't make liim drink." R. L. DABNEY.
Union Theological Seminary, Va., Feb. 21, 1876.
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM IMPOSED
UPON VIRGINIA BY THE UNDERWOOD
CONSTITUTION.
DR. DABNEY,
He Has A Few Words to Say in Replv to Dr. Rnffner,
Repelling tlie Charge of luconsisteucv — An Advocate of Uni- versal Education, Provided it is True Education — Tlie Old Virginia Plan — School Houses and Jails — Educated Crim- inals— A Few Comparative Figures — Drenching and Drink- ing— Home Education.
I. Hampden Sidney, Ya., April 18, 1870. To W. H. Ruffner, Esq., Superintendent of State Schools:
Dear Sir: — You have undesignedly dane the cause of truth a service by so assailing the Virginia doctrines as advanced by nie in the Southern Planter as to awaken the public curiosity to their defence. That defence I propose to continue in a brief reply to 3^ou by facts and arguments alone. I do not propose to follow you into any personalities. I am perfectly aware that my person is, to the people of Virginia, too unimportant for them to feel interested in a squabble over its consistency or credit. I jDresume tliat their feeling for your private person al- so is not very different. For an important principle they may care. While my humble sphere as a minister and teacher may render the great })ublic indifferent to me personally, my em- ployers and neighbors, who know me, need no defence of my personal credit from any disparagement from what quarter so- ever. They know tliat my position is thoroughh' consistent and independent; that in mA^ own education I never received from Church or State one dollar of eleemosynary aid; and that I have neither neglected nor abused any official trust comniil- ted to me.
191
192 THE STATE FREE SCnoOL SYSTEM.
You think ir iiicoii:<isrent in nie to disapprove any free school because, you say. I am a professor in a "free school'' — a theological seminary. This seminary is indeed truly ''a free school." "I thank the Jew for that word." Founded and sus- tained by the spontaneous, unforced gifts of good men, it gives free tuition in divinity to joung men of all denominations — even the most opposed to the donors — seeking the ministry. It is honestly and really a ''free school" — supported by free gifts, attended by free, voluntary pupils. Xo penny of the salary of its teachers is exacted by the tax-gatherer from unwilling hands to pay far a project or an inculcation which they disapprove. Your "free schools," like not a few of the other pretensions of Radicalism, are in fact exactly opposite to the name falsely as- sumed. The great bulk of those who pay the money for them da it, not "freely," but In- compulsion. They are virtually thrust down our throats by the bayonet. And the exemplars you most boast and imitate not only make the payment compul- sory, but tlie attendance also, as your consistency will doubtless cause you to da in Virginia also in a few years. The only free- dom of 3'our system is your freedom to CDinpel other people's money.
Your attacks on me breathe a great glorying in tlie strength of your party. Their tone seems to cr^-: "Oh. vain man; seest thou not that thou resistest the inevitable'? ^Yith us are all Kaisers, and all demagogues, and all their minions, and all tax-gatherers, and all tax-consumers. Who art thou against so manj'?" Well, perhaps, nobody. But it is precise- ly in this that every prudent, reflecting Virginian sees the con- clusive argument against your plan. Our true statesmen al- ways taught us that government should not be allowed to go into any project aside from its direct, legitimate ends, especially if that project would subsidize many persons and create for them a motive of personal advantage to uphold it. Because whenever that project might be wrested to mischief, these in- terested motives might prevent a wholesome and necessary repeal. Such is precisely the case with your project. It has be- come mischievous and tyrannical, in that it forces on us the use- less, impracticable, and dishonest attempt to teach literary arts to all negroe;?;, when the State is unaible to pay its debts and provide for its welfare, and has just been despoiled of its pos-
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 19;4
sessions by violence. And just so soon as a feeble voice is raised against this wrong, you flaunt before us this fact, that the vicious system has corrupted and subsidized so many minds that the friends of right are powerless! Why, this is the very demonstration that I am right. This is the crowning con- demnation of your system.
You seem also to think I wrote with great severity. I did write with great severity in one sense. How came you to over- look the fact, which every dispassionate reader saw, that my severity was all aimed, not at Virginia, but at her conquerors and oppressors? Was it because you found yourself in fuller sympathy with those conquerors than with your oppressed fel- low-citizens? Take heed, lest some, less your friends than I, should conclude so.
Xotwithstading Aour glorying, then, I mean once more to assert the unfashionable truth. Truth is never out of date. It has sometimes happened that a tentative experience has thrown so much light upon a bad system as to re-open the discussion with better guidance than the previous. If the American peo- ple, after enjoying thisliepraised system, are so deficient in can- dor and intelligence that they cannot review and amend wrong action, this is suflSciently convictive of the worthlessness of the plan.
Let me also, at the outset, arrest all invidious outcry by say- ing that I am an advocate of the most universal education possi- ble, provided it be true education. I heartily recognize all the teachings of the golden rule, of philanthrophy, and of equality (so far as equality is righteous), which prompt us to desire for all our fellow-creatures, so far as possible, all the advantages of culture we value for ourselves — and that without distinguish- ing against classes. Let me say, once for all, / am an advocate for the State's providing, if necessary, all the aid for poor chil- dren's schooling which is realty desirable and will be really util- ized by them— that is, T'POX THE OLD VIRGINIA PLAN. 1 wish to satisfy the rao.st overweening by the express admission that universal education would ibe a good thing, were it practica- ble. The argument is that under that proAidential order which God has imposed upon society, the effectual literary education of all is impossible, and therefore the promise of it is delusive and mischevious, and that when the State is an American demo-
194 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
cracy, especially, it is no safe or suitable agent for doing the work.
We begin by reasserting the familiar objection, so often contemptuously dismissed, that the principle upon which the State intrudes into the parental obligation and function of edu- cating all children, is dangerous and agrarian. It is the teach- ing of the Bible and of sound political ethics that the education of children belongs to the sphere of the family and is the duty of the parents. The theory that the children of the Common- wealth are the charge of the Coinmonwealth is a pagan one, derived from heathen Sparta and Plata's heathen republic, and connected by regular, logical sequence with legalized i»rostitu- tion and the dissolution of the conjugal tie. The dispensation of Divine Providence determines the social grade and the cul- ture of children on their reaching adult age by the diligence and faithfulness of their parents, just as the pecuniary condition of children at that epoch is determined. The desire of procuring for their children a desirable condition in all these respects is the grand stimulus which Providence has provided for the ef- forts of parents. It is His ordination that youth shall inherit the status provided for them by their parents, and improved it by their own exertions as aided by the Christian philanthropy of their fellow-men. Now, by what apology does the State (not an evangelical, nor an eleemosynary institute by its nature) justify itself in stepping in to revolutionize that order? By the plea that it (the State) is so vitally interested in the iutelligent-e of Ihe citizens that this entitles her to take etfectual means for pre- venting their ignorance. See, now, whither this assumption leads. The morality of the citizens is far more essential to the welfare of the State; and the only etfectual basis for morals is the Christian religion. Therefore the State would ibe yet more bound to take order that all youth be taught Christianity. And this is just the argument by which Dr. Chalmers and Mr. Glad- stone (before his political somersaults began) strenuously de- fended church establishments. Again, physical destitution of the citizens is as dangerous to the State as ignorance; therefore the St:ate would be entitled to interfere for her own protection and repair that calamitous condition of destitution which their own and their jwrents' vices and laziness have entailed on a part of the people, by confiscating, for their relief, the honestly-
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 195
eariR'il in-opin-ry of the vii-ruons and llii-ifiy aud iIhmi- childi-eii. Tile last two infei-ciices are precisely as fair as tlie first. Prin- ciples always bear their fruits; aud the friends of this principle will in due time become consistent, and claim at least the last inference, along- with the first. They are not liktdy to adopt the second, because the culture and ethics of the ''common scho'ol"' will leave them, after a time, too corrupt and atheistic to recog-nize the value of morality or its source — the Christian religion.
We often hear this apology for the i^tate's wholesale intrus- ion into education advanced with the exactness of a conmier- cial transaction. They say: "It costs less money to build school-houses than jails." But what if it turns out that the State's exipenditure in school-house is one of the things which necessitates the expenditure in jails? The fruits of the system show that such is the result, and hence the plea for the State's intrusion is utterly delusive. The regular result of the kind of education which alone it can give is to propagate crime. Alli- son's History of Europe states that forty years ago two-thirds of the inhabitants of France could neither read nor write. In Prussia, at the same time, the government had made secular ed- ucation almost universal, by compelling parents to send their children to school from seven to fourteen years of age. Statis- tics of the two countries show that serious crime was at tliat time fourteen times as prevalent in intelligent I'russia as in ig- noi-ant France — volume V., page 15. Again it has been found from the official j-ecords of the S6 departments of France that the amount of crime has, without a single exception, been in proportion to the amount of scholastic instruction given in each. Again, we are told that much the largest number of the lewd women of Paris come from those departments where there is most instruction. In Scotland the educated criminals are to the uneducated as four and a half to one. M. De To(iU(Mille i-e- marked of the United States that crime increased most rajddly where there was most instruction. The ancients testify that the moral condition of the ''Barbarians" was comparatively ])ure 'beside that of the Greeks and Romans, and that the most refined cities were the most corrupt. But let us bring the comparison nearer home. The Northern States of the Union had previous- ly to the war all adopted the system of universal State schools,
196 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
and the Southern States had not. In 1850 the former had tliir teen and a half millions of people, and twentj-three thousand six hundred and sixtj-four criminal CDnvictions. The South (without State schools) had nine and a half millions, and two thousand nine hundred and twentv-one criminal convictions — that is to say, after allowing for the difference of pDpulation, the "educated" masses were something more than six times as criminal as the "uneducated." The same year the Xorth was supporting 114,700 paupers, and the South 20,500. The "unin- telligent"' South was something more than four times as well qualified to prDvide for its own subsistence as the "intelligent" Xorth: But Massachusetts is the native home of the public school in America. In Boston and its adjacent county the per- sons in jails, houses of correction or refuge, and in alms-houses bore among the whites the ratio of one to every thirty-four. (Among the wretched, free blacks it was one to every sixteen.) In Eichmond, the capital of "benighted" Virginia, the same un- happy classes bore the ratio of one to every one hundred and twelve. Such are the lessons of fact. Indeed, it requires only the simpliest ocular inspection to convince any observer that the economical plea for State schools is illusory. In the South State school-houses were unknown, and consequently jails and penitentiaries were on the most confined and humble scale. The North is studded over with grand and costly public school-hous- es, and her jails are even more "palatial" in extent and more numerous than they.
All such promiscuous efforts to educate the whole masses by any secular authority must disappoint our hopes, and result in mischief, for a second reason. It finds its illustration in the homely proverb, that "while one man may lead a horse to water a hundred cannot make him drink." True education, taken in any extent of its meaning, broad or narrow, is so greatly a moral process that a certain amount of aspiration and desire in its sub- ject is an absolute prerequisite. The horse may be drenched, but that is not drinking; and the drench is not nourishment to be assimilated, but medicine. So, a knowledge of letters may be "exhibited" (as the medical men phrase it) to the resisting or apathetic mind; but there is no assimilation. of the mental pabu- lum and no recruitment of spiritual strength. Something else must be first done, then, besides building and equipping a school
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 197
for souls which are in this State; and that is something which the State can never do— at least not by its schools. The moral aspiration and virtuous aims must be present, which alone will utilize a knowledge of letters. This is very plain. Now, it will be found generally true that in this country it is precisely the cliildren of those who are presumed to need State education, and for whom the provision is chiefly designed, who are in this un- prepared condition. If the State contained no children save those of parents who had the intelligence, the virtue, the aspir- ation, and also the property, or else the industry, which would make them resolved and a/ble to educate their own, then, of course, it would be wholh' superfluous for the Government to in- terfere. But these are the only children to whom letters are, in the general a real means of culture or elevation. Separate those wdio, in our fruitful laud have neither aspiration, nor industry, nor property enough to insure that they will educate their own children, and in those children we usually find preciselj^ that apathetic and hopeless condition, which renders this means nu- gatory, or worse. The parents are the real architects of their children's destiny, and the State cannot help it. There are, of course, exceptions. There are meritorious parents reduced by exceptional calamities to destitution, and there are a few "rough diamonds" unearthed in the unlikely mines of grovelling families. Such exceptions should be provided for; but wise legislators do not make universal systems to reach exceptional cases.
The law which we assert is accounted for by several jiracti- cal causes. Parents who remain too poor and callous to educate their own children are so because they are ignorant, indolent, unaspiring, and vicious. The children's characters are usually as much the progeny of the parents as their bodies. Again: The aspiration, \irtuous desire, and energy of the parents are ab- solutely essential to supply that impulse, w^hich the child's mind requires to overrule its youthful heedlessness, and to impel it to employ and assimilate its otherwise usele.ss acquisitions. And once more: The home education is so much more potential than that of the school, that the little modicum of training which a "common-school" system can give to the average masses is ut- terly trivial and impotent as a means of reversing the child's ten- dency. That which costs nothing is never valued. Old kludge
198 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Bnell, of Albany, placed a sack of a new variety of beautiful wheat upon the counter of the pa^ilion at a gre^it agricultural fair, with a label inviting every farmer to take one quart as a gratuity, for seed. At night the sack was almost untouched. The old gentleman fretted at this result, took it the second day to the booth of a seeds man, and directed Mm to sell it at two dollars per quart. It was at once bought up greedily. One of the best teachers we ever knew determined to devote his latter years to the pliilanthropic work of teaching a gratuitous school for his neighbors. In a few mjuths it had dwindled to five pu- pils, and died a natural death ^^^thin a year. There is a natural liumiliation also in being c-ompelled to accept the provision of ehai-ity, or of the KState. for that which conscience tells parents Is obligatory on them. These reasons accjunt for the fact, which the advocates of public schools so desire to hide, that thu children do not attend, and the parents do not care to make them attend. He who goes ''behind the scenes" in the Northern States knows how extensiveh' this is true. The rising move- nun t for a '"compnlsory education''' is a confession of this fact. The unwilling disclosure of the failure of the system is the only thing this new movement will effect; for its folly is clear from this simple thought, that it contravenes, worse than all. the ax- iom: ''One man can lead the horse to water," etc. Hence it re- sults, that the class which is low enough to need this State aid, is one whicli usually cannot be elevated by it. But the abor- tive effort will awaken other intiuences. as we shall .see. which are likely to make the children more miserable and less innocent than their ignorant parents.
Must the philanthropist, then, submit to the conclusion that ignorance and its consequences must needs be hereditary, and that knowledge, culture, and virtue are not to be extended beyond the fortunate youth for whom their parents secure them? We reply: this sad law does hold, and must hold to a far wider extent than our over-weening zeal is willing to acknowledge. Yet its rigor may be relaxed but not by the meddling of the civil magistrate or the arm of legislation. The agency must be so- cial and Christian. The work must be done by laying hold of the sentiments, hearts, and consciences of i>arents and children together — not through their grammatical and arithmerical fac- ulties. The agents for this blessed work are ihe neighbor and
THE STATE FKEE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 199
the church. Oliristian charity and zeal, with the potent social influences descending' from superioi'is to inferiors, in a society which is practically a kindly and liberal aristocracy; these may break the reign 'of ignorance and unaspiring apathy. The State cannot; the work is above its sphere.
Very i-espectf ully, your obedient servant,
R. L. DABNEY.
DR. DABXEY AGAIX.
Universal Education as Involving the Idea of the Leveller — All cannot Aspire to the Highest Stations — Manual Labor or Savagery the Destiny of the Major Part — Fancy Philan- thropists— The Common School Alumni — Theological Quacks — A Little Learning a Dangerous Thing.
II.
Hampden Sidney, Va.. Apiil 22. 1876. To W. H. Ruffner, Esq., Superintendent of State Schools:
Dear Sir. — In the third place this theory of universal edu- cation in letters by the State involves the absurd and impossi- ble idea of the Leveller, as thjugh it were possible for all men to have equal destini€« in human society. It is a favorite pro- position with the asserters of these so-called American ideas, that "every American boy should improve himself as though he might some day be President of the United States."' That is to say, the system supposes and fosters a universal discontent with the allotments of Providence, and the inevitable graduations of rank, possessions and privilege. It is too obvious to need many words, that this temper is anti-Christian; the Bible, in its whole tone, inculcates the opposite spirit of modest contentment with our sphere, and directs the honorable aspiration of the good man to the faithful performance of its duties, rather than to the amibitious purpose to get out of it and above it. It may be ask- ed, does not the Bible recognize that fact, so pleasing to every generous mind, that the lower ranks now and then produce a youth worthy of the highest? Yes, David was taken from the sheep-folds to be Israel's most glorious king. But the Bible- idea is (and David's was a case precisely in point) that the hum- ble boy is to exhibit this fitness for a nobler destiny, not by dis- content and greedy cravings, but by his exemplary performances in his lower lot; and that Providence and his fellow-citizens are
1 Appeared in Riclvn'^nd Enquirer -00
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 201
to call him to "come up higher." For these instances of native merit, which are usually few, the State has no need to legislate. They will rise of themselves. The}' cannot ibe kept down, pro- vided only we do not legislate against them, but leave them the carriere euverte aux talents; or, if they will be the 'better for any provision, it should be exceptional, as they are exceptional cases. With this exception, it is utterly false that every American boy maj' aspire to the higher stations of life. In the lottery of life these prizes must be relatively few — only a few can reach them. Xor is it right or practicable to give to all boys an ''even start" in the race for them. The State, of cour.se, should not leg- islate to the disadvantage of an}- in this race; but we mean that Providence, social laws, and parental virtues and efforts, do in- evitably legislate in favor of some classes of boys in their start in that race, and if the State undertakes to countervail that leg- islation of nature by levelling action, the attempt is wicked, mis- chievous, and futile. The larger part of everj- civilized people is, and ever will be, addicted to i-egular, manual labor. The idea that the diffusion of intelligence and improvement of the arts are so to lighten the doom of labor, that two or three hours' work daily will provide for the wants of all, and leave the low- est laborer the larger part of his day for intellectual pursuits, is a preposterous dream. Let experience decide. Does the pro- gress of modern civilization tend to exact "shorter hours'" of its laborers than the barbarous state? Human desires always out- run human means. If this Utopian era is ever to come, when two or three hours of the artisan's time will be worth a day's work, the artificial wants of him and his family will have outrun him, in demanding the expenditure of five or six days' wages in one. The laborer will still find a motive for working all day as now — unless he turn loafer! And the last words remind us, that theinexoraible law of nature we have just pointed out is, on the whole, a -beneficent one; for it is necessary to prevent man- kind from abusing their leisure. The leisure conferred by wealth is now often abused. So would that secured for the poor, by this fancied wealth of intelligence, be yet more abused; and the six or eight hours redeemed from manual toil Avould be devoted, not to intellectual pursuits, but to wasteful and de- grading vices. And these vices would .soon rivet again the yoke of constant labor upon their necks, or the fetters of the jail or
202 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
house of correctioii. We repeat: The destiny of the major part of the human family is the alternative of manual labor or savagery.
Now, no people will ever connect a real pursuit of mental culture with the lot of constant manual labor. The two are in- compatible. Neither time, nor taste, n3r strength, nor energy of brain will be found for both. Have not all manual-labor schools been failures? The man that works all day (usually) does not study. Tlie nerve-force has been expended (in the mus- cles, aud none is left for mental effort. Hence, we care not how universally the State may force the arts of penmanship and reading on the children of laborers, when these become laboring men they will cease to read and write; they will practically dis- use the arts as cumbersome and superfluous. This is a fact at which your enthusiast for common schools is very loath to look; but it is a stubborn one. The laboring classes in States which profess to give a universal education do not make any more beneficial use of letters, than those elsewhere. Prussia has for more than a generation com,pelled all her peasantry to go to school; but she is full of middle-aged peasants who have forgot- ten how to read, and who, in fact, never read. In boasted Mas sachusetts herself tin- very supenntt^ndents of the free schools lament that the State has more thau ever of labaring poor, espe- cially among the agi-icultural laborers, wlio neither know nor care anything concei-ning letters, for tliemselves or their chil- dren. The denyers of these stubborn facts are only the flatter- ers, not the friends, of the laborers.
Again our fancy-philanthropist will raise his out-cry, that if these riews are admitted they condemn more than half of our fellow-creatures to a Boeotian stupidity and mental darkness. We might answer, first, that his expedients are futile to reverse that doom. The only difference ^between him and us is, that he is to3 quixotic, or uncandid, or interested, to admit the fact, (rod has made a social sub-soil to the top-soil, a s^ocial founda- tion in the dust, for the superstructure — the Utopian cannot un- make it, least of all by his patchwork. But tliere is a second answer; he fargets that the use of letters is not educa- tion, but only oue means of education, and not the only means. The laboring classes find their appropriate mental and moral cultivation in their tasks themselves, aud in the example aud in-
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 208
fliieuce of the superiors for whom they hib^r. The plough-mau or artisan cultivates his mental faculties most appropriately in acquiring' skill and resource for his work. He trains the moral virtues 'by the fidelity and endurance with which he ]jerformvS that work. He ennobles his taste and sentiments by hiokiug up t J the superior who employs him. If to these influences you add the awakening, elevating, expanding force (>f (Miristian princi- ples, you have given rliar laborer a true education — a hundred fold more true, m )re suitable, more useful, than the communica- tiion of certain literary arts, which he will almost necessarily disuse. Let the i-eader recall that brilliant passage of Macaulav, as just as brilliant, in which he shows, against Dr. Johnson, that the Athenian populace, without books, was a highly-cultivated people. Let him remember how entirely the greatnesis of the feudal barons in the middle ages, was dissociated from all "clerkly arts;" yet they were warrioi-s. statesnu^n. poets, and gentlemen. So, our awn country presents an liumbler instance in the moi'e respectable of the African fieeilmen. Tens of thousands of these, ignorant of letters, but trained to i)ractical skill, thought, and resource, by intelligent masters, and imitat- ing" their superior breeding and sentiments, present, in every aspect, a far "higher style of man" than yonr Yankee laborer frr>m his common school, with his shallow smattering and pur- blind conceit, and his wretched news})aper stutfed with moral garbage from the police-courts, and with false and ])oisi)nous heresies in politics and religion. Put such a man in the same arena with the Southern slave frcnn a respectable i)lantation. and in one week's time the ascendancy of the Xegr). in self-res- pect, courage, breeding, prowess and ]>ractical intelligtmce, will assert itself paljjably to the Yankee and to all spectators. The slave was. in fact, the educated man.
Let it be granted, as we have just implied, that there is a certain use which this alumnus of the common school may con- tinue to make of his kn jv.ledge of letters. This g-ives us our strongest argument. Then the common schools will have cre- ated a numerous "public" of readers one-<iuarter or one-tenth cultivated; and the sure result will be the i)roduction for their use :)f a false, shallow, sciolist literature, science, and rlieojogy, infinitely worse than blank ignorance. "^Vheresoever the car- cass is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." This will
204 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
be the sure result of the law of supply and demand inspired bv a mercenary spirit. Formerly literature was for the educated ; it was their occupation, and they formed the constituency for whom the producers lof literature labored; consequently the lit- erature of the civilized nations was characterized by all that was most decent in manner, elevated in sentiment, and thor- ough and just in argument, of which their society could boast. The uneducated or quarter-educated formed no direct constitu- ency for authors and publishers; they did not ibid for them, or cater ito them. These unlettered classes received their ideas of literary, political, philosophical, and theological subjects (the most ignorant virtually have their politics, philosophy, and the- ology), from their social superiors, through social channels. And this was a source much safer than the present "literature for the millions,'' because much higher, purer, and more disinterest- ed. The consequence was, that the unlettered classes reflected the opinions, sentiments, and elevated tone of the uppermost stratum; now it is those of a class lower and mjore sordid than themselves. Thus the Southern overseer, who read little but his Bible, had a judgment infinitely better trained, a moral tone far higher, and a social, political, and religious creed far sounder than the modern alumnus of your ^'common school," with his Leveller's arrogance and envy, and his armful of cheap news- papers. The overseer had the lauded gentry who employed him as his instructors and models, and through them drew his .speculative opinions from the noblest minds of the South; the Crawfords, Cheves, Madisons, Barbours, Randolphs, Calhouns. The common-school alumnus has the wretched sciolists and theological quacks, who drive their sordid trade in cheap peri- odical literature. The advocates of the Yan'kee system (boast in it, and revile the old one in that the latter made letters the pre- rogative of the few; theirs of the many. But letters of what sort? Here we have ''given them a Roland for their Oliver."
We appeal to facts. Has not the creation of tliis large reading (but not truly educated) public occasioned a flood of mischievous, heretical, sciolistic, corrupting literature? The result is that the book and newspaper-making tradi^ has, for sordid purposes, brought down to the lower classes a multitude of speculations on the most dangerous subjects, with which no mind is prepared to deal for itself and independently, until it is
THE STATte t^REE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 205
\'eiy tliarougiilj trained aud informed. Tliat tliorough menial discipline and full learning- the common schools can never give to these masses. They may as well j^roniise that every agrarian among them shall be an Astor or a Kothschild in wealth. The state of European and Yankee society under this new impulse illustrates the facts we assert. The smattering which State education has given the masses has but been to them the open- ing of Pandora's box. It has only launched them in an ocean whicii they are Incompetent to navigate. (Every manufactory
i ! converted into a debating chib, where the operatives intoxi
cate their minds with the most licentious vagaries of opinions upon every fundamental subject of politics and religion; and they have only knowledge enough to run into danger, without having a tenth part of the knowledge necessary to teach them their danger and incompetenc3^ It was this system which prepared the way for the "International So- ciety," and the horrors 'of the Paris Co??itnune. So far are these nations from being healthily illuminated, they are an easy prey to the most destructive heresies, social and religious; and their condition is far more unwholesome and volcanic, with a more terrifying prospect of social dissolution, anarchy, and blood- shed, than was ever presented by the ignorance of the "middle ages." So obvious was this tendency to thoughtful minds thir- ty-five years ago that the great historian Heerea, with his inti- mate acquaintance with all the defects of mediaeval society, an- nounced the deliberate opinion that the art of printing was des- tined to be more a curse than a blessing to Europe. It is not necessary for us to espouse that opinion; here is, at least, a fair instance for the application of the maxim of Pope, now so uni- versally aud disdainfully ignored:
"A little learniug is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, But drinking deeply sobers us again."
Th*- amount of this grave objection is that when the State interferes in the work of common school education, it inevitably does not enough, or too much. To give tlial large learning and thorough discipline necessary for setliug tlic uiiud to deal inde-
"206 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
pendetrly with the corrupt labyrinth of modern current opinion is bey;)nd the State's power. What she does give usually pre- pares the victims for the literary seducers.
It is one of the most important and best established maxims of social science that influence descends Hence, if you would ■I>ermeate the whole ix)pular mass with any wholesale iuiluence, the wisest plan is tD place the element of good at the top, that it may percKilate downwards. The engineer, when he wishes to supply the humblest, lowliest lane or alley of a city with pure water, establishes his reservoir upon the topmost hill; and thence it descends, without any other force than its own gravit^ . to every door and ever}- lip. So the most etfectual, the most truly philanthroipic mode for elevating the lower classes of so- ciety is to provide for the rise of the superior class. This is na- ture's process; she elevates the \thole mass (by lifting it from above so that all the parts rise together, preserAing that relation of places on whose preservation the whole organism depends. The fashionable planis to place the leverunder the bottom stones and prize them to the level of the cap-stones of which the result is that the whole structure tumbles into rubbish. The establish- ment of the University of Virginia for giving the most thorough training to advanced scholars has been the most truly liberal measure for the cultivation of the masses ever adopted in the State. It teaches only a few hundred of young men, and those only in the highest studies? True, but in giving them a higher standard of acquirement it has elevated as well as multiplied all the teachers of everj- grade; making the instruction better, down to the primary schools where the children of the poor learn the rudiments of reading. And what is better still, it has made thorough culture resfjectaible, and diffused- honest aspirations to the lowest ranks. Your very obedient servant,
R. 'L. DABXEY.
ANOTHER DABNEY BOLT FOR DR. RUFFNER'vS BENE- FIT.
Overweening Philanthropists — Decent and Vile Children — 'The Danger of Disease — \Yhat Dr. Dahnej Thinks of Southern NegTOes as Compared with Northern l*oor Wliites — Dema- gogues and roliticians and Their Relation to the Free School System — Tlie Testimony of Webster, Not the Dic- tionarj- Man — An Alternative Horrible to Contemplate.
III.
Hampden Sidney, Va., A])ril 1*5, 1S7G. To W. H.Ruffner Esq., Superintendent of Sta/e Schools:
Dear Sir. — In the objections thus far set forth there are premises which, however true and impregnalble, are now so un- fashionable that with many they will meet no response but an angry outcry. The application of them would denwlish so man^- vain idols, udw much cherrslied, that the writer cannot hope for a hearing even, from many minds. Time must be the only teacher for these overweening philanthropists. When they are taught by liini that ithis system of State education has utter- ly failed to produce the benetits they designed, and has fixed on us the mischiefs above described, tliey will learn that these are the words of truth and soberness. But we puiii),)se to pi-esent three other points of objection not involving the principles ex- pounded in the previous part of this discussion, more practical and indisputable; and either one of these is sufficient f:)r the ut- ter condemnation of the system.
The first is, that if a system of universal common schools is to ibe carried out in good faith, there must be a mixture of the children of the decent and the children of the \\\q in the same society during the most plastic age. The boast is: that the ed-
1 Appeared in iJjcATCO?Jd /"r/jnVfr. '^-^'>
208 THE StATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
ucation is to be for all, and most prominently for the lowest and most i^orant, because they need it most. Then, if this boast is to be faithfully realized, all the moral lepers among the chil- dren of a given district must be thrust into the society of our children at school. In order to receive the shallow modicum of letters there dispensed, they must be daily brought into personal CDntact with the cutaneous and other diseases, the vermin — (Yes, dear reader, it is disgusting! We would spare you if faith- fulness permitted; but tlie foulness belongs to the plan, not to us) — the obscenity, the profanity, the groveling sentiments, the violence of the gamins, with which our boated maternal civili- zation teems in its more popubiis places. ' This must be done, too, at the tender and imitative age of childhood. Tlie high, sacred prerogative of the virtuous parent to choose the moral influences for his own beloved offspring must be sacrificed to this ruthless, levelling idol. Every experienced teacher knows that pupils educate each other more than he educates them. The thousand nameless influences — literary, social, moral— not only of the play-ground but of the school-room, the whispered conver- sation, the clandestine note, the sly grimace, the sly pinch, the good or bad recitation, mould the plastic character of children far more than the most faithful teacher's hand.
Now, there are some quarters of our towns and ciiies. and .S'ome rural neighborhoods, where this difficulty is little felt; either because the limited population is nearly homogeneous, or because the poor are decent and virtuous. Especially has the latter case been realized in many country communities of the &outh, where such was the cleanliness, propriety, good breed- ing, and moral elevation of the poorer families, imbibed from their kindly dependence on cultivated superiors, that a neigh- borhood school could be made to include all the white children, without serious injury to the morals of any. But the levelling policy, of which State common schools are a constituent mem- ber, now claims to make the blacks equal, socially and political- ly, to the most reputable whites. Against the .collection of white children into the same public schools with Xegroes, the very principle which we are illustrating, has made a protest so indignant and determined that, although the protest of the con- quered, it has been heard in all the Southern States, except Louisiana. The refusal to hear it there resulted in the absolute
tHe statk free school system. 209
hanishmcnl: iif the children of the white citizens from the schools supported by their money. And this pratest has not been, as the enemy and conqueror deems it, the mere expre.sislon of caste- pi*ejudice, but the conscientious demand of the natural rij>ht to our children from moral contaminarion. Here, then, we have a broad, a recognized application of this potent objection to the State system. The whole Southern jieople make the objection; nearly all the friends of State education admit its force in this case. But on this conceded case there are two remarks to be made. First, the concession is inconsistent with the whole the- ory of State schoiols and of the levelling syvstem to which they belong. This is so clearly felt, that even now the determined ad- vocates of State education are candid enough to fDreshadow the withdrawal of the concession, speaking of it as an arrangement "necessary for the time -being." Is it your opinion that this con- cession should be yielded ta us temporarily or permanently? Do you think that it should be withdrawn after a little, when all the staunch old Confederates like me have died out; or that the Ne- groes should never be admitted to the same schools as the whites? Yankeedom and Xegrodom are listening for your con- sistent answer. Second. The Sourheni Negroes are a less de- graded and vicious race than many large elements of the white poor, who, in parts of the North, have free entrance into the common schools there. Indeed, the force of the social objection is felt and acted on by numbers of the Northern peOiple. Many are the blatant advocates of the system among the people of Ijroperty, who yet dream not of sending their own children to the common schools. They consult their popularity by pretend- ing to advocate the system; and yet, for their own olTspring, rhey will not so much as touch it with a tip of their fingers. And many are the Phariasaic negrophobists who bereate and revile the Southern people^for resisting this abhorrent amalgamation of their children with blacks; who would Hout with f;:»ul scorn the proposal to send their own pampered brats to the common school near them along with the children of their po:)r white neighbors.
Sometimes it is asked, "How are the degraded classes to be elevated if they are thus to be denied all association with those better than themselves?" We reply that while we fully recog- nize the Christian duty of seeking the degraded and of drawing
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them up to purer associations, we beg leave to demur against employing our innocent and inexperienced children as the mis- sionaries. The braving of this moral contagion is the proper work of mature men and women of virtue; and these are to ele- vate their beneficiaries by holding to them the relation of bene- volent superiors, not of comrades and equals in school-room and play-ground. It is claimed that it is the teacher's part to prevent those "evil communications which corrupt good man- ners." We reply that it is impossible; he would need more than the hundred hands of Briareus and the hundred eyes of Argus, with more moral fidelity than falls to the share of any save apostles and martyrs. Is the pittance paid to a common-school teacher likely to purchase all these splendid endowments? It is said that if a fastidious parent does not like the social atmos- phere of the common school he may pay for a more select pri- vate one. But he is taxed compulsorily to support this schooi which parental duty forbids him to use; so that the system in this case amounts to an iniquitous penalty upon him for his faithfulness to his conscience. What clearer Instance of perse- cution could arise? Once more it is sneeringly asked: "Have children's morals never been corrupted in private schools?" They have, alas, often been. But this only shows our argument stronger instead of weaker; for it proves that parental vigilance as to the moral atmosphere of the children's comrades needs to be greatly increased; while this system insists upon extinguish- ing all such conscientious watchfulness, and provides the pun- ishment of a mulct for its exercise.
The second objection is yet more damning as against the system of State schools in this country. They are, and will in- evitably be, wielded by the demagogues, who are in power for the time, in thp interests of their faction. Here is a danger and a curse whic-i lust not be estimated by the results of the system in any other country, such as Scotland or Prussia. In the for- mer kingdom the Presbyterian system of parochial schools gave what was virtually a national primary education. But it was not obnoxious to this perversion to factious uses. Scotland is a lit- tle country, and was then almost absolutely homogeneous in religion and polities; the government was a stable, hereditary monarchy, of the change of which there was neither possibility nor desire; the schools were controlled by the parish clergy and
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kirk sessions, parties whose attitude was at once independent, and dissociated from political objects and managers. In Prus- sia, also, we see a permanent military monarchy ruling the peo- ple with a uniformity and resistless power which has hitherto left no hope to the demagogue. It is very true that this mon archy does manipulate the i^tate schools in the interest of its own perpetuity, and in doing so inflicts on tlie minds of the people no little injury. But the wrong thus done is as white as snow compared with pitch, when set against the foul per- versions wrought 1)3' our demagogues in power. For an old, stable monarchy is always infinitely more decent and moderate than a democratic faction in America rioting on the spoils of party success. The teachings of the monarchy, if self-interest- ed, are at least conservative and consistent; and they include a respectal)le knowledge of the riiristian religion. It will be utterly delusive, therefore, to argue for the value of State com- mon schools from Scotland or I'russia. Our demagogues will take effectual care that our schools shall not yield us even the mixed fruits which those nations have reaped from theirs.
For what is it on which American politicians do not lay their harpy hands to get or to keep the spoils of office? On the offices themselves, which the law has instituted for the public service; on finance; on commerce; on the railroads; on the productive industries of the citizens; on taxation; on our lioly religion itself! And, like the harpies, whatever they touch the}^ contaminate! That the school system of the States is per- verted to factions and sordid ends is so notorious that we shall not insult the intelligence of our readers by many testimonies. Has not the supreme official of the school system in the State of Indiana, for instance, been seen to publish to tlie world his unblushing boast that he had successfully arrested the whole machinery to inculcate upon all the children of that State the malignant and lying creed of Radicalism? And this man, after satisfying his masters, the Radical Legislature, of his success in placing this gospel of hate and murder, and these utter falsi- fications of history and fact and constitutional law, in the ten- der hand of every child in Indiana, only intimates, in the most gingerly and apologetic way, a faint inclination to give them the Word of God: which yet, he hastens to assure them, he had not presumed to attempt! Again, these omnipotent school
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boards, under the plausible pretext of uuit'oruiity of text-books, enter into alliances with capitalists who are publishers of books (for what solid consideration, who can tell?), giving them the monopoly of manufacturing American history, ethics and poli- tics for the children of a whole ^tate, without leaving any op- tion to the parent. This single feature, presented iby the alli- ance of the "Book-Trade" with the Education Boards, is suffi- cient to condenm the whole in the judgment of every inde- pendent mind. If it is not corrected the liberty of the citizens is gone. In some of those Southern States where the Conserva- tives have been so, fortunate as to retain control of the State governments the advocates of State education are openly heard attempting, in their new-born zeal, to reconcile the people to the measure forced upon them by promising that it shall be so manipulated as to train the next generation of negroes to vote with the Conservatives. Now the temptation of the oppressed to foil their oppressors may be very strong; and they may be inclined to be rather unscrupulous in the means of defense against enemies so unscrupulous and abhorred as the carpet- bag horde. It may be very alluring to us to employ this tyran- nical system, which is forced upon us against our will, to the ruin of its inventors, and thus to "hoist the engineer with his own petard." But the foreseeing man cannot but remember that it is a dangerous force which is employed, and that on any change of the faction in power what we hope to make sauce to the (Radical) goose may become sauce to the (Conservative) gander. It is a hazardous game for good people to attempt to "fight the devil with fire."
This perversion of a pretended system of education is as in- tolerable as it is certain. It is hard enough to have a triumphant faction rule us in a mode which outrages our sense of equity and patriotism — shall they also abuse their power to poison the minds of our own children against the principles which we honor, and to infect them with the errors which we detest? Is it not enough that our industries must all be burdened and our interests blighted by the selfish expedients of demagogues grasping after power and plunder? Must the very souls of our children be made merchandise and trafficked with in the same hateful cause? What freemen can endure it? These practices have already disclosed their destructive fruits in preparing a
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whole generation, by a pupilage of lies, for a war of plunder and subjugation against the South. For years before the war the sectional and aggressive party had control of the State educa- tion in Xew England and the Northwest. They used their op- portuniry diligently; and the result was that when the chance to strike came, they had a whole generation trained to their }»urpose in hatred of the South and in constitutional heresies. Such was the testimony of Daniel Webster. Two gentlemen from Virginia — ^old collegemates of mine — were visiting Wash- ington during Mr. Filmore's administration. Webster's return towards an impartial course had then gained him some respect in the South, and my twio friends paid their respects to him. While conversing with them he fixed his dark eyes on them, and with great earnestness asked: ''Can't you Southern gen- tlemen consent, upon some sort of inducement or plan, to sur- render slavery?" They replied firmly: "Not to the interference or dictation of the Federal Grovernment. And this not on ac- (•(uint of mercenary or selfish motives, but Ibecause to allow outside interference in this vital matter would forfeit the lib- erties and other rights of the South." "Are you ifixed in that?" asked Webster. "Yes, unalterably." "Well," he said, with an awful solemnity, "I cannot say you are wrong, but if you are fixed in that, go home and get ready your weapons:" They asked him what on earth he meant. He replied, that the par- sons and common-school teachers and school-marms had dili- gently educated a whole Northern generation into a passionate hatred of slavery, who would, as certainly as destiny, attack Southern institutions. So that if Southern men were determined not to surrender their institutions they had better prepare for war. Thus, according to Mr. Webster, the crimes, woes, and horrors of the last fifteen years aie all partly due to this school system. The only condition in which free government can ex- ist is amidst the wholesome competition of two great constitu- rional parties, who watch and restrain each other. The result of this system of State schools is that the successful party ex- tinguishes its rival, and thus secures for Itself an unchecked career of usurpation. For it aims to extinguish all the diver- sity and independence which the young would derive from par- ental inculcation, and to imprint upon the whole body of com- ing citizens its own monotonous type of political heresies and
214 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
passions. This is viitually doue in America. For tlie Northern Democratic party is only a little less radical than the Radicals, and really separated from them chiefly by the craving for party sp3ils. If the triumphant faction, wielding this power of uni- versal education, happens to be one as able, patriotic, and hon- est as the party of Knox and Melville, then there may result the marvelous homogeneity and thrift of Presbyterian Scotland. But the ascendant faction may happen to be a ruthless and un- principled Radicalism, armed with this power of universal cor- ruption 3f future opiuiou and morals I And what then? All is lost; the remaining alternatives are Chinese civilization, or savagery. Your very obedient servant, R. L. DABXEY.
DR. DABNEY'S BATTERY. ^
HE OPENS FIRE ON DR. RUFFNER FROM ANOTHER
QUARTER.
His Fourtli Letter— The Bible in the Public Schools— The Diffi- culty not Limited to America — Is Religious Training Essen- tial?— The Human Spirit a Monad — The Duty of Parents.
IV.
Hampden Sidney, Va., May 4, i8t6. To W. H. Ruffner, Esq., Superintendent of State Schools:
Dear Sir. — The third objection to education by the State is, if possible, more conclusive still. It is one which looms up al- ready in such insuperable dimensions that we freely acknowl- edge the hope that the whole system may be wrecked by it at an early day. This is the difficulty, especially for American Commonwealths, of the religious question. What religion shall be taught to the children by the State's teachers as the neces- sary part of the education of reasonable and moral beings? We have only to mention the well-known facts that the citizens of these Amencan States are conscientiously divided among many and rival sects of religion, and that our forms of goveni- ment tolerate no union of Church and State, and guarantee equal rights to all men irrespective of their religious opinions, to show to any fair mind how impossible it is for the advo- cates of universal State education to do more than evade the point of the difficulty. It has been made familiar to every read- er of the newspapers in America iby recent events in this coun- try— ^in New York, in Cincinnati, and elsewhere. The teaching of King James's version of the Christian Scriptures even has led to violent protest and even to actual riot and combat. The most numerous and determined complainants are, of course, Roman Catholics; but the Jews, now becoming increasingly nu- merous and influential, and the Unitarians and Deists must
1 Appeared in Richmond Enquirer. '-15
216 THE statp: frke school system.
claim similar grounds of protest. Their argument is that this version of the Scriptures is, in their sincere judgment, erron- eous; and therefore thev cannot conscientiously permit it to bo taught to their children. But as they are taxed to support these schools, they cannot be justly perverted to teach their children an obnoxious creed without a virtual establishment of the Protestant religion at public expense; which is an outrage against the fundamental principles and laws of the State. The special advocates of the common schools, who are usually also zealous Protestants, try hard to tlout tliis objection as captious. But while we are very far from being Komanists in religion, we feel that this difficulty canuot be justly disposed of in this way. If the State, through its teachers, taught the children of us Protestants that version of the Bible which makes the Re- deemer say: ''Except ye do penance ye shall all likewise per- ish." we should make a determined resistance. No i)ower on earth would force us to acquiesce in such inculcation of what we devoutly believe to be religious error. And we should feel that it was an inexcusable injustice to tax us for the purpose of teaching to our beloved children what we could not, at the peril of our souls, permit them to learn. Xow, the common-school advocates of New York and of Ohio would say, our objection is just, because the Latin vulgate is really an erroneous trans- lation; the objection of the Romanists is unjust because King James's is a substantially correct version of Grod's word. As theologians, and in an ecclesiastical arena, we assert that this is true; and are confident that we can establish it. But this is not the point. We have covenanted that in our political relations as citizens of the Commonwealth, all shall have equal rights irrespective of their religion. In tliat sphere we are bound to be impartial; "our word is out." The very point of the coven- ant is. that so far as civic rights and privileges go, our Roman- ist fellow-citizens" opinions (erroneous though we deem them. In our religious judgment) shall be respected precisely as they are required to respect ours. The weight of the Romanist pro- test, then, cannot be consistently evaded by American repub- licans.
This difficulty is not limited to our democratic land. In Great Britain and Ireland, where the government is moving for national education, all the denominations of Christians are hopelessly involved in it. For the settlement of this matter,
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there are, if the State educates, but three possible alternatives. One is to force the relij^ion of the majority on the children of the minority of the peojde. The injustice of this has already been proved. A second solntijn is what the British call the plan of "concurrent endowment.'' It consists in aidin<>- the citi- zens of different religious to gather their children in separate schools, in which religious instruction may be g"iven suited to the views of the parents, and all paid far 'by the State alike. The clamors of the Romanists in New York have been partially appeased by acts falling virtually under this plan. The city government, in view of the fact tliat Romanists cannot con- scientiously send their children to schools which they are taxed to support, make appropriations of public mone}^ to some of their schools, which are in every respect managed after their own religious ideas. This ''concurrent end'owment" is justly as odious to the great Protestant body, both in this country and Great Britain, as any plan could be. It offers its seeming: solu- tion only in places populous enough in the several rival reli- gions to furnish materials for a school to each. In all other places it makes no provision for the difficulty. It is a dereliction from principle in a State i)revalently Protestant in its popula- tion thus to place contradictory systems of 'belief upon a com- plete legislative equality, teaching both alike, when the truth of the one inevitably implies the falsehood of the other. It outrages the rights of Protestants by expending a part of the money they pay in propagating opinions which they regard as false and destructive, and it gives to erroneous creeds a pecun- iary and moral support beyond that which t^hey draw from the zeal and free gifts of their own votaries. For these reasons the plan of "concurrent endowment" is reprobated by all the strong- er denominations on both sides of the Atlantic. The Irish and Amencan Catholics profess to approve it, because they expect to gain something by it, but most inconsistently. Who dreams that if they held t'he power, and were in the majority in either the British or Yankee empire (as in the French), they would be willing to see "good Catholic money" appropriated by the State to teach ''Prote.stant heresies?"
The third alternative proposed is, to limit the teaching of the State schools in every case to secular learning, leaving the parents to supply such religious instruction as they see fit in
218 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
their own way and time, or to neglect it wholly. Of this solu- tion no Christian of any name can 'be an advocate. We have seen how utterly the Pope and his prelates reprobate it. All other denominations in Europe regard it as monstrous; and in- deed no adherent of any religion can be found in any other age or country than America who would not pronaunce it wicked and absurd for any agency undertaking the education of youth to leave their religious culture an absolute blank. Testimonies might be cited to weariness; we will satisfy ourselves with a few. two of which are of peculiar relevancy, because drawn from unwilling witnes.ses, earnest advocates of tState schools. In an annual meeting of the Teachers' Association of the State of Maryland a well-considered piece was read by a prominent member, in which the immense difficulty of the religious ques- tion in State schools was fairly displayed. The author, on the one hand, admitted that the rights of conscience of parents could not be justly disregarded. He held, on the other, that a schooling devoid of moral and religious teachings ought to be utterly inadmissable. The best solution he could suggest was, that the State should get up a course of moral and theological dogmas for its pupils, embracing only those common truths in which all parties are agreed, and excluding every truth to which any one party took exception. And he admitted that, as we have Protestants. Papists, Unitarians, Jews, Deists, etc., (not to say Mormons and the heathen Chinese), the Bible and all its characteristic doctrines must be excluded! It is too plain that when the State school's creed had been pruned of every proposi- tion to which any one party objected, it would be worthless and odious in the eyes of every party, and would be too emasculated '^^o do any child's soul a particle of good.
In a meeting of the Educational Association of Virginia four years ago a pious and admirable paper was read by one of the most eminent citizens in the State (Dr. J. B. Minor) on this theme: ''Bible instruction in schools." After some exor- dium it begins thus: "It must be acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable phenomena of our perverted humanity that among a Christian people, and in a Protestant land, such a discussion should not seem as absurd as to inquire whether school-rooms should be located under water or in darksome cav- erns. The Jew, the Mohammedan, the follower of Confucius
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 210
and of Brahma, each and all are careful to instruct the youth of their people in the tenets of the religions they profess, and are not content until, by direct and reiterated teaching, they 'have been made acquainted with at least the outline of the books which contain, as they believe, the revealed will of Deity. Whence comes it that Christians are so indiflferent to a duty so obvious, and so universally recaguized by Jew and Pagan?'' The absolute necessity of Bible instruction in schools is then argued with irresistible force. Yet, with all this, such is the stress of the difficulty which we are pressing, it betrays this able writer into saying: "I do not propose to allude to the agitating question of the introduction of the Scriptures into public schools conducted under authority of government." But why not? If other schools so imperatively need this element of Bi- ble instruction, why do not the State schools? Its necessity is argued from principles which are of universal application to beings who have souls. Why shall not the application be made to all schools? Alas! the answer is: the right conclusion cannot be applied to State schools. We claim, then, this is a complete demonstration that the State is unfit to assume the educational function. The argument is as i)lain and perfect as any that can be imagined. Here is one part which is absolutely essential to the very work of right education : the State is effectively dis- abled from performing that part. Then the State cannot edu- cate, and should not profess it. The argument is parallel to this: In order to be a country physician it is essential that one shall ride in all weathers. A. cannot ride in bad weather. Then A. cannot be a country physician, and if he is an honest man he vsill not profess to be.
Whether the religious training is ■essential to all right edu- cation, let us hear a few more witnesses. Said Daniel W^ebster, in the Girard will-case, commenting on the exclusion of clergy- men from the proposed orphan college : "In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom, has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere; never. Everywhere, and at all times, it has been and is regarded as essential. // is of the essence, the vitality of useful instruction "' Says Sir Henry Bulwer: ''I do not place much confidence in the phil- osopher who pretends that the knowledge which develops the passions is an instrument for their suppression, or that where
!^20 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
there are the most desires there is lili:ely to be the most ordei- and the most abstinence in their gratification." The historian Fronde (a witness bv no means friendly to orthodoxy), quoting Miss Nightingale, a philanthropist as Christian as wise, em- phatically endorses her opinion, that the ordinary and natural effect of the communication of secular knowledge to youths whose destiny is labor is only to suggest the desire for illicit objects of enjoyment. Says Dr. Francis Wayland: "Intellec- tual cultiyation may easily exist without the existence of yirtue or love of right. In this case its only effect is to stimulate de- sire; and this unrestrained by the love of right must eventually overturn the social fabric which is at first erected.'' Hear John Locke: "It is virtue, then, direct virtue, which is the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in education. * * * jf virtue and a well-tempered soul be not got and settled so as to keep out ill and vicious habits, languages, and science, and all the other accomplishments of education, will be to no purpose ^u^ to make the worse or more dangerous itian^''
We propose now to substantiate these ^iews of the wise and experienced, by arguing that tuition in Christianity is es- sential to all education which i.s worth the name. And we claim more than the admission that each man should at some stage of his training, and by somebody, be taught Christi;inity; we mean in the fullest sense that Christianity must be a present element of all the training at all times, or else it i-s not true and valuable education. Some one may say that this broad propo- sition is refuted at the outset by frequent instances of persons who received, at least during a part of their youth, a training perfectly non-Christian, and who yet are very useful, and even Christian citizens. The answer is easy: It is the prerogative of a merciful Providence, and the duty of His children, to repair the defects and misfortunes of His creatures and to bring good out of evil. But surely this comes far short of a justification for us if we willingly employ faulty methods which have a regular tendency to work evil. Surely it is not our pri\ilege to make mischief for God and good Christians to repair!
Let the candid reader, then, ponder the weight of these facts. The human spirit is a monad, a single, unit, spiritual substance, having facilities and .susceptibilities for different modifications, but no parts. Hence, when it is educated it is
THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM. 221
educated as a uuii. The moral judgmeuLs aud acts of the soul all involve an exercise of reason; so that it is impossible to sep- arate the ethical and intellectual functions. The conscience is the supreme, directive faculty of the soul; so that knowledge •bears to moral action the relation of means to end. Man fulfills the ends of his existence, not by right cognitions, but by right m'oral actions. Hence we are obviously correct in holding that the fundamental value of right cognitions is simply as they are the means of right moral acts — that is, the knowledge is really valuable only as it is in order to right actions. Again: The na- ture of responsibility is such that there can be no neutrality, or tertium quid, between duty and sin. "He that is not with his God is against him." He who does not positively comply with the ever-present obligation does ipso facto violate it, and con- tract positive sinfulness. Hence as there cannot be in any soul a non-Christian state which is not anti- Christian, it follows that any training which attemj)ts to be non-Christian is there- fore anti-Christian. God is the rightful, supreme mas- ter and owner of all reasonable creatures, and their nearest and highest duties are to him. Hence to train a soul away from him is a robbery of God, which he cannot justify in any person or agency whatsoever. He has not, in- deed, committed to the 8tate the duty of leading souls to him as its appropriate task. This is committed to the familj' and to his church. Yet it does by no means follow that the State may do anything tending to the opposite. The soul is essentially ac- tive, and every human being in his active powers of moral de- sire, volition and habit, is unavoidably exercising himself. Hence, whatever omission or neglect maj' be practiced as to the formation of a character, every character does inevitably form itself, for evil if not for good! Eemember, also, that evil ex- ample is omnipresent in the world, and the disposition to re- spond to it is innate in every child. How obvious, then, that a "let-alone policy" as to the moral development must, to a great- er or less degree, amount to a positive development of vicious character? Not to row is, itself, to float down the stream. Once more: the discipline of one set of faculties may leave other faculties inert and undeveloped. This result is, then, more than a negative mischief, because the balance or proportion of the character is then more perverted. Should the branches and
222 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
leaves of a tree cuiitiinie to grow while the rjots remained sta- tionary it would result in the destruction of the tree, and this although the roots contracted no positive disease or weakness. The first gale would blaw it over in consequence of the dispro- portion 'of its parts. In this view the conclusion cited above from Sir H. Bulwer and Mr. Froude is seen to be perfectly just. With the increase of knowledge temptations must increase. Wider circles of imagined enjoyments are opened to the de- sires, so that if the virtuous habitude is not correspondingly strengthened, criminal wishes and purposes will be the sure re- sult. He who has criminal purposes is, moreover, by his knowl- edge equipped with more power to execute them. Locke's con- clusion is just. In the words of Dr. Griffin, to educate the mind without purifying the heart is but "to place a sharp sword in the hand of a madman." Our last proposition of these premises is that practically the Bible is the source and rule of moral ob- ligation in this land. By this we do not mean to decide that even an atheist, not to say a disbeliever in inspiration, might not be still obliged from his principles to recognize the impera- tive force of CDUscience in his own reason, if he w'ould philoso- phize correctly. But practically few do recognize and obey con- science except those who recognize the authority of the Bible. This book is, in point of fact, the source from which the Amer- ican people draw their sense of obligation, and of its metes and •bounds, so far as they have any. This is especially true of chil- dren. Grant the inspiration of the Bible, and we have a basis of moral appeal sd simple and strong that practically all other ■bases are comparatively worthless, especially for the young. Its moral histories have an incompatible adaptation to the popular and the juvenile mind. The Bible alone applies to the heart and conscience with any distinct certainty the great forces of future rew^ards and punishments and the powers of the world to come. And, above all, it alone provides the purifjing influences of re- demption.
There can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the school-room is either moral or it is a degrading, brute force. But he can show the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence ray argument is as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the
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American Commouwealth has promised to have no religions character. Then it cannot be teacher. If it undertakes to be, it must be consistent, and go on and unite Churcli and State. Are you ready to follow your opinions to this consistent end?
Since religious education is so essential a part, It is obvious that a wise Providence must have allotted the right and duty of giving it to some other of the independent spheres between which he has distributed the social interests of man. This duty rests with the parent. Such is the Protestant doctrine — the Bible doctrine. Neither State nor Church are to usurp it; but iboth are to enlighten, encourage and assist the parent in his inalienable task.
A feeble attempt has been made to escape this fatal objec- tion by saying: Let the State schools teach secular knowledge, and let the parents, in other places and times, supplement this with such religious knowledge as they please and by the help of such Church as may please them. The fatal answers are: Ist. The secular teacher depends for the very authority to teach upon the Bible. 2d. The exclusion of the Bible would put a stigma on it in the child's mind which the parent cannot afterwards remove. 3d. How can one teach history, ethics, psiy- chology, cosmogony, without implying some religious opinions? 4th, and chiefly: The parents who are too poor, ignorant, and delinquent to secure their children secular schooling will, by the stronger reason, be sure to neglect their religious education. But these are the parents whose deficiencies give tlie sole pre- text for the State's interference, so that the one-sided training which the State leaves merely secular will remain so in all these cases. But these cases give to the State common school its sole raison d'etre.
I conclude, therefore, that in a country like America, at least, your favorite system is ina])plicable, and will work only mischief. Our old Virginia system, besides its economy, has these great logical advantages: that it leaves to parents, with- out usurpation, their proper function as creators or electors of their children's schools, and that it thus wholly evades the re- ligious question, which is, to you, insoluble. Government is not the creator but the creature of human society. The Govern- ment has no mission from God t) make the community; on the contrary, the community should make the Government. What
224 THE STATE FREE SCHOOL SYSTEM.
the community shall be is determiued by Providence, where it is happily determined by far other causes than the meddling of governments — ^by historical causes in the distant past — by vitml ideas propagated by great individual minds — especially by the Church and its doctrines. The only communities which have had their characters manufactured for them by their govern- ments have had a villainously bad character — like the Chinese and the Yankees. Noble races make their gov- ernments; ignoble ones are made by them. I remain your very obedient servant,
R. L. DABNEY.
SECULARIZED EDUCATION.'
Who is the agent entitled to control ecliieation? What is right education? These questions are interdependent. Two answers have been proposed to the first in history: The State, the Church. In Europe, Liberalism saj'S the State, and insists on secularizing education, by which it means its release from the control of popery. Liberals see clearly that, under that control, there will ibe no true freedom. ]^ut, as they also in- sist on secularizing the State, their idea of a free education is of one devoid of religion, sei)arating the mental from the spir- itual culture. Thus they conclude that education must be God- less, in order to be free. Rome has herself to blame for this error, as for most of European scepticism. She claims that she alone is Christian: independent minds reply, "Then Christian- ity is evil." So if her education were the only Christian, free- men would have to reject Christian education. If private judg- ment is sin; if the hierarchy is the Church; if the teacher is a real priest and essential ''proxy" between men and salvation; if his teaching is infallible; if the real end of the culture is to enslave the soul to a priesthood with a foreign head; if that head is absolutely superior to the secular sovereignty, such ecclesias- tical education will be civil slavery. It is not strange that nu'U seeking civil liberty spurn it.
The mistake is in confounding ecclesiastical with Christian education. Let the Scripture be heard: "The kingdom of God is within you," consisting, not in a greedy hierarchy, but in the rule of Truth; the clergy are not lords over God's heritage, but only "ministers iby whom we believe"; it has no penalties but the spiritual, reaching no man's civil rights; its only other function is didactic, and its teaching only binds so far as the layman's own conscience responds; it is the Church's duty to instruct parents how God would have them rear their children, — ' 005
1 A-p-pearedinLibbifs Princeton Renew.
226 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
aud enforce the duty bj- spiritual sanctions; but there its of- ficial power ends. It does not usurp the doing of the important task it inculcates. As a Christian private man the minister lends other parents his knowledge and virtues to co-operate in their work. But all this implies no danger either to spiritual or religious liberty.
But it will be well for the modern Liiberal to pause and ask whether he secures anything by this transfer of the educating function from Church to State? Does he point to the results of Jesuit teaching, spurious, shallow scholarship, an enslaved and morbid conscience, which dares not even wish to break its fetters, the insatiable greed of the hierarchj- for influence aud money, the hateful perversion of the sacred task to inspire false- hood and prejudice for this end? The picture is sufficientl}' repulsive. But are only ecclesiastics grasping? Is liuman na- ture depraved? Is it essentially the same in all men? Then w^hy are they not to be expected to act in similar ways, when subjected to the same temptations? And the modern Liberal is the last man to overlook this truth; since he is sceptical of all professions of spiritual principles in clergymen, and prone to ascribe secular motives. He should, then, expect the dema- gogue to show a misguided ambition exactly like the priests. What is the hierarch but a ghostly demagogue? The dema- gogue is but the hierarch of Mammon's altar. Does he not, for instance, pervert that other educating agency, the press, just as violently as the Jesuit the school? Now, let him become ruler in the State and the State become educator; and there is just the same risk that the education of youth will be perverted to subserve a faction, and that, by the hateful means of imbuing their minds with error and passion in place of truth and right. The result is despotism of a party instead of a pope. One may be as bad as the other.
But if the State is the educator, in America, at least, educa- tion must ibe secularized totally. In theory our State is the in- stitute for realizing secular justice. It has absolutely severed itself from all religions equally; has pledged itself that no man's ciA'il rights shall be modified or equality diminished by any re- ligion or the lack of any; and has forbidden the establishment of any religion by law, and the imposition of any burden for a religious pretext on any. But the State school teacher is her
SECtTLARlZED EDUCATION. 227
official, and teaches bj her authority. All school-offiL-ials ileiivo their authority from State laws, hence all their functions are as truly State actions as those Df the sheriff in hanging, or the judge in sentencing a murderer. Especially is the school fund, raised l)y taxation, the common and equal property of the peo- ple.
But as our people are divided among many religions, that money ought no more to be used in schools to teach one religion in preference to the others, than in a church establishment. Once the people of a small State, like Connecticut, were so homoge- neous, that any dissentient minority was minute, and the dom- inant religion was taught "on State account.'' without any protest loud enough to be inconvenient. But the mixture of our people, and especially the strength and audacitj' of popery, now makes all this ditTerent. Papists make an effective issue, arguing that the State must not use the people's money to teach King James's version, which they, a part of the people, believe heretical. Zealous I'r^testants, usually zealous State school men, try to tiout this plea. But wauld they assent to the State's teaching their children, with their money, the version which says: ''Except ye do penance ye shall all likewise perish?" They exclaim : "That is an erroneous version, while King James's is faithful." Theologically that is doubtless true. But the very point of the State's covenant with the people is, that the State shall not judge, either way, of that proposition. It has been bargained that, in the State arena, we shall respect papists' religious views, preciseh' as we require them to respect ours. Suppose them, some day, in as large a majority in some State as PrDtestants are in New England, would we acquiesce in their forcing the study of the Douay version in State schools'.' So, unless we admit that our might makes our right, we ought not to inflict the parallel wrongs on the Jews, Mohammedans, Athe- ists, and Buddhists among us, because they are still few.
It is sought to parr}' this conclusion thus: While all re- ligions are equal, and no one established, the State is not an atheistic institute, but must ground itself in the will of God, which is the standard of all rights. That the State is an ethical institute and for ethical ends. That hence it enjoins the Saib- bath, punishes blasphemy, etc. Tliat e<iually the State, while not establishing one religion to the prejudice of others, ought
228 SECDLARIZED EDUCATION.
to teach the divine truths common to all, by the iinsectariau use of the Bible. But, whether this be the just basis of a com- monwealth or not, our States do not avow it. And second, the question is not of the original Scripture in common schools, but of some one version, among other competing ones, which even Protestants do not claim to be infallible. Hence the question, Which version? raises sectarian issues. Third, we do not be- lieve, any more than these reasoners, that the State can be athe- istic, because it is an ethical institute, and the divine will is the only valid ethical rule. But the State finds the theistic basis in natural theology. The proof is, that pagan States, resting only on natural theism, were valid, and rightfully (Rom. 13: 5) possessed the allegiance even of Christians. The evasion there- fore is futile.
But be the logic of this question what it may, the actual result is certain. The papists will inevitably carry the point, as they have already done in many places. That they will triumph everywhere else that they care to try, is plain from the growing timidity of the Bible advocates, the poverty of the com- promises they offer, and the spreading indifference of the masses to the value of biblical teaching. In fact, on American prem- ises, the Bible advocates have no plea 'but a pious predilection, and sooner or later logical considerations, Avhen so clear, must assert their force. The difficulty of the problem appears thus: That it agitates other free governments than ours, as the Brit- ish and Holland, at this day.
For the solution there are, on the theory of State education, four suggestions. The first is the unjust one of forcing the relig- ion of the majority on the minority. The second is what is called in Great Britain the plan of "concurrent endowments." Each denomination may have its own schools endowed by the State, and teach its own religion in it along with secular learn- ing. This is virtually the plan by which New York papists have been partially appeased. It is justly rejected by Protestants everywhere. First, because it offers no solution save where the several denominations are populous enough to sustain a school for each in the same vicinage. Second, because the State has no right thus virtually to assert the co-ordinate and equal value of opposing creeds, the truth of one of which may imply the positive falsehood of another. Third, because the
SECULARIZED EDUCATION. 229
State has no right to indicate of cither of the creeds that it is, ■or is not. true and valuable. Fourth, because Protestantism is more promotive of thrift and wealth than the erroneous creeds; whence a given number of Protestants will pay more school-tax than the same number of errorists, so that this plan uses a part of their money to foster creeds they conscientiously believe mischievous. Fifth, it gives to error a pecuniary and moral sui)pDrt beyond what it w^ould receive from the spontaneous zeal of its votaries. And last, it disunites the population by training youth in hostile religious camps. Irish and American papists have professed to approve ^because they gain by the plan. But who dreams that if they were in the majority they would be willing to see "good Catholic money'' expended in teaching Protestant heresy?
The third plan proposes to give "unsectarian" religious in- struction in tlie tirst hour of the day, while parents who dissent from it are allowed to detain their children from school until that hour is passed. This amounts to the State's establishing a religion and using the people's money to teach it, but "per- mitiing dissent without any other penalty than the taxation for a religious object which the taxpayer condemns. That is to sny, it places the matter where England places her established religion, since the "Toleration Act" of William and Mary re- lieve 1 dissenters of penal pains for absence from the Anglican churches. But the thing Americans claim \%liberty and not tol- eration. They deny the State's right to select a religion, as the true and useful one, for anybody, willing or unwilling. Those who dissent from the selected religion deny that the State may thus expend the people's money as a bait to careless or erroneous parents to submit their children to the inculcation of error.
The only other alternative is to secularize the State's teach- ing absolutely, limiting it to matters merely secular, and leav- ing parents or the Church to supplement it with such religious teaching as they may please, or none. Some Christians, driven by the ditticulty which has been disclo.sed, adopt this conclu- sion. The largest number, notwithstanding the difficulty, reject it with energy. Let us see whether this plan is either possible or admissible.
This is really the vital (luestion. It cannot be discussed
230 SECULAEIZED EDUCATION.
until we agree what education is, and disperse deceptive mis- conceptions of it. It is properly the whole man or person that is educated; but the main subject of the work is the spirit. Education is the nurture and development of the whole man for his proper end. The end must be conceived aright in order to understand the process. Even man's earthly end is predomin- antly moral. Xow, if dexterity in any art, as in the handling of printer's type, a musket, a burin, a power-loom, w^ere educa- tion, its secularization might be both possible and proper. Is not a confusion here the source of most of the argument in de- fense of that theory? For instance, "Why may not the State teach reading and writing Vvithout any religious adjuncts, as legitimately as the mechanic thus teaches his apprentices filing, planing, or hammering?"" Because dexterity in an art is not education. The latter nurtures a soul, the other only drills a sense-organ or muscle; the one has a mechanical end, the other a moral. And this answer cannot be met by saying, ''Let it then be agreed that the State is only teaching an art, a dexter- ity— that, for instance, of letters." For the State refuses to be understood thus: it claims to educate-, as is witnessed by the uni- versal argument of the advocates of this State function, that she has the right and duty of providing that the young citizens shall be competent to their responsibility as citizens. But these are ethical. Again, if the State professed to bestow, not an education, but a dexterity, equity would require her bestowing not only the arts of letters, but all other useful arts. For oniy the minority can ever live by literary arts; the great majority of children have equal rights to be taught the other bread-win- ning arts. Thus government would become the wildest com- munism. Xo, the State cannot ado])t this evasion; unless she says that she educates, she can say nothing.
It should also be remarked here that the arts of reading and writing are rather means of education than education itself, and not the only nor the most effective means. As Macaula.y showed, against Dr. S. Johnson, the unlettered part of the Athenians were, in some respects, highly educated, while we see many minds, with these arts, really undeveloped.
But is a really secularized education either possible or ad- missible?
First, Xo people of any age, religion, or civilization, before
SECULARIZED EDUCATION. 231
ours, has ever thought so. Against the present attempt, right or wrong, stands the whole common sense of mankdind. Tagan, Papist, Mohammedan, Greek, Protestant, have all hitherto re- jected any other education than one grounded in religion, as a^b- surd and wicked. Let Mr. Webster be heard against the Gi- rard will, which enjoined, in order to exclude Christianity from his college, that no minister should ever enter its walls. The argument against the will here was, that the trust it proposed to create was, in this, so opposed to all civilized jurisprudence, as to make it outside the law, and so void, ^o formida^ble did the point seem to lawyers, that Mr. Horace Binney, of the de- fense, went to England to ransack the British laws of trusts. It was in urging this point that Mr. WeSbster uttered the mem- orable words:
*'In what age, by what sect, where, when, by whom, has religious truth been excluded from the education of youth? Nowhere. Never! Everywhere, and at all times, it has been regarded as essential. It is of ihe essence, the vitality of useful instruction.''^ And this was not the assertion of Mr. Webster, the politician, but of the learned lawyer, face to face with able opponents, and making one of the most responsible forensic efforts of his life. He knew that he was uttering the weighty voice of history and jurisprudence.
Let another witness be heard, of equal learning and suiper- iur character.* "It must be acknowledged to be one of the most remarkable phenomena of our perverted humanity, that among a Christian people, and in a Protestant land, such a dis- cussion"' (whether the education of youth may not be secular- ized) "should not seem as absurd as to inquire whether school- rooms should be located under water or in darksome caverns! The Jew, the Mohammedan, the follower of Confucius, and of P.rahma, each and all are careful to instruct the youth of their people in the tenets of the religions they profess, and are not content until, by direct and reiterated teaching, they have been made ac(iuainted with at least the outline of the books which contain, as they believe, tlie revealed will of Deity. Whence comes it that Christians are so indifferent to a duty so obvious, and so obviously recognized by Jew and Pagan?''
We are attempting then an absolute novelty. But may not
*John B. Minor. LL. D.. University of Virginia.
232 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
the tree be already known by its fruits? State educatian among Americans tends to be entirely secularized. What is the result? Whence this general revolt from the Christian faith in this country, so full of churches, preachers, and a redundant Chris- tian literature, so boastful of its Sabbaths and its evangelism? AVhat has prepared so many for the dreary absurdities of mate- rialism? Why do the journals which seek a national circulatian think it their interest to aflfect irreligion? Why so many lamen- tations over public and popular corruptions? He who notes the current of opinion sees that the wisest are full of misgivings as to the fruits of present methods. As a. specimen, let these words, from the Governor of Massachusetts, at a recent anni- versary, be taken: "'He'- (Gov. Bice) "lifted up a warning voice, with respect to the inadequacy and perils of our nodern system of one-sided education, which supposed it could develop manhood and good citizenship out of mere brain culture.''
SecDud, True education is, in a sense, a spiritual process, the nurture of a soul. By spiritual, the divines mean the acts and states produced by the Holy Ghost, as distinguished from the merely ethical. The nurture of these is not human educa- tion, but sanctiflcation. Yet education is the nurture of a spirit which is rational and moral, in which conscience is the regula- tive and imperative faculty; whose prDper end, even in this world, is moral. ]>ut God is the only Lord of the conscience; this soul is his miniature likeness; his will is the source of obli- gation to it; likeness to him is its perfection, and religion is the science of the soul's relations to God. Let these statements be placed together, and the theological and educational processes appear so cognate that they cannot be separated. Hence it is that the common sense of mankind has ever invoked the guid- ance of the minister of religion for the education of youth; in India the Brahmin, in Turkey the Imam, in Jewry the Raibbi, and in Christian lands the pastor. So. everywhere, the sacred books have always been the prime text-books. The only excep- tion in the world is that which Rome has made for herself by her intolerable abuse of her powers. Does the secularist an- swer that this sacerdotal education results in a Boeotian char- acter and puerile culture? Yes, where the sacred books are false Scriptures, but not w^here it is the Bible which is the text- book. So that these instances prove that the common sense of
SECULARIZED EDUCATION". 233
mankind has been at bottom correct, and lias only beoii abused, in some instances, ibv imposture.
The soul is a spiritual monad, an indivisible, spiritual unit, without parts, as without extension. Those powers, which we name as separate faculties, are only modes of function with which this unit is qualified, ditt'erentiated by the distincti dus of the objects on which they operate. The central power is still one. From these truths it would appear that it cannot be suc- cessfully cultivated by patches. We cannot have tiie intellectual workman polish it at one place, and the spiritual at another. A succession of objects may be presented ta the soul, to evoke and discipline its several powers; yet the unity of the beinji^ would seem to necessitate a unity in its successful culture.
It is the Christian ideas which are most stimulating? and en- i\obling to the soul. He who must needs omit them from his teaching is robbed of the right arm of his strength. Where sliall he get such a definition of virtue as is presented in the repealed character of God? Where so ennobling a ])icture of benevolence as that presented in Christ's sacrifice for his ene- mies? Can the conception of the inter-stellar spaces so ex- l)and the mind as the thought of an infinite (Jod, an eternal existence, and an everlasting destiny?
Every line of true knowledge must find its completeness in its convergency to God, even as every ibeam of daylight leads the eye to the sun. If religion be excluded from our study, ev- ery process of thought will be arrested before it reaches its ])roper g jal. The structure of thought must remain a truncated cone, with its proper apex lacking. Richard liaxter has ner- vously expressed this truth.""
Third, If secular education is to be made consistently and honestly non-Christian, then all its more important branches must be omitted, or they must submit to a mutilation and falsi- fication, far worse than absolute omission. It is hard to con- ceive how a teacher is to keep his covenant faithfully with the State so to teach history, cosmogony, psychology, ethics, the laws of nations, as to insinuate nothing favorable or unfavor- able touching the prefei-red beliefs of either the evangelical Christians, Papists, Socinians, Deists, Pantheists, Materialists, or Fetisch worshippers, who claim equal rights under American
*-Reformed Pastor " pp. 91, 96.
234 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
institutions. His paedagogics must indeed be ''the pla.v of Hamlet, with the part of Hamlet omitted." Shall the secular education leave the young citizen totally Ignorant of his own ancestry? But how shall he learn the story of those struggles, through which Englishmen achieved tliose liberties which the colonies inherited, without understanding the fiery persecutions of the Protestants under "Bloody Mary," over which the Pope's own Legate, Cardinal Pole, was sent to preside? How shall the sons of Huguenot sires in New York, Virginia, or Carolina know for what their fathers forsook beautiful France, to hide themselves in the Northern snows or the mala- rious w^oods of the South, and read nothing of the violation of the ''Edict of Nantes," the "Dragonnades," and the wholesale assassination of St. Bartholomew's day, in honor of which an "infallible" predecessor of the Pope nangTe Deums and struck medals? Or, if the physicist attempt to ascend farther in man's history, can he give the genesis of earth and man, without in- timating whether Moses or Huxley is his prophet? Or can the science of moral obligation be established in impartial oversight of (rod's relation to it. and of the (piestion whether or not his will defines and grounds all human duty? Or can a Grotius or a Vattel settle the rights of nature and nations without either affirming along with the Apostles that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation," or else denying it with the infidel ethnologist? How much of the noblest literature must be os- tracized, if this plan is to be honestly carried out? The State teacher must not mention to his pupil Shakespeare, nor Bacon, nor Milton, nor Macaulay. The Index Expurgatorius of free democracy will be far more stringent than that of despotic Rome! But it is not necessary to multiply these instances. They show that Christian truths and facts are so woven into the very warp and woof of the knowledge of Americans, and con- stitute so beneficial and essential a part of our civilization, that the secular teacher, who impartially avoids either the affirma- tion or denial of them, must reduce his teaching to tlie bare giv- ing of those scanty rudiments, which are, as we have seen, not knowledge, but the mere signs of knowledge.
Does some one say that practically this showing is exagger-
SECULARIZED EDUCATlOlSr. 235
ated, for he is teacliiug- some purely secular course, without any such niainiing of his suibjects or prejudicing of Christianity? If his teaching is more than a temporary dealing with some cor- ner of education, the fact will be found to be that it is tacitly anti-Christian; overt assaults are not made; but there is a studied avoidance which is in effect hostile. Tiiere can be no neutral position between two extremes, where there is no middle ground, but "a great gulf fixed."
Fourth, Of all rightful human action the will is the execu- tive and the conscience the directive faculty. Unless these be purified and enlightened, to enhance the A'igor of the, soul's other actions by training is -'but superfiuous mischief. If in a ship the compass be lost and the pilot blind, it is better that there should not be a great force to move her machinery. The more energetic its motion, the greater is the likelihood the ship will speedily be upon the breakers. Surely this is sufficient to show {j the reflecting mind that right moral inculcation can- not be separated at any jM)int or for any time from the intel- lectual, without mischief.
One very obvious and yet not the weighiest application of this truth is to the discipline of the school itself. No training of any faculty takes place without some government. On what moral basis shall the teacher who wholly suppresses all appeal to religion rest that authority which he must exercise in the school-room? He will find it necessary to say to the pupil, "Be diligent. Be obedient. Lie not. Defraud not," in order that he may learn his secular knowledge. But on whose au- thority? There is but one ground of moral obligation, the will of God, and among the people of this country he wlio does not find the disclosure of that will in tlie Scriptures, most often finds it nowhere. But this teaclier must not inculcate this Bible, Then his mere might must make his right, or else the might of the iparent, or of the magistrate, to whose delegated authority he points back. Or his apjteal may he to mere self- interest!
Will this government be wholesome for a youth's sjul?
But from a pupil the youth becomes a citizen. He passes under wider and more complex obligations. The end of the State schooling is to fit him for this. The same question re- curs, with transcendent moment, On what Ibasis of right shall
'236 SECULAEIZED EDUCATION.
these duties rest? As a man, it is presumable he will act as lie was taught while a boy. Of course then the grounds of obliga- tion employed with him in school should be the ones he is to recognize in adult life. In the State school a non-Christian standard alone could be given him. He cannot be expected now to rise to any better; he may sink to a lower, seeing the ground then given him had no foundation under it.
That is to say, young Americans are to assume their respon- sibilities with pagan morals, for these are just what human rea- son attains from the non-Christian standard. Will this suf- fice to sustain American institutions? One may say: Natural theism may deduce quite a high ethical code, as witness the Greek philosophy. So could a man who rightly construed the data of his consciousness be an atheist; even the atheist might find in them proof that conscience ought to govern. But he does not, nor does the pagan reason acf as Epictetus specu- lated .Let us begin to legislate for the people as they ought to be, and we shall have a fine card-castle. In fact, Americans, taken as we find them, who do not get their moral restraints from the Bible, have none. If, in our moral training of the young, we let go the 'Thus saith the Lord," we shall have no hold left. The training which does not base duty on Christian- ity is, for us, practically immoral. If testimony to this truth is needed, let the venerable Dr. Griffin, of a former generation, be heard. ''To educate the mind of a bad man without correct- ing his morals is to put a sword into the hands of a maniac." Let John Locke be heard. "It is virtue, then, direct virtue, which is the hard and valuable part to be aimed at in educa- tion." ******* ''If virtue and a well-tempered soul be not got and settled so as to keep out ill and vicious habits, lan- guages and science, and all the other accomplishments of edu- cation, will be to no purpose but to make the worse or more dan- gerous man." Let Dr. Francis Wayland be heard. ''Intel- lectual cultivation may easily exist without the existence of virtue or love of right. In this case its only effect is to stim- ulate desire; and this, unrestrained by the love of right, must eventually overturn the social fabric which it at first erected." Last, let Washington be heard, in his farewell address, where he teaches that the virtue of the citizens is the only basis for
8ECTTLARIZED EDUCATION. 237
social safety, and that the Christian religion is the only ade- quate basis for that virtue.
But, is not mental culture per se elevating? It is hard for us to give up this flattery, because hitherto education has been more or less Christian. The minister has been the American school-master. But are not the educated the more elevated? Yes. For the reason just given, and fDr another; not that their mental culture made them seek higher morals, but their (and their parents') higher morals made them seek mental culture! We are prone to put the cart before the horse. Again I cite evidence. James Anthony Froude, a witness by no means friendly to orthodoxy, quoting Miss Florence Nightingale, em- phatically endorses her opinion, that the ordinary, as the nat- ural effect of the mere communication of secular knowledge to youths, is only to suggest the desire for more numerous, and, for the bulk of men whose destiny is inevitably narrow, illicit objects of desire. But they plead: In teaching the youth to know of more objects of desire you also teach him to know more restraining considerations. The fatal answer is that knowledge does not rule the heart, tout conscience (if anything does); mere knowledge, without God's fear, makes desire grow faster than discretion. 8ays i^ir Henry Bulwer: ''I do not place much con- fidence in the philosopher who pretends that the knowledge which develops the passions is an instrument for their suppres- sion, or that where there are the most desires there is likely to be the most order, and the most abstinence in their gratifica- tion.'' Again, the soul should grow symmetrically. Let the boughs of a tree grow, while the roots (without actual disease) stand still; the first gale would blow it over, because of the dis- proportion of its parts,
Fifth, We need the best men to teach our children. The best are true Christians, who carry their religion into every- thing. Such men neither can nor will bind themselves to hold so influential a relation to precious souls for wlioui Christ died, and make no effort to save them. So the tendency must be towards throwing State schools into the hands of half-hearted Christians or of contemptuous unbelievers. Can such be even trusted with an important secular task? Railroads persist in breaking the Sabbath; so they must be served on the track ex- clusively by profane Sabbath-breakers or truckling professors
238 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
of religion. The consequence is, they are scourged with negli- gent officials, drunken engineers, and defaulting cashiers. So the State will fall into the hands of teachers who will not even teach secular learning honestly; money will be wasted, and the schools will become corrupting examples to their own pupils of slight- ed work and abused trusts.
Sixth, To every Christian citizen, the most conclusive argu- ment against a secularized education is contained in his own creed touching human responsibility. According to this, obli- gation to God covers all of every man's being and actions. Even if the act be correct in outward form, which is done without any reference to his will, he will judge it a shortcoming. ''The ploughing of the wicked is sin." The intentional end to which our action is directed determines its moral complexion su- premely. Second, Our Savior has declared that there is no moral neutrality: ''He that is not with him is against him, and he that gathereth not with him scattereth abroad." Add now the third fact, that every man is born in a state of alienation from Grod; that practical enmity and atheism are the natural outgrowth of this disposition; that the only remedy for this natural disease of man's spirit is gospel truth. The com- parison of these truths will make it perfectly plain that a no//- Christian training is literally an anti Christian training.
This is the conclusive argument. The rejoinder is at- tempted; that Christians hold this theology as church mem- bers, and not as citizens; and that we have ourselves urged that the State is not an evangelical agent, and its proper business is not to convert souls from original sin. True, but neither has it a right to become an anti-evangelical agency, and resist the work of the spiritual commonwealth. While the State does not authorize the theological beliefs of the Christian citizens, neith- er has it a right to war against tliem. While we have no right to ask the State to propagate our theology, we have a right to demand that it shall not oppose it. But to educate souls thus is to oppose it, because a non-Christian training is an anti-Chris- tian training. It may be urged again, that this result, if evil, will not be lessened by the State's ceasing to teach at all, for then the training of youth will be, so fas as she is concerned, equally non-Christian. The answer is, that it is one thing to tol- erate a wrong as done by a party over whom we have not law-
secularized'education. 239
ful control, but wholly another to perpetrate that wronj;- our- selves. For the State thus to do what she ought to rondeuin in the godless parent, though she be not auth;:>rized to interfere would be the sin of "■framing fnischief by a Imv'' the. very trait of that ''throne of iniquity" with wliich the Lord cannot have fellowship.
It is objected again, that if the State may govern and pun- ish, which are moral functions, she may also teach. If we are prepared for the theDcratic idea of the State, which makes it the universal human assiociation, To I lav of human organisms, bound to do everything for society from mending a road or draining a marsh up to supporting a religion, then we can con- clude thus. But then consistency will add to State schools a State religion, a beneficed clergy, a religious test for office, and State power wielded to suppress theological as well as social er- ror. Again, while secular ruling and punishing are ethical func- tions, they are sufficiently grounded in the light of natural the- ism. But teaching is a spiritual function — -in the sense defined — and for teaching beings fallen, and in moral ruin, natural the- ism is wholly inadequate, as witness the state of pagan society. Christian citizens are entitled (not by the State, but by one higher, God) to hold that the only teaching adequate for this fallen soul is redemption. But of this the State, as such, knows nothing. As God's institute for realizing secular justice, she does know enough of moral right to be a praise to them that do well and a terror to evil-doers.
The most plausible evasion is this : Since education is so comprehensive a work, why may there not be a ''division of labor?'' Let the State train the intellect and the Christian parent and the Church train the conscience and heart in the home and the house of worship. \Yitli this solution some Christians profess themselves satisfied. Of course such an ar- rangement would not be so bad as the neglect of the heart by both State and parent.
Points already made contain fatal answers. Since con- science is the regulative faculty of all. lie who must not deal with conscience cannot deal well with any. Since the soul is a monad, it cannot be equipj)ed as to ditterent parts at different times and places, as a man might get his hat at one shop and his boots at another; it lins no parts. Since all nuilis converge
240 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
towards God, lie who is not to name God, must have all his teachings fragmentary; he can only construct a truncated fig- ure. In history, ethics, philosophy, jurisprudence, religious facts and propositions are absolutely inseparable. The neces- sary discipline of a school-room and secular fidelity of teachers call for religion, or we miss of them. And no person nor organ- ism has a right to seem to say to a responsible, immortal soul, "In this large and intelligent and even ethical segment of your doings you are entitled to be godless.'' For this teaching State must not venture to disclaim that construction of its own pro- ceeding to its own pupil. That disclaimer would be a religious inculcation!
But farther: Why do people wish the State to interfere in educating? Because she has the power, the revenues to do it better. Then, unless her intervention Is to be a cheat, her sec- ularized teaching must be some very Impressive thing. Then its impression, which is to be non-Christian, according to the theory, will be too preponderant in the j'outh's soul, to be counterpoised by the feebler inculcation of the seventh day. The natural heart is carual, and leans to the secular and away from the gospel truths. To the ingenuous youth, quickened by animating studies, his teacher Is 'Magnus Apollo, and according to this plan he must be to his ardent young votary wholly a heathen deity. The Christian side of the luminary, if there is one, must not be revealed to the worshipper! Then how pale and cold will the infrequent ray of gospel truth appear when it falls on him upon the seventh day! In a word, to the suc- cessful pupil under an efficient teacher, the school is his world. Make that godless, and his life Is made godless.
If it be asked again: Why may not the State save itself trouble by leaving all education to parents? The answer is, Be- cause so many parents are too incapable or careless to be trusted with the task. Evidently, if most parents did the work well enough, the State would have no motive to meddle. Then the very taison d'etre of the State school is in this large class of negligent parents. But man is a carnal being, alienated from godliness, whence all those who neglect their children's mental, will, a fortiori, neglect their spiritual, culture. Hence we must expect that, as to the very class which constitutes the pretext for the State's interposition, the fatally one-sided culture she give
SECtTLARTZED EDUCATION. 24l
will remain one-sided. She has no right t3 presiiine any tiling else. Bnt. if may be asked: Is not there the churcli to take lip rliis pai-r. neglected by bntli secularized State and godless parent? The answer is, The State, thus secularized, cannol claim to know the Chuch as an ally. Besides, if the Church be found sufficiently omnipresent, willing, and efficient, through the commonwealth, to be thus relied on, why will she not inspire in parents and individual philanthropists zeal enough to care for the whole education of youth? Thus again, the whole raison d'etre for the State's intervention would be gone. In fact the Church does not and cannot repair the mis- chief which her more powerful, rich, and ubiquitous rival, the secularized State, is doing in thus giving, under the guise of a non-Christian, an anti-Christian training.
It is also well known to practical men that State common schools obstruct parental and philanthropic effort. Thus, par- ents who, if not meddled with, would follow the impulse of en- lightened Christian neighbors, their natural guides, in creating a jjrivate school for their children, to make it both primary and classical, now always stop at the primary. "The school tax must be paid anyhow, which is heavy, and that is all they can do." Next, children of poor parents who showed aspiration for learning found their opportunity for classical tuition near their homes, in the innumerable private schools created by parental interest and public spirit, and kindly neighborhood charity nev- er suffered such deserving youths to be arrested for the mere lack of tuition. Now, in country places not populous enough to sustain "State High Schools," all such 3'ouths must stop at the rudiments. Thus the country loses a multitude of the most use- ful educated men. Next, the best men being the natural lead- ers of their neighbors, would draw a large part of the children of the class next them upward into the private schools created for their own fannlies, which, for the same reason, were sure to be Christian schools. The result is, that while a larger num- ber of children is brought into primar3- schools, and while the statistics of the illiterate are somewhat changed, to the great delectation of shallow philanthropists, the number of you lbs well educated in branches above mere rudiments, and especial- ly of those brought under daily Christian training, is diminish ed. In cities (where public opinion is chiefly manufacliircdj
242 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
high schools may he sustained, and this evil obviated so far as secular tuition goes. But in the vast country regions, literary culture is lowered just as it is extended. It is chiefly the coun- try which fills the useful professions — town youths go into frade.
The actual and consistent secularization of education is in- admissible.
But nearly all public men and divines declare that the State schools are the glory of America, that they are a finality, and in no event to be surrendered. And we have seen that their com- plete secularization is logically inevitable. Christians must pre- pare themselves then, for the following results: All prayers, catechisms, and BilDles will ultimately be driven out of the schools. But this will not satisfy Papists, who obstinately — and correctly were their religion correct — insist that education shall be Christian for their children. This power over the hopes and fears of the demagogues will secure, what Protestants can- not consistently ask for, a separate endownment out of the com- mon funds. Eome will enjoy, relatively to Protestantism, a grand advantage in the race of propagandism; for humanity al- ways finds out, sooner or later, that it cannot get on without a religion, and it will take a false one in preference to none. Infi- delity and practical ungodliness will become increasingly preva- lent among Protestant youth, and our churches will have a more arduous contest for growth if not for existence.
Perhaps American Protestants might be led, not to abandon but to revise their opinions touching education, by recalling the conditions under which the theory of State education came to be first accepted in this country. This came about in the col- onies which at the same time held firmly to a union of Church and State. The Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies, for instance, honorable pioneers in State education in this country, were decidedly theoretic in their constitution. The Reformed religion was intimately interwoven. So all the Protestant States of Europe, whose successful example is cited, as Scotland and Prussia, have the Protestant as an established religion. This and State primary education have always been parts of one con- sistent system in the minds of their rulers in Church and State. A secularized education, such as that which is rapidly becoming the result of our State school system, would have been indig-
SECULARIZED EDUCATION. 243
naiitly roprobated by the Wintlirops and Mathers, the Kuoxs, Melvilles, and Chalmers, and, it is presumed, by the Tholucks and even Bismart-ks of those eommonwtMltlis, wliieh are poinlc;! to as jireeedcnts and models. It is submitted, whether it is ex- actly candid to quote the oj)inions and acts of all these great men, for what is, in fact, another thing- from what they advo- cated? Knox, for instance, urged the primary education of every child in Scotland 'by the State. But it was because the State he had helped to reconstruct there was clothed with a recognized power of teaching the Reformed religion (through the allied Church), and because it was therefore able, in teaching the child to read, also to teach it the Scriptures and the Assem- bly's Catechism. Had Knox seen himself compelled to a sever- ance of Church and State (which he would have denounced as wicked and paganish), and therefore to the giving by the State of a secularized education, which trained the intellect without the conscience or heart, his heroic tongue would have given no uncertain sound. Seeing then that wise and good men in adopting and successfully working this system, did so only for communities which united Church and State, and mental and spiritual training, the question for candid consideration is: ^Vhat modifications the theory- should receive, when it is im- ported into commonwealths whose civil governments have ab- solutely secularized themselves and made the union of the sec- ular and spiritual powers illegal and impossible?
The answer may, perhaps, be found by going back to a first j)rinciple hinted in the outset of this discussion. Is the direc- tion of the education of children either a civic or an ecclesiasti- cal function? Is it not propei'ly a domestic and parental func- tion? First, we read in holy writ that God ordained the family by the union of one woman to one man, in one flesh, for life, for the declared end of "seeking a godly seed." Does not this imply that he looks to parents, in whom the family is founded, as the responsible agents of this result? He has also in the fifth Com- mandment connected the child proximately, not with either presbyter or magistrate, but with the parents, which, of course, confers on them the adequate and the prior authority. This ar- gument appears again in the very order of the historical gene- sis of the family and State, as well as of the visible Church. The family was first. Parents at the outset were the only social
244 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
heads existing. The right rearing of children by them was in order to the right creation of the other two institutes. It thus appears that naturally the parents' auhority over their children could not have come by deputation from either State or visible Church, any more than the water in a fountain by derivation from its reservoir below. Second, the dispensation of Divine Providence in the course of nature shows where the power and duty of educating are deposited. That ordering is that ///<?/«r- ents decide in what status the child shall ibegiu his adult career. The son inherits the fortune, the social position, the responsibil- t}^, or the ill-fame of his father. Third, God has i>rovided for the parents social and moralinfluencesso unique, so extensive, that no other earthly pow'er, or all others together, can substitute them in fashioning the child's character. The home example, armed with the venerable authority of the father and the moth- er, repeated amidst the constant intimacies of the fireside, sec- onded by filial reverence, ought to have the most potent plastic force over character. And this unique power Grod has guarded by an affection, the strongest, most deathless, and most unself- ish, which remains in the breast of fallen man. Until the mag- istrate can feel a love, and be nerved by it to a self-denjdng care and toil, equal to that of a father and a mother, he can show no pretext for assuming any parental function.
But the best argument here is the heart's own instinct. No parent can fail to resent, with a righteous indignation, the in- trusion of any authority between his conscience and con vie tions and the soul of his child. If the father conscientiously believes that his ow^n creed is true and righteous and obliga- tory before Grod, then he must intuitively regard the intrusion of any other power betw^een him and his minor child, to cause the rejection of that creed, as a usurpation. The freedom of mind of the child alone, when become an adult, and his fa- ther's equal, can justly interpose. If this usurpation is made by the visible church, it is felt to be in the direction of popery, if by the magistrate, in the direction of depotism.
It may Ibe said that this theory makes the parent sovereign, during the child's mental and moral minority, in the moulding of his opinions and character, whereas, seeing the parent is fallible, and may form his child amiss, there ought to be a su- perior authority to superintend and intervene. But the com-
SECULARIZED EDUCATION. 245
plete answer is, that inasmucli as the supreme authority must be placed somewhere, God has indicated that, on the whole, no place is so safe for it as the hands of the parent, who has the supreme love for the child and the superior opportunit3\ But many parents nevertheless neglect or pervert the power? Yes, and does the State never neglect and pervert its powers? With the lessons of history to teach us the horrible and almost universal abuses of power in the hands of civil rulers, that ques- tion is conclusive. In the case of an unjust or godless State, the evil would be universal and sweeping. Doubtless God has deposited the duty in the safest place.
The competitions of the State and the Church for the edu- cating power have been so engrossing that we have almost for- gotten the parent, as the third and the rightful competitor. And now many look at his claim almost contemptuously. Be- cause the civic and the ecclesiastical spheres are so much wider and more populous than his, they are prone to regard it as every way inferior. Have we not seen that the smaller circle is, in fact, the most original and best authorized of the three? Will any thinking man admit that he derives his right to marry, to be a father, from the permission of the State? Yet there is an illu- sion here, because civic constitutions confer on the State certain police functions, iso to speak, concerning marriage and families. So there are State laws concerning certain ecclesiastical belong- ings. But what Protestant concedes therefrom that his re- ligious rights were either conferred, or can be rightfully taken away, by civil authority? The truth is, that God has immediate- ly and authoritatively instituted three organisms for man on earth, the State, the visible Thurch, and the Family, and these are co-ordinate in rights and mutual independence. The State or Church has no more right to invade the parental sphere than the parent to invade theirs. The right distribution of all duties and power between the three circles w'ould be the complete solu- tion of that problem of good government which has never yet been solved with full success. It is vital to a true theory of hu- man rights, that the real indei)endence of the smallest yet high- est realm, that of the parent, be respected. Has it not been proved that the direction of education is one of its prerogatives?
But does not the State's right to exist imply the right to secure all the conditions of its existence? And as parents may
246 SECULARIZED EDUCATION.
SO pervert or neglect education as to rear a generation incom- petent to preserve their civil institutions, does not this give the State control over education? I answer, first, it is not even a pretext for the State's invading the parental sphere any farther than the destructive neglect exists, that is, to stimulate, or help, or compel the neglectful parents alone. Second, precisely the same argument may authorize the State to intrude into the spiritual circle and establish and teach a religion. But the sophism is here: It is assumed that a particular form of civil institutions has a prescriptive right to perpetuate itself. It has none. So the American theory teaches, in asserting for the people the inherent right to change their institutions. Did 3ur republican fathers hold that any people have ever the right to subvert the moral order of society" ordained by God and na- ture? Surely not. Here then is disclosed that distinction be- tween the moral order and any particular civil order, %o often overlooked, but so eloquently drawn by Cousin. So far is it from being true that the civil authority is entitled to shape a people to suit itself; the opposite is true, the people should shape the civil authority.
It is a maxim in political philosophy, as in mechanics, that when an organism is applied to a function for which it was not designed, it is injured au"d the function is ill done. Here is a farmer who has a mill designed and well fitted to grind his meal. He resolves that it shall also thresh his sheaves. The consequence is that he has wrete-hed threshing and a crippled mill. I repeat, God designed the State to be the organ for se- curing secular justice. When it turns to teaching or preaching it repeats the farmers' experience. The Chinese Government and people are an example in point. The Government has been for a thousand years educating the people for its own ends. The result is what we see.
Government powerfully atfects national character by the mode in which it performs its proper functions, and if the ad- ministration is e(iuitable. pure and free, it exalts the i>eople. But it is by the indirect influence. This is all it can do well. As for the other part of the national elevation (an object which ev- ery good man must desire), it must come from other agencies; from the dispensation of Almighty Providence; from fruitful ideas and herGic acts with which he inspires the great men
SECULARIZED EDUCATION. 247
whom lie sovei-eiguly gives to the nations he designs to bless; chietiy fi-oui the energy of divine Truth and the Christian vir- tues, first in individuals, next in families, and last in visible churches.
Let us suijipose, then, that both State and Church recognize the parent as the educating power; that the}' assume towards him an ancilhuy instead of a dominating attitude; that the State shall encourage individual and voluntary effarts by hold- ing the impartial shield of legal protection over all property which may be devoted to education; that it shall encourage all private efforts; and that in its eleemosynary character it shall aid those whose poverty and misfortunes disable them from properly rearing their own children. Thus the insoluble prob- lems touching religion in State schools would be solved, because the State was not the responsible creator of the schools, but the parents. Our educational system might present less me- dia nical symmetry, but it would be more flexible, more practi- cal, and more useful. KOBERT L. DAB^^EY.
WILSON'S SLAVE POWER IN AMERICA.'
History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Foiver in America. By
Henry Wilson. Boston: James R. Osgood &■> Company, 3
Vols., 8vo.,pp. 67O, 720, and y "J 4.
This ponderous work is what the well-iuformed readct would expect from its author. The first volume professes to treat the rise of slavery in the United States, from its begin- nings up to the admission of Texas. The second continues the history of the sectional controversies about it, to the election of Lincoln. The third treats of the war and its results.
Of this liuge '"partisan document/' it may be justly said, that its staple material is sophistry and misrepresentation, and its very title an insult and falsehoDd. In the sense of the au- thor, there has been no "slave power" in America. It suited the purposes of the consx)irators among whom Mr. Wilson acted all his political life, ta advance their project of riding into sec- tional domination by means of the Abolition phrensy, to imag- ine a "slave power" in the South, which cherished the counter- part design to his: that of usurping the authority of tlie United States to extend slavery, at the expense of others' rights, over rhe whole country. But in fact, the States whose citizens owned slaves, never were a "slave power" in any sense but this: that they endeavored to employ the rights guaranteed to them by the laws to protect their legal property; just as Ohio sought to prDtect the property of her citizens in their swine; Kentucky hers in their mules; and just as Mr. Wilson sought to protect his property in shoes. The only differences were that the South never imitated his protection of his shoe-making profits by par- tial and dishonest tariffs; and that those interested in the swine, the mules, and the shoes, were not compelled to a constant self- defense, because they did not experience from us the constant and lawless assaults on their rights, which Mr. Wilson's set aimed at our industries and lawful interests.
1 Appeared in Soii'krrn Planter and F'^rmpr, July, 189r. 248
Wilson's SLAVE POWER IN AMERICA. 249
The book, whose very title is false, may be safely expected to furnish abundance of similar material in its padres. The reader has to go a very short distance, indeed, to find this ex- pectation verified. The preface, in its first paragraphs, informs us that in 1860, 1861, "treasonable menaces had ripened into treasonable deeds. A rebellion of gigantic proportions burst upon the nation with suddenness and fierceness." * * * "These crimes against the peace, the unity, and the life of the nation, and these sacrifices of property, of health, and of life, were the inflictions of the slavenpower, in its maddened efforts to make perpetual its hateful dominion.'' Tliese six lines con- tain just seven manifest misstatements. There was no "na- tion"; for the United States were then a confederation of sov- ereign i^tates, and consequently there was no "national life," in ]Mr. Wilson's sense. Secondly, it was hence impossible that one of these sovereign constituents could commit "treason" against its own creature, the common agent. Hence, thirdly, there could be no rebellion in the case. Fourthly, the resistance of the Southern States against usurpation was not sudden; it had been uniformly and long foretold, and was the deliberate and fore-declared result of the vital aggressions aimed at their ex- istence. Neither, fifthly, was there any "fierceness'' about it, in Mv. Wilson's sense. The South jjrosecuted ils defensive war with a humanity and moderation chivalrous, and, in the light of subsequent events, even Quixotic. Mr. Wilson's imagination had evidently not recovered, when he penned this preface in 1872, from the imprsssion of "fierceness'' derived from his own panic at Bull Run, when he fled so fast from the "rebels" lie had come to see conquered. Sixthh% none of the miseries of this war were inflicted by the States of the South, whom Mr. Wilson chooses to stigmatize as the "slave power"; for they desired onlj' to be let alone in possession of their eonstitutiouiil rights. The war was caused deliberately by Mr. Wilson and his party, who, as none know better than he knew, with calculated malice invaded our rights, goaded us to resistance, and refused all compromise, in order to avail themselves of the Abolilion l)hrensy to revolutionize the government, estal)lish their own faction in power, and gratify their spite against the men whom they could never forgive for being injured by them. The South made the war only in the sense in which the lamb of the fable
250 Wilson's slave power in America.
muddied the stream bv drinking belDW the wolf. Seventhly, and last, the Southern States never had any "dominion," hate- ful or otherwise, to perpetuate, and never sought any. They never aimed to be anything but what the laws entitled them to be, coequal parties to an equitable confederation. The only "dominion" they ever had was this: that their statesmen had sd commended themselves by their ability, patriotism, purity, and disinterestedness to the confederacy, that the majority of the Northern as well as the Southern citizens had preferred them to demagogues of the Wilson type. Hinc illae lachrymael The true solution of these three ponderous tomes is, that they are the howl of his malice at the American people's preference for Southern gentlemen over such as him, and of- his gratified re- venge for the slight.
He begins his "history" (I) Vol. 1., Chap. 1., by ascribing the existence of slavery to men's selfish desire to live at other people's expense. This solution suits the slavery of his own State very well; for they, having no aliens nor savages among them by providential dispensation, went all the way to Africa to steal them for slaves. But the accjunt which the Bible gives of the origin of slavery (Gen. ix. 25-27), is, that it came as the remedy for the depravity of the enslaved; and that it was the righteous means ordained by God to protect civilized society against the vice, laziness, theft, and violence of degraded per- sons, whose wickedness and ignorance rendered them unsafe depositories for the franchises of citizenship. Mr. Wilson is an ardent specimen of that species of '"Christian" whose Bible is no rule when it cros.ses his spite or his crotchet. The Bible ac- count of the matter is one expressly appropriate to the South; for we, when we became free commonwealths in 1776, retained slavery as the necessary and just remedy for the presence of the savage Africans, with whom the ''Christians" of Xew Eng- land and Old England, those simon-pure Abolitionists, had de- luged us against our protest.
The author then proceeds: "American slavery * * * converted a being endowed with conscience, reason, affections, sympathies, and hopes, into a chattel. It sunk a free moral agent, with rational attributes and immortal aspirations, to merchandise. It made him a beast of burden in the field of toil, an outcast in social life, a cipher in the courts of law, and a
WILSON'S SLAVE POWER IN AMERICA. 251
pariah, in the bouse of Grod. His master could dispose of liis person at will," etc., etc.
Here, again, the errors are at least as numerous as the propositions. American slavery did not make the moral per- sonality of the bondsman ''a chattel," but established properly in his labor; precisely the thing which Mr. Wilson possessed in his shoe factory operatives, in a much more selfish and grinding form than our system. We did not make the African a ''beast of burden in the field," but a laborer, more humanely treated than ^Ir. \Vilson's hirelings. We did not make him an "out- cast in social life"; he possessed among his equals abundant social ties and enjoj'ments, and was, moreover, connected by real and tender domestic sj-mpathies with his master's family; a thing which Mr. WilsDn never dreamed of extending to the families of his hirelings. The bondsman was not "a cipher in the courts of law." His life, person, and chastity were ishielded by the same law which protected his master; and his rights had such full recognition here, that he could sue his own master, with every advantage in the litigation, for his own liberty, if he could show any suspicion 3f unjust detention in (bondage. He was not ''a pariah in the house of God." He worshipped and partook of the Lord's Supper in the same sanctuary with his master; and with at least as little social distinction as exist- ed between Mr. Wilson and the white hireling who had been, perhaps, his late comrade an the shoe-bench. The master could not "dispose of his bondsman's person at will." The law^ among us secured his personal safety, life, chastity, Sabbath-rest, and subsistence, against his own master. Now, to appreciate the wickedness of this train of atrocious libels, one must remember that this man, if he ever took pains to inquire into the real na^ ture of what he was denouncing, must have met with refuta- tions of them all at his first step, and that, unless he literally stopped his ears, he must have often heard them disclaimed and refuted in the Senate of the United States by Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Hunter, and Mr. Chestnut.
The reader will be curious to know what the author does with the slave-holding and slave-trading record of his awn State, both of which were of the blackest and most diabolical sort. To assume that an American Senator of Mr. Wilson's type knew something of the authentic history of his own country, might be
252 Wilson's slave power in America.
a very violent surmise. But it would appear that this niau knew he was deceiving; because he refers expressly, Vol. I., p. 6, to ]\Xoore's "Slavery in Massachusetts," a book which tells the plain story. He glozes about the protest of one or two old gen- tlemen, in the early days of the colony, and some abortive and deceitful legislation against the slave trade. He quotes quite at large the protests of the Quakers (whom Massachusetts was then persecuting!) He informs us that little Rhode Island was actively engaged in the slave trade, and that Newport was a great emporium for this nefarious traflQc. But he takes care not to tell us that in 1637, when the Plymouth colony was but sev- enteen years old, it made trial of its infant strength by sending out the slave ship ''Desire;" that the most fiendish laws were de- liberately passed and habitually enforced, for kidnapping, en- i.'laving, and deporting the Indians near them, from whose hos- pitality they had secured their homes; that the "General Court" of Massachusetts recognized the trade as legal, and took a share in its profits, in the shape of an impost; and that the United States census of 1790 found six thousand slaA'es in this little and barren territory. These facts are all substantiated by Moore, AVinthrop's Journal, and other well-known authors.
But we pass to more recent facts. Mr. Wilson, Vol. II, Chap. XLV., of course lauds the vulgar old murderer, John Brown, as one of the purest, noblest, and most disinterested of heroes and Christian martyrs. He has no objection to the crimes of the old cut-throat, save that they pursued the wrong method for assailing slavery, and prejudiced the character of the party to which they belonged. The Senator does not claim am' credit for Brown's exploits; but he does not seem to care at all to veil the fact that he was cognisant of his plans, and took no effectual steps to preA^ent their execution. That is to say, this sworn Senator of the Ignited States sat silent while he knew that treason against not only the State of Virginia, but tlie United States, was brewing; and he did nothing to arrest the crime, save dissuade from it on grounds of party policy. It was well for his neck that the laws of the United States did not retain the doctrine of constructive treason, and that the Con- stitution and Government were so soon destroyed; else the his- torian might have shared the fate of his hero.
As a specimen of his historical accuracy, we may note, Vol.
k''
Wilson's slave power in America. 553
III., Chap. XII., where he assures us that the "capture of Wasli- iugton was among the first things laid down upon the rebel pro- gramme.'' * * * arpQ gg-^g ^Yie capital and all the depart- juents of the Government; to hold Mr. Buchanan in abject sur- veillance during the remainder of his term, or, if he should prove too refractorj-^, to eject him for a more serviceable tool; to prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and make Jefferson Davis, or whoever should be chosen leader of the new regime, President — these were the real and avowed purposes of the con- spiracy." On what evidence does the reader suppose he as- serts this marvelous fiction? Either upon the reports of those notoriously accurate persons, anonymous newspaper-scribblers, or the gasconading of some excited stump-speaker! Or else he albsurdly wrests the expressed purpose of the leaders of the Con- federacy, a/rer it became rightfully an independent power, and had been reluctantly forced into a defensive war, to end that war with the least effusion of blood, by capturing the hostile capital! He also asserts, upon evidence equally baseless, the purpose of the Confederates to reopen the African slave trade; although, as appears, Vol. III. Chap. IX., he had under his eye the unanimous adoption by the Confederacy of a Constitution, which prohibited that trade far more effectively than the Con- stitution of the United States.
In Vol. III., Chap. XLII., Mr. Wilson gives his version of that act of usurpation and lawlessness, the Emancipation Proc- lamation. The narrative is singular. He desires to represent this act as the deliberate result of Mr. Lincoln's progress in con- scientious conviction and statesmanlike insight. He would fain have us believe that he grew honestly to it from a more defec- tive view. But even the brazen armor of the Wilson forehead seemed to be not quite hard enough for this assertion. He there- fore conveys it to us as the testimony of tliat sheet, always so im- .partially and correctly informed upon American alTairs, the London Times. Now, Mr. Wilson can liardly have be(m more ignorant of the real history of that step than other well-inform- ed contemporaries. He knew that Mr. Lincoln, as well as the Freesoil platform on which he was elected, always and express- ly disclaimed the right and purpose to meddle with slavery in the States; that Mr. Lincoln spoke this doctrine and swore to it at his inauguration. He knew that there was no truth what-
254 WILSON'S SLAVE POWER IN AMERICA
ever in the pretext that the right to liberate the seceded States' slaves had emerged as a war power, because he had himself, after his Bull Run footrace, vated solemnly, along with the Con- gress and President, that the war was not to be prosecuted for purposes of emancipation, but only to restore the Union as it had been; and that Mr. Lincoln had been accustomed to reiter- ate this doctrine continually, in answer to all the urgency of the Abolitionists. Only a fortnight before the Emancipation Proclamation appeared, he had been urged by a committee of these fanatics to use the war to free the negroes; when the ''martyr-President," with the suavity and refinement which were usual with him, made about this reply, as he almost expelled them from his presence: "You must either be fools, or must think me a fool, that you ask me to do this thing which I have no right to do, and which I have sworn I cannot lawfully do. The Constitution does not empower me to make war to free ne- groes, but to restore the Union." Yet, in ne fortnight there- after, he did the perjured thing! Mr. Wilson doubtless knew the solution of the question, Whence this summersault? The solution was this: that the great British public, though pas- sionately anti-slavery, had at length been so thoroughly awak- ened (largely through the sagacious efforts of Admiral M. Maury) to the deceitfulness and injustice of the Yankee war; that public opinion was pressing the ministry irresistibly towards that just act, the recognition of the gallant Confed- eracy. It was then that Lord John Russell, the Lilijjutian l)rince of the pettifoggers and Abolitionists, instructed his en- voy at Washington, Lord Lyons, to inform Mr. Lincoln's Gov- ernment that there was no artifice by which the British people could longer be restrained more than a few weeks from recog- nition, except the playing upon their anti-slavery passions by making the war tangibly a war for abolition. This was the news which caused Mr. Lincoln to hasten to forswear himself. This is precisely the amount of credit which the great '"Libera- tor," and the party he represented, deserved at the hands of their "fellow-citizens of African descent."
Vol. III., Chap. XLVIL, contains our author's advocacy and account of the enormous innovation of universal negro suffrage. On p. GT2, he intimates that tlie few sensible men who opposed this perilous measure were very naughty children, in
Wilson's slave power in America. 2f)5
that tlipy iiiipnted a partisan desire to luaniifactiire voters for the Radical ticket, as the motive. He would have us believe that their motives were the most disinterested possible, and their deliberation the most cautious, patient, and candid; but that, turn whichever way they could, they found themselves shut up to the measure of universal negro suffrage, by their gratitude to the two hundred thousand negro soldiers who had eaten rations for the salvation of "the life of the nation,'' by the logical consistency of their principles of equality, and above all, by the truculent determination of the "ex-rebels" to tram- ple on the colored man, unless he were defensively armed with the ballot. Tlie Senator should have foreseen how dreadfully this nice story was to be damaged by the "peaching'' of an ac- complice. Unfortunately, Gen. Sherman, in his most veracious Memoirs, tells us that Mr. Chase, the power behind the throne at Washington, assured him in May, 18C5, that it was the pur- pose of the Government to 'bestow universal sulTrage on the negroes, and avowed the very reason which ^Ir. Wilson pre- tends to disclaim. Sherman's Memoirs, \q\. II., p. 373.
The author died in 1872, bequeathing to his country the curse of his public career, and this large legacy of error and prejudice, to }):iison the stream of history for those who believe in him. Sincr his death, the party whom he represented has been covered with so many infamies by its crimes against lib- erty and public virtue, that it is becoming hard for even the Yankee mind to conceal from itself the dishonesty of Radical- ism. The best, and indeed the only, refutation of false history like this, will be the developments of the future. The day will come when all men will recognize the truth that the freesoil, the warlike, and the reconstruction exploits of Mr. Wilson's party had precisely as much patriotism and sincerity as its Credit Mobilier, its salary-grab, its executive and legislative bargains, and its returning boards. This is tlie only answer to slander of the South, to which the audience for whom he wrote will listen. True as all well-informed men know our criticisms to be, they will pass for nothing with his people at this time.
It may be asked. Why repeat, then, these futile corrections of pertinacious falsehood, since intelligent men at the South are so fully informed of them, and othcn's will not heed them? We write for the generation of young men now growing up at
256 Wilson's slave power in America,
the South, to whom the ohl regime can only be known as his- toiy. The}' will be prone to feel, with an ingenuousness natural to the Southern gentleman, as to his fathers, that it is searcelj' conceivable a man who had been Vice-President, should write so large a book, so prejudiced and false in its very structure. In the facility of their charity and truthfulness, they will find it hard to appreciate the reality. For their sakes the correct history must be perpetually reasserted, and its falsifications unmasked. The task is a tedious and repulsive one: to refute again oft-refuted slanders and sophisms. But it must be done, or we shall have a generation of sons befaoled into Mr. Wilson's venomous estimate of their fathers' deeds, and drugged with his poisonous heresies.
This book impresses the candid reader with several facts and inferences which are consolatory or instructive. Mr. Wil- son disijlaj'is, in his vainglorious desire to be a martyr for truth, the estimate which respectable and sensible men at the Xorih almost universall}- held of his party at its origin. He tells us, trutlifully, that Abolition was at first denounced, alike by the Senate, the Bench, and the Pulpit, as a crime and a mischievous and senseless fanaticism. The explanation is, that the men of 1833, in the North, while no friends of slavery for their own society, j^et knew enough experimenlalh' of its real nature to understand the diabolical wickedness of Abolition. Kespecta- ble Northern public men had not then become factionists. They had some respect for law and covenants. They knew what Af- ricans and slavery were. Hence, they knew Abolitionism to be, what it has proved itself, the dire enemy of the Constitu- tion, the African, and the white man, at once. It was only after the school-master and school-marm, the hirelings of a political faction, and its Dugald Dalgettys, the politicating parsons, had educated a new generation upon the pabulum of fictian and hatred, that the Wilson tribe began to appear statesmen and patriots, and his libels history.
The attentive reader will rise from the perusal of this book also impressed with another fact: the Freesoil party never de- signed anything short of the utter overthrow of Southern rights. Every page reveals, directly or indirectly, that it was not free- soil in the territories, but the destruction of the South, which was its real aim. The pretense of the Lincoln platform, that the
Wilson's slave Power m aMerIca ^fet
right of the States over their own institutions was inviolable, fades away as one reads, into an invisible veiL There is here the consolation that the resistance of the South, which was the occasioUjNOT THE CAUSE, of SO much woe, was not an act of gratuitous heat. It was the work of the Southern masses, and not, as Mr. Wilson pretends to believe, of the leaders. Our lead- ers were mosth' behind the emergency, and were still crying to the ipeople. Peace! when there was no peace. But the honest sense of the people had an intuition of the true state of the crisis; that it was their vital rights which were aimed at. This book convinces the reader again that the people were right.
Mr. Wilson evinces also the vast mischief done to their own section by a certain type of S3uthern men, once much admired among us. The slaveholder of this class was usually a gentle- man of some culture, and by affectation a philanthropist. He had probably been educated at Harvard, Amherst, Yale, or Princeton. .Accustomed to the simple, unaffected honesty of Southern cultivated sentiment, and the disinterestedness of Southern patriotism, he was simply incapable of believing in the duplicity and one-sidedness of Northern politics. When his more clear-sighted neighbor cautioned him, his answer was: "For shame I Do not yield to prejudices sa bitter." So, in his unsophisticated eyes, all that glittered from the Yankee mint of opinion, passed for gold. He imbibed with docility the fic- tions which were given him as history, and the pretentious so- cial science which had libels and boasts far its main facts. When he returned from the North, and contrasted its prosperity, bloated with commercial plunderings of the South, and protec- tive tariffs and bounties, and endless jobs, with the leanness of the South, he accepted the solution which his professor of this profitable philosophy had so industriously "dinned into him,'' that this was the curse of slavery-. Thus, so soon as he became a petty politician, he sought occasion to utter the spurious wis- doui of his alien teacher. Thus he became, unintentionally, an echo of the slanders of the enemies of his own people. He as- cribed to slavery a depression which, but for tluit most ener- getic and economical form of labor, would have depopulated the South, and which was really the result of the calculated op- pression of New England, through the Federal Congress. He babbled the imaginary political economy of men who never saw
258 Wilson's slave power in America.
slavery, and who argued from assumed facts which never ex- isted, its impoverishing etTects. He was even criminal enough to echo the shameful indictments against the morals of his own people, which had bivn cunningly thrust into his mouth. Xo where was this species of nascent politician more prominent than in Virginia, in rhe Legislature which followed the ''South- ampton insurrection." These young members ventilated their logic and self-imirortance by spouting in Richnund all the false facts and absurd theories which they had imported from Yale and Harvard, about "the fearful insecurity of the system, its injustice, its wastefulness, and its debauching effects upon morals." The future found these young gentlemen, indeed, in two widely sundered classes. Those whom Mr. Wilson quotes with most admiration, if they survived, were found among our most despised renegades. The rest, as soon as their beards were grown, learned better wisdom, and with a happy inconsistency, became staunch Southern men. But the mischief was done. They had given the truculent assailants of their fatherland a text. When the nu)st brilliant of them, James McDowell, in his wiser years, essayed to stay the tide of fury and aggression in the Federal Congress, he was answered from his own speeches in the General Assembly of Virginia. And Mr. Wilson has again taken care to embalm all the most extravagant of these decla- mations in his storehouse of slander, as the testimony of Vir- ginia's own best sons against her. He tells his readers nothing of the other side. He professes his wonder that Virginia, after these emphatic confessions, did nothing. He says nothing of the sober logic of wiser men among the Virginians, which speed- ily blew away all this froth of youthful eloquence, leaving the sober reason of all caimed into the clear truth that the old sys- tem was safest, best, and most beneficent to the African. He never heard, we presume, of the masterly essay of President Dew of William and Mary, in which that accomplished man combined the finest resources of the historian, the jurist, and the political economist, to evince the shallowness of the emaucipa tion rhetoric. It was such discussion ;is this which reassured Virginia and opened the eyes of all her young anti-sla^ ery men, save such as were ripening into future scalawags. But mean- time they had slandered their own mother, and her emibittered enemies will talve good care not to let the slanders die.
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111 cjiK-lusioii. one rises from the perusal of this book vviiii a moiiriiful impression. What must be the future of a people, the majority of whom accept such writings as this for history? This science is the very eye of statesmanship. With false his- tor}' for pilot, can the ship of state land anywhere but on the breakers? That people which ''lives, breathes, and has its be- ing" in an enveloping atmosphere of falsehood in history and ophisms in philosophy, has nothing before it but to unlearn its heresies in a fearful school of experience. And what prospect has the 8outh for just or even merciful rule, when subjugated l)y a people who believe Senator Wilsin's black rej)resentations about us? His book has passed already through four editions. The disdainful and imperious North, pleased to see those whom she has violently crushed accused of all guilty things, will never condescend t^ look at any reply, until a retributive Providence compels her to read it in the calamitous fruits of her creed.
FREE SCHOOLS."
Have vdii seen a single, sensible tax-payer, not a small poli- tician, and tlius a suitor for impecunious votes, nor a selfish beneficiary of the plunder disbursed by our school system, who does nor denounce the whole measure as injust and mischiev- ous? I have not.. The plan has been tried and found wanting. The careful observer of Northern opinion sees that while the demagogues, lay and clerical, still shout for the system, in or der to catch the populace, thoughtful men in the North are more radically dissatisfied with it every year, as an expedient for American commonwealths. I could fill quite a scrap book, with reflections of leading Northerners, upon the failure of the system a;s a diffuser of any real intelligence; upon its tenden- cies to degrade American literature and obstruct better educa- tion (outside the cities) upon the evident increase of crime and incendiary opinions under this system; upon its obvious bear- ing to rear up an atheistic generation of people and prepare for America a reign of terror; and upon its futility even to diffuse the art and practice of reading among the laboring masses. Such a scrap-book might be edifying reading for our Utopians. It seems very likely, that they have persuaded Virginia to put on the costly shoes of the Yankees, in this matter, just when they are getting ready to kick them off with disgust.
Their consciousness of the strength of our arguments against their pet plan is clearly betrayed in the false issues then- raise. Because we see that this pretended way of education is fallacious, dangerous and wasteful, we are the ^^enemies of edu- cation,'* forsooth! Let us see if even their reluctant heads may not be forced to admit, that a man may be a true and hearty friend of a good work, and yet, for that very reason, all the more opposed to a pretended, mischievous, false way of promoting it : It is presumed that the State Commissioner for instance, is a true friend of the evangelization of all the people, and espec-
1 Appeared in Southern Planter and Farmer, January, 1879. -60
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ially of the poor and ignorant. Consistency, therefore, makes him an advocate of an established Church to do the evangeliz- ing, does it? Let him speak out! If he says he is not the advo- cate of evangelization by State-action, and 3'et the ardent advo- cate of evangelization, then I ask, by what monopoly of candor or honest}' does he, while claiming this for himself, impugn our motives, when we say that we are ardent advocates of the true education of the poor and ignorant (have been working for it all our lives); and yet not advocates of education by direct, vState- action? And while on this point, I will add another question: If a man reasons consistently, must not tlie State-school men's logic, from the admitted importance of education, to their State scheme, also lead every Christian to advocate a State establish- ment of Christianity? Why not? And does the Superintendent remember an occasion, at which I was present, when a citizen of Virginia, eminent for moderation, wisdom, age and benignity of character, made him admit that very c(mclusion, as, under certain circumstances following from his positions?
This suggests a point against our present plan, whose for- midable character is now making thoughtful men at the North, and in Britain, tremble. The Redeemer said, "He that is not with me is against me." There cannot be a moral neutrality. Man is born with an evil and ungodly tendency. Hence a non- religious training must be an anti-religious training. The more of this, the larger curse. But the American commonwealth has expressly pledged herself to a non-religious attitude. Hence, she cannot, by her State-action, endow or inculcate a particular i-eligion. While the population of some States was homogen- eous, this radical difficulty was not seriously felt: the people of a Protestant State, like Connecticut, could (luietly oversteip the true history of their own constitution, in favor of Protestantism ; and there was nobody to protest. But now we have I'apists, Unitai-ians, Chinese, Jews and Atheists by the myriads; and they will not acquiesce in the wielding of State-power, in which they have equal rights, for the partial advantage of a creed to which they are opposed. The result will be, that their protests will triumph, as they now do, in many States; and we shall have a generation of practical atheists reared "on State account"; just as clear-sighted men in the North see they have on their hands
262 FREE SCHOOLS.
there, rapidly prepariug for them another sans culotte revolu- tion.
In previous discussion, it was also shown, that the system of State-schools is agrarian, or communistic, contiscatiug the property' of one class of citizens for the private and domestic behoof of another. The justice of this charge none know better than those who mix with the people; the power to make the rich man educate their children is the nuiin feature which commends the system to the non-taxpaying voters. It is valued by them as a method of plunder. We have also shown that the system is levelling, and attemjjts an impossibility: to give all the people literar}' occupations; whereas in all countries, and in spite of universal schools, it is found that the laboring class does not read, and does not wish to read. It was shown that the scheme confounds educatiou with a knowledge of a few literary arts (reading, writing, etc..) which are not education, but only possi- ble means thereof; and in the case of the laboring poor, far the most questionable, and least efficient means of true education. The tendency of the State's interference was shown to be. to de- grade the standard of literary educatiou, while diifusing its poorest elements: since we see good schools disappear as the primary ones are multiplied. The degradation of literature fol- lows from the same cause, toy reason of the attempt to supply a grovelling or shallow literature for the multitude of minds one-tenth part educated. It was proved \)y stubborn facts, that common schools have multiplied crime and pauperism, by a natural intlueuee, suggesting to the laboring classes new wants, without increasing in them the jjowei' of moral self control or the means of lawful indulgence. And the dishonesty of their advocates has been again and again exposed, in continuing to appeal to their deceptive cry, "Better economy to build school- houses than jails''; after // hax been proved to them, that the multiplication of their school- houses has multiplied the jails. The fearful dangers to the morals of children, by i)romiscuous minglings in these schools, has been pointed out; and are re- ceiving confirmations in many parts of the country, in the spread of abuses too gross to be ventilated in public. The cer- tainty that our schools will be perverted by demagogues for party purposes, was pointed out; and was illustrated by facts; while the intolerable and tyrannical nature of this usurpation
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was displayed. Last: the lights of the wiser statesmauship of better da3's were adduced, to show how perilous it is to fix on the conmiunitv any system whatsoever, the nature of wliich is, to subsidize man}' persons, b^' ^ivino; them a seltish, pecuniary interest in the perpetuation of it, or of its abuses. For, should the system 'i)rove unwise, or should new circumstances require its change or repeal, the self-interest of all these subsidized classes wall prompt them to clamor and defraud the public mind, so as to uiake the needed repeal impossible or extremely diffi- cult.
The course of this discussion has added a pungent illustra- tiju to the }>ower of our last argument. No sooner was discrim- inating inquiry turned upon the new system, than it was dis- covered that it had already bribed so many classes, other than tax-payers, that candid and patriotic discussion was hopeless. A State Superintendent in the metropolis, a counry Superin- tendent in each county, with his gang of petty tax gatherers, his school board for each "townshi})." his campany of school- masters and schoolmarms, with their whole cohort of pauper parents, at once waked up to the fact that their much be praised system enabled them very conveniently to keep their hands in the pockets of other people. All these joined, in many places, in raising a mercenary clamor, which has drowned fair discus- vsion. And our minute politicians, in whose breasts votes are the breath of life, are seen so intiuiidated, that hardly one of them dares whisper a doubt against the idol of the socialists. The manner in which this debate has been conducted by many of tliese petty place holders would have been enough, were Vir- ginia what she once was, to overwhelm the whole affair with righteous disgust and indignation. Citizens who have the right of tax-payers, to be heard touching their rights, and State-af- fairs; who are, in many cases veneralble for grey hairs, for ex- perience, for integrity, and for long lives of labor and sacrifice for the honor of Mrginia, have been seen yelped after by these otticials (whose only known service to the State has been draw- iug salaries wrung from it by a grinding taxation), with ob- locpiy and ridicule. This is an indecency wliich deserves only chastisement.
The time was, when Mrginian oHicials had manners and principle enough to keep silent in a debate touching their own
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emoluments; they felt that delicacy, not to say common de- cency, prompted the leaving of such questions to be considered by that larger part of the citizens wh3 had no pecuniary inter- est in the issue. The time was, when Virginia had a righteous constitution, the work of statesmen and not of demagogues; and that instrument contained this provision: That no mem- ber of a Legislature which debated and decided the creation of a salaried ofBce, shauld take office under the act creating it. The reason of this excellent law, was, that the very indecency on which I remark might be made impossible, at least, in the Legislature; that no man. when handling the rights of his fel- low-citizens and of the State, should run even a risk of having his judgment warped by a pecuniary and personal considera- tion. But we have now seen all this indecent clamor from the thraats of paid officials; and we have seen the School Commis- sioner actually employing the people's money to flood the State with ex parte documents and arguments, designed to forestall the expression of the people's judgment as to measures in de- bate before them, and liable to be justly condemned by them. All that the school law, bad as it is, could pretend to create such officials for, was. to execute the provisions of the law. But under the thin jjretext of diffusing information about educa- tion, they misapply the people's money to the work of manufac- turing, in Virginia, a Yankee public sentiment, alien to the genius and traditions of Virginia, promotive of the continuance of their personal emoluments! And Virginians stand this?
The utter inadequacy of the pretext for universal negro schooling was also pointed out; that ''as they are to vote, it is our duty and interest to educate them into intelligent voter's." We showed that primary education, larger than that given to our negroes, had utterly failed to make intelligent voters out of the white proletariat of the North, and we urged this plain, honest query: What right have they to promise Virginia that a smaller dose of their physic which we see only impotent and mischievous there, will do any good here? The facts they dare not deny; but at the i)lain, stubborn question they refuse to look. Blinking that, they only repeat the refuted pretext, an average specimen of the honesty of the logic. The radical na- ture of the perils attending negro suffrage was pointed out to them, from difference of color and race, alien blood, race an-
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tipathies, savage morals, total absence of property-stake in the common weal, subjection to poisonous and malignant outside influences; and it was asked. Will such a mite of the arts of reading and spelling, as Virginia free negro children are going to retain, be any remedy at all fjr these strong perils? Every man's common sense answers: Just as trustworthy as a minute bread pill for the yellow-fever! Every man's common sense also shows him, that while this sham-schooling will be utterly futile for the end proposed, it will be efficacious for harm, by giving young negroes pretext for the idleness and the false expecta- tions which are their and our great perils. The art of reading may be quite a good thing for him who uses it aright, but these young negroes are in perishing need of learning many things which are. for them, infiuitely more momentous than this ques- tionable boon, and which these baubles Df schools fatally pre- vent their learning; how to turn a good furrow, how to make an honest day's work, how to groom a horse, Inw to cook a whole- some loaf, how to wash a shirt, how to whet a scythe, how to mow an acre of grass per day, and aib:)ve all, how to live with- out stealing. We solemnly tell the schonl-men that they are giving the country a generation of young negroes whose inevi- tabledestinyistoworkor steal, whom they are so rearing, that they neither wish to work nor know how. The property-men of the country cannot hire them, because they know nothing useful to an employer; and the young negroes would not hire themselves if they were fit for anything. Come, gentlemen, lay aside utopianisms, and sophisms, and "false facts," and tell us, if you please, what Virginia is to do with a half million of young negroes thus traiuf^d to impotency, when the old genera- tion, educaied by slavery are gone? Give each one of them a school to teach? Will they not all have the natural wants and desires of human beings? Neither able nor willing to work, will they not take? Can poor, impoverished Virginia stand up under so much lettered i)aupensm? Will not the alternatives be universal bankruptcy or anarchical resistance? The ques- tion is solenm and urgent.
We urge, again, the burning injustice of the present law. taxing the former owners, after plundering them, for the pre- tended education of negroes — Virginia had her own system for educating her negroes. It was a good system, approved by two
266 FREE SCHOOLS.
eeiituries of experience. It turned miserable savaj^es intu a decent, useful, Christian peasantry. It even diffused fully as mucli of the arts of letters as the Africans were in a condition to profit hy ! For it is well known that every young: negro slave wlio showed any wortliy aspiration at all was usually tau<?ht to !'t ad in his master's family. It was a system of education, sol- emnly sanctioned by the laws, human and divine, and g^uaran- leod to us by the Federal Constitution and the enactments of C )n<jre8S. >\'ell, it suited the invader's purposes of ambition to tear down our j;ood, old, legalized, beneficent system of edu- cation for the negro, and to confiscate our property in him, thus reducing the white community to the verge of destitution. And then, l^he oppressor turns around and taxes us, already so ruth- lessly injured, for means to attemipt a new, expensive and worthless system for repairing the ruin which he had himself perpetrated in destroying the well tried and lawful system! The destruction of the good, old system was his work — a work wrought exclusively for his own aggressive ends. Let him bear the cost\if repairing his own mi'Schief. There was wicked- ness enough in the doing of it. in all conscience. But now, when he turns ujvon the injured party, and again plundei-s them, un- dei- the pretense of taking means to repair Ms own first crime, tL ; wrong is ''rank and smells to heaven." I see not how any righteous mind in Virginia can have anything to do with it, ex- cept to protest, while he unavoidably submits.
Hence it is, that when any white man among us pretends to be an ex awm^approver of this plan, my common sense com- pels me to be a skeptic as to his sincerity. The old Irish fish- woman tried to /persuade her customer that the eels rather liked skinning; but the eels never said so; and had one of them professed satisfaction with the i)rocess pr see, I should have persisted in the doubt whether he were a candid and truthful eel. From this i)oint of view, the sensible reader sees that the very inception of this State-school matter in Virginia stamiped its motive with insincerity. The "Underwood Constitution" it- self, thrust down Virginia's throat as it was. by the breech of Provost Marshal's musket, did not require the Legislature to put any system of State schools in operation until ISTO. Every patriotic reason should have prompted us to wait as long as our masters allowed us. The State was in a condition of finan-
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cial exhaustion, which made any breathing time, linvever short, a boon to her; and her credit was already staggering under a load she coukl but just carry. There was no experience any- where in the w-orld, to guide a Legishiture in such a problem as the Taulervvood Constitution imposed; the education of two ditferent and hostile races on tbe same soil and in the same system, and in Virginia, there was a total lack of experimental knowledge of kState education on the Yankee-plan. It would have been m'ost beneficial to wait a season, and thus gain the benefit of other's exj)eriments. Our conquerors, whose imiper- ious will imposed this plan on us, then had the full fever of their hatred and tpiumphs on their spirits. Every year that passed was likely to abate something of their fury, and take some of the ''wire-edge" off their despotism, so as to hold out the hope that in 187G they would 'be less exacting of their sub- jects than in 1870. At least, one would have thought, the Legis- lature, driven by their masters to so vast, expensive and un- tried a work, would proceed tentatively, during the six years of grace, and risque only small experiments, until they had felt their way. The propriety of delay is evinced by this i)lain ques- tion: Does anybody dream, that in 1870, after the Funding Bill, after all the experiences, the disappointed hopes, the decline in real estate, the ebbing of resources of those six disastrous years, any Legislature could have been mad enough to commit the State to the cumbrous and costly incubus fixed on us by the ac- tion of 1870? Nobody. The blunder would have become im- possible by 187G. Well, all that we might have gained by the experience of those six years, with five millions of dollars (spent (ui these sham-schoolsj, wliicli might either have paid off one- sixth of our whole debt, saving the State's credit; or, if left in the people's hands, might have fecundated private enterprise all over the State; all this our Legislature threw away in 1870. by its precipitate, superserviceable zeal in carrying out the or- ders of our conquerors. Why did they thus run six years ahead of their maister's own orders, in the face of all these obvious considerations for delay? To buy votes for themselves in coun- ty elections; to disarm the objections of radical demagogues, who were hounding on the negro voters after the spoils of the promised school-system; to ingratiate themselves with the non- tax-paying voters, by giving them speedily this pretext for
268 FEEE SCHOOLS.
thrusting their liunds iuto their neighbor's pockets. Thus the system was begun, not in wisdom or patriotism, but in self seek- ing. Is it asserted that it was necessary to thraw this "tub to the whale'' at once in order to appease radicalism and save the State government from its clutches? I reply by the question: IVas radicalism appeased? Did it not wield the whole negro vote substantially, notwithstanding the '^tub?" The State was saved from its foul clutch, not by any aippeasing or dividing of its greed, but in spite of that greed. Had the ruler of the State and the leaders of the Conservative party then assumed a quiet, honest position they would have met the clamor for precipitating the school-system thus: "When the stipulated time comes, we shall duly perform the covenant, which a hard necessity has forced us to agree to. The poverty of the State and the true in- terests of both races forbid our anticipating the task. No obli- gation exist to do so, consequently no charge of bad faith can lie f3r our not doing so." This honest attitude would have been so impregnable that ir would have put the Conservative party in a far better iposition before its enemy than it ever gained from its cowardly haste and rashness.
But I have still more practical objections to make against our present school-laws and their administration. I charge that, even if we granted the propriety of the Yankee theory of uni- ver.sal common-scho )1 education on State account and under State control; even if the Underwood Constitution were right in this thing — which I utterly deny — still our present system is wicked, tyrannical, wasteful and unnecessarily burdensome to an imjtoverished ])eople. and comparatively inefficient as an execution of its advocates' own false theory. If it be granted that theory is to prevail in Virginia, still the present school- laws and their administration are flagrantly vicious, and call for tl)e ref(n'm of the Legislature. This I shall prove in a prac- rical way, by comparing it with actual results in the present and the past. My argument will proceed on the maxim, that what has been done by others in the same circumstances, can be done by Virginia.
First. I bring our boasters to the test of a comparison with the existing system in the State of G.eorgia, the "Empire State of the South." Georgia, like us, has been forced by her con- querors to embark in the Yankee theory of universal primary
FREE SCHOOLS. 260
education on State account and und(M- State control. The vital article of their present Constitution compelling- this is as fol- lows :*
''There shall be a thorough system of common sclijols for the education of children in the elementary branches of our English education only, as nearly uniform as practicable, the expenses of which shall be provided for by taxation or other- wise. The schools shall be free to all children of the State, but separate schools sha-ll be provided for the white and colored races."
The revenues provided by the ConstitutiDu and laws, to support all the schools, ** are the poll tax, the interest on the existing school fund, a special tax on shows, a tax on the sale of liquors, a dog tax, and half the net earnings of the ''State railroad."
No property tax is laid, either on State or local account, on any real or personal property of individuals, to smpport com- mon schools. Thus the grand iniquity of our agrarian system is avoided. Even the Legislature is sternly inhibited from au- thorizing any local taxations, by any local authority whatso- ever, for school purposes, until the tax has been expressly ap- proved by two-thirds of the voters of the locality (city, or coun- ty, or town). Even this guarded power the Legislature has hitherto wisely refused to grant; and so far no property tax is wrested from any one citizen to help to educate another man h family.
Now let us contrast our "bill of abominations." The Legis- lature,* in addition to the income of the ''literary fund" and cer- tain escheats and fines, levies on all property, for a general or State school fund, a direct tax of ten cents per .flOO annually. But this outrage is only the small beginning. The county school board may also tax all property in the county to the same rate; and the "district school board," the littlest and last gradation of petty tyranny, the three trustees of a township, may exercise this highest attribute of sovereignty, and tax their (fellow-oiti- zens, I was about to write, erroneously) subjects, to the rate of. ten cents on the flOO of all property! Thu.s, besides the other
~- *Const. or Ga.. Art viii. § 1. m * *Const. Art. viii . S S: Pub. Sch Liiw.s of Ga. ;: •■31: Const Art viii.. § 4. Sch. Report of G:i . 1887. p. 1::.
* -School Law of Vu. codiffed." pp. 19. 2-3: Actof As.serQbl.v Jau 11. 1WT7. -School Laws codilied. " p. -l'.
2T0 fREll SCHOOLS.
very considerable exactions which come ultimately from the people, we have property taxed 30 cents on every |100. to edu- cate the children of those who pay no tax, or nearly naue. This is three-fourths of all the property tax the State of Virginia used to require for all the ends of government, in the days of her glory and greatness; and three-fifths of all that she now ex- acts for all her other purposes, in these days of enormous and reckless taxation and expenditure! But who are the "county board" and the "district board?" The "district board" is one of three "trustees" for the townships, appointed by the county superintendent, county court {judge), and commonwealth'' s at- torney! And who appoints the "county superintendent?" The State school board nominally — Dr. Ruffner actually, according to his own admission.** And the county judge? He is elected for a term of years by the Legislature. And the common- wealth's attorney? He is elected by the non-tax-paying voters of his county; in my county, elected by pauper negroes. And who is the "county school board?" These little office-holders, thus appointed of the several townships, with the county super- intendent again, constitute the "county school board." Thus the power of taxing the people, the most important function of soTereignty, is entrusted to persons with whose appoint- ment the people can have nothing direct to do. This Is an out- rage against the first principle of free government: that repre- sentation must accompany taxation. True, this county board is directed by law to report their proposed levies to the county "board of supervisors." who are elected by the people, i. e., by theuou-tax-payingvoters; in our couniy, b}' the pauper negroes. But in this matter of the school levies, this board of supervi- sors is. to the school board, only what a "/// de justice''' was to Louis XIV. of France. It can hear, register and enforce their majesties' edicts, and hound on the constable who sells the last <:ow of the white widow of a Confederate soldier to play at schooling the brats of negroes who are stealing out of the field the poor little crop of corn she has tilled with the hands of her fatherless boys. The law itself is so worded as constructively to enjoin the supervisors to ordain whatever levies the school board demands, provided it does not pass the maximum limit.*
* *Va. School Rep.. 1877. p 15. 'The work and responsibUity are thrown on him by the other members of the Board
*See School Laws codified. §64. 4: 'It sftaZi ho thedtityoi said Board to levy,"
etc.
FRET? SCHOOLS. 271
Why this outrage on the principles of fi'ee government? The nature of the UnderwDod Constitution is to make each township a corporation for township purposes. PV/iy did not the law allow the to7vnship corporation, like all other corpora- tions in the land, to elect its own officers? \\\, the concocters of the tyranny did not mean to alh)w tlie sacred principle, for wliicli our fathers fought, to hold hore, for fear the citizens in the townships should use their right of election to protect their property frjm plnnder nnder the name of school tax! One might have thought that they had sufficient guarantee of lav- ish taxation, in the universal and the negro sutt'rage prevailing in the townships, where the voters who pay no property tax have the power of a majority, to vote away the property of the minority who do pay. But this sweeping and ruthless power, wicked as it is, was not enongh for the artificers of our system; so, to make sure that property shall be absolntely helpless, un- der the robbery designed, they also sundered representation from taxation, and gave the taxing ])ower, in township and county, to persons not elected by the tax payers. Our system is worse than those of the Yankees, from whom our school men seem so gi'eedy to borrow; for, while the major part of the school money in the Yankee States usually comes from the lo- cal taxes, the rights of townships and their citizens in assent- ing to those taxes are more respected. The township there is a little republic, and exercises the rights of one; onrs are in names, corporations, but heljiless corpses in fact, under the exactions of these officials with their foreign api)Dintments.
Once more; bad as the laws are, I have the personal evi- dence, that these irresponsible exactors are capable of trans- cending those laws. Tliey actually made me pay in Prince Ed- ward county, for 1877, to the State ten cents on every $100 for school purposes. To the connty and district jointly twenty cents on every |100 of my real estate in Prince Edward, and 20 9-10 on every flOO of my personal property. I have the , county treasurer's receipt for this lawless plunder (0 0-10 cents per |100 more than the maximnm allowed by tlieir own tyran- nical laws) in my desk. It may be satisfying to the curious to know Inw mnch tax a conntryman i)ays who has no municipal taxes and no muuici])al privileges. On my little mite of real estate: To the State, countv and schools. 105 cents on every
2t2 ^tt.^^ sctiooJ.s.
$100 of value. On my personal projxM'ty to the i^tatc, coniiry and school, 127 G-10 cents on every |100 of value, besides my separate income tax. This is quite near enoiugh to confiscation, esipecially on real estate which yields the owner just 0 />er cent. annually. Of course there is no redress. Every well informed person knows that this is just the kind of oppression which John Hampton resisted in the famous case of the ship-money, and which ultimately cost Charles I. his head. l>ut the despo- tism in Virginia is S3 much more crushing than tliat of the absolutist king, that any man who made a stand for his rights here would be simply laughed at.
Xow, the point of my coimparison is, that Georgia is as distinetlj' committed to the wrong system of universal State- schools as Virginia is. Yet Georgia can set up that system without trampling, in this way, on the rights of the people. The Legislature of Georgia could at least avoid that self-evident enormity, of enabling the non-tax-paying majority to vote away the money of the paying minority withomt redress to the latter. She did at least avoid the wickedness of so legislating, as that the power of levying and disbursing property-taxes should be placed in the hands of one class of the people who do not pay; while the necessity of paying taxes is imposed on a distinct class — those who own property. If this is not "class-legisla- tion"— the essence of oligarch}- — I know not what is. Geor- gia, knowing that, with universal white and negro suffrage, the class who pay no property tax must always be in the ma- jority, wisely refuses to levy any property tax for schools. The only general tax she allows to be levied on her people for this eommunistic purpose is a poll-tax, in which rich and poor pay alike.
Now, if we must have the Yankee system, why cannot our Legislature imitate the wisdom and moderation of Georgia? Let all property-taxes. State and local, for school pui'poses, be abolished. Let the poll-tax be dedicated to that use, with the proviso, that the parent must at least pay the poll-tax, in or- der to enter his children. And, if this would not make a sum sufficiently splendid for our enthusiasts, let us imitate Georgia again, and devote the liquor-tax to the schools. The Auditor estimated that the Moffett law, properly applied, would yield |G00,000. Is not that, added to the poll-tax and the income of
FliEE SCHOOLS. '>7'A
the literary fund, enough to glut the rapacious maw of the Schaol Board? Give them this; and we shall at least iiave the consoiation of knowing, that we are not plundered to sup- port a mischievous system, unless we choose to commit the folly of tippling.
The powers given these petty oflicials by our laws are also tyrannical in the matter of school buildings and fixtures.* These officers, practically irresponsible to the people, decide that any building they please are needed, and the people are taxed, "will they, nill they" to build them.* The county Superintendent is armed with the power of condemning a building, already paid for by the people's money, and disposing of it. He who does not see here openings for corrupt robbery must be blind in- deed, I know that officials may be found, who do not build or alienate school-houses for jobbery, and who endeavor to con- sult the poverty of their people. But the system is evil, in that it gives the power to unscrupulous men; in that it applies the temptation to human nature. And I know that abuses do exist, showing cruel oppression of our burdened tax-payers. I know of a school-house, needlessly built, against the advice and protest of discreet tax-payers, in a township of honest country people almost bankrupted already by taxes, occupied by a pretended scliool one or two seasons, and since standing empty, except as used, without authority, for a tobacco barn! How immy hundreds of such cases exist? The people are so tired out and crushed with oppressions, that they are too lan- guid to protest; and such doings pass si/3 si/en/io.
But now. let us compare the cost of our schools, and those of Georgia; a vital point when our State is hovt-ring over in- solvency.t Georgia spends, in one year, |434,046.t Virginia spends, for one year, |l,050,:U(i: ! ! ! Georgia is the undimin- ished Emi)ire State of the South, wirh — of pop- ulation, and millions of taxable property. Vir- ginia is shorn of one-third the dimensions by dismemberment and claims only millions of taxable values.
Again, § the total expense of working the system in Geor- gia is 10,300.58. The expense of working our system is, || by
+School Laws codifled. ^ 40 44.
*School Laws codified. § 42 43.
+C4eorgia Scliool Rep. for 1H76. p. — . p. s. p. 8 afrain
i\ irginia School Rep for isr7. p. 7. pp. 5. 6.
?C4eorgi;i School Rep. for is;6. p. — , p. 8 p 8 apaiu
llVirginia School Rep. for 1877. p. 7. pp. 5. 6. •
274 FREK SCHOOLS.
the Supei-iiiteudem'.s uwu tigures, $170,887.78. This includes aothing for building school-houses; all this immense sum goes Jor salaries, fees and rents, etc. Is it an}' longer a surprise to the people of Virginia, that rliere is an indecent and viciaus re- sistance to all amendments, on the part of this well-pampered crew? The number of children in Georgia (of both colors) be- tween the ages of six and eighteen is reported^, -to be 394,0.37, the number enrolled was 170,405, and the actual average num- ber in the schools was 115,121. In Virginia (see reference abDve) the number of both colors between five and twenty-one A-ears, was said to be 482,789 (the difference of 88,752 in favor of Virginia would be more than offset by the children between tive and six. and 'between eighteen and twenty-one, not enu- merated in Georgia I, and tlu' average actually taught last year was 117,s4:5. That is to say: our Mrginia system teaches but 2.722 more children than the Georgian system, but costs our distressed State nearly twice and a half as much money. Why cannot our system be wrought as cheaply as the Georgian? Look at the enormous salary-list on our plan:* Salary for State Superintendent; salaries for his clerks; office expenses at the seat of government; salaries for a cohort of county Superin- tendents, at the tune of $300 for each of the first ten thousands of souls in liis county, and |20 f.or each subsequent thousand; so that a count}* of eighteen thousand souls pays for these few duties a salary of |4G0: salaries to clerks of county boards and district boards; salaries for Treasurers, per diems for district trustees, salaries for the enumerators 'of children; so that, for (.ypi-y ff^xix- dollars and fifty cents which reaches the teachers — rile men wlio do all the real work — one dollar of the people's nicncy is stopped on the way t) grease the palm of some blat- ani advocate of the system, Avho teaches no child at all. But, on the (leorgian plan, the county Superintendent receives no pay but a small per diem for the days actually devoted to his duties; and the county boards no pay at all, except exemption from jury and road-services. Why cannot Virginians serve the cause of education as cheaply as Georgians?
Again, the monthly cost of the Georgian child for school
^Georgia School Rep. for 1876. p— . p. 8. p 8 agrain.
*Va. School Rep. 1877, p. 7. School Laws codified. § 7:i p. 27, p. 11. Act of Assem- bly, March 29. 1S77.
PR^-R SCHOOLS. 275
iiijj; is 84 1-3 cents. The monthly cast of the Virginia chihl is |1.4(».
Or, let us take this view of the economy of our system. The average pay of primary male teachers in Virginia is |33.10 per month; of female teachers, |27.37 per month. But private parti(\s have no difticulty in employing young- ladies, of liberal culture, who actually teach the higher English branches, Latin, French and music at prices ranging from |12 to $15 per month with board. p]very country housekeeper knows that the board of a young lady in his family does not add |10 per month to his actual expenses. So that iprivate parties can get ccmipetent jjersons tio teach the higher branches for |22, when the State gives 127.37 for teaching the plainest rudiments. Yet the boast was that the State would do the work so much inore economi- cally! There are accomplished ladits now in Virginia laboring long hours in schools unendowed by the State, at |15() per year without board. Negro fellows, on the other hand, who would think themselves well paid at |8 iper month in the held, and young negro women who would be satisfied with |5 per month in the laundry, are paid |33 and |27 per mouth, while white ladies are reduced to work for .f 12 or |15. No wonder the sys- tem is popular with negroes and olhce-holders.
One other excellent feature o-f the Georgia law is secured by the very Constitution of the State — Art. \iii. Sec. 5. "Noth- ing contained in Sec. 1 of this Art. shall be construed to de- prive schools in this State, not common schools, fpom participa- tion in the educational funds of the State, as to all pupils there- in, taught in the elementar}^ branches of an Engiisli educa- tion."
The meaning of this provision is, that all schools created and regulated by parents themselves, shall have the same title to a share in the school fund to pay for instruction in the Eng- lish rudiuu'uts with those created by the State, provided the teachers of the former come under a few simple regulations en- suring the useful performance of their duties. The vital ad- vantage of this is, that the State of Georgia restricts and limits that iuti-iision into and usurpation of parental rights and re- sponsibilities within the narrowest limits permitted by her conquerors, which our system studies to push to the most sweep- ing and enormous extent. The State of Georgia recognizes the right of parents to say where a school is needed, how it shall
276
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be regulated. wId shall be its readier, what shall be its text- books, what its moral or religious regimen. The State of Vir- ginia does all that can be done to wrest these inalienable rights and duties from rlie parents to whom God and nature have given them, and vest them in three "school trustees." The State of Georgia say.s tj parents: "Exercise your rights of choice, and the Commonwealth will acquiesce and pay the portion of the fund equitably due your families, to the teacher of your choice." Tlie State of Mrginia virtually says: "I claim, like pagan Sparta, to be parent of all children, and to usurij the rights of natural parents in dictating by my iftlcials. where, how, and by whom your children shall be educated; and if any parent insist on his rights of doing his own natural duties to his own ottspring, he shall be punished therefor, by having his property taken from him to educate other people's children in ways he did njt elect." There is the difference.
The experience of every practical man will teach him now conducive this feature of the Georgia law is to flexibility, con- venience and economy. The parents of a neighborhood create a school; they are the best judges where it should be situated, and who had best teach it; far they are actuated by disinterest- ed love for the children, and sound common sense. They fur- nish the house and the appliances. Hence, every dollar the State contributes is apj^lied to the cost of actual instruction. The plan has the tlexibility needed for a sparse population; the wishes of parents, desiring higher tuitian for their chil- dren, co-operate with the wishes of the State desiring primary tuition for all; and public and private interests work together for the mutual benefit of the property-class and the poor.
It may be claimed, that a similar thing is sometimes done in Virginia. If it is, it is done informally, and outside the pro- visions of our iron system. The instances speak well, not for the system, but for the good sense and right feeling of some of the officials.
Let us now proceed to compare our system with the for- mer system bequeathed by our wise fathers. Before the war, it was Tiiuch the fashion with the Utopians to bela'bor that .'sys- tem with abuse, as inefficient and partial. But experience now proves that the I'esults were every whit as complete and use- ful as the I'esults of our present oppressive plan, while the old
FREE SCHOOLS. S77
one has the imsfijeakable advantages of economy and founda- tion in right principles.
According to the report of William A. Moncure. Second Auditor, the literary fund of Virginia accomplished in 1858 the following results: The number of schools assisted in Vir- ginia was 3.84:7. The number of poor children sent to school was 54,232. The average attendance of these children was not quite twelve weeks, or three months of school time. The aver- age annual cost of the tuition and ibooks of each child was $2.96, or about $1 per month for the time actually spent in study. And the total cost of the system to the State was only f 160,530. The addition made for the expenses of administra- tion seems to have been, in all, .f 18,04:7, if we rightly infer from the Second Auditor's* figures. The whole expenses of the cen- tral administration were but |2.750 (as against |5,810 in 1877), and the only other salaried agent.s were the county superintend- ents, who received, what one of them calls in his report, a "lit- tle pittance." "School commissioners." in all the counties, per- formed their duties gratuitously, and were prompt and proud to do so from philanthropy and patriotism. IV/iy cannot this be done now? The Reports from all the counties, while recog- nizing defects, and admitting that the results were incomplete, jet infonn the government of the general popularity and pro- gressive utility of the system. But now, the general verdict which comes up from disinterested and intelligent men in all quarters is, that our present system is an expensive, mischiev- ous and cruel sham.
Per contra, it claims, in the School Keport of 1877. to have given, on an average, four and a half months' tuiti(m to 117.84:5 children, at an average monthly cost of |1.43 per month, and at a total cost to the State of $1.050.:U<). While the cost of ad- ministration of the old system was but |18,000, the expense of working the new has been |170,8001 If we regarded the num- ber of pupils alone, the old system did nearly hilf the tvork (54.2.32 children then, 117,843 n vw) for less than one-fifth of the rnoneyl Look at that! |178,577 then, against |1. 050,346 now. Then Virginia was rich; now she is poor. The cost of adminis- tration was then, absolutely, a little over one-tenth of what it is no«-; and relatively to the numbers taught, about one-fourth of the present.
278 FREE SCHOOLS.
An attempt will be made to break the terrible force of this comparison of facts by reviyino; the complaints which our Uto- pians used to utter against the incompleteness of our aid sys- tem. The plea will be that, if the system was cheap, its fruits were yery poor. We shall again hear the old complaints as to the great irregularity in attendance, the listlessness of par- ents and pupils, the scantiness of the letters actually gained, etc., etc., etc. But the answer is: First, that this imperfection of results, which was true of the old system, if it arg-ues any- thing-, argues the folly of the States attempting t3 cure in the popula- masses the disease of ignorance, indolence and apathy, by ant such quantum of the arts of letters as the State can give on any system. If the former results argue anything, they ar- gue the just application to the whole subject of the maxim, "One mar can take a horse to water, but a hundred cannot make him drink"; they only show what we haye all along urged — that to inspire aspiration, punctuality, industry, a con- scientious use of ipriyileges and ac(]uirements, is what the State has no means of doing, and without tliese, any appliances, or any plan, are wasted.
, But second, the answer is. that >ur new system, with all its tyranny and crushing expense, yields fruits just as imper- fect. Were the children of the indigent then listless and irregu- lar in attendance? They are so still? Was the tincture of let- ters then giyen A'ery small? // is smalhr now. The old system did not profess to deal with any but indigent white children. Of these, the Commonwealth then contained about 97,000; and of these, 54,232 were not only enrolled, but actually sent to school. Our present system undertakes t(» provide for 482,789 ehildren and youths. Of these, it has not enrolled even more than 205,000, and it only pretends to have taught, at all, 117,- 843. Talk of imperfect results! The old system was energy and perfection compared with this! The old system had so far overtaken its destined work as to give nearly three months' schooling to more than half the whole mass of A'outh for which it was designed; while the new system has not enrolled nearly half of its appointed mass, and has not given any instruction to three-fourths of its ai)pointed charge. Even as to the enrolled youth, we have a betrayal of its inefficiency, and of the abound- ing listlessness and irregularity of its beueticiaries. The pres-
FEEE SCHOOLS. 279
ent law makes the compeusation of the teachers depend on the actual attendance, rather than the nu'mibers claimed on the school-rolls. The law says that a teacher shall not be maintain- ed, unless an actual average of sixteen daily is in attendance. Now, it is ver}' well known among the teachers, that, unless tliej^ have a roll of not less than thirty pupils, it is usually vain to hope for an actual av(M-age attendance of sixteen. Wliat does this mean? That on any average day, when sixteen are in iplace long enough to be counted, fourteen are truant. That tells the whole tale as to the wretched results of our present organization. Dr. Ruffner's figures tell the same miserable stor3\ Of all the youth of school age, only 24.4 per cent, attend school on an average; and. of those enrolled, only 57 1-2 per cent, attend. (In round numbers, 205,0(10 are enrolled; 11S,000 have attended. Now as 118,000 : 205,000 :: 57 1-2 : 100.)
Here, again, are the stubborn facts, showing that the old Virginian system was as much more efficient as it was cheaper. But we shall see our Utopians, with their usual candor, persist- entlj' averting their eyes from the facts while they go on with their baseless boasting. Why will our authorities, with this clear light of experience before them, still prefer the bad sys- tem to the good? If they do, the peo})le will understand why: Because the system is worked for the advantage of the office holder, and not of the State. That will be clear to the people's common sense.
I have now shown our legislators two plans — the (ifeorgiau, and the old plan of Virginia — both of which have been tried, and either of which is immeasurably better than the one that curses us. This system of our fathers had superiority in its principles, as great as in its i)ractical \\'orkiugs. Of these, I will, in concluding, present two. One was, that the State gov- ernment left to ])areuts those powers and rights which are theirs by tlu* laws of Ood and nature, and which cannot be usurped by a. just, free government: those of directing the rearing of tli.eir own children, and choosing its agents and methods. Clus' ters of parents were left to create schools, to elect teachers, to ordain the instruction and discipline. When tlie jiarents had used their prerogatives, then the State came in as a modest ally and assistant, and by providing for the teaching in those schools of such children as their helpless fjoverty made proper wards
280 FEEE SCHOOLS.
of the State's charity, helped on the work of education, and sup- plied that destitution which private charity did not reach. There was a system conformed to the good old doctrine af our fath- ers, that "governments are the servants of the people." But the present plan proceeds on the doctrine of despots, that the people are the servants of the government. Parents are bidden to stand aside, and betray their rights and duties, while little State officials usurp their powers of creating schools, electing teachers, and ordaining methods.
The other was, that our wise fathers, by this simple plan, resolved the otherwise insoluble difficulty about the religion of the schools, which is now involving the friends of State educa- tion in the North and in Europe, in inexplicable entanglements. On the one hand, if the State is to act fairly and honestly up to her pledge to sever herself from the Church, she cannot incul- cate one religion to the exclusion of the others. On the other hand, it is an Atheistic outrage on the Christians, who compose the larger part of the citizens, to intrude between them and their children, and then give them a godless, which, as we have shown, must be an ungodly education. We have again and again warned the advocates of the Yankee State theory, that the entanglement was insoluble, and that the practical result will surely be, that the attitude of our constitutions will en- able the infidel party to triumph everywhere, to expel the Bi- ble and Christianity from all the schools, and to rear us (so far as State schools go) a generation of Atheists. This is to be the practical issue of their misguided zeal — the issue \\hicli is, in fact, ra'pidlv establishing itself in the Northwest to-day. Now, all this difficulty was avoided by our fathers' plan. The State, which knows no church in preference to another, did not create schools; did not usurp that parental function; did not elect the teachers; did not ordain their discipline or religious character. Parents have the right to do all these things in the lights of their own consciences and spiritual liberty, and the parents made the schools. No other solution wall ever be found that is as good. R. L. DABNEY.
LECTURE'
COMMENDATION OF THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY
It is now fashionable with many advocates of physical science, to denounce this study as useless. The subject to-night will be the inquiry, Is this so? Or is it still true, that "the proper study of mankind is man?" Bur we must define what we discuss. There is a tradition that the old Greek philosopher. Pythagoras, when asked, -ooian/r h: replied ••'• ,'"''•, '^"oiar Ae oi/JK. "Wisdom'' here meant, knowledge of the mental
principles which regulate all other knowledge. It was, I be- lieve, H. Crabb. Robinson, who asked Goethe if he was read- ing any philosophy; when he said: "No; I do not proipose at this time, to do any thinking about thinking." This is a very good definition of philosophic thought. Thinking how the mind rightly thinks. It is usually regarded as including, 1. Psychology, or the "natural history" of the human mind. 2. Logic. 3. Ethics, or the principles of dusy 4. Ontology, or the science of real existences. 5. Nat. Theology: The inquiry after the P^rst Causes.
The grounds on which philosophy is usually disparaged are these: First. That there can be no true science, except it be founded throughout on a basis of facts. How do we ascertain facts? Yiy actual observation. The instruments of observa- tion are our senses. But mind and its processes are not obsei- vable by our senses. Hence, second. There can be no true sci ence, save of phenomena (changes in objects cognizable by our senses) and their laivs. Third. The history of philosophy con- firms this: they say. ii has never had any certainty. It settles nothing, but keeps its doctrines in endless debate. Every new age presents a new philosophy, which is built up only to be de- molished by the next age; whereas physical science is settled; it is "positive," it establishes its permanent laws, which thence-
1. Public Lecture. University of Texas. Dec. 1885. 281
282 LECTUEE.
forward abide to bless and help mankind with their applicn- tians. A striking- instance of this charge is presented by Mr. O. II. Lewes, who writes a ''History of Philosophy'' with the purpose, as he says, of proving that there is no philosophy. This strikes me very much as though a man should trouble himself to write a biography of Wm. Tell, far the purpose of proving there had never been any Tell! Mr. Lewes thinks philosophy a Ininibug. Tile man wliu writes a whole history of a huml)ug is in great danger of making his book a humbug 1
Men are arguing here, under this illusion, that it is tlie bodily senses alone which give palpable, solid facts; beguiled by that feature of jbtrusiveness and familiarity, which marks our bodily sensations. Hence their baseless notion, that ail doctrines about Mind, that intangible and invisible thing, are but vague speculations af which there is no stable way to con- vince othei men. But the science of mind is a science of ob- servatian. and is based on facts, the most solid kind of bottom- facts: The facts of consciousness. ''Ah," they reph'; ''of con- sciousness! Another shadowy, abstraction among faculties! Give us facts of eyesight!"' Ver\'well. Let us take the most familiar and homely case. Your eyes, nose and palate, you think authorize you solidly to say: "I see my breakfast." " But in saying that, you have said, I, Ego, Self! And the ego. the self, has been the subject of your proposition, the nomi- tive to your verb ''see.'' So that to know your breakfast, you must tirst have known yourself, as a Mind capable of consciousness and thought, believing in its own existence and identity, and furnishing from its own inner powers the CDUception of space, position, and the ather relations in which the breakfast is seen to exist. You must have a knowledge of this Self in order to have a knowl- edge of your breakfast. You can only believe in your break- fast by means of believing in this self, this mind, and its laws, which shows you the outer object. If your belief in your mind is n3t solid, still les.s can the belief in your breakfast be. this hangs on that. What a delusion then, to say that your break- fast is a fact of observation, and yet. 1 its laws and jiowers. - your 3 mind, are not! While shut up in this room, you could fast is a fact of observation, and yet. (1) its laws and powers. (2) your, (3) mind, are not! While shut up in this room, you
LECTURE. 283
could only see one of those trees, by looking through a window. And the window is nearer to yoii than the tree. So that you cannot know the tree as a fact of observation, ivithout having first knomn the window as a fact of abservation. So, yon can never reason, wirliout liavin;i\ beforehand, and in order ti> your rea- soning, s:)me principle or axiom, 7vhich you reason by. Try it. You reason, f;)r instance: "Men must t)e real free agents, be- cause a just (jod liolds tlieni responsible." Kiglit. But your mind saw this inference to be right, only because you were guided by tliis prior, self-evident princi'ple that free agency is necessary to my just responsibility. If your inference is solid, the principle it hangs on must be more solid. But that is an abstract principle in philosophy! And when you argue with your fellow man, you know that y :>u can only convince him of your inference, by means of that same first principle regulat- ing his mind and thought, just as it does yours. If you did nor think so, you would deem it just as seusible to argue Avith your liDrse, as your neighbor. And so, all around, we find that our ''facts" of sensation are only certain to our knowledge on condition we believe in these inner ''facts"' of mind, the gen- eral and, if you will, abstract principles of thought, which regulate the action of all faculties, fvnn the olfactory, up to conscience. You have had to philosophize, in spite of yourself, in order to use your nose, your fingers, and your eyes and ears. You may be in the condition of astonishment of Moliere's gen- tilhoome bourgeois, 31. Jourdain, who, when his literary teach- er showed him the distinction of i)rose and verse, was very much surprised to find that he had been speaking prose all his life! You have been obliged to proceed, in all your knowledge, on this much abused philosophy, all along!
It may be well just here to illustrate farther the fact that every man philosophizes, "will he, nill he," if he thinks. Here is a plain carpenter, who on ^londay takes up the Initchet he had sharpened and used Saturday. It proved itself of good steel, temper and edge, then. Will it cut well this m )rning? Assuredly it will, says the honest man. Bnt may it not \\\\\v changed its nature since Saturday, althongh not meddled with in any way? Is it obliged to be steel now, because it was steel then; may it not now be of soft iron? or lead? "No!" he ex- claims. "That's absurd!'' But why absurd, Mr. Carpenter?
284 LECTUEE.
Perhaps lie had not thought it out in full form; but now that you press him to do so, he tells you: no change could have been made in the metal without some cause; and that "he knows by looking at it," i. e., by its sensible properties, that ir is still steel. That is all very plain and simple; but this car- penter has now pDsited three of the most profound general truths of abstract philosophy: The necessary law of causa- tion; the continuity and permanency of substantive being; and the inseparable union of attributes to their substance. He has been dealing in the depths of ontology I He has even de- cided the philosophic axiom ou which the theological argu- ment for and against the sacrament of the mass turns! Quite a philosopher he!
A pump-maker brings you a new pump. He knows that the piston, valves and air-tight joints are precisely like those of other pumps in actual use. You ask, "Has this pump ever been tried?" "No, sir."" "Then how do jdu know it will draw any water?" "Oh, sir, it will be sure to draw. My other pumps made like it, do." Here he posits another prime maxim of philosophy: "Like causes are sure to produce like effects."
Messrs. Huxley, Comte, Tindal »& Co. abuse philosophy, r.nd applaud science. I ask them, can a scienee be built up by hypotheses alone? Oh, no! But why not? Why is inductive demonstration necessary? The answer is iphilosophy: logic. Does the frequent observation of a '-post hoc'' prove a 'prop, ter hocf' Oh, no: that is not valid induction. Why not? The answer, again, is philosophy: logic.
Xow, one may exclaim in surprise: How is it that we have all been philoso'phers unconsciously^ and have spoken ill of the philosoiphy we all nevertheless employ? The answer is, that the fundamental laws of thought are self- executive. The kind Creator has, fortunately for us, ordained them so that they usually put themselves in operation and work aright, without our adverting to them, or choosing how they are to work. Then, you may ask: Is not the study of them as unnecessary as theii- action is unavoidable? I reply: the case is much like that of the muscles and tendons in a healthy boy's limbs. He does not know their names, number, or position; but none the less kind nature makes them obey liis will; and he makes as good a run at football, as the best anatomist. The studv of :iu:itomv is
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then uselosis? No: suppose the time coiik's wlieii that boy has to amputate your limb! Anatomy will be very desirable f^r him then. And it will be a very g-ood thing for him now; to teach him prudence in using that neat pair of legs of his, that he may not strain them the wrong way — ^or put a force on them they were not made for.
To the objection that pliilosophy is ever changing and un- settled, and has established no fixed principles of science, I re- ply by a denial. Philosophy has established a good many prin- ciples,— such as those named above. The most discordant schools teach them: the only difference between them has been as to the methods of establishing them. There have been many differing schools, rational, empeirical, ideal, pantheistic, spir- itualistic, materialistic: from the Academy of Plato down to the "Concord school'': from Pythagoras to Hegel. But there have always been parts of })hilosoiphy, which have remained fixed. Since Aristotle wrate his Analytics, no philosopher has successfully disputed the main doctrine of the syllogism. With the great mass of philosophers the natural theology of Zeno- phon's Mem. has continued to this day, the true, natural the- ology. Even in the most litigated branch of philosophic psych- ology, the orthodox school have always taught a doctrine sub- stantially orthodox, and the same doctrine: Augustine, Aquin- as, Anselm in the middle ages. If Locke, after Hobbes, taught a scheme conceding too much to sensation, Shaftesbury aud Stillingheet in England, and Leibnitz in (xermany, refuted him, and taught the correct scheme. ()\('r against Cordillac, the sensationalist, stood Roger Collard. Against Hume stood Dr. Thomas Keid: against the Mills, .James and J. S. stood Ham- ilton.
Were w^e inclined to retort, we might ask, whether all the parts of professed (physical science are stable and undisputed? Are there no mutations and debates there? PJlven the science of optics, newly created by Newton almost two centuries ago, is still uncertain whether her undulatory theory is true or not. Geology, though a science of the rocks, still Huctuates in many places like an unsteady sea. Its British Corypheus, Sir Charles Lyell, is said to have edited eleven editions of liis own master- piece, his "Principles of Geology"; and in every edition to have amended and contradicted something in the previous one. Men
^Se LECTURE.
diliei- by hundreds of thousands of yeni's about tlicii- ^hicuii age. Its stratigraphy is in some parts conjectural. The sci- ence of medicine, in many of its parts, is so uncertain and var- iable, as to provoke tlie gibe, that the doctors change as much in their fashions as the ladies do about their bonnets. In phil- ology, two theories of the origin of language still contend for the mastery. Astronomers are not yet certain whether the nebular hypothesis is the true account of the origin of worlds, or whether the new star in Andromeda has not exploded it into a fiction even thinner than nebular ''star-dust." Chemistry still has its doubts and its revolutions. Has it found out all the simple substances? Or has it counted too many of them? Has Ktpule convinced all the chemistsyetof his theory of insomor- pliic compounds? These questions remind us, that uncertainty and change are the traits of other sciences besides the phil- osophic.
It is often asked, tauntingly, what practical results has philosophy yielded for man? Look what physical science has done to ameliorate man's existence, to improve his means of subsistence, to palliate his diseases! It has taught mankind to subjugate nature, to utilize the lightning, to bridge mighty floods, to navigate the trackless oceans. Since the days of Lord Bacon, and under his guidance, phj'sical science has al- most made mankind a new race, in a new and better world. But what practical results does philosophy show? We will tell you anon, how she rendered an essential aid in all these material exploits. But we wish, as we pass along, to expose another large hallucination just here. First, education has two results: one, the communication of knowledge of facts; the oth- er, the cultivation of the faculties and moral character. Of these, the latter is far the more valuable. Even on the lowest utilitarian view, it is better to have that culture, which enables the mind rapidly to gather the facts it may find useful, than to have, toy borrowing, a set of facts without the ability to get more. It is better to have a well built mill, which can grind endless quantities of flour as needed, than to have numerous barrels of flour, with no machinery to grind more wlien need- ed. But farther: knowledge is valuable as a means: the man himself is the end. Hence, the culture which ennobles and makes the student more a man, bears most directly on the true
LECTURE. Oc^7
end. Uiu the stuily of pliilosoipliy, even if it left no kno\vle(l}:;(' of useful facts, would still be the most valuable; because it conduces so ipowerfully to cultivate the soul, to sharpen the discrimination, and train the reason.
The Germans very happily call the "practical" lu-anches, "the bread and butter sciences." They win the material means of living and luxury. This commercial age exalts them for that reason; but under an illusion. No one will dispute this truth, that these material luxuries are means, not ends. They are not valued in themselves, as we value the friend we love, but 'because their consumption ministers to us some pleasure. The epicure values his luxurious dish of fresh oysters, not as oyst- ers^ — -as such they ferment and decay — ^but as representing so many pulses of pleasure in his own consciousness, to be de- rived from their consumption. All these things are only means of happiness. Where is happiness: in the oysters, or in the soul? And what is happiness? The beast would have a sim- ple answer: In eating and lying down to chew the cud. But he who would not degrade himself to a brute-level, must give the higher answer of philosophj-: "Hapi)iness is virtuous en- ergy-." Happiness is the right, harmonious and successful ex- ercise of man's powers. And the higher the powers exercised, the higher the happiness. The noibler mental activities, tlien, are as much more valuable tlian material good, as the end is more valuable than the means. Those activities, those studies are happiness: the material goods are but means to happiness, uncertain, partial means; and the sciences called practical, if valued only for their ''bread and butter" results, only means to those means.
As was mentioned, those wlio laud the plnsical sciences as the onl}' studies worthy of pursuit, date their splendid career from Bacon. It began, they say, by his teaching us how to in- vestigate material nature. But I ask. was it a physical science which taught that? By no means. It was ])liilosophyI Ba- M'hich taught that? By no means. It vas philosophy. Bacon's Novum. Organum is solely and purely a discussion of a meta- physical subject: What is inductive proof? the highest and most abstruse branch of logic. There is not a physical prob- lem discussed or settled in the whole book, except one: ''Wliat is the nature of calorie?" And that is introduced solely to
2SS liECtURj!.
iilii.sri'ate the application of the metaphysical principle to phy- sical inquiiy. This, then, is an illustrious instance of the truth that, while the physical sciences are the handmaids of man's material welfare, they have to look to philosophy to show them how to /proceed for this end. Take this parable. Let us sup- pose that building houses was truly "the chief end of man," in- stead of a mere means for his comfort. Then the carpenter would ibe the true hero. And his tools would be Ms noble weapons. But without the ^«// whetstont: these tools would cease to cut and shape the lumber! It is then as essential as any tool. Thus, philosophy may at least say, in the words of Horace: Ergo fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quae femme valei exsors ipsa secandi.
Nothing can more strongly illustrate the dependence of all other spheres of thought on -philosophy for guidance than this question touching the conditions of scientific belief. Will you believe what you cannot understand? Should any amount of evidence make a'ou do so? Sound physical science, like sound philosophy, answers: Yes. Mystery, even when incom- prehensible, is no sufficient evidence a statement may not be true. There is no department of truths, not even the most fa- miliar, that does not Include, or at least imply, incomprehensi- ble propositions. Will 3-0U believe what contradicts a necessary judgment of the mind, and fundamental law of thought? No. There is no amount of evidence sufficient to make you do that. For, 3^ou would argue, in doing that, you would so infringe the very conditions of rational belief as to leave the mind incom- petent for any act of judgment. I cannot surrender these neces- sary laws of thought, in order to believe the statement which contradicts them, for if I did I should thereby become incapa- ble of valid thought, and so, of rational belief. My assent to truth would be as valueless as that of the pig grunting his as- sent to a mathematical theorem. The derationalized being can- not believe.
But now, your assent to these tw^o questions has made It most imperative for you to be prepared with an answer to an- other question: Which are the fundamental laws of thought? If the very condition of credibility of the statements offered you, the very possibility of believing them, is conditioned on their not contradicting those vital rules, you must be able to
Sdy li'/iu/i ihu^e tuies ate. But tliis question lakes yju iuiu ihe very lieart of philosophy. To settle wliat are the truly funda- mental and necessary laws of thought. To distinguish them by sure traits from other judgments, which habit, imitation or prejudice may have made us regard, though unwarrantably, as very essential truths; this requires the most thorough explora- tion of consciousness, and the most careful speculation. Is this a necessary and fundamental judgement: That the same finite thing cannot be at the same time in two places? Or this: That a material substance cannot change while all its sensible prop- erties continue the same? Or the logical laws of identity, con- tradiction and excluded middle? Or, the law of causation: that no new effect can arise without adequate cause, and that like causes must always produce like effects? If these are neces- sar}' principles of thought, you may reject any amount of pro- fessed evidence for a contrary statement, assuring yourselves that "there must be some mistake." If you confound some dic- tate of habit or prejudice with the.se, you may be fighting against the truth. And, in fact, the history of opinion is full of just such confusions. And nothing but a very deep phil- osophy can unravel them!
Once more: Sir Wm. Hamilton very justly asserts, that philosophy is necessary — at least to all who do not believe the Brble, to know whether there is a God. Certainly He is not audible, visible, or tangible; so that the question cannot be set- tled by observation with our senses. We see very clearly that most of the tilings in this world are temporal and dependent beings; as the plants, the trees, the animals, the humans. Go back in time far enough and we reach the date when they were not. We cannot think they created themselves. Is it then a necessary law of thought, that we must reason back from the dependent, to some independent I>eing; from the temporal to the eternal? And if yes: Is this etenial Being self-existent? Is he living; or as Mr. H. Spencer says: is it not a He, but an It, an eternal, blind, physical force? Is He or It intelligent? Is He a free agent? Has He a moral character, and is that char- acter bad or good? All these are questions of philosophy! But they are the most practical questions in the universe. Can there be any prayer, or not? Is there any providence? Is there any hereafter? Is my dead child annihilated? And will I be re-
290 LECTURE.
sponsible iu that hereafter for my conduct here? Can I enjo}^ any religious hope, or must I be an atheist, '"without God, and without hope in the world?"
The disparagers of philosophy are fond of saying, that the exact sciences give them solid f Doting on the earth; but phil- osophy is a changing and fickle "cloudland." Let ns accept the similitude for a moment. We are then reminded that it is from this cloud-land the most beneficent, and the most destruc- tive agencies descend, which bless or devastate the habitations of men. From those shifting clouds falls the gentle rain, which waters the earth and makes it bring forth ''bread for the eater and seed for the sower." Thence also descends the tornado, which wrecks the costliest works of man, and crushes him a mangled worm under their fragments. Thence leaps down the thunderbolt, wh'ich shivers his towers and scorches him with instant death.
Philosophy is the cloud-land? So be it. This metaphor then reminds us of the great practical truth: That it is opin- ion, which really rules the world, for weal or woe. And these governing opinions, which when popularized, become the mc:5t practical guides of action, and the most tangible and concrete blessings or cur-ses of mankind, have their source in the ab- stract regions of philosophy. The thinker finds them there, rightfully or wrongfully, and impelled by their logic becomes their apostle, and in turn impels the reasons of the multitude to deeds of heavenly beneficence or of relentless cruelty. You have all heard of the religious persecutions of the middle ages. Let me raise before you the picture of one scene, typical of a thousand others as ghastly. It is about A. D. 1210. His holi- ness, Innocent III., Pope of Rome, has proclaimed a crusade against the peaceful Albigenses in the South of France, and promised valuable ''indulgences" to all who will assist to de- stroy them. The city of Bezieses in Languedoc is crowded with these hapless people, who have at last stood at bay for their lives, with their wives and children, intermingled with a multitude of devout Roman Catholics. Seventy thousand souls throng the beleaguered town; when breaches are made and the fierce soldiery, inflamed almost to phrensy by the desperate re- sistance, are ordered to enter and put every soul to the sword. The Bishop Arnauld Amaieu, is there as representative of the
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Pope, to guide and bless their efforts in rlie name of the ''Prince cf Peace." Even the executioners asked, by what sig'u they shoukl distin^uisli heretic from (>;.)0(\ ("atholic, so as to spare the Latter. "Kill them all," cried his holiness. "The Lord will know his own!'' And all: helpless babes, pious Catholics, as well as dissenting Albigenses, perished in one remorseless slaughter.
But these butchers sup})Osed that they were only acting out their philosophy consistently. Is man responsible for his be- liefs on moral subjects, or not? This is a question of moral philosophy. If he is, then ought this wrong believer {mescreant) to be punished for his error? Why not? It is wrong. It is a responsible wrong. It is a most mischievous wrong. The here- tic may do more hurt to human welfare, especially when the eternal consequences of soul-destroying error are included, than all the horse thieves, burglars, and freebooters in the world. Why, then, should society hang the horse thieves, and allow to the heretics immunity? Is it not unequal, unfair, un- just? And since Rome teaches that her Poipes are the God- appointed depositories of doctrinal infallibilit}', and guardians of (xospel trutli, why should not the Pope direct the sword of justice? And why should we not deem the stern severity of the execution to be righteousness and not cruelty, as we do when the sheritf executes the grim sentence of the law on the felon, with almost infinite pity concealed in his heart, and yet under the impulse of an i\^vi\\\duty ^ which leaves him no option? Plant those propositions sincerely in the conviction of these persecutors' minds; and their bloody acts are the consistent re- sult. Now, we Americans are blindly and passionately attach- ed to liberty of thought and denounce the wickedness of perse- cution for opinion's sake. I propose to you to take that chain of propositions which I stated, and show the flaw in their con- nection. You find them apparently an iron chain. Where will you break it? at which link? Only philosophy can show you how to break it. If you reject her aid, you stand in an attitude more amiable, indeed, than the persecutor; but in which your amiability is a logical inconsistency.
Again: we have all heard the famous maxim: "All men are by nature equal.''' There are two species of equality. There is the equality of British freedom, whose watchword is: ''Ev-
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ery Englishman is equal before the law." It does not mean that the peasant is equal to tlie peei- in the list of his particular franchises — these are very dift'erent. But the peasant has the same right to his narrower franchises as the peer has to his wider. The same law protects both, on the same 'fundamental principles of justice. The maxim, in this sense, does not assert that nature has made men literally equal in strength, in sex, in capacity of mind, in virtue, in fortitude, in health. Hence it holds that a true and equitable equality must distribute dif- ferent grades of franchise to these different beings, according to their capacities to use them. It does not hold that the child justly wields the same set of privileges as the father. It does not believe that the woman has, for instance, the same "in- alienable" right to sing 'bass and wear a beard with her hus- band. Eut this maxim, after leaving Providence to distribute to different classes of mankind the several allotments of privi- lege they have capacity to improve aright, claims for the pro- tection of all the common sanction of justice and the golden rule.
Then, there is the equality of the Jaeobin: a very different thing, which teaches that mechanical sameness of function, franchise and privilege, in each detail, is a right; "inalienable," "natural" and "self-evident." That w'hatever particular fran- chise is enjoyed by the highest citizen, must also be attainable by the lowest; or these sacred intuitions are outraged. The question between these is a question in philosophy: not a very easy one, if we may judge 'by the frequency with which think- ing men confuse the two together. Let us see what practical fruits this confusion of two abstract theories has borne.
One crop of those fruits might have been seen in Paris a century ago. "The Reign of Terror" was established. The guillotine stood before the Thuilleries "<?« permavencey The gutters ran daily with blood. The prisons, filled 'hy vile de- lators with thousands of the noblest and best, were emptied by the "Septembrigans," through wholesale massacre. To nave belonged to a privileged class was the sufficient crime. To as- sert the privilege of any class, in church or state, was treason. This was the logical result of the philosophy.
We pass over to America in 1SG5, and we see the second harvest of death from this same philosophy. If the Jaeobin
LECTURE. 5^93
equality is that which intuition teaches to be ''inalienable," then it was inconsistent that the Africans, thoujjh paj^ans, aliens, lately savage, and utterly unfit to wield the higher fran- chise of civic life without ruining society and themselves, should be '"held to service or labor" under other citizens. It was iniquity that they should be denied any franchise attainable by any other citizen. As this was "self-evident," and the equal- ity "inalienable," no constitutions, laws, or covenants could le- gitimate the difference between African and American. But they all became null and void in attempting to do so. Yea, God himself was quite roundly notified, that he had better not le- gitimate it, or he would be repudiated also! And when some eight millions were unable to see this Jacobin logic so, a quar- ter of a million of them were killed, tlunr homes desolated, and half a continent clad in ruin I Thus practical is this science of philosophy !
Are these portentous forces of the philosophic cloud-land, then, reducible to no laws? If so. we must cower and tremble before them, as our savage forefathers, twenty centuries ago, did before the lightning and tempest. The conviction that their causes are beyond our control, or even knowledge, must com- bine with our experience of their mischiefs. Is this abject state the best that physical science can promise to society? No. As Matthew Maury reduced the laws of meteorology to a science, hitherto only a riddle and a terror to mankind, so a modest phil- osophy, pursuing the same humble, diligent method for ''the investigation of nature," teaches to discriminate, to foretell, and even to control the lightnings descending from the spiritual world.
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE Ai\D THE COMMUNE.
(Reproduced aud enlai-ged from the "Texas Review" of 1891.)
Labor Fnijns liave been very obtrnsive phenomena in these latter jeara of the nineteenth century. In profession they are voluntary societies of working men for protecting the "rights of hibor.''
Were they only associations for protecting the lawful rights of laborers, no more political objection could lie against them than against (Iranger societies, social clubs, art unions, or Christian churches themselves. But their real and main de- sign is far other. Their avowed purpose and practice are: First, to control the discipline which employers exercise over individual laborers, members of the union; and second, to co- erce the payment of higher wages by eniployers to the laborers. Their weapon of coercion for both ends is, the strike. The la- bor union has its council and executive head, elected by the la- borers from among themselves, and its union-fund raised by monthly or weekly contributions from their wages. Each mem- ber is bound by strict vow to obey this council and clii(^f im- plicitly. Here is the working of the machine. Among the la- borers of a certain mine or factory is A. B. ''A union man'' whom his employers find unpunctual. insolent, incompetent for his work, or drunken. The emjiloyers protect themselves by paying him ott" and discharging him : the only possible mode of self-protection left them under the hireling system of labor. But now the chiefs of the union interfere. They say A. B. is un- der the protection of "the union," therefore the employers shall retain him and pay him full wages, although they believe he does not suit them, does not earn half his wages and indeed is doing serious and permanent injury to the credit of the firm
■Z9i
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRILE AND THE COMMUNE. 295
by "scampiug" liis work. If the employei-s decline to submit, they are at once punished by a '^strike." Under the orders of th-e union-chiefs every labarer is to leave his employment at the concerted signal; every wheel in the factory is to be stop- ped; all production is to be arrested, and the emjtloyers whole investment reduced to a dead capital until such time as the union chiefs may see fit for ending the strike.
Meantime the laborers and their families, after eating up prior savings, draw a small pension from the "uui^n fnnd," which provides them a scanty subsistence until such time as their punishment works submission in the hearts of their em- ployers.
Or, if the issue between the union and the employers is the rate of wages, a similar strike is relied on to coerce the latter into paying such wages as the laborers think they should have. Such is the the3ry of the strike.
The moral and economic objections are patent and trite. The period of total idleness is often ruinous to the habits of the men. The system establishes the state of chronic social warfare between employers and employed, instead 3f that con- dition of kindly co-operation, which is so essential to happiness of feeling and prosperity in the bu.siness. The strike entails a fearful destruction of wealth. All profit on the plant of the employers is lost; while the savings of the laborers are eaten up, in unproductive consumption, and their time, which is their money, is wasted for naught. The community as a body is left just so much the poorer.
Upon this loss follows another sure econ jmic result, which deserves to be more fully explicated. The law is this : When- ever any hindrance or constriction from any cause whatsoever, is applied to production, the practical hardships thereof are shifted over and delivered down 'by the better endowed mem- bers of the community, until they press upon that class owning no property except their labor, which forms the bottom stra- tum. If we compare those hardships to a load or weight laid upon the top of a wall, and the several strata of the commun- ity to the horizontal lines of stones, we shall have an exact il- lustration: the pressure of that load is ultimately delivered down upon the bottom stratum. This result is insured by a universal principle of human nature, the preference for one's
296 THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
own welfare and the welfare of those he loves, over that of strangers. An individual instance will best prove this. We will suppose the head of a family a stockholder in the manu- factory which is undergoing a strike. He is not one whit more selfish or less charitable than any other rich man, or laboring man. The dividends on his stock constitute his family revenue. By reason of the strike those dividends will drop this year from $2,500 to .fl,800. He and his wife hold a council npon the question. What is to be done? They are prudent people, who do not wish to go in debt. What will they do? Just what all other parents in the world would do, viz: They will so change their expenditures as to live on the |1,800, while imposing up- on themselves and the children they love the lightest possible hardships of retrenchment and retaining as many of the solid comforts of life as possible. Their retrenchments will work after this fashion. Mother will say: "Husband, hitherto we have indulged onr girls hx having their finer raiment made up by a dressmaker. TIk^ girls must learn, with my help, to be their own mantua-makcrs; they have leisure enough." Father adds: ''Our eldest. Emily, is now quite proficient in her music. Why can she not give the piano lessons to the younger girls, so as to save the heavy cost of the music teacher?" ''Just so," says the mother: "And we can also dispense with one of the maids; for the girls can very well do the sweeping and dusting of the chambers; the exercise will be good for their health." "And," adds the father, "there is our boy, Tom, who is now a great, strapping fellow, passionately fond of horses. Why can- not Tom groom and harness old Baldy before and after his school hours, so we can dispense with a hired groom?"
So this family adjust themselves to the reduced income, without any real loss of comfort, only, they have to be some- what more busy and have less time for idling and loafing, which is all the better for their health and cheerfulness, but, "How does this retrenchment w' ork ? Upon the under stratum. " This dressmaker, who thus loses the custDm of a large family is Miss Bettie Jones, the daughter of a poor and sickly old widow, whom she must support along with herself, by her needle. On her this retrenchment presses as a real and probably a cruel hardship, but who can blame this gentleman and his wife for tlieir prnc^ent ;-i:d Iionest measures? Purely, it would be still
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 297
more cruel in them [3 coiiriiiue employing Betsy Jones' needle and then fail to pay her. So the professional music- teacher who loses three pupils (a fifth or fourth part of her income), is Miss Lucy Hill, a poor but refined wonum, who has to sup- port herself and a paralytic father by her music fees. The dis- charged house-maid is Biddy Malou}-, the daughter of Mike Malouy, and one of a family of eleven; and the father is the discharged groom, who had earned one-third of the bread and potatoes for his family by caring for old Baldy and his stable. Biddy's wages are now gone and she comes back upon her fath- er to be fed, while half of his means for t)uying food are gone. Here are four deserving poor persons who are hit hard as a consefjuence of this decline in the stockholder's income. But it is the strikers who are really responsible for these cruel blows.
I have given a particular instance which is thoroughly ty- pical. Other cases will vary endlessly in details; but the}' will all work under the same principle. In every case where injury or constriction is planned against the resources of the property class the injury designed for them will be mainly evaded and handed down, until it alights ujion the bottom class beneath them. Here we have a biting illustration of the folly (a folly equal to its dishonesty) of all the hostilities of "labor against capital.'' Every blow which the working men are instigated to aim at thtnr em])loyers must prove a Ixiomerang.
Next, we find this attempt tD coerce employers by strikes, as futile as mischievous. The pretensions of tlie labor union must appear to the employers unjust, usurping and even in- solent: it surely provokes resistance. But in the contest thus begun the employers have every advantage. The}' have more means saved up ujjon which to live; the arrest of production means for them only the retrenchments we have described above; while for the laborers it means destitution and hunger. So the employers hold out longest, and the union men have to submit after all this b )otless loss.
But a stronger element of defeat appears. The labor union does not include all the jtoor men of the vicinage. Many of these need employment badly and are only {30 glad to accept the wages and the employment which the union men have just disdained ana rejected Thus after a few days' suspension the wheels of the factory begin to revolve again with a new body
298 THE LABOR UNION", THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
of laborers, while the uuion men find themselves left out iu the cold permanently.
Thus the strike system has proved an utter futility, and worse, unless the union men proceed tu further measures, whii'h pass at once into criminality. These are always violent and illegal atteni}»rs to prevent non-union men from accepting employment, by insults, threats, blows, assaults, and even mur- ders. The union resolves that their late employers shall not exercise their reasonable and lawful rights to form such new contracts of labor as they and the new employes see fit to ap- prove; they decree that their fellow citizens, their lawful equals, while not union men, shall not exercise the inalienable right of every free human being to work for a living, and to make such contract concerning employment and wages as is satisfactory to himself. Thus the uniju men "picket" the gates of the factory. They denounce the uew laborers as ''scabs," as traitor's to the cause of the working-man. They make violent threats. In extreme cases they proceed to violent assaults, to murder, to arson, to assassination. Thus the labor union is transmitted into a criminal consi)iracy. Every intelligent and just mind views these ulteriar measures as most outrageous wickedness and despotism wrought under the pretense of de- fending the rights of the working men. Yet without these out- rages their system effects nothing but direct injury to them- selves, as to all concerned. Obviously, the concession to their demands means the confiscation if the employers' property, overthrow of law, tlie raising of an aristocracy of rights in the union men as against their non-union equals and fellow citi- zens, and the enthronement of the uuion in the room of the law ful commonwealth, as an absolute commune.
The true lugic of the strike system is this: It is a forcible attempt to invade and dominate the legitimate influence of the universal economic law ;>f supply and demand. This law in- structs us that generally the relation of supply to demand in any commodity must regulate its price. Under this law all pro duction must proceed in civilized society. It is under this law the capitalist must produce and market the goods brought forth by his mine or his factory. It is under this law the farmer and planter must rear and sell their crops. Labor is also a com- modity as truly as wheat, or cotton, or cloth. All though citizens
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 299
whose circumstances prevent the successful forniariou of hibor unions must also contract to sell their labor under the domin- ion of this same law of demand. If the supply otfered in the market exceeds the demand, the price must go down : the gen- eral law is inexorable: the producers of that commodity must submit to receive less for what they have to sell, and so content themselves with smaller profits; or they must find means t€ produce their commodity more cheaply. Particular circum- stances may in some cases suspend the working of this law partially and tem])orarily. But as a general law it is as preva- lent and regular as the law of gravitation in jihysics. The ad- vocates of labor unions do not pretend t:i deny — they expressly avow — that the purpose and end of their system is to contra- vene this law as to the commodity which they have to sell, that is a particular form of labor. They perceive that the labor union and tlie strike are expedients from which the great ma- jority of their fellow citizens are utterly precluded by the na- ture of their occupations, and that is the very reason why ike nnionists value these (xpedients. They know }»erfectly, that if all the other fojrms of labor in the commonwealth found it equally feasible to protect their own occujiations from the law of supply and demand by their own labor unions and strikes, the whole .system would be nugatory. For instance, what the spinners in a factory gained by forcing uj) their wages, would be neutralized by what they would lose to the farmers when they came to buy their food; if the farmers also could have a labor union which would force up the price of their crops pro- portionately and equitably.
From this point of view the thoughtful reader sees, that labor unions are rather conspiracies against fellow citizens and fellow laborers, than against oppressive employers. AYe ob- serve that these societies thrive chiefly among operatives in mines and factories, among classes of artisans in towns, among printers, among the eniitloyes of railroad lines, or )f wliarves or shipj»ing. This is because circumstances peculiar to their oc- cupations render their measures feasible and convenient. Eith- er they live in the same village or they can easily meet; there is a uniformity in each industry; their compensation is imme- diately in money- wages for labor. But let us observe how nu- merous and vast classes of meritorious laborers are entirely
300 THE LABOR UNION. THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
prevented from combining successfnllv to force their wages up b}' strikes. The maid-servants and cooks of America, the hun- dreds and thousands of schDol-ma'ams who teach the chihlren of the country for i)auper wages, the millions of hired farm la- borers, the more numerous millions of yeoman farmers who till thciv little farm with their own hands, the still larger mil- lions of toiling nnthers and housewives are precluded from forming any effective labor unions by their dispersion over a vast continent, their diversities of condition, their varieties of products, and indirect mode in which they receive their final compensation; nudes involved in commercial complications where the law of supply and demand must inevitably rule. Here appear at once the real purpose and the iniquity of our exist- ing system of labor unions. C. D. is a weaver in a cloth factory. Mj-. E. F. is an honest farmer who must buy a good deal of this cloth to clothe his family and himself. One element of the cost of the cloth to E. F. is the wage of C. D., the weaver; but C. D. has resolved that E. F., his fellow citizen and equal, shall not buy that element in the value of the cloth at that equitable rate which should be generally dictated by the law of supply and demand: C. D. will force up that price against that farmer by the artificial forces of his monopoly-ring, his threats and his strikes. But (\ D. fully expects ta buy the bread and meat for his family from tlu^ farmer, E. F., under the strict operation of supply and deuiand. There is equity and democratic equality with a vengeance! But should any law or labor union enable the farmer to enhance the price of his food-products above mar- ket rates as determined by supi)ly and demand, C. D. would de- clare himself much outraged. His labor union is a good rule for him: but it must not "work both ways."
I have now brought the reader to a point of view from which the justice of three practical remarks will be self-evi- dent. When labor unionists denounce the great "trusts" of the capitalists, the oil, or sugar trust, as monopolies, *'e have a curious instance of inconsistency and insolence. What are their societies but labor-monopolies? In every essential feature they are the iniquities which the trusts are, only upon a smaller scale. And when political demagogues adopt the cause of these labor unions, to cater for their votes, under the pretense of de- mocracy, they are doing the most anti-democratic thing possi-
THE liAfiOR UNION, T&E STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 8ul
ble. Their cry is: "For tlie masses against (lie classes!" Vei thej are assisting- a narrow class to i)lnnder the masses of their fellow citizens.
The second thing to be noted is, the gronndless and impu- dent claim of these labor unions that they are contending for the "rights of American labor." This tacitly assumes that the small minority of persons who belong to labor unions are the only people in America who labor. I may digress for a mo- ment to add, that the same insolent falsehood is obtruded whenever the tariff system claims to be protective of American la'bor: as though, forsooth, the factory hands working upon pro- tected manufactures were the only people who perform deserv- ing labor! Whereas it has been perfectly proved a hundred times that this class of laboring men are but a few hundreds of thousands among the millions who labor in America; that they were already better paid than the average of their breth- ren; and that this "protection'' is but a legalized method to en- able them to take something from the unprotected earnings of their fellow citizens without value received, and to add it to their own. To return: there are a few hundreds of thousands of labor unionists in the United States. The census of 1890 shows that at most there may be four millions of persons en- gaged in occupations whose conditions render a labor union possible, but there are seven and a half millions engaged in the heavier labor of agriculture, under hotter suns and freezing winds, to whom the arts of the labor union are impossible. They must produce and sell their crops under the inexorable operation of the law of supply and demand. And if over sup- ply or partial legislation reduces the price of their products below the cost of production, these millions must simply en- dure it. Methinks if there could be any honest labor union to "protect the rights of American labor," it should be one wdiich would lift the wages of these tillers of the soil nearer the level enjoyed by the unionists.
The average American yeoman earns about fifty cents per diem with coarse fare by his heavy roil, if we deduct from the price of his farm products a moderate interest upon the capital which he employs, and all the other elements of the cost of pro- duction, except th(^ manual laboi'. In the neighboring town, the unionist bricklayer or ])lasierer scorns to lift his trowel for
802 THE LABOR TTNIOW, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMFNfi.
less than five dollars per da}'. There are a thousand farm la borers to one bricklayer. Yet this one tells us that his con spirac}^ is for the protection of labor! And what shall we say of the myriads of rural artisans who cannot form labor unions; of the hundreds of thousands of poor teachers and school- ma'ams whose wages are twenty-five dollars per month with- out boarding, for four or five months of the year? And what of the twelve millions of mothers and housewives who labor for their food and clothing in the most wearying of all tasks, year in and year out, not under an eight hour rule, you may be sure I but somewhere between twelve and eighteen and even twenty hours out of the twenty-four? Are all these not labor- ers because they cannot be "knights of labor?" Yet the direct effect of the arts of the labor unions is: to raise the price of every roof which shelters, of every chimney and every pound of coal which warms, and of every yard of cloth which covers these worse paid laborers in favor of a small minority already overpaid in comparison.
I am not oblivious of the plea that skilled labor is entitled to higher remuneration. The assumption is that all the forms of labor of the unions are skilled labor; while the toils of these ill-paid masses are unskilled labor. This is exactly false. For instance the effective farm laborer is far more a skilled work- man than the bricklayer. The latter has one dexterity which is quite admirable: he strews a handful of mortar from his trowel more quickly, and he presses down brick after briclc with its face to the line, more deftly than the plowman could. Very true. But that plowman must be atole to do with equal deft- ness a dozen dilferent things neither of which the bricklayer can do, and in attempting several of which he would be likely to wound himself or break his own neck. This farm laborer must be a horse breaker, must know how to guide the plow, to wield the hoe so as to "cut away the spire of crab grass" within half an inch of the tender cotton stalk without scratching it. He must wield the ax, he must be a rough carpenter ; he must be butcher, knowing how to dress a mutton or a swine; he must milk the cow; he must mount the dangerous mowing machine and guide it; he must manage the complicated threshing ma- chine and gin; he must pick two hundred and fifty pounds of seed cotton per day, where the bricklayer could not get one
TflE LABOR UNtoN, THE STRtKE AND THE COMMUMR. 'SOS
hundred. Ir is the farmer wlio is the skilled laborer, and by that principle otight to receive the higher remuneration.
The third point being noted is, the fatuity of the so-called People's party in associating themselves with the labor union? in their present passionate efforts to right the wrongs of the farmers. They are precisely as wise as would be the shepherd dogs who should insist upon enlisting the wolves along with themselves to guard the flock. The interests of the Granger masses and of the labor unionists are directly liostile. For in- stance, here is the yoeman farmer who is toiling to pay off a mortgage on his homestead at a real wage of about fift^- cents per day (deducting fair compensation for the employment of his capital, teams, implements, etc.) Does he need a cottage, a chimney in it, a farm wagon, a thresher, a mower, a buggy plow, a rotary harrow?
The labor union men are compelling him to pay much high- er prices for each of these things, by their conspiracies. For, of course, all these contractors and manufacturers add in the inflated prices of the unionist labor, in addition to their own lU'ofits. upon the cost of every thing they furnish the farmer. But these unionists are drawing from two and a half to five dollars per day for their work, while the farmer gets an half dollar per day for his work. He must sell everything his farm ])roduces (the source out of which he at last gets his scanty earnings) under the resistless law of supply and demand, while they are so juggling with the arts of their conspiracy as to free themselves from that law. Yet we shall find this fatuous Granger enraged against the loan corporation which lent him good money on his own terms, at his earnest entreaty, and fra- ternizing with the knights of laTior who are covertly skinning him!
The principles of the labor unions is virtual Communism. It is instructive to watch the proofs of this truth presented by the development of the union system in Great Britain. The British Libei-als in 1845, represented by Josei»h IIuuu' ami the famous Free Trade Society, announced the laissez nous Jaire free trade in commodities, and free trade in labor, as tlie very gospel of economics and politics. The first half of the doctrine repealed the protective tariff' of Britain and placed her manu- factures and commerce upon that enlightened basis of thorough
^(H THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE ANt) THE COMMUNJ!.
tree trade, wliicli founded the new era of marvelous progress and prosperity. The second half of the doctrine embodied the essence of the Exeter Hall at anti-slavery. Free trade in labor meant for Joseph Hume and his friends that every laborer should be a free man with the right to make his own contracts of labor to suit himself; but to make them, like the farmer, the manufacturer and the merchant, under the common regulation of the law of supply and demand. Obviousljs equity demands that if the principle of free trade is to govern other commodi- ties it must also govern labor. For labor is as truly a com- modity to be bought and sold, as cloth, or wheat, or iron, or sugar. To enforce the production and sale of all the latter un- der the free law of supply and demand, while the other com- modity, labor, is fenced against that law, is obvious chiss legislation and injustice to others. Hence, the Anti-Corn Law League hated tariffs and domestic slavery with a hatred equally intense and holy. It is true, that under this free trade regime the property and capital of I^ritain have made an enormous spring and dou'bled themselves in one generation. It is also true that under the same benignant regimen the labor of the proletariat gained greatly in its remuneration, and the comfort of its condition. Measured in gold, the average of their wages has advanced twenty per cent, since 1845; whilst the purchas- ing power of this increasing wage has been doubled by the re- sults of free trade in commodities and in labor.
But these happy consequences do not at all satisfy the la- boring men of Britain or the advanced Liberals. The former have generally adopted, with passion, the system of labor unions and strikes; the latter have pushed their theories through so- cialism to the verge of communism. Both the laborers and their theorists now reject with heat the dogma of free trade in labor. They declare that it is tyrannical, cruel, and the direct road to a wage slavery as degrading and detestable as African slavery it- self. They assert the inherent right of the labor unions to en- force their demands for higher wages by violence if necessary, notwithstanding the facts, that this enforcement is a virtual confiscation of the personal property of the employers at the will of others, in the form of this increment of wage, that it is an infringement of the right of non-union men, their own free equals, to work lor such terms as suit themselves; and that the
tHE LABOR UNION, THE STRTKK AND THE COMMUME. 305
system organized a rebellious impirium in imptrio civiiaiis, iisurping a part of its functions and forces. The snciali.=!r.s ar- gue that since their strikes are futilities unless employers and non-union men can be prohibited by force from contracting with each other, these "scabs," thus accepting the places which the union men have rejected, make themselves the enemies of labor, and are therefore the proper objects of hostility and co- ercion. They say there is this essential difference between free trade in commodities (which they admit is all very well) and free trade in labor: that the goods bought and sold under free trade are n9n-sentient and feel no pangs of destitution; but the laborers have muscles and nerves to be worn by overwork, and stomachs to be pinched by hunger, and hearts to be wrung by the poverty of their families: therefore, the laborers ought to be entitled to protect their commodity, labor, against these consequences of free trade. This is, of course, a very shallow sophism, since the goods subjected to the rigorous law of sup- ply and demand are imbued with the element of labor, since their sale is the only medium through which the labor involved in them can get its wage and thus the price of the goods touches the welfare of the laborers who produce them, just as effec- tively as the price of the labor itself. The socialists then adopt in substance, though perhaps not avowedly, the Malthusian principle of the pressure of population upon the means of sub- sistence. They argue thus; let the capitalists enjoy free trade in labor, hiring their operatives at whatever price the relation of supply and demand may dictate; then as the proletariat in- creases in numbers, wages will go down until they reach the lowest level of that wretched subsistence which enables the la- borers only to exist, to be miserable, and to propagate heirs to their misery. Tlieir cry now is, "Down with free trade in labor; up with the labor union, the strike, and the forcible coercion of the scab, the traitorous enemy of his class." Let the student see for instance this drift in the recent work of ^Mr. Benjamin Kid, entitled, "Social Evolution."
In this new phase and deduction of Malthusianism, there is unquestionable truth. It has been verified a hundred times in the depression, in the deficient compensation and misery of free laborers, in hireling commonwealths. Another admission must be made. No existing commonwealth organized exclusively
806 THE LABOE UNION, THE STKIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
upon the hireling labor rlien'v has vet found a full remedy for this de'plora'ble tendency, no matter how liberal or even demo- cratic its constitution. Sentimentalists may kick against a great Malthusian law, may call it anti<iuated, and maN' vilipend it; but noiu' tlic less it remains a true and fundamental law of population. No permanent release from its inexorable opera- tion is found in any economic or political expedient. When the means of subsistence increase in any society, population alwaj's tends to increase ^up to the new level. Then, if that new level of subsistence be not farther raised, population will proceed to press upDu it and overpass it. The proletariat will accustom it- .self first to part witli its luxuries, and then to submit to a scan- tier supply of comftrts; and as long as their earnings are suffi- cient to support existence, this laboring class will continue to obey nature's instinct to increase and multiply. It is true that since the davs of the Anti-Corn Law League, the wages and the comforts of the proletariat in Britain have increased handsome- ly under free trade. But the advanced Socialists insist that this improvement will stop, and will then ebb, as soon as certain oth- er foreign and temporar}- agencies cease to operate. These are the wonderful expansion of British commerce (which yet cannot expand forever); the opening to tillage of new and vast food pro- ducing areas outside of Britain; the amazing improvements in both land and ocean transportation; the wide openings for emi- gration; the marvelous new applications of physical science lo production; the unbroken prevalence of maritime peace over the whole area of British commerce. Behold how under these new and temporary agencies, the proletariat population of Britain has sprung forward, with an increase rivaling the musii- room growth of new American democracies, thus giving us an- other startling evidence of the truth of the Malthusian law. lUit all earthly expansions must stop somewhere. A colt may grow wonderfully when placed in a rich, fresh pasture; but af- ter five years of age he must stop growing, no matter what his pasture. All earthly advancements must reach their limits. And the Socialists assert that when Britain reaches her limit the Malthusian principle combined with free trade in labor will at once ibegin to depress the laboring classes of Britain. And this must go on until they become miserable wage slaves
THE LABOR tJNION, THK STHTKE AND THE COMMUNE. 307
agaiu, like the peasantry of France and Southern Europe be- fore the Revolution; of the Ireland of 1840,
It is not net-essary for me to say whether the wlnle of this socialist argument will prove eorreot. My purpose is to point the reader to the violent inconsistency- into which it betrays them. They have ever been and still declare themselves the passionate enemies of domestic bondage. X:i language has been adequate to express their scorn and hatred for the recent social systm of the Southern I'nited States. No class of ac- cusers have done more by false accusations, slanders, and vilifi- cation to bring upDU that fair region an undeserved and re- morseless deluge of revolution, war, devastation and tyranny, than these advanced socialists. But now, lol we find them with equal passion asserting a doctrine which leads directly back to a form of slavery far more ruthless than domestic bondage Every man of sense knows that when he is forbidden by force to work where he chooses, and for the wage which suits himself, even in a lawful occupatiou, is no longer a free man: he is a slave. The pawer which commands me where I shall not work is the same with the "slave-power" which commands another where he shall work. Again, when the labor union has forbid- den me, a non-union man, to do the lawful work whicli suits me for the support of my family, I ask them: "To wh^m then must I look for the subsistence Of those I love?" Their answer is: ''Join the union, and draw your weekly pension from the community fund, which will be issued to yau so long as it lasts, and you implicitly obey." Here again I am enslaved; far worse enslaved than the African bondman of the Sauth; for while the labor union may issue to me, for a time, a pittance which may i)revent starvation out of a scanty fund created only by a tribute taken ^m of my own previous wages, the Southern bondman drew all the time his full subsistence, whether the business of the commune was profitable or not. And to the giving of tliis livelihood the head of the commune was bound, if not by his own humanity, by public opinion, by statute-law, and by a self-interest m^re imperious than either. And to fur- nish this undiminished livelihood there was bound, not a scanty fund gathered by exactions from the laborers' wages, but the whole'^capital and profits of the head of that commune, includ- ing the returns of his own personal industry. But this is only
308 THE LABOR U.XION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
half the story. If the hib )i- union, that is, the commune, is to have full authority to forbid its members to work, then it must make itself responsible for the full subsistence of the laborers and their families. But if the commune is responsible for this, it must have authority to command the members where they shall work and t3 enforce that command. Without this power the commune could nat possibly fulfill its pledges to furnish subsistence to its subjects. But the essence of slavery is the oblioation of compulsory labor, and the dependence upon the will of another far subsistence. Communism is slavery. Its advocates cheat themselves by explaining: "But the member-, elect their own rulers, and this is liberty." A very hollow cheat this, indeed I Let communism be established as a rule of a com- monwealth, and this will be the real state of the case. In name the majority will elect masters over themselves, and the unwill ing minority. But Democracy and universal suffrage have taught us too well wliat that means. Nominally the majority was really the official wire-pullers, will determine the choice of the masters over both majority and minority. vShould this re- sult not follow and should the communistic elections fulfill most honestly the most flattering promises of the system, still we • should have this result: that the minority would be slaves to the majority. And the major mob is always the most ruthless of masters. Let us again make the vital point in this discussion thoroughly salient. The ultra socialist will attempt to obscure it by saying that in the best constituted republic the minority has to obey the majority; and this is not slavery for anybody, but liberty for all. I reply, that herein are two profound false- hoods. The first, that in a true rei»ublie the minority do not obey the majority, l^uf both obey the constitution. The princi- ple of such government is given by the sublime words of An- drew Melville /)^:v Rex: The citizen does not owe his allegiance to the mere will of the accidentally major mob, but to the sacred authority of the constitution wliicli rules the State. The power which this constitution may have conferred upon a majority is only conventional, deputed and limited. The clearest majority may only exercise that power within the limits prescribed for it by the constitution, and when it exceeds these limits, the will of the majority is no more the righteous rule for the citizen than the howling wind. But the second and more essential
THE LABOR UNION, THK STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 809
falsehood is here: The true republic does not legislate at all concerning the personal rights, the preferred occupations, the compensations therefor, or the subsistence of their families. All these matters belong to their individual sovereignty as citi- zens. The repu'blic only attempts to regulate those outer rela- tions of citizen to citizen, which render them social beings, un- der the princii)les of commutative justice. But the commune undertakes in addition to command me at what to work, to en- force its command, to fix my recompense, and to appoint the subsistence allotted to me and my family. This invades the whole sphere of my personal sovereignty. It is the essence of slavery. Moreover, all history teaches us, that the more '*Pa- ternalistic'' any government becomes, be its form either imper- ial, monarchical, aristocratic or democratic, the more will its officials engross the powers of the State, and the earnings of the citizens to themselves. (The experience is universal), either by avowed class legislation or by unavowed chicanery, they al- ways do it. The cause of this result is plain. The more pater- nalistic the government, the more of the aggregate wealth, ser- vices and rights of its citizens does it handle. That is to say, the more of these do the officials of this government handle. I?ut such masses of wealth and power present to the natural greed of men temptations too strong- to be Resisted. Now of all governments the commune is most completely paternalistic. Therefore the officials of the commune, by which we mean the all-including' commune of the local communes, the coaumon- wealth, will have the handling of all the earnings, wealth, ser- vices, and subsistence of all the citizens. Therefore the en- grossment of all these by the officials will be the most enoi- mous. For instance, the townshi}) institutions of the Russians are communistic. The imperial government is an absolute commune. But the P]mperor Nicholas himself, the most auto- cratic of Czars, declared that official peculation and tyranny were more gigantic in Russia than anywhere in Europe. Thus it appears that communism must be essential slavery, under which the citizens are the slaves, and the master is impersonal and therefore the most remorseless and greedy of all masters. Now of all the things in the nineteenth century, Southern bondage was the one, which the advanced socialists most hotly abused. They condemned the Southern plantation as the sum
310 THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE-
of all villaiuies. But this plantatiou was virtually the very commune which they desired to establish, except that the Southern had certain saving differences, which made it l)etter than their proposed form. The capital of the i)lanrati()n and the earnings and services of all upjn it composed the common fund. The labor of the members was compulsory. But the common fund was bound to them for the subsistence of them and their families, fully as comfortable as that provided b^- the United States for their enlisted soldiers, including housing, fuel, clothing, food, medical attendance, rearing for their minor children and the pensioning of the old, w^hen past active service. The net earnings of the active members, after subtracting the cost of their own subsistence, and a small interest upon the capital furnished them, went into the common fund, to meet the last two drafts. Here was a small but true commune. The head of the commune was not elected by the slave-members:,- but was hereditary; and this was a great gain, saving all con- cern upon the waste of time, money and morals, which al- ways attends pretended elections in a paternalistic democracy. But the grand, saving feature in this Southern commune was that one which our socialist most abhors; the legal establishing in the head of the commune of a right of property in the in- voluntary labor of the members. Our opponents exclaim that this is the essence of slavery! I reply this is very true; 'but I have shown that their plan must vest in the commune itself (that is in its oflQceholders) the power of control over the in- voluntary labor of the members, and tlie disposal of their earn- ings, else the society must speedily Ite banki-upt, and starve its dependents. But this is giving the (•()niinun(\ tiiat is the oflQce- holders, property in this involuntary labor, except in this all important respect: that it failed to enlist any domestic feeling, or any self-interest of the heads in tlu^ welfare of members. In such an association what need the otticeholders care if a labor- ing member dies, or if the infants of his family perish of destitu- tion, he loses no property! He has just so many the fewer cares to worry him. For instance, when the crews of the patriot British fleet which conquered the Invincible Armada at Grave- lines were decimated by the spoiled beer, which their commis- spries furnished, what did these care? Their private profits upon their beer contracts v/ere safe in their pockets. If many
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUME. 3il
soldiers of General CliuiL'liill, Duke of Marlborough, died iu the hospitals, this was but so much to his advantage, for he oouldl continue their names upon tlie pay rolls of the army, and (juiet- ly pocket their wages and allowances. The greater the suffer- ing and mortality, the more his riches grew. When British paupers died in the work-house, under the late poor law sys- tem, who cared; what official, what tax-payer? The United States had a brief experience in this line, under its notorious Freedman's Bureau. We presume that when these wards of the nation dropped off, the average officeholder felt no emotion but relief. So now, when a hireling sickens or dies, his em- ployer has lost nothing: he has but to hire another in his place. But our Southern communism, by making the labor the master's property, awoke an all-powerful motive for taking the best care of it.
If the laborer died, from over-work or destitution, so much of the master's property was totally lost; if he sickened, its val- ue was impaired. Hence, the statute law, which recjuired a master to provide reasonable subsistence under all conditions of production however profitless, for his bondmen, their aged and their oflt'spring, and which made this provision a first lien, not only upon the annual products of the estate, 'but upon its fee simple value, and even upon his personal earnings in his separate profession, was an enforceable law; and it was always enforced, if not by affection and self-respect, by all-powerful self-interest. It was not like the rules of ultra-democratic so- cieties, which speciously reciuiring all officers to use their pow- ers for the public g )t)d alone, so commonly remain a dead let- ter. Hence, while a few masters were tyrannical and stingy, the bondmen in general had better food, clothing, housing, fuel, medical attendance, than any other peasanti-y in the world. While the employer of hireling labor pushing forward his rail- road, his canal, his malarial farm, his mine, his chemical works, cares not whether the laborers lose wealth or life or not, the Southern master, in hiring his bondman to another, alway;s made a part of the contract that he should not be employed in any unhealthy occupation.
The late Southern form of communism was therefore the only one defensible. The theory, combined with the other dog- mas of the socialists, outrages every fundamental principle of
312 THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
Liuman nature and of human actions. It appeals to tlie preva- lent principle of self-interest precisely' in the wrang place, stimulating it powerfully in the officeholder's selfishness, neg- lect and malversation; while it loses its impulse in the work of production for the general behoof. This communism ignores man s desire for personal possessions, his right ta an individual home, blest according to his own choice in the use of those pos- sessions, his zeal for the welfare of his children, his right to bequeath to them the proceeds of his own labor. No system can endure, which thus discards the fundamental laws of na- ture. A structure built without a foundation must tumble. IJut tlie folly of ideologues and demagogues may persuade some discontented and misguided commonwealth to attempt the gen- eral commune. But it is impossible the attempt slnuld conf- tinue. Its only permanent result will be destruction, or enor- mous mischief to the material civilization, morals and liai)pi- ness of the society. The people disgusted with the experiment, will speedily struggle back to some political order, less insane; usually t3 one more despotic and less benignant than that which they deserted. Or else, communism will destroy their wealth and civilization and bring it down to chronic barbarism.
An authentic incident of one of the great ''mining strikes'" in Pennsylvania well illustrates this. A yeoman farmer waj> harvesting the products of his little orchards and fields, when a sturdy loafer demanded a bag of apples and potatoes, with the plea that he had neither money nor provisions for his family. ''And who might you be?" asked the farmer. "A strik- ing miner, out of work for many weeks, with the Reserve Fund of the Union utterly exhausted, and the strike unadjusted." "'And," inquired the farmer, "why did you strike at first?" "Because the company," said the miner, with sundry indignant epithets, "refused to raise our daily wages from one and a half dollars to one and three-fourths." "So," said the honest far- mer, "I earned my farm, working at one-half dollar per day, and you reject work at three times that price. None of my apples or potatoes are for such as you." The farmer was right. The acts of the oligarchies are aggravated in injustice by the fact that they were already better paid than the majorityi ajrainst whom they would enhance prices.
The svstem also carries intrinsic iniustice to the capital-
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 313
ists in two ways: First, that it demands vii'tually tlie Hght of making both sides of the bargain in this eantract of hibor and wages. Eaeh party is entitled to make his own side of the bar- gain; or if the otfer made him from the other side does not suit him, to withdraw. There is no visible limit to the degree of this injustice. Strikers say they strike, because wages go below the limit of comfortable support. But what is a comfortable sup- 'port for a working man? If the strikers are to decide, it may mean Havana cigars, canvass-back ducks and trutities, with Cha- teau Margaux wine. The system encourages limitless extrava- gance and waste; all at the expense of other peoi)le's capital and of the other parts of the working public; second, the capi- talists in selling the products of their factories, have to sub- mit ta the great law of supply and demand. But the laborers, in selling their labor to the capitalists, insist on evading that law. There is no equity there.
As to the rights of public order and of other la'borers, the system tends constantly and violently to pass from a method ol mutual 'protection, into a criminal conspiracy. The sole ob- ject of a threatened strike is to compel employers to pay prices for labor in advance of these indicated by supply and demand. If the supply were not full, demand alone would raise the price of labor, and the strike would be superfluous. Now, the strik- ers, as free men, have an undoubted right to decline work and wages they think unfair. They may be very unwise in declin- ing; but it is their right. And here their right ends. But if the policy stops there, the employers will naturally defend them- selves from this coercion, by going into the labor market and hiring at the market price that substituted help which the full supply offers. Thus, if the strike stops where the lawful rights of the strikers end, it is inevitably futile. Of course then it will not stop there. They will go farther to violate the rights of oth- ers, who have an indefeasible right to take up any lawful work and wages they choose. Strikers will go to attack this right, by "boycotting," by obloquy, by threats, by terrorism, by vio- lence, by murder. And when dynamite is introduced to punish with death innocent persons, happening to use the appliances of obnoxious employers, the crime is worthy only of devils. Tk) sum up: If the equal rights of other laborers to accept the work and wages rejected are respected; strikes are futile. If
ni4 'JHE LABOR UNION TIIP] STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE.
those rights are obstructed bj' force, strikes are criminal con- spiracies. And our point is that the hitter is their logical ten- dency. Unfortunately, the frequency of these outrages as the sequels of strikes, fully confirms the charge. In fine, only three modes are possible for adjusting the wages of labor and interest of capital. One is to leave the adjustment, under equitaible laws, which shall hold laborer and property-holder equals, to the great law of sujtply and demand. The second is, to liaA'e the Government fix maximum and minimum prices by statute. The Third is to leave these combination of laborers and employers against each other. For, if the one combine, of course the oth- ers will. The second plan is mischievous despotism. See its working in the French Revolutions. The third splits society into warring factions, and tends to baii)arism.
Such is an impartial estimate of the tendencies of the "Trades Unions." The gravity of the prospect is increased,' when we consider the passionate determination of their mem- bers. They seem more and more in love with their plans and cherish them as their final and comj)lete hope. We are told that the movement spreads continually. It has its propagand- ists and newspapers. It confederates the different branches of mechanical labor more and more widely. It aspires to hold the balance of power in elections, and will before long, claim to control legislatures and congresses.
Will primary education be its antidote? The negative to this hope seems to be pronounced b}' the fact, that, thus far, these projects have grown just as primary education has extend ed, and precisely in the places which most rejoice in its mean^. The same discouragement follows from observing the species of development produced — an initial grade of knowledge and intel- ligence, just adequate to the suggestion of a number of unsatis- fied desires, and the adojotion of the shallow plausibilities of sophistical theories for their gratification; while the breadth of wisdom needed to show the hollowness of them has not been attained; and this dangerous Sciolism is aggravated by the selt- sufiiciency inspired by a conceit of culture. This primary education exactly prepares a population for the reading and ac- ceptance of superficial newspapers. Without the circulation of newspapers, there would be no "Trades Unions" and no strikes of any moment. The primary- school and the newspaper press
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE. 815
play into each others hands in assisting tliese dangcn-ous organ- izations. In hnnian hand.s all the best things are perverted to some miscliievous nses, and here we have the ])er versions of these two good things, the School and the l*ress. The primary school enables the youth to read. Poor human nature usually craves the less wholesome pabulum for its powers, and here, the superficially cultivated reader uses his little talent to read the newspaper, instead of his Bible. The demagogue, the de- signing agitator sees at once in the newspaper an engine for swaying just such minds, and he makes erne low, sophistic;a'l and shallow enough to suit his audience. Thus the country has its literature of ''Strikes," Communism. Confiscation and l\vnamite, with myriads of readers.
The more rapid progress of the late Confederate States, in the creation and accumulation of wealth, as demonstrated by the successive census returns of 1840, 1850 and 1860, was ac- counted for, in part, by the absence of strikes. The Negro la- borers could not combine; the white found no motive to do so. Thus far the emancipated Negroes have not formed this species of Trades' Unions by the race lines. But the Southern people are now magnanimously giving them a universal common school education. The result will be. as sure as the cycle of the seasons, that before long they will also form their own "trades' unions" on the ''color line." They will form them, because their partial culture will exactly prepare them for their sophisms and attractions; because they have already shown a marked ten- dency toward co-operative associations, and a i)assionate fond- ness for them; because, as now free laborers, they must feel the siimuli to that course, now almost omnipotently felt by white artisans among us. They will form them on the "color line," if for no other reason, because the whites have already applied that line everywhere in their trades' unions, and that with a passionate vigor.
One of the future problems and perils of the couiilry is this race contest. Where the industrial centers have a mil- lion of Negroes, educated up to the use of the stump-speech, the radical newspaper and the revolver, closely organized in trades' unions, then the peace of the country will hang in constant sus- pense.
Two antidotes have been proposed for the poisons involved
816 THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUNE
in these unions. One is, tlie application of the co-operativic* plan, wliich has been so successfully applied in England in the ^'ork of "distribution," to the industries of production? In retail distributit)n, the Kachdale plan has, indeed, wrought wonders, at least in England. It is still to be seen whether the system can be made to work among Americans, with their eager and intense individuality.
But there appears, on reflection, a fatal difficulty when we attempt to apply it to industries of production. It proposes to identify the relations and interests of the employers and the la- borers. It says, these shall be as truly stockholders in the joint concern, and capitalists, as those. But, unfortunately, the dif- ference between employers and laborers, between the property- class and the property-less class, has arisen out of natural and acquired differences of personal attribute, for changing which the meth3ds of co-operation are as weak as "the Pope's l>ull against the comet." In a country like this, where the laws are already equal, the whole difference between those who have property, and those who have not, has been made by the pres- ence, or lack of "talents of acquisition'' in themselves or their parents. The well-to-do families are so, because their working mem'bers have energy, skill, prudent foresight, self-denial as also, perhaps, selfishness. Especially does the creation of "saved-up capital," the feature which makes the man an em- ployer instead of an employe, depend on self-denial. The com- mon proverb says: "Kiches come more by saving than by mak- ing." Political economy teaches the same; showing us that each man's saved-uj) ca})ital represents exactly so much self-denial, either in him or his forefathers, in reserving present income from the indulgence of present desires, for the distant and re- mote uses of capital in the future.
Again, sagacity in applying, in investing, in u.sing the previous savings, is more important than either rapid skill in earning, or self-denial in not spending. Here is your rapid, effec- tive worker, who does earn large wages. Neither does he eat them up in immediate indulgencies. His mind is keenly bent on accumulation. But somehow, his money is ever "put into bags with holes." His ventures in investment are ill chosen and unlucky. He has an infinite amount of mental activities about plans and investments, but he ever lacks that "mother-
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRILE AND TITR COMMUNE. 817
wif," that sagacious insight, which is a natural gift. And this picture is seen, in this countrv, more frequently than tlie in- stances of poverty from sheer indolence.
Now, if the industry is to be truly co-operative — if the smaller shareholders are not to be deprived of their votes in it, and directed both in their labors and the use of their earnings, by the will of the large capitalist in the concern — which means, simply their slavery — these votes which represent rashness, un- thrift, self-indulgence, imprudence, must be equivalent with the votes of the sagacious — ^of course, then, "the concern'' must come to grief. This directive will, which represents the aggre- gation of all the unwise who have remained among the small, or laboring shareholders, simply because they are unwise, can- not compete with the rival concern, which is directed by the best practical wisdom. The co-operative factory will be a fail- ure; and the association will dissolve in disgust of mind, where the factory of the successful capitalist will succeed. The resolve that the present plan shall be replaced by co-operative factories, which shall succeed, amounts simply to this: ''Resolved, that all laborers have the personal attributes of a Peter Cooijer!" Nature and Providence concur to make men unequal; they can- not be made equal bj- the ''resolutions" of theorists.
Once more: however co-operative, a factory must have exe- cutive officers, directors, salesmen, treasurers. These must handle all its earnings and assets. Supposing the system to re- ceive the wide extension necessary for its healing fully the rela- tions of labor and capital, shall we find enough Iwnest laboring men in America to fill all these responsible places? Or would 80 large a portion of the ventures break down through defalca- tions of officials, as to spoil the experiment? The morals of the strike system do not seem very well adapted to breed strict hon- esty!
The other .proposal is, that the quarrels of labor and capi- tal shall be prevented, by making the National Government it- self the general industrial manager. The Democratic theory is, that the Government reflects the combined will of all the peo- ple. This, then, is the right agency to direct industrial pur- suits. Let the Government 'be in place of the corporations and
capitalists.
Here several plain thoughts give us pause:
318 THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND THE COMMUN-E.
First. If this plan will be g03d, it will be because the Gov- ernment direction ^ill be better than that of the corporation or personal will. If, then, the Government is to confer this ad- vantage on some Industries, it must confer it on all. Otherwise we shall introduce inequalities and favoritisms most odious to Democratic theory. If it undertakes to operate all industries, it becomes a worse than Chinese despotism, a machine so vast as to crush out all individuality, and to break down hopelessly by its own weight.
Second. The success of the Government's management in all these industries must depend supremely on the competency and honesty of the Government's officials. They must consti- tute an immense host. Personal motives to zeal and fidelity will be largely annihilated. Is there enough of this high in- tegrity in America, to work the huge machine? The present Government seems to have a deal of trouble in finding enough honest officials for its present small functions!
Third. The Government is practically represented in the person of the magistrate. But, by the nature of Government, "he beareth the sword." His power is essentially punitive. Transgressions against his will must be held as "crimes" and "misdemeanors.'' Shall his industrial functions as the man- ager of numberless laborers be enforced by this species of sanc- tion? Shall the Government hold that i\x^ employee who has not watched his power loom, or chiseled his stone aright, is to be corrected as the petty larcener is? If not, how else? Un- der slavery, this negligent laborer might have been corrected by the birch; under our present hireling system, he is cor- rected by dismissal; but under this Governmental plan all in- dustries, as we saw, must be equally the Government's; aac} whither shall it dismiss the \q.zj employe? To banishment from his country? Hardly. To idleness? If he is still to have from the Government his subsistence, this would be a mockery of punishment; rather a reward for idleness and an injustice to the true workers. There appears no mode of dealing for this in- dustrial Government, except to treat defect of work in the citi- zens as larceny is treated.
This suggests the fourth and hardest question of all. If Government is to be general, not to say universal, industrial agent, it must see to it that all whom it employs and subsists do
THE LABOR UNION, THE STRIKE AND TIIR CO:\[MUNE. 319
Iheir houesc sliare of ihe work. Far orherwi^ie, the idlers vvouIJ be rewarded for their sin by being set up as an aristocracy above tlie faithful workers, to live at ease at the others' expense. Each citizen then must be held responsible to Government for |the diligent and useful employment of his time, under some eflflcient penalty. But the "Government" as such is an abstraction, which directly touches no man. It must act through persons clothed with official power. The meaning, tlien, would be that the citizens must answer to some officeholder, representing this sovereign Government, under some penalty, for doing his share of work. But this means slavery it is its exact definitions. The conception of this governmental plan is communistic; and ev- ery thoughtful man knows that communism means either an- archy or slavery. It may be objected: The Government'e clerks and postmasters now work precisely under that system, and are not slaves. The reply is first, that probably they some- times do feel that they are virtual slaves; but chiefly, that they become employes of Government now by their own free appli- cation, and may resign when they feel oppressed by their su- periors, and thus free themselves by returning to private life. But on the plan discussed, all this would be different; the Gov- ernment v/oiild be compelled to exact the adhesion of its work- ers,— as it does of its conscripted soldiers, whose condition is that of bondage for their term of service — and to refuse this privilege of resigning.
There appears then, no remedy, except in the firm and just administration of the laws, coupled v;ith wise and equitable commercial and industrial legislation and the propagation of industry — ^economy and contentment among the people by means of Christian principles. There is no attitude for the Government towards "strikes'' excejtt the legal and righteous one. If operatives choose to form a society to forward their own interests, they have a right to do so, provided they do not infringe other people 's. If the society cliooses ta "(pmrrel with their own bread and butter'' by rejecting a certain work at cer- tain wages; they have a riglit to do so. But i/ieir recent employers have equal right to go into the labor marl'ct and hire others for that work at those 7vages; and all other laborers have equal right to that work if they are tvilling to the wages.
The moment the "union" goes an inch beyond the mere
B20 THE LABOR UNION, THK STRIKE AND THE COMMUNIS.
withdrawal — the moment it begins to obstruct, terrorize, or beat, or murder the employers and the new employes, it has be- come a criminal conspiracy; the State should put it down with as prompt and firm a hand as they would put down highwayi robbery or foreign invasion. Ta the clear and just mind this is clear. But is there any American State which performs this duty? Alas no! We are more likely to see the State Governors corresponding with and conciliating the "strike," the poweir whose very end of existence is "to be a terror to evil doers," bowing to the conspiracy of evil-doers, who ought to be bowed before the majesty of the law. Pitiful sight!
Troperry is always i-autious. apparently timid, at the be- ginning of collisions, for it is conscious it is valuable; it has much to lose. But, because it has much to lose, property always defends itself resolutely when pressed to the wall. And when rlie i)eriod of caution has passed, property defends itself success- fully. For money is power, and the talents of acquisition which gained the money are power. One thing has already become clear to the thought of property: that when the hour of forcible defense comes, the militia of the States will be worth- less. They are too near the rioters. Property will inv.)ke, as the only adequate force, the standing army of the United States. And, as the industrial centers are numerous and popu- lous, the United States must have a large, a widely difEu^edi standing army to invoke. Thus the property-holder will be educated by his needs and experiences in the hour of trial, to think of his State as the Cipher, the Washington Grovernment as the only Poiver. The discontented classes, who must at last be restrained by force, will be educated to regard State author- ity as a shadow, and Federal authority as the substantial fear. The surest result of the approaching strife will thus be to com- plete the practical extinction of State sovereignty, and the con- solidation of the federation into one empire. It will be an em- pire governing by the bayonet.
THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN EARMlNti INTERESTS.
By Robert L. Dabney, D.D., LL. D.,
Professor of Moral niul Mental riiilosophy aud Political
Science.
This depressimi is roal and ji,reat, at least when com])ared wirli the other industrial interests of the country. The life af our tillers of the soil may not be so sordid as that of the Egyp- tian Fellahin, or of the Irish cotter tenants, but they I'eceive h^ss than their coniparative share of the material rewards of ]al)[)r. This is enou<>ii to constitute the offense both against public justice and security. It is an outrage of the equities which a boastful i»oi)ular government should secure alike for all its classes. It is as i-eal a ground of perilous discontents in the great farming classes. This depression is proved: (1) By comparing the wages of other industries with those of farm la- bor: A puddler in an iron mill earns ten or more dollars per day, a bricklayer in this city demands |130 per month, a house carpenter or stone-cutter |70 per mouth; but in the most pros- ]ierous part of the Southwest, the farm laborer receives at most |20 per month, with plain rations; in the old Atlantic States, the best farm laborer receives $8 per month and rations. Able- bodied women servants receive from 15 to 18 cents per day, with rations. But the strongest point is that the profits of agricul- ture cannot bear even these wretched wages. It is the almost invariable experience of employers, that the staple cro.ps pro- duced with hired labor, ev(Mi at these wages, bring the capital- ists to insolvency; and usually, the only producers who escai)e this result are those who till their crops by the unpaid labor of
~ '~~ 321
392 THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS.
themselves and rheir cliiklrtMi. This rehitive depression is prov- ed: (2) By comparing rustic with town life. Both classes have their paupers; but our comparison is drawn between the two great middle classes in rural and in town life, who employ some capital with some measures of persistent labor in the attempt to create values in the two spheres. The condition of the country family, as to long hours of labor, dress, food, dwelling and furniture equipage, amusements and recreations, is found to be comparatively hard and sordid. But the comparative con- ditions of town life in all these respects are easy, handsome, and even luxurious. The non-agricultural industries and employ- ments of capital somehow enable those occupied by them to spend five fold as much in the superfluities of life. A fair typi- cal instance may be found in the history of such a migration as was occurring farty years ago in New England in tens of thou- sands of cases. Two brothers, with the same blood in their veins and the same education, sold and divided the old New England homestead to migrate to Illinois. Each had the same capital^ say $3,500. One became a Chicago trader, the other a prairie farmer. The success of each has been neither above nor below the average of his class. We compare them at the end of forty years. The Chicago man is living in a brownstone front, faring sumptuously every day, indulging his family freely in fashion- able amusements, regarding a five dollar opera ticket for each member of his family as an entirelv reasonable indulgence : the pa/er familias assures us, with a smile of superiority, that he could not think of keeping house in Chicago on less than some 17,000 per annum. It does not at all follow^ that he has created or amassed wealth: perhaps if he were forced into liquidation he would not be found the real owner of the |3,500 he first brought to the city, but the luxurious house-keeping goes on just the same, with its enormous annihilation of values in un- productive consumption; of which the only salution is that he is consuming values created by other people's industry and cap- ital, which he extorts from them by the jugglery of our Ameri- can free institutions. Let us now seek out his brother, the prai- rie farmer. We find him on the little prairie farm which he bought with his patrimony forty years before, living in a board cottage. By virtue of an unusual diligence and prudence he is not mortgaged, and in consequence of the appreciation in the
*ttE Depression of American farming interests. :i2'j
price of liis land, possesses probably 15,000 or |(i,OOU. He still dresses in working- men's clothes and cowliide boots, drives his own wagon and i)low six days in every week and takes a hand in all the hardest forms of farm labor. His hands are horny and his joints nngainly and stiff with toil. His meals are jtlen- tifnl, bnt coarse, for tlie demands of taxes, commissions and wages reqnire the sale of the larger pail of tlie bntter and poul- try produced by his thrifty farm. His best equipage is his si)ring- wagon, drawn by plough horses; the most lavisli amusement of his family, an occasional visit to the fifty-cent circus. His household contains no liired domestic; wife and daughters are the only indoor drudges. His family subsist upon ahont |(>00 per annum. I am aware that these truthful pictures are usually met witli the cry that "skilled labor" deserves, and by incnit+i- ble economical law must receive, liigher wages.
It is claimed that the labor of the artisan and of commerce is skilled labor, wliilc rustic labor is unskilled. Now. this is wliat I expressly deny; and I am supported by the l)est econo- mists. It is true that this Chicago trader has become skilled in cei'tain little ai-ts of cornering markets, inflating commissions, of which liis rustic brotlier has remained ignorant, greatly to his credit, lint the prairie farmer has developed higher intellectual skill and more varied resources, in place of the petty-fogging arts of the trader. He has learned the wisdom of the practical "crop-master," including a knowledge of the climate, seasons, soils, manures, modes of tillage, crops, and is yearly exercising upon these data the wide sagacity of the inductive philosopher. He lias become a veterinary surgeon, an orchardist, a dairyman, a machinist, besides practicing a half dozen distinct trades. On his winter evenings he has read many more, and more solid, books tlian his brothei'.
Or let the artisan be com])ared with the farm laborer. We may be pointed to the city bricklayer, who exacts for one month of his labor six months' wages of his country brother. Oh! we shall be told, his is skilled labor! ''See with what rapid dex- terity he spreads a trowel full of morlar and lays brick after brick accurately to the line. The country bum]»kin cannot do that!'' T reply: Put a weeding-hoe into this bricklayer's hands and ])ut him to chopping out cotton. Let us see whether he can cut away a sprig of "crop-grass" from within (Uie-quarter of an
324 THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS.
inch of the cottou plant, without iiijui-ing the tender stalk. Give him a cotton bag and let us see whether he can accomplish one- sixth part of a man's daily picking. Set him to harness, to ad- just and to operate a mowing machine with a spirited pair of horses. He will be a fortunate bricklayer if he escapes the first morning without being sawn asunder by his own cutter blade. The truth is, wliile the artisan practices a few very handsome dexterities, the good farm laborer must practice a score; of w^hich each one is as hard to learn as the dexterities of the me- chanic.
(3) The steady and alarming drift of the American popula- tion from country to town reveals the depression of the farm- ing interests. This transfer has now assumed frightful projror- tions. In 1700. of that American people which established its independence hy revolution, one-third of one per centum lived in towns of 8,000 population or more. Since then, the steady and increasing drift has proceeded, until, in 1800, 25 per cent., or one-fourth of our whole population, is collected into towns and cities. Meantime, towns and villages under 8,000 people have been multiplied two hundredths. But these also give only the conditions of urban life. This transfer of population has been long continued, and is increasing rapidly. It has a cause. Our own observation shows us that nearly every American, 3'oung man strives to quit the land and rush to the town. Some would fain persuade us that this drift does not result from the comparatively hard conditions of country life, but from the so- cial attractions of towns, and from the ill-informed imagina- tions of the country youth, ignorant of the trials and failures of town life, and flattered with visions of easy and rapid wealth. This solution is not correct. Kural life has also its natural at- tractions, which ought to be more vivid and alluring than the garish shows of the city: the attractions of azure skies, of green fields and forests, of country sports, by field and stream, of horse-back exercise, and of the tender and sacred associations of home. Healthy young natures respond keenly to these. Were they free to act they should easily countervail the tawdry seduc- tions of the theater, concert room, and saloons. A few days' experience of these would wear off all the tinsel of novelty: the young spirit would quickly revert to its more natural attrac- tions. Nor is it true, that American youths are ignorant of the real conditions of city life, or be fooled with idle visions of its
THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS. 826
i:!:loi'ies. rountry people know more of the citie.s than city peo- ple do of the country. No newspapers are printed in the coun- try. It is the cities which print them, and the country people universally read them. Ko, our young people are well aware of whatever is hard in the conditions of city life, but they w^eJl know that the conditions of country life are harder; therefore they crowd the cities.
(4) This depression is revealed by the deep discontents of the farming population. In our day they find a renewed and ever widening- expression. Some years ago the Granger move- ment spread over America, and engaged the interests of nearly the whole farming population. Xow we have the gigantic and more determined movement of the Farmers' Alliance. We see this conf;)unding the clearest lines of national parties, driving the most trusted statesmen from their seats of power, and urg- ing their passionate demands for redress. Let none deceive themselves and mock at these mighty movements as blind or I'luile. Let none flatter tliemselves that farmers cannot com- biiie effectively. This may be true or untrue, yet unquestionably we see here the .symptoms of a terrible and deep disturbance.
Whether this feverish bod3- is destined to be wise or not, it is still vast. It represents the industry of 1(),00(MMM) of working hands, and the direct subsistence of more tlian 3(>,(M>0,0()0 of souls; indirectly it is the foundation of all other industries; the values which it creates furnish the whole material handled by all other industries, manufacturing or commercial. It is the only source of the food and raiment of all. It may be that this huge or pressed mass is to be compared to the Titan Enceladus, upon whose breast Jove piled up the whole bulk of Mount Aetna. Like Enceladus, it ma}' not be able to throw off the super-incumbent burden, and yet its convulsions may throw? lava streams of anarchy and revolution, which will rend the whole sujierstructure and burn up the luxurious vineyards and gardens which bedeck its upper surface.
II.
This depression and displacement of the farming popula- tion should be the subject of grief and alarm. All orders of the .\meric'an people are vitally interested in this evil.
First, this undue drift to urban life is injurious to the pub-
326 TflE DEPRESSION OF AMKRICAN FARMING INTERESTS
lie wealth. I shall uot say with the old exploded French school of Economists, that agricultural industries are the only ones which really create new values. I admit that the mechanical and commercial industries create increments of value in the ag- ricultural products upon which aBne the}' operate. But the pretended industry of such middlemen as really contribute noth- ihing to the perfecting and circulation of commodities is an un- productive nuisance. Such middlemen are scarcely found at ;jll in the ranks of ii,iirirulrnral industry. It is in the traffic of towns That they intrude themselves successfully. These are the linman hives in which these drones are found in needless num- bers, consuming, but producing no honey. We have seen. als3 that the tendencies of American life in towns are far more lux- urious than in the country. Town life consumes unproductively a far larger share of the values created in the society than does country life, by its ever increasing and insatiable pomps of liv- ing and amusement. Again, urban life in America is a terri- ble consumer of the human species; its bills of mortality show a jarge percentage of death. Especially is the American city a devoiirer of infant life. The stifling heats and polluted at- mosphere of the lanes and alleys inhabited by the poor in mid- summer sweep away the innocents almost as fast as they come into the world.
Perhaps it is the vice of jur American home life that only a small part of the youth reared in ciries grow into habits of steady industry. The ranks of city business have to be con- tinually refilled from the country. The sons and grandsons of those who have prospered in town are unable to perpetuate their parents' prosperity. Some are sybarites, some are sots. The country has to be drained afresh of its sturdy sons in order to replenish the ranks of industry. Jefferson did not much mistake when he declared, ''That great cities are but great ul- cers upon the b3dy politic." The urban population become un- safe depositories for political power.
The minute specification of occupations breeds a narrow one-sideduess of mind, the people with a great conceit of their own intelligence, become overweening and excitable; revolu- tions alw^ays begin in cities. It is always municipal politics which first breed political corruption in America. A Tammany could onlv exist in a crreat citv. Once more history shows that the
THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS. 827
martial virtues grow chiefly among the rural popuhitiou. i^hall we be reminded of the New York Seventh regiment and sim- ihir amateur (-ovps in our pompous cities. What part have these performed in actual warfare? A large portion of their rank and file was born and reared in the country. Cromwell found the London train bands in the parliamentary army of no account in the shocks of battle. Their ranks were filled, he sjiys, chiefly with decayed tapsters and serving men, the squad- rons of l*rince Rupert, formed of country gentlemen, rude them down like herds of sheep. Convinced that the liberties of his countr}^ could never be defended by such soldiers as these, Cromwell went into the country of Huntingdonshire and there recruited his regiment of Ironsides from the sons of the yeoman freeholders. Thus he formed that terrible body, which carried victory upon its bayonet through every subseciuent battlefield, which never met an enemy, whether it was the chivalry of Eng- land, of France or of Spain, without both defeating and de- stroying hiui. The Stonewall brigade was recruited by Jackson from the s )ns of the farmers in the Valley of Virginia. Indeed, the armies of the Confederacy were all armies of the farmers; and such was their powers that it required a gigantic struggle of four years to enable tlie plutocracy and proletariat of the combined world to overthrow them. But they, with their sys- tem of rui'al life, have been suppressed.
Woe to the laud, to g-athering ills a prey Where wealth increases, and where men decay.
—Goldsmith.
III.
Every patriot, consequently, should wish to find a remedy for this continental evil of agricultural depression; but a remedy can only be found by ascertaining the causes of the disease. If our efforts are directed to a mistaken cause, they will work only evil and not benefit.
I do not, for instance, find the cause of this depression in the existing volume of American currency: nor do I see any hope of a remedy in its inflation. Every true friend of the far- mer sees his hopes directed to this false (quarter with soi-row. For we are aware all history and iscience prove that such in- flation can only aggravate the evils which now gall him into justifiable resentment. So evident is this to i»ersons well in-
H28 THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS
formed, that when they see the pretended advisers of the Alli- ance misleading- it in this direction, it is hard to suppress the suspicion that they are the bribed agents of the real oppres- sors of the country, practicing to perpetuate their domination bv misdirecting the etforts of the sufferers.
But would not inflation of currency enable the farmer to sell his products at a higher nominal price? Yes, for a time, but at a deadly ulterior cost to the farmer.
For first, that inflation of currency which would raise the nominal price of the farmer's products must at the same time raise the price of all the other commodities which the farmer wishes to purchase.
Let us suppose that inflation enables him to sell tlie cotton bale, which before had broug^ht him |40, for |80. He must now pay at least I^SO for |40 worth of those goods which he needed to buy with that cotton bale for his farm and family. What has he gained by the change except the childish amusement, or more probably the fatigue of counting twice as many dollars?
But second, when inflation shall have raised the nominal price of his cotton bale to |80 he will not be able to purchase that return of commodities for his farm and family for |80, more probably he will have to pay |100 for them. For it is an established fact in history that when inflation is proceeding, land values and their prDducts respond more slowly to the stimulus of prices than other species of goods. There is a plain reason for this: The farmer's values cannot be made to change hands so quickly as the commodities of the merchant, and as everybody knows that this rise of price, stimulated by inflation, is precariaus and must be temporary. 'Nobody is so foolish as to venture a full increase of price upon these slowly moving land values. This was exactly verified in 1862, when the rapid in- flation of the Confederate currency was stimulating prices. The prices of lands and negroes had scarcely began to move percep- tively, when those of mercantile commodities had been inflated four or five hundred per cent. Thus it must ever be, by the time inflation shall have raised the price of the farmer's cot- ton bale from $40 to |80 it will have raised the prices of the goods which he must purchase with that cotton bale to
or $i:iu.
Third. Inflation of currency must always be temporary,
THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS. 829
Like a fevoi- in a natural body, it must cure itself after a short time or kill the patient. This has been the history i)f every in- tiation, ancient or modern. Tliere is a reason for this, as un- erring and absolute as the gravity which makes rivers run down hill. So, a portion of the money in the region of inflation must immediately begin to tlow out into neighboring societies, where currency is not inflated. Why do unthinking people desire in- flation? Because it raises prices. But this means simply that the money now has less purchasing power within the region of inflation than without it. And now the self-interest of every hu- man being who has any of this money prompts him to send it away from the place where it has less purchasing power to the places where it has more. If it were found that cotton could be sold for more in Galveston than in Liverpool, by the amount of any margin above the freight and insurances, cotton would immediately begin to come back from Liverpool to Galveston. But of all commodities, money is the quickest to respond to this inevitable law of trade, because it is the most readily handled of all. Unless a society cuts itself off absolutely from all busi- ness relations with all other societies, it is as impossible for it to maintain permanent inflation as for the engineer to sustain a permanent mountain of water upon the fluctuating bosom of the Gulf. Inflation sooner or later cures itself, and with it nominal prices decline again.
In the fourth place, when this constriction of currency be- gins, money appreciates in value; that is to say, its purchasing power is now increasing; but commodities depreciate in value. That is to say. any given quantity of them demands less money. But the money, which is appreciating, is chiefly in the hands of the money-lending and trading classes. It is the conrmodities which are depreciating which are in the hands of the agricul- tural classes. Thus, whenever the inevitable constriction be- gins, it is they who lose and the trading classes who gain. In- flation has encouraged the farming classes to make debts; these must now be paid oft" with their crops and lands at depreciated prices. Thus again it is the farmers who suffer. Some will ask, perhaps, why prudent foresight could not be exercised in view of the coming constriction, so as to adjust one's business to it, and avoid these losses. .1 answer: It is precisely the money- lending and trading classes who are in a position to exercise
880 THE DKPRKSSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS.
I hat foresi^'lit, and it is precisely the fanners who are not. These live scattered through the country; they are engrossed with their crops and stock; they are the last to learn the news of the api^roaehing c jnstriction of currency and changes of values. Even if they forsee, they find themselves in no condition to make beneficial use of their foresight, because the money, which is ap})reciatiug, they have not ready; the commodities which are dei)reciating are chiefly what they have to dispose of. But the trading classes live in the centers of financial news. They are the first to learn ,)f coming changes; ready money is the crop wliit-h they handle. Hence it is they who are sure to make ad- vantage of the fluctuations. Inflation is bad for the business and bad for the morals of all classes; but it is worst of all for the farmers.
Our country has lately seen an exact illustration of these principles brought out upon a gigantic scale. The Federal cur- I'ency which replaced the Confederate in 1865 was a paper cur- rency inflated about fifty per cent. This inflation, according to the universal rule, cured itself. The greenback dollar approach- ed more and more nearly in value to the gold dollar until, in 1872, one was eipuil to the other, and specie payments were spontaneL)usly resumed. No law was passed by State or Fed- eral government to force that result. The financial wiseakers seemed afraid to legislate about it. Specie resumption came of itself. The gold room died of itself and was closed. Some may attempt to argue that the result was not spontaneous, but was virtually forced by the legislation of the radical party contract- ing the volume of the Federal treasury notes during those years. It is true the lavish issue made of those notes during the war was arrested; a large part of them were redeemed and with- drawn from circulation, but every dollar thus withdrawn was redeemed with some other kind of circulating dollars, silver, gold or national bank notes; and there was nothing to forbid these from entering the circulation and filling the precise place there of the treasury notes withdrawn. Again, silver and gold mining was revived and rapidly extended during those years, throwing into the veins of the national circulation annually multiplying millions of the money metals. Still again, during those years a high war tariff was enforced. The avowed tenr dencyof such tariffs is to create the so-called "balance of trade''
THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS. 331
wliicli causes foreijiii rui-i-ency iustead of inijtortcd coiimiodities iu large part to flow into the "protei-ted" eoiintry. And last the chaste national banking law was in full force, ottering un- limited incoi'jvjration to all creditors of the government, and enticing them to use the banking privilege freely to issue na- tional bank notes by that cunning arrangement which enabled the bondholders *'to eat their cake and have it too." Nothing but the natural andinevitable principles of currency restricted the indefinite multiplication of national bank notes. This inflation cured itself, withjut the aid of human legislation or any force from without. Let us now look at the consequences of this con- striction upon the planters of the country. Cotton was con- tinually depreciating in price, while money was ap])reciating. Debts created at the inflated figures must now be paid with the pi*3ceeds of cotton sold at declining figures. The crop mort- gages consumed the substance of the planters with a more dead- ly voracity from year to year, until at the end of the period money lenders and commission merchants owned all that was left and the planters were paupers. The old proverb saith: •'Dame experience keeps a good scliojl, though a hard one"; but it is the only one fools will learn in. The leaders who are now attempting to seduce the Farmers' Alliance into schemes of in- flation evidently give their pupils credit for even a less amount of brains than is found in the unf )rtunate alumni of the severe dame.
2nd. The earliest cause of the decay of the American farm- ing interests was the overthrow of the labor system of the South by the war between the States and its conse(]uent measures. T feel no fear of ott'ending any political sensibilities when citing this cause, since it is intioduced not f :)r its political bearings, but solely for its econniiiic instruction, and sini^^ I cite no facts except those given by the government of the Ignited States it- self. The census retui-ns of that govinaiment testify that u]) to 1860 the Soutlicrn lalxn- system had been most fruitful ami m )st productive of i)ublic and private wealth of any labor sysiem in the country. In ISCO the South, with a little more than 12,000,- 000 of souls, possessed taxable values to the amount of |(>,7()0,- 000,000. In 1880, while the souls were 17,000,000. the taxable values an.iounted in round numbers to ^:i,2;")0,000.000. That this immense collapse of wealth had not been the work chiefly of
332 THE DEPRESSION Oh' AMEItlCAX ITAUMING IJMTEKESTri.
war is proved by the testimony of the government, whose cen- sus in 1870 found the Soutliern people still possessed of taxable values to the amount of about |4,780,000.000. The Southern la- bor system had been destroyed, and with it this fruitful foun- tain of national wealth was dried up to flow no more. I pre- sume no one can be so unthinking as to suppose that this result affected the South alone. The profits of civilized society are I'eciprocal. When men wish to prosper they must ''live and let live." Commodities produced beyond the actual wants of the producer are of no value unless there is somewhere a demand for tJitm. Without an exterior demand they must rot unsold.
It is not merely the presence of numerous people with hun- gry desires which creates commercial demand: these people must also possess something to buy with, which is a value to the vendors. Before 1860 the South, with its lavish production of wealth, bought lavishly of the products of the States north of them, and that at liberal prices. They bought directly im- mense volumes of the agricultural products of those States. They assisted their agriculture indirectly, also, by buying huge volumes of their manufactured products. In 1880 there remain- ed in the South abundance of hungry desires, but little was left wherewith to buy for their gratification. The agricultural prostration of the South has reacte^l against the North by an inevitable law, as wise Southern statesmen forewarned the country; measures of reconstruction have been a boomerang, ^\hich ha^ rebounded, and struck in the rear only less severely iln'.n in the front. This immense loss to both sections is, of course, irreparable: the wisest economic science provides no remedy for it. An arrogant but brutish pride may tempt men to avert their eyes from incontestable facts, or even to deny them, because they cannot now be repaired. But true wisdom is more humble, as well as more honest, and is glad to learu from every fact, however mortifying.
3rd. I find a second complicated and powerful set of caus- es for agricultural depression, which have become almost uni- versal in America in the form of artificial combinations for monopolies. Naturally and e(iuitably the ratio of supply and denumd ought to determine the price, wiiicli producers shall re- ceive for any class of services or products they offer. If one class of producers can artiticially violate the law of supply and
THE DKPRESStO^f OF AMfeRlCAN FARMING tNTERKStS. '.V.YA
deinaiid. this uiusr of course be by tln'owiug- the lass upon con- sumei's of that ehiss of services or values. For iustauce, let cer- tain irou workers combine, create an artificial monoiioly of their services and thus inflate their price by means of the restrictive rules of a labor uniju, then that element of unjust monopoly price must be present in the agricultural machine which the farmer buys. In paying for it he has paid in addition to the fair cost or the raw materials, interest on capital, wages of labor- ers and equitable commercial profit, a further monopoly price to these laborers, and this remains an uncompensated plunder upon the farmer's earnings, unless he can create some monopoly claim upon other fellow citizens by which to ''recoup'' himself, but this the farmer can never do. Now most Americans are nou willing to let the equitable law of supply and demand regulate their gains, hence nearly every industry except the farmers is now organized into artificial monopolies. The prices of nearly all of the services of meclianical, manufacturing and mining labor are manipulated b}' the Knights of Labor and other la- bor unions. The Printers' Typographical Union legislates that we shall pay more than fair market price for type setting and thus for all the books and newspapers; medical associations fix the pnces at which we must be physiced; legal associations for- bid the gravitation of fees for suits toward that modest price' which the over-supply of legal talent would otherwise bring about. The commission merchants foreordain what per cent- age of charges, real and imaginary, they shall levy upon the farmer's produce, which are never remitted however disastrous to him their sales of his property may prove. The American Xail Makers' Association, instead of observing the law of sup- ply and demand, ordains what we shall pay for each nail driven in America. The salt makers order the shutting up of nature's fountains whenever she seems likely to cheapen that article of prime necessity by a more liberal outflow of her waters. The Lake Superior Copper Company legislates that every copper wire used by Americans shall cost double price of that which the same company sells to Europeans. The Standard Oil Com- pany inflates the price of petroleum and the other oils and de- presses that of the farmer's cotton seed. The sugar trust regu- lates the price at which we shall taste the sweets of life. There is now a cigarette trust fixing the monopoly price at which our
3^4 THE DEPRESSION OF AMEKIcaN FARMING INTEHEstS.
boys .shall poison rlicmselves and jKjlhitc the arniosjjliere around tlieui, the carrying companies of the country make all their freight charges upon the products of agriculture or upon the return goods which these procure. Nearly all these campanies inflate these charges either by watering their stock and load- ing their roads with unnecessary bonds, the proceeds of which they have silently appropriated; and they then load the pro- duce of the country with such freight charges as shall pay divi- dends both upon the actual and the fictitious values. Thus ev-. ery such bjnd or share of stock beyond the actual costs of the roads and their equipments becomes a perpetual lien upon the lands and products of the farmers, whom they profess to serve, levying upon them for all time both a just and an unjust profit. But the list becomes tiresome, and now its latest addition is the American Book Publishing Company, which proposes to levy a monopoly upon the brain food of every boy and girl on the continent.
The farmers remain one of the two great industries which has hitherto been unable to combine to engross the earnings of others, or even to protect itself against engrossers. This, I pre- sume, is not because the farmers are less intelligent or less hu- man than the other classes, but because they are so numerous, so separated by their homes and pursuits, so divided in interest by geographic and climatic causes, by the wide diversity and the very immensity of their products. Effective combinations for monopoly can never become feasible for them. Nor do they desire them. What they righteously demand is means to protect themselves against other monopolies. How to do this is a suflfic- iently hard problem for them.
The other great class of Americans found in the same help- less condition is the class of home makers. The 10,000,000 of American wives, mothers and sisters who perform more unre- mitting toil for smaller compensation than even the tillers of the soil. It would be well for them to make common cause with the Farmers Alliance. The other industries manage to overrule the equitable laws of supply and demand by their artifices, the farming interests has to accept, for the immense mass of values it creates, less than the natural law of supply and demand would ajjportion them.
4th. It is these unfair conditions which cause the enor-
THt: BEtJlESSION Oi^ AkKJilCAN FAKklNG INTEfeEStS. S^f)
mous taxation of the American Governnienr to press witli siicli crushing- weight upon tlie farming interest;^. It is dimcult to ascertain the real aggregate of the Federal, the State, the county and the municipal taxes whicli our people have to Dear. Enormous sums are levied in the irregular and vague forms of sherittV and clerks' fees. We shall not go far wrong in estimat- ing the total of $20.00 per capita for ever}- American soul. These taxes are so diversified and the modes of collection varied with such ill-starred ingenuity tliat the victims are scarcely aware of their own burdens. The average farmer whose family includes five souls will be much mistaken in supposing that he gets off by paying one hundred dollars, i. e., .|20.00 for each soul in his house. Many pauper families almost wholly escape ass- essment. The personal jjroperty of the rich is often secreted from taxation to a shameful extent, but the assets of the farmer remain visible and palpable. The governments are remorseless in their demands of the |20.00 from each soul. Hence those who have property and who cannot and do not secrete it from taxation must pny in addition to their own shares the shares of all the paupers and all the deceivers. No additional words are requisite to show^ how hardly- these exactions must press upon those industries whose capital and labor are already yielding the scantiest returns. Such are the industries of the American farmer. For,
5. The Federal legislation is so adjusted as to be most in- imical to his rights and interests. I refer chiefly to the so-called protective system of the United States, which is the prime source of the worst evils now crushing the farming interests in America. I have explained how the various rings and trusts op- erate to filch away the farmer's earnings without giving him any just equivalent. It is the tariff which provides the conditions of success for all these monopolies. As long as these fatal con- ditions subsist it is not probable tliat the oppressed classes will find any remedy. American ingenuity will always invent ways to evade the oi)eration of the principles of the common law against forestalling and regrating, and any statutes passed by the States and by Congress, in a country burdened with such an administration of justice as ours. The resort to free trade would of itself abolish the conditions requisite to the success of these iniquities so that they would perish of themselves. We
'i96 THE DEPEESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS.
see, for instance, the new book trust preparing its machinery to levy a monopoly-profit, iu addition to equitable manufacturing and commercial profits, upon every school child in America. Let Congress only pass, in one line, the righteous statute remov- ing all tariffs upon school books, and this gigantic fraud would be checkmated at once. The best and cheapest printers in the world, in Leipsig, Halle, Brussels, Edinburg, would in a few weeks place in our seaports ship loads of American school books, printed in our own language, with perfect accuracy, at half the price of the monopolies.
Every one understands that when the government levies tariff imposts upon imported goods, the final consumer ,of those goods inevitably pays both the value of those goods, with reason- able commercial profits thereon, and the tarilf tax in addition, increased by parallel charges of prjfits and commissions upon it also.
But the tendency of the system is to enable American pro- ducers of similar goods to enhance the prices of them also to the same level. This tendency may be partially checked by mutual home competition, but here come in all the monopoly rings and combinations designed to deprive the consumers of this check of home competition. Were this tendency of tariff laws fully i-ealized their result would be that consumers would pay as sim- ple plunder to private fellow-citizens four dollars of unearned profits for every dollar carried by the tariffs into the Federal treasury. This is bad enough; but it only reveals the small be- ginnings of the injustice wrought by the protective system upon the great farming classes. To comprehend the w^hole the reac- tionary influence of the protective system against the prices of all the great export staples created by the tillers of the soil must be clearly understood. By the term ^'Export Staples" we mean all those classes of commodities w^hich are produced in Ameri- ca in larger quantities than Americans can consume. Thivs over plus of each class of commodities requires and seeks a for- eign market, for without this it must only be wasted by need- lessly lavish use at home or rot unronsumed. Either result is a loss to the producers. Let, now, these indisputable facts be combined: First. International traffic must be mainly barter of goods for goods; it cannot be mainly the sale of our goodis for the money of our national neighbors, for only the gold and
!i?^E DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERKSTS. 337
silver money of one nation can pass to another for the purchase of Its gaods. It is impossible that one nation's paper monej can be made to circulate as currency within another nation. It is equally impossible that one, nation can part annually with successive portions of its metallic money to pay for the goods of another nation which it desired to acquire. The reason is abso- lute: Very soon the volume of metallic currency in the pur- chasing nation would be relatively so reduced that money would be appreciated, the prices of commodities depreciated, and fur- ther importations of them for sale would become impossible. Such a form of international trade is therefore inevitably self- arresting. If international trade is to go on at all it must be the barter of goods for goods. Only so much specie can pass backwards and forwards as will equalize the small temporary oscillations in the balance of trade and in stirring exchange.
Second. All taritfs are restrictive upon free international barter. They are intended to be such. It is their boast to be such. If they did not operate to restrict the intiux of imported goods, they would utterly fail to operate as protective of home manufactories. Hence, when the United States enacts that cer- tain goods imported from Great Britain shall pay a tariff im- post, it thereby enacts a restriction upon the volume of such goods possible to be exported to us by Great Britain.
Third. This at once operates as a restriction upon the pur- chasing power of all foreign nations as \3 all our Export Sta- ples.
It is their interest to purchase freely of our export staples at good prices, provided we will let them pay in the various useful goods which they produce at such moderate prices and which we need. But the tariff" system says to them: "No, you shall not buy freely of our great export staples which we so much need to sell; for we will not take freely of those cheap and useful goods which you produce, and which we need, and with which alone it is possible for you to pay for what we send you." Let us instance our cotton crop. It is impossible for American spinners to consume annually mor<^ than two-fifths of it. Shall the rest rot unspun? Great Britain says to us: We like your cotton; it is good; we spin something more than 2,000,000 bales per annum, and cannot ri^ir one pound in England; we are only too glad to make you a good market at good prices for that
338 THE DEPRESSION OF AMERICAN FARMING INTEflESTS.
vast portion of \'Our surplus, provided you will let us pay you in the only things with which it is possible for us to pay, viz: our cheap and excellent manufactured good:s which will be so useful to you. But now comes in the American tariff and for- bids Great Britain doing this gaod part by our cotton surplus. It sternh restricts the quantity of British goods which can be sent into America to pay for cotton, and thereby restricts the purchasing power of Britain as to our cotton. Britain must con- sequently buj- less of our surjilus, and that at reduced prices.
The actual result is that, instead of buying every pound she spins from u?<, which .she would gladly do, our tariff' lawis force her to buy as little as possible from us and at the worst possible prices, and to seek a supply for her deficit of cotton from the unfriendly climates of Hindoostau and from Egypt and Brazil, which are glad to sell the cotton they rear to her without this senseless restriction. This great instance showis how surely tariff' restrictions operate against the prices of all our export staples.
Fourth. The foreign price of these staples inevitably rules the prices of all sold at home. Thus the tariff system, by injur- ing the price of that portion sold abroad, injures the price of every bushel and every pound produced upon the whole con- tinent. Is any one ignorant enough to doubt this? Does not every intelligent person know that every reaction against the price of grain in Mark Lane, of tobacco at the London docks, of cotton in Liverpool, immediately depresses the prices of these staples in every American city. Let cotton decline five points in Liverpool to-day; let Hubbard & Price report the price to- morrow morning on the blackboard of the New York Cotton Ex- change. Down goes cotton in New York five points. As soon as the telegraph can bring the news to Galveston, down goes the price there five points, and by day after to-morrow there will not be a hamlet in Texas where the retail purchaser will not insist upon a reduction of five points in his price.
Let us now^ glance at the quantity of these export staples created by American tillers of the soil. In 1891 they produced 2,000,000,000 bushels of Indian corn, 040,000,000 bushels of wheat, more than this quantity of oats, eight and one-third mil- lions of bales of cotton, 8,000,000,000 pounds of tobacco, be- sides dairy products, beef products, hog products, naval stores
i'SB DEPRESSION OF AMERICAIsr FARMING INTERESTS '.V.V.)
and other commodities. The sellinji' price of all this immense mass of values has been depressed against the tillers of the soil by this reflex operation of tariff laws. And for what end? That inflated and unrio-hteous profits mav be i)iled up in tlie pockets of a few thousand manufacturing: capitalists. And this is American republicanism? We need no longer wonder at the cruel depression of the American farming interests.
The price of ten cents per pound for cotton leaves to the planter a bare chance of a scanty proiit. In this month of Jan- uary-, 1892, yeomen farmers have been selling their cotton in the streets of Austin at a heart breaking price of five cents per pound. Lasf year the remorseless McKinley tariff ivent into operation. ^ly argument shows that we have liere not only the post-hoc but the propier-hoc. But meantime the prairie farmer's wheat has advanced from 80 cents per bushel to |1.()5? Yes. But is it possible that human eft'rontery and ignorance could ascribe this beneficial result tn the McKinley tariff? We are told tliat tliis impossibility has actually been accomplished successfully in the Northwest by protectionist demagogues. "The force of nature can no farther go." It would be a curious problem, whether the impudence of the deceivers or the stu- pidit}' of the deceived is the more gigantic. My argument has demonstrated that a restrictive system can only act adversely against tlie price of any and every export staple.
Tlie American tarilf is opei'ating adversely to-day against the price of American wheat. This slight rise (which saves the prairie farmers for a moment from despair) is purely the result of a great and sudden dearth of breadstuff among nearly all the 2S0,0()U,U()() of Europeans. Such a stimulus, but for the blight- ing influence of our tariff, should have sent American wheat up, not to the poor ])rice of fl.OS per bushel, but to |1.()0. Un- der the twenty per cent, tariffs which prevailed from 1S4() to 1801, smaller stimuli in European markets again and again sent tlu' price of AnuM-ican wheat up to f 1.75 per bushel.
It will be easily ])erceived from the above analysis that I have no (luack nostrums to ])roj)ose to the farmers as remedies for theii' wrongs. Tlu^ jiolitical nu^asures which are due to them and which would relieve tlu' unjust pressure, are the lion- est and simple ones of old Soutliern statesmen.
Economical government, reduced taxation, the arrest and
340 THE DEPRESSloK OF AMERICAN FARMING INTERESTS.
repeal of all class legislariuii and a swift return to strictly leve- nue tariffs. Will the great producing classes see their true remedy and combine in their strength to exact of our rulers its faithful application? I fear not. Impatience misleads many. The evil is chronic. Safe and wholesome remedies will only operate slowly. The money oligarchy has its hired advocates everywhere afield, who misdirect the views of the people. It is to be feared the greatest obstacle to true reform lies here; the real remedies are simple and honest, but the political mind of America is largely dishonest. The true theory of republican government taught by the fathers of America was this: That the sole function of civil government is to protect the equitable rights of all, while it bestows class privileges on none, and leaves each free citizen to work out his own preferred welfare by his own honest exertions in his individual independence. But the popular conception of government has come to be that it is a complicated and powerful machine, to be manipulated for the advantage of whatever cliques can seize the control of it, so as to juggle other people's earnings into their pockets. Consequently the prevalent picture in our political movements is this: The oppressing clique struggles by every means, fair and foul, to retain its hold of the crank of the lucrative ma- chine. The oppressed clique does not seek the restoration of justice to all. Tliat is too simple and old fashioned. No; what it seeks is to grasp in its turn the crank of the machine, in or- der to make it so revolve as to recotip its losses, avenge itself upon its oppressors, and imitate their selfish use of power. The danger is that amidst these species of struggles patriotism and political morality will perish. Parties will become more venal and a constantly narrowing oligarchy of wealth will take the place of true republicanism.
If the great agricultural class does not possess the e(iuity. wisdom and firmness to enforce the righteous remedy, for uo other class will find its interests in doing it. we may consider free government in America as doomed.
'■THE DOLLAR OF 1 HE DADDIES."
(P>om the Houston Post, March, 1892.)
Such has been the very war-cry of the so-called "silver men" in politics. They claim continually that the standard silver dollar known as the "Bland dollar'' is precisely the dol- lar of our daddies and that therefore they demand it. Now the meaning- of this claim is, that the precedent of the Fed- eral government, the example of its founders, and the weight of their wisdtun and patriotism, justify the continued and un- limited coinage of this dollar, containing three hundred and seventy-one grains of pure silver. I shall show that this plea fathers, in form and naime, but not in reality and worth, that is uncandid and false, that this coin is now the dollar of our were those wise 'old patriots here now, instead of fathering it they would most certainly reject it. from the force of the very principles by wliich they shaped the money policy of the coun- try. The phrase is only a catch- word to juggle with, not an argument to reason from. Some explanation is needed to evince this.
It is true that our fathers adopted the "double standard" for the Federal coinage, and that, by the advice of an excellent financier, Mr. Albert Gallatin. The "single standard" makes both gold and S'ilver money for the people and coins both for their use, just as truly as the doufble standard. The difference between the two plans is just this: the single standard makes silver coins "legal tender" for debts only to small amounts (say up to ten dollars (-flO), while for all larger debts gold coins ahuie are legal tender. The plan of the "double standard" makes the silver and gold coins both legal tender for debts of any amount, however large, at the option of debtors. That; alone is the essential point of difference. The results which are designed and which follow in fact from the two plans are
341
342 THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES.
these: The single standard gives the people both silver raouey and gold money to buy and sell with, just as the people prefer the one or the other, and indeed it provides the people as much silver money as they find it convenient to use in preference to gold; but it does not enable debtors to compel their creditors by force of law to take silver coins (except in very small amounts) as the forcible measure and standard of the values wliich they got from their creditors and which debtors are bound to return to them when pay day come«. The law con- fers that power only ou gold coins: that is all. 1 repeat, the law of the single standard allows the i)eople tD enjoiy either silver or gold coins as measures of value in trading with each other, just as they choose to agree together at the time; but the law refuse-s to empower debtors to force anything on their creditors as the fixed standard of values, to be receivable w^hen pay day comes, except gold coins. Such and no more is the plan of the single standard in those great nations which have adopted it, Russia, Germany and Great Britain; and such was the whole extent of the much abused law of 1873 adopting the single standard for the United States. The designed and ac- tual result of the double standard is that it enables all debtors to compel their creditors, by force of law, to take either silver or gold coins, as the standard of values received, at the debt- or's option.
Every truly scientific writer and statesman recommendis the single standard, in all countries: and this for two reasons; one is that the plan of double standard is always liable to be- came dishonest and mischievous unless it l3e corrected by a means very expensive and troublesome. The other is that this plan always tends to make silver money, or gold money, or both more scarce, and thus to deprive the people of the con- venience of having plenty of both kinds in use. Whereas the single standard tends to keep them both in circulation and especially plenty of silver. So that the advocates of double standard and free coinage are exactly wrong in telling the peo- ple that their plan will keep more silver in circulation. This may lo'ok strange at first, but the following facts make it plain.
These metals are not only the materials of coinage, but_ always articles of traffic in commerce. Xo laws and no power on earth can prevent this. As articles of traffic, they must
THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES. 343
fluctuate in relative value uuder the well known law of supply and demand, just as iron, cotton, wheat, and tobacco fluctuate. If the annual croip of silver remains the same, while the gen- eral demand for ir diminishes, its price must fall. If the de- nuind remains as before and the crop increases the price must fall. If the annual crop increases faster than the demand the price must fall, but if the relation of supply and demand in the case of gold remains permanent while either of these changes happens to silver it must become cheaper relatively to gold. That is, if sixteen ounces of silver sufficed before to buy one ounce of gold in metal markets, it will now requia'e more than sixteen ounces of silver. Or. a quantity of wheait which would before buy sixteen ounces of silver or one ounce of gold indifferently will now buy more than sixteen ounces of silver, and still only one ounce of gold.
If a governuient persists in the plan of the double stand- ard after the silver in its dollar has thus come to 'be worth less than a dollar it begins to practice a wrong, and to unsettle its standard of values. As a rocking foundation is no real foun- dation at all for a house, sj an unsettled standard is no stand ard. Such a coinage instead of regulating traffic in a whole- some manner tends to work confusion and disturbance in all business transactions. For instance, two citizens in the exer- cise of their rightful freedom have covenanted that the one shall give to the other certain goods to be valued at one thou- sand dollars and to be paid for by that number of these coins. But what does "dollar" mean? Clearly the government when undertaking to regulate that matter ought to give but one answer. To give two different ones is confusion. Does "dol- lar" mean twenty-three and one-fifth grains of pure gold? Or does it mean three hundred and seventy-one grains of pure sil- ver? But these are now quite different values I One of the mischiefs always attending this confusion is: That it starts circulation in currency itself, besides inflaming speculation in all other kinds of goods bought and sold with currency. This is ever a curse and let it be noted that it is the small money lending class which always profits. In the end. it is the large borrowing class which always loses, when currency itself is speculated in. Especially is this true against the fai^mers. And the reason is perfectly simple and certain. It is the money
344 THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES.
lending class whicli is always the most quickly informed of the shifts and fluctuations between the two currencies because it is their business to study them and they lire just in the cen- ters of action; while the farmers, scattered over the country and busy in their fields, are the last to find out what is com- ing. Moreover the money lending class is most able to pro- duce changes and shifts in the currencies, which it is their business to handle in large (luautities. Hence we see, that the politicians make two most absurd blunders when they tell the farmers that it is to their interest to have abundant "soift money" or silver money of infeiior value; and that the Wall street men advocate a single standard and oppose free silver coinage of standard dollars from selfish greed. The self in- terest of the maney lending class would lead them to desire another period of uue(iual currencies, for they know that they get rich fastest in such times, and the debtor class suffers most. And it is precisely the farming class whicli in the outcome al- ways sufi'ers by "soft money." Does the aljundance ;)f this seem for a time to raise the price of farm products? It is a miserable cheat; for when settling day comes, as come it must, the farmers always find that they have been paid for what they have to sell with cheap monej- and now have to pay what they owe in dear money. The farmers of the United States may be sure that Mr. Cleveland is their truest and best friend here. He is a learned, wise and honest man : let the farmers listen to him if they wish to know what is for their good.
This is proved by our recent history from 1862 to 1871i when the country had two different currencies, paper and me- tallic; then it was the famous gold room seethed every day like a caldron. It was then the foundations were laid for those col- lossal fortunes in the hands of a 'few, which all men now see to be so threatening to the rights and welfare of the people. It was then the grand impulse was given to that fatal process which, ever since, has been making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Let the experience of that time also teach the farmers the other truth; that in a time of ''soft money" it is they who suffer, and it is the money lending class which gains. The period I have marked was a time of soft money. When the war between the States ended the Federal paper money quickly I^ecame less depreciated, so that one and a half dollars of it
THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES. 345
were equal to one gold or silver dollar; and the paper money gradually appreciated. But it was soft moue^' until the re- suuiption of specie payments. Now who was it that got rich during that period? It was the bankers and commission mer- chants whj lent advances to farmers, while the farmers got poorer and poorer. Indeed the lending class almost ate up the farming class bodily. That was the epoch when Richardson, of Jackson, Miss., from being a little commission merchant, be- came the largest cotton planter in ^the world, through the agency of his advances and crop mortgages. Let farmers learn by experience.
The silver shouters tell the farmers that the unlimited coinage of silver dollars of inferior value is tie 'way to give them abundance of silver money; which I expressly deny. It is the very way to make money of both kinds scarcer. Again I appeal to stubborn facts. Under the Bland law, the United States has coined more than three huudred millians of these inferior silver dollars. ^leautinu' Great Britain, in her wis- dom, retains the single standard and limited coinage of silver. But this very year the people of the United States are employ' ing only $ i go per capita of silver money; while the people of Great Britain are employing $2.85 per capital The rest of our silver coinage lies obstinately in the vaults of the treasury? the people will not take it out and handle it, though the gov- ernment coaxes and almost britoes them to do so. Do these facts look strange? They are explained by a simple view of human nature. The people know in spite of the demagogues that these Bland dollars are inferior in commercial value, each one is worth, in fact, less than 75 cents. Now let an article which the people know to 'be inferior be offered for their use on two plans: Let the one plan be to offer it to their free op- tion and say to them. "Here it is, it is an inferior article; \t\\\ can use it if yon chouse wherever your convenience calls for it, or you can let it alone." The other plan says to the jieople, "This article, which you believe to be inferior, you shall \w made to take as superior, even equal to the best, and if you take it when pay day comes, the law will compel you to pay back in the best and dearest." Every one who knows human nature knows that the first plan will circulate far more of that article than the second plan. Suppose it were an inferior grade
346 THE DOLLATl OF THE DADDIES.
of butter, or flour, or cotton, cloth, or lard; let any grocer or housekeeper answer. Leave them free to settle at an inferior price for the inferior article according to their own judgment, and convenience will prompt them to use a good deal of ir; but when y3u make a law that the inferior shall be priced as high as the best, everybody naturally resolves to have as little to do with it as possible. It is the .same with the people's money.
The other consequence of our double standard with an in- ferior silver dollar as legal tender for all amounts is still more certain: it will ultimately drive away all the gold coiu. The people have been hearing lately of "Gresham's law." This is a principle in the science of currence so called ibecause that great man explained and proved it so well 300 years ago. It is this: Where the law makes two kinds of money to be currency of which one is worse than the other, the worse kind always tends tf) drive the better kind out of circulation and out of the hands of the people. So long as the quantity of thv worse currency is quite limited the great inconvenience of having too little cur- rency of either kind may check this natural tendency, keeping some of the better currency in circulation, temporarily. But the tendency is at work all the time, and when the quantity of the worst money is increased enough to fill tJie natural chan- nels of trade all the good money goes away. This also is but nature and common sense. Let any man ask himself; suppose he were going to buy a |10 coat with two kinds of money in his pocket, one kind commercially worth 25 per cent, more than the other, while the law empowered him to force the mer- chant to take 10 of either kind as |10. He also knows that there is a money broker whom he can reach, who will give him twelve of the meaner dollars for ten of his better kind. What will he be inclined to do? Of course, he will keep back the better dollars and force the merchant to take the meaner ones; he gains $2 by it. Such is exactly rlie position of all money dealers in financial centers. They find that they can make a Bland dollar, by virtue of bad law, buy a gold dollar's worth inside the L'nited States, while outside it will pay only 75 cents. Of course then, whenever they have money to pay in Europe, India, China, or Australia, they are going to send gold money to pay it, while they keep the meaner silver money to ])ut off on their fellow citizens. The tendency is as inevitable
THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES. 347
as an}' other law of nature. Let free coinage go on and sooner or later the last American gold coin will go out of American circulation.
Fact^ prove this. Between 179- and 18,34 silver had cheapened a little in the commercial markets of the world. At the later date a gold eagle (|lUj sold for |1().05 in silver. This was an appreciation of a little over six per cent.; the conse- quence was that all the gold coinage jf the United States went entirely out of circulation among the people. There was noth- ing but silver, bank notes, and wretched shin j»lasters. One might as well have looked for feathers from angels" wings in the hands of the people as for the gold coins of their own gov- ernment. Congress saw the necessity of restoring commercial equality of value between its silver dollars and its gold ones. It effected this by the law of 1831, which reduced the quantity of virgin metal in the grold eagle from 217 1-2 grains to 232 grains, or a'bout six per cent. Then their gold imoney began to stay and circulate at home. Now if a difference of six per cent, in value sent all our gold coin out of circulation, what will a difference of 25 per cent, do? It must, for the stronger reason, banish all our gold. Circumstances may delay the tlow; they cannot stop it linall}-. The tendency in this law of currency is as infallible as the tendency of rivers to run down hill. A dam across a stream may check the current until the pond is full: then it continues to run down hill as before.
I have now reached the place to signalize the dhshonesty of the jockey "catch-word," the dollar of our daddies. This claim should mean, were it not a contemptible fraud, that the fathers of the government committed themselves for all time to a dollar of 371 grains, irrespective of tluctuatious in the rela- tive price of silver. But this is precisely what they never did. Their example to us was to make a silver dollar equal in com- mercial value to their gold dollar and to anake whatever changes afterwards might be needed to keep them equal, ^\lly did they put just 371 grains of pure silver into their standard dollar in 171)2? See Hamilton, Jetferson and Gallatin. Be- cause 15 ounces of silver would then buy 1 ounce of gold, at which ratio the 371 grains of silver exactly equaled in value the tenth part of 217 1-2 grains of gold allotted to the gold dollar. In 1831. when silver had fallen so that it took IP;
348 THE DOLLAll 0¥ THE DADDIES.
ounces to buy au ounce of gold, the fathers recognized the need and duty of making a change in the coinage to equalize the two kinds. This they did by lightening the gold coin 6 per cent. If the silver men now are not trying to cheat the people, by this chiini of the fathers' precedent, let them do what their fathers did, equalize the two kinds of dollars. If those fathers wiere here now they would effect this by putting one-fourth more silver into the standard dollar. Not by taking one-fourth of the gold out of the gold dollar. Because they would have sense enough to know that such a sudden and wide leap downwards in the value of botli dollars would be ruin; it would be a gii.- gantic theft upon the government and upon every creditor of the gjvernment, or of individual Americans throughout the world, and would make a financial convulsion which woudd strew the country with bankruptcies. The other consequence of a double standard, when the relative value of silver to gold has changed, is a moral one. If the government does not read- just its two kinds of dollars by recoinage, it becomes guilty of wickedness. This is the wickedness of using itself, and enabling the citizens to use. divert and false measures in buying and selling. The function of money is to be the instrument of ex- changes between commodities. In doing this the money be- comes the temporary measure of value. When the government makes two kinds of dollars, one more valuable by a fourth part than the other, and by law empowers the buyer to force the meaner sort of dollars on the seller, as equal to the better sort; this is precisely as though the law should authorize cloth mer- chants to keep two yard-sticks, one 36 inches long, to buy with, and one 27 inches long, to sell with, and force the people to call them both full yards. In dry goods trade this would be simple rascality: why is it not the same in currency? This is the wickedness forbidden in God's law. Deut. 25: 'Tliou shalt not have in thy liag divers weights, a great and a small. Thou ishalt not have in thine house divers measures, a great and a small.'' Hence it is the imperious moral duty of every gov- ernment which chooses the double standard to make and to keep all its kinds of dollars of equal, and of unifonm and sta- ble value, to the best of its ability. If it does not try to do this, it is a thief and an abettor of thieving in its citizens.
I have now described the two great evils which attend the
TFt« bOLtAR 0^ TFIE tiADDtES. 34^
plan of rlie double standai-d when rlic relative^ value of ihe metals has changed. The only honest remedy is the reeoinage of all the money which the government has made out of one or the other metal. But this remedy is terribly expensive and inconvenient. I will now explain this by supposing the remedy applied to the present "Bland dollars." Let us say there are now 300,000,000 of them. First, 104 grains of pure silver has to be put into every one of these dollars to make them honest. This would require about 64,000,000 ounces of silver; whieh. would cost at this time about 160,000,000 in gold. Who is to pay for this? The government, of course. It has no money except by taxing the people. That is, the hard pressed tax payers must buy it. The meaning of which is that, were this false coinage raised to 100 cents values now the people must be gouged sixty millions to pay for the blunders which Con- gress has perpetrated under the advice of these silver men.. But this is not all. All the silver coins in the use of the peo- ple anust be sent back to the mints, to be made over again and made honest. This will be several months' work. In the mean- time what are the people to do for silver change? What a tremendous spasm in business we shall have here! At this point some thoughtless person is going to say, "This spasm can be avoided by calling back to the mints for recoinage only small installments at one time of the silver monej' in the peo- ple's hands." Nay. we are not out of the woods yet! The small installments of the full-weight, new coins must ible thrown into circulation as fast as they are manufactured; else this plan does nothing. But take notice: the community now has two kinds of silver money, a better and a worse; and Gresham's law immediately ibegins to work against the better kind. The money brokers will take out of circulation the good new dollars, nearly as fast as the mint throws them in; so the agony will be prolonged. English history tells us how power- fully this influence obstructed the new coinage at the end of the seventeenth century, in spite of the honest administration of William and Mary and the transcendant talents of the mint- master, who was no other than Sir. I. Newton.
But if these things would be done in the green tree, what would be done in the dry? Suppose that we had the free coin- age of silver into Bland dollars, which many clamor for! Gold
3oO THE DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES.
would h;^ diiveii fi-oiii us iu all purchases and payniouts just as fast as llie miuts could coin the silvei-; and when the volume of the latter became large enough to relieve the check on gold exports, operated by the stringency of a deficient currency, the last of our gold would go. Who would be fool enough to pay gold for any purchase or debt when law enabled him ta gain 25 per cent, b^' paying in silver? Let us suppose a debtor ow- ing |1,000, who has provided a thousand gold dollars, or goods equal thereto, wherewith to pay; he has only to use this gold instead of letting his creditors have, it, to buy silver buliiou and to send it to a mint where the United States will make 'it into Bland dollars for him, without even charging him ihc slight toll of a seignorage; and he wipes off his |1,000 debt ;;nd has |2o0 silver dollars left in his pocket; of course he will io this. Of course, every other debtor will do the same. Nobody will receive any gold for any purchase or debt. It will prac- tically cease to be American money. Thoughtless people say, let us have free coinage of silver in order to have money plenty*. It is the very way to make money scarce, for it will drive away all our gold, which will not only take out .f05(»,()00,- 000 of American gold now existing, but it will dry up all that vaster volume of credits now doing money's work, founded on that gold.
But the silver men claim that silver is not really depi-e- ciated in the world's commercial market. They assert that the enormous depression on its price is the wicked work of the '^gold bugs'' in passing the law of the single standard in 1873, and of Germany in adopting the single standard, thus forcing France to do the same. They claim that if the United States will adopt free coinage, and especially if she could persuade the European nations to return to the double standard, the event would show it, and silver would mount up again to the good old price of KJ for 1. Sound financiers know that this is all idle and false. Silver will never return to its former rela- tive value in a century, because its decline has not been due to any legislative acts in either Europe or America, but to an enormous increase of production and partial diminution of de- mand. In the first place, if the United States could persuade the European nations to come back to the double standard this would not increase the general demand for silver for cir-
tMe Collar of tWe da^Dies; '551
eiilatiau, hut ratlun' diminish it; for I have shown rhai tlie countries of the single standard ciicuhite much more silvei- per capita than the United States, wliich has the double stand- ard. In the next place, the United iStates never will persuade the European nations to adopt our bad system of currency. Their statesmen are not such fools. Their Parliaments are lot cursed with "silver lobbies," where private producers of the siher crop have their hired agents to cause the government to "bull" the price of their special crop at the expense of all other honest producers. Some of those Parliameuts may have "Houses of Peers"; but they are not infested with oligarchs carrying mining camps in their pockets as their rotten bor- oughs under the name and pretext of sovereign States. They may send commissioners to Paris and Berlin, highly paid at the people's expense, to ventilate their sophisms before the Euro- pean financiers; it will result in nothing. Such commission- ers have already been sent and they were heard with civil con- tempt, as they deserved.*
\Yhen we learn the simple facts as to the amazing change in the annual volume of the silver crop we see plainly enough why it has become and will remain much cheaper. Xew and \ery rich lodes of ore have been discovered like the famous Comstock mine. Chemistry has improved the methods of ex- tracting the metal. Old mines have been reopened as railroads and industrial enterprises are extended. Twenty years ago the annual crop of the United States and territories was about nineteen millions of ounces. It is now one hundred and sixty- one millions. ^Yhat else can result from this enormous in- crease in the crop than a marked decline in relative price? Last 3'ea.r the American crop of cotton increased from about seven and a quarter millions of bales to eight million and six hun- dred thousand. This knocks the i)rice down from ten to eiglit cents per pound. Here the increase was less than one-sixth, and it made the price fall one-fifth. But the increase in the silver crop has been eight-fold, not seventeen per cent., but eight hundred per cent! "Oh, but," exclaim the silver m,en. "the area of commerce and civilization is rapidly increasing; and with it the demands for silver for currency and the arts."
*This prophecy is fulfilled by the failure of the recent Brussels conference.
352 THE Dollar of the daddies.
I reply, so the uses af cotton and the world's market for cot- ton fabrics are annually extending. Has the area of commerce been extended eight hundred per cent, in twenty years? This at least would be necessary in order to absorb the eight-fold silver crop, if the other elements of demand remain as before. I>ut the}' have not. The demand for silver has relatively de- clined in several respects. As to the arts: There are more people now than twent}- years ago who think they are rich enough to use plate on their tables instead of earthenware? Yes, but the cheap process of electrotyping has been invented and the people use a hundred times as much of these wares. Again, the methods of traffic in India, China and Japan, wi'th their six hundred millions of industrial people, are changing, so as to employ relatively less silver and more gold, and bank credits. The Chinese and Japanese have long employed silver as their chief money of commerce. But since the opening of their ports a large part of the trade has passed into the hands of Europeans, whose money of commerce is almost exclusively gold and bank credits. When India was governed by its na- tive princes, the uncertaintj' and rapacity of their exactions under the name of taxes had farmed an almost universal habit among the people of annually hoarding, secreting and burying their savings in the form of silver coins. But now the British have governed India for a generation. The}' are conquerors; but the Hindoos have had time to learn that if masters, they are wise and systematic masters. Official abuses are sternly punished. Assessments and taxes, if heavy, are regular. The people have learned that there is no occasion to secrete or 'bury their riches. The silver coins, which they are able to save, need no longer be buried in the cow yard, but can be carried to the savings bank, where they will earn some interest. Thus they are returned at once into the circulation. The result of this change has been the closing of a species of gulf into which an annual stream of millions of European and Spanish-Ameri- can silver used to flow, to reappear no more for a life time. (Much, indeed, never reappeared, because the secret of the hid- ing places died with the owners). This stream is now turned back into circulation and speedily makes its presence felt in the Western world by reason of the close commercial relations between India and Europe and America.
T^E DOLLAR OF THE DADDIES 35^
For tliese and other reasons, it is evident that the old re- lation of snpply and demand in the silver market is perma- nently changed. An ounce of gold will never again be bought for less than twenty ounces of silver. The best proof of this is that the fraudulent and unwise efforts of the Congress to ''bull" the silver market by its coinage laws of 1878 and 1890 have been ridiculous failures. All they effected was a small spurt In the price of silver for a few weeks. It quickly dropped to its fixed price of about a dollar per ounce (of 48(1 grains.)* At this rate the standard dollar of 371 grains, is really worth 78 8-8 cents. It will never be worth more. All laws of Con- gress that it shall be, are as futile as' a law that a pound of iron shall be worth a pound of copper, or as the pope's bull against the comet.
*The ounce of silver has since declined obstinately to 84 cents.
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE FORMER LABOR
SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN UNTIED
STATES.
1894.
Tlie fiiriu-c iiuisr learn diietly from the experieuce of the past. There is no truth better established in science, than this: That every fact and every law may have future value from, some useful application, perhaps wholly unforeseen. The wise scientific man. therefore, carefulh' stores up every authentic discovery, like the experienced housholder; in the confidence that it will be useful at a future day, though now apparently useless. The circumstance that this fact formerly existed in conditions not likely to be ever again exactly renewed, does by no means show it valueless. It may prove a valuable guide under new and unexpected conditions.
The labor-system o'f the South before A. D. I860, is a thing of the past. Xearly a generation has lived since it was abolish- ed. It is time that the political emotions which once associated themselves with it were quieted. This seems a suitable season, therefore, after the smoke of contest has evaporated, and yet, before the data and the witnesses for the investigation have perished, to ascertain its real economic effects.
This inquiry should 'be kept carefully separate from the social and the moral questions touching that system of labor. It is fully assumed, that wealth is not the only end, nor the highest end, which a commonwealth or a nation should pursue. The truth, that a given social system is the most lucrative does not prove it unjust. The single point to be pursued in this in- quiry is: What really were the economic results of the sys- tem which has passed away? And this point is sought onh' for the light it is capable of shedding on future economic prob-
354
i^ORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 355
lems, vvhicii may meet our poster! ty. Of course, science looks ouly at premises and conclusions, considering- only whether the former are ?:rounded in authentic facts; and the latter are logically drawn. The inquirer has nothing to do with precon- ceptions and inclinations, for or against the system examined. The main premises of any valuable conclusions here, are tlie facts. Theories and hypotheses are of nj account, in the face of the facts. The chief reliance must be upon the actual re- sults, as revealed by the authorized statistics of labor and pro- duction. And these will be found to demonstrate, when exam- ined from the various points of view, a cumulative proof, that the Southern labor-systenr was comparatively much the more productive of wealth and accumulated capital.
It may be well to define clearly in the outset, what that labor-system was, commonly known as domestic slavery of Af- ricans. He who persists in viewing and treating it as virtually the same with the system which bore the equivalent name in pagan Greece and Rome, cannot possibly understand what the ir^outhern sj'stem reall}' was. It may be true that ''Aristotle" (Politics) "can be quoted, defining a Sofhi- or slave as jpf/zo i/zi/'ivvi' "^'11 animated utensil '; or that modern assailants may declare the African in the South was made by law "a mere thing,-' "a chattel." But every fair observer knows that in the South, essential changes from that unjust and harsh sys- tem were made by Iaw% which, while for convenience sake, leaving the name of slave, made the relation to the master es- sentially a different one. So far did the laws of the South go from treating the African in 'bondage as a mere thing, owned by the master absolutely; those laws treated the bondsman as a responsible moral aj?ent, personally amenable to statute laws, and encouraged and warned by its sanctions: they pro- tected his life, limbs, Sabbath and chastity, against violenae even from his own master: and that by the same statutes, and the same penalties which protected these rights of white per- sons: they gave to the bondman a legal title, as against his. own master's estate, and even against his master's personal earnings or professional salary, to a laboring man's subsist- ence for life: the}' enabled him, if not legally held in constraint, to sue his own master at the law, for his liberty. What then remained to the master, of the prerogatives of a master? This
356 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTH KRN U. S.
only: Property in the involuntary labor of the African, for life, subject to the bondsman's right of subsistence, and such control of his person and services only as was necessary to possess that title. The Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the land, and the work of the greatest jurists and statesmen of America, has cut off all debate as to how' much and how little was lawfully meant by the relation, in giving us an exact definition, in words perfectly clear-cut and appropriate. These Africans were described as, '-Persons held to labor or service in any t^tate" (meaning: so held by regular law of that State).
So, Sir William Blackstone defined the bondage which ex- isted in his day (notwithstanding Lord Mansfield's famous de- cision in the Somerset case), by law in England and all her f'olonies. as a title to another person's involuntary labor, which, while a title for life, was no more in its nature, than that of the master to the labor of his indentured apprentice. So Dr. Paley, in his moral and political philosophy. AVe have nothing to do then, with discussing the economic results of a pagan system of slavery, never known for a moment in civilized America, which dehumanized the rational human agent into a "thing a mere ''chattel." The system we have to examine was as a labor system; the subjection of the labor, for life, of a certain alien and savage population defined by the law, irrespective of their optional consent, to the heads of white, free families, in a domestic government of the master; but under the limits and restraints of civil law. What were the economic results of this vigorous expedient, to which the Southern States re- sorted in order to protect themselves from the evils of the presence of this savage population? A presence which had not been elected by those States, but forced on them, wlijile colonies, against their choice, by the slave trading laws of England and Xew England. Let the reader observe in pass- ing that nothing more is needed than this correct definitiou of the relation, to make an end of the boastful argument of th^e Abolitionist. He argues that the relation was always and es- sentially wicked. The only premise which can furnish even a pretence for this conclusion is the following: That any hu- man being's i)roperty in the involuntary labor of another hu man must be always and essentially wicked. But when this
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 357
is dragfjed into the light, its falsehood at ouce appears both; monstrous and ridiculous. The parental relation clothes the parent with property in the involuntary labor of the child. The business relation clothes the employer with property in the involuntary labor of the apprentice. The marital relation may clothe the wife with property in th» involuntary labor of the husband. There is not a legitimate government on earth that does not clothe the rulers with property in the involun- tary labor of the citizens. What else is the right to tax, to exact military service? Thus this heady argument, which has incited to a frightful civil war, to the murder of a million of men and to the final destruction of a free constitution, is fjund to be nothing but the blind pressing of a false issue. The evil thing which Abolitionism professed to attack had no existence except in its own slanderous accusations.
Another caution must be observed, in a fair examination of this question. The productiveness of a given system may be partly determined by the features of the system itself; and partly by the personal traits of the people managed under it; as the eflficiency of a given army in the field depends partly on the system of arming and drill, and partly on the "personnel" and morale of the race from which the ranks are filled. Now, a la'bor-system, as such, should not be held responsible for the initial state of barbarity, ignorance, laziness, ineptness, and general unthrift, of the persons first delivered to it to be by it employed.
The necessity of employing such instruments as the savage Africans were, may have prejudiced the results of a better labor-system in -a comparison with some worse system, which has the good fortune to employ civilized, etficient, trained la- bor at the outset. And if the former, in spite of this disad- vantage, yet produce large results, while it improved the la- bor and morale of its sorry instruments: this would be, to the thoughtful mind, the most splendid evidence of its efficiency as a system.
A verv slight acquaintance with the science of economics teaches, that little can be learned by a general and cursory view of societies and comparison of their aspects. Yet many have argued that the Southern labor-system must be eeonomicallj h"(^ because they found more of the surface a])pearnn('es of
8p8 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
wealth, in the Euvope and America of tbe nineteenth century, as large cities, splendid mansions, lavish expenditures, and princely incomes, in hireling; societies than in slaveholding; more in England than in Jamaica; or more in New York than in Virginia. But several facts must be remembered: of which one is: That in modern times, the slave-holding societies, in every case, had been made, in one way or another, industrially tributary to the hireling. The West-Indian and South Ameri- can settlements were colonies to Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, or Holland; and their industries were by law subjected to restrictive systems, designed to transfer a large part of their earnings to the home traders. The South- ern States, between the end of the revolutionary war and 1789, the admitted leaders in wealth and progress, no sooner entered the Federal Fnion. than their industries also were made tribu- tary, by bounty, navigation, tariff, and financial enactments of Congress, to their hir(^ling-labor partners. Thus, there has been no example, not injuriously meddled with, by which it could be shown how profitable the Southern system would be when it had a fair chance? It can never be determined which of two hives of bees is most productive in honey-making while the bees of one hive are regularly empowered to rifle every re- turning worker of the other hive, of a part of his sweets. Both the tendencies of the hireling cammunities in America, and of the Federal policy towards those States, were more favorable than the Southern system to gathering a larger portion of their people into towns. But any populous town, whatever the goodness or badness of its labor-system, tends to stimulate ornamental agriculture around its suburbs. One only of the influences need (be mentioned. Most Americans, when enriched by traffic, vehemently desire the amusements and boast of an ornamented, suburban farm, or villa. The products of these, evoked by lavish outlay of labor and manure, never equal their cost. Probably every ton of hay from the model farm has cost tlie price of a ton and a half to produce it; every boasted pound of golden butter has cost two pounds. But now. while these lavish toys of "merchant princes" spread a pleasing zone of culture and apparent fertility around each pompous city, they are in no sense productive industry: no more so than the lemons which the lady-wives have ripened in their conservatories, at
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S, 359
the cost of a dollar for each lemon, worth half a dime. The more any society has of these toy-farms, the more is its ag- gregate wealth wasted. If the admiring tourist would go to the more retired parts of the regions tributary to this city, he would soon see, in the "nakedness of the land." or in the hard- ships of its poor, the proof of that proposition. But as it is, the European abserves, landing at Boston, and journeying thence to Marblehead, to Xew Providence, to New Haven, to Xew York, to Newark, to New Brunswick, to Elizabeth, to Trenton, to Philadelphia, to Chester, to Wilmington (Dela- ware), scarcely gets out of one artificial suburban or zone, un- til he enters another. He leaps to the conclusion, that these hireling States are all in a state of splendid prosperity. Should he then continue his journey past Baltimore, to Washington, to Richmond, and the farther Southern iStates, the Atlantic border so expands itself in its geographical configuration, in- stead of the crowded convexity of the region he has passed over, and the cities are so few and small, that the bare spaces of the unadorned continent appear largely. Each Southern city has also its zone of fictitious wealth; but they are far apart: the eye of the unfriendly tourist prefers to rest on the poorer inter-spaces: he convinces himself that these States are poor. He has taken but a partial, and therefore a deceptive, view.
Nobody can be blind to the natural differences made by the Creator, between favored and slighted districts, as to na- tural soil and climate. Let the alluvial plain of Lombardy be compared with the bleak sand and pine barrens of old Brand- enberg: Is there on earth a tougher, more hardy, diligent, sav- ing peasantry than that of Brandenberg, and is not their farm- ing guided by the best science in Europe? But all this can only keep alive on that hungr3- soil, under that harsh climate, a starveling appearance of tillage, which is pitiful beside the smiling abundance of the Po alluvium. Here are natural dis- advantages, which no virtue of any labor-system can equalize or compensate. Now, it has been said a thousand times: that the old Atlantic slave States had a great advantage in the na- tive fertility of their soils; but that these fat fields have been skinned and impoverished by the 'bad system of labor. Both parts of this statement have always been simply false. The lands which, in Virginia and the Carolinas, showed poverty in
360 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. 8.
1860, had always been poor. They had never been made poor, but were born poor. The uphmds of the old Atlantic water- shed, which are the vastly larger part of that area, are natural- ly thin and barren at their Northern, and their Southern ends. They were poor in New England. The part embraced in the old Middle States, from the Hudson to the Potomac, were na- turally the best. In Virginia they began to deteriorate, and the natural average became worse and worse, as they ap- proached the Gulf. Florida being the poorest of all. In the one great Illinois bottom oppo.site St. Louis and Southern Mis- souri, there is more fertile mould than nature ever gave to all Eastern Virginia, or either Carolina. When the really rich virgin soils of the great Mississippi valley were opened to cul- tivation, the new States had an advantage for production and the accumulation of capital, which statistics can hardly ex- press. How ought that industry, which yields fifty or sixty- bushels of maize per acre, without manure, to outrun that which, with the same labor of cultivation, yields, without ma- nure, ten bushels? Such was and is the virgin strength of the larger part of the upland area of the old Southern States. Sd far as any criterion could be found, of the relative advantage of the Southern System, from observing the face of the coun- try, the simple facts were, in 1860, these: The African labor was holding its place as the preferable labor, in every district of every Southern State where it had ever had foothold, be- sides extensive and profitable emigration to new regions. It' was steadily making its way into those fertile parts of the Southern States once tilled by white, hireling labor; because found practically more profitable. The whole area of the old South was in a rapid and splendid state of reparation and im- provement: even the thin land described, which never had any fertility to lose, coming rapidly up to profitable tillage. And I he few bauds and islets of really strong land presented, in 1S60. the most magnificent tillage and the largest crops seen in any of the old States.
Let it be distinctly understood, that these general views are not advanced as the conclusive prjofs of the good results of the system. That proof will be given below, in the authen- tic testimony of the government itself, and in solid facts of- ficially attested. The objects of the above views are simply
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 361
preliminary: to clear away from the reader's iniud presumptive impressions against the truth: to rebut by more accurate and impartial views, the prejudices excited against the witness we are about to introduce, through false first impressions. One of these impressions, much relied on. is the appearance of exten- sive exhausted fields in the South. It has been unhesitatingly claimed that slavery was the cause; that an exhausting cultiva- tion is the proof of its bad economic etfeet. The one answer has been already given: that many of these lands could not justly be said to be exhausted by any cause, inasmuch, they were naturally so poor as to have almost no fertility to lose. But there were districts in the South which, before the splen- did recuperation of 1845-1860, effectuated under slave labor, had been in an exhausted condition.
Now if the same result be found in several other districts where slavery never existed, the argument is ruined. The same result has. in fact, been found in every district of America, where these two circumstances concurred; the possession of a profitable staple saleable in large quantities, and sufticiemt proximity to market. In any country, and under ever}" system of labor, if new land is cheaply accessible, this result follows tsee John Stewart Mill. Political Economy. Book I. chaptei' 12 ». The profitable staple tempts the first generation of land- owners to exhausting cultivation. They su}»pose that it is more gainful to exhaust the land, and take up other fields new and cheap, than to manure the old. This cause has regularly pro- duced exhaustion in the hireling States, as in the South. Thus ninety years ago. New England farmers went to the calcar- eous lands of Vermont to raise wheat. They pressed their gainful staple, but exhausted their soil. To-day those old wheat farms are sheep pastures, and the shepherds scarcely raise their own flour. Fifty years ago the second generation of these Vermont wheat growers emigrated from their exhaust- ed farms to the (renesee country of West New V ti-k to raise wheat. They reaped forty bushels per acre, from the virgin soil; but they pressed the skinning process, until the average product fell below twelve bushels per acre. Then the next' generation went to Ohio, and skinned the apparently exhaust- less lands of that State, the boast of this school of economists: until the remorseless truthfulness of census-returns showed,
362 FuKMER LABUR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
that Oliio was yielding an average of only eight and a half bushels. And naw the fourth generation are skinning the fat prairies of Iowa and Nebraska. Another argument has been flaimed from the recuperation of production within the last twenty years in the subjugated States. The exclamation is: Behold here, what the South gains 'by getting rid of her bad economic system of labor. Some SDUtherners even, have been shallow enough to echo it; because, poor fellows, they had been so accustomed, for the first fifteen years of their subjuga- tion, to desperate poverty and hopelessly unremunerated ef- fort, that any degree of increase boks splendid in their eyes: blinded to the past by the tears of despair. The latter, partial return of progress in production is. indeed, a magnificent tes- timony to the temper and pluck of the ex-slaveholders: in that under a system sj adverse as the present they could ever restore any progress at all. But we meet with a flat denial, the as- sertion that industrial progress, and tlie growth of new capital now^ presents any such comparative ratio to that of the old sys- tem, as to prove the supposed point. Between 1840 and 1860, Virginia, an old State pursuing mainly other staples than wheat, increased her wheat crop from ten to thirteen million bushels, and her tobacco from fifty-six to one hundred and twenty-four millions of pounds I This progress was under her old system of labor. Her wheat and t3bacco crops up to 1880, under the new system, were restored only to: wheat, 7,826,174 bushels, and tobacco, 79,988,868 pounds. Only one other fact is necessary. Between 1850 and 1860 the cotton crdj). pecu- liarly and exclusively the product of the Southern system, grew fr3m two and a half million bales, to five and a half millions: an increase of 110 per cent, in ten years. Let it now be remem- bered that in 1860 the cotton raising States had but seven and a half millions of people. Xow they have about seventeen mil- lions.
But since 1860, thirty years ago, this larger population, under hireling labor, has only raised the crop of 1894 ta ten million bales. A phenomenal crop? Here is progress: progress gratifying to a conquered and despoiled people: but it is a sorry showing as compared with that of the aid system. Leav- ing out the years of the war, a similar ratio of progress would have given us in 1894 fiftv-two millions of bales instead of the
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN" U. S. 363
actual ten iiiillioii. This calciilatiou, of course, discounts the re- pressive power of au overstocked market. No economist chiims for the sratisrics of a census, entire accuracy. But it is pre- sumable tliar omissions and inaccuracies virtually balance each other, when a comparative view is carefully deduced be- tween two sections. If, for instance, our appraisement of the cash value of a given product which is reported in bushels or tons, should be somewhat too low, or too high, no comparative error results, because that product in both sections has been appraised at the same price: so that the one section gains or loses by any possible error of price, precisely in proportion to the other. But in all important particulars, the advantage in the following estimates has been intentionally given to the hire- ling States. The two following instances will explain this. The wheat crops are given in bushels. It is well known to mer- chants, that the average price of a bushel of Southern wheat was considerably" more, in any year, than of the Northwestern wheat, which furnishes always the main bulk of that crop in the hireling States: because it comes into an earlier market, because it is more flinty and mature, and thus makes a flour worth often half as much again for export, and because the Southern crop includes no spring wheat; always inferior to the winter wheat. Yet, in estimating the value of wheat, both in 1850 and 18G(), the same price was allowed for all Northern, as for Southern wheat. Thus the advantage of many millions of dollars was allowed to the hireling system. The other in- stance is our unquestioning acceptance of the census-estimates of personal property at the North.
The nature of Northern pursuits has unquestionably pro- duced a vastly larger development of that class of so-called val- ues, known as credits, or securities, at the North, than at the South. These credits are named as personal property: art^ sub- ject to taxation and are always counted by men in estimating their wealth. They are. of course, listed as personal property by the census, and by the tax assessor, except that enormous fortune concealed by fraud.
But many of them are not values. When the capital stock of a railroad, which actually expended nni millions in its plant, is swelled by ''watering" to twenty millions, however these fic- titious shares may sell, or may pay dividends, they represent
364 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
110 real values: tliey are only an artifice for levying a gratuitous lien, and exacting a roibber tax on all the real industry wliicli seeks transportation on the road. When an owner of real es- tate sells land on credit and takes the purchaser's bond no value is created by that transaction, ^yas the land worth ten thousand dollars? There is now the land, taxable in the pur- chaser's hands at ten thousand dollars of value: and there is the bond, taxable in the vendor's hands, as another ten thou- sand. Each man counts the amount. The tax-assessor counts it twice; but not a dollar of value exists, as yet, beyond the ten thousand. Those who argue the reality of the fictitious, credit value, ask: Is this bond worth nothing to the holder? ■Cannot it be sold at par, if secured by mortgage on the land? Sued for? Bequeathed? Surely it is a real value! But the stubborn answer is: Whence has any real value been created? The land, the only original value, is now in the purchaser's hand: and clearly value can not be created by exchanging a piece of paper. The explanation which these economists over- look is very simple. There are rights, which may grow into values only. But rights may be sold, bequeathed, held by law. When a great commercial crash comes, like that of 1873, this species of wealth vanishes by hundreds of millions. How is this? There is no way in which actual values have been used or consumed, no fire, flood, shipwreck, w^ar exportation, de- vouring of an3'thing. Literally no process of consumption of values known to political economy has taken place; but sud- denly thousands of people are poorer by millions. The ex- planation is, that the credits destroyed by the ''panic'' never had been aetual, but only potential values. They never actually existed as values: no value has been actually destroyed. The only diminution of real values or wealth which the panic has caused is the depreciation of prices of such possessions as are real commodities.
Now, in the appraisement of values, it is notorious that the lists of the hireling States contained many- more hundreds of millions of credits than those of the Southern States. These States were mainly agricultural; their trading towns were i-clativelyfew and small ;and the species of "business" so-called, and speculations, by which these credits are nominally inflated, were comparatively unknown among them up to 1860. But
I'ORMeII LAfeOi? SYSTEM Oi' tHE SOUTHERN tJ. 8. M^
we have made no deduction against the hireling States on rlii^i ground: a large advantage has been all awed them in the com parison. Before 185(1, the census returns had scarcely been taken on so comprehensive, or digested on so scientific a scale, as to make their testimony decisive. After 18(50 the Southern system no more had any existence during a census year. Hence our comparisons are justly limited to the years 1850 and 18(30: and these are enough. The testimony of the government it- self, then is as follows.
In 1850 the total appraised values of the Southern States were |2,900,604,589 to 9,318,924 total population; subtracting 3.201,818 slaves: (),118,921 whites. If this aggregate were di- vided among the whites per capita, it would give possessions averaging |472 per head to the whites. Or if it be insisted that the negroes shall be counted among the population, we had |810 per head for white and black. Or, else: if we yield to (un- fair) assertion that, in this comparison, the property in the la- bor of slaves shall not count for anything: we then deduct the whole, appraising all, men, women, children, and decrepit at |250 per head, which is a high estimate for 1850; and we have left a property of |355 per soul for each Southerner. In 1850 the hireling States had thirteen and a half millions of souls, and the appraised possessions of all kinds were |3,621,011,661. Each soul then had an average of |270. This gives the super- ior riches to the fc?outh, by |85 per head, if we strip the South- erners of all property in the labor of the Africans; although hundreds of millions of dollars of actually realized and paid up capital had been paid by them for that species of property. If the Africans are counted as property, then the average South- erner was richer by |202. In 18()0 the Soutli had twelve mil- lions of people, includiug not cpiite four millions of Africans. Her appraised values were |(J,74(>,34:i,T(;i, an increase of more than double in ten years. The liireling States with eighteen and four-fifths millions of souls, presented a total of |9,257,9G4,- 000, The North had received from foreign emigrations an an- nual accession of several hundred thousand people more than the South, estimated to have brought them, besides their per- sons and labor, an average of |1,000 each in cash. Still the relative major wealth was with the South; each white soul having 1831, as against |490 to each soul in the North. Or,
366 FORMEK LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN tT. g.
if file unfair dediu-rioiis be insisted on. of all propei'ty in the labor of the Africans, eaeh ir^outherner still had $637, as against the Northern average of |490 per head. And the deduction is here made at the liberal rate of |400 for each soul of the Afri- cans, their market value having risen in ten years. Or, if the division of the Sauthern total be made between the whole pop- ulation, including all the Africans, there was still an average of 1560 per head, against |490 at the North.
Or, let another view be inspected. In 1860 the hireling States reared of the cereals used by Americans as human food, five hundred and sixty-one millions of bushels, and the South- ern vStates four hundred and ninety-four millions. That is, the hireling system gave each of its sauls about thirty bushels; but the Southern system gave each of its souls forty-one bushels. Moreover, the hireling States boasted in these cereals as their great export crops. But the South, after feeding every one of her souls one-fourth more liberally than the hireling States, must have had proportional surplus for export, besides her magnificent totals of cotton and tobacco I Again, of the do- mestic animals used hj Americans as human food (horned cat- tle, sheep and swine) the hireling States had in 1860 about forty millions, or a little more than two per soul for each inhabitant: While the South had forty and a half millions, or about three and a half for each inhabitant. But, as the flesh of swine is so predominant in the food of laboring Americans, it will be interesting to see the proportions here. The hireling States had not quite twelve millions of swine; while the South had twenty millions six hundred thousand. The hireling system gave each mouth a little more than six-tenths of one swine per annum; while the Southern system gave each mouth one whole swine and seven-tenths of a second.. But this does not tell the whole story. A part of the hireling States were very large ex- porters of pork. Sundry of the Southern States were, on the contrary, large importers: and none of them sent away any ap- preciable export of it. So that the laboring people of the hire- ling States must have been dejtrived by export of quite a large portion of their scanty six-tenths of swine per mouth; and the Southern laborer must have eaten that portion, and all his one and seven-tenths besides. Yet the cry was: The African was wronged by being scantily fed! Again, in 1860, the South, with
FORMkK LABOH StStEM of THE SOUTHERN tj. S. ^67
a little iiioi'c than twelve niillious of people, had 8.SiH,7"jr) horses, asses and iiiules. The hiieliui>- States, with uot quite nineteen millions of people, had 4,335.240. Once more: the an- nual earnings of the hireling States, including all the branches of agriculture, mining and manufactures, and the whole value of live stock were $08.(37 per head for the whole population in 1850. The same vear, the same industries in the South yielded as increase fl08.25 for every soul, including the Africans. In 1860, the earnings of the hireling States amounted to only 1101.44 for each soul; but in the S:iuth. to ^111.35 for every soul, including the Africans. When we multiply this difference of about 10 per cent, in 1850 and of 16 per cent, in 1860 by the twelve millions of the Southern people, it makes a huge dif- ference in the proportional pritits. in favor of the Southern system. The returns of 1860 also disclose another fact: that successful manufacturing industries were at that time, by no means confined to the hireling States. It is true, that the South was prevalently agricultural: not because its civiliza- tion, or its labor system was ruder, but because its tastes and interests drew it by an enlightened intluence, in that direction. That its agricultural preference was enlightened is demon- strated by the grand fact, testified by the government itself: that its profits were larger than those of the other States work- ing on a sj'stem m )re largely manufacturing.
The South knew what it was about. Yet. there was a very large development of successful manufacturing industry, of which the rest of the world was strongly unobservant. Some times, the instances of this were amusing. In 1864 a ''raid" of a cavalry detachment into Virginia reiiiulted in the sack of two or three irDu-snielting establishments in her upper counties. A metropolitan journal in Xew York thei'eupon congratulated Mr. Lincoln at this vital reduction of the iron I'esources of the Confederate government at Richmond, informing the w:irld that Virginia in 1860 had had six furnaces in ()|»eration: of whose resources one-third was now extinguislied. In fact, the one county of Rockbridge in 1860 had more than 12. and the adjoining c )uiify of Allegany as many! In 18<i2. (xeneral T. J. Jackson learned that the Confederate war department was debating tlie policy of so contracting its lines of defense in up- per Virginia, as to leave out the lower Shenandoah "Valley."
i^6S FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
He re(Hiest-ed ilie ('(»iijii-t'ssiiian. rcinvsenriiiii- tlic rli.srrier in Riclimoiia. to protest. Tliis gentleiiiau said to the administra- tion: "Consider what, in such a contraction, you abandon,. For instance, among- other resources, you abandon, in my con- gressional district alone, fourteen woolen factories, which pro- duce clothing and blankets for your army." But the general returns of the Federal government itself are more valuable. They say that in I860, the South produced by manufacturing, values, after deducting the cost of raw materials, to the amount of about one hundred and eighteen millions. The hire- ling States produced in the same way, something more than five hundred and thirty-six millions. The latter had |28.21 of this sort of vahies. the South |9.64. more than one-third as much.
Probably, if the question had been asked in 1860, or last week, of the "well informed'" Northern man or European: ''In what ratio do you suppose the manufacturing industry of the great North exceeded that of the South?"' his guess would have been: "In the ratio of fifty to one."' The boa.st sounds of that largeness.
The bearing of these attested facts on our argument is not seen until we consider how the legitimated accumulations of Southern industry were systematically transferred to the North, after they were earned, 'by the legislative system of the Federal government. This levying of commercial tribute on our indus- try began almost as soon as the government. Washington's first administration had not ended, before Congress had assumed a power, of which the makers of the Constitution were not dream- ing: to incorporate in the territory of State, a mammoth bank of circulation and discount, which it made its exclusive fiscal agent. Thus, at one unforeseen touch, the advantage of dis- bursements and credits founded on the privilege of handling the assets of the treasury taken by taxation from all the people, was taken from the South, the payer of the larger taxes, and given to the North. Then under the pretext of fostering a sea- faring class for the advantage of the Federal navy, a fishing bounty was established: the whole of which from the foreseen force of circumstances, went to the North. For many years before 1800 this bounty had taken out of the people's taxes a million and a half annually. Half of this was a simple transfer
Former labor system of tfie southekn, u. s. 360
of rile Southei-u e;n'nin<;s into Xorrlieni pockets. The uexr bur- (leu was the eiiaetmeut of a navigation law: precluding all foreign shipping from the coast-carrying trade. It did not suit the tastes and interests of the Southern people to go largely into shipbuilding: as was foreseen and intended, the lion's share of the gains of this monopoly went out of Southern pockets into Northern. The great bulk of the commodities to be transported were, up to 1800, of Southern production: the beneficiaries of the monopoh' of transportation were Northern.
If one is curious to know the scale on which Southern pro- duction has been taxed by this monopoly, for nearly a hundred yi^ars, he has only to look into the commercial news of the jtoi-t of (lalveston. He there sees, every day, freights on South- ern commodities to Europe from which the navigation laws do not exclude this competition taken by the European ships for just half the price cliarged by Northern ships coastwise, where they are armed with this monopoly — that is to say: On every product of her industry, which the South desires to send by water to another American market, she has paid (chiefly io Northern ships) two freight charges where one was due.
The uext method of depleting our industry was by the more liberal dispensation of pensions, and moneys for light-houses, custom-houses, and other Federal buildings, in the North. It mattered little wlu^her the rolls of \\'ashington':s army in the tield showed an e(iual number of Virginians and Carolinian men: at the pension oflfice the Northern revolutionary veterans always had a grand majority. The edifices built with taxes, from which the vicinage always manages so pretty a profit, were plentifully sprinkled Northward: sparce and humble Southward.
But the gigantic method of transfer of Southern earnings into Northern pockets is, of course, the protective system, dat- ting, in its onerous degrees, from about 1<S2(). Every economist admits the inevitable effect of protective tariffs, to transfer fj-om the consumer to the manufacturer, a second profit, in ad- dition to the one fairly altaclitMl to the production, at least ecjual to the tai'ift" on the commodity. This needs no argument, [f the j)rotected producer does not actually realize this plunder from his fellow-citizens, it is only because this consumer is wronged in this other form, viz: by being forced to buy what
'SIO FOKMKK LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTllEKN V. S
he needs from a man nut (inalitiod t:) produce it as (•liea})lv as it miglir have been produced elsewhere. One of the confident arguments of protectionists is: Tliat the system benefits not only the protected manufacturer, but all the neighboring in- dustries around him, by diffusing capital and opening markets for their products. If this is so, then the X jrth has gained, in the race of comitarative acquisition, gained without earning it even more than the vast aggregate of additional profits paid on protected manufactures, consumed in the South. Or, if an at- tempt be made to estimate the amount of our losses from an- other i)oinr of view, when we ask: Why does the American producer demand ])rotection? His answer is: because without it he can make no profit in the face of European competitors. If this is just, then it follows, that whatever gains these pro- tected producers now have, were taken without value received from consumers! From Southern consumers in that propor- tion in which they bought tlieir products. Thus, the riches transferred out of Southern earnings into IS'orthern hands, be- tween 1820 and ISGO, are seen to be almost beyond computa- tion. But even this did not measure fairly the losses unjustly imposed on Southern industry by the protective system. Like a hasty and reckless forager in an enemy's country, it destroyed far more than the plunder it carried away. It happened that the South had. up to I860, two staples especially of vital im- portance to her, tobacco and cotton, of which vastly the larger part,< must be sold abroad, or have no purchasers because the volume of their production was manifold what the United States needed, or could buy. For instance, in 1860 the single county of Halifax, Va., and Casewill, N. C, were producing enough leaf tobacco to supply the consumption of the whole manufacturing population of the United States. Even of the 5,500,000 bales of cotton made that year, the United States were able to use only 910,090 bales: less than one-sixth. Now, if a (See comp. of C. p. 180,) the South was to get a living price for the rest of these grand staples, foreign nations must buy them. If foreign nations bought, they must pay in merchandizes use- ful in the Southern States, for international exchange must be barter.
For instance: England said to the South, in substance:' "We desire vour cotton ; if we pay for it in our excellent woolens
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 371
niul ii-()iMH(iiigery, which we ol'iei' cheai), and yon need, we will buy all yoiii- cotton at a good price." But the tariff steps in and says: ''No; England shall not pay in woolens and iron"; except under such disadvantages as must vastly reduce the (luantity exchanged and the advantage of the exchange. Then England must say, however reluctantly: ''Therefore we can lake much less cotton, or at a much lower price." Thus the South lost twice; once in this cruel reduction of the selling price of her own products; and again in the tribute paid, without value received, to the North.
Evidently, the Southern s,ystem might have been far more ])roduetive of values than the rival system, and yet, under this relentless drain, her aggregate of values might have been far smaller. That she c3uld spare this enormous drain, receiving no countervailing commercial advantage, and still outrun her gi- gantic rival, at successive decenniums, is an evidence of the economic vigor of her system and her people, inexpressibly s])l('ndid.
With this overwhelming and reiterated testimou}' of the government itself, and of the facts, to the superior profits of the Southern system, the debate might end. But if it stopped wiih a sweeping victory here, the more instructive part of this history of the past would be missed. We propose to show by what principles of true economic science this result was at- raincd: st« contrary to the prognostic's of the more favored as- sei-tors of the science itself.
It iy this part of the discussion, which will furnish the val- ua.ble corrections and additions to our science, for the untried future. The leading writers of France, Great Britain and New England, including the latest and perhaps ablest (Frederic l>as- tial), have usually followed Adam Smith, in demonstrating the unprofitableness of slave labor, from premises given chiefly by fancy and slander. It should have given them pause at least in their application of their passionate declarations, to our Southern system, to remember that most of them had never been in three thousand miles of our country: and that none of I hem had any peri^onal knowledge of the real character o': the S:;utiiei-u ])eople, or of the Africans.
The stock arguments are such as these: "That our system made the masters la/y: That the slave will slight his work as
872 FOKMEK LABOE SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHEKN U. S.
much as lie dares, having- no incentive to diligence but I'ear; while the free peasant proprietor, incited by self-interest, will work to the best advantage: That the methods of labor will be wasteful: That the proprietors, not having expended their own labor for the products, will administer them wastefully: That travelers testify: one intelligent free laiborer did the work of two slaves," etc.
Mr. Mills, in his discussion of communism, for which his in- tense political radicalism gave him quite a fellow^ feeling, has powerfully refuted his own passionate arguments against the bad economy of slave labor. No better defense of its good eco- nomic etfects need be desired, than the passages in book 2 ch. 1. where, after perforce admitting that the labor of communists must be compulsory, he yet argues that it would be the most efficient of all.
What apjdication these arguments may have had to the serfs of Russia and Hungary, to the slaves of Brazil and the IJritisli West Indi(\s, we do not pretend to know. But we do know that they lack application, in a single point, to our South- ern system. When African servants were poor savages, inept, alien, knowing no words of English, and moreover stiffened and enfeebled by the horrors of the ''middle passage," very possibly they did only half a freeman's work. It is not unusual that a maxim which had a basis of truth at the beginning, may be repeated by inaccurate observers, long after that basis is re- moved. Certain it is that in the 19th century, after civiliza- tion, discipline, good feeding, intelligent tuition, and constant domestic intercourse with the most spirited and cultivated of the white races, the Africans had wholly changed.
In 1860, as they were the best fed and- clothed, so they were the most athletic, the most skilled, the most effective and the most cheerful agricultural laborers in the world. Nothing is said here of the multitudes of skilled artisans among them, as smiths, masons, plasterers, carpenters, machinists, horse- fanciers, sugar-refiners, stone-cutters, quarrymen. The indus- try of our system was prominently agricultural; we speak main- ly of the agricultural labor. We do not ask the reader to ac- cept this testimony upon the word of the writer, who after be- ing reared among these African laborers, had opportunity per- sonallv to compare their efficiency with that of free laborers in
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 378
Gi-eat Britain, Germany and the Nortli. But it is fortified by a number of solid facts, which no one acquainted with the t^outh will hazard his credit by disputing.
In 1800, the census itself told us, what Northern statesmen had to admit: that the lands immediately South of tlie divid- ing line, in Maryland, N^iiginia, Kentucky, were rated at least i)ne-fifth higher than lands of the same soil and climate in Penn- sylvania and Ohio, immediately North of the line, tilled by free, or hireling labor.
The great "Valley of Virginia" was settled by the Scotch- Irish peasantry. But, while at first a free labor district, with almost no Africans, its inclusion under the Virginia State gov- ernment of course opened it to the Southern system. The white, hireling labor was, and is, the best, the most moral, and "the most efticient free labor in America. But from 1840 to 18G0 the African labor was introduced steadily and progressively, in preference to it. This was usually done by the most progres- sive, skilled and successful land-owners; and almost invariably the neighborhoods of highest agriculture were those in which this change had gone farthest. The original sentiment of the "Valley'' people had been more favorable to free, or hireling labor.
Although the major part of the immigration into America went northward, the South received quite an appreciable share of it. Some German, more New England, and still more Irish laborers entered the South, and attempted every other imag- inable line of industry. But it was a notable fact, that they( never anywhere entered into competition with the Africans for farm labor. But the demand for more farm labor was contin- ually increasing, with the growing prosperity and capital of the country.
The immigrants saw that they simply could not keep pace with the bondsmen. Between 1850 and 1800 there was a gigan- tic extension, in the South, of railroads and other internal im- ]H-ovements. Multitudes of experienced Northern contractors sought the country, to share in the profits of these works. They usually brought white hireling labor with them. But the South- ern contractors on neighboring sections uniformly executed their contracts with African labor, more quietly, more thor- oughly, and more economically. Northern engineers superin-
374 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
teuding the works soon saw and acknowledged the fact. North- ern contractors either replaced their white hireling labor by Africans, or the}' transferred their contracts to Southern con- tractors and retired. Such was the regular tendency, not uni- formly carried out, because so many grand works were in progress, that all the available Africans found employment, and many whites besides. But it came to be the current and well known answer among successful railroad men to the question, "Can he make a profit on that contract?" ''Yes, provided he gets black labor."
The sudden and violent emancipation undoubtedly depre- ciated the black labor .and that seriously. Every land holder felt it. X:)t a few former slave holders, still in bondage to the dogmatism of hireling labor assertion, when they were robbed of their black labor, comforted themselves (or affected to com- fort themselves) with the profession: "Oh, well; they may be more profitable as hirelings than as bondsmen." One or two years farming invariably undeceived them. The terrible losses incurred by the deterioration of freedmen's labor then begat an intense desire to substitute for it some other hireling labor. Multitudes of experiments were made. Landholders reach out every whither for other labor. They imported Swedes, Dutch- men, Norwegians, French, and, of course, Irish. They even borrowed from California some of her Chinese. But the in- variable conclusion was, that while the freedmen's labor was impaired, all these were yet worse. The African, much deter- iorated from his efficiency, still reuuiined the best labor, and to-day all over the former slave-holding districts, if hireling la- bor is used at all it is mainly that of blacks. The African has again occupied the labor market so far as any labor market re- mains on the farms, and the landlords who do not get on with- out labor, have to adjust their outlay, and their hopes of profit to the stingier scale of this impaired labor: it is better than any other accessible.
In order to infuse a particle of argument into the remark that a slave who has no higher motive than fear of the lash, will slight his work more than the peasant proprietor; it must be shown that the modern hireling system has a tendency to increase the number of intelligent peasant proprietors tilling their own acres with their own hands, and that the Southern
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 375
system tended to extinguish them. The facts are notoriously tlie opposite. The material civilization of hireling nations de- mands constantly, the consolidation of smaller holdings into larger, the combination of more labor in one enterprise, and the application of larger capital, in order to t-lieapen produc- tion.
One has only to look at Great Britain: ThP3ughout the South, there was a large and growing class of thrifty yeomen farmers, who, while slaveholders, labored regularly with their slaves. This class did more really verify that pleasing picture of labor done from enlightened self-interest; because the one or two blacks "keeping row about" with tlieir master and his sturdy sons, were carried forward by example, atfection and emulation, and not by the lash. But sim-e the tendency of the hireling system is to have even more of the labor done by mere hirelings, than was ever done at the South by slaves; it is enough to ask the practical man: Can not a mere hireling be a time server? Cannot he als.) cheat his employer of the due task? Is the fear of losing the shilling any higher motive than the fear of the lash?
As to the universal plague and curse of inefficiency in hire- ling labor, let Mr. John Stuart Mill's melancholy testimony be heard. Speaking of the heavy losses experienced by the hire- ling societies of Europe througli the 1 jw moral tone of the la- borers, he sighs thus: Book 1. ch. 1», p. 173: "All who have ever employed hired labor have had ample experience of the efforts made to give as little labor in exchange for the wages, as is coii.patible with not being turned off. There is universal neglec . by domestic servants of their employers' interests — un- le-;s wliere long continuance in the same service and reciprocal go )d offices have produced personal attachment." And this is exactly what the Southern system did. ''Friendly relations and community of interests and feelings between laborers and em- ployers are eminently so" (conducive to profit). ''I should rather say: would be so, for I know not wliere any such sentiment of friendly alliance now exists." [We add the emphasis of the "italics." Bk. I. Ch. 12, p. 281.)
Had Mr. Mill allowed himself to look at the Southern la- bor system "with eyes unclouded by prejudice, he would have seen precisely this relationship between laborers and employ- ers, which he sighs for as the hopeless ideal.
376 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
The adult bondsmau usually felt as much pride and zeal for the success of the year; for the cleanest fields; for the finest sample of cotton or tobacco, or the highest price, as the master; often more. In their comparisons of the farms with each other, the speakers belonging to different masters, it was always: "Our crop''; ''our prices"; "our victory" in the race for the largest return. The reproach of a crop in the grass was their personal humiliation. The loss of grain by a freshet, or of cat- tle by disaster, was always their loss. Often and often, in the former contingency, were the negroes seen far more zealous to rescue the precious harvest from the rising waters than the mas- ter: S3 that he would be heard recalling them with entreaties and commands, against their protests, from farther risk of health or life. Of course all this sounds very strange to a mind deluged with imaginary tales of plantation despotism. But all is credible to any intelligent man, who remembers how certain- ly the warm tie of clanship and feudal allegiance sprang up, between all wholesome natures brought into the domestic rela- tion of superior and inferior. In the 16th century, the power of the Highland Chief in Scotland, over his ''gilly,'' was prac- tically all that a master's could be over a serf: as truly for life, as unrestrained, as complete. But every clansman to the low- est "gilly'' was inllamed with the pride and zeal of his clan; he impersonated it in his Chief; he stood ready to die for him.
He who would understand the Sonrlicin system must also give the adult bondsman credit for a grade of intelligence, vast- ly higher than the scanty use he made of letters would imply.
It must be remembered, that this black man has grown up in domestic intimacy and friendship with his master, a member of the most cultured race in Christendom. The black man has heard and joined in his conversation. He has heard the preach- ing of his master's pastor. In sickness he has been instructed and treated by his scientific physician. He has been taught at least the practical part (often the theoretic) of that skillful and enlightened method of agriculture, in which he is occupied, and of the constant use of the best mechanical appliances in the world. He has been the intimate and interested spectator of a large and sagacious domestic economy. To suppose that such a bondsman does not comprehend his own and his family's in- terest in the plantation would be a blunder much more stupid rbau Africans usuallv make.
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 377
No; lie comprehends perfectly, that this plantation is vir- tnally a joint stock entei-})i'ise nnder the master's presidency. That as he has received from it his nurture in boyhood; so he is now indebted to it for certain employment, subsistence and home: That it assumes for him the certain and comfortable support of his wife and children, whether sickness, or drought, or freshet or hail come or no: That it is the safe savings bank, Into which he is now annually putting the fund, which is un- failing to support him in his old age, ''sitting under his owin vine and fig tree," without labor or care: That the insolvency of the enterprise, through the laborers' fault would be the dread- ed loss of all these hoarded advantages, and would imply risk of separations, impoverishment, and banishment from his here- ditary home. The intelligent black well understood all this. Hence, the plantation usually dis])layed as the result of loyal al^'ection, and reasonable self-interest the nearest approach seen under any modern system, to Mr. Mill's ideal relation of labor. There was no hireling labor on earth, requiring so little of the expense of supervision; no laborers who executed so much la- bor with so little of the eye of master, overseer, or "boss" upon them.
The remarks thus far made have been directed chiefly to obviating errors and objections; we advance to more positive arguments. The first is:
1. One exceedingly simple, though surprisingly overlook- ed. Let there be two societies, in each of wliich there is a body of people without capital, who should therefore be workers, and who must be consumers, and of equal numbers. In the one so- ciety, there is no positive authority to nmke any of this body work, who do not choose. The consequence is, that one-third of them do not choose, work none, and live by preying on the fruits of others' labor. But the two-thirds being freely moved thereto: we may suppose work A'ery well. In the other society, there is a firm ])ractical authority, which compels every one to work six days in every week. They ma^' not work quite so *ell as the voluntary workers in the other society — we may concede merely for argument's sake — yet, as there are three ta two, a good deal more is done; a good many more values are produced, and, above all, the society is delivered from the consuming pest of the idlers, and all the vices, disorders, and interruptions sug-
378 FOKMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
gestcd by idleness. Such was the literal difference between the Southern system and its rival.
The former had, in its laboring class, no able-bodied idlers, no "tramps," no "boys," no strong men wasting their strength on "hurdy gurdies" and dancing monkeys; no such thing as a "criminal class," and very few criminals. The economic advan- tage is too plain to dispute.
2. The expense of dealing with, and providing for the pauper and criminal classes is a dead charge on the production of the society. In a hireling society, it is rehitively a very oner- ous one. The subsistence of paupers, at public, instead of pri- vate expense, implies the additional cost of buildings, officials to be salaried, and the waste and speculation commonly attend- ing public administration. As to the "dangerous classes," they must be watched by a costly, and most often, an inefficient po- lice. Then there must be well paid sheriffs to arrest them, pa- latial jails to secure them, salaried judges to try them, all the apparatus of a costly legal profession to prosecute and defend them and at last, enormous and expensive penitentiaries to pun- ish them in, at the cost of the honest workers. Look now, at the simplicity and economy of the Southern sj'stem.
There were almost no white paupers: and there could not be in a whole State, a single black one. The infirm were cared for by the masters, on the plantations, with no additional charge for lodging, nursing, or attending. This reduced the cost of rhe charity to that of simple food, clothing and medicine.
There was no criminal class, and consequently, not one dol- lar of cost for police. The plantation policed itself. Felonies prosecuted before the courts of the country were very few ; and justice was administered by the master himself, for all those minor offenses (which in hireling societies require so expensive an apijaratus of police, courts, lawyers, costs, prisons) without (Uie cent of charge, without officials, without any prison or court house, without the loss t)f a day's labor by the culprit. His otfense was sini})ly examined by his master, almost invariably a judicious and moderate judge; he was either cleared, scolded, or switched; and went at once bai-k to his work.
No word is needed to show how favorable the morality of a population is to production. The Southern system not only reduced to the minimum cost the prosecution of such law
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 379
breakers as slie had. but astoiiisliingiy reduced rlioir nuuibers, bv improviufi- the practical morality of her people. The South- ern system was the most effective temperance S3ciety in the world. The regular supervision and methodical employment removed the lat^orers from temptation; and in the few cases of intDxication, a smart application of the birch was a better re- cipe to produce immediate relief, than all the materia medica. It is probable that up to 18G0. there was not one drunkard's grave filled by a bondsman in America. There was no loss of time from dissipation, little waste of values in liquors, and no police expense a'bout disorders. Thus in ISoO, when the whole population of the Njrth was about thirteen and a half millions, and of the South nine and a half (whites and blacks) the hireling societies had 23,664 criminal convictions, while the South had 2.021. The same year the North was supporting 114,704 pau- pers; the South 20,563. In Boston, Mass., and the adjacent county, the persons in jails, houses of correction, or refuge, and almshouses, bore among the blacks, the ratio of one to sixteen of that population; and among the whites, of one to every thirty- four. The same year in liichmynd. Va., the same unhappy class- es bore, among tlu' blacks, the ratio of one to forty-six, and among the whites, of one to one hundred and twelve. Had the iudu.«try of the hireling system really been greatly more profit- able than that of the Southern, the expense of all this excess of crime would have eaten up the whole overplus and more.
3. The Southern system always presented an economic ad- vantage, in the stable and peaceable relation it established be- tween capital and labor. Every year since its overthrow has but illustrated this advantage, and sober minds were never so well prepared to appreciate it, as by the strikes and angry con- tests between employers and hirelings, which approach every season more nearly the fearful dimensions of anarchy and civil war. How shall capital enjoy that quiet, sure and steady con- irol of hireling labor, which is absolutely essential to produc- tion; and yet hireling labor be protected against injustice, and against that depression of wages under their stern law of sup- })ly and demand in an increasing population, which pauperizes labor? This is the insoluble question, the very crux of the scientific economists, before which they stand confused and helpless. The "labor unions" may result in anarchy, or in com-
880 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SoTJTHEllN U. S.
munism, or in a "reign of terror": they will never lead to a wholesome solution.
The KSonthern system solved it, so far as the classes of la- borers under it was engaged, by a simple and complete remedy. This was to abolish the very conditions of the strife, by making the laborer the property of the capitalist. One result efficacious- ly secured was, that the laborers could never be pauperized or reduced below a comfortable and efficient standard of subsist- ence: because the capitalist, in doing this, would be destroying his own property. Another result was, that there were no con- troversies nor strikes, so wasteful of time and subsistence, and so obstructive of i)roduction. Still another was, that it was impossible for the laborer ever to feel that most cruel of all wants, the want of work, while willing to work, and pressed by starvation if he did not.
The South, instead of ever witnessing that pitiful and har- rowing scece lately enacted in London, when six thousand des- perate men with starving wives and children behind them, beset the government offices deujanding, in vain, not bread, but work, to be beaten back by the police; never once in a century saw the head of one black family "out of work'' except on his intended holidays.
For the master knew that, wliether any work were going 01. or not he had that family to f(^ed and clothe, and })res€rve from destitution, to this both the law and his own interests must imperiously f^rce him. Hence the master felt a power- ful interest in foreseeing, in prearranging, in dedicating his own capital to some useful labor, which If not immediately pro- ductive, would ultimately be so; so that in every emergency there should be for his laborers some work compensated by subsistence. Tf the price of a product fell, by some commercial or political cause, beneath the level of profitable production, the master did not and could not resort to the usual relief of the liireliug system: suspend all i)rodu(tion and dismiss the la- borers to starve, if it might be sol Xo: lie suspended this produc- tion, and directed the labor at once to some other task provided by his capital and foresight. If the given farm staple ceased to pay the cost of production, the farm labor was diverted from it to some extensive work of drainage, stone fencing, clearing, or other amelioration which would increase future prodiu-tioiis;
FoeMeR laBok system Of the souTntetiN tr. s. 381
while tlie laborers drew, in advance, out of his capital, their accustomed comfortable remuneration.
•A. In appraising- the wealth of the South, we noticed the objection to counting rhe labor of the Africans as property, and while we demurred to its justice, we waived discussing it, aji not desiring here to raise the ethical question. But all the laws, all the business usages, and the full faith of the country regarded that labor as property-. It was taxable (not only with a poll, but a property tax), was vendible, could be bequeathed, and made subject to lien, or hire. From this usage the indus- try of the country derived at least this advantage: That the basis of credits was thus very greatly widened. The prudent use of credits is a wonderful aid to production. When a debt exists, it is a great advantage to the 'business of the country, that the just creditor shall find assets out of which to realize pajment. A "bad debt" is usually a dead loss to the productive capital of the country. To strip a business man of the means of giving security for a loan, is to strip him of oommerciial, credit, and thus to cripple his prosperity by a most hurtful im- position. Thus the smaller business man of Texas is already beginning to learn that the various homestead, and exemption laws, making it impossible for him, even by his own consent, to use his property as security for loans, injure instead of pro- tecting him. Tlieir only effect is to shut him inexorably out from what perhaps is most essential for his prosperity, all access to a cheap loan market. He is stripped of the power of commer- cial credits as though a pauper. Thus, this legislation, which professes to protect the families of small means, is really a law to tie the hands of the poor man and give the rich man, who' has sufficient property over and above all exemptions to offer full security, a deadly advantage against him in the loan mar- ket. The hireling system wrought a parallel disadvantage against its people, as compared with the South, by affecting to regard labor as not a value, and thus crippling the power to borrow: while the South, by making so large a part of its labor a value, doubled its solid credit.
5, Among the most luminous and valuable contributions to economic science in our age, are those investigations by which the English writers, Mill and Wakefield, and numerous accurate French and German observers have proved, and ex-
'3^2 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF ^Mfi SOUTHERN U. S.
plniiit'd. the superior ecouomv of nioderarely larjie over «niall pi-oductive operations. Indeed, tlie demonstration is practical- ly so sweeping, in tlie manufacturing industries, that it has revolutionized the civilized world. The individual producer has been annihilated by being undersold by the larger manufac- turer.
Where is the hand loom: the domestic forge producing axes, hoes, horse-shoes, the country wheelwright, the country shoemaker? The farm cannot even afford to produce its own axe-helve, thDugh the hickory may grow in its hedge row.
The same economic rule applies to moderately large agri- cull ure, as compared with peasant proprietors. The large farm- ing produces more economically, because it permit's more ap- plication of the all-important principle of "division of labor." It allows that assortment of labor, applying the cheaper hands to the lighter tasks, which save so much.
On the well organized Southern farm, the plough, the axe, the scythe, the hoe, the team ottered constant and remunera- tive work to the strong men; while the less valuable labor of the hoj^ and girls, and the elderly, was equally as effective in the lighter task. But on the peasant proprietor's farm, the strong man, whose every day should have been worth to him a dollar, is compelled to spend many days in picking beans; where the child, worth a shilling a day, would pick as many. The larger farm permits the essential advantage of combination of labor. How can one man stack sheaves of grain, without a waste of time and toil almost heartbreaking, in descending from the stack, and ascending with every handful of sheaves? This is the extreme instance. But there are many operations, in which four or five men can easih' do more than four or five times as much as one man. All the purchases for the large farm can be made more savingly, because in larger quantities and at a wholesale price. But especially is the gain great in the em.- ploymeut of better implements and machinerj-. The Southern planter or farmer usually employed a part of his capital lib- erally, in providing these known to science. But how can the peasant proprietor of Belgium or France, whose farm is five acres, afford a three-horse plow, that essential of thorough till- age; or, indeed, any plow at all? Or a McOormick's reaper, or mower? Or an effective thresher? He produces his little crops
I'OllMEl^ tAROU SYSTEM Ol* THE SOUTHEHN tJ. S 383
(confessedly large foi- his minute surface) at a wasteful expeu.>e of time and toil, with the spade, the wheelbarrow, the sickle and the flail. The attempt has been made to foil these facts, by assenting, that a richer peasant, or co-partnership, may own the thresher, and perambulate the neighborhood, hiring it out. This only palliates the evil. A large percentage of the time is lost, removing and re-setting the heavy machinery; many la- borers have to be specially hired, at very special prices: and tlie tolls charged are always much above just cost. Many praises have been bestowed upon the economy of these small peasant farms: "The very grass along the gutters of the chaussee, the succulent weeds from the raws of the sugar beet field, are all saved for the domestic animals.'' Yes but at a ruinous cost of wasted time. This is the shape which the sen- sible observer sees these savings take in those countries. He sees a bevy of five, seven or ten strapping young women, sally- ing forth at 1 o'clock p. m. from the '^Darf," each with her little sickle and huge liamper, to spend the Lang, bright afternoon in a tramp of a mile and a half to their parents' little sections, and in saving and bearing home (converting themselves into beasts of burden) each, two pfenwings' worth weeds or grass to be fed to the calf or milch goat. But those girls, on a well ordered Virginia farm, would have raked, dried, and loaded on the well- appointed wagons, in that one afternoon ten or twenty tons of clover hay or wheat sheaves, or oats: or later in the season have gathered each 150 pounds of seed cotton, at the minimum average of 50 cents per hundred pounds. These w'ere fright- fully wasteful savings: They are only justified by the fact, that the bad organization of this, so-called "free labor system," has made this labor, which should Ix' so valu;ible. nearly worthless to their families.
Now, the force of these facts is in the following view. That if the advocate of the hireling system is t:) evade this fatal argu- ment, he must advocate large farming by hireling labor. But rhe moment he does so, lie must bid farewell to all his pretty Arcadian pictures of the snug little "glebe tilled by the willing- hands of the peasant proprietor, instead of the loitering, reluc- tant slave." He must accept and justify all those consequen- ces, wliicli the universal experience of hireling States prove to be inseparable from liigli farming with adequate capital and
884 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN V. ^.
science: the eviction of rlie cotton tenantry: tlie horrible "gang; system" of lield labor: the pollnting- "bothy-systeni"" of lodging, and the brntal abominations disclosed by the British parlia- ment as to their large agricnlture. Snch. indeed, is the nnavoid- able tendency of the hii-eling system in this age of mechanical improvement: for it leads directly to the heai>ing up of unduly large fortunes (for reasons to be shown) and the inflation of money-oligarchs, "making the rich richer and the poor poorer." But the Southern system, while not favorable to these dispro- portioned aggregations, opposed an effectual barrier to those mischievously small subdivisions of the land, to which the small holdings must inevitably run in a democracy.
The drift of the sj'stem was to till the country chiefly (with a few exceptions like that of Washington of Mt. Vernon) with moderate holdings, from those ot the snug yejmanry with two or three bondsmen to the easy country gentleman with some hundreds of acres.
The smallest were not too small to employ most of the profitable appliances; the largest were not so hirge as to be cumbersome.
Xo economist disputes the extreme advantage of intelli- gence to producti3n, especially in these days of applied science. Now, the man addicted to daily toil cannot usually acquire the intelligence, or the knowledge of the sciences bearing on pro- duction, which is the customary possession of the master, whose labars are chiefly those of superintendence, and who, though a busy man, yet had time for reading. Thus the result of the Southern system was, that the best, the most advanced mind of the society had the full direction of the methods of the opera- tions. The "field hands'* and especially the "head men" were usually very skillful in their manual labor; capital practical "crop masters" for the ordinary crops, good judges of weather, of the proper tillage and harvesting of those crops, and handlers of teams. The landholders were in addition, men of reading, acquainted with every advance in machinery, applied science, chemical manures, the physiology of stock breeding ; and eager for every enlightened experiment in husbandry.
6. It is as true in political, as in household economy, that "saving is more than making." The growth of capital depends proximately on the saving. Of course, natural agents, pre-ex-
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM! OF TKE SOUTHERN, U. S. 385
isriiij'' capital, and lalioi- iiiusr tirsr create the additional valnes. lint wliether tliey .shall be annihilated in nnproduction, con- sumption, or be added to the saved up and devoted to reproduc- tiA'e consumption, depends wholly on their being saved. Now, saving means self-denial. Self-denial means the mental and moral ability to appreciate a distant invisible future good: that namely, to be hereafter yielded by subsequent returns of the capital saved; more than a present visible one. The public con- ditions favorable for such saving are, of course, security of rights and possessions, and quiet and stability of governments. I>ut the personal conditions which stimulate them to save are, as plainly, intelligence, self-control, virtue and aspirations. The more animal and sensuous holder of newly acquired values will prefer the immediate and visible enjoyments they potentially contain. The more intellectual holder will prefer the invisi- ble, distant, but larger good they can yield, not once, but an- nually, as reproductive capital. The more selfish man will prefer at once to gratify himself: The more disinterested and virtuous man will tliiuk more of the good of his children and country.
We hence expect, just what all history proves: that the most intelligent and elevated classes are always the most sav- ing, in proportion to their acquisitions. No one has argued this more powerfully, or illustrated it ruore profusely, than Mr. Mill. Political Econ. Bk. I. Ch. II.
Hence, it is always more favorable to the steady growth of capital, that the successive years' earnings of the society be controlled and administered by the highest class. No kind of society ever attained this result so completely as the Southern. For, the owner as master not only disposed of the revenue of the estate, directed its wliole expenditure or investment; but as guardians of the laborer and their families, he and his wife administered the 3'ear's supply of food, clothing and comforts, for them all. Even had the master and mistress had no higher standard of forecast, ju-udence and administratiA'e skill than the a^'erage African, this would have still resulted in a great economy. Let us say that there wei-e seven laborers' families. There wa? a much greater saving of supplies and of labor and of time, in having tlie housekeeping of the wliole directed by one head, rather tlian having seven separate kitchens, each
386 FORMKK J.ABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERJ^f tJ. S
with its streams of jjetty wastes, seven laundries, and seven varying managements: rlie major part of them recklessly waste- ful. Now add to this the executive and directing skill of the niosr inrelligenr. foreseeing and responsible couple of all on the planrarion irlie master and his wife) and the advantage be- c:)mes grand. Consequently, no cluster of seven laboring men's families in any country of the world got so much of matenal gofid and comforr out of the portion of revenue set apart for them, as the bondsmen on the plantation.
Wastes were minimized; an enlightened system and econ- omy presided over all.
This saving administration appeared especially at one [joint, when obsei-vers from hireling States perversely insisted on seeing the main evidence of Southern poverty. Xo business man nor economist would dare to dispute this proposition: That it is conducive to the putolic wealth to have values not only produced, or created, as economically as possible, but also ciiculated as economically as possible. For in fact, the labor of circulation, distribution, which is commercial industry, is also production. In transferring and dividing a value for the intending consumer, this industry has as truly created an in- crement of value in the commodity, as the manufacturer has, who turns a woolen fleece into a coat. Every agent of distribu- tion then, who really contributes an agency essential to circu- lation of ih(^ commodity, is a jjroducing agent. But he who has included himself into the circulation, where his agency really contributes nothing valuable to the process, is worse tlian a non-productive agent — he is a nuisance, grasping a wage for a service not needed, and eating up the values produced by honester men than himself. Thus in the change of a fleece into a useful coat, the industry of the spinner, the weaver, and the cloth dresser, was each useful, and created an item of additional value. But let us suppose that another fellow had intruded himself into the manufacture as second dyer, insisting on do- ing something to the color of the cloth, which was already per- fect, and charging his share of wages therefor; he would have been a mischievous consumer, instead of a productive agent.
So every "'middleman'' in the operations of circulation of commodities, whose intervention is unnecessary, is an unpro- ductive consumer. His gains are his fellow-citizens' losses; and
I^orMer labor system of the southern u. s. 387
liis iu-rivity and prosjx'i-iiy ai-p nuisances. Ju.st such nuisances tlie Southern system avoided, by the simple method of a do- mestic economy which distributed the products needed for sub- sistence among' the bondsmen, without any commercial appara- tus, or profit-charges. That useless middleman, the retail pro- vision merchant, was eliminated. The farmer who employed the adults of, say, seven families, reserved in his own granary out of the crop reared by the conjoined agency of his capital and supervision, and their labor, four hundred bushels of grain for their bread. These bi-eadstutt', when gr:)und by his order, were issued for the daily food of all the families, most prob- ably under the mistress" eye. Let us now suppose this farm conducted by hired labor, representing the working force of seven families. The proprietor has no use for these four hun- dred bushels of grain; he sells it at the wholesale price. But the laborers must eat; they buy the same grain from the grocery store, enhanced by the cost of two handlings and two trans- poriations, and also by the retail profit. The difference is that the proprietor does not get any more; and laborers pay much moTP foi their subsistence. The gross and shrewd fellow who has intruded liimself between proprietor and laborer, grasjjs a lar.^e profit, bur produces nothing.
Yet the economists of hireling Srates have actually been blind enough to point to this contrast between their countries and th( htuth, as proofs of their thrift. Their rural regions are dotted over with large and pretentious "stores," where the coi-n. wool, butter, leather, and even soft-soap, which the labor- ers should have drawn directly from the employers, at whole- sale prices, are resold to them at high retail prices, to the ser- ious reduction of the avails of their labor, with no compensat- ing production for tlie ((nuuiunity in an}' shape. And this mischievous bustle is called i»rosperity! It would be exactly ]>arallel to argue that hireling labor was more gainful, because hireling societies had larger jails.
7. One more view remains, confirming and explaining the superior economical results of the Southern system: It is at once the most fundamental and the most grateful to tlu^ jthil- antliropic mind. Our system exerted a powerful influence against unproductive consumption of values, and in favor of productive consumption; by constraining the proprietor to ap-
888 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHKRN U. S.
inoitriaf*- the largest sbaie 3f his annual revenue to his ser- vants' eomfortable subsisrence. and to suitable appliances for their productive employment during the next season. Every eeonomist knows the ditference: every mind of common sense ought tri kni\v it.
For instance: Previous labor, with the aid of capital, has produced a half ton of coal. This may be used to form the neu- cleus of a great bonfire, at a political jolliflcaHon. It is so consumed as to be annihilated as a value, and that forever, leav- ing no production behind it. Or. it may be used to heat a charge in the furnace of a foundry, by which pig-iron worth one and one-half cents per pound, is converted into utensils, as tea- kettles, stoves, and iso forth,' worth five cents per pound. There is a creation here of new values in the pre-existing material represented by three and a half cents per pc)nnil. Now again, this coal is consumed: as truly as in the bonfire, and is no more anything but vapor and ashes. But its value reappears in the new values of the inn utensils, and that with increase. It needs no arguing, that unproductive consumption is destructive to all increment of capital: and thus to future production, by the means of that value; while productive consumption reproduces capital and enlarges it, thus providing for future production ever after. Let another fact be added, known to all economists: That the presence of capital is one of the most essential con- ditions fDr enlarging the demand for labor, thus tending to give employment to more human hands, and at better prices.
A weak and indeed wicked attempt has been made to parry this view by arguing that the demand for luxuries by persons receiving large revenues, is favorable to the working classes: inasmuch as it makes a market for products, circulates money, and thus "encourages industry." Thirty years ago we refuted this doctrine, in an argument wliich has been several times jeered at, but never answered.
The potent authority of Say sustained the truths at that earlv day. It is pleasant to find the same correct view now supported by ^lill and the current of recent economists. The outline of our argument is this: That since the consumption of luxuries is unproductive consumi)tion. notwithstanding a l»artial and temporary gain, in the form of wages, for the lux- ury produced: tlie ultimate result is the destruction of values.
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 889
the diniiuiition of capital, and thus, an inevitable restrictiau in the demand for labor in general, a decline in its wajies, and a scarcity of the staple values, which these pr3ducers of luxuries should have been creatinji, for the common j^ood. Just in the deji'ree there is luxurious expenditure at the upi)er end of the social ladder, there must be destitution and misery at the lower end, for want of employment, and of necessary articles of sub- sistence. This is confirmed by the facts in every luxurious so- ciety on earth. This consumption of luxuries does not eu- courajie, but misdirects industry. Now there is more tlian one way, in which the hireling system promotes luxurious and un- productive consumption, more than the Sauthem system did. It has a much stronger tendency to make the rich richer and the poor j)Oorer, to create excessive wealtli in a few hands. This at once enables and tempts the very rich to this waste of reve- nue, so adverse to the growth :)f capital and i>ros})edty of labor. TUit chietiy the hireling system r(^leases pi-()i)rietors from a wholesome and beneficent check, which the Southern system operated. To tlu^ capitalist who hires, the laborer is notliiug after the production is comjdeted. If he [jerislies. the employer is not concerned; he has lost notliing, he has only to step out into the teeming labor market, to fill the vacant place— sucli an employer then naturally feels more inclined to use spare revenue in pomps and indulgences. I'ut the S )uthern system made the labor of the African property, created an omnipotent motive in the master to pre*;erve not only its existen<-e. but its health and efficiency, and besides, appealed to his st^lf-respect. and to the domestic tie to reinforce this obligation. Hence, as soon as the annual revenue was ascertained, the ])ro]>rietor appro- priated, as a first charge upon it, so much as would subsist the Africans for another year, and this subsistence must come up to such a level as would not only preserve their lives, but their lu^alth and efficiency. Next, the ])roprietor must unavoidably set off so much, for an addition, or reparation to his working capital, as was necessary to provide the full means and appli- ances for the ensuing year's industrial operations. And as he knew that he was responsible for making that coming year a profitable one. and that the calamity of an unsuccessful one must strike him first and mainly: both interest and stern neces- sity forbade his stinting that appropriation. If worn or an-
390 FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S.
liquated tools and machinery needed to be replaced; if drainage and permanent fencinu weve called f^r; if the arrival of new laborers at adnlt age called for a larger area of land to be either cleared or purchased; all these must perforce form a prior charge on revenue. Xor until both these demands were met. and met without grudging, could one dollar of revenue be taken for superfluities. Tf n) surplus remained, the results were per- fectly simjilf-: ^fadame must just postpone the purchase of the new carriage or carpet. Mademoiselle must just do with- out the new pian:> another season. Young master must forego the blood saddle-horse, and even, in all ])robability put off the University; and go to teaching for a year, instead, so as to earn money to pay his own education.
This picture is perfectly sustained by all who know the two sections by personal observation. I'artisans spoke of the South as ''the aristocratic section." But while her proprietoi^s sought solid comfort, kept a good table, chiefly from the re- sources of the mistresses' admirable skill, devotion and econ- omy, as housewives; and always practiced a liberal and social hospitality, men of equal wealth usually expended about one- ftftli of the sums wasted by their Xortheru equals, in equipage and luxuries. In one prosperous trading town of the Xorth you should find more palatial residences than in all the Southern continent from the Potomac to the Gulf. The good, solid, plain, old ancestral dwelling of the planter owning .flOO.OOO, would have been pulled away as rubbish by the New York man. who had gotten his |50.()(Ml. and was setting up liis home on Sixth (not to say Fifthi avenue. Two RichnioiHl merchants, in New York before the war, were taking the air in Fifth avenue. They ]»assed the new glittering palace of a parvenue manufacturer. After admiring its costly elegance, the younger pointed his friend to a smaller house in the rear, with brown-stone walls and plate glass windows, asking. ''Can you surmise. B., what that is?" B. could not. "Why. that is the owner's stable." "Then." exclaimed B., "I wonder if he would not let me be his horse?" Old ^Nlr. B.'s jest was perfectly so'ber; although he was, in descent, in integrity, in courtesy and in intelligence, truly a merchant prince; the dwelling which he inherited from a distinguished father, and in which he was then dispensing an elegant hospitality and rearing a cultivated family, had a much
FORMER LABOR SYSTEM OF THE SOUTHERN U. S. 391
less pretentious exterior than the parvenue's stable. This con- trast was typical.
It is easy for the economist to infer how promotive of solid progressive wealth that system must have been, which regu- larly laid its prior liens on revenue, in favor of the productive laborers and the producing capital, instead of luxuries and iciuipage. and the costly })omps of unproductive architecture.
And it is easy for the heart of the philanthi-opist to decide which is the more pleasing aspect: that which treated the la- borers employed as mere tools of production, to be discarded when used; or that which ensured their having the prior lien on the profits of their own labor?
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, I). D.
PEE FACE.
The board of directors of Union Seminary, at their annual meeting- after the dearli of Dr. Sampson, determined that it was proper t3 present to the churches, his brethren, and former pu- pils, some memorial of his Christian and professional character. They requested me to prepare such a sketch; and the following sketch is the result. So far as a full and intimate acc^uaintance wirh his life, tirsr as a pupil, and rhen as a colleague, can (null- ify one for such a task, rhat (jualitication I possess. And if an ardent personal attachment unfits one to draw the character of its object impartially. I must confess to rliis disciualification. It is for those who knew Dr. Sampson as well as I did, to judge whether the jiortraiture is accurate. I can express no better wish towards all his brethren and former pupils, than that the reading of this humble tribute to their bst friend, may give them the same mournful delight, and the same elevating and purifying lessons, which its preparation has given me. It is now affectionately dedicated to the Alumni of Union Theologi- cal Seminary, to the candidates fjr the ministry, and to the Christian young men of the Synods of North Carolina and Vir- ginia.
A life, spent, like Dr. Sampson's, far from the stormier scenes of the world, amidst scholastic shades, offers little ma- terial for narrative. I have, therefore, only attempted, after giving a brief outline of his uneventful life, to unfold the na- ture of his work and his character, and to indicate some of those lessons which they teach us.
ROBERT L. DABNEY. Union Theological Seminary, \n. May 28th, 1855.
INTRODUCTORY OUTLINE.
Dr. Sampson was the son of Mr. Richard Sampson, an em- inent and respected agricultnrist in the neighborhood of the Dover Mills, in the county of (loochland. He ^Yas born between the 1st and otli of Xovember, A. D. 1814. In 1830, he was placed at the school, and in the faiuily of that man of God. ReA'. Thornton Rogers, of Albemarle, who was his maternal nncle. Here he made a profession of religion, was baptized, and be- came a member of the Presbyterian church in Charlottesville, then in charge of Rev. Francis Bowman, on the 13th of August, 1831. The 10th of September of the same year, he entered the UniA'ersity of Virginia, and continued his studies there till July, 183G, taking- a very extensive and thorough course of study, not only in the academic departments, but in the schools of junior law. auatouiy and pliysiology, and securing the degree of M. A. which was then, as now. attained by very few. November 9th. 183(). he entered Union Theolngical Seminary, Va. On the resig- nation i)f Professor Ballantine. in tlie s])ring of 1838, he was made teacher of Hebrew, and from that time continued to per- form other duties of the oriental department. He was licensed by East Hanover Presbytery in October, 1839, and ordained as an evangelist by the same Presbytery in October, 1841. In July, 1848, he took a journey to Europe, for the prosecution of his oriental studies, and returned in August, 1849, having spent the year chietly at the Univtn-sities of Halle and Berlin. lu October, 1848, he was elected professor of oriental literature and languages in the Seminary; but he had for many years per- formed the work of a full professor, though with the title and compensation of an assistant, and had long been esteemed as second to none of his colleagues in the value of his labors. About the time of his return from (lermany, he also received the honorary degree of D, D. from Hampden Sidney college. He fell asleep Sabbath, the 9th of April, 1854. only tliirty-nine years and five months old.
Thus brief and uneventful is the record of his life, which was passed almost wholly in the quiet shades of colleges. But the results of this life have not therefore been uuimi)ortant. The atti^mpt will be made to draw the features of his character as a Cliristian and Christian minister, a scholar and an instruc- tor, in order that we may praise Cod for his grace manifested in him, and may receive the advantages of an example most modest, and vet illustrious.
Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Rom. 13: 5
- Gen. ix. 25-27
Chapter I
Person and Constitution. Dignity and Courtesj' of Manner. Early Habits and ^Maxims. Influence of Example in a Different Sphere
Dr. 8ampsou was in pei-.suu light aud jjii-aceful, and of a florid complexion. Alrlioiio;!! liis family lias shown pulmonary tendencies in several of its members, and his own lungs were ultimately much impaired in their soundness, for the first thirty years.of his life he enjoyed, by virtue of great temperance, most uniform health, and endured an immense amount of severe study. After he reached that age, he was gradually broken down by several attacks of acute disease, and though his health gave a delusive promise of restoration the last year of his life. he finally fell bef jre a short and violent attack of pneumonia.
His personal habits, as to diet, sleep and recreation, were simple, methodical and teniperate, without being ascetic. His dress was scrupulously neat and ai)propriate, without the faint- est approach to display. In his ai)proaches to his fellow men there was the happiest union of unaffected modesty and grace- ful quietude with Christian dignity. Yet his was a dignity which repelled no advances of affection or confidence, nor any- thing but impertinence. His friends who most desired to see him shine in society as his solid worth entitled him, sometimes accounted him too modest. Yet, with a modesty which almost amounted to difiidence, he w^as the farthest of all men from a Timid or truckling expression of his opinions. When an er- roneous sentiment which he conceived to be of any impoi'tance was thrust upon him in conversation, he most distinctly de- fended his own opinion, with a singnhir union of inflexible, even impracticable mental honesty and courteous deference. He was the last man in the world to be wheedled into the soft- ening of a truth down, or the admission of a faint shade of the error he had been opposing, by any of the blandishments of politeness, or by the fear of seeming too pertinacious. :Much of the singular amiability of his social character is no doubt to be attributed to the influence of grace. Had he grown u]. un-
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 395
convei'ted, lip would have been known as a man of hisli and determined temper, of energetic will, and persevering' activity. Divine grace softened what was violent, and refined what was valuable in this remperament, until the result was a rare and lovely union of the strong and the sweet.
One of Dr. Ir^ampson's most striking and valuable natural traits was his methodical industi-y. To any one who knows his anoestrj', it is very plain that this (luality was received from them, both by inheritance and inculcation. That whatever is worth doing, is worth drting well; that each task must be done with one's might, in just so much rinu' as is needed to do it per- fectly, and no more; that no task is to be left till all is perfected which can be done to advantage; these were the rules of work- ing whicli he cari-ied with him fi-om the honu' of his boyhood to the school, the university, the study, the lecture room. The same thoroughness, the same deep ploughing, the same com- plete harrowing, the same utter extirpation of obstructions, the same perfect finish which characterized the farm of his father, prevailed in his scholarshijt and instructions. It would be hard to estimate how much of liis usefulness and ability was due to the example and habits thus impressed on his youth. And we cannot but admire the wisdom of Providence in training, on such a field and by agencies so unconscious of the divine purposes, a (pialily which was afterwards to do so much good in a higher and nobler sphere of duty. Dr. Sampson, the emi- nent hebraist, the profound expositor, the masterly instructor, was but the far-seeing, energetic, able farmer reproduced on another field of action.
Chapter II
p]nters Rev. Thornton Ptogers' School. Reliaious Impressions. Decision. Personal Covenant. Diary. University of Virginia. Christian Activity there. Dr. White's Testimony. Goes to Union Theological Seminary. Zeal. Devotional Spirit. Humility. Liberality.
We cannot proceed farther, without attempting to draw his (Mirisrian character. This was in several respects singular: but in most, singularly excellent. The neighborhood in which he grew u}). was very irregularly supplied with the preaching of
396 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
the Gospel, and was wholly unblessed with a sound pastoral influence. Consequentl3\ domestic religion and pious training were nearly unknown. From a brief diary which Dr. Sampsjn kept during- a i)art of the session of 1833-4, we Learn that when he went to the Rev. Mr. Rogers' school, he did not possess a Bible of his own, and had never read more than very limited portions of it in his life. His character was wholly irreligious; and he was given to all the light and corrupting amusements of fashionable young persons. But he tells us, that the only out- breaking vice in which he indulged, was profane swearing; and this he contracted at the age of twelve, from vexation in a game of whist, in which he had an unusually bad hand. With such a character, he found himself in a new world, in the well- ordered. Christian family of his uncle. There the word of God was daily read, and his name revtM-ently worshij)j»ed in the fam- ily. Although little personal exhortation was addressed to him concerning his sins ami impenitence, he saw daily illustrations of the excellence and peace of Christian principles, in the har- monious happiness of a pious house, where ^'brethren dwelt together in unity"; and above all, where the beauty of holiness shone from the example of the godly father, as he presided in the family and school room. In consequence chiefly of these silent teachings, he gradually f(dl into a state of profauud re- ligious concern, wliich continued about twelve months. His feelings were studiously concealed from all, rhrough fear of ridicule; and the love of sin led him to put forth many and bit- ter struggles against the Spirit. ]^>ut the God wlio loved him would not let him go; and liis convictions were from time to rime strengthened. In the spring of 1831, he chanced to hear a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Staunton, then of Prince Edward, from the text, ''Secret things belong unto the Lord thy G3d,'" which was the means of sweeping away all his objections and excuses. His convictions now became so pungent that they compelled him to an outward refoi'm of liis life, and to set about seeking a present Saviour in earnest. But the fear of reproach and love of sin still made desperate struggles. On one occasion, while several of his school fellows were engaged with him in a game of marbles, one of them sneeringly observed, "Frank must be getting pious. Do you notice, boys, that he has not been heard to swear for a fortnight?'' This taunt stung
MEMOIRS Ot^ FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 'S^7
liim to rlic (jiiii-k; and to show that iie Avas not jiistlv liable to rheii' insinuation, he took the very tirst plausible occasion tj throw out a most pi-ofane oath! But this heaven-darinj^- act was made the crisis of his i-ebellion. For, his remorse, alarm of conscience, and fear of having grieved the Holy Spirit, together with his convictions of the corruption of his nature, and im- potence of his own resolutions for piety became immediately so agonizing, that he was compelled to retire, and cast himself at once upon the Saviour's mercy. From this hour, his soul seems to have been built upon the rock Christ Jesus; and his face w^as turned decisively lieavenward. He now first divulged his religious feelings to his uncle, in a letter which he handed him without seal or signature, and which detailed his struggles, his ignorance, his decision to be on the Lord's side, and his dawning peace.
Mr. Rogers had often made his salvation the subject of his secret wrestling with God. But so complete had been the con- cealment of Dr. Sampson's convictions, that his uncle was at this very time almost in despair of his conversion. And though Dr. Sampson had ever been docile and industrious in everything else, so impressed was his uncle with the evil influence which his profanity might exert in his family, that he had seriously considered the best means of removing him. As he was the son of a beloved sister, he had seriously thought of disbanding his school for a time, as the least painful mode of securing this end. Indeed, he had only been deterred by intercessions of others, from carrying this purpose into effect. How- delightful, then, must have been the surprise with which he received this letter, telling him that the great work had gone on so far under ground? This curious incident may carry home two truths to us, ''That we should not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap if we faint not"; and that much of the seed of truth which we sow- is often lost, or smothered, for want of more constant and tender nursing.
But Dr. Sampson was more the spiritual child of the Rev. Thornton Rogers, than of any other person. He has often said lliat the means which efficaciously awakened him out of death in trespasses and sins, was no^ so much any particular sernKui or warning, as the holy and consistent life of his uncle. This
398 MEMOIKS OF FRA:MCIS S. SAMPSOjST, t>. D
was to liim the seniion. the rebuke, the 'iiving episrk^■■ whirh revealed to him his spiritual necessities.
Xo man since the Apostle Paul could use more truthfully his language, "When it pleased (jod who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." Dr. Sampson was about to leave his uncle's roof, where alone he could expect to fiud any religious sympathy among his own friends, to return far a few weeks to his native neighborhood, in which every affectionate attention of his relatives would be a temptation, and where there were no sanctuary privileges nor Christian communings to help him on his way. Thence he was to go, in the early autumn, to the University of Virginia — an institution opened only six years before under infidel auspices, without prayers, chaplain, Bible class, Sabbath school — yea, we may say, without Sabbath; so that almost all godly parents kept their sons away from it with a pious dread; and vital religion was nearly unknown among its students.
We have seen the strong and almost fatal hold which the fear of ridicule had on his natural heart. Yet, from the mo- ment his stand was taken, although but a youth of sixteen, fear was at an end. A courage more fixed than that of man, had taken possession of his breast. One of his first acts after con- fessing Christ, was ta prepare a written address to his school- mates, intended for the close of the session, in which he urges upon them the claims of Christianity. These were the same school mates, whose ridicule had a little before almost driven him to reject the Holy Ghost I In his address, he discusses the following causes, which induce irreligious men to postpone at- tention to the Grospel: "An unwarranted dependence on the general mercy of God; objections to the incomprehensible mys- teries contained in the Bible; and especially, the incomprehen- sibility of the doctrine of a Trinity; cavils against the number of sects into which Christians are divided, and their bickerings; and skeptical doubts of the truth of the Scriptures." These points are discussed, without striking originality indeed, but with a distinctness of thought, order and justice, most remark- able in a school boy: and the temper of the address is marked by a happy union of Christian boldness and affection.
The same decision of religious character marked all his
Memoirs oP PnAitct^ s. sAMp&oi^, D. b. 39^)
Christiaii course. His religion was uow everyrliiug-. His JJible was almost his only couipanioii, aui3n<;- doc/ks. The fad that he learned so little of Christianity through the colored and somewhait distorted medium, in which it is presented b}- the prescriptive religious habits and expressions of even good peo- ple, but drew his religi:)us ideas direct from the Word of God, under the teachings of the Holy Spirit, may account for much of the excellence and symmetry of his religious character. In all his intercourse with relatives and as.sociates, in his amuse- ments and devotions, in everything, the desire to please God was ui)permost.
There yet exists a correspondence of considerable bulk, ex- tending through the five years of his University course, and later, with two favorite female cousins. In these letters, the desire to benefit their souls and his own, is ever the prominent, almost the sole concern. The great topic is approached at once, without squeamish circumlocutions, but with atfectionate dig- nitA' and delicacy. His correspondents are continually reminded, that the chief aim and glory of a (.'hristian friendship should be, to give and receive edification, by the interchange of ex- periences and advice. He has no news or gossip to detail. Even from the first year of his Christian life, these letters show a depth of experience and a range and fullness of Christian knowledge, such as we would expect from a mature saint. From them and his brief diary, we learn with what punctuality and solemn diligence he engaged in the study of God's Word, search- ing his own heart, and secret prayer, as tlie first great business of each day.
We learn he declined living with a room mate during his .second session, because his room mate the previous session, though amiable and moral, was unconverted; and his presence robbed him of his regular hours for secret devotion. In this exigency he was accustomed to resort to a wooded mountain hard by, for communion with God. And when, at the beginning of his third session, he received into his room a young gentle- man like-minded to himself, who afterwards 'became a most in- timate Christian friend, an arrangement was mad(- for retire- ment, as well as daily social prayer. From this friend we learn that when the hour of secret prayer found him languid and in- disposed to devotion, instead of making such a state a pretext
400 MEMOIRS or FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. t
for tile postpoiHMiiciir of the dury. ho f'i»im(l in it a i»(»\v(M-fu] mo- tive foi' it>s iiioi-e (liligeut perfoi-iuaiice. Hovvevei- fatigued or overworked, he would take his Uible and read and meditate till lie could bnv his knees in the proper frame, saying that this languor and eolduess were the very evidences that he needed fervent prayer at that special time.
The first of January, 1834, he held a solemn review of the l)ast year, and the state of his soul, and entered into a formal written covenant, to which his name is attached, engaging, with divine assistance, to live a life of entire devotion. The form of covenant is marked as a quotation. Although conceived very mucli in the terms of the one given in Doddridge's Rise and I'rogress, for the young Christian covenanting with God, it is not copied thence; and the source from which it was taken is not known. Perhaps it is enough to say that it is couched in terms of most devout and humble confession, ardent breath- ings after holiness, and adoring reverence of the divine perfec- tions. Though the subsequent diary shows that those alterna- tions of strength and weakness, joy and isorrow, were not wholly unknown to him, which are found in the experience of all em- inent saints, yet this era was no doubt a new starting point to his soul in its religious race.
It is a characteristic fact that this diary, after having been punctually kept for several months, was discontinued. The ground assigned at its close was, that he began to suspect him- self of coloring the statements of his feelings, from an involun- tary reference to their being some day seen by others, and he feared that thus his Christian sincerity might be corrupted!
Such holy diligence in prayer, such singleness of aim and such watchfulness, could not fail of their reward. He seems to have lived in the habitual exercise of religious joy; and often his soul mounted up with wings like eagles. It is believed that from his conversion to the day of his death, no serious cloud ever overshadowed his assurance. He lived continually under the peaceful light of a sure hope! How fully was the truth verified, in his Christian courage, consistency and intense ac- tivity for God, "The joy of the Lord is your strength?"
His position as a pious student among two hundred and fifty thoughtless young men, gave ample occasion to illustrate his Christian decision. But yet, this quality was so admirably
Memoirs of francis s. sampson, d. d. 401
tempered with modesty and kindness, that it secured, instead of enmity, almost universal respect. His manner was quiet, sim- ple, and unobtrusive. His religion was never thrust upon the notice of any one; but when any assault was made upon his principle.s, they were found immovable. He was oibliging to all, even to the profane, wherever the sacrifice of conscience was not asked for. So kindly and unpharisaic was his demeanor, that many, then entirely irreligious, became warmly attached to him, and his usual college name was "Neighbor Sampson." Yet, so sincere was the respect for his principles, a thoughtless and profane student was heard once to remark, "I canU swear before Neighbor vSampson"; adding that there was no other Christian student in the University to whom he would pay the tribute of such a self-restraint. It is doubted wlietlier a single raint, or one word disrespectful to his religion, was ever offered liim with malicious intent among all the hundreds of ungodly young men by whom he was surrounded.
Let this be an effectual lesson to every young person, who shall read the character of this man of Grod, never more to be held in bondage by the fear of reproach or ridicule. An honest, (■hristian courage commands the involuntary homage of the worst. It is weakness and inconsistency which provoke the gibe and sneer. Dr. Sampson was not protected from them by any of those brilliant popular talents which dazzle the imagina- tion of young men; for his abilities were not then appreciated. He was regarded as a plain and unpretending joung man, whose conduct was spotlessly consistent, and whose Christian courage was unshakable. It was this which covered him, amidst the most heaven-daring sinners, with a shield of affectionate respect.
The next trait of his Christian character to be noted, was: His strict conscientiousness. Never have we known a Christian who seemed more habitually to walk
"As ever in his great task-master's eye."
This conscientiousness was seen in the minutest pecuniary transactions, and in the scrupulous care with which he used tlie interests and i»r()i)erty of the Seminary, and of those who entrusted their concerns to him. That word of our Lord was to him a living precept, "He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in I he least, is unjust also in much."
402 MEMOIRS OF Fi4ANClS S. SAMPSON, D. 0.
Instances of liis scrupulousness might be mentioned, wliicli some might almost regard as showing a "morbid conscience." We can only say — Would to God that all his people were in- fected with the same disease. There was nothing morbid or exaggerated in his Christian character. On the CDntrarv, uni- formity and good sense were its peculiar traits.
As instances of his conscientiousness, take the following:
We find him determining that he cannot lend his notes of the professors" lectures (for he was a famous note taker) to fel- low students who studied them on the Sabbath. Although, in all other cases, unbounded in his kindness, where he had reason to believe that they would be so abused, he inflexibly exacted their return on Saturday. We find him, in every friendly letter, zealous to communicate some spiritual gift; and on his return from social visits, he frequently taxed himself vrith unfaithful- ness, because he had been satisfied with the innocence of his social enjoyments, and had not enough watched for openings to speak for Christ.
On a visit to his beloved Christian relatives in Albemarle, he not only seeks to do good to his cousins, but seized an op- portunity to "go into the kitchen at his grand-father's and talk with old aunt Bett^-, the cook, about Christ, his righteousness and atonement, our weakness and dependence on him. and the glorious prospects of the Christian, and encourage her to can- stant prayer. She thanked me for my advice; and said she re- joiced in the Lord, and prayed that the Lord would make me happy and useful. She said she was so glad that I had come and talked with her about Chidst. How happy is it. to be with a Christian, whether white or black 1 How good is my Grod, who revealeth himself to the poor and the ignorant, that feel their need of himl While I talked with this kindred spirit, my own soul was quickened, and the tear of sympathy dropped down my cheek. The old woman cannot read. Lord bless her soul, and give her grace, knowledge and true religion, with all its comforts. Let thy blessing rest on all with whom I con- versed about Christ."
A few lines further we read this :
"Was detained by rain longer than I intended, rnile Thornton lent me a horse to ride l)ack. Conversed with the ser- vant who came with me. about the danger of his immortal soul;
MEAfOiRS OF FRANCI8 S. SAMPSON, B. B. 403
endeavored to make plain to him the way of salvation, and showed him how reasonable it would be for God to cut him otT in his sins, before he could repent. Lord bless him wiili salva- tion."
And this, reader, was not in the glow of a first love, noi- iu a season of religious excitement. He had been a professed <'hristian nearly three years. How many ministers of the gos- l>e] may feel rebuke from these examples of evangelical zeal in a young college student I
In a like diligent spirit we tind him pert jrming each daily task, "as unto God and not man," regulating his diet with solemn Christian self-denial, because he found himself some- times indisposed, by partial excess, to prayer and meditation, and exerting his influence for good over his comrades by every means.
In his walks for recreation, he met with a plain but respec- table countryman, seriously inclined, though not a believer; and this casual acquaintance was improved, to set on foot a Sabbath school in the mountains, and to seidc the salvation of the far- mer and his wife, by repeated visits, and careful instruction.
When he had fully dedicated himself to the ministry-, and to the foreign missionary work, which, he then supposed, was to be his destination, he thrust aside obstacles to his great pur- pose, with a heroic self-denial, which can never be known, un- til the day which reveals the secrets of all hearts. In all the domestic relations of his subsequent life, in the duties of fam- ily devotions, in his functions as master and father, the inmate of his household could clearly jierceive that (Jod was continual- ly before his eyes. As an officer of the Seminary he was ever at his post, with conscientious diligence. No sickness, which! was not extreme, could detain him frjm liis class room; and the first day of his last, fatal illness, he attempted to rise and at- tend to his classes, and only desisted from his purpose when literally overpowered by weakness.
The Christian reader will hardly need to be told, that such a. believer as is above portrayed, abounded in active exertions, and the labors of love for Christ and perishing souls. To ap- preciate the strength of this active principle in him, we must remember the modesty, ihe almost shrinking diffidence of his Christian character. A few instances of his zeal to do good
404 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
have already been mentioned. When he went to the University of Virginia, there was no chaplain, nor religious observance of any kind. Occasional public worship had been held perhaps, by transient ministers of distinction; and the sound religious sentiment which distinguishes the bulk of our people, was be- ginning to make itself felt among the governors of the institu- tion; so that they were not unwilling to pay the tribute of some outward religious observance to this public opinion. Soon after Dr. Sampson went there, the Kev. Mr. Hamet, a Metho- dist minister of great fluency, and popular rhetorical powers,, preached in Charlottesville; and the most thoughtless students were fascinated with his abilities. Advantage was taken of this, to introduce a permanent chaplain, and Mr. Hamet was the flrst who filled that office. The chaplain is usually selected by the facult}', with some conference with influential ministers of his own denomination, and is supported wholly by a voluntary subscription among the professors, students and other residents. He is chosen alternately from one of the four leading denomina- tions, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal and Presbyterian; and served at first one, but now two years. Dr. Sampson was very active in supporting this new enterprise, and gave valuable aid to Mr. Hamet, though his short stay in that office ijromised no very valuable religious results. He was succeeded by men of a more evangelical type; and to them all Dr. Sampson was a right hand, during his stay at the University, whatever their denomination. He was also the most active agent in originat- ing the first Sabbath school in the University, and was its su- perintendent. We are assured by an eminent citizen, who was then a child in one of the families connected with the institu- tion, that he was taught in this Sabbath school by Dr. Sampson, and there received his first saving impressions. The first pri- vate prayer meeting among the pious students of the Univer- sity was equally indebted to his agency for its maintenance. It met every Sabbath evening; and we find in his short diary frequent references to his enjoyment of its Christian commun- ion, anid to his having addressed a word of exhortation to his brethren there.
The following sentences, communicated by the Eev. Dr. White, who was pastor of the Cliarlottesville church from the
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 405
spring of 188G to 1848, happily express the position which Dr. Sampson then hekl there:
''My aeqnaintance with Dr. Sampson commenced in the spring of 183G. He was then jnst closing his course at the University of Virginia; and on the 4th of July of that year, lie took the degree of M. A, with great credit. The South Plains church then embraced the Presbyterians living in the Univer- sity and Charlottesville. There were not more than sixteen members living at these places. On my arrival, he called on me, and although very modest, yet convinced me in one short in- terview, that he was a youth of no ordinary talents and piety. He was then, I should suppose, about twenty years of age — be- tween twenty-one and twenty-two. He entered with great in- terest into conversation on the subject of religion; and had evi- dently thought and prayed much for the prosperity of Z'ion. He gave me more information respecting the condition of the church, and both said and did more to cheer me in the work I was about to undertake, than any one with whom I met. I well remember the first attempt I made to have evening service in the dirty and dilapidated church. When I reached the house, I found it was neither lighted nor unlocked. As I stood in front of the building with half a dozen others, none of whom seemed to know what to do in this great emergency, Sampson came up, accompanied by several of his fellow students from the Uni- A'ersity. I was on the point of abandoning the undertaking in despair, when he, with his accustomed quickness and energy, said, 'Don't go yet — Fll see what can be done.' He hurried away, and very soon returned with candles in one hand, and the means of lighting them in the other — entered the house by raising one of the windows, and soon had the church opened, lighted, and ready for service. I preached to Just one dozen hearers, and found no little help in doing so from the part he had acted.
"Through his whole course at the University, he was as much distinguished for his firmness as for his modesty, and as eminent for his piety as for his scholarship and talents. My impression is, that he established the first Sabbath school ever raught, and the first prayer meeting ever held in the Univer- sity. I am sure he took a very active jjart in both these depart- ments of benevolent and Christian effort.
406 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S SAMPSON, D. D.
"A few weeks before lie graduated, the lamented Professor Davis said to me, with a very sad expression of countenance, 'We are about to lose Sampson; and a sad loss it will be to the I'uiversity. With a modesty and reserve seldom, if ever, equal- ed, he combines a firmness of purpose, and an openness and en- ergy in seeking to check evil and do good, which have made him a great blessing to the whole insriturion. His influence over all classes of persons is astonishing. Has your church no more such young men to send to us? The University might well af- ford to furnish any number of such with their board and tuition gratis.'
'•I have always believed that the course he pursued and rile influence he exerted contributed immensely to the great change which, from that time, began to take place in the re- ligious character of that institution. My connection with him there ceased after some two or three months. In a pleasant interview with him just before he left, he said to me, 'I must preach the Grospel. or die in the attempt.' He left in the state of mind indicated by this remark; and you know the rest."
We cannot refrain from adding the closing paragraphs of I>r. White's remarks concerning him. though more confidential ill their tone, and not relating to the subject immediately before us. His words give a touching and truthful picture of the im- pression made by the lively Christian simplicity and modesty of his demeanor:
''He spent two ui- iliree days with me. and preached twice for me during the summer preceding his death. The impres- sion he made both upon my congregation and family, was of the most sfiiutary and pleasing kind. His meekness and gentleness, his freedom from all ostentation and reserve, won the confi- dence of the youngest member of my household. So much so, that for weeks and months afterwards, his visit was frequently mentioned at my fireside, as an event to be remembered witii mingled emotions Df pleasure and pain. With pleasure, because we enjoyed the privilege of entertaining him: and with pain, because we feared we should never enjoy this high privilege again. When this fear was realized by the announcement of his death, the deepest gloom passed over my family circle, and tears were shed that we should see his face no more."
If every pious student and other young Christian were thus
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 407
(lilifieiit in di)iiig good, how different would be the aspect of our churches and colleges. What a new impression of the sol- euni reality and urgency' of the work of redemption would re- place in the minds of their thoughtless assiociates, that unreal and dreamy idea which they now entertain!
At the Union Seminary, which Dr. Samps9n joined the fall after he left the University, his Christian activity was similar. Xo man was farther than he from that misplaced zeal, which aspires to do the work of an evangelist, while still a student, at the expense of a student's proper duties. In preparation for the class room, in punctual attention to the routine of his du- ties, in accurate scholarship, he was among the foremost. But to do good was one of the recreations of his leisure hours. Dur- ing a season of religious interest, which visited the College in the immediate neighborhood of the Seminary, he, with others, labored much in a modest way; and some of the subjects of that work, if ever they attain to that blessed world where we believe he now is, will have occasion to acknowledge their debt to his wisdom and love, to all eternity.
As soon as he was licensed to preach the Grospel, by the Presbytery of East Hanover, he began to abound in evangelical labors, which, to his death, were increasingly acceptable to the churches. Besides the labors of his vacations, in his native county, and others at a distance from the Seminary, he preached statedly at different times, in the College and Farmville church- es, at Guinea in the county of Cumberland, Charlotte court- house. Walker's. Forest and Appomattox churches in the coun- ty of Prince Edward. Some of these labors were wholly gratui- tous. For a considerable period, his stated labors not being more urgently needed in any of the churches of convenient ac- cess, he preached regularly to a congregation of colored people, for no other reward than the pleasure of doing good.
Another marked trait of his Christian character was the uniformity and healthfulness of his devotional spirit. While Ids private habits in this matter were covered with a sacred veil, which none dared to attempt to lift — drawn alike by the reverence and the modest^" of his spirit — his profiting was so outwardly evident to all, that no one could doubt his diligence in the closet. While his brief diary laments occasional spiritual declensions, there is reason to believe that he never knew what
408 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S, SAMPSON, D. D.
it was to lose the assurance of hope; and that the flame of devo- tion burned in him with a glow unusually steady. In public, his prayers were eminently edifying to believers, marked by scriptural tone, humble sincerity, appropriateness and compre- hensiveness. But to know the sweetness of his spirit of prayer fully, one must have enjoyed the privilege of being an inmate of his house and frequenting his domestic altar. Family pray- ers were, in his house, no hurried, unmeaning form. The whole air and tone of the exercise showed deep sincerity and earnest- ness. After a daily catechising of children and servants, the reading of the Word of (iod, and a hymn of praise, he bowed his knees with a composed awe and seriousness, which seemed to communicate itself to all the circle. What deep sincerity, what discrimination and justice, what point, wliat fullness, what grave tenderness characterized those prayers, as he brought before the throne of grace his household — his children, his servants, his relatives, his brethren in Christ, the (Seminary, the church, and the whole interests of a perishing world! To those who were so happ3' as to be often present, it was not diffi- cult to believe that these services would leave their calm and holy savor upon the spirit, throughout all the toils and cares of the da3^, like ''the dew upon Heron, and as the dews that de- scended upon the mountains of Zion."
His religious principles were strikingly illustrated also, by the manner in which he felt the call to the ministry.
As has been already indicated, his definite purpose wa.s fixed, in this matter, during liis residence at the University. It was formed in the face of the strongest influences and the most brilliant allurements to more worldly and ambitious i)ursuits. H?. lias left on record the great benefit which he received in this respect, as well as in others, from the Biography of James Brainerd Taylor, edited by Dr. John H. Rice. The principles illustrated in the life of that devoted young Christian had a powerful influence in fixing his resolution to consecrate him- self to the work of preaching the Gospel. But this purpose be- gan to dawn in his soul from the very beginning of his Chris- tian life. On one occasion the writer asked him, what were the time and means for bringing the claims of the ministry home to his conscience. He answered, "There never was a time, in my Christian life, when I did not feel the claims of the ministry."
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 409
In reply to tlie question, how this was. he continued, ''I simply reasoned thus: I had given myself wholly up to God, to be used for his highest glory, and if he needed me most in the work of the ministry, as seemed every way prjbable, as a thing of course I was bound to be a minister."
His settled purpose, during a large part of his University and Seminary C3urse, was, to prepare himself thoroughly for the work of a translator in some important foreign mission. He was led to this purpose by his success and accuracy as a lin- guist, and his humble estimate of his own talents, and his ca- pacities for public speaking. He seems to have thought that he was deficient in all those more brilliant gifts, which secure success in the pulpit; that his only talent was a patience, dili- gence and accuracy, which wauld make him a correct scholar, and that this humble talent he could best use for his master's glory, in the unobtrusive drudgery of rendering Grod's Word into the tongue of some I'agau people. With this object, he devoted himself most diligently to languages, drilled and cul- tivated his mind as thoroughly as possible in his preparatory course, and, in the Seminary, mastered as thoroughly as possi- ble the languages of the Scriptures. But his master thought not S3. When his Seminary course was but two-thirds done, he called him. by his Providence and the voice of his church, to a responsible work at home; and speedily rewarded his hum- ble fidelity, by giving him fame and influence in the pulpit, of which he had judged himself unworthy.
Now, here is a lesson for those young Chnstians, who malce a lack of special capacity fjr speaking or of similar qualifica- tions, their pretext for declining the claims of the ministry. This servant of God had a sincere distrust of his own capacities; but with a heart consecrated with equal sincerity to his Saviour's service, he humbly ottered himself to the work, to do what he could, believing that God would accept him according to that which he had, and not according to that which he had not. Yea, and he was accepted; and not only used his scholastic accuracy fo;' the service of God in a high and honorable sphere, but be- came one of the most admired and impressive preachers of the land.
Young Christian, if thy self-distrust is genuine, go thou and do likewise. But if it is feigned, remember that ''all things
410 MEMOIRS OF FRAIMCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D
are naked and opened unto tlie eves of him with whom we have to do."
Our portraiture wouhl be recognized bv all the friends of Dr. Sampson as incomplete, if we omitted those which were, to all. his most abvious traits: modesty and disinterestedness. One of his most faithful friends was accustomed to say of him, ''If Brother Sampson has a fault, it is that he is too modest." This virtue was impressed upon his social demeanor, upon all his acts of c )nscientious decision, and upon his deportment in all the courts of the church. There, he was usually a respectful listener, and a rare and brief speaker. When his sense of the importance of a measure called him out, his remarks were direct, lucid and weighty, and offered with an air which showed that he shrunk from occupying the time and attention of the body longer than was unavoidable. Self-display and self-seek- ing were ideas which none that knew" him associated with his name. Always estimating his own talents and knowledge be- low their real worth, he rather shrank from promotion than sought it. He waited for the call of his brethren and Provi- dence; and it is believed that there never existed a case, in which he consented to lift a finger, directly or indirectly, to. promote his own advancement, even by honorable means. Be- fore he became a student of divinity, he refused vei-y tiattering offers of literary employment, not inconsistent with clerical du- ties. And after he engaged in the service of the Seminary, and received the assurances of his brethren that they judged his labors essential to the cause of God in that institution, no in- conveniences in his post, and no advantages oft'ered from with- out, weighed a feather towards leaving it. During this time, several offers of employment, such as professorships, more lu- crative, and not unworthy of a Christian minister, were made to him. His answer always was, that God seemed to have work for him to do where he was; and as long as this wag so, he had no right to leave it for any increase of his personal comforts or emoluments. Meantime, those emoluments were so stinted for many years, in consequence of the financial embarrassments of rhe Seminary, as scarcely to aiTord the means of comfortable subsistence. Vp to his formal election to the professorship in which he died, while he performed the full duties of a ])rofessor in fact, and was acknowledged bv all to be second to no one in
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSO^f, D. D. 411
the value of liis labors, he received less tliau two-tliii'ds of the eiiiolunu'iits belongiug to the office of a professor iu this insti- tmidii. Thi.s cantiiiued for ten years — years of activity, aud growing reputation and usefulness — second to none of the years of his life. When he left his post temporarily, to improve his knowledge and health in Europe, the directors of the Seminary continued ta him this inadequate salarv during his absence — feeling that his tour was, in fact, in the service of the Sem- inary, and that this was no more than a just reparation for the unavoidable scantiness of his previous compensation. Bint even this he declined to retain, and refunded it to the Seminary after his return, in annual installments. So that the last year of his life may be said to be the anly one in which he received the full salary which he had all along deserved. Yet in re- funding this sum, he considered himself as repaying a debt, and not conferring a gift.
.V very few years before his death he came into possession of a part of his ample patrimony, and then his benefactions in- creased with his ability. His donations to the Seminary and to other institutions of public interest, were bestowed with a generous hand.
His conscientiousness in the use of wealth, might well be imitated by many other Christians. Whether his circumstances were scanty or affluent, he was simple in his tastes, unostenta- tious in his person, and economical from principle. In accord- ance with the general system of all his habits, he kept an exact account of all expenditures — a thing which is, indeed, a neces- sary foundation for the proper practice both of Christian lib- erality and Christian economy. He was economical only in or- der to have the means to be liberal. His Christian hospitality was overflowing; and it was truly the hospitality of a Chris- tian minister, designed not for its own display, but for the be- stowal of comfort on others. To every good cause he gave, al- ways with the heart, and when his means became ample, with the hand of a prince. It was one of the secrets which his Chris- tian modesty never revealed, that he kept a strict account be- tween himself and God, in which all sources of income were stated with scrupulous exactness, and a fixed and liberal por- tion of the sum was set apart to almsgiving; and this account was balanced with as much regularity as his bank book. Mean-
412 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D
time, lie was not .without the pretext, which many professors of religion find for stinting their liberalii y, in the chiims of a grow- ing family.
Chapter III
Dr. Sarupson as a Student. Wise and Resolute Plan. Thoroughness. Intense Application. His Scholarship— Its Range and Accuracj'.
The third general topir i»roi)o.sed to the reader, will be the habits of .study and SL-holarship of Dr. Sampson. A brief state- ment of his methodical and thorough system of study has al- ready been made. It may perhaps be said with truth, that the only i>eculiar indication of talent, which the beginning of his scholastic life gave, was the wise and resolute i)lan of study which he set before himself, and pursued from the first, with all the determination of his character. For surely, such wise determination is a talent — it is a trait of mental and moral greatness — and one rare and invaluable in a stripling of six- teen. He seems to have begun his collegiate course with a fixed reference to the greatest ultimate benefit. While he was a most punctual and laborious student, exact in all collegiate duties, allowing himself, for years, ouIa^ six hours in bed. and but a scanty season for recreation, he did not fall into the temptation which overthrows so many at the University of Vir- ginia. This is the ambition to run rapidly over the course, by an extraordinary and spasmodic exertion, and thereby to excite admiration, and to pass speedily into the duties of actiA'e life. Dr. Sampson's course, on the contrary, was long and deliberate, covering five years. Many distinguished citizens, who were his fellow students, state that he was at first only known as "an excellent student," of good sense and accurate habits; but that with every session, the appreciation of his abilities and learning increased. He seems to have practiced, from the first, the wis- dom so rare in youth, of leaving nothing behind unmastered, of never weakening the accuracy' of his faculties and perceptions by half prepared tasks, and half understood views. His schol- arship was matured and digested, as he progressed. And this character was found eminently in all his subsequent acquisi-
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON", D. t>. 413
tions. It has been said tliat, as a Seminary stndent, lie showed equal diligence and method. As a professor, his diligence was great, and his toil in study excessive, until Increasing infirmi- ties compelled him to relax his labors. It is well remembered by some of his pupils, that once, when taking a class over the Epistle to the Hebrews, which he had gone over more than once before, he spent, on an average, thirty hours of active study on each lesson, in additional preparation. But alas! here the in- tensity of his zeal reached its crisis. This was the last year of his firm, unbroken health; and henceforth, "while the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak."
If all our young ministry was inspired with such zeal, how glorious would be the result? Perhaps the number might be increased by those who, like our lamented brother, would have to say of themselves, "The zeal of thy house hath consumed me," and whose premature loss the church would bemoan just as their harvest of usefulness was beginning. But would not this spirit endue the ministry of reconciliation with an influ- ence, a w^eight, a might, a glory, which would be cheaply pur- chased, even at so precious a cost? A costly price hath our Zion paid for this example, which she now otfers to her young ministers, to teach them what is the diligence they should exer- cise! May God forbid that it should be lost on them. Happy is that man who falls at the high noon of his career, and on the spring tide of his success, at his post of duty; but happier is he who can so temper a burning activity with a holy prudence, and so avoid both a corroding sluggishness and a rash over exer- tion, as to rise brightly to the meridian of his powers, and then decline gently towards their serene evening, and thus to bless the church both with his earlier strength and his riper ex- perience.
By such system and diligence. Dr. Sampson became one of the best educated men of our country. In all the departments of letters he was able, above the average. His knowledge of systematic theology was profound and extensive. Of church history he retained a knowledge far superior to that which most young ministers bring to their ordination, although his deparr- ment called him away from these studies; and he was accus- tomed to complain that his memory was treacherous with re- gard to those of its stores which he had no opportunity to re-
414 MEiNfoiRS ol" FkAKcis s. SAidPsoif, 0. t>.
view. His mastery of Latin and Greek, and of most of the po^ lite languages of modern Europe, would have abundantly quali- fied him for the highest posts of instruction in America. T'o' say that it was such as becomes a well educated minister, would be utterly inadequate to the truth. But his ripest acquirements were in the Hebrew literature and the exposition of the Scrip- ture. Here, as is well known, he was pre-eminent for tliDrough- ness, accuracy and philosophical arrangement. While there may be many who possess an equal familiarity with these de- partments of learning, it may be safely asserted that, as a Jeach- 6r of Hebrew, there was not his superior on our continent.
Chapter IV
Characteristics as a Teacher. Tact. Yivacitj-. Earnestness. Patience Intercourse with Pupils. Hebrew Prelections. This naturally suggests another subject of remark — his character as an instructor. In his practical skill as a teacher, was his peculiar value to the church of our day; for as a mas- ter of the art of communicating knowledge, he was, in our view, unrivaled. It was not that his lectures presented those grand sajings which electrify for the moment, nor that any one of his efforts produced on the pupil an impress of pre-eminent tal- ent— but there was just the combination of that justness of mind, steady animation, thorough knowledge, patience and tact, which gave the highest skill in teaching, both as it is a trade and as it is a science. He was equal to its profoundest researches. He shunned none of its most irksome drudgeries. One of the foundation stones of his success was his owti indis- putable scholarship. No man ever passed through one of his classes without a profound and admiring conviction of this. Another was in his unfailing animation and vivacity of mind, which was so keen, even on subjects usually esteemed dry, as to seem unaccountable to many. The exertion of voice and body which he unconsciously employed, when thoroughly warmed to his work, was often the subject of playful remark between him and his colleagues. This animation communicat- ed itself to his pupils — sa that usually their highest diligence w-as exerted in his department, though it was one not most at-
MEMotRS Oi" FRANCiS S. SAMPSON, D. t. 415
tractive to all miuds. But to this result another quality, which is invaluable to the teacher, also contributed. This was the energy of his own will, which pressed on towards the objects of his exertion with an impetus which swept all along with it, and communicated its own life to the most sluggish. In every act of his in the class room, there was expressed the idea of work; and all who frequented it soon felt instinctively that it was not the place for loitering. It might be said that his watchword was thoroughness. With an admirable patience, he expounded his subject so as to make it luminous to the weak- est eye; and if his questions revealed the fact that there was still some one who did not fully comprehend, he would resume his explanation, and repeat in varied forms, till his ideas were thoroughly mastered. Out of this habit, and the propensity of his mind to thorough work, probably grew that which might have been considered his prominent fault as an instructor. His explanations sometimes degenerated into excessive amplifica- tion, which became wearisome to those who had given him a moderate degree of attention from the beginning; and he thus unduly protracted his prelections.
His intercourse with his pupils was marked by a happy union of modest dignit}^, which repelled improper encroach- ments, and cordial, ingenuous kindness, which conciliated con- fidence. In his presence, each one felt that there was a sim- plicity and candor which set the stamp of reality on every kind attention. It is believed that there is not one of his pupils who did not feel for him not only respect, but warm affection; and many can join in the sad words of one who remarked, when speaking of his death, "Well, I never expect to meet with an- other minister of the Gospel, whom I shall love and revere as I did that man." Often it was a subject of wonder to his col- leagues, how so much affection could be retained fram those towards whom he exercised so much fidelity in admonishing.
The distinctive traits of his expository instructions may perhaps be described as justice of thought, neatness, and im- partiality of mind. He believed the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures. His soul loved their spiritual truths; and often in the lecture room he soared away from the dry dissection ot words and propositions, into regions of devout meditation, and made his class forget for the time the exercises of the head, in tlie nobler exercises of the heart.
416 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON', D. D.
It was in his Hebrew prelections tiiat his mental excel lence shone most distinctly. He had applied the broadest prin- ciples of etymology to the elements of this language, in a man- ner original and philosophical; and had thus reduced them to an 3rder which, so far as we know, is not equaled by any pub- lished grammar. His lectures unfolded the Hebrew etymology with a lucid order, beauty and simplicity, which could not fail to delight every intelligent learner. Indeed, if we may be per- mitted to introduce our own judgment, after frequenting the halls of three separate institutions of learning, and sitting under some of the most gifted and learned men wh > have appeared on this side of the Atlantic, Dr. Sampson's lectures on the Hebrew language, and some other departments, seem to us the most philosophical, the most complete, ihe best teaching ro which we ever listened. None who attended his prelections on the canon of Scripture (of which there remains a brief specimen in his "University Lecture") will forget the masterly nature of the ar- gument there constructed. It is one not servilely copied or com- piled from previous writers, but constructed on his own plan. He has there built, upon a foundation of adamant, a structure whose ribs of steel are knit together with the strength of mathe- matical demonstration. Xo part is wanting, and every part is in its exact i)hue. It stands totve teres et rotundus, impen- etrable everywhere to refutation.
Alas I that there remain no permanent records of most of these invaluable instructions, except in the scanty and scat- tered notes of his p.ipils. In his later years. Dr. Sampson re- gretted often that he had not found time to fix upon paper more of his course of instruction. But such was his unambitious and self-sacrificing spirit, that he always yielded to the urgent de- mands of the present, and preferred the thorough performance of his duties to his classes, to the gathering of those fruits of his researches, which would have promoted the fame of his au- thorship. He said, that if he became an author, he must be a less diligent teacher. There was not time to be, thoroughly, both at once. And he preferred rather to leave his record writ- ten on the minds and hearts of the rising ministry of our Syn- ods, where it might be fruitful in the enlightening of souls, than in volumes which would hand down his name to future ages. But besides this, he was cut down just when the fruits of his
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 41^
arduous studies were coming to their rich maturity. Had he lived to old age, he might have gathered some of them into books, for the benefit of a wider and more remote circle.
Chapter V
Dr. Sampson as a Preacher. Simplicity of Style. Logical Arrange- ment. Elevation of Thouglit. Steadily advancing Reputation. Les- son of Encouragement to young Pivines.
The reader will almost be able to surmise, from what has now been said, the character of his preaching. It exhibited al- ways the lucid order, and the animation of mind which marked everything w'hich he produced. His best sermons rose to a grade of excellence which is seldom displayed in any part of the church. And it was an excellence which was most appre- ciated by the most Cultivated and mature minds. Whilst there were other preachers, who would be more sought after by the masses, he was preferred by the men of thought and acquire- ment. His plans of discussion were marked by a just and com- prehensive view, which showed both the profound theologian, and the ripe biblical scholar, who had drunk deep into the spirit of the Word of. God. His propositions were usually stated with singular accuracy and beauty of language; but it was a beauty rather logical than theoretical, rather chaste than florid. In deed, his whole method of discussion wore an appearance of directness, too severe to admit of any license of ornament. Yet, in the judgment of all those who are capable of appreciating a felicitous purity and aptness of language, and thoughts of vig- orous symmetry, many passages in his sermons rose to the high- est grade of eloquence, coupled as they were with his genuine fervor and fire. His preaching was rich in matter, and emin- ently scriptural, such as is best fitted to feed the spiritual mind. It was alwaj's remarkable for its elegance and elevation, which were never tarnished by anything coarse in allusion, ludicrous in association, or bungling in structure. But it was, the least of all men's, a finical elegance. It was rather that of an ener- getic and lofty simplicity. That men of strictly scholastic training and pursuits should excel in the particular work of
418 MEM0IE8 OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D, B.
ii.e pulpit, is rather the exception; but he was certainly one of the most brilliant of these exceptions. Hy the intelligent public his preaching was even as highly esteemed as his professional labors were by intelligent students.
This fact is dwelt on. because it contains most instructive encouragement to all beginners in the pulpit work. When Dr. Sampson first began to preach, he was far from being an easy or impressive speaker. His first attempts had little to eouir mend them, except that excellence of composition which was the unavoidable result of his thorough training and good mind. He labored under a constraint and embarrassment, painful to himself and his hearers. His voice was not modulated, and his gesture was scant and unformed. But every effort showed im- provement; and a few years of diligent exertion placed him in the front rank of impressive, pungent and fervent pulpit ora- tors. His voice became resonant and musical; his action digni- fied and energetic.
Such an example should effectually remove the discourage- ments of those who suppose they are deficient in pulpit gifts; and it should teach all to feel their responsibility to set up for themselves a high standard of excellence, and to be satist-^n] with no dull mediocrity in sacred oratory. Provided they have good sense and diligence, let them not persuade themselves that the road is closed up to them, which leads to the higher grades of excellence in this art. The things by w^hich Dr. Samp- son was enabled so thoroughly to overcome his original de- fects, were undoubtedly these: First, there was his superior scholarship, which gave him mental furniture, and supplied the best material ujj'on which to build a style. Had he not been a superior scholar, had his mind not been thoroughly drilled and invigorated by its inner training, his early manner would never have been improved into one so eminently good. Next, should be mentioned the modesty, humility and ingen- uousness of his Christian character. He learned to preach well, because he aimed to preach not himself, but Jesus Christ. Those words of our Saviour proved strictly true, in their ap- plication to his understanding of the art of expressing reli- gious truth: ''If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." His eye was single. His prevailing purpose was to show forth the way of life: and his triste was not perverted.
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 4lj)
nor his manner poisoned, by the itchings of conceit, or the am- bition for display. And, in the tliird place, he was diligent. Not only did he preach much, "in season and out of season," but he preached with careful and laborious preparation. And where there is a natural substratum of good sense, unfettered by any physical defect, these means will usually be sufficient to overcome an}' amount of incipient difficulties or failures, and to make an}- man, if not an orator of the first rank, an impres- sive and pleasing speaker.
Chapter VI
Intellectual Traits. Grcnius and Talent. Symmetry. Analytic Faculty. Imagiuatiou. Memory. Candid Estimate of his Powors.
It is in the life and acts of a man that the faculties and traits of his mind make themselves known to others. Conse- quently, the preceding exhibition of Dr. Sampson's character as a scholar, teacher and preacher, is also a portraiture, in some sense, of his intellect. No more is necess'ary, therefore, than to sum up the whole with a few general remarks. Dr. Sampson could not be called a genius. He was what is far better — a man of high talent. His mind presented nothing that was sa- lient or astonishing. But this was not so much because there was not power, as because it was power S3'mmetrically develop- ed. His was just one of those excellent minds, which grow most, and longest, by good cultivation. In wide and adven- turous range, his speculative powers were not equal to those of some other men; but in power of correct analysis, in sound- ness of judgment and logical perspicacity, he was superior to all we have ever known, except a very few. Indeed, when a ■speculative subject was fully spread out before his mind for consideration, his conclusions seemed to be guided by a pene- tration and justness of thought almost infallible. This con- sideration was deliberate; and his decision was very rarely ex- pressed with haste, or even with promptitude. Hence his writ- ings and conversation never exhibited an}- of that paradox, or that bold novelty and dangerous originality, which are too of- ten mistaken for greatness. His talents, if they had less to
420 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S SAMPSON, t). t>.
awaken an empty ai^touishment and admiration, were far safer, more reliable and more useful. It was bard for anytbing so- phistical or unsatisfactory to escape detection undei' bis steady gaze. He was particularly free from tbat common fault of many minds of large grasp: tbe adopting of major propositions so large tbat tbey will contain tbe conclusion wliicb tbe reasou- er desires to derive from tbem; but at tbe same time so sbadowy that they contain be knows not bow much more.
In bis powers of arrangement, he was undoubtedly super- ior to any man we have ever known. In bis mind, tbe elements of thought seemed to group themselves always, and spontan- eously, into tbe most philosophical order possible, with a regu- larity like tbat of tbe atoms of limpid water, when tbey crystal- lize into transparent ice.
The efforts of Dr. Sampson's imagination were rather of tbat kind which Mr. Macaulay describes in Sir James Macin- tosh. Tbey consisted not so much in the original grouping of elements into new, but lifelike forms, as in selecting appro- priate forms already shaped out, from the stores of a well fur- nished memory. In those severer exercises of tbe imagina- tion, which are required in mathematical thought and in the bodying forth of scientific conceptions, this faculty was em^- inently distinct and vigorous. But in its more poetic exercises it was limited. His power of calling up tbat species of illus- tration which is flowing and graceful, was scanty; and while the operations of bis faculties, especially in lecturing and preacJing, were unusually fervent, it was rather, so far as it was not spiritual, tbe dry beat, if we may so term it, of intel- lectual animation, than tbe glow of genial fancies. And yet, there were a few occasions on which he showed a high measure of tbe graphic or pictorial power; which might indicate tbat this faculty was rather disused by him than lacking in him. Another of bis mental peculiarities has been already hinted: bis almost impracticable honesty. He could never be induced to accept a proposition unless it wholly commended itself to his mind as true. His memory was most retentive, for all thingis which were arranged in it by any logical association; but for things sole, or merely verbal, it was sometimes treacherous.
Upon tbe whole, considering tbe admirable justness and perspicacity of bis mind, its vigor and accuracy in analysis, its
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 421
wonderful capacity for pMIosophieal arrangement, and the eu- ei-ftv of its purposes, he might have been truthfully called a man of great powers. The symmetry of those powers, his mod- esty in their display, the very accuracy of thought which re- pressed all those paradoxical brilliancies that catch the ad- miration of the crowd, forbid that he should be promptly ap- preciated. Hence his proper grade will probably only be as- s>igned him by those who, like the writer, had opportunities to contemplate his mental powers deliberately. But it is his de- liberate judgment — a judgment formed maturely, in advance o'l that warm personal attachment which he will ever esteem (Hie of the chief blessings and honors of his life, that Dr. Samp- son, for his particular work, possessed capacities unsurpassed b\ an}^ man which our countr^^ has produced, and equaled b^^ very few. Happy would it have been for our churches if they had fully known his worth.
Chapter VII
Failure of Health. Fluctuations of Disease. Flattering Hopes. In- creased Piligence. Dr. Sampson's last Sermon. Final Attack. Con- cern of the whole Community. Prayer in Presbytery. Dying Exer- cises.
In the early spring of 1840, Dr. Sampson's ill health began with a terrible pleurisy; which was immediately provoked by fatigue and exposure in preaching the Grospel, but doubtless owed its more remote origin to the prostration of vital energy, produced by the intense appMcation we have described above. After imminently threatening his life, this disease was sub- dued, but it did not leave him with a sound constitution. He seemed to be nearly re-established: and especially, on his re- turn from Europe, his appearance of health and vivacity al- layed all the fears of his friends. P>ut not long after, he ex perienced another irreparable shock, in a severe nervous fever which overtook him on a journey. This loft liim with a nervous system and liver painfully deranged, and some threatening in- dications of pulmonary disease. Fro'm this time forth, he sel- dom knew what it was to enjoy comfortable strength. His most
422 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
distressing symptoms were a feverish excitability of pulse, sleeplessness, and occasional attacks of biliary derangement, which prostrated his muscular system for the time. But dur- ing his last session, his health, cheerfulness and hopefulness seemed to revive; and there was again a flattering promise of re established strength and a long life. The returning prosper- ity of the beloved Seminary, the renewed and substantial as- surances of interest and affection on the part of the churches and ministry, and the steps taken towards filling the vacancies in its faculty and dividing. his responsibilities, seemed to be cordials to his mind and body. His enjoyment of the innoceul blessings of life and its domestic affections, was intense, and liis hold upon it was strong.
During this flattering season, he seemed to be conscien- liously husbanding his strength, and employing all the means for preserving health. Once or twice he referred to the repeat- ed and grievous blows, which a mysterious Providence had in- flicted on the Seminary in the death of its most useful ser- vants, and pleasantly said to his colleagues, ''It is our duty to live just as long as we can, in order that the institution may have time to root itself." But alas! another blast was nearer than any of us feared, which shook its still unsettled strength, nor less grievously than any which has burst upon it, since that which smote down its great founder in the flower of his strength and success. Xor did Dr. Sampson seem to be without antici- pations of its ai)proach. While he said nothing directly, and seemed rather ta avoid any allusions to the previous symptoms, threatening his health, as a painful subject, yet the thoughf seemed to be ever treading close after his eager footsteps, and spurring him to greater diligence, "The night cometh, when no man can work." Mpre than once, when others expostulated with him for taxing himself be^'ond his strength, either by the fervency of his preaching, or the vigor with which he pushed thrDugh his Seminary duties, he answered, "Perhaps I have but a few days or weeks more in which to do my task. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day."
And even so, the summons came, to him not unawares, but to us "like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky." Sunday, the second of April, the venerable pastor being absent, he preached in the college church, from Prov. xi, 18. "The wicked
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 423
worketh a deieitful work; but to him that soweth i'i<jhteous- uess, shall be a sure reward.*" lu this sermon he urjjed the con- trast between the delusiveness of the objects pursued by the unbeliever, and the glopious sufficiency and certainty of the be- liever's reward, with a power of thought, an energy of man- ner, and a fervor o^ atfectian, which could not have been sur- passed, if he had foreseen that this was his last message to his fellow men, and had poured the whole soul of a dying man into this final appeal. As we left the church that day. we felt that in this discourse his powers as a preacher of the gospel cul- minated. From that meridian height and splendor he fell — nay, rather, he rose; for the next Lord's day his soul (doubtless) ascended to those heavenly courts,
"Where congregations ne'er break up. And Sabbaths have no end."
After attending with zest upon all the religious services of the day, he retired to rest, apparently in his usual health — his last act having been to minister to the comfort of a sick" servant. Before the next mDrning he was violently seized with what seemed at first to be one of the customary bilious at- tacks; but it proved a fatal and insidious pneumonia. Per- haps it was the more fatal, because he was providentially de- prived of the assistance of his faitliful family physidan for nearly twenty-four hours after his first attack. When he first secured medical aid, his symptoms were most ominous; and after one or two delusive promises of relaxation, the disease finished its deadly work on Sabbath. April the 9th. His shat- tered frame had not the springs of an effectual resistance, and succumbed soon before a malady wliich is terrible even to the strongest.
Tlie Wednesday after he was seized. West Hanover i'res- bytery eanveued at Brown's church, Cumberland, about fifteen miles from the Seminary. I'erhaps the last business act which Dr. Sampson performed was one eminently eliaracteristic of his punctuality. It was to send, by one of his colleagues, his excuse for absence from Presbytery, and a business paper of some importance to a third person, which he directed, with a special charge, to be placed without fail in the hands '3f the moderator. When the Presbytery learned his threatening con- dition, it proceeded at once to set apart a season of special ia-
424 WF.MOIRS OF FRANCIS S SAMPSON, D D
tercession on his behalf. Highly as he had beeu appreciated bj- hih- brethren before, when thej began to look in the face the consequences 'Df his loss, thev seemed to awaken to a new sense of his value to the Seminary and the church. On Fridaj-, and again on Saturday, when persons were recognized approach- ing the church, who were known to come direct from him, the huuse was almost deserted by the members, who came out, by ;in irrepressible imi)ulse. to learn his state. Friday, when it was reported that there was a faint premise of amendment, it was agreed that the Presbytery should again unite in a season of intercession on his behalf; and prayer was offered, by the re\ered pastor of the College church, with a faith, tenderness, fervency and devout submission, which will never be forgotten to the dying day of those who heard it. Cbuld such a prayer fail to enter into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoih? Doubtless it tvas heard and accepted; accepted even as that more bitter L-ry of our divine Exemplar was accepted: '"Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done." ''It is enough for the disciple to be as his Master."' In all the congregations which received the newts of our brother's danger, prayer was also made of the church unto God for him. The anxiety of the whole community con- cerning him revealed that he had a hold upon their respect and affections, which WDuld not have been expected, if we re- membered that his pursuits had beeu chiefly those of the. study, and that he was rather among the people than of them. Per- sons going from the Seminar}- were everywhere stopped in the road by enquirers after his condition, in which there was a deep concern and tenderness, which came froan the heart.
His religious exercises were just those of which his Chris- tian life gave pfDraise — without fear, for he had long lived in the assurance of hope; and without transport, for a disease so violent and prostrating left no animal spirits for such feel- ings, foreign as they were at all times, to his religious habits. Early in his sickness, but after his disease had manifested it- self as a dangerous one, he remarked to one of his nurses. "I find now, what I have always felt, that a sick bed is no place to prepare for eternity. But I have not that to do. I long ago made my peace with Crod. The God I have feebly preached to others is my support."
ME^roiRS OF FR\I^CI3 S. SAMPSON, D. D. 425
His disease, attacking as it did the limgs. made talking both painful and injurious; and be and all about him were strongly inhibited by the physicians to converse much. He yielded an implicit 'Dbedience. remarking several times, "My life belongs not to myself, but to the church, the Seminary, my family, and to society; and it is any duty now not to consult' my own inclinations, but conscientiously to observe the means of preserving life, as long as there is any hope." Indeed, he seemed to study calmness of emotions, and even to avert his iniud from those objects which would excite the mt)re near domestic affections, which were, to one blessed as he was, so tendei". and in the prospect 'Df their interruption, so harrow- ing. Thus he observed the means of life with the same com- posed, conscientious principle with whicli he had usually ad- dressed himself to any other duty.
During the later and more decisive assaults of his disease, reason at times wavered on her seat. In his lucid moments he complained that his mind was filled with a teeming multitude of thoughts, new, varied, strange — some 'af them perplexed and troublous, some luminous and interesting. May it not be that this was the strife between the bedimming. enervating do- minion of the llesh on the one hand, and the dawnings of that nobler life to wliicli the spirit rises when it bursts from the mortal coil, on the other; and as the doubtful tide of combat rolled to and fro, the shadows of earth-born dimness and con- fusion were alternating with gleams of Heaven's own light over his soul?
In these seasons the influence of his predominant tastes and pursuits was strongly visible. His mind was busy with the Word of Grod, expounding, or investigating its treasures in the original tongues.
Three days before his death he said, "It seems to me that all the difficult i)assages of Scripture I have ever investigated are present to my eye now, in Oreek, Hebrew, or Chaldee, and all clamoring for settlement. But I tell them all. Go away, I am sick, and cannot attend to you." The last of these seasons of wandering was the m:)rniug of the Lord's day on wliicli he died. During this he said to one of his nurses, "See that wall- it is all written over with Scripture promises; and they are in letters so large that I can read them every one." It was an-
426 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
swcred, "Oil no, there is nothing there, except the plastering." 15nr he persisted, "Yes — they are there — cannot 1 see them? Lay your head here, beside mine, and then jou will see them plain." She wishing to beguile him into more composure said, "Oh. don'r think of these things — shut your eyes, and try to be quier." "Why," replied he, ''may I not read them? I know it is the Sabbath; but they are all Sunday reading — they are all from the Scripture."
Now. wlience were those characters, in\isible to all oth- ers, but so distinct to his failing eye-sight? Doubtless, they were recalled fram the stores of recollection, where they had lain hid, apparently lost to himself, by a memory stimulated into preternatural activity, either by the approach of the spir- it's release from material bonds, or by the inexplicable influ- ence of disease. And now the vivid conception was so bodied forth to the mind's eve, in the season of excitement, as to seem to liim actually pictured on the diseased retina, where the real images of the external world were fading dimly into darkness. And thus the walls were covered, to his eye, with the ample scrolls of a memory enriched by years of study. How merci- fully does God deal with his children? Here it was so 'or- dered, that those hours, which, in our apprehensions, we only think of as filled with anguish and fear, were beguiled with the contemplation of those sacred truths w^hich had been his delight in health. And is there not here another illustration of that theory which seems S3 like truth — 'that every impression ever made on the memory, though it may seem to us obliterat- ed, is still there, and will some day be revived, that man's soul is but a fearful 'Palimpsest^''* where the earlier records are. only in seeming, removed to make way for the later, and all the labarynthlne history will stand out in letters of light, genial or lurid, to be re-read by the s'oul in eternity.
But after this. Dr. Sampson became more composed, and his self possession returned completely; nor did it leave him again till the last moment. The strife between the powers of life and disease was decided; pain ceased, and he gently passed away. A few hours before the closing scene, his children were jihiced around his bed side, to receive his last wards: but the
*DeQuincey,
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 427
efrort to speak to them was so laborious, that at tlie suggeis- riou of one of the physicians, he relinquished it. After they reiiii^d, he said with the most extreme difficulty, gasping a word a' a time in whispers, between his labored respirations: "1 liadsome things which I wished to say to them; but perhaps it is most wisely ordered that I should not say them. They know how I have lived. I have always taught them that God's ^^'ord i^ the onl}' supreme rule of life. They have that — and it is eiuiugh. Perhaps they might have put my last words be- fore God's Word." This was the last connected sentence he spoke.
How could he, whose business was to expound the Sacred 8crij)tures, have closed his life more appropriately, than with such an acquiiescence in their complete sufficiency — coming as it did from the heart of a dying father?
Thu:s he quietly passed away, about 5 o'clock in the after- noon. The folbwing Tuesday, he was borne to the grave, in the Seminary burying ground, by the hands of his })upils, and in the presence of a multitude, every one of whom seemed a sin- cere mourner.
Chapter VIII
Practical Teachings of such a Life. Reward of Patience and Faith Humility crowned with Honor. The Price of great Usefulness- Home Institutions must be sustained. Men of deep toned Piety and pro- found Scholarship demanded.
And here we should end our task, if we listened only to the promptings of our own feelings — leaving this life and this death t'D speak for ttliemselves. But it is necessary that w(? should endeavor to enforce, more pointedly, a few of the im- pressive lessons which Providence has taught us in giving, and then taking, such a man. Of the appeal which his exannple speaks to the pious youth of our churches, to devote thenn- selves wholly to God, of tlie loss which the Seminary and the Presbyterian church has sustained, of the darkness of this act of her head, and of the duty of implicit trust in the righteomsi- uess of his mysterious dealings, nothing will be said.
428 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
But looking back to tiie source of Dr. Sampson's Christian life, in the holy example, prayers and instructi'3ns of the Rev. Tliointon Rogers, we see a delightful illustration of the truth, that "he which converteth the sinner from the error of his wa^'s," not only "saveth a soul froiii death, hut hideth a mul- titude of sins." \Yhen that good man la^bored in faith for the salvation of his irreligious pupil, he little knew what he wais doing. His thought was to pluck him from perdition, and to make him a Christian, possibly an humble minister. He did not know that he was instrumentally contributing the most es- sential part t'3wards the raising up of a master in Israel, whose steady and benign Mght was to be a blessing to two great coanmonwealths, and whose Christian virtues were to be re- produced in man}' scores of pastors, many of them, in their turn, pillars in the church, and fountains of an influence, na- tional in its extent! Nor do we know, when we endeavor to do good, with how glorious a result our generous Master may reward us. Let us, then, not be weary in well doing. IVfr. Rogers died in the prime of his life, and his friends mourned over the mystery of such a stroke upon such a man, as we have lately over the loss of his more eminent pupil. But, if his ministerial life had resulted in nothing else but the gift oif one such man to the church, would it not have been a sufficient result?
Again. The weakness of our faith often staggers at sacri- fices of worldly good to be made, and difficulties to be en- countered, in the path of duty. Let all to whom the voice of God comes, learn by the example of our brother, to dismiss these fears, and trust the united command and promise, "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." It was required of Dr. Sampson, in order to become a minister of the Gospel, to relinquish, ap- parently, the direct road to wealth and distinction. In follow- ing the beck of his master, he was eoaiipelled to brave many obstacles, and face threatening privations. But they were, at last, little more than threats. By the divine 'blessing on his own economy and industry, he was able at all times to sur- round himself, and those dear to him, with the comforts and decencies of life; and these increased ultimately to an ample competency. His temporal life knew no real want; and there
MEMOIRS Ot* FtlANOtS S. SAMPSON, D C. 42i)
was no actual sacrifice of that external comfort with which unbelief would have scared him from his duty. And after all — in seeking the testimony of a good conscience towards God, he found that distinction which he had not sought; he gratified Ms friends by winning a far higher social position than that which he seemed to relinquish to serve Grod; and became the ornament and pride of his family. Let no man be afraid to trust Grod.
We find in the foregoing history also, a beautiful example of the honor which comes to true humility. If there was one moral trait pre-eminent in Dr. Sampson, it was modesty. The desire for self-display seemed to be foreign to his nature. He ever thought others better than himself. He never schemed or planned for promotion, but was guided by a magnanimous and elevated delicacy, which refused to lift a finger, even by any honorable competition, to secure distinction for himself. And in every public position, on tlie floor of every church court, his humility shrank from that prominence to which his wisdom entitled him. But while, with a single eye, forgetful of self, he was taking care of his Master's interests, that Master to'ok care of his reputation. Though his position was one of scholas- tic privacy, and his talents were rather solid than brilliant, he steadily grew upon the appreciation of his brethren, until his early death found him enjoying a confidence, love and admira- tion, solid and extensive enough to satisfy any ambition.' Where is the man, of only thirty-nine years, within the limits of the whole Presbyterian church, whose death would now leave a gap harder to be filled, or excite a sorrow more general and sincere?
While our brother sought out the lowest seat, God said to him, and the church repeated, ''Go up higher." Would that this example might seal upon the heart of every young minister in our church the lesson, "Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.'' Would that all the unworthy arts of an unsanctifled ambition were as unknown in the church as they were in the conduct of this pure. Christian gentleman. They are as foolish and sui- cidal as they are unworthy.
The results of Dr. Sampson's life aud labors present a pain- ful— yea, almost a cruel illustration of the evils which have
430 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D.
more than once flowed from the tardy and partial co-operation, extended by our churches at the South, to their own public in- stitntions. Here were industry, talents and acquirements thar would have been sought after and valued hy the largest theolo- gical schools in the land. Believing that (iod's providence pointed him to Union Seminary as his post, 'he pouied out the riches of his mental treasures in her service. And to purchase what? Was it a worthy result of such a life, or a sufficient' recompense for such an expenditure, to train a body of pupils, ranging, during the sixteen years of his labors, from eleven to twenty? Let us not be misunderstood. We know that, intrin- sically, the training of one true minister — yea, the salvation of one soul, is worth the whole labors of an army of the most learned divines during their whole life. And were there but the one soul in the world, liable to perdition, it would be tlie part oif sober wisdom to expend all of this labor in its behalf alone. But while the field is so vast, and so white to the har- vest, and opportunities for doing good open so immeasurably before the eye of Christian enterprise, it is a waste to expend, for a very few, labors and talents which might elsewhere have blessed a multitude. We may securely ask this question, Sup- jjose that the warmest friends of Union Seminary in 1838, being also the true friends of Dr. Sampson and of Christ's cause, could have foreseen that he had just sixteen precious years to labor; that he would soon attain such eminent capacities for his work; and that in spite of his acknowledged abilities, the lack of hearty co-operation and wise and seasonable effort on the part of others, would cabin and confine his field of use- fulness to this narrow bound — would they themselves have been willing, would they have dared, to urge him to make the un- equal sacrifice? A regard to the interests of Christ's kingdom would have forbidden it. They would have said, "We dare not .selfishly expend so much, for so small a result. The field is the world. Let him go where, being better sustained, he can effect something larger for his Master."' But they hoped better things for their own enterprise; and hoping, they honestly invited him to enlist in that important cause, in which they were sin- cerely struggling. He obeyed the call. He toiled on, hoping against hope, with magnanimous seilf-devotion; and most like- ly, sacrificed not only his labors, but his life, an expenditure
MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON, D. D. 431
parlially useless, iii eiideavoriuji' to bear his uueqiial buideii. And now, after the catastrophe, as his friends stand over the grave of so much that was noble in morals, wise in understand- ing and vigorous in action, they feel a regret, cruel, yea, im- medicable, except by the submissiveness of faith, that his prec- ious life was, in part, spent in vain. Not in vain, thank Cxod! as to his reward, nor useless as to those indirect results, which, we trust, the wisdom aind grace of God will bring out of his labors and example. But he was permitted to reap but a part of those abundant fruits whicli such labors should have earned, in his own life time, in such a country and such an age as ours. And this regret is ever embittered by the s3"mptoms of return- ing prosperity and extending usefulness, which now appear in his darling institution. How touching the fate, that after six- teen years of toil, and hopes deferred, he was snatched awavi just as the smiles of success began to gladden liis 'heart! But here, our regret is softened by the thought, that he has en- tered upon a reward of his labors far sweeter than that of a visible success.
But this is not the first (would that it might be the last) instance, in which our people have been half aroused by a par- tiail sense of our social necessities, so as to set on foot some, weak and half endowed effort for their supply. And then they supinely relax, and even make the half starved weakness of those institutions which they call their own, and whose ill suc- cess is their own loss and shame, the pretext for bestowing their indolent and heedless favors on foreign institutions, which are flourishing and popular because their natural owners and sup- porters, with a wiser forecast and energy, stood by them in their weakness. Meantime, those nobler spirits, who have been thrust forward into the breach, and whose clearer vision sees the vital importance of home enterprises to all our vital inter- ests, wear away the springs of life, in a generous but useless sacrifice. And (meantime the commonwealth, for the lack of these home institutions, lags farther and farther in the rear, and sends forth her money, her sons, her energies, her life l)lood, to fecundate the soils and adorn the fame of rival states! Must a hecatomb of her noblest lives be immolated, before the slumbering spirit of Virginia will awake to know and embrace her own interests?
432 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. ^AMPSON, D. D.
But }*et, as long as there is hope of Virginia, tliat "she is not dead, but sleepeth." let her sons hear the voice which de- mands that they shall be satisfied with none but the liighe.st acquirements. In the example which we have been contemplat- ing, the voung ministers of our church ma}' see the importance, and the solemn obligation of aiming at the highest standard of theological learning. If the church, if our Synods, would retain their respectabilitv and influence, thev must have a reserved corps of men, whose well-trained faculties, wide scholarship, and elevated character, will fit the^m to step at once into any of our places of trust and responsibility. Otherwise, we are re- duced to one of two equally mortifying and ruinous alterna- tives, t3 commit those responsible posts to ill-furnislied and in- competent men, who will betray the influence and character of our enterprises, in this age of lionorable competition and vigor- ous progress in all other sections of our land, or else go begging to other sections, to get such men as they can afford to spare us. Have these Synods such a b:»dy of reserved talent and learning now^? If the valuable men. who now fill the professprships and presidencies of our Presbyterian Colleges and State Universities, were removed by death, could the Syn- ods point with confidence to sons of theirs, and tell them to step into the breaches, and account them fitted to take up the fallen mantles? If the chairs of our Seminary were vacated, would or would not the Synods be at fault, in their search for successors, to wh3m they could confidingly commit tho.se im- portant posts? When Dr. Sampson fell prematurely, did they feel that it was easy to find many men in their borders, from among whom to select his successor?
It is not necessary that these questions be answered here. There may be an evil in the church far more portentous than a stinted supply of ministers. It is that which comes, when her younger ministry are satisfied with those more shallow attain- ments, which secure them a modicum of popular applause and favor, indolently recline upon the dependence of a facile and plausible pulpit talent, and relax those severer studies, by which the profound scholar is formed. It is an evil which strikes at he root of our prosperity-, and when it prevails, can only be re- paired at the root, and therefore, repaired tediously. For these
MEMOIES OF TRANCIS S. SAMPSON. D. D. 433
surface men cannot even reproduce their kind, sorry as is their kind, and the general prevalence of such a type of ministerial acquirement renders inevitable a subsequent dearth of even second rate ^mimsters, and a state of starveling dependence on other sections.
We therefore beseech our young brethren, as for our life, to imitate the noble example which God has mercifully given our Zion iu our lost brother, and to resolve that they will be satisfied with nothing short of the fullest development of facul- ties, the soundest acquirements, and the most scrijitural, hum^ ble and manly piety, which are within the reach jf the most sustained diligence. This is no less the commaud of duty, than of a sanctified ambition. We are to love and serve God with all our heart, and mind, and strength, and soul. We are par- tially guilty of burying our talents, unless we prepare ourselves to meet the highest exigencies which are within the possibilities of our natural gifts.
In the life of Dr. Sampson, we see how directly that kind of scholarship which is usually esteemed least practical in a min- ister of the gospel, an extensive acquaintance with oriental lit- erature, was made to subserve the interests of the church — yea, liow immediately and necessarily those interests would have sutt'ered, for the lack of them.
If there is one thing proved by an experience of some twen- ty-five years, it is, that none but first rate men can now effec- tually subserve the institutions and interests of these Synods, in their prominent posts. To secure so many such men as they will need, there must be a liberal number, especially among their younger ministry, capable of the greatest things, from among whom they may choose. We do not expect to find plants of tallest and most vigorous growth among the few untimely shoots which spring up here and there iu the season of wintry sterility. We expect to find them all puny, for the same rea- son which makes them few. And if one is found truly vigor- ous, it is a true lusus naturae. We look for the full grown plant amidst the teeming abundance of the fruitful summer, and in the thickest part of a thick and emulous crop.
Unless we have, then, such a body of noble men, ''whose hearts God hath touched," we do not say our cause is lost, but we say that success, worthy of the cause, is impossible. The
434 MEMOIRS OF FRANCIS S. SAMPSON. D. D.
church expects every man ro be the greatest he can be. She needs men who have begnn. in the first phice, by hiying tlie foundation of a thorougli and full academical course, which entirely transcends that scanty range of scholarshii) which is too often the limit of our collegiate courses; or else, if this is lacking, men who have repaired the lack by the herculean exer- tions of later yeai-s. Then, they must be men who superadd to thif rot only such a theological training as will pass them ered- it:i) l\ through Presbyteries, and suffice for the making of gen- teel little sermons, but a thorough and ever widening knowl- edge of the original languages of the Scriptures, and the do- ings and doctrines of the great masters of theobgy in all ages. They must also be men free from trivial but odious tricks of personal indulgence or weakness — men. whose directness of aim, whose humble dignity of character, whose self possession, whose fervent energy in doing good will impress and awe the popular mind. For, without these iiioial traits, brilliant facul- ties and acquirements will be to the church little more than splendid vexations. And last — they must be men whose eye is single, whose hearts and purposes are governed by a profound and steady love of God. Such was Francis S. Sampson. Would that all the sons of our church might be such. She has had no more pure, more symmetrical, more elevated example, to which she may point licr yonng ministers and members, and say, "Tie ve followers of liini, even as he also was of Christ."
TRUE COURAGE.
A Disfoiirse rommemorative of Lieut. -GeDeral Thomas J. Jack
son.
Note: Geueial Jackson died Mar 10th, 18G3. In June fol- h)vving-, the author was ui-fiently requested to deliver a memor- ial sermon for him in Richmond. Havinj;- acceded to this re- (juest, he prepared the following- discourse, and delivered it in the First I'resbyterian Church, the evening of the first Sabbath of June, before a vast assemblage of officers, soldiers, and citi- zens. If the reader lias happened to have seen also the Life of (Jeneral Jackson, he will notice a certain similarity of thoughts, and even of language, in the sermon and in some parts of the narrative. The author has not been careful ta suppress the whole of these in republishing the sermon, because he was not afraid of the charge of repeating his own matter, where it form- ed so appropriate, and indeed, so necessary a part of both com- positions.
■Be not afi-aid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more than they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea. I .say unto you. fear him.'"— Luke 12:4-5.
A little wisdom and experience will teach us to be very modest, in interpreting God's purposes by his providences. ''It is the glory of the Lord to conceal a thing." His designs are too vast and complex for our puny minds to infer them, from the fragments of his ways which fall under our eyes. Yet, it is evident, that He intends us to learn instruction from the events which occur before us under the regulation of his holy will. The profane are more than once rebuked by him (as Is. 5: 12) l»ecause "they regard not rhe work of the Lord, neither con- sider the operation of his hands." And our Saviour sharply chides the Jewish Pharisees: "O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the
435
436 TEUE COURAGE.
times?" (Matt. 16: 3.) We are not therefore to refuse the lea- sons of those events which Providence evolves, because caution and humility are required in learning them. We have a guide, which will conduct us securely to the understanding of so much of them as God intends us to study: That guide is the Holy Scriptures. Among the several principles which they lay down for the explanation of God's dealings, it is suflQcient for our present task, to declare this one: That the characters of his children, which exhibit the scriptural model, are given as ex- aanples, to be studied and imitated by us. He would thus teach us more than those abstract conceptions of Christian excellence, which are conveyed by general definitions of duty; he would give us a living picture and concrete idea. He thus aims to stimulate our aspirations and efforts, by showing us that the at tainments of holiness are within human reach. He enstamps the moral likeness on the imitative soul by the warmth of ad- miration and love. That such is the use God intends us to make of noble examples, the Apostle James teaches us (5: 10) — "Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of pa- tience"'; and the Epistle to the Hebrews (6: 12 j when ir desires us to "be followers of them who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises."'
Common sense teaches us then, from these texts, that the lesson is important and impressive, in proportion as the ex ample given us was illustrious. By this rule, God addresses to us instruction of solemn emphasis, in the character, and the death, which we have now met to commemorate. Our dead hero is God's sermon to us, his embodied admonition, his incorporate discourse, to inculcate upon us the virtues with which he was adorned by the Holy Ghost; and especially those traits of the citizen, the Christian, and the soldier, now most essential to the times. He calls us, not to exhaust the occasion in useless sensibilities, but to come and learn the beauty of holiness, by the light of a shining example; and to let our passionate love and grief burn in upon the plastic heart, the impress of his prin- ciples. Happy shall I be, if I can so conceive and execute my humble ta.sk, as to permit this cliaracter to speak its own higli lesson to your hearts. The only reason which makes you think this task appropriate to me, is doubtless this: that I had the
TRUE COURAGE. 437
privik'.ue of his friendship, and an opportunify for inlimately observing his character, during the most brilliant part of his career. The expectations which you form from this fact, must be my justification from the charge of egatism. if I should al- lude to my own observations of him, in exemplifying these in- structions. But I must also forewarn you, that should there be any expectation of mere anecdote to gratify an idle curios- ity, or of any disclosures of confidential intercourse, now doubly sanctified by the seal of the tomb, it will not be gratified. And let it be added, that however the heart may prompt encomiums on the departed, these are not the direct object, but only the incidental result, of this discourse. I stand here, as God's her- ald, in God's sanctuary, on his holy day, by his authority. My business is, not to praise any man, however beloved and be- wailed, but only to unfold God's message through his life and death. Among that circle of virtues which his symmetrical character displayed, since time would fail me to do justice to all. I propose more especially, to select one. for our considera- tion, his rhristian courage.
Courage is the opposite of fear. But fear may be described either as a feeling and appreciation of existing danger, or an undue yielding to that feeling. It is in the latter sense, that it is unworthy. In the foiiner, it is the necessary result of the natural desire for well-being, in a creature endued with reflec- tion and forecast. Hence, a true courage implies the existence of fear, in the form of a sense, that is, of a feeling of danger. For courage is but the overcoming of that feeling by a worthier motive. A danger unfelt is as though it did not exist. Xo man could be called brave for advancing coolly upon a risk of which he was totally unconscious. It is only where there is an exer- tion of fortitude in bearing up against the consciousness of peril, that true courage has place. If there is any man who can literally say that "he knows .no fear," then he deserves no credit for his composure. True, a generous fortitude, in re- sisting the consciousness of danger, will partly extinguish it; so that a sensibility to it, over- sensitive and prominent among the emotions, is an indication of a mean self-love.
There are three emotions which claim the name of eoairage. Tlie first is animal courage. This is but the ferment of animal passions and blind sympathies, combined with an irrational
438 TRUE COURAGE.
tliouglitlessues.s. The man is courajicous. nilv liccaiise lie re- fuses to reflect; bold because he is bliud. Tliis animal hardi- hood, according to the obvious truths explained above, does not deserve the name of true courage; because there is no ra- tional fortitude in resisting the consciousness of danger. And it is little worthy of trust; for having no foundation in a reason- ing self command, a sudden, vivid perception of the evil hither- to unnoted, may. at any moment. suj»])lant it with a panic, as nnreasoni- and intense as the ])revious fury. The second species of courage is that ])rompted by the spirit of personal honor. There is a consciousness of risk; but it is manfully con- trolled by the sentiment of pride, the keener fear of reproach, and the desire of a})plause. This kind of fortitude is more wor- thy of the name of c oui-age, because it exhibits self-command. But after all. the motive is personal and selfish; and therefore the sentiment does not rise to the level of a virtue. The third species .is the moral courage of him who fears (lod, and, for that reason, fears nothing else. There is an intelligent a])pre- hension of danger; there is the natural instinct of self-love desir- ing to preserve its own well-being; but it is curbed and governed by the sense of duty, and desire for the approbation of God. This alone is tiue couiage; true virtue; for it is rational, and its motive is moral and unselfish. It is a true Christian grace, when found in its purest forms, a grace whose highest exem- plar, and whose source, is the Divine Redeemer; whose princi- ple is that i)arenr grace of the sun].fnith. "David, and Samuel, and the prophets, through faith subilued kingdoms, * * * waxed valiant in tight, turned to fiiglit the armies of the aliens." (Heb. 11: 33, 31.) Trust in God, in his faithfulness, his apprt)- bation, his reward, his command to brave the ris(iues allotted to them, was their motive. But "Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith." (Eph. 3: 17.» This is the principle by which the soul of the believer is brought into living union with Christ; and the heart, otherwise sapless and withered, is jienetrated by the vital saj) of his holy Spirit. He is the head; men of faith his members; he the stock; they the branches; his divine principles circulate from him into their souls, and assimilate them to him. But the whole mission of Jesus ("hrist on earth is a divine exr emplification of moral courage. What was it. save the unsel- fish sentiment of duty, overruling the anticipations of personal
TRUE COURAGE. 437
evil, whic-li made him declare, iu prospect of all the woes of his iucaniatiou, "Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is writ- ten of me; I delight to do thy will Oh mv God?"' What else caused hiui to press forward with eager, hungering haste, through tile toils and obloquy of his persecuted life, to that baj)tism of blood, which awaited him in Jerusalem? What else nerved him, when deserted, betrayed, and destined to death, desolate, and fainting, amidst a pitiless flood of enemies, one word of disclaimer might have rescued him. to refuse that word, and assert his rightful kingship over Zion, with a tenacity more indomitable than the grave? Jesus Christ is the divine pattern and fountain of heroism. Earth's true heroes are they who derive their courage from him.
Yet it is true, the three kinds of bravery which have been defined, may be mixed in many breasts. Some who have true moral courage may also have animal hardihood; and others of the truly brave may lack it. Xo Christian courage, perhaps, exists without a union of that which the spirit of personal hon- or, in its innocent phase, inspires; and many men of honor have perhaps some shade of the pure sentiment of duty, mingled with the pride and self-glorifying, which, chiefly nerve their fortitude. But he is the bravest man who is the best Christian. It is he who truly fears God, who is entitled to fear nothing else.
I. He whose conduct is governed by the fear of God, is brave, because the powers of his soul are in harmony. There is no mutiny or war within, of fear against shame, of duty against safety, of conscience and evil desire, by which the bad man has his heart unnerved. All the nobler capacities of the soul combine their strength, and especially, that master power, of which the wicked are compelled to sing: ''It is conscience that makes cowards of us all," invigorates the soul with her ]ilan(lits. In conscious rectitude there is strength.
This strength General Jackson eminently possessed. He walked iu the fear of God, with a perfect heart, keeping all his commandments and ordinances, blameless. Never has it been my happiness to know one of greater purity of life, or more; regular and devout habits of prayer. As ever in his great task- master's eye, he seemed to devote every hour to the sentiment of duty, and only to live to fulfill his charge as a servant of God. Of this be assured, that all his eminence and success as
440 TRUE COURAGE.
a great and brave soldier, were based on liis eminence and sanctity as a Cliristian. Tluis, every power of liis sonl wa» brought to move in sweet accord, under the guidance of an en- lightened and honest conscience. How could such a soul fail to be courageous for the right?
But especially did he derive firmness and decision, frouL the i)eculiar strength of his conviction concerning the right- eousness and necessity of this war. Had he not sought the light of the Holy Scriptures, in thorough examination and prayer, had his pure and honest conscience not justified the act, even in the eye of that Scai'cher of hearts, whose fear was his ever- present, ruling principle, never would he have drawn his sword in this great quarrel, at the prompting of any sectional pride, or ambition, or interest, or anger, or dread of oblocjuy. But hav- ing judged for himself, in all sincerity, he decided, with a force t)f conviction as fixed as the everlasting hills, that our enemies were the aggressors, that they assailed vital, essential rights, and that resistance unto death was our right and duty. On the correctness of that decision, reached through fervent prayer, under the teachings of the sure word of Scripture, through the light of the Holy Spirit, which he was assured God vouchsafed to him, he stood prepared to risk, not only earthly prospects and estate, but an immortal soul; and to venture, without one quiver of doubt or fear, before the irrevocable bar of God the Judge. The great question: ''What if I die in this quarrel," was deliberately settled; so deliberately, so maturely, that he was ready to venture his everlasting all upon the belief tha.t this was the path of duty.
II. The second reason which makes the man of faith brave, is stated in the context: "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered: Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows." God's special providence is over all his creatures, and all their ac- tions; it is over them that fear him; for their good only. By that almighty and o'mniscient providence, all events are either produced; or at least permitted, limited, and overruled. There is no creature so great as to resist its power, none so minute as to evade its wisdom. Each particular act among the most multitudinous which confound our attention by their number,
TRUE COURAGE. 441
01' file mosf foi'tiiitoiis, whii-li entirely baffle onr iiKjuiry into tlieii' eanses, is regnhited by this intelli<;ent purpose of (lod. Even when the thousand missiles of death, invisible to mortal si<ihr. and sent forth aimless by those who launched them, shoot in inexplicable confusion over the battle-fleld, his eye gives each one an aim and a purpose, according to the plan of his wisdom. Thus teacheth our Saviour.
Xow, the child of God is not taught what is the special will ^f God as to himself; he has no revelation as to the secui'- ity of his person. Xor does he presume to predict what par- ticular dispensation God will grant to the cause in which he is embarked. But he knows that, be it what it may, it will be wise, and right, and good. Whether the arrows of death shall smite him or pass him by, he knows no more than the unbelieving sin- ner; but lie knows that neither event can happen him without the purpose and will of his Heavenly Father. And that will, I)e it whichever it may, is guided by divine wisdom and love. Should the event prove a revelation of God's decision, and this was the place, and this the hour, for life to end; then he ac- cepts it with calm submission; for are not the time and place chosen for him by the All- wise, who loves him from eternity? Him who walks in the true fear of God, God loves. He hath adopted him as his son forever, through his faith on the right- eousness of the Redeemer. The divine anger is forever extin- guished by the atonement of the Lamb of God, and the un- changeable love of God is conciliated to him by the spotlessi righteousness of his substitute. The preciousness of the un- speakable gift which God gave for his redemption, evcni the life of the Only-begotten, and the earnest of the Holy Ghost, be- stowed upon liim at first while a guilty sinner, are the argu- ments to tliis believer, of the richness and strength of God's love to him. He knows that a love so eternal, so free, so strong, in the breast of such a God and Saviour, can leave nothing un- bestowed, which divine wisdom perceives to be f>nr his true good. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him uj) for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things." (Kom. 8: 32.) And this love has enlisted for his safe- guard, all the attributes of God, which are the security of his own blessedness. Why dwelleth the divine mind in ineffable, perpetual peace? Not because there are none to assail it; but
442 TRUE COURAGE.
because God is conscious in liiniself of intinire ivsonrces, for de- fense and vii-lory; of a knowledge wliicli uj cnnninj;- can de- ceivt'; of a })i)wer which no combination can fatigue. Wel'l, these same attributes, whicli support the stability of Jehovah's throne, surround the weakest child of G-od, with all the zeal of redeeming love. "The eternal God is his refuge; and under- neath liim are the everlasting arms.'' (Dent. 33: 27.) Thei'e- f )re s:iirh the Apostle, that the believer hath "his heart and mind garri-;oned by rhe peace of God which passeth all under- standing." (Phil. 4: T.I And therefore our Saviour saitli, with a literal (-mphasis of which our faint hearts are slow to take in the full glory: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." (dolin 14: 27.) In i)roportion as God's children have faith ro embrace the love of <iL)d to them, are they lifted in spirit to his very throne, and can look down upon the rage of battle, and the tumult of the i)eople, with some of the holy dis- dain, the ineffable security, which constitute the blessedness of (Jod. "Their life is hid with Christ in God."
Ir has been said that General Jackson was a fatalist, by those who knew not whereof they affirmed. He was a strong believer in the special providence of God. The doctrine of a Fate is, that all events are fixed by an immanent, }>hysical ne- cessity in the series of causes and effects themsehes; a neces- sity as blind and unreasoning as the tendency of rhe stone towards the earth, when unsu}t})orted from beneath; a neces sity as much controlling the intelligence and will (tf God as of creatures; a necessity which admits no modification of i-esults through the agency of second causes, but renders them inojtera- tive and non-essential, save as the mere, passive stepping stones in rhe inevitable progression. The doctrine of a Providence teaches that the regular, natural agency of second causes is sustained, preserved, and regulated by the power and intelli- gence of God; and that in and through that agency, every event is directed by his most wise and holy will, according to his plan, and the laws of nature which he has ordained. Fatalism tend^' to apathy, r o absolute inaction: a belief in- the })rovidence of the J^criptures, ro inrelligenr and hopeful effort. It does not over- throw, but rather establish the agency of second causes, be- cause it teaches us that God's purpose to effectuate events only through them (save in the case of miracles) is as steadfast, as
TRUE COURAGE. 443
his pnri)oso to vixvvy i»iit liis ekn-ual idan. Hence it produces a conibiiiatiou of coiiraj^eoiis serenity. — with cheerful (lili«j;ence in the use of means. My illustrious leader was as laborious as he was trustful; and laborious precisely because he was trust ful. Every thing that self-sacrificing care, and prepai'ation, and forecast, and toil, could do, tj prepare and to earn success, hi; did. .Vnd therefore it was, that G^od, without whom "the watch- man waketli but in vain," usually bestowed success. So like wise, his belief in the superintendence of the Almighty was a most strong and living conviction. In every order, or dispatch, anmnincing a victary, he was })rom])t to ascribe tlie result to the Lord of Hosts; and those simple, emphatic, devout ascrip- tions were with him no unmeaning formalities. In the very tlusli of triumph, he has been known to seize the junctui'e for the earnest inculcation of this trutli upon the minds of his sub- ordinates. On the momentous morning of Friday, June 27th, 1802, as the different corps of the patriot army were moving to their respective posts, to fill their parts in the mighty combina- tion of their chief, after Jackson had held his final interview with him, and resumed his march for his position at ('old Har 1)our, his conrmand was misled, by a misconception of his guides, and seemed about to mingle with, and confuse, another part of our forces. ^lore than an hour :)f seemingly ]»recious time was expended in rectifying this mistake; while the boom- ing of cannon in the front told us that the struggle had begun, and made our breasts thrill with an agony of suspenst\ lest the irreparable hour should be lost by our delay; f;)r we had still many miles to march. When this anxious fear was suggested privately to Jackson, he answered, with a calm and assured countenance: "Xo; let us trust that the providence of our God will ;so overrule it, that no mischief shall result." And verily; no mischief did result. Pijvidence brought us precisely into conjunction with the bodies with which we were to co-operate; the battle was joined at rlie rigiit juncturt^ and by the lime the stars appeared, the right wing of the enemy, with which he was ap})ointed to deal, was hurled in utter rout, across the river, ^lore than once, when sear to bring one of his )ld fighting bri- gades into action, I had noticed him sitting motionless ujion his horse with his right hand uplifted, while the war worn column poured in stern silence close by his side. At first it did not ap-
444 TKUE COURAGE
ponr whether it was mere abstraction of t]i(>ii,u]it. or a posture to relieve his fatioue. But at Port Kepublic, I saw it again; and watchinji liim more narrowl3-, was convinced bj his closed I'vcs and moving lips, that he was wrestling in silent prayer. I thought that I could surmise what was then passing through his fervent soul; the sovereignty- of that Providence which worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, and giveth the battle not to the strong, nor the race to the swift: his own fearful responsibility, and need of that counsel and sound wis dom, which God alone can give; the crisis of his 'beloved coun- try, and the balance trembling between defeat and victory; the precious lives of his veteram?, which the inexorable neces- sities of war compelled him to jeopardize; the immortal souls passing to their account, perhaps unprepared; the widowhood and or-phanage which might result from the orders he had just been compelled to issue. And as his beloved men swept by him ro the front, into the storm of shot, doubtless his great heart, as tender as it was resolute, yearned over them in unutterable longings and intercessions, that "the Almighty would cover them with his feathers, and that his truth might be their shield and buckler." Surely the moral grandeur of this scene was akin to that, when Moses stood upon the Mount of God, and lifted up his hands, while Israel prevailed against Amalek! And what soldier would not desire to have the .shield of such prayers, un- der which to fight? Were they not a more powerful element of success than the artillery, or the bayonets of the Stonewall Brigade?
III. The true fear of God ensures the safety of the im*- mortal soul. I'nited to Christ by faith, adopted into the un- changing favor of God, and heir of an inheritance in the skies which is as secure as the throne of God, the believing soul, is lifted above the i-each of bodily dangers. But the soul is the true man, the true self, the part which alone feels or knows, desires or fears, sorrows or rejoices, and which lives forever. It is its fate which is irrevocable. If it be lost, all is lost; and finally lost; if it be secure, all other losses are secondary, yea, in comparison, trivial. To the child of God, the rage of ene- mies, mortal weapons, and pestilence are impotent. True, he has no assurance that they may not reach his (body, but they reach his body only, and,
TRUJ3 COtTRAGE. 445
''If the plague come nigh, And sweep the wicked down to hell,
T'will raise the saints on high." This is our Saviour's argument, "Be not afraid of Ihem that kill the bod}-; and after that have no more that they can do" Pagan fable perhaps intended to foreshadow this gl'orious truth, when it deserdbed its hero with a body made invuhierable by its bath in tlie divine river, and therefore insensible to fear, and indifferent to the weapons of death. But the spiritual real- ity of the allegory is found only in the Christian, who has wash- ed his soul from the stain 'of sin (which alone causes its death), in the Redeemer's blood. He is the invulnerable man. "The arrow cannot make him fiee; darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear." He shares, indeed the natural affections and instincts which make life sweet to every man, and bodily pain and death formidable. But these emo- tions of his sensuous being are counteracted by his faith, which gives to hisis'oul a substantial, inward sense of heavenly life, as more real and satisfying than the carnal. The clearer the faith of the Christian, the more complete is this victory over natural fears. To the mere unbeliever, this mortal life is his all-in-all, Ibodily death is utter extinction, pain is the master evil, and the grave is covered by a horror of great darkness unrelieved by one ray of hope or light. And Christians of a weaker type, in their weaker moments, cannot shake off the shuddering of nature in the presence of these, the supreme evils of the na- tural man. But as faith brightens, that tremor is quieted; the more substantial the grasp of faith on eternal realities, the more does the giant death dwindle in his proportions, the less niiortal does his sword appear, the narrower and more trivial seems the gap which he makes between this life and the higher; because that 'better life is brought nearer to the apprehension of the soul. Does the eagle lament to see the wolf ravage its de- serted nest, as it betakes itself to its destined skies, and nerves its young pinions and fires its eyes in the beam of the king of day? The believer knows also, that should his body be smit- ten into the grave, the resurrection day will repair all I lie ravages of the sword, and restore the poor tenement to his oc- cupany, "fashioned like unto Chi-ist's glorious body." He can ado[»t the boast of inspiration : "God is our refuge and strength;
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a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be car- ried into the midst of the sea." (Ps. 40: 1, 2.) Amidst the storm of barrle. and even the wreck of defeat, liis steadfast heart knows no fear.
But that the enemy of God should have courage in bat/ tie, is incomprehensible to rae. It can only be explain(Hl by thoughtlessness. When the danger whirli assails the body reaches the soul also, when the weapon that lays the body in the dust, will plunge the soul into everlasting and int3lerable torments, by what philosophy can a reasoning being brace himself to meet it? He who has not Ood for his friend, has no right to be brave. But we should be far from inferring thence, that the citizen who is conscious 3f his enmity to (lod. is there- fore justified in shunning the ex]iosure to this risk, at the ex- pense of duty and honor. This would be but to add sin to sin. and folly to folly. If safety is not found in the p;irh of duty, still nure surely it will not be found, when out of it. He is in the greatest danger, who is disobeying God; and infinite wis- dom and power can never be at a loss for means to strike their enemy, however far removed wounds and weapons of war may be. To refuse a recognized duty is the surest way to alienate the mercy of (iod. and t3 grieve that Holy Ghost, on whom we depend for faith and repentance. The only safe or rational course therefore, for the ungodly soldier, is to make his peace with God at once; and thus advance with well-grounded confi- dence in the path of liis duty, and of all men. the s )ldier has the strongest reasons to become a Christian!
Such was the foundation of the courage of Jackson. He walked with God. in conscions integrity; and he embraced with all his heart "the righteousness of God which is by the faith if Jesus Christ." His soul. I believe, dwelt habitually in the full assurance that God was his God. and his portion forever. His manly and vigorous faith brought heaven so near, that death had slight terrors for him. While it would be unjust to charge him with rashness in exposure to danger, yet whenever his sense of duty prompted it. he seemed to risk his person with an absolute indifference to fear. The sense of his responsibili- ties to his country, and the heat of his mighty spirit in the crisis of battle, might sometimes agitate him vehemently; but
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never was the most inmiinent personal peril seen to disturb his equanimity for one moment. Ir is a striking trait of rhe im- pression which he has made upon his countrymen, that while no man could possibly ^be farther from boasting, it always be- came the first article of the belief of those subject to his com- mand, that he was. of course, a man of perfect courage.
But courage alone does not explain the position which he held in the hearts of his people. In this land of heroic mem- ories and brave men, others besides Jackson have displayed true courage, (rod did nor endow liim with several of those native gifts which are supposed to allure the idolatry of man- kind towards their heroes. He affected no kingly mien nor martial pomp; but always bore himself witli the modest pro- priety of the Christian. Xor did he ever study ar practice those arts, by which a Bonaparte or an Alexander kindled the enthu siasm of their followers. The only manifestation which he ever made of himself was in the simple and diligent performance of the duties of his office. His part on the battle-field was usually rather suggestive of the zeal and industry of the faithful ser- vant, than of the contagious exaltation of a master-spirit. Na- ture had not given to him even the corporeal gift of the trum- pet tones, with which other leaders are said to have roused the divine phrensy in their followers. It was only at times that his modest and feeble voice was lifted up to his hosts; and then, as he shouted his favorite call: 'Tress forward," the fiery energy of his will, thrilled through his rapid utterance, rather like the deadly clang of the rifie, than the sonorous peal of the clarion. His was a master-spirit; but it was too simply grand to study dramatic sensations. It impressed its might upon the .souls of his countrymen, not through deportment, but through deeds. Its discourses were toilsome marches and bat- tles joined, its perorations were the thunder-claps of defeat hurled upon the enemies of his country. It revealed itself to us only through the purity and force of his action; and therefore the intensity of the effect he has produced.
This may help to explain the enigma of his reimtation. How is it that this man. of all others least accustomed to exer- cise his own fancy, or addi-ess that of others, has stimulated the imagination, not only of his countrymen, but of the civilized world, above all the sons of genius among us? Hjw has he.
448 TRtJE COtJKAGE.
the most unromantic of great men, become the hero of a liAnng romance, the ideal of an inflamed fancy in every mind, even before his life had passed into history! How did that calm eye kindle the fire of so passionate a love and admiration in lln- heart of his people? He was brave, bnt not the only brave. He revealed transcendant military talent; bnt the diadem of his country now glows with a galaxy of such talent. He was successful; but we have more than one captain, whose banner never trailed before an enemy. I will tell you the solution, ll was, chiefly, the singleness, purity, and elevation of his alms. Every one who observed him was as thoroughly convinced of his unselfish devotion to duty as of his courage; as certain that no thought of personal advancement, of ambition or applause, ever for one instant divided the homage of his heart witli his great cause, and that ''all the ends he aimed at were his coun- try's, his Grod's, and truth's," as that he w'as brave. The love of his countrymen is the spontaneous testimony of the common conscience, to the beaut}' of holiness. It is the confession of our nature that the virtue of the Sacred Scriptures, which is a virtue purer and loftier than that of philosophy, is the true greatness, grandei- than knowledge, talent, courage, or success. Here, then, as I believe, is God's chief lesson in his life and death (and the belief encourages auspicious hopes concerning God's designs towards us.) He would teach us the beauty and power of pure Christianity, as an element of our social life, of our national career. Therefore he took an exemplar of Chris- tian sincerity, as near perfection as the infirmities of our na- ture would permit, formed and trained in an honorable retire- ment; he set it in the furnace of trial, at an hour when great events and dangers had awakened the popular heart to most intense action; he illustrated it with that species of distimc- tion which above all others, attracts the popular gaze, military glorj^; and held it uj) to the admiring inspection of a countr}' grateful for the deliverances it had wrought for us. Thus he has taught us, how good a thing his fear is. He has made all men see and acknowledge that, in this man, his Christianity was the fountain head of the virtues and talents, which they so rapturously applauded; that it was the fear of God which made him so fearless of all else; that it was the love of God wliicli animated his energies; that it was the singleness of his aim^s
Memoirs of fbancis s. Sampson, d. d. 449
which caused his wliah^ body to be so full of light, that the unerriug decisions of his judgment, suggested to the unrhink- ing, tlie belief in his actual inspiration; and that the lofty cliiv- ahy of his nature was but the reflex of the Spirit of Christ. Do not even the profane admit this explanation of his cliaracter? Here then, is God's lesson, in this life, to these Confederate States: "It is righteousness that exalteth." Hear it ye young men, ye soldiers, ye magistrates, ye law-givers; that 'iie that exaltcth himself shall be abased; but he tliat humbleth him- self shall be exalted.''
But what would he teach us by his death, to our view so untimely*^ To this question, human reason can only answer, that God's judgments are far above us, and past our finding out.
One lovely Sabbath, riding alone with me to a religious service in a camp, General Jacksan was talking of the general prospects of the war, hopefully, as he ever did. But at the close, he assumed an air of intense seriousness, and said: "I do not mean to convey the impression that I have not as much to live for as any man, and that life is not as sweet. But I do not de- s'ire t3 survive the independence of my country." Can this death be the answer to that wish".' Can the solution be, that having tried us. and found us unworthy of such a deliverer, God ha.s hid liis favorite in tlie grave, in the brightness of his hopes, and before his blooming honors received any blight from disaster, from the calamities which aur sins are about to bring upon us'.' ^ay; we will not believe that the legacy of Jack- son's prayers was all expended by us, when he died; they wi>ll yet avail for us all the more, that they are now sealed by his blood. The deliverance of the Jews did not end with the un- timely end of Judas Maccabee. The death of William of Orange was not the death of the Dutch Republic. The lamented fall :)f John Hampden was not the fall of the liberties of England. And. if we may reverently associate another instance with these, the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, was, contrary' to the fears of his disciples, but the beginning of the sect of the Xazarenes. So, let us hope, the tree of our liberties will flourish but the more for the precious blood by which it is watered.
May it not be, that God, after enabling him to render all the service which was essential to our deliverance, and showing us in him, the brightest example of the glory of Christianity,
450 tRtE COURAGE.
■has bid him enter iuto the joy of his Lord, at this juncture, in order to warn us against :)ur incipient idohitry, and make us say: "It is better to trust in the Lord, than to put coutideiice in princes?" No man would more strongly deprecate this idol- atry of human instruments, than Jackson, and never so strong- ly, as when addressed to himself. None can declare more em- phatically than would he, if he spoke to us from the skies, that while man is mortal, the cause is immortal. Away then, with unmanly discouragements, God lives, though our hero is dead.
That he should have toiled so hard for the independence of his country, and so ardently desired it; and tlien at last, be for- bidden to hail the day of our final deliverance, or to receive the grateful honors which his fellow-citizens were preparing for liim; this has saddened every heart with a pang both tender and pungent. The medicine to this pain, my 'brethren, is to re- member, that he has entered into a triumph and i)eace, so much more glorious than that which he bled to achieve for his coun- try. It would have been sweet to us, to hail him returning from his last victory to a delivered and enfranchised country; sweet to see and sympathize with the joy with which he hung up his sword, and psiid the sacrifices of thanksgiving in the courts of the Lord's house; sweet to witness, with reverent respect, the domestic bliss of the home for which he so much sighed, solac- ing him for his long fatigues. That happiness we have lost; bu t/i£ has lost nothing. He has laid down his sword at the footstool of his Father God; he now sings his thanksgiving song in a nobler sanctuary than the earthly one he loved so much; he "bathes his weary soul in seas of heavenly rest."
We who loved him, while we bewail our own loss, should not forget the circumstances which alleviate the grief of his death. Surely, it was no ill-chosen time for God to call him io his rest, when his powers were in their undimmed prime, and his military glory at its zenith; when his greatest victory had just been won; and the last sounds of earth which reached him were the thanksgivings and blessings of a nation in raptures for his achievements; in tears for his sufferings. I love to remem- ber, too, that his martyr-life had just been gladdened by the gratification of tliose affections which were in him so sweet and strong, and wliich yet, he sacrificed, so patiently, for his coun- try.
TRUE COURAGE. 461
Still more do we tliauk God that it was practicable, as it might not have been at an earlier, or a later period, for him to enjoy those ministrations of love, in his last days, which were the dearest solace of his sufferings. Into the sacredness of those last communings, and of the grief which survives them in his widowed home, we may not allow even our thoughts to intrude. And yet, may not a mourning nation venture to utter their blessing on the mourning heart which blessed him w^th its love; and to pray, that the breast which so magnanimously calmed its tumult, to make a quiet pillow for the dying head of their hero, may be visited 'by Grod, with the most healing balm of heavenly consolation? Will not all the people say: amen?
Xor will they forget the tender tiower, sole off-shoot of the parent stock, born to bloom amidst the wintry storms of war, which he would fain have forbidden the summer breeze to visit too roughly. The giant tree which would have shielded it with pride so loving, lies prone 'before the blast. But His God will be its God; and as long as the most rugged breast of his hardy comrades is warm, it will not lack for a parent's tenderness.
And now, with one more lesson, I leave you to the teach- ings of the mighty dead. If there was one trait which was eminent in him above the rest, it was determination. This was the power, before whose steady and ardent heat obstacles melt- ed away. This was the force, which caused his battalions to breast the onset of the enemy like ramparts of stone, or else launched them irresistibly upon their shivered lines. It was his unconquerable will, and purpose never to submit or yield. Ev- ery one who was near him imbibed something of this spirit, for they saw that in him the acceptance of defeat was an im- possibility. To that conclusion no earthly power could bend his iron will. Let this example commend to us the same stead- fast temper. In his fall and that of the noble army of martyrs, every generous soul sliould read a new argument for defending the cause for wliicli lie died, with invincible tenacity. Surely their very blood might cry out against us from the ground, if we permitted the soil, whicli drank the precious libation to be polluted with the despot's foot! Shall it ever be, that our dis- couragement or cowardice shall make the sacrifice vain? If we cx>iisent to this, then was it not treacherous in us to invite it?
452 TRUE COURAGE.
We should rather liave warned them to restrain their generos- ity, to save the lives they were so ready to lay upau their coun- try's altar, as too precious to be wasted for a land occupied by predestined slaves and cowards, and to carry their patriotism and their gifts to some more propitious clime, and some wor- thier companionship.
Such are the thoughts which should inspire the heart of every one who stands beside tlie grave of Jackson. Around that green and swelling hill stands the circle of solemn mountain peaks keeping everlasting watch over the home which he loved and the tomb where his ashes sleep, majestic when the summer sunset bathes them in azure and gold, but only more grandly steadfast, when they are black with storms and winter. So. let us resolve, we will guard the honor and the rights for which he died, in the hour of triumph, and more immoveably in the hour of disaster.
MEMORIAL OF LIEUTENANT COLONEL |OHN
T. THORNTON, OF THE THIRD \TRGL\LA
CAVALRY, C. S. A.
Amidst tlie great company of Christian heroes whom Vir- ••inia has saeriticed for the independence of the Confederate States, few names, next to her Jackson's, shine more brightly than that of Lieut. Col. John T. Thornton, of Prince Edward, Vi\. The son of Mr. Wm. Thornton, of Cumberland county, he inherited from his father an honorable name, a vigorous under- standing, and an ample estate. After the most careful literary training, he adojjted the profession of law, and chose the town of FarmA'ille for his residence. Fram the very beginning, his high honor and qualifications secured him the respect of his fellow-cirizens; and he stepped into a busy practice, in which he was fast winning the highest grade of distinction. Here the present war found him, although still a young man, diligently engaged in his profession, the pride, the trusted counsellor, and chosen servant, of his county, and surrounded with all the do- mestic bliss which an elegant home, and an engaging family cimld confer. Tliis happiness he was peculiarly fitted to enjoy. l>ut although a liberal supporter, and habitual attendant, of the offices of religion, he was not yet a Christian: this crown was lacking to his character.
Mr. Thornton was in temper a conservative; and accord- ingly, in politics he was no extremist. Of the convention which dissolved the connection of Virginia with the Federal Union, he was chosen a member. There, and in tlie primary meetings of the peoi)le, his cliaste and masculine eloquence was frequent- ly heard, advocating, on the one hand, all the conciliation and forbearance towards our assailants consistent with honor and righteousness, and on the other, the most detei'uiined assertion of our essential rights. After witnessing the scornful rejection
453
454 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON.
of all the overtures our uiagnanimous Commonwealth made for the sake of peace, he heartily concurred in the act which made her independent of the betraver.s of the Constitution; and when the convention adjourned, he immediately returned home, and accepted the command of a company of horse, composed of his friends and neijihhors. This troop was embodied in the 3rd Virginia Cavalry. Although at first a novice in militaiy af- fairs, he rapidly became a w^ell-instructed and efficient officer, while his courage, fortitude, and impartiality, made him the idol of his men. As the first year of the war appraached its end, all the volunteer regiments were reorganized; when he was chosen Lieutenant Colonel. Concerning this i)romotion he thus writes to his wife:
"In the reorganization of tliis regiment, I was chosen Lieu- tenant Colonel. This promotion was unexpected; but I shall accept it, and endeavor with all my powers to discharge its duties. I pray God to give me the requisite skill and courage for this i)Osition, that T may so bear myself in it. as to do good service to my country."
This place he filled with eminent success, and like a g03d soldier, ''bore the heat and burden of the day." His former as- sociates remarked with wonder, that he seemed formed by na^ ture for a soldier; that although reared in elegance, and devoted hitherto almost exclusively to literary ])ursuits, he seemed to sleep anywhere, eat anything, and to endure any hardship, with- out inconvenience. He a])])eared thus, only because his manly spirit refused to complain of his trials; while in truth, both body and mind were suffering acutely under them. Througli- out the bloody campaign of 1802. he was always at his post. In the expedition into Maryland, he was in command of the 3rd Regiment, then a part of General Fitzhugli Lee's Cavalry Bri- gade. In the comibat of Boonsboro'. when this brigade covered the retreat of the Confederate Army against the whole host of McClellan, the light of that clear autumn sun was turned into darkness by the smoke and battle dust. Down that famed causeway, as terrible as the jaws of hell, swept by cannon shot and shells, and by clouds of sharpshooters on the frant, and right, and left, Colonel Thornton led his regiment again and again, in impetuous charges; until the purpose of the comman- der-in-chief was secured, in bringing off his artillery and trains.
A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T THORNTON. 455
In this fiery ordeal, tliougli his horse was killed under him, he escaped unscathed. But on the bloodj- morning of Sharps^burg, as he was bringing his regiment into position to protect the left of the army, his punctilious obedience to orders led him to ex- l)Ose himself during a few minutes' halt, to a battery of the enemy; and almost the first shot which opened the fearful drama of the day, gave him a fatal wound. It exploded beside him, and one fragment tore his saddle to pieces, inflicting an irreparable shock on his body, while another crushed his arm almost from the hand to the shoulder. His frightened horse was arrested b}' his men, he sunk fainting into their arms, and was carried to a little farm house near the field. There, the surgeons endeavored ta save his life by amputating his man- gled limb; but in vain. After lingering for twelve hours insen- sible or delirious, he fell asleep.
His friends were aware that since he entered the service, his religious character had undergone a revolution. God, "whose thoughts are not as our thoughts," had employed the solemnities of this dreadful war, together with the death of two beloved brothers, to mature the convictions, which the sanc- tuary, and the pure Christian example that blessed his home, had implanted, but could not perfect. Numerous passages from his letters illustrate the birtli and growth of his remarkable religious character.
Among the sad remains which were brought along with his corpse, to his widow, were a few of his prayers, written a'midst the confusion of the bivouac, on bits of paper, and folded into his pocket-Bible. These precious relics of his piety I am per- mitted to copy; and the i)urpose of this introductory narrative is to present them to his jiersnnal friends, to his comrades in arms, and to the soldiers of our ]>atriotic and suffering army, as his own solemn testimony to the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. In them, "he being dead, yet speaketh." The object is to permit him to speak chiefly for himself: no attempt is made to do more than place the necessary links of connection be- tween the pieces which unfold his religious emotions. This brief partraiture cannot be made without a ])artial disclosure of those dearer affections, which Colonel Thornton's sensitive honor was wont to cover jealousl\' in the sanctity, of his owti heart and home. But no brave man will be capable of reading
4.")6 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOnX T. TnORXTON".
it with auy other than eniotious of reverent sympathy. Xor will any such fail to recognize, in the spirit which has yielded these sacred mementoes to the inspection of his brothers-in- arms, the same self-consecration, and preference of duty over feelin.u. w liirli iii;i:l(' liini the Thristiau hero. It has only been done because of the belief, that, could the soul of the departed speak from that blest abode, where it is now. as we humbly trust, solaced for its pains, it would proujunce the commending of Christ to its fellows a dearer object than any earthly tie.
In the opinion of all who have been permitted to read them, these prayers are peculiarly excellent. They show a maturity of Christian feelings, a propriety in the selection jf tojjics and hmguage, a tenderness, fervency, and humility, remarkable in one who was so young in the faith. It is hoped that they will furnish to many a young disciple a pattern for his breathings after the Saviour, and to many a Christian husband and father in the army, a vehicle for transmitting to heaven his yearnings for "loved 9nes at home."
The reader's attention is especially called to the powerful awakening of the sense of parental responsibility in Colonel Thornton's bosom, as soon as he became a Christian. His most cherished desire f jr life. was. that he might return and aid his beloved wife in guiding the steps of his sons heavenward. It is noteworthy also, how frequently his servants are included in these Christian aftections. He rarely forgets to send them his kindly salutations. He feels his obligations, as their master, to their souls, and prays for their temporal and eternal welfare. C3lonel Thornton, a large slaveholder, the son of a large plan- ter, reared near his father's servants, was the fairest type of that character, as developed under Southern institutions. The affectionate relations existing between liiiii aiul his servants, and the bending of such a mind and heart to their good, are the clearest proofs of the wickedness of those who are shed- ding so niui li li]()3d to destroy these ties. Another purpose of this little tract is. to show the world, in this specimen amoug a thousand of our Christian patriots, how high and holy are the principles which nerve their arms in tliis war. There is here, no lust of power, notoriety, or wealth; n j unsanctified revenge: but the resolve of the virtuous soul, sadly, yet firmly accepting the mournful alternative of resistance, rather than recreancy
A MEMORIAL OF LTEUT. COL JOHN T. THORNTON. 457
to flniy. The oneiiiit's of our eouiitiy, liowevoi* they niiiy con- teiiiii mi- luatei-ial stivnjitti, may well treuible at the s'uilt of the wlioU'sale inurders they perpetrate to crush this riji'hteous sjnrit of defeuse. It is the spirit of God's Word; it is sustained aud prompted, in its noiblest instances, by his Holy Ghost. Do they not see that, although God may chastise our ingratitude and irreligion towards him, by using their wicked hands as the instruments of correction, they are fighting against him, And their murders will yet be avenged in calamities so dire, that both rhe ears of them that hear shall tingle?
But it is time to proceed directly to the narrative of Tolonel Thornton's religious life. His brief expressions of feeling must be weighed by the reader with this fact: that his character was always marked iby a strong abhorrence of meaningless profes- sians. He seems to have been, at the beginning of the war. not a stranger to praj'er; but the death of two brothers in rapid sue cession, one of whom, a citizen of Texas, coming to ^^irginia with the soldiers of that State, only reached Riclvmond to die, profoundly deepened his religiaus emotions. October 18tli, 18G1, he writes from 'Camp Bethel, on the Peninsula:
"T feel sometimes very sad and .solitary in this long ab sence from you. The death of S**** stunned by its suddenness and unexpecredness. I am left alone of all my brothers in tliis Confederacy. * * * j would draw closer to your side than ever bef3re.
''It is hard to bear my griefs alone; but I pray that I may see clearly in these bereavements, the hand of a wise and mer- ciful God. I try to believe that 'He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men'; that 'though he cause grief, yet will He have compassion according to the muUitudeof His ten- der mercies.' But my skei)ticism is sometimes ])ainful. and it looks as th'jugh heaven were covered with a cloud through which my i)rayers could not pass."
The next extract which we make, may illustrate the ha- bitual temper of his mind as to the issue of the war before him:
'^S/x O'clock P. M. "Camp in Lee's Field, April DM, 1862.
"We have now a large army in this Peninsula. Our men are in fine spirits, and I look with confidence to the God of bat- tles, i'd give us the victory. I pray he may be my shield in the
4r)tS A MEMOKIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN" T. THOKNTON.
liaiir of conflict. I liaA'e much to make life sweet to me. * * * Let us implore liiirublv and earnestly the Father of mercies, who lia.s showered so many blessings on us, that he will guide us through the i»erils of the dark hours of war, to the sunny, bright days of peace."
June 1st, 1862. he writes, making a definite avowal of his hope in Christ, and purpose to live a new life. After a tribute to the Christian fidelity of her to whom the letter is addressed, tender and glowing, he thus proceeds:
"This service in the army has not been without its bene- fits, and as I trust, great, lasting, and eternal benefits, to me. The busy, bustling life, that I had led ever since I left college, until I left home for the war, gave me but little time for calm, serious, sober thought on my past history and future life. In tile ((uicr of the outpost, in the stillness of the camp at night, in the weary, solitary journeys to visit the chain of sentinels. I find ample time for refiection. With no books to read, with no busi- ness cares to engross or distract my attention, my mind has turned back upon myself, and often has the path I have trod been traveled over again by me. Thoughts of you * * *' restrained me from those vulgar vices of the camp, drinking and card-playing. Thoughts of you * * *, kept back my tongue from profanity, and then thoughts of the words you had spoken and written ta me * » *, and thoughts of the goodness of God, and of my sins, and of my need as a sinner, led me to seek salvation through the mercy of God, and the atonement of Jesus. I trust * * *, that I truly believe, and shall prove faithful to the end, and be an inheritor of the promises
"If I am spared to return home, I trust that you and I * * * will live through long years, to serve our Heavenly Father who has been so kind to us, if such be his holy will. But and honor and praise thee. Bless the children thou hast given to us. Aid us to train them up in thy knowledge and in thy fear, and to make them thy servants, pure, holy, and obedient.
"For my servants. Oh Lord God! I pray. Teach me how to act as their master, and instruct them how to discharge their duties as servants. Fill their hearts with love for thee; teach them to shun all evil, to live purely and uprightly, and finally save them with an eternal salvation.
A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL JOHN T. THORNTON. 450
"Info fhy hands of love and morcy T trnstinoly commit my- self. Oil Lt)i'd (rod Alimip;lity. If it be in accordance with thy wise and ^vvat purposes, I beseech thee, bear me safely through all the perils of this war. Carry me back to my wife and home and children; and make me faithful to thee, walking- in thy statutes, observing thy coniimandments, and honoring thee in all pnreness and holiness of living. But if. Oh Lord! according to thy righteous decree, I am to fall by the hands of the enemy, or to die from any cause, then I implore thee. Heavenly Father, receive my soul, and take me to heaven to dwell forever in the light of thy holiness.
''If I have asked. Oh Lord, any tiling wrong, I pray thee, forgive the evil thought, and blot out the wicked petition. If my prayers are pure and right. I 'beseech thee in the name of Jesus, and by reason of his death and sufferings, and because of his merits, to answer them. Add, I pray thee. Heavenly Father, every blessing on me and my household we are worthy t^ re- ceive; and to thee let all honor and glory be ascribed. Amen."
The following letter displays his Christian trust as to the issues of tlu^ great struggle in which his country was engaged: "Camp near Richmond, /ung 20M, 1R62.
"It is now within four days of a year, since I left you and home to enter the army. It has been a year crowded with inci- dents of most momentous importance to our State and Confed- eracy; of events that will be read with interest for generations to come, by the student of history and the statesman. It will tell of a government erected by wise patriots, overthrown by mad ambition, sectional hate, and unreasoning fanaticism. It will tell of a powerful people summoned to arms to resist in- vasion and subjugation. The nations of the earth have looked with complacency upon the spectacle of a fierce and strong de- mocracy, in a spirit of direst hate and meanest vengeance, striving in every way to crush and subjugate a feeble people who only ask to be let alone. This people, few in numbers compared with llieir adversaries, with an inadequate su])])ly of arms and munitions of war. shut up from intercourse with any portion of the world, have kept them at bay for one year, and at the end of that time have forced them to call for a large in- crease of their military force. It is true, we during this time have sustained grievous reverses. In the future, we have sad
460 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN" T. THOKNTON.
and severe trials before us. liut (Jud iu his luercj' has borue lis up. and sustaiiied us tlius far. in our struggle for independ- ence, and I have an aA»iding faith that he will crown us iu the end with victory. I acknowledge with gratitude his mercy to nie in this year of affliction. While so many have fallen around uu\ from disease and the enemy, he has graciously given me health and strength. He has mercifully protected you and our dear children, and our servants, during these twelve months of tribulations. Let us praise his holy name, and give thanks with grateful souls, for his loving kindness and mercy. He is a 'Crod of comfort' to us, as St. Paul calls him. T do sincerely pray that all thi.s tendci' care of me may excite lively emotions of piety in my soul, and may constrain me to unite in your jii-ayer that God will strengthen me and enable me to persevere in ih(^ new life I am striving t3 lead."
June i'5th, he writes:
"It is useless to speculate as to the period when the war will end. I lu^ir oi)inion>; of various shades ex})ressed. It is si ill more idle to indulge in thoughts of what is to become of you and me in the progress of the conflict. Our lives and fjr- tunes are in the hands of an all-wise and merciful God. and we must give our souls repose in the faith that he will do all things for us better than we could for ourselves. This is the truest, best, and firmest consolation we can have in these days of trou- ble. When I can A'isit home, it is impossible for me to say. How much I would like to drop in on you this morning, and see you with our children all around you. Let us trust such joy is laid ujt in store for us, and without })erplexing our hearts, look forward to the future with confidence and courage. I doubt not, your faith is firmer than mine; but by mutual encouragement, we can strengthen the hearts of each other, to bear misfortune, if it is sent upon us, or to receive with joy and gratitude what- ever blessings may be vouchsafed."
July 4th, 1862, he thus announces the results of the cam- paign before Kichmond:
"The papers will give you an account of the triumphs vouchsafed to our arms by God, in the late battles around Rich- mond. He has mercifully protected me, but our htss in killed and wounded is fearfully large. Our whole land will be clothed iu mourning. I pray God to console the bereaved hearts, and
A MEMORIAL OF IJEtJT. COL. JOHN T THORNTON 401
to tiii'u the charities of all our people upon those whose earthly protectors have 'been taken from them."
The reader will now be able to nnderstand the allusion of the following
PRAYER.
July \th, 1862.
My Father in Heaven, I come before thee this morning; wirh a song of praise and thanksgiving for the victory thou hast given us over our enemies. Oh Lord, thou hast heard the pray- ers of thy people; their supplications and petitions have ascend- ed to thy throne, and in the abundance of thy mercies thou hast heard them and answered them, by granting to our arms a triumph over our invaders. I feel and confess it is all from thee. Lord God Almighty; and to thy holy and glorious name do I ascribe all the praise. Continue, I praj' thee, thy mercy and kindness to us as a nation. Give wisdom from on high to our rulers and generals, and all others in authority. Strengthen the hearts of our soldiers, ishield their heads, and with thy strong arm bear up our banner in the conflict that is before us. Confuse and confound the counsels of our adversaries, drive them from our territory, and compel them by thy providence, to grant us a just and honorable peace. I pray thee, Oh Lord, to send thy Holy Spirit into the hearts of our soldiers, and make them soldiers of the Cross. Convert them to thy service, and make the people of the Confederate States a pious people, whose God is the Lord. I pray thee Oh Lord, to be with the sick and wounded of our army, in the hospitals and in the camps; alleviate their sufferings, soothe their pains, turn tiieir hearts to thee, and bless them whether they live or die. I pray, Oh God, for a blessing on the regiment in which I serve. Make all connected with it godly men and brave soldiers. Grant them grace to serve thee, and give them courage for the dis- charge of every duty.
''I pray thee. Oh Lord, to forgive my sins, to wash away my iniquities, to renew my heart. Pour upon me thy grace, so that I may always do thy will. I pray, most merciful Father, that thou wilt make me pure, give me strength to put aw^ay all evil thoughts and impure desires, to resist all temptations and wicked suggestions. INLake me to love thee supremely, and to prefer above all things else to do thy will, and to enjoy more
46:^ A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON.
than any other employment, thy holy service. Enable me, Oh Father, to live near to thy Divine Son, m}- Kedeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men. Be thou. Oh Sdu of God. if, in his wisdom and justice and mercj', he deteraiines other- wise, and either of us be sliorth' taken from the other, then may the otlier ibear the chastisement with meekness, and l3ok forward to a reunion in God's own good time, on rhat blessed shore, where adieus and farewells are sounds unknown. * *
* Kiss all the boys for me. Give my love to Mrs. ; I hope
she has recovered. Remember me kindly to the servants. Fare- well, * "■ *. May God keep you and our dear children."
June 4th, 1862, he writes thus:
'Tell the dear boys I think often of them, and trust they will be obedient to you, and industrious in their studies. I have high hopes and expectations of our boys, and it would be a mercy of G3d for which we should pray, that you and I may be spared to see them reared to manhood, and to use our exer- tions to lead them to the paths of piety and honor."
The same hopes are pursued in his next:
"Camp near Richmond, June Vlih, 1862.
"It is one of my earnest petitions to God. that if it be in accordance with his wise decrees, he may spare you and me, lo train our dear boys under his guidance. I feel how weak and feeble I am in the Christian life. I trust, with fear and trem- bling, that my faith is sincere, and my hopes are well grounded.
Certainly I could not object to your telling our friend L , or
any other friend you might desire to talk with on the subject, of my hope that my sins are pardoned, and that I am a true be- liever. But. I do not wish you to be deceived as to the state of my heart, and I know you would not deceive any one else. I have sinned much and long. I try, with a sincere penitence, I trust, t'd ask forgiveness of those sins from our Heavenly Fath- er, by reason of the atonement made iby our loving Saviour, whose righteousness I implore may be imputed to me. I feel the risings of sin in my heart every day. I endeavor to diive impure thoughts from my heart, to banish wicked words from wxy tongue, and to keep my hands from unclean deeds, but de- spite my striving, my prayers, my penitence, I sin. Conscious of my guilt, pra3'ing for forgiveness, I am a poor, weak Chris- tian. You must not then expect to see high Christian graces in
A MEMORIAL oF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T THORNTON. 463
me. I hope, I trust, I pray for increase of faith. I try to be- lieve and implore God to help my unbelief. I notice all you say in reference to conversation with old and tried Christians. I should be rejoiced to have such friends to commune with, but I never could unveil my heart to any one except you; and even now, I do not know how I could speak to any one of my desire to be a Christian, of my communings with our Heavenly Father, of my faith in our adorable Saviour, of my prayers for the in- fluence of the Holy Ghost. You must be my guide * * » in the Christian walk * * * and to you I must look for advice and counsel. I pray that the war may end, and you. may take my hand in yours, and that we may pass along life's journey, aiding and encouraging each other in ali o':r '"luislian duties."
About this time was written the first of these prayers which has been preserved; its date is June 10th. The bloody, but in- decisive battle of Seven Pines had then been fought. The vast hosts of Federals were pressing close up to the beleaguered city. The ami}' of Jackson was seemingly involved past hope in those complications of danger, from which it was soon to emerge in a blaze of glory. Every where, the condition of the Confederacy seemed to anxious patriots perilous, in the extreme., It was at this juncture Colonel Thornton penned these devout and solemn petitions:
A PRAYER.
^'I beseech and implore thee, merciful Father, to look down with tender compassion on thy unworthy servant, to forgive his sins, to strengthen his faith, to fill his heart with thy grace, to shed upon his soul the influences of thy Holy Spirit; to give him bodily strength and courage for the discharge of all his duties, to illumine his mind with thy divine intelligence, to guide his feet in the path of holiness, to deliver him from every temptation that may assail him, to shield him from every as- sault of man or devil, to maintain him in health of body and purity of spirit, and finally to receive him in heaven, tliy holy dwelling place; there to live forever in the joy and delight of thy presence.
'^I pray thee, Oh God! to blot out my sins. I f(^el how vile and impure I am and have been. I feel that I can lind refuge alone in the abundance of thy tender mercies: that nothing but
404 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. CoL. JOHN T. THORNTON.
:he blood of Jesus, our adorable Saviour cau cleause my vile heart of its pollution. Tnder the shadow of thy mercy I seek to hide: in the flood that flows from Calvary, I wash my soul.
•Treserve me, Oh Lord! from presumption, from a vain and foolish reliance on my own strength, from a silly confidence in the power and efficacy of my own good works; cause me at all times to know my folly and weakness; keep me continually luindful that salvation is all of free, unmerited grace; and never allow me for an instant to forget that the works of man, even the best he can perform, are marked by folly, and stained with guilt."
"In thy hands, Oh meiciful Father, are the fortunes of my beloved State and Country. I recognize thy chastening hand in the afflictions thou hast sent upon our laud and upon our peo- ple. Teach us all to submit with Christian humility to these sad tribulations, to bear with Christian resignation these severe trials, to bow ibeneath the rod, and with reverence to honor the hand that smites. In thine own appointed time. Oh God! thou wilt deliver us from the hands of our enemies and of those who hate us. Thou, Oh Lord! wilt, in thy good time, lead us by a l)ath that thou wilt open to our feet, to safety and independence. lie thou. Oh Lard! our stay and our deliverance. In the day of i)attlebe with us; uphold our hands, strengthen our hearts, and give us victory over our foes. Oh Lord! smite with thy right- eous indignation the cruel invaders who now drive us from our homes and besiege our capital. Send thy angel, armed with the sword of justice, to execute vengeance upon our cruel foes. Make our army a holy instrument in thy hands, to punish the insolent tyrants who are now endeavoring to subjugate our people, to free our slaves, to confiscate our lands, and to take from us all that in thy goodness, thou hast given us. Drive the enemy, Oh Lord! from our soil. Give us, merciful Father, the blessings of peace. Shed the influences of thy Holy Spirit upon the hearts of our rulers and people, upon the hearts of the officers and privates of our army, and make us a God-fearing nation, whose ruler is the great Jehovah. I implore thee. Oh God! for thy blessing and especial favor on the regiment in wliich I am ser\ing. Make them pure and holy. Make them a l)and of Christian warriors, who shall fight in thy strength. Cover their heads in the hour of conflict; crown them with vie-
A MEMOHIAL OF LIETJT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON. 465
torv over our Xorthern foes, and over the wiles and machina- tions of the Evil One.
''I beseech thee, Heavenly Father, to guard and guide, and console, and sustain, thv handmaiden and servant, the wife whom thou hast given me. Bless her. Oh Lord I at all times. Write thy law upon her heart. Shield her from all evil, and if it be thy holy will, unite her and myself once more, and per- mit us together, as heads of a Christian family, in peace to serve my elder Brother; thou hast atoned for my sins; hear my pray- ers for forgiveness and acceptance to our Father, and bring me bark rich spiritual gifts. I pray thee. Oh God, to grant me health of body and steadiness of purpose, and cool, deliberate courage, and iurelligence, to discharge all the duties of my po- sition. Be with me in every trial: if thou wilt, shield me from every danger; if it be thy will that I fall in battle, receive my spirit, and take me to thy heavenly mansion, to dwell there forever in peace and rest, and joy and bliss, praising and serving thee.
"Oh merciful Father, I implore thy blessing upon my be- loved wife. Comfort, console, and sustain her, I pray thee; fill her heart with thy grace; give her strength sufficient for all the severe labors she has to perform; grant her wisdom from on high to discharge every duty. Reunite her and myself, and let us througli long years of peace, worship thee, and train our children and servants in thy service. I pray thee. Heavenly Father, to bless my children; and till their tender hearts with love for thee; make them thy children; make them thine by election and adoption. Give their parents wisdom and grace, to train them for a heavenly inheritance. Bless my servants, I implore thee, most merciful God. Enable me to instruct them jjroperly, and to govern them wisely. Make them thy servants, zealous in every good work; and finally receive them to thyself in heaven.
"I ask all these blessings in the name of my Saviour Jesus. I oifer these petitions in the name of thy Holy Son. Hear me, and answer me. Oh God. Pour upon me every blessing thou in thy mercy and loving kindness, wilt grant. Amen.''
466 A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON. ANOTHER PRAYER.
July 21^/, 1862.
"I approach thy throue, my Heavenly Father, this day, to acknowledge the benefits with which, in thy loving kindness and mercy, thou hast crowned me all the days of my life: to confess my sins, to implore forgiveness, to ask for thy grace and the influences of th^' Holy Sjjirit; and to beseech thee to continue to regard me with favor, to load me with blessings, and to grant me courage of heart and strength of body to discharge rightly and properly all the duties of my position. Oh (xod. wash my clean in the blood of thy Son, Christ Jesus, my Saviour. Let me go to the cross, and live near to him who died that I may live. Raise me from the grave to sit beside him who first rose from the grave that he might show to men the way to heaven. In his name I ofifer my petitions; through his intercession I ask forgiveness; by reason of his sufferings and atonement, I ex- pect salvation. I know that I am guilty, polluted, undone, and ruined; but I thank thee, Oh merciful Father, that on Calvary thou didst open a fountain, in whose stream the vilest and filth- iest sinner may wash his guilt away. To that fountain filled with blood I would come, and cleanse my heart from every stain. Pity, forgive, and save me. Lord God Almiglity. I pray thee, merciful Father, to shield me from all the perils that as- sail my life; from the pestilence that is abroad in the land, and from the cruel enemy that has invaded, and is now ravaging and destroying my State and Country. Be with me. Oh Lord God, at all times; shield me in the hour of couflicr, and make my hand strong to strike for truth, and justice, and right. Save me, merciful Father, and restore me, when the war is over, and thou hast sent peace on our land, to my home, my wife, my chil- dren, and my servants.
"Bless, guide, comfort, and console the wife thou hast giv- en me, and the children that have been born of our marriage. Reign and rule in their hearts. Make the mother skilful and apt to teach her children thy law, and turn the hearts of the children to do thy will. Reunite us, merciful Father, and up- hold thy handmaiden and myself as the heads of a Christian family, and our offspring and servants as its members, teach- ing us all to love thy word and thy law, to live as becometh them who are stri^ing for a heavenly inlieiitance, and finally
A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON. 467
receive us all into heaven, thy holy dwelling place, to i)iaise and honor and serve thee through all eternity.
"Oh Lord God! have mercy on my country, these (Vinfcd- erate states, naw struggling for salvation from tyranny and op- pression, and seeking the rights thou hast given us as a nation, through an agony of blood and suffering. I see, Oh God, the desolations that mark the footsteps of our cruel enemy. Befoi-e me are the naked fields, the ruins of the 'burned dwelling, and far away from the fierce foe are the houseless and homeless wanderers. These cruel tyrants boast of their large numbers, their great wealth, and their power, vastly superior to that of these poor KStates. They rely on the arm of fiesh. Wc trust in thee, Oh Lord God Jehovah! Be thou our fortress and our de- fense; God of battles, be with the soldiers of this ('onfederacy, and give them victory; God of truth and justice, reign in the hearts of the people all over the land; God of wisdom, illumine the minds of our rulers and officers; God of mercy, give us peace; God of nations, give us independence; and to thy name be all honor and glory, forever and ever. Amen.''
July 22nd, 1802, he wrote from the region of the I'amun- key, a letter well describing the principles which made him resolute in enduring, without any ambitious aspirations, a sep- aration so irksome to his soul.
"I aim amused at the delight you so heartily manifest, at my not meeting the enemy, who were reported as crossing into King \Mlliam. You say you cannot wish me any opportunity of distinction wliere my life will be placed in jeopardy. In re- ply I would say, tliat I only desire to do my duty. I have no thirst for military fame; for I know it is won through blood and tears and suffering. But I do desire to aid in driving the base invader from Mrginia's soil. I am amazed that men can sit quietly at home, when they see the fate that awaits us if the enemy succeeds in subjugating us. I am sitting now, as I write, in full view of what was, before the invasion, one of the loveliest estates in Virginia. It is now a scene of desolation; the fields are naked, the fences destroyed, the houses burned, the laborers stoh^i away, and the owners fugitives, and, if this were all their wealth, beggars."
His remaining letters, written on the march from lower Virginia to Manassas and Maryland, were little more than
468 A MEMOEIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON.
brief notes, penned in mniueuts snatched from the fatigues of the journej. But in all of them, his 3'earnings for the SDciety of his beloved home were mingled with prayers for faith and strength to bear his lot with fortitude. The last specimen of prayer which he left is incomplete. Perhaps the bugle-call summoned him away from the solemn and pleasing communion of the mercy seat, to the march or the combat.
THE LAST PRAYER.
July 21th, 1862.
''I come before thee. Oh Lord God Ahuighty, on this thy holy day, to thank thee for the many mercies I have received from thy loving hand, and for the protection thou liast here- tofore afforded me; to ask that thou wilt not withdraw thA" mercy, favor, and protection from me, but wilt continue to crown me with blessings, and shield me from all assaults of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. I come to implore the for- giveness of my sins, pardon for all my guilt, and eternal salva- tion for my soul, through the merits and intercession of thine adorable Son Christ Jesus. I come to praise thee for the loving kindness and tender compassion which, at such a cost, and at such a sacrifice, furnished a way of escape for guilty man. Oh Lord! I would live near to thy Son Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour. I pray thee to give me grace, to illumine my under- standing, to fill my heart with love, to make thy service my de- lightful work, and obedience to thy law my most pleasant duty. Save me, I beseech thee, from vain-glorying, from boasting, from self-reliance, "
Thus the expression of his longings for holiness were brok- en off unfinished, like his life. But his friends may trust that his life, so full of promise here was but the infancy of a far more blessed and glorious existence in that heaven to which he as- pired; and so, that these acts of worship, interrupted here below are now continued with a nobler, sweeter tongue, and with higher raptures, where there are no wars nor rumors of wars to disturb the saints, in the heavenly Sabbath.
These mementoes exhibit, so far as a brief Christian life of less than a year could, the renewing power of the religion of Jesus Christ, in a high degree. The scriptural tone of the petitions shows, in one so young in divine knowledge, the evi- dent teachings of the Holy Ghost. The change in Colonel
A MEMORIAL OF LIEUT. COL. JOHN T. THORNTON. 469
Tlioiiitou's cliaracter was marked. He was, by nature, a proud spirit ; we here find his prayers breathing the most profound hu- mility. His character was usuallj- apprehended to be stern; these exercises of soul are instinct with a melting tenderness, for all. except the enemies of righteousness. This attempt to display his inner life is now closed, with the earnest prayer, that God may incline the hearts of all his friends and com'- rades, and of every brave soldier of our country, to seek his Saviour, to imitate his example so far as he was a folljwer of Jesus Christ, and to raise to the throne of grace, these, or such- like prayers.
NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE.'
■'And the gates of hell shall not prevail again.st it.""
Thei-e are soni^^ thinj^s wliicli can 'be daiie, and tliei'e are .some others whii-li obvionslv cannot. The curion-; thing about this very trite fact is, that peojjle continue tryinii,- to do these other thinjis, as thouj;h they were feasible. This they do both in the mechanical and moral world. Thus: I here are s:)me peo- ])le always, who are inventin*;- perjx^tual motion, and just on the point of etfecting it. ^lany and diverse, says the Scientific American, arc^ the machines invented for this purpose; but it I'ecom'mends to all future experimenters, as the cheapest and simplest, and equally effective with the best, the plain tub. The machine of the tub is operated thus. The vessel chosen is a large one, with handles. It is placed on the floor; the opera- tor then gets into it, and laying hold 'of the handles with his hands, lifts the tub up to the ceiling. Succeeding in this, he has i)erpetual motion in its simplest principle.
In every generation, the social, political, and religious tub- lifters are numerous. "Mother Anna Lee," patron saint of the Shakers, was gr)ing to abolish sin by abolishing matrimony. The j)lan was simple, and perfectly effectual. Convert all the a(bilt sinners, and agree that when converted they shall have no more children. As all actual transgression comes out of original sin, and all original sin is transmitted by birth, one generation more would happily finish the work of Satan on earth. The good mother only made one little mistake m the project. Who were to carry out this excellent plan? The men and women, of course. But men and women usually have a nalural propensity, which is more fundamental and regulative than the desire to arrest original sin. So it turns out that poor human nature doesn't lift itself in Mother Lee's tub; but goes on multiplying and increasing, and replenishing the earth with
1 From the JVew York Independent- 470
NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE 471
3'oung: siuuei's; leaving the world's redemption to the less sym- metrical plan of the Grospel.
So Mr. John Stuart Mill proved to his own satisfaction that all individual title to real estate is adverse to the public weal; and the "International" communists, going a little far- ther, declare, La propriete cest U crime] ''Establish commun- itv of goods; and public spirit will make the best of everything, and procure the greatest good to the greatest number." Here again, man is to lift himself in his tub. It is forgotten that nature has made the desire for the special welfare of one's self. and of one's own family, far stronger than the desire for the general good. Hence the only possible result of the theory is, not that private property shall be happily substituted by com- munism; but that happy civilized societies may be plunged into anarchy; and what little private property is left be held with a far fiercer grasj). and defended by personal violence instead of by regulated and benignant law. Natural selfishness will never lift itself into disinterestedness, least of all by force of an infidel creed which makes selfish pleasure its summufn bonum.
Another instance of the tub-movement is seen in Mrs. Cady Stanton's ''Women's Rights." Woman is to be freed from her subordination to man I By whom, forsooth? X>ot by the sel- fish, masculine despot, of course; for every impulse of his sel- fishness prompts him to perpetuate the tyranny. It is to be done, then, by woman. She is to make her.self independent of man! But the Creator, who made men and women, has laid down the law, "I'nto him shall be thy desire," as the founda- tion of woman's nature. So tluit the amount of the claim for women's rights is, again, tliat the inventor shall lift herself in her tub. Were the realizing of the revolution the only danger, men might safely give ^Irs. Cady Stant ju tlieir full leave to succeed. She would then find that her real difficulty was un- surmounted; thnt every one of her "oppressed" sisters, who was a true woman, would Aoluntarily desert her and seek to be be- loved, cherished, and jtrotected by one of the masculine "ty- rants"; and this by the inevitable force of a nature a thou- sandfold more imperative than her zeal for ^frs. Cady Stan- ton's revolution. And hence again, tlie only possible result of this movement will he, not the independence and equality of woman, but the substitution of the savage dependence of the
472 NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE
slave-concubine, tlie ''weaker vessel" held and abused by brute force, for tlie benignant order of scriptural marriage.
These attempts to do the impossible illustrate the most ab- surd enterprise of all: the attempt of our modern materialistic infidels to abolisli religion. Tlie Commune shouted, "Down wirli pr()p(Mtv and leligi m. tlie two chief enemies of human progress. ■■ The onlv result of .success in destroying religion would be to re])lace it with sonn^ mischievous superstition. This is sufficiently e\'inced. to any sober mind. Iiy a review of the past. Every people, in every age, has had either its religion or its superstition; either its (i9d 'or its Fetich. Now. a universal result is an index of a permanent cause: there must be some- thing in human nature which compels it to recognize the su- pernatural. When our would-be jihilosophers assume that they can exist without this necessity, it is only the very modest pre- tension that tliey are themselves supernatural; that is. more than men. Tliat religion is inevitable to man may be inferred again from tlu^ unif:)rm result of every attempt which has been made to exclinl(\ oi- even to omit it from human thought ;ind life. They have always been predestined failures. Thus, those who profess to understand the system of Tonfucius. nominally so dominant in China, tell us that it is not really a religion, but a siicial .system of morals; that it olfers the Chinese mind no object of divine homage save an abstraction; and that it is in fact only a system of moral rules enforcing the idea of civic subordination; the only wor.ship inculcated, that of dead ances- tors, being designed merely to strengthen the impulse of filial respect. VMiat now, is the result? Tliere is id ]ieople who make a more frequent recognition of the supernatural. To say nothing of the vast system of Buddhism, the whole nation seems enslaved to demon worship, and to the bondage of "the evil eye," "the influence," and the genii of 1 )calities. Yet the Chinese are at once the most astute and tlie most materialistic of the Oriental races.
But we may come nearer home. The materialist Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, was said to be more afraid of ghosts than any educated man in England. Atheistic French Democ- racy professed to abrogate Gad, the Church, and the Sabbath; but so strong was the religious necessity, that even these mad- men enthroned the "Groddess of Reason." Auguste Comte spent
NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE. 473
his life in teaching- that his ''Positive Philosophy" neeessarilj exchided every supernatural notion. But at its close he finisli- ed by establishing a new religion, and a proposed hierarchy with Conite as its hierophant, and the soul of his deceased mistress as a sort of "Queen of Heaven."
These facts may be set in a light istill more mortifying to the enemies of Christianity, and mure conclusive against their hopes. The weakest rcdigions hav(^ always been strong enough to outvie infidelity upon a fair trial. What has it then to hope, in the presence of a true Christianity, with its purity and pow- er? Even popery, tlie fruitful mother 'of infidels, has Saturn- ian strength enough to devour tlu^se. lier own children. French po{)ery begot Voltaire; and so sorry a rtdigion as French popery was adefjuate to overthrow VoltaircMsm. We are told that the effect of national misfortune and liumiliation has been to fill the Romish Church again with Freni-hmen (and not women only), and to i)reL'ii)itate the people into sham miracles, the pil- grimages, and the other fooleries of the Middle Ages. The Au- gustan age of classic paganism gave a similar result. Greek and Roman philosophy deemed itself too wise to retain the old traditionai-y creed of their fathers. They could laugh at tlie auspices, and explode Pan and Ceres, Castor and Pollux, with the herd of imaginary gods. But none the less must the Au- gustan age have gods from some whither; so philosophic Athens had its altar to "The Pnknown God," and im])erial Rome im- l)orted Judaism, tln^ mystery of the P]gyptian Iris, and the mag- ic of the P]ast. Now, gentlemen infidels, we may heartily concur with you in your scurvy (\stimate of these ancient and modern })aganisms, the religions of Jupiter and the Po])e. I'ut we re- mind you, that scurvy as they were, they were sufficient to con- quer you. ''If these things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If mankind is compelled by the con- stitution of the soul, in ages when it seemed to have no better choice than Jbetween these wretched creeds and you, to prefer either of these to you; what are your prospects against the uni- versal diffusion of the Christian religion, with its ennobling and satisfying truths?
The rational account of these results is in the law with which we set out. Nature cannot revolutionize nature. The human soul has certain original, constitutive, universal laws
474 NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE.
of tliiukiug aud feeliug, the presence of whicli qualify it as a rational liinnau soul. Hence, whatever any soul thinks or feels is a result of these regulative laws. It is, then, infallibly cer- tain that these cannot be abrogated or expunged by their own results, for the same reason that streams cannot change their own fountains, anil rliildren cannot determine the being of their own parenrs. Let men, for instance. thrDw any liglit of plausibil- ity they may ai-ound mateiialism; let them please themselves with tile fancy iliar tliey have identified mind with matter; let the physiologist pretend to trace the power of thought into his "nerve-force," and to resolve this in turn into electricity. There remains still the stubborn and fundamental fact of psychology, which the common sen.se of men will, in the end, always eon strue for theni.selves, without or against the pretended helps of science; that the consciousness of that which thinks, the sub- jective Ego, is necessarily ]nior to all possible jterception of objective matter, ^^o that the only terms upon which man can know matter at all involve a priori the recognition of mind as inevitably contrasted with matter. That is. the very law of our cognition is, that we must first know mind as not matter in order to know matter.
Our most recent infidelity asserts that nothing is valid ex cept that which is formed on the perceptions of the senses. But unless they accept with us the supersensuous rational belief, that what sense gives us is valid, it is Impossible for sense it- self to show them any truth.
Again, man must cease to be man before he can strip him- self of conscience, of the conviction of -moral responsibility, of the .sense of guilt for transgression, of hope, of fear, and of the inextinguishable desire for his own well-1)eing. These senti- ments are the universal results of fundamental intuitions. All that can be done is to forget them or to obscure them for a time; but when they are revived by the touch of affliction, dan- ger, remorse, or death, man will derive and seek a ])ro])itiation for his guilt, a preparation for judgment, and a way t > future happiness, as surely as he is man. The sentiment of religion is omnipotent in the end. We might rest in assurance of its tri- umph, even without appealing to the work of .that Holy Ghost which Christianity promises as the omnipotent coadjutor of the truth. While irreligious men of science explore the facts of
NATURE CANNOT REVOLUTIONIZE NATURE. 475
natural history, and the fossils of earthly strata, for fancied proofs of a creation by evolution which may dispense with a Creator, the luimble heralds of our Lord Christ will continue to lay rheii" hands upon the heart-striuos of living immortal men, and tind there always forces to overwhelm unbelief with de- feat. Does tlie "Positivist" say these propositions are only of things spiritual? Ay, but spiritual consciousnesses are more stable tlian all his jtrimitive granite I Centuries hence, if man shall continue in his present state S3 long, when the current theories of unbelief shall have been consigned to that limbus where polytheism and the Ptolemaic astronomy, alchemy, and judicial astrology lie contemned, the servants of the Cross will be winning larger and yet larger victories for Christ, with the same Gospel which was preached by Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah. Paul, Augustine and Calvin. Hampden ^^idney, Ya., Oct. 1st. 1873.
SAMUBL C. ANDERSON. OF PRINCE EDWARD.'
Every Presbytei'ian of intelligence, who visited the neigh- l)L)iIiood of Hampden Sidney aibont the years 1835 to 1840, car- ried a\^ay with liini, among liis most pleasing recollections, the memories )f tlie liosj)itable mansion of Mr. Anderson. He was then in the prime of his corporeal and intellectual powers, and of his Christian inrtuence: a leading elder in the College riuircli, and rrustee of tlip College, the foremost advocate at the bar of his county; and the honored and trusted adviser of its people. His liDuse during all these years, was frequented with delight il)y young and old, and was the center of a wide circle of cultivated, -Christian society; where Mr. Anderson, as- sisted by his accomplished wife, and his lovely adopted daugh- ter, dispensed a professional income almoist princely, in un- bounded hi)spitalities and charities. His noble person and countenance will not speedily be forgotten by any, who saw him in the animation of social converse, or in the flow of his masculine and impetuous oratory. He was, in every sense, a man of nature's noblest mould.
Amidst the horrors and confusions attending the closing camjtaign of (JtMicral Lee upon rhe Appomattox, the death of this venerable servant of God has perhai)s passed unnoted by many of his former friends. The suspension of the circulation of the religious journals has also delayed the publication of the usual tribute to his memory. This will now be attempted, in the form of a brief narrative.
Mr. Anderson was the son of a respectable planter upon Willis' Kiver. in the county of Cumberland, where he was born July 21st. 1788. l^p to approaching manhood, he received only the plain education of the old-field-school: when he was seized with an irresistible desire for a liberal education. There was an excellent classical school six or seven miles distant; but his father declared that, while he might 'be able to pay his tuition,
1 Appeared in The Presbyterian Quarterly, April, 1894. 476
SAMUEL C. ANDERSON 477
his limited cirenmstances forbade liis assiiiiiino the expense of his boai'ding ai)road. The 3'oiitli declared that he would fre- quent the school daily from home, notwithstanding the dis- tance. His father supposed that he would soon wearj^ of this undertaking, but gave his consent to the experiment. He joy- fully accepted the opportunity; and for several years was the most punctual pupil at the school. Taking his breakfast with the dawn, he might be seen every morning before the sun, set- ting out afoot upon his dail\' journey, and he was usually the first scholar at th(^ school-house. Here he gained a S3lid train- ing in the classics, and some of the rudiments of science; and this was tbp only i)atrimony he ever received from his father.
While still a youth, he went to the county of Powhatan, where for four years he taught a country school. In this avoca tion his success was so great, that old Dr. Lacy (Silver-fist), himself a famous teacher, declared he ought to be compelled to follow it for life, for the public good. His talent of com mand and force of character were here strongly developed. His diligence and punctuality were unfailing, and such was the in- dustry and subordination he inspired, that a lazy or bad boy was unknown in his school. Aftcn' the good, old Virginian fashion, the boys and girls of the neighborhood were taught to- gether: a custom which did much to foster that courtesy, mu tual respect, and purity, which so highly distinguished the in- tercourse of the sexes among us. In these schools, under the eye of a watchful teacher, the young learned from childhood the proper "metes and bounds'' of virtuous intercourse, and grew up from little gentlemen and ladies. Mr. Andersan was peculiarly watchful in guarding this intercourse, and exacting of the 'boys a punctilious respect for their female associates. He said that the greatest whipping he ever gave, was to a gawky youth (as big as himself) for entering the school-room on a sultry afternoon, without his caat (clothed in the other garments, shirt, vest, trousers, etc.)
Having served two campaigns with credit in the State forces, during the war of 1812, he returned to civil life, and studied the science of law with Captain Henry E. Watkins, oif Prince Edward, his life-long friend, and co-elder. He com- menced the practice of this profession in the year 1816, at Prince Edward Court House. Here he married, settled, and
478 SAMUEL C. ANDERSON.
spent his life. His diligence, integrity, and forensic eloquence si^eedily raised him to the head of his profession: a pasr which he did nor fail to maintain, to the end of his active life. .Vs a lawyer, he was quick, ready, full of resource in deliate. inijta- tient of the labor of preliminary research, but oviM'p )wering in r(^joinder. His generous sympathies and ardent nature caused hiui to identify himself warmly with his clients: so that he was always a zealous advocate. His comrades, knowing the influ- ence of forensic strife in rousing his powers, and the force of his oratory upon juries, always sought to give him the closing speech in important cases. The best judges have said that, in those years, Samuel C. Anderson, in the bar of Prince Edward or Buckingham, exposing some artful fraud, or pleading the aspersed honor of innocent woman, was the noblest specimen of manly beauty, power, and eloquence, ever seen in that re- gion.
Upan the retirement of John Randolph, of Koanoke, from Congress, the leading citizens of his party urged Mr. Anders<(n to become a candidate for that place, with the certainty of be- ing elected his successor. He declined the proposal, in favor of Judge Bouldin ; who served for a short time with great dis- tinction, and died in his seat in the House, of apoplexy. The reason assigned by ^Ir. Anderson for refusing political honors at that time, was worthy of the consideration of every young man. He said that he had a liberal professional income, with free and hospitable habits af living, without private estate. Hence, as his attention to public affairs must diminish his earn- ings, he could not at once maintain his domestic estaiblishment, and his pecuniary independence. But no man, he judged, should be entrusted with the interests of his country, whose j)ersonal independence was encumbered with any financial shackles: lest they should become a tem])tation to tarnish that briglit purity of actiDU, which the public servant should ever possess.
Tn the year 1828 the visit of Dr. Xettleton to Virginia oc- lurred, which resulted in so remarkable and permanent a work of grace. On the invitation of Dr. John H. Rice, this elocjuent and holy man visited the region about the College; and his la- bors were instrumental in bringing into the church a large number of the first men of the country, of whom many have
SAMUEL C. ANDERSON. 479
fallen asleep; but some vet remain to adorn tlieir profession. Among these converts was Mr. Anderson. He had lived hith- erto, strictly honorable and virtuous after the world's standard, but "without (xod in the world," and in the very luxuriance of his healtli, prosperity, and manly energies. The word of God now took hold upon him with giant power. He declared that al- though, in one sense, he had heard many able preachers, whose sermons his retentive memory would have enabled him to re- peat almost entire, in another sense, he had never heard a ser- mon before. The nature of God's law, his relations to it, and liis wants as a sinner, were now seen by him in as new a light, as though he had been hitherto one of I'aul's Athenian hearers upon .Vreopagus. With an overpowering conviction of his guilt and misery fixed in his soul, he determined that lie would at once seek its salvation with all his might. Dr. Xettletou was holding private meetings for special instruction, in the parlor of Dr. Rice (in the northeastern corner of the Seminary build- ing, then just partly erected) similar to what are now called iu- quirj'-meetings: and all those who desired more particular knowledge of 'what they must do to 'be saved,' were invited to attend there in the evening. MauA' powerful impulses of pride and false shame deterred Mr. Anderson from attending. The evil principles within him pleaded: "What will your gay, pro- fessional comrades say, when thev hear that the lofty head of Samuel C. Anderson is bowed in such a meeting, amidst a clus- ter of weejnug school-boys and girls, confessing his sins to a parson?" As he rode to the jjlace. his breast was in a tumult of strife; and when he came to the door of the room, saw the lights within, and the solemn stillness of the compau}', so powerful was the struggle between the evil and the good within him, that, he declared, it was as though some invisible, 'but adaman- tine bar had been placed across the door of the room, which re- sisted his entrance with a palpable force. But he bethought himself that this reluctance to enter was prompted by sinful affections, seconded most probably by Satan: tliat he needed the instruction he sought there; and that if he now yielded to a false impulse, and retired, it would l)e a vii-tual turning of iiis back upon Christ and duty, for the sake of sin, and might be the sealing of his impenitence forever. He therefore nerved himself with an almost desperate resolve, and literally broke
480 SAMUEL C. ANDEESON.
through into tlie room, where he took liis seat aiuoiig the peni- tents. This decisive moment seemed to be the turning point with his soul, and he speedily found peace in believing. The determination to cast all sinful and Satanic obstacles behind him, in pursuing those means of grace which lie felt to be ap- propriate to his wants and duty, was probably nothing else than the initial acting of faith and repentance, in embracing Christ, and his service: although at ttrst he knew it not as such. He soon enrolled himself among (fad's people; and sucli was his Christian walk, that after a few years, he was elected one of their elders: an office which he tilled with increasing pieiy to his death.
His abilities and decision speedily made him a num of mark in the Presbyterian Church. He cultivated an ardent friendship for her leading ministers, and especially for Drs. Rice and Baxter, whose steady coadjutor and adviser he was, in all their labors for Zion. With his usual liberality, he now set apart one-third of his income, the whole of which proceed- ed from his professional labor, for the service of the church; and during his prosperous years, this portion was expended in charities, in sustaining the religious press, and in other Chris- tian enter{)rises. besides the sums lavished in his unfailing hos- pitalities.
The most signal service wliicli he rendered to the church, in the estimation >f the public at large, was his famous speech in the Assembly of 1837. in spport lof the. so-called, excinding acts. Dr. Baxter and he were among the commissioners from West Haeover Presbytery to that body: in which the fornu-r was the acknowledged leader of the old scliool. It was in Bax- ter's capacious mind that the plan originated, after all other expedients seemed hopeless, of ridding the church of the incu- bus of the new measures and theology, by declaring the Plan of Union unconstitutional. During the sessions of the Assem- bly he came to Mr. Anderson and asked him briefly: ''If a leg- islative proceeding be found unconstitutional, what becomes of the executive and administrative acts which are grounded on it?" "They are all,'' said :Mr. Anderson, ''null and void, in law." "Then.'' said Dr. Baxter, "prepare yourself to prove it in the Assembly.'' The doctor, having explained his views to the old-school men, in their nightly convention, ov caucus,
SAMUEL C. ANDERSON. 481
moved them the next day, in the house, in a short series of propositions, whose logic was built together like an arch of stone; and then remitted the discussion mainly to j'ounger and more forward men. The chief debater.s of the two parties now- waged, for several days, a forensic war of the giants. The New School relied up3n an elder from Pennsylvania, who was also a distinguished judge at law, to assail the legal principles of Dr. Baxters plan. Mr. Anderson went to him, and politely indicated his wish to take part in the discussion on the other side, requesting the use of the legal authorities introduced into the ease. This the judge politely accorded; and it may be added that, in the subsequent discuss'ion, the two maintained towards each other a forensic courtesy, by which the acrimony of many of the clergy was put to shame. The judge also suggested that ^Ir. Anderson, if he could succeed in getting the floor in the general eagerness to speak, at the end of his speech, should make the closing reply. The latter could not but indulge an in- ward smile, as he said to himself: ''Had you known the esti- mate of my peculiar forte held by my legal brethren at home, you would hardly have volunteered this proposal." The judge, with the customary self-esteem of his section, evidently regard- ed Ms proposed antagonist from the South, as the reverse of formidable.
Meantime, the clerical leaders of the Old School, had laid out their parliamentary tactics for the day, designing to put up one of their leading debaters to reply to the legal argument of the judge, and selecting an active man, at the close of that speech, to spring to his feet, secure the floor, and demand the previous (question. But when the judge finished, to their great chagrin, ^Ir. Anderson obtained the floor, instead of their cham- pion. Their faces showed mortification; those of the larger number displayed wonder, who this unknown combatant could be who thus thrust himself into the war of the princes; and Dr. Baxter, who knew his man, was sufl'used with a smile of quiet enjoyment. When ^Ir. Anderson found that the Mod- erator had recognized him, all his self-possession for a moment deserted him: He, who was perfectly collected in the stormier forums of the bar and hustings, now found liimself without a single idea, in this novel arena, before the vast audience col- lected from every part of the Union, and especially at the
•J82 SAMUEL C. ANDEESON.
thought of the anxious aud sympathizing countenance of his 'beloved wife, which lie well knew, was bent upon him from some retired nook of the galleries. But he said that he be- thought himself to fill up a minute with some commonplaces about his respect for the Moderator and the body, and his dif- fidence, until his self-possessdon returned to him: and after this exordium, he was conscious that he had regained the full poise of all his faculties. As he proceeded in his rejoinder, the im- patience of the house was replaced by surprise, aud by delight. Whispers of. "Who is he?" "Who is he?" ran over the au- dience. He proceeded, with just such vigorous and courteous logic as he was accustomed to employ in the courts of Virginia, intermingled with happy repartee and luxuriant humor, to turn the legal argument of the Xew School inside out, to overthi'ow their pDsitions \sith their own authorities, and to sweep away their arguments, like the wind the chaff of the threshing floor. It was manifest that he was making a profound impression on the house, and that his argument must be decisive of the vote. Dr. Absalom Peters, the Ajax of the New School, writhing like a culprit upon the rack, at the demolition of his cause, could contain himself no longer; but springing to Ms feet in- terrupted Mr. Anderson, and announcing again a position which he seemed to regard as the very citadel of his strength, said tauntingly, "I should like to hear the gentleman come to that topic." "I shall come to that soon enough for you." replied he. shaking his finger at him in acceptance 3f his challenge. His Old School friends almost held their breaths with anxiety, as they said to themselves: "Will his performance be. indeed, able to come up to this audacious pledge?" But wheu. in the regular order of his reply, he reached the favorite premise of Dr. Peters, he exploded it with a happy power, and clear light, which formed the climax of his victory, and silenced his ad- versary effectually. Meantime he took occasion to exact of Dr. Peters a. good natured revenge for his discourtesy. Seeing him anxiously fumbling a law-book introduced by the judge, and by him promised to Mr. Anderson, he reached his hand for it, saying in a sotto-voce audible to the whole house: "Give it me: raw hands ought not to meddle with edged tools." At this, the inimitable humor of his expressive countenance convulsed the audience with laughter.
SAMUKL C. Af^DERSON. 483
When he closed his remarks, the person selected by the Old School to ask the previous question, felt that no other ar- gument could be so effective, and at once performed his ap- pointed task. The house was apparently satisfied als-o: the call was granted, and the majority which voted with the Old School showed, that Mr. Anderson had decided every mind which wavered. All, except Virginians, were startled and amazed at this display of his powers. The Xorthern people a'bout the Assembly, espec-ialh', asked themselves: How comes it that this great master of debate has been hitherto unheard of by us? They said, his powers, like those of Pa»llas, must have sprung at one leap from their infancy to their adult vigor. But this was all mistaken. Mr. Anderson now exhibited no other powers, than those which, in his happier occasions, his compeers w^ere often accustomed to witness in him at the bar of Prince Edward. In this ecclesiastical debate, he had a sub- ject cuited to his faculties and taste: a great principle of con- stitutional law. His mastery over it, and the amazing contrast between his handling of it and that of his Northern adversaries, was but an illustration of the superior civic culture prevalent among the gentlemen of Virginia, and, ypt more, of their deep- er veneration for constitutional bonds.
This interesting incident has been described at this length, only because of its eclat without his own circle. In the Synod of Virginia, he sustained the reforms of 1837, with equal eloquence. For a number of years, indeed, as long as health allowed, he was an interested and influential member of church courts in his own State, and his helping hand was in every good work. Thus he passed along for fifteen j^ears more, busy in his laborious profession, and frequently charged with public trusts for church and State.
About the year 1852, his robust frame was shattered by an attack of paralysis. For a time, he lay motionless, and in- capable of speech, and. as others supposed, unconscious. But he said afterwards, that the sense of hearing, the powers of thought, and the sensibility to pain, were even unnaturally ac- tive: and at the very moment that he heard the anxious friends around his bed congratulating him on this sad advantage, that he was at least insensible to suffering, he was enduring not only bodily pain, but a wringing of the nerves unspeakably more
484 SAMUEL 0. ANDERSON.
agonizing than mere pain. His experience suggests the truth, which nurses and ministers of religion should bear in mind, that oftentimes cousciousne:SS and the powers of attention are awake in the sick, where they have the ability to ''give no sign." Had the consolations of religion been addressed to Mr. Ander- son at that hour, he would have appreciated them fully, al- though utterly unable to signify it, by voice, or motion of an eyelid, or a muscle. This alarming disease was, however, ar- rested, and by virtue of his temperance and sanity of constitu- tion, it left no after-consequences, except a tremor of the hands, which gradually grew with the advances of age.
Mr. Anderson at once felt this, as a distinct summons to "set his house in order." He did not demit any of the active duties of life; but anticipating some sudden return of his mal- ady, he made his account to die with his harness on. Yet there was a great increase of the depth, tenderness, and devotion of his Christian character. He still frequented, as before, the old law office in the corner of his shrubbery, which had for so long been the scene of active bustle, and the haun-t of a throng of clients. But his tremulous hand refused even to write a legal instrument: aud the laborious duties of his profession were turned over to a young kinsman, who had become his partner, afterwards known aud lamented, a;s the distinguished Colonel John S. Thornton. Those who visited Mr. Anderson, in these later years, in his office, were almost sure to find him reading his old quarto Bible. This became the constant, the almost ex- clusive occupation of his leisure. Pencil in hand, he dwelt de- liberately upon each clause, signifying his appreciation of those which struck him as peculiarly weighty, by a Toroad mark drawn underneath. Going over his Bible thus, again and again, it gradually became 'blackened all over with these marks, to an almost incredible extent. This old Bible is now treasured up, as a curious aud affecting memorial of his diligence in the study of the Word. The maturing of grace in his character was also ■most marked in his prayers, at the domestic altar, and in the prayer meetings of the church, which he so much loved to fre- quent, as long as his infirmities allowed. His devotions were peculiar for the profound, and yet triumphant tone of rever- ence and adoration, and the holy importunity, which pervaded them more and more. To every spiritually-minded Christian,
SAMUEL C. ANDERSON. 485
it was a treat, a refreshment, to bear Mr. Anderson lead in prayer.
When his infirmities increased, a transaction occurred be- tween him and his hiw-partner, Mr. Thornton, equally honorable to both. He had taken this young kinsman into his oflQce when he was first licensed; and he had rapidly grown into high favor with the people. Mr. Anderson now volunteered to declare to him, that their partnership must be dissDlved. "I am but a burden to you now," he added. "You do all the work, and en- dure the hardships: you are virtually supporting my family, as well as your own: and it is not just that I should allow you to burden yourself with such an incubus, in your ascending career. You must set up f3r yourself, so as to advance unimpeded by me." When Mr. Anderson proposed this, he well knew that its execution would consign him almost to penury: for his gen- erous and almost profuse spirit had left him no accumulations from his years of arduous labar. But 'Sh\ Thornton positively refused to accede to the dissolution of the partnership; urging that ^Ir. Anderson's present enjoyment of the moiety of the earnings of the firm was but a just return for his princely gen- erosity, in according to him the same share, at the 'beginning; when he was but a stripling, withDut professional patronage or experience; and that, if Mr. Anderson no longer did his half of the riding, writing, and speaking, yet his wisdom in counsel, and his moral weight, were still richly worth their pay. In; this generous strife, both seemed for a time equally obstinate; but at last the dbstinacy of Thornton prevailed; and amidst Mr. Anderson's growing iurtruiities. the partnership continued, un- til the approach of the war indicated that the former was to be called to other scenes of usefulness.
In this great cnutest for rlir ind(^i)endence of ^'irginia, ^Ir. Anderson was a consistent and ardent supporter of his native State. Just in proportion tj his piety, ripening for heaven, was the clearness and steadfastness of his devotion to the great con- stitutional rights, which, he believed, were about to be over- thrown. His embarrassed affairs and growing decrepitude left him little else that he could do for his country, except to coun- sel, to pray, and to suffer. Most no'bly did he do all these; and especially the latter. To his friends, it was one of the most touching incidents of the calamities of the country, to see such
480 SAMUEL C ANDERSON.
a man, whose liberal hand had solaced so many, reduced, by the depreciation of the currency, and other difficulties of the time, to the verge of want. But he bore every privation with a cheerful, modest dignity, beautiful to behold, and instructive to all younger men. Always hopeful, ever courageous, he was a stay and stimulus to all whom he met ; and when he crept out to the Court House hard by, leaning on his staff, to speak a word of cheer to the people, and leave his benediction with them, the fire of better years was rekindled in his eye, and the old walls recognized again the sonorous echo of that voice, which was wont to peal there, when the lion of the ibar had trodden his stage, and shaken his kingly mane at the enemies of country and right, in the days of his strength. But that mane was now white as the snows of the hoary Alps; and the tread of his stalwart lim'bs was slower and slower. His orb was steadily approaching its western horizon, serenely, and brightly, despite the war-clouds whose angry and thickening folds had usurped the place of that peaceful, glowing sunset, which we would have desired to close the evening of such a career as his. Then came suddenly, the fall of his country; and at that blow, his spirit said, "It is enough," and sank instantly to its rest: to rise again in the eternal heavens.
On the night of Sunday, April 2nd, General Lee silently evacuated Richmond and Petersburg, and began his arduous and doubtful retreat towards the waters of the Roanoke. Mr. Anderson heard even this appalling news, with a steadfast heart: he still refused to despair of the Republic: and in the immediate jirospect of passing, witli liis lionu^ and family, into the lines of the enemy, his spirit was as unshaken and composed as ever. The morning of Friday, the 7th, tlie quiet village was overwhelmed by the sudden irruption of the Federal cavalry, who, in an instant, spread themselves everywhere, plundering and ravaging. Mr. Anderson was arrested, and led across the street before one of their generals, who attempted to carry him through a harsh and unfeeling catechism concerning the move- ments of the retreating Confederates, and the routes of the country. He answered, with quiet dignity, that if they would observe him, his obvious infirmities, at least, would show them a reason why such information should not be demanded of him. Brutality itself could find no pretext to harrass such a victim,
SAMUEL C ANDERSON. 487
and be was coldly dismissed. He returned to his dwelling to find it filled from garret to cellar, with a rabble of troopers, defiling and pilfering everything with their unclean hands. Seeing that corporeal resistance was simply mad, and that there was no spark of principle or compunction in such breasts, to which to appeal, he judged that his self-respect would be best consulted by perfect quiet. Where a righteous defense was impossible, he disdained to complain. But the insult, the un- utterable indignation, were too much for his tottering frame. He was soon no longer able to direct his steps, and betook him- self to his bed. Here he la}', with a quiet spirit, engaged in silent prayer, receiving the cares of his beloved wife and sis- ter with a tender and gushing thankfulness, still bidding them to be of good courage in their God. The neighborhood was so filled, and every house so beset, during all these days, with plunderers, that it was almost impossible for the few males out of the army, to leave their owm doors, to render the common offices of humanity to a neighbor. But the chivalrous women braved every inconvenience, and gave the needed assistance. On the next Tuesday, the news of General Lee's final surrender was brought to Mr. Anderson. This was, literally, the final blow to his feeble body. Thenceforward, the expectation and the desire of life were extinguished — he calmly said: "It is the Lord; let him do what seemeth to him good"; and, "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." Yes. in peace! although the ruins of a fallen country were crashing around his dying bed. Thus, on Tuesday, the 18th of April, he calmly and devoutly committed his soul to God. gave up the ghost, and was gathered unto his fathers.
A few days after (it was the very day that the pompous obsequies of Lincoln, and the popular phreusy were filling Washington City with tumult); a handful of his neighbors, with the pastors and elders, sadly and silently conveyed his venera- ble remains to their ri^sting placr at the (V)lh'ge Church. In peaceful times, his fellow citizens would have delighted to hon- or him with such a funeral cortege as country places had rarely witnessed. Now, there was none; the people had just been robbed of every "beast of burden; and the young men were eith- er in bloody graves, or in captivity, or fleeing before their ene- mies. But it is sufficient consolation to know, that the song
488 SAMUEL C. ANDEKSON.
of the angels was not therefore the less rapturous, as his ran- somed spirit entered heaven's gates: and that the hallowed dust sleeps none the less safelv in the Redeemer's keeping, until the resurrection.
To human apprehension, it would liaA'e been happy for Mr. Anderson to live until the deliverance of the eountrv he Loved so ardently was accomplished: and to render up his rejoicing spirit to (rod amidst peaceful liberty. But seeing it has been determined by his sovereign and awful Providence, that Vir- ginia should submit to bondage, the time of our friend's de- jtarture was most excellently chosen. He went away to the mightly dead with the vanishing glories of his country. The great Deliverer stepped in, and with his impemal sceptre, for- bade that any bonds should alight upon his free spirit. He had ever lived a freeman; and now he was forever enfranchised by death. How much are they to be envied, who having been made meet for "the inheritance of the saints in light,'' are per- mitted thus to receive the fulfillment of the i»rayer of Jackson: ''that we may not be required to survive the independence of our country.''
When the convulsions of the times permitted it, the most honorable testimonials to his memory were adopted by the Ses- sion of his church, the court and bar of Prince P^dward county, and the other public bodies with which he had been connected.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS WOMEN.'
In oui- day, innovations mareli with so rapid a stride tliat they qnite take away one's breath. The fantastical project of yesterday, which was mentioned only to be ridiculed, is to-day the audacious reform, and will be ta-niorrow the accomplished fact. Such has been the history of the agitation for ''women's rights," as they are sophistically called in this country. A few 3'ears ago this movement was the especial hobby of a few old women of both sexes, who made themselves the laughing-stock of all sane people by the annual ventilation of their crotchet. Their only recruits were a few of the unfortunates whom nature or fortune had debarred from tliDse triumphs and enjoyments which are the natural ambition of the sex, and wlio adopted this agitation as the most feasible mode of expressing their spitefulness against the successful competitors. To-day the movement has assumed such dimensions that it challenges the attention of every thoughtful mind.
If we understand the claims of the Women's Rights wom- en, they are in substance two: that the legislation, at least, of society shall disregard all the natural distinctions of the sexes, and award the same specific rights and franchises to both in every respect; and that woman while in the married state shall be released from every species of conjugal subordination. The assimilation of the garments of the two sexes, their competition in the same industries and professions, and their common ac- cess to the same amusements and recreations, are social changes which the "strong-minded'' expect to work, each one for her- self, when once the obstructions of law are removed from the other points.
One result of the reflection which we have been able to give this movement, is the conviction that it will prevail in the so-called ''I'nited States." This is foreshadowed ^j the frantic lust for innovation which has seized the body of the people like
1 From The Southern Magazine. 489
490 women's rights women.
an epidemic. It is enough with them to condemn any institu- tion, that it was bequeathed us by our forefathers; because it is not tile invention of this age. it is wrong, of course. In their eyes no experience proves anything, save the experience which they have had themselves. They do not suppose that our fathers were wise enough to interpret and record the lessons of former experiences. That certain things did not succeed in our fore- fathers' hands is no proof that they will not succeed in ouri hands; for we are "cute." v^e live in an enlightened age. and un- derstand how to manage things successfully. The philosophy of the Yankee mind is precisely that of the Yankee girl who, when she asked for leave to marry at seventeen, was dissuaded by her mother that she ''had married very early and had seen the folly of it." "Yes; but. Mamma." replied the daughter, "I want to see the folly of it far myself." Your Yankee philosopher is too self-sufficient to be cautioned from the past. He does not know history; he would not believe its conclusions if he did; he has no use for its lights, hiiving enough "subjective'' light of his own. To such a people the fact that a given experiment is too absurd to have been ever tried before, is an irresistible fascination: it is a chance not to be neglected.
The symptoms of approaching success which already ex- ist are such as may well cheer the advocates of the new revo- lution. They who a few years ago counted their adherents by scores, now have tens of thousands. They are represented by their own press. They have received the support of at least one religious journal, which presumes to call itself Christian and is the organ of a numerous denomination — the Ne7v York Independent. They receive the obsequious homage of the dema- gogues of the day. They have already engrafted a part of their ideas upon some ?>tate constitutions. Their apostles are in- vited to lecture before "Christian Associations" (of that peculiar kind which enumerate billiard and card-tables among the means of grace), and before the United States Congress. And last, a kindred cause, that of indiscriminate divorces, is making such progress in many of the States that it will soon be able to lend a strong helping-hand to its sister. Now it is by just such steps that Radicalism grew from its despised infancy in this country. It was just thus that Abolitionism grew. It is thus that all
women's rights women. 491
things grow on the American soil which ripen tlieir harvests of exil.
The advocates of these "women's rights" may be expected to win the day, because the premises from which they argue their revolution have been irrevocably admitted by the bulk of the people. Now this popular mind may not be consciously or intentionally consistent and logical. It may jump to many con- clusions without much analysis of the steps by which they are reached. It may deliberately harbor the most express purpose to be guilty of any logical inconsistency, however outrageous, in pursuing its supposed interests ; and may have its mind ever so clearly made up to eat its own words and principles whenever its convenience prompts that measure. But still the Creator has made man, in spite of himself, a logical animal; and conse- quences will work themselves out, whether he designs it or not, to those results which the premises dictate. History will write out the corollaries of the theorems whether the projec- tors wish to stop for them or not. Now, false principles are al- ready firmly planted from which the whole "Women's Rights"' claim must follow. If we look at the coarser, more concrete, and popular fonn in which the consequence is drawn, we find the argument for the popular. Radical mind perfectly unan- swerable. "It has been decided that all negro men have a right to vote: is n<jt a Yankee white woman with her 'smartness' and education as good as a stupid, ignorant, Southern black?" We should like to see the answer to that logic from that premise which a Northern Radical mind could be made to appreciate. An unanswera'ble point thus perpetually made upon the mind of the public, will impinge at last.
Or if we examine the argument in its more exact and logi- cal form, we shall find it, after the established (false) premises are granted, equally conclusive for the educated. The very axioms of American politics now are, that "all men are by na- ture equal," that all are inalienably "entitled to liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and that "the only just foundation of governinient is in the consent of the governed." There was a sense in which our fathers propounded these statements; but it is not the one in which they are now held by Americans. Our recent doctors of political science have retained these formu laries of words as convenient masks under which to circulate u
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set of totally different, and indeed antagonistic notions; and they liaA'e succeeded perfectly. The new meanings of which the "Whigs" of 1776 never dreamed are now the current ones. Those wise statesmen meant to teach that all men are morally equal in the sense of the Grolden Rule: that while individual traits, rights, and duties vary widely in the different orders of politi- cal society, these different rights all have some moral basis; that the inferior has the same moral title (that of a common hu- manity and co-mmon relation to a benignant Heavenly Father) to have his rights — the rights of an inferior — duly respected, whicli ilic superior has to claim that his very different rights shall be res])eeted. The modern version is that there are no superiors or inferiors in society; that there is a mechanical equality; that all have specifically all the same rights; and that any other constitution is against natural justice. Next: when our wise fathers said that liberty is an inalienable, natural right, they meant by each one's liberty the privilege to do such things as he, with his particular relations, ought to have a mor- al title to do; the particular things having righteous, natural limitations in every case, and much narrower limits in some cases than in olliers. Radical .Vmerica now means by natural liberty each one's privilege to do what he chooses to do. By the consent of the governed our forefathers meant each Sovereign Commonwealth's consenting to the constitution under which it should be governed: they meant that it was unjust for Britain to govern America without America's consent. Which part of the human 'beings living in a given American State should con- stitute the State })otentially, the populus whose franchise it was to express the will of the commonwealth for all — that was in their eyes wholly another question, to be wisely decided in dif- ferent States according to the structure which Providence had given them. By "the consent of the governed'' it would appear that Radicalism means it is entirely just for Yankeedom to gov- ern Virginia against Virginia's consent, and that it is not just to govern any individnal human being without letting him vote for his governors. The utter inconsistency of the two parts of this creed is not ours to reconcile. It is certain that both parts (consistent or not) are firmly held as the American creed. The version given to the maxim as to individual rights is uni- versally this: that natural justice requires that suffrage shall
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be coextensive with allegiance, except where the right has been forfeited by some crime (such as that which the men of 18G1 oommitted in presuming to act on the principles of the men of 1776). To these errors the American people are too deepl}- com- mitted to evade any of their logical applications. For the sake of these dogmas they have destroyed one Federal and eleven other State constitutions, have committed a lialf anillion of mur- ders, and (dearest of all) have spent some seven thousand mil- lions of dollars. Repudiate these maxims now! Never! This would be to dishonor the ghosts of all the slaughtered Union- Savers, to shame the sacrifices of all the "Trooly Lo'll" during the glorious four years, to dim the very crown of martyrdom upon the brow of the ''late lamented," and worst of all, to out- rage the manes of all those departed dollars.
Now then, when Mistress Amaaona Narragansett steps for- ward, and having vindicated her claim to have belonged always to the true Israel of the "Unconditional Unianists," demands a simple and obvious application of these honored maxims to her own case, how can she be gainsaid? Hitherto the State has governed her without asking her consent at the ballot-b:)x. This is self-evidently against the immortal truth that "all just gov- ernment is founded on the consent of the governed.'' The State has restrained her natural liberty of doing as she chose, com- pelling her to pay a great many dollars in taxes which she would rather have chosen to expend in crinoline, and forbidding her to do a great many other little acts, such as bigamy, etc., which might have been her preference (and therefore her na- tural right); and all this without even saving the State's credit and manners by asking her consent at the polls to the laws made for her. And last: the State has committed the crowning- outrage and inconsistency of not letting her be a man because God made her a woman! What an outrage this to be commit- ted on so frivolous a pretext! Be consoled, Mistress Amazona ; it is simply impossible that such abuses can stand much long- er in the full light of this reforming age. "The scho'ol-mistress is abroad.'' That mighty tide of progress which has already swept away the Constitution, and slavery, and State's rights, and the force of contracts public and private, witli all such rub- bish, will soon dissolve your grievance also. Has not the Radi- cal version of the political gospel said, "All men are by nature
494 WOME]N"*S RIGHTS WOMEIf.
mechanicallj equal?" And "man," Mistress Amazona (as jou will know when you acquire the virile right of learning Latin) here means, not vir, but home; the species irrespective of sex. It means that a woman has a natural right to do all the particu- lar things that a man does {if she can), to sit on juries and shave her beard, to serve in the army and ride astraddle, to preach sermons and sing bass.
But seriously: a woman is a human being, and a grown woman is an adult. She is treated, and must be treated, by all governments as a citizen owing allegiance and subject to law. On those principles, which are the first principles of Radical- ism, it is impossible to deny her right to vote and to participate in all the franchises of men. Her exclusion is a glaring in- stance of "class legislation" — that odious thing which Radical- ism so strongly condemns as contrary to equality. To subject women to these disabilities is even a more glaring injustice than was the exclusion of the negro from American citizenship be- cause he was '^guilty of a skin"; for here the exclusion from natural rights is grounded on the sole fact that woman is "guil- ty of a sex." And especially are all those laws unnatural and inexcusable iniquities which subject the person or property of the wife to any marital authority. What is such marriage but a species of (white) domestic slavery? Nor is it any excuse to say that in America no woman enters the married state save at her own option; for to that state the most commanding in- stincts of woman's being impel her; and it is but a mocking tyranny to impose this slavery on the married state of woman, and tell her then that she need not submit to the yoke if she chooses to avoid it by sacrificing the chief instincts of her be- ing. Why, it ma}' be even said to the galley-slave that he need not be a slave, provided he is willing to disregard that other primal instinct, the love of life: suicide will set him free!
Such is the logic of the Women's Rights party, from Radi- cal premises. Its prospect of triumph is greatly increased by this, that its Northern opponents (the only ones who have any power to oppose) have disabled themselves from meeting it by their furious Abolitionism. The premises of that doctrine, to which they are so irrevocably committed, now shut their mouths. It is vain for the rabid negrophilist. Dr. Horace Bush- nell, to write a book at this date against Women's Rights as the
women's rights women. 405
"Reform against Nature." He cannot consistently oppose it; he has himself naturalized the false principles from which that ''reform" will flow. The true principles from which its folly might have been evinced, the principles held by us "Kebels," he has trampled down with the armed lieel, and drowned in blood and buried under mountains of obloquy and odium and slander. He cannot resort to those sound premises. To meet the argu- ment of these aspiring Amazons fairly, one must teach, with Moses, the Apostle Paul, John Hampden, Washington, George Mason, John C. Calhoun, and all that contemptible rabble of "old fogies," that political society is composed of "superiors, inferiors, and equals"; that while all these bear an equitable moral relation to each other, they have very different natural rights and duties; that just government is not founded on the consent of the individuals governed, but on tlie ordinance of God, and hence a share in the ruling franchise is not a natural right, at all, but a privilege to be bestowed according to a wise discretion on a limited class having qualification to use it for the good of the whole; that the integers out of which the State is constituted are not individuals, but families represented in their parental heads; that every human being is born under authority (parental and civic) instead of being born "free" in the licentious sense that liberty is each one's privilege of doing what he chooses; that subordination, and not that license, is the natural state of all men; and that without such equitable dis- tribution of different duties and rights among the classes na- turally differing in condition, and subordination of some to oth- ers, and of all to the law, society is as impossible as is the ex- istence of a house without distinction between the foundation- stone and the cap-stones. No words are needed to show hence that should either the voice of God or of sound experience re- quire woman to be placed for the good of the whole society in a subordinate sphere, there can be no natural injustice in doing so. But these old truths, with their sound and beneficent ap- plications, have 'been scornfully repudiated by Abolitionism and Radicalism. The North cannot, w*ill not, avow and appeal to them, because that would be to confess that the injured Soutli was all the time right in its opposition to Abolition; and tlic conquerors will rather let all perish than rhus liuinl)]o Ihoir pride to the poor conquered victims.
496 women's rights women.
It may be inferred again that tlie present movement for women's nghts will certainly prevail from the history af its only opponent. Northern conservatism. This is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always ac- quiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted nov- elty of jesterday is to-day one of the accejjted principles of con servatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will to-morrow be forced upon its timid- ity, and will be succeeded by some third revDlution. to be de- nounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it movers for- ward towards perdition. It remains behind it. but never re- tards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It is worthless be- cause it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth, and has no idea of 'being guilty of the folly of martyrdom. It always — when about to enter a protest — ver3' iblandily informs the wild beast whose path it essays to stoj), that its "bark is worse than its bite," and that it only means to save its manners by enacting its decent role of resistance. The only practical purpose which it now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Kadicalism to keep it "in wind," and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy from hav- ing nothing to whip. No doubt, after a few years, when wom- en's suft'rage shall have become an accomplished fact, conserva- tism will tacitly admit it into its creed, and thenceforward plume itself upon its wise firmness in opposing with similar weapons the extreme of baby suffrage; and when that too shall have been won, it will be heard d-eclaring that the integrity of the American Constitution requires at least the refusal of suff- rage to asses. There it will assume, with great dignity, its final jK)sition.
Indeed, as De Tocqueville predicted, innovations in the direction of extensions of suffrage will always be successful in America, because of the selfish timidity of her public men. It is the nature of ultra democracy to make all its politicians time-
women's rights women. 497
servers; its natural spawn is the brood of narrow, truckling-, cowardly worshippers of the vox populi, and of present expe- diency. Their p3lar star is always found in the answer to the question, "Which will be the more popular?" As soon as any agitation of this kind goes far enough to indicate a possibility of success, their resistance ends. Each of them begins to argue thus in his private mind: — "The proposed revolution is of course preposterous, but it will ibe best for me to leave opposition to it to others. For if it succeeds, the newly enfranchised will not fail to remember the opponents of their claim at future elec- tions, and to reward those who were their friends in the hour of need." Again: it lias now become a regular trick of Ameri- can demagogues in power to manufacture new classes of voters to sustain them in office. It is presumed that the gratitude of the newly enfranchised will be sufficient to make them vote the ticket of their benefactors. But as gratitude is a very flimsy sort of fabric among Radicals, and soon worn threadbare, such a reliance only lasts a short time, and requires to be speedily replaced. The marvelous invention of negro suffrage (excogi- tated for this sole purpose) sufficed to give Radicalism a new- four 3'ears' lease of life; but the grateful allegiance of the freed- nien to their pretended liberators is waxing very thin; and hence the same expedient must be repeated, in the form of cre- ating a few millions of female votes. The designing have an active, selfish motive for pushing the measure; but its oppon- ents will without fail be paralyzed in their resistance by their wonted cowardice; so that success is sure.
This expectation is greatly confirmed by a review of the history of past innovations. They have all been carried against the 'better judgment of the class in the country to whom the Constitution committed the power of deciding for or against them. In 1829-183(1, tlic State of Virginia took her first de- parture from the old princii)le of freeholders' suffrage. In 1851 she com])leted that revolution (as well as introduced sundrj^ other Radical features) by extending the right to vote indis- criminately to all white males. In both instances it was hard to find a freeholder, not a demagogue, who could avow a hearty preference for the changes. They were carried against the con- victions of the voters by the influences which have been above described. It is most probable that the same thing was true in
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every State which adopted universal suffrage. The coercive measures of the Federal Government were undoubtedly pre- cipitated against the convictions of the majority of the Northern people. So the war was transmuted into an Abolition measure under the same circumstances. And last: negro suffrage was undoubtedly introduced against the better judgment of nearly all by the selfish arts of the demagogues; and as there was neither party nor statesman that had the nerve to head the al- most universal opposition, the decision went by default. Xor will there be, under any future circumstances, either leader or party that will risk the odium of a movement to take away suffrage from the incompetent hands of the blacks, however clearly it may appear that they are using it for the ruin of themselves and the countr3\ Thus it is the destinj^ of the Yankee peojDle to commit a species of political Hari-kari with its own unwilling hands. The crowning element of despair is in the en- forced consolidation of the Government. There are no reserved rights of States. The mad innovation which is adopted by a majority of them is enforced upon all; so that no place of refuge is left in the whole land where the right principles and usages might find sanctuary, and abide as a wholesome example and recuperative power for reform.
What then, in the next place, will be the effect of this fun- damental change when it shall 'be established? The obvious answer is, that it will destroy Christianity and civilization in America. Some who see the mischievousness of the movement express the hope that it will, even if nominally successful, be kept within narrow^ limits by the very force of its own absur- dity. They "reckon without their host." There is a Satanic ingenuity in these Kadical measures which secures the infec- tion of the reluctant dissentients as surely as of the hot advo- cates. The women now sensible and modest who heartily de- -precate the whole folly, will be dragged into the vortex, with the assent of their now indignant husbands. The instruments of this deplorable result will be the (so-called) conservative can- didates for office. They will effect it by this plea, that ignorant, impudent. Radical women will vote, and vote wrong; whence it becomes a necessity for the modest and virtuous women, for their country's sake, to sacrifice their repugnance and counter- poise these mischievous votes in the spirit of disinterested self-
women's rights women. 41)9
sacrifice. Now a woman can never resist an appeal to the prin- ciple of generous devotion; her glory is to crucify herself in the cause of duty and of zeal. This plea will be successful. But when the virtuous have once tasted the dangerous intoxication of political excitement and of power, even tliey will be absorb- ed; they will learn to do con amore what was first done as a painful duty, and all the baleful influences of i>olitical life will be diffused throughout the sex.
What those influences >\ ill be may be learned by every one who reverences the Christian Scriptures, from this fact, that the theory of "Women's Kights'' is sheer infidelity. It directly impugns the authority and the justice of these Scriptures. They speak in na uncertain tones. "The husband is the head of the wife" (Eph. V. 23). "Wives, submit yourselves to your own hus- ■'bands, as to the Lord" (v. 22). "The 'man is not for the woman, but the woman for the man" (I. Cor. ii. 9). "Let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection: but I suft'er not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence: for Adam was first formed, then Eve: and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the trans^ gression" (I. Tim. 2: 11-14). They are to be "discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands," etc. (Titus ii. 5). How utterly opposed is all this to the levelling doctrine of your Radical. Women are here consigned to a social subordination, and ex- pressly excluded from ruling offices, on grounds of their isex, and a divine ordination based by God upon a transac- tion which happened nearly six thousand years ago! The wom- an's sphere is expressly assigned her within her home, and she is taught that the assumption of publicity is an outrage against that nature with which she is endowed. Xow the politics which denounce all this as a natural injustice and self-evident folly cannot be expected to reverence these Scriptures; they must and will flout their whole authority. We must then make up our minds in accepting \\'()men's Kights to surrender our Bibles, and have an atheistic (Jovernment. And especially must we ex- pect to have, presiding over every home and rearing every group of future citizens, that most abhorrent of all phenomena, an infidel woman; for of course that sex, having received the precious boon of their enfranchisement only by means of the
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overthrow of the Bible, must be foremost in trampling upon this their old oppressor and enemy. Its restoration to author- ity is necessarily their "re-enslavement," to speak the language of their party.
Second: these new excitements and temptations will utter- ly corrupt the character and delicacy of American women. It is indignantly asked. ''Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than of the 'lords of creation'?'' Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? Suppose we argue that the retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? It is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mothers who are, under G-od, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women of the present were reared and at- tained this comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without puri- fying our politics. What shall save us then?
But there is another reply to this retort. Political excite- ments will corrupt women tenfold more than men; and this, not because women are naturally inferior to men, but because they are naturally adapted to a wholly different sphere. When we point to the fact that they are naturally more emotional and less calculating, more impulsive and less self-contained, that they have a quicker tact but less logic, that their" social nature makes them more liable to the contagion of epidemic passions, and that the duties of their sex make it physically impossible for them to acquire the knowledge in a foreign sphere necessary for political duties, we do not depreciate woman; we only say that nature has adapted her to one thing and disqualified her for the other. The violet would wither in that full glare of mid- summer in which the sunflower thrives: this does not argue that the violet is the meaner flower. The vine, left to stand alone, would be hurled prone in the mire by the first blasts of that history. In the case of the Amorites there was also this wise
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wind which strengthens the grasp of the sturdy oak upon its bed: still the oak m.a\ yield no fruit so precious as the clusters of the yiue. But the yine cannat be an oak; it must "be itself, dependent, clinging, but more precious than that on which it leans or it must perish. When anything, animate or inanimate, is used for a function to which it is not adapted, that foreign use must endamage it, and the more the farther that function is from its own sphere. So it will be found (and it is no dis- paragement tD woman to say it) that the very traits which fit her to be the angel of a virtuous home unfit her to meet the agitations of political life, even as safely as does the more rugged man. The hot glare of publicity and passion will speed- ily deflower her delicacy and sweetness. Those temptations, which her Malipr did not farm her to bear, will debauch her heart, developing a character as much more repulsive than that of the debauched man as the fall has been greater. The politi- cating woman, unsexed and denaturalized, shorn of the true glory of her femininity, will appear to men as a feeble hybrid mauuikin, with all the defects and none of the strength of the male. Instead of being the dear object of his chivalrDus affec- tion, she becomes his importunate rival, despised without being feared.
This suggests a third consequence, which some of the ad- vocates of the movement even already are bold enough to fore- shadDw. "Women's Eights"' mean the abolition of all per- manent marriage ties. We are told that Mrs. Cady Stanton avowed this result, proclaiming it at the invitation of the Young Men's Christian Association of New York. She holds that woman's bondage is not truly dissolved until the marriage bond is annulled. She is thjroughly consistent. Some hoodwinked advocates of her reyolution may ^be blind to the sequence; but it is inevitable. It must follow- by this cause, if for no other, that the unsexed politicating woman can never inspire in man that true affection on whirli marriage should be founded. Men will doubtless be still sensual; but it is simply impossible that they can desire them for the pure and sacred sphere of the wife. Let every woman ask herself: will she choose for the lord of her affections an unsexed effeminate man? No more can man be drawn to the masculine woman. The mutual attraction of the two complementary halves is gone forever. The abolition
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of marriage would follow again bj another cause. The diver- gent interests and the rival independence of the two equal wills would be irreconcilable with domestic government, or union, or peace. 8hall the children of this monstraus uo-union be held responsible to two variant co-ordinate and supreme wills at once? Heaven pity the children I Shall the two parties to this perpetual co-partnership have neither the power to secure the performance of the mutual duties nor ta dissolve it? It is a self-contradiction, an impossible absurdity. Such a co-part- nership of equals with independent interests must be separable at will, as all other such co-partnerships are. The only rela- tion between the sexes which will remain will be a cohabitation continuing so long as the convenience or caprice of both par- ties may suggest; and this, with most, will amount to a vagrant concubinage.
But now, what will be the character of the children reared under sucli a domestic organization as this? If human exper- ience has established anything at all. it is the truth of that prin- ciple announced by the Hebrew prophet when he declared that the great aim of God in ordaining a permanent marriage tie be- tween one man and one woman was '*that He might seek a godly seed." (rod's ordinance, the only effective human ordinance for checking and curbing- the first tendencies to evil, is domestic, parental government. When the family shall no longer have a head, and the great foundation for the subordination of chil- dren in the mother's example is gone; when the mother shall have found another sphere than her home for her energies; when she shall have exchanged the sweet charities of domestic love and sympathy for the fierce passions of the hustings; when families shall be disrupted at the caprice of either party, and the children scattered as foundlings from their hearthstone,— it requires no wisdom to see that a race of sous will be reared nearer akin to devils than to men. In the hands of such a ba:s- tard progeny, without discipline, without homes, without a Ood, the last remains of social order will speedily perish, and society will be overwhelmed in savage anarchy.
Last: it would not be hard to show, did space permit, that this movement on the part of these women is as suicidal as it is mischievous. Its certain result will be the re-enslavement of women, not under the Scriptural bonds of marriage, but under
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the yoke of literal corporeal force. The woman who will calm- ly review tlic coudition of her sex in other ages and countries will feel that her wisdom is to "let well enough alone." Physi- cally, the female is the "weaker vessel." This world is a hard and selfish scene where the weaker goes to the wall. Under all other civilizations and all other religions than ours woman has experienced this fate to the full; her condition has been that of a slave to the male — sometimes a petted slave. <but yet a slave. In Christian and European society alone has she ever attained the place of man's social equal, and received the homage and honor due from magnanimity to her sex and her feebleness. And her enviable lot among us has resulted from two causes: the Christian religion and the legislation founded upon it by feudal chivalry. How insane then is it for her to spurn these two bulwarks of defense, to defy and repudiate the divine au- thority of that Bible which has been her redemption, and to revolutionize the whole spirit of the English common law touching woman's sphere and rights? f^he is thus spurning the only protectors her sex has ever found, and provoking a con- test in which she must inevitably be overwhelmed. Casting away that dependence and femininity which are her true strength, the "strong-minded woman" persists in thrusting her- self into competition with man as his equal. But for contest she is not his equal; the male is the stronger animal. As man's rival, she is a pitiful inferior, a sorry she-mannikin. It is when she brings her wealth of affection, her self-devotion, her sympa- thy, her tact, her grace, her sirbtle intuition, her attractions, her appealing weakness, and i)laces them in the scale with man's rugged strengtli and ])l()dding endurance, with his steady log- ic, his hardihood and nuT^cle. and his exemption from the dis- abling infirmities of her sex, that he delights to admit her full equality and to do glad homage to her as the crown of his kind. All this vantage-ground the "Women's Rights women" madly throw away, and provoke that collision for which nature itself has disqualified them. They insist upon taking precisely a man's chances; well, they will meet precisely the fate of a weak man among strong ones. A recent incident on a railroad train justly illustrates the result. A solitary female entered a car where every seat was occupied, and the conductor closed the door upon her and departed. She looked in vain for a seat, and at last
o04 women's rights womkn.
appealed to au elderly man near her to know if lie would not ■'siuTeuder his seat to a lady.'" He. it seems, was somewhat a humorist, and answered: "I will surrender it cheerfully. Mad- am, as I always do, but will beg leave tirst to ask a civil ques- tion. Are you au advocate of the modern theory of women's rights?" Bridling up with intense energj^ she replied, "Yes, sir, emphatically: I let you know that it is my glory to be de- voted to that noble cause."" "Very well. Madam." said he, ''then the case is altered: You may stand up like the rest of us men, until you cafi get a seat for yourself. "* This was exa(it poetic justice; and it foreshadows precisely the fate of their un- natural pretensions. Men will treat them as they treat each other; it will be "every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost."" There will be of course a Semiramis or a Queen Bess here and there who will h )ld her own; but the general rule will be that the "weaker vessels" will succumb; and the so- ciety which will emerge from this experiment will present w^om- an in the ])osiii(»n which she has always held among savages, that of domestic drudge to the stronger animal. Instead of be- ing what the Bible makes her, one with her husband, queen of his home, reigning with the gentle sceptre of love over her mod- est, secluded domain, and in its pure and sacred retirement per- forming the noblest work done on this earth, that of moulding infant minds to honor and piety, she will reappear from this ill-starred competition defeated and despised, tolerated only to satiate the passion, to amuse the idleness, to do the drudgery, and to receive the curses and blows of her barbarized masters. Thus will be consummated that destiny to which so many gloomy prognostics point as the allotment of the North Ameri- can continent: to be the accursed field for the final illustration of the harvest of perdition, grown from the seeding of the drag- on's teeth of infidel Radicalism. God gave the people of this land great and magnificent ''blessings, and opportunities and re- sponsibilities. They might and should have made it the glory of all lands. But they have betrayed their trust: they have abused every gift: above all have they insulted him by flaunt- ing in his face an impudent, atheistic. Ciod-defying theory of pretended human rights and human perfectibility whioh at- tempts to deny man's subordination, his dependence, his fall and native depravity, his need of divine grace. It invites mankind
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to adopt material civilizatiDii and sensual advantage as their divinity. It assumes to be able to perfect man's condition by its political, literary, and mechanical skill, despising that Gos- pel of Christ which is man's only adequate remedy. It crowns its impiety by laying its defiling hands upon the very forms of that Christianity, while with the mock affection of a Judas it attempts to make it a captive to the sordid ends of Mammon and sense. Must not God be avenged on such a nation as this? His vengeance will be to give them the fruit of their own hands, and let them be filled with their own devices. He will set apart this fair land by a sort of dread consecration to the purpose of giving a lesson concerning this gDdless philosophy, so impressive as to instruct and warn all future generations. As the dull and pes- tilential waves of the Dead Sea have been to every subsequent age the memento of the sin of Sodom, so the dreary tides of an- archy and barbarism which will overwhelm the boastful devices of infidel democracy will be the caution of all future legislators. And thus "women's rights" will assist America "to fulfil her great mission." that of being the "scarecrow'' of the nations.
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A REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S POSITIONS.
The phase of infidelity most current among thase who do not profes.s to accept the gospel is marked by two qualities: It is aggressive, and it is extreme. It refuses to stop short of that last result, blank atheism, or, at least, blank agnosticism, from which even the skepticism of previous ages recoiled with ab- h3rrence. This ultraism of the present adversaries is in one re- spect verj' shocking; but in another" it is promising. They are practically teaching the world that conclusion, on wMch James Mills justified his atheism, that when once a man's sense re- jects the gospel theory, he finds no stopping place between that rejection and atheism; because, as Bishoj) Butler has forever established, every difficulty which besets the old gospel plan equally embarrasses the deistic plan. This disclosure is use- ful. Our atheists are teaching people that there is no decent middle ground for them to stand on; but the voice of nature and conscience never permits decent people to stand long on the ground of atheism. Tliis outrages both head and heart too horribh'. Were a sjn to insist, contrary to sufficient evidence of the fact, upon denying and discarding the ver^' existence of his father, we see plainly enough how his position involves ev- ery phase of filial transgression, because it involves the abso- lute neglect of every filial duty. The position may involve, in the form af a sin of omission, the crime of parricide. The athe- ist discards the very existence of his heavenly Father; so, un- less he has justified his denial by sound evidence, he includes in that act every sin of impiety. We see here the simple reason why the good sense of mankind has always regarded atheism with moral abhorrence. But this is the creed which tlu^ assail- ants of our day prefer to urge upon us, and that with boundless
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audacity. Colonel Robert Ingersoll seems to be the leader who holds this "bad eminence" amidst this host; he seems ambitious of a large share of this dreadful responsibility. This fact justi- fies my occasional reference to his name as representing the code of opinions I ^propose to discuss.
His various essays and speeches — especially his recent large essay in the North American Revieiu — aupear to build his op- position to Christianity upon four grounds: One is composed of specific objections to points in Bible history and precept, which, he intimates, intuitively appear to him imm jral. An- other is his assertion of moral irresponsibility for opinions even upon ethical subjects. This lie claims for himself, and of course for everybody else, as the only adequate basis for freedom of thought, which we all regard as an inalienable right. A third ground is his total denial of all punitive aspect and quality in the evil consequences of free human actions. He absolutely de- nies the element of rewards and punishments in the experienced course of human existence. He says that the evils which fol- low the mistakes of our free agency are nothing but natural consequences, following from the natural laws of the universe, which are necessary and invariable; so that these experiences give no evidence whatever of a moral providence over men. His fourth and chief ground is the old cavil, how God, if there were a God, could even permissively ordain natural and moral evil in his kingdom.
I. The first class of assaults I propose to follow to a verv short distance. They could be all di-sposed of by pointing to the dense ignorance of their authors CDucerning the Bible, its real facts and its real doctrines. They are such criticisms as their authors would never have made had they read their Bibles with attention and candor. They arc all absolutely exploded by sim- ple explanations which the teachers of the church have been accustomed for generations to give even to the children of their Bible classes. It wauld be wearisome and useless to go over all of this thorouglily-trodden ground. One or two i)oiuts will serve for illustration. In general I would only remark, that it would be well for the critics to get some little knowledge of the Chris- tian literature before exposing themselves in a way both ludi- crous and pitiable, by attacking subjects about which they have been too proud to learn anything.
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For instance, we are hotl}- told by one that Joshua must have been a very wicked man, because he not only punished Aclian capitally for disobeyin«i,- a police regulation, but mur- dered his wife and children along with him. But the old testa- ment makes Joshua a very pious hero; wherefore it also is a very wicked and fjolish book. The simple and sufficient reply is, that the execution of Achan's family was none of Joshua's doings. He had no more discretion about it than about Noah's tiood. (lod was the agent, and Joshua his merely involuntary instrument. So that the moral question in the given case re- solves itself into this: Has Almighty God a right to punish a contumacious and immoral family of his creatures with death for a special wise end, death being the final just penalty of all sin? No man, after provisionally admitting the condition of this question, even for argument's sake, is silly enough to as- sert that, if there is such a God, such retribution from him would be necessarily unjust. Or. do they reinforce their cavil by saying tliere is no evidence that Achan's wife and children were accomplices in his theft? The simple reply is, that un- doubtedly God knew them to be a bad family, worthy on gen- eral grounds of his eternal displeasure. For the principle of imputatian on which this case proceeds is that God righteous- ly imputes part of the guilt of wicked parents to children, but only to wicked children.* So that we are certain the family also was vicious and disobedient. Had God punished them some years after with death, or rheumatism, or cholera, nobody who admits that there is a God, would have dreamed of im- pugning the justice of that providential dispensation. Who, then, can blame the Sovereign Judge if, for the sake of an im- portant and wise object, he anticipated the deserved punish- ment and connected it with that of the criminal head of the family? But I also deny the asserted ground of the cavil, that persons were punished along with Achan who, hov.ever other- wise sinful, were innocent of his particular breach of military orders. No doubt they were implicated- Avith him by receiving and concealing the plunder. The receiver is as bad as the thief. If there were infants in the family, death removed them to the bliss of heaven.
*Ex.xx. 5; Ezek. xviii.
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Or, they object to Joshua's iiivasioii of Palestine, and charge that his war of extermination there showed him no bet- ter than a land pirate and a murderer; and that, as the O^d Testament represents God as sanctioning these horrors, they feel intuitively it is a very wicked book. I reply, that here a very large sophism is foisted in under a very small jugglery of words. This shallow little trick consists in the phrase "God sanctioned,'' instead of "God ordained." Thus it injects into the mind this conception of tiie transaction: that after Joshua, a human sinner, who had no right to dispoise of other people's property and lives, had conceived his murderous project, God granted it his approval. Of course that would be exceedingly ugly. But the actual fact is that Joshua never conceived the plan at all. The war of extermination against the Amorites was no plan of Joshua's. There is not a particle of proof that he ever thought he as a mere man had any right to dispose of other people's property and lives. The plan of extermination was God's alone. He dictated it to Joshua. And again we say this general had no more discretion about it than he had about God's Infliction of the deluge. God's jjurpose employed Joshua as a mere executioner; and if the Sovereign Judge had a right to pass the decree, it is nonsense to blame the mere servant who was compelled to execute it. The logic of this accusation is just as silly as that of a man who, after admitting the right- eousness of the laws of New York, should call Mr. Cleveland a murderer, because when he was sheriff at Buffalo he hung some convicted assassins. Now, then, the only question in- volved in this piece of history is, whether Almighty God has the right to punish a tribe of his own creatures, whose iniquity was now full, with the death penalty. We can get a pretty accu- rate conception of what the morals of these gross idolaters had become. Their habits, like those of other advanced idolaters, were doubtless defiled by every vile excess of lust, avarice, cruelty, unnatural affections, human sacrifice, infanticide. If God has any title at all to judge the world in righteousness, he certainly had a right to rid the world of this plague spot in his own way. He had adopted another instrumentality to burn out a similar plague-spot, Sodom, and he was justified for that by Jesus, by the apostles, and every honest man that ever read the
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administrative reason for God's dealing: that he was planning to preserve a pure religion and morality in Israel, which re- (luired their effectual protection from the contamination of this pagan example.
Third, 'Colonel Ingersoll himself has been in the haibit of attacking the Bible passionately, because he found that, when candidly explained, it countenanced slavery — the Old Testa- ment actually ordaining it, and the New Testament allowing it. But inasmuch as slavery appears very abominable to his moral intuitions, this compels him to regard them as wicked books. Here, again, the critic's whole difficulty arises out of a sheer misconception. Let me ask him what that thing is which ap- pears so evil; he defines it substantially thus: the usurpation by a stronger individual at his own violent will over tlie being of 'his weaker fellow-man, whereby the victim is reduced from a human personality, with a moral responsibility and destiny, to a mere chattel, a brute possession, whose labor, happiness and very existence may then be exhausted by the usurper for his own selfish behoof. I am happy to be able to console the critic by assuring him, first, that everybody else would abhor such a relation just as he does; and, second, that the two Testa- ments, instead of ordaining or allowing it, even adjudged it just as he and I do. And here is the triumphant proof that this very conception of the usurpation which Colonel Ingersoll er- roneously supposes to be the conception of slavery, is precisely the crime which both Testaments condemn. (As in N. T. the act of the andrapoaistes, and in O. T. nogebh is/i') The Bible abhorred it so much that whilst Moses made only a few crimes capital he made this one of them; and the New Testament usual- ly recites it along with the enormous wickednesses that incur the damnation of hell. What, then, was that relation of human bondage which Closes ordained and the apostles allowed? Not the usurpation of a personal will over a fellow-creature, not the reduction of the bondman from a responsible human person to a chattel (which injustice is nowhere countenanced or excused by Holy Scripture, or by any modern Christian that ever I heard of), but it was wholly another thing, to-wit: the regular institution, by the legislatiA^e sovereignty of the commonwealth, of a personal and domestic authority for life over the involun tary labor of the bondman, who was deemed by the law unfitted
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for his awn safe control, in tlie hands of a citizen supposed by the law to be more competent, and this authority to be exer- cis:ed 'by the master under the restraints of statute law. which also treated the bondman as a responsible agent, and guaran- teed to him his life, limbs and subsistence against the aggression even of his master. Xow, it is apparent that he would be a very bold man who would undertake to argue that this relation is essentially unjust, and the code which established ir under any possible circumstances a wicked one. When arguing thus he would have to attack the righteousness of the parental author- ity over minors, and indeed every form of governmental re- straint of magistrates over individuals uat grounded in convic- tion of crime.
I have shown in these three specimens how completely they are exploded by a little tincture of Bible knowledge and common sense. I assert that all the other objections of this class can be shown to be equally worthless, but they are too numerous and trivial to detain the reader.
II. The second general ground for rejecting Christianity is the doctrine so dear to skeptics, that no man is morally respon- sible for any of the opinions which he sincerely holds. They assert that this position is the only basis for true intellectual freedom. They argue from it that our charge of sinfulness, or possibly impiety, or even our manifestation of moral disappro- val against their most extreme speculations, is unjust, and is of the nature of wicked persecution of the free-thinkers. They also argue that the Christian system is absurd, in that it makes faith its cardinal condition for enjoying God's favor, inasmuch as no man's faith has any moral character, and cannot be a subject of moral responsibility, or approval or disapproval. Colonel Ingersoll is certain that to whatever extremes of athe- ism, or even of what appears to other people blasphemy, he is really led (not feignedly) by his thinking, he is as innocent therein as a man is for the color of his hair or the height of his stature. And here is his proof: that if the evidence appears before the mind, intellectual credence is purely involuntary, be- ing the logical result of the evidence, and metaphysically neces- sitated; that such credence is exclusively the result. of intel- lectual activities of the mind, with which neither emotion nor will has anything to do; that our responsibility is limited to
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those acts of the spirit which have a voluntary source. So, he thinks, it would be as unjust to blame him for his atheistic con- clusions to w'hicli his thought has led him, as to blame a man for being wet when he has been thrown into the water.
If he were not extremely ignorant of jjliilos )phy and theol- ogy he would be aware that this is but the old sophism in psy- chology, which has been a thousand times refuted. When we hear Colonel Ingersoll assert that his anri-('lirisrian convic- tions are the fruit of his pure intellection, without any. element of emotion or will, we picture to ourselves the huge laughter of his own votaries at so vast and obvious an irony; for their own eyes and ears tell them that his agnosticism is all passion. What means that labored torrent of fiery and vindictive elo- quence with which he assails the theologians and the Bible? Do not his auditors hear him ascribe his opposition to the Scrip- tures in part to his passionate abhorrence of slavery? Do they not see hatred of Christianity and its restraints blazing amidst the whole frame-work of his pretended logic? His unbelief pure passionless intellection indeed I Why, he is incarnate pas- sion! It is supremely ludicrous 1 And we surmise that every applauder of his atheism who does any thinking is conscious of this; every one sees that there is really no logic at all in this agnostic eloquence, but it is all feeling, and it is acceptable simply because it harmonizes with the conscious hatred of his hearers against the holiness of the Bible and its restraints on their proud self-will. We have only to remember that the ob- ject of every moral judgment is a moral object which unavoid- ably engages and interests the disposition, affections and will of every rational moral agent, and all who can reason see that no moral conclusion can be a pure intellection, but that some voluntary element must enter for good or for evil into the sources of every such judgment. Xo man on earth reasons towards objects which he either likes or dislikes strongly, with the same complete intellectual impartiality with which he rea- sons about pure mathematics. If he claims that he does, it is because "a deceived heart hath turned him aside."" This is the analysis of common sense. This is the philosophy on which ev- ery sensible man in the world accounts for the multitude of these familiar facts, to-wit: that all people, while agreeing per- fectly upon the truths of mathematics and numbers, differ more
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or less upon questions of property rights, law-siiits, character, politics, medicine, and religion. It is because all these objects of thought involve elements which appeal to the feelings and the will. Now the false argument itself concedes that where a voluntary element is involved in the sources of any spiritual action, it is to that extent responsible. This is all I claim. Here is a man who has reached true conclusions on moral subjects. He is virtuous and approvable for them just to the extent to which a right heart has co-operated in his reaching them. Here is another man w^ho holds erroneous opinions on a moral sub- ject, and he is responsible and blamable therefor just to the ex- tent in which a proud and evil heart has helped to bring them about.
So absurd is Colonel Ingersoll's position that lie clearl}^ dis- closes the fact that he does not believe it himself. He claims not to be responsible or blamable for his anti-religious conclu- sions; then, of course, all the rest of us should be equally irre- sponsible for our conclusions held with similar honesty. Now here is a man whose thinking has honestly led him to this con- clusion, which he really believes from the bottom of his heart he has fairly reached, to-wit: that Colonel Ingersoll's agnosti- cism is erroneous, that it is morally blamable, that he is conse- quently responsible for it (not indeed to man, but to his God, and this is the vital distinction which guarantees to all of us all the mental and religious liberty to which we are entitled), and consequently that the reproaches suggested by this evil creed which he hurls against his (lod, and his fatal misleadin"- of his immortal fellow-men, are extremely sinful. Now, does Colonel Ingersoll view this honest conviction of mine with any of that philosophic nonchalance which he requires me to use towards his? Not he! He blames me for it extremely, as un- just to him, as tyrannical, tending towards the wickedness of persecution for opinion's sake. He fulminates his indignant rhetoric against the wrong I am doing him. He fills the atmos- phere with his complaints of me. Now this excites our huge laughter. The unbeliever himself demonstrates the absurdity of his own position, and refuses to stand on it at the first change of the case. So he teaches us he does not believe his own phil- osophy.
It is in fact impossible to be believed by anybody, because
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it involves us in absolute contradictions. If honesty in error were all that is needed to hold us innocent, truth would have no practical value above that of error. But truth has its eternal intrinsic value. Again, our decisive conclusions according to the necessary laws of our spirits direct us in our actions. It is proper that they should, or otherwise our actions might al- ways be irrational, aimless, and worthless. Now if we allow the man to lutld himself irresponsible for his moral opinions, of course we must hold him irresponsible for all the actions which they logically direct. After you have justified the tree in being the species of fruit-tree it is. you cannot blame it for bearing that species of fruit. So that this philosophy requires us to justify some of the most mischievous and abominable crimes that are done on earth. Let us see again whither it car- ries its advocate. Colonel Ingersoll knows that the slave-hold- ers were g:euerally sincere in their belief of their right; there- fore he would have to justify the slavery he so abhors. He knows that Messrs. Davis, Lee and Jackson were perfectly sin- cere in their convictions; so he must justify them in all those blows at "the life of the nation" which his patriotism abhors. Supposing the magistrates of the old-fashioned State of Dela- ware, honest and sincere in the advocacy of that antiquated stat- ute which, we are told, still makes atheistic utterances a mis- demeanor punishable at the whippingpost, and supposing the gallant Colonel's zeal for his truth to have led him to that Pauline grade of heroism which makes men glory in stripes for the truth's sake, his philosophy would require hiiu to justify those magistrates, even at the moment the constable's scourge was descending on his back. But would it'? We trow not. Again he provokes the inextinguishable laughter of the on- lookers. His theory of free thought is "unworkable."
Again, the position leads to a consequence yet worse. It is entirely possible that two sincere reasoners may reach op- posite conclusions concerning the same moral object. If each is irresponsible and innocent in his conclusion, he must be equally so in the action to which it directs him. So our phil- osopher has on his hands this strange case: A has a logical right to execute an action touching the disputed object, which B, the other party, has an equally logical and moral right to re-
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sist as a wrong to himself I 'The force of nature could no fur- ther go."
In conclusion of this head, we remind the "free-thinkers'" (whom the above argument proves to be not free-thinkers, but crazy-thinkers), that their doctrine is refuted by every analogy of nature and every experimental fact of their own observation. The natural laws which regulate the results of our free actions invariably h )ld us responsible for our erroneous opinions. When we make honest mistakes as to the stare of facts, nature makes no allowance for us, but inexorably holds us to the results of the real facts. The youth who goes sailing in a rotten boar, really supposing it to be sound, gets his ducking just the same. The farmer who exposes his grain, honestly thinking the fair weather will hold, if he proves mistaken in the weather, has his grain mildewed just as though he had wilfully neglected it. The sick man who swallows three grains of morphia, really sup- posing it to be quinine, dies just as the iutentianal suicide. But why multiply instances? We thus see universal nature repu- diates this shallow philosophy. And so we rerurn to our cou- clusion, that men are and ought to be responsible for their mor- al opinions; that the psychological reason why, is this: erron- eous moral opinions cannor be adopred by rhe rarional crearure except there be some voluntary element at work amidst these sources of the wrong judgment; and to this voluntary element blame justly attaches; that, therefore, men are justly held re- sponsible for their wrong actions, though logically dictated by their own opinions; that all penal responsibility for wrong opinions is reserved to God alone, and is never to be usurped by human beings unless those opinions be embodied in crim- inal actions; that the resistance of the errorist's fellow-men must be limited to disapprobation and argumentative refuta- tion; and thus the truth is established without opening the door to the hateful doctrine of penal persecution for opinion's sake. III. The third ground of objection, as given above, is his total denial of all punitive aspect and quality in the evil conse- quences of free human actions. He absolutely denies the ele- ment of rewards and punishments in the experienced course of human existence. He says that the evils which follow the mis- takes of our free agency are nothing but natural consequences, following from the natural laws of the universe, which are
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necessary and invariable; so that these experiences give no evi- dence whatever of a moral providence over men. Colonel In- gersoll roundly asserts that in the course of nature and ex- perience there are no punishments, but only natural consequen- ces. He also admits that the laws which dispense these conse- quences are invariable. The only possible method b}' which evil can be averted is to reform the mistakes which incurred it. The object of this strange doctrine is manifestly to escape that argument for the being and the moral providence of a God. which is written so plainly all over human events. We have two points here: First, his denial is abortive. Had he read, or read dispassionateh, the second chapter of Part I. in Bishop Butler's Analogy, he would never have written those para- graphs in which he stated his doctrine. Bishop Butler sliows by arguments which no man can refute, that the happy conse- quences of good conduct are of the nature of rewards, and evil consequences of misconduct have every trait and characteristic of true penalties, even down to the most minute; that this gen- eral law of nature is therefore a moral law as well as a natural one; that it is a disclosure of a righteous personal will above nature, and that it holds men under a moral probation for their conduct. And since this is universally true of man's moral es- tate, as soon as we learn his continued rational existence after death, the utmost probability arises, that we must meet the con- sequences of our probation in a future world as well as the present. All this follows without the light of Scripture. It is scarcely necessary to weary the reader by repeating the points of that masterly argument. It is a shame for any educated man, especially an English-speaking man, to handle this doctrine without informing himiseif of Bishop Butler's argument. No man who ever informs himself candidly of it will ever dispute its conclusions. I will, only for confirmation, make these two remarks: Every suffering transgressor in the w^orld intuitively recognizes in his own consciousness the conceptions of guilt and punishment as soon as he recognizes the causal connection be- tween his own error and the natural evil consequences. Let any such case be taken at random. Let it be, for instance, the case of a man who, by sensual excesses in the use of stimulants (alco- hol, opium, tobacco), has ruined his digestion. His reason has admitted this proposition — that his own excesses have caused
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his own suft'ei-ings. Has there ever been such a man in the woild wh3se consciousness contained only the ph^'sical feelings of pain, nausea, lassitude, and so-forth. and the self-calculated personal feelings of fear, sorrow, and so-forth? Is this all that is in his consciousness? Never. There is always the additional element of self-blame. There is always self-reproach for hav- ing done what he ought not. The man knows intuitively that he has been guilty in the case, and not merely mistaken; and that these sufferings are penal, and not merely painful. Men not seldom incur seA'ere physical sufferings in the magnanimous performance of duties, as, for instance, the faithful fireman who is burnt in rescuing human life. Xow the burn hurts him just as badly as the drunkard's gastritis hurts him; but is it possi- ble for the consciousness of these two men under the suffer- ings to be the same? Never. This brave, honest man suffers, but cannot reproach himself. This guilty sensualist also suffers, and is compelled to reproach himself. According to Colonel Ingersoll's theory, the two men ought to have the same con- sciousness. Such ftest-cases show that the human mind intui- tively, and necessarily, recagnizes those very moral elements of blameworthiness and punishment which are so rashly denied. My other remark is, that all men, when sipectators of the na- tural penalties of transgression, intuitively recognize the penal relation. What they say is always something like this: **We are sorry for him. but it serves him right"; or, "Well, the fellow has got what he deserves." Now, what does the common sense of mankind mean by these words ''right," ''desert?" We thus see that the world is against that doctrine. Colonel lugersoll is a lawyer. We would request him to attempt an explanation upon his philosophy of the penalties which civil S3ciety visits uiton secular crimes. If there is any logic in his composition, a half-hour's meditation on that problem will convince liim that his philosophy lands him in a Serbonian bog. For instance, would the conscience of mankind have universally justified such inflictions by civil society if it had not been instructed and supported by the analogy of these penalties of nature? Is not civil society itself one of the inevitable results of this constitu- tion of human nature? Yes. ilust it not follow, then, that the evils which civil society visits on secular crimes are also na- tural consequences of these natural laws, as truly so as the
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drimkard's gastritis? But tliose are avowedly penal. Once more, Colonel Inoersoll on liis theory would have to explain the imprisonment whicli he visits on a felon, as precisely parallel to the detention in a (luarantine shi]* of a virtuous citizen who has just liad the had luck to sail i-eeently from a yellow-fever port. Are tlu^ two iuHictions piecisely the same expediences for the j)ul)lir good. (M}ually unfounded on an im])utation of guilt to the sufferers? That is tlie explanation t;> which his philosophy would lead him; bur he dare not accept it. He knows that the virtuous ti'aveler is detained in spite of his in- nocence; but the felon is detained because of his guilt. He who says that the natural evils incui-red by misconduct are not penalties, but mere consequences, ought also t ) say that evils which society, itself a natural institution, inflicts on criminals are al&o mere consequences, and not just penalties. liut against this every conscience revolts.
Our second point of objection is: tliat Oolonel IngersolTs doctrine a'bout natural evils, if true, would be unspeakably harsher and moi'c it^ipulsive than tlie ( 'liristian doctrine, wliich lie thinks too harsh to be endured. For, flrst, it places us er- ring mortals not under the dominion of a righteous personal will, which is also wise, benevolent, and merciful, but under the rule of invariable natural laws. Under these, the evils which men experience, saith lie, are not penalties, but mere conse- quences. Niow a cade wliicli has no penalties of course has no pardons. There is no room in it for the conception of forgive- ness. It tells a suffering transgressor tliat. when once his mis- take is made, his suffering must be as inevitable as the attrac- tion of gravitation or the rotation ;)f the earth. Can mere na- tural law hear a prayer? Does it understand repentance? Can it feel pity? Ask the ocean storm or the devouring fire these questions. Here truly we have humanity with a vengeance I The skeptic is too humane to endure the concei:)tion of penal chastisement directed by a personal (lod, who is botli just and merciful; and to help matters, he proposes lo consign his fellow- creatures to the iron and remorseless dominion of natural law, which is equally ignorant of repentanc(\ mercy, and forgive- ness. But, he says, let the erring man reform his mistake, and thereby he will emerge from the painful conse<iuences. Is this true? Does he not know that the constant tendency of natural
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evil is to proceed to the irreparable stage? This drunkard's gastritis, for instance, even if he reforms early, is only palliat- ed, not wholly eradicated. At best he goes the rest of his life a crippled man, and death, the supreme natural evil, falls upon him at last; but in a multitude of instances the gastritis retains its virulence in spite of the reform. For all these innumerable sufferers the skeptic has only a gospel of despair. ITe tells his fellQW, "You are in the clutches of inexorable physical law; you have transgressed it; you perish."
Next, it is impossible for Colonel Ingersoll to rid either him- self or his fellow-creatures of the sentiment of moral desert in their conduct. It is at once the deepest and the keenest of hu- man sentiments. There is no craving of the human sduI so pro- found as the demand for justice to its merits, and a righting for the wrongs done to it. There is no anguish so keen, so in- consolable, as that inflicted by their refusal. Now the skeptic's theory proiposes to take these moral creatures, with these ex- quisite sensibilities, and subject them to a system of laws which neither knows nor cares anything about moral deserts. Which is about as humane as to consign the feeding, nursing, and con- solation of all the orphan, the sick, and the sorrowing children in the world to a huge steam engine. For our part, we would rather leave our orphans to an all-wise parent, who would whip them well when they deserved it, but who could also hear their prayers, understand their penitence, and forgive their way- wardness.
Once more, onr skeptic confesses that he cannot tell us whether we shall ]iv(' beyond bodily death or not. Then, for all he knows, we may. And if we do, it follows of course from his theory, that we must pass our immortal existence also un- der this blind natural code of laws, which, knowing nothing of penalties, can know nothing of pardons. When we observe the system of nature, as exjiounded by him, the clearest and most ominous feature about it is, that these evil consequences of human error aie continually tending to pass, under our own eyes, into the irreparable. The longer the career of error is con- tinued, the more certainly is this result reached. Thus the only inference from his scheme of naturalism is this, that if we should not have the luck to die like the pig or the dog, we must face the violent probability, that these "mere consequen-
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ces" of liumau error will, in everv case, become irreparable and eternal. And this is the sort of comfort gravely offered to his sinning and sorrowing fellow-men, by one wlio professes to be too humane and tender-hearted to endure the Christian sys- tem, with its divine equities, and divinely wrought grace and pardon, offered to the whole world without money and without price.
IX. But the chief ground of objection whic-h seems to pre- vail with the modern impugners of Christianity is the old one of God's permission of evil in his kingdom. It is as old as hu- man literature, having been discussed by Job, by the Psalmist, by the Greek philosophers, by Seneca, and l)y a multitude of divines of subsequent ages. The theodicy, or vindication, of God from this cavil, makes a part of almost every book on na- tural theology, and has engaged the greatest intellects of the world — as a Leibnitz, a Chalmers. Of course I profess to ad- vance nothing new. Neither is there need of doing it; for the recent school of cavillers advance nothing which has not 'been l)ondered and rejected a thousand tiuu^s before. And they dif- fer from the more thoughtful and decent skeptics of previous days only in the superficiality and insolence of their objec- tions. l>ut I will use in dealing with them a candor they do not employ in oppo.sing us. I will state the ditticulties which at- tend (jod's jiermission of evil frankly, and with all the force which even the ablest objector can claim for them.
The theistic scheme professes to demonstrate the existence, attributes, and providence of God. It says that he is self-exist- ent and the creator of all temporal beings; that he is absolutely supreme in authority; that he is of infinite knowledge and pow- er; that he is perfectly holy, and must therefore prefer holi- ness to sin in all rational creatures; and that he is infinitely benevolent as well as just. The argument is, that it is incredi- ble such a divine sovereign should freely choose the prevalence of evil in the kingdom which he made and absolutely governs, and-.especially that dreadful aggregate of remediless evil em- bodied in his hell. But if he is incapable of freely choosing such horrors they should have no ])lace in his kingdom; since his knowledge and prescience are infinite, and his will effica- cious and sovereign in his whole providence. Amidst this cir- ple of attributes, it is urged, it ought to be impossible that hell
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should find a place, not to speak of the lesser evils of our mor- tal state. The Christian apologists have been wont to offer these jjalliations: That while all these are real evils, and so repugnant in themselves to the divine nature, we actually see them made in his providence the occasions of excellent results and beautiful virtues. Evil evokes the virtue of fortitude, which would be 3ther\vise not energized. Evil trains the soul to pa- tience, submission, and heavenly-mindedness. Suffering is necessary to evoke the lovely virtue of sympathy. Hence we may hold that a benevolent God permissively ordains the evil, not for its own sake, but for the sake of those results which it occasions. This palliation our oppugners sweep aside with dis- dain. They say if your God is omnipotent, he is certainly able to W'ork all these admirable results by painless means. If he is benevolent, as you say. he must have chosen the easy means instead of the bitter, because he would thus have realized the whole aggregate of good and virtue for liis kingd3m. minus the miseries of the present plan. They confirm this point by re- minding the Christians that, according to them, there actually is a splendid order of moral creatures for whom God has done this yerj thing. The virtue and bliss of Gabriel are certainly not inferior to those promised redeemed men; for their ^proto- type ^'was made a little bwer than the angels." And the ut- most tlie Christian's Jesus dares to promise is that his re- deemed shall be as angelloi. Here, then, they urge, is a whole world of hapi>y and holy creatures, endowed with every de- sirable virtue, including sympathy and fortitude, and yet with- out any disiipline of evil. Here. then. God has actually done the thing for them without the permission of evil; why djes he not do the same thing for human creatures in the same way? Thus the caviller ''refuses to be comforted" by any such i»al- liation as this. Let us pause here and weigh this rejtly care- fully. To what extent does it really damage the theodicy ad- vanced? I candidly admit, that it does prove this class of jkiI- liations to be insufficient as a full solution of the difficulty. But I assert that the skeptic's position here is overweening and sophistical in this: when he so ingeniously cites to us the fact that God does cultivate in the elect angels, as free agents, a complete bliss and purity without the discipline of evil, he cun- ningly begs the question, whether God could succeed in this,
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not only without evil among tliem, but without evil anj'where in the universe. What mortal can certainly know but that one of the means whic-h God found necessary in the training of the elect angels, was some Avholesome example of sutferiug for sin among some other order af free agents? But unless the skeptic can certify us about this, his instance remains inconclusive. It is more important to remark, that the facts cited in the above theodicy do give us a pleasing probability, which points in the direction of God's consistency in the permission of evil. For the beautiful feature which is common in the results cited is that we here see providence bringing good out of the evil. That fact is undeniable. Does the skeptic rejoin, ''Yes, but why didn't your God bring about the whole good, minus the evil?" I grant that this solemn question is not answered. But let it be allowed for a moment, and for argument's sake, that God may see a good reason, then the fact that he does bring good out of the permitted evil will be of invaluable force to reinstate our confidence in liis infinite benevolence in the midst of the un- solved mystery.
We proceed now to the next advance in the argument of the theodicy. The theologians set up these unquestionable premises. There is no natural evil in the universe which is not the result and penalty of moral evil, that is to say, of sin. God's higher glory is to be a moral governor of rational free agents. If the creatures are to remain such they must be governed by moral inducements. Should God depart from that method he would derationalize them and reduce them to the grade of brutes. Does any skeptic desire to see that done, and the crea- tion stripped of its noblest order? Surely not. It follows, then, that God, in leaving men their free agency, must follow out punctually this plan of moral sanctions; and if his creatures choose to sin, he must needs allow the penalty to follow with the same regularity with which his rewards follow their vir- tues. Moreover, God's distributive righteousness not only jus- tifies, but requires this course from him as a moral ruler; as the chief magistrate of the universe he is actually under moral obligations to his own perfections to be impartial, even if wilful transgressors do incur deserved miseries which his benevolence wonld fain see them escape. And this view is powerfully rein- forced by the further fact, that the larger part of the penal
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evils that follow transgression have not only a judicial con- nection, but a necessary natural connection with their sins, that, namely, of effects with their efficient causes. There is a true sense in which it is not Clod that volunteers to punish sin, but it is sin which punishes itself. "He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption"' (literally perdition. ''Sin when it is finished brinjieth forth death." To sum up, then, God's permission of natural evil in the world is all accounted for by the presence of moral evil, that is to ;say. voluntary transgression, and the entrance of the moral evil is an incident liable to emerge under any moral government af free agents.
Still our skeptics '^refuse to be comforted." They retort, that the Christian scheme ascribes to God regenerative power; and that it holds that he can, and does, exercise it in a multitude ■of cases, without infringing the free agency of its subjects, or making any disruption in his general plan of governing tliem by rational and moral means. If the Christian's scheme relin- quished this claim it would commit logical suicide. For it holds that the natural heart of men fallen in Adam is invariably de- termined to self-will and ungodliness; hence if God did not ex- ercise a sovereign power of renegeratlon. he coiild never get une of them converted. They would all continue with absolute cer- taint}' to prefer the unconverted state. The scheme also claims that God has pledged himself to keep all redeemed men and elect angels in their heaven forever. But the voluntary apos- tasy of any of them must result in their exclusion from heaven. Now, therefore, if God had not the power of efficaciously de- termining their holiness without subverting their free agency, he has promised wliat he cannot be sure of performing, which would be dishonest. Once more; the Christian scheme says, that the promises of grace in answer to prayer are all yea and amen. So that if God had not this power these promises would also be uncandid. Now. then, since God has this power of pre- serving the sanctity of the unfallen, and of sovereignly regen- erating the fallen (a power which they -say he frequently exer- cises), and if he foresaw that whenever a free agent perverted himself, his 3wu high judicial obligations would require him to bring misery on that creature, if he is infinitely benevolent, and truly prefers holiness to sinfulness in his creatures, why did he not preserve them all in holiness as he is said to have preserved
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Gabriel? Or why does he uot regenerate tliem at once instead of ("oming under this painful necessity of employing penal mis- eries, which he foresees, moreover, to be futile fjr curing their sinfulness? Why does he not regenerate Satan instead of chas- tising him endlessly, and that without bettering him? Here is a parent who has a delicate child; he foresees that this child is liable to eat a certain rich but unwholesome viand with a mor- bid appetite; he foresees also that the consequences will be a colic. N »\v. tliis jiarent may be entirely unable to break the pathological connection between a surfeit and a colic; but of course he will use his superior physical strength to remove that dish beyond the child's reach. If God is a parent, why does he not act in a similar way? I take the ablest skeptics to witness that I have extenuated nothing, but have stated their difficulty as strongly as they ever state it.
There is here salemn difficulty arising from our contempla- tion of the divine providence, and the thoughtful and benevo- lent mind will recognize it most impressively. I expres&ly ad- mit also that its exhaustive solution is beyond human reach. The dread mystery which remains after all the efforts of human exiplanation is doubtless one instance of the exercise of that high prerogative of God in which he claims that secret things belong to him, but the things which are revealed belong to us and our children that we may do all the words of this law. If once the existence and attributes of God are granted, then ev- ery mind not wickedly and insanely arrogant will instantly ad- mit tliat it is reas )nable such a sovereign should liave counsels of his own. a part of which it is his just prerogative to reserve to himself. There is not an inferior chief magistrate on earth tliat does uot claim a right to the same. Moreover, it is impos- sible that God should impart a full eomprehensi:^ of his whole counsel to any mind that is finite and sinful, even if we sup- posed liim to make the effort. Omnipotence itself could not put an ocean of water into a quart pitcher. Hut because God has not succeeded in working this impossibility in the agnostic's little clouded mind he flies off in a pet, and says he will not have any God at all '. If theism is true, the plan of God's admin- istration is universal and everlasting. It must, therofore, be literally infinite. Manifestly even he cannot put another iuind in full possession of it without making that mind also infinite.
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Whence it strictly follows that if these questioners could be gratified by giving them a religion without a mystery, verily they "should be as gods." (The Bible reader knows the satanic origin of that ambition.) This simple argument for modesty of thought in our theology is powerfnlly reinforced by another great fact, which is, that our acquaintance with all other sci- ences is conditioned and limited in precisely the same way. And every intelligent man knows that this is especially true of those physical sciences which the agnostics love to put in contrast with theology for superior clearness and certitude. I would like to know how it is that they are all perfectly willing to be- lieve in the sciences of phjsics, chemistr^^, botany, zoology, as- tronomy, notwithstanding the insoluble mysteries involved in each, and refuse theism because of its mystery, when they ought to know that this is the very science in which the largest mys- teries must reasonably be expected. Is it because they have a special dislike to the God whom theism discloses, sharpened by the apprehension that he has a just dislike for them? Let it be settled, then, that the real question in debate is not whether anybody can clear up the whole mystery of God's per- mission of evil, but whether that mystery justifies anybody in repudiating his heavenly Father, and all the duties he owes to him, which are the highest and holiest duties of his being.
Next, it must be settled which party is logically' bound to assume the burden of proof on this question. I shall now show that it is the aginostic's. For why? Because the theist is in IJossession of all the rightful presumptive probabilities on the other side. The law gives every indicted man the right to as- sume his presumptive innocency, and throws the burden of the proof of his guilt upon the accuser. So here the facts pre- viously demonstrated, or at least rendered presumably prob- able in this theistic in(|uiry, all give the theist the right to the initial presumptive. For instance, "the earth is full of the good- ness of the Lord," that is, the a posteriori marks or signs of the divine benevolence appear in every department of creation and human experience. The whole structui-e of the human faculties presents the most beautiful evidences of the benevol- ence of "the Father of our spirits." Here is one point among many: The psychologist finds in the human spirit a class of affections called the malevolent affections, that is, their prac-
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tical objective impulse is to liurt somebody; but they all have this invariable trait in addition — even the few among them which are sometimes justifiable — that they are also painful to the person that feels them. There is a large opposite class call- ed the benevolent affections; their objective impulse is to do good to somebody, and these have this invariable trait, thai they are pleasant in their exercise to the persons who feel them. He is wilfully blind who cannot see the design of this pair of general facts. It is obviously to discourage and limit all hurt- ful human actions, and to stimulate and reward all beneficent human actions. In other words, the franier of our spirits is be uevolent. But the most extensive and grandest disclosure the- ism makes about God is of his righteousness, jiind that both in natural and revealed theology. The ways of providence are always so devised that virtue is practical beneficence, and vice 'practical maleficence. Therefore when theology tell us that God likes the former and hates the latter more than he likes or hates anything else, it is but saying he is supremely benevolent. But we must not pursue this delightful line of argument.
Another great class of facts which authorize us to throw the burden of proof upon the accusers of God's providence, is that while he mysteriously permits evils, it is his dearest pre- rogative to bring good out of those evils. Are we to hold, then, that God's mysterious permission of evil has in his mind some sufficient ground, both just and benevolent, though above the reach of human comprehension'/ I say. Yes. Colonel lugersoll saj-s, Xo. Here is the issue clearly made up by the jjleadings. Xow I say I am entitled to hold my side as presumptively true until it is positively disproved. I say the burden of proof lies on him. He must assume it or the court will properly dismiss the case. The court says to him: "Mr. Prosecutor, you undertake to prove that an infinite God cannot have a conscious ground for his voluntary permission of evil in his kingdom which satisfies him as both just and benevolent. You must do all that, sir, or we will put you out of court. Your opponent, the theist, is under no more obligation to prove what that ground is than a citizen indicted for horse-stealing is bound to prove affirm- atively that he did not steal the horse. He is entitled to stand on the defensive; the prosecutor must prove that he did steal the horse or he has no case. Sir, your duty here is similar."
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But what sort of testimony will this accuser need iu order to prove that atfirmative? ^Mauifestlv it must be a testimony which explores the whole extent of God's omniscience, and his whole eternal providence toward the universe; otherwise it will be a dead failure; for the defense will rejoin, that it is sup- posable alwaj's that God has seen his sufficient reason fur his permission of evil in that portion of his infinite counsel and providence left unexplored by the witness. The accuser has as yet done nothing etTectual to exclude the presumptive hyp )i he- sis that God may be justifiable; but this is what he undertook to do. He will say, perhaps, that his witnesses have proved so much namely: that God has full physical power to make and keep all his creatures holy and happy, so that he cannot justify himself in his permission of evil (as the Pelagian proposes he shall), by the plea of inability. Let the accuser say that God did not find the obstacle in the way of making his universe all holy and happy in a lack of personal power. Granted. But. may not his infinite mind have seen a proper obstacle in some other quarter? That is the question. The man who under- takes to deny that ought to be omniscient himself. In other words, the accuser has undertaken an impossible task. He has rashly undertaken to establish affirmatively a proposition which none but infinite beings would be competent to discuss. The decree of the court therefore is, ''The indictment is not proved."'
To this extent, then, the providence of God is not convicted of wrong. I again admit candidly that its solemn mystery re- mains, and a questioning mind is not yet furnished with an ex- haustive solution.
There is a species of argutntnium ad hominem, which, the books on logic tell us, is unfair. It consists iu attempting to transfer some odium attaching to the adversary from his person to his proposition and argument. I shall not use that form. There is another kind which consists in holding the opponent bound to any inconvenient or absurd consequences which pro- ceed logically out of his positions, though we ourselves do not concede those positions. This kind is perfectly fair. The Sa- viour himself used it against the Pharisees. I am entitled to use it in this debate.
In this direction my first point is the following: The prac- tical point of the cavil against God's permission of evil is, that,
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if there is a God, he is culpable for it. He i.s exceediii«»ly hlaui- able far all tlii.s misery which should have been prevented by him. That is to say, the caviller is altoji'ether in sympathy with these creature sufferers as against their hard master. Of course, ihcn, this humane and sympathizing caviller is doing everything- in his power to minimize the hardships so blamably inflicted upon his fellow-creatures. Of course he is steadily devoting his best energies, his time, talents, and money, to repairing the cruelties which this bad God has let loose upon po;)r fellow- mortals, to comforting the sorrowful, to supplying their desti- tutions, and especially to removing their ignorance and vices ;in(l irrcligion, which he knows to be the pracrical j)roxiniate cause of so much of these pitiable sorrows. Of course this just accuser thinks he has no money to waste upon the pomps and luxuries of life, no time for any needless amusements, no time or talent ta expend upon personal ambitions or any selfish aim. Of course he husbands all conscientiously for the sacred object of minimizing these evils of human existence, and mending so much as may be mended of the neglects of this cruel God. If he does not, is he not himself like the cruel God? Is not this accusation of (xod, coming from such as he. too much like "Satan reproving sin?'' Does this agnostic waste any money upon Havana cigars and costly wines, which he would be better without ; upon expensive architecture and furniture, where he sees more honored men than himself do with plainer; upon par- tisan political campaigns, which, whichever way they go, only leave the country more corrupt — sacred moneA' which might have been used to ease the sick of their agonies, to feed the starving, to wipe the tears from the face of the orphan, to make the desolate widow's heart sing for joy, to dissipate the ignor- ance and vice and ungodliness from the heart of the yauth wlio must otherwise reap the harvest of temporal perdition from these seeds? I bring no charge; but I submit that, unless the agnostic is truly acting in this i)hilanthropic way, decency should close liis mouth. For shame's sake let him not blame God for the results of a neglect which he himself practices.
The most probable rejoinder of the agnostic will be, that he sees the majority of the professed Christians also practicing this unphilanthropic neglect. My answer is, that I admit with sorrow that it is partly true. It is also true that nearly all the
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great and blessed charities of this poor world come from these imperfect Christians. How much of them comes from agnos- tics? I do not know. But let that pass. My w'ord to the agnos- tic is this: sujjpose we let this good exalted God alone, and turn all the blows of our criticisms on these inconsistent Cliiistians. I sa}' to the agnostic, with all m\' heart, "Lay it on them well; but let alone the heavenly Father whom they misrepresent."
My second point is this: When we showed in defense of the divine providence that, supposing free agents choose to sin, their suffering ought to follow, and must follow, because judi- cial fidelity requires it, and because sin is suffering; the reply of the agnostic was this: that if there is a God, he must have foreseen that, and he ought to have felt bound to protect his moral creatures from sinning by making their souls holy, or else regenerating them when they made themselves unholy. And we saw that this is really the agnostic's final stand in this contest. I will' now ask a typical agnostic, say Colonel Inger- soll, "Sir, how 'would you like God to regenerate you?" Per- haps he will seek to evade me by answering, "But I do not now believe there is any God or regeneration." "Yes; but suppos- ing you did believe them, how would you like to be regenerated 3-ourself? *Stay, do not answer till I tell you what this means. Regeneration means a complete revolution of the principles and ends of life. It means surrendering ambition and worldinesss for spiritual good. It means the absolute subjugation of self- will under a superior and sovereign will, which will order you to obey and ask no questions. It means a thoroughgoing cru- cifixion of natural pride. It means the instant surrender of all cherished sins. It means the honest assumption for the whole remaining life of a career of new duties, many of which are known to be repugnant, and all arduous. It means praying, and Bible-reading, and watching one's self. It means, in a word, taking up for life the yoke of a complete self-denial and self- surrender. Regenerate persons will tell you that still they have found a new species of spiritual happiness in this arduous cross-bearing. But that pleasure is to you purely visionary, as you never felt anything like it. The Bible also tells you that this regeneration will finally bring you, after a severe disci- pline, the happiness of heaven. But that is all out of sight to you, lying beyond the boundaries of this world, which now en-
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close all your wishes and aspirations — so completely enclose them that you remain in doubt whether it would not be better for you to die like a pig than to have any future world. Now, Sir, you told us there was a time when you had a speculative be- lief in Ood and his gospel. At that time how would you have liked this regeneration for yourself? You know very well that you disliked and resisted it with every fibre ,of your heart. Sometimes when conscience seemed to be leading you towards it, you recalcitrated, silently perhaps, but with the stubbornness 'Of a w'ild bull in a net. You jealously cherished your self-will, your pride, your worldliness. You would have blushed to have been caught praying. One chief source of that secret but in- veterate enmity which your heart cherished toward the gospel was just this: that it required of you such a regeneration and also offered it to you as a boon. Well, you are the same man yet in heart. The child has been father to the man. Could I re-convince your speculative intellect that thi/S gospel which you have discarded is true, the desperate repugnance to its re- generation would doubtless revive in you. Kemember, now, that we have agreed that there was one final method feasible for God, by using which he could have rescued all his creatures effectually from all moral and physical evil, namely, the regen- eration I have described; and the very gravamen of your accu- sation against God is that he ought to employ that method in every case, but does not. But, lo! when this kind God comes to you and says, 'Ingersoll, let me take you at your w^ord; let me regenerate you, here and now, and thus bestow on you this glorious and eternal security,' you are violently opposed to his doing it. Here is the one and only way which remained to God for avoiding the permission of any evil in his kingdom, and to this way you have as to yourself a violent objection. There is one medicine with which God could have cured the whole mat- ter. You have been blaming him vehemently because he has not administered it to everybody; but when he offers the cup to you, you repel it with abhorrence. Do not you think. Sir, that for shame's sake it is time for you to stop blaming him?" I have just asserted the innate enmity of the human heart to God's law. Here is a consideration which has a vital influ- ence on this discussion, but for which agnostics never make allowance. Yet, ^'whether they will hear, or whether they will
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forbear," it is the right of the Christian pursuing this discus- sion, and his high duty, to bear his serious testimony to this indisputable fact of human nature. The point it contains is very plain, that a person who has a fixed and wrongful hatred to a government cannot be a just and correct critic of it. Wliat man endued with common sense will gainsa}- that? And the agnostics stubbornly refuse this caution and protest their im- partiality, when to everybody else but themselves their invet- erate hostility to the holiness of God's law is apparent! But I claim mare. We are all voluntary culprits. We are all obnox ious to the displeasure of the divine Judge. If his grace does not arrest us we all continue pertinacious transgressors, and this justifies his continued retributions. Now, ever}' item of that aggregate of misery which presents the pretext of the cavil, is the just judicial consequence of the creature's own voluntary sin. There is not a pang of natural evil in the moral universe which is not the appropriate fruit of transgression. Hence, however hard to bear that natural evil may be, the culprits are certainly not the parties that are entitled to accuse the govern- ment. As soon as they appreciate their own guilt they always learn that this is outrageously unseemly. If any criticism of the divine management is to be made by any finite intellect, it ought to be at least an unfallen intellect, without sin of its own. The effectual way, then, of terminating these indict- ments of God would be for the agnostics to learn the real qual- ity and aggravations of their own sins of heart, nature, and life. And could I teach them this, I should be conferring on them the most inestimable blessing. Not only would this sinful de- bate end absolutely, but this righteous humiliation of their own spirits would prove to them the beginning of everlasting good. Job was tempted to be an agnostic, and to make tedious efforts to argue himself into the assertion of God's harshness. His ef- fectual cure came only when he was compelled to say: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." The best wish I can otfer to all the agnostics is, that they may become honest enough with themselves to look fairly at God until they appreciate his infinite sovereignty, wis- dom, justice, and benevolence, and learn in the light of his holi- ness to see the exceeding sinfulness of their own sin. All this
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debate will then be happily ended for tliem as well as for us.
One more point remains of this branch of my reply. I make it by asking them what will be gained for them and their fel- low-men if they establish their indictment? What will they have proved? This: that the theistic scheme of the universe is incredible, because of the prevalence in it of this dreadful mass of natural and moral evil. That is, the doctrine of a personal, rational God is abolished. What hypothesis of the universe is left us? Only the materialistic and mechanical one. The flow of events in the universe is not directed by any personal or moral will at all. (Certainly our wills are impotent to control it.) All is governed by natural laws, which can mean nothing more than the irrevocable methods of blind natural forces. These forces are unknowing and reasonless; they are resistless; they are eternal; they are unchangeable. They can no more be prayed to than the whirlwind can. Thus the agnostic, in re- jecting theism, unavoidably gives us the scheme of a universal mechanical fate. His universe is but an immense machine.
Now, I solemnly ask him: By forcing upon us this ghastly doctrine, has he diminished one iota of this volume of miseries, the conception of which so distresses us all? Does he stop the flow of a single tear? Does he arrest a single pang of disease? Does he diminish by one unit the awful catalogue of deaths? Does he take anything from the reality of any single human bereavement? Is there one particle of agency in this doctrine to check in any soul that sinfulness which is the spring of all our woes? None. Even agnostic arrogance does not dare to claim it. On his scheme every evil which he so bitterly objects against Grod's scheme remains. All that he has done is to rob sufi'ering humanity of its sole true consolation, which is found in that fact the gospel alone shows us, that it is the darling prerogative of the Father of mercies to bring good out of this sore evil for all who will accept his grace and make it work out, bitter as it may be now, "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Thus their doctrine can take nothing from the miseries of mankind; all it can do is to rob men of the only possible solace, and to tell them while they suffer that their woes are as futile of better results as they are inevitable. In a word, they give us as the true conception of our existence this somber picture, which F. D. Strauss substantially avows at the
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end of his great agnostic argument. Our world is a huge and terrible machine of stone and iron; its motive jiower eternal, resistless, and blind; its revolutions impossible to be ever ar- rested or changed in the least, and the corn between its upper and nether millstones is an ever-flowing stream of human hearts, with all their precious affections and hopes and keen sensibilities, bleeding and crushed under the remorseless grind. And to the yawning jaws of this hellish mill each one of us knows he is traveling, and must be caught by them sooner or later.
And this is the scheme pressed upan us by gentlemen who affect too much humane sensibility to endure the harsh injustice of God's gospel! What, is this scheme rejected for this doc- trine of despair? I repeat, it is the one which, while it recog- nizes God's holy sovereignty and right to punish sin, and to keep in his own breast the dread secrets of his infinite purpose, teaches us his wise, merciful, and holy control over this terrible blind machine of nature, and offers to all who do not contuma- ciously reject his goodness an almighty redemption which ter- minates these sufferings of time into eternal blessings. May God save us all from such humanity as that of the agnostics I
Proceeding now to a more independent line of attack. I re- quest the reader to inspect the process of the agnostic's logic at its cardinal place. It is simply thisr the line of argument for the being, attributes, and providence of God leads him up to a great mystery, which cannot be fully resolved for him. What then? He will stop and weigh the amount of validity it may contain, notwithstanding the mystery in its conclusion. Now, all men would deem this mere logical lunacy if applied to any other line of evidence. We know very well that evidence ap- parently valid which leads to an inevitable self-contradiction is defeated by its own result, whether we can put our finger upon its flaw or not. We justly claim that it cannot be correct. This, in fact, is the quality of the disi»roof of an argument by the re- ductio ad absurdum. But manifestly the case which the agnos- tic has made against theism is wholly different. A mystery in our conclusion is not a necessary self-contradiction; that it can- not be shown to be such, follows from the very fact that it is a mystery. Since we cannot comprehend it, we cannot assert its contradictoriness. And this I confirm by the assertion that ev-
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cvy other Hue of scientific evidence, in every department of hu- man Ivnowledge, leads sooner or later to some such insoluble mj^stery. So that, if the agnostic's method of procedure against theism were proper, he ought to reject every science known to man and announce himself an absolute ignoramus.
For instance, what physicist can answer this question: What is electricity? There is good and sufficient empirical evi- dence that this mysterious energy exists; but what is it? Why does it imbue some material bodies and not others? Why do only a few conduct it fully? If it is ponderable matter, why cannot the chemist weigh it in his most delicate scales? If it is not, how does it hit hard enough to rive the gnarled oak? Every good physicist knows he cannot answer these questions. Every agnostic, then, ought to say, if he will be consistent, and proceed in physics as he does in theology, "I will have none of this science of electricity. I will not avail myself of its con- veniences, lightning-rod, telegraph, electric light, electric mo- tors. I will not believe in electricity; even if the lightning strikes me I will not believe in it." The intelligent reader knows that if I cared to detain him, I could cite instances equal- ly pungent from every one of those physical sciences which ag- nostics love to place in contrast with theology for their superior clearness. Now my point is, that no man can proceed upon this wilful method, which the agnostics would have us apply to the theistic argument, without incurring the charge of lunacy. But they ought to be more willing to apply that wanton method in physics than in theology; because in the latter we have more ground to expect mysteries from the infinitude of the Being whom we study. When a line of evidence leads a sensible man to a startling and mysterious conclusion, what does he do? He would be prompted to revise the evidence carefully. That is all. If he finds it valid, he admits the conclusion in spite of the mj'stery. The sensible man bestows credence upon any propo- sition in any science, not because he comprehends the predicate, but because he apprehends perspicuous evidence supporting the copula. Now the several lines of evidence, rational and scrip- tural, for the being, attributes, and providence of God, are of invincible force; they cannot be resisted in their own appro- priate spheres. Every successive attempt to weaken them in that way perishes under the light of true philosophy. I con-
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elude this point by firmly asserting that agnostics have no right thus to discount the whole force of this evidence, treating it as nju-existent. when it has so substantial an existence, not be- cause they can refute it, but simply because they do not like its result. The process is utterly illicit.
Superficial opponents of God's retributive justice frequent- ly argue that this is a different attribute from his love, and in- deed so antithetic that they cannot find a place for it in a na- ture declared to be infinite love. A little correct thinking will show that this reasoning is not only groundless, but absurd. In fact, the principle of righteousness in every moral being is not dual, but single. The plurality of its actions arises solely from the contrast of the objects to which the principle directs itself. The magnetic needle in the compass is endued with one energy or magnetic principle, not two. This single energy will cause either end of the needle to act in opposite ways to the two opposite poles of the earth; and because the upper end is at- tracted towards the north pole, for that very reason it is re- pelled from the south pole. I prove it by this fact, that it is impossible to make a needle such that its upper end would be attracted to the north pole and not repelled from the south pole. Should any sailor tell you that he had such a needle, nobody would believe him. This instance presents us with a correct parallel to the action of the moral principle in a moral agent. The principle is and can be only one. It acts in opposite ways towards virtuous and vicious objects, because it is one, and 'be- cause it rationally appreliends the objects as opposites. Hence it follows, that this central principle would not be capable of acting in the amiable way of approbation, complacency and re- ward towards a virtuous object, unless it were certain from its own nature to act in the opposite and severer way of reprehen- sion towards towards a vicious and repulsive object. I repeat, that unless this principle is so constituted as to repel the re- pulsive action, it cannot be so constituted as to be attracted to the attractive action. One might as well talk of a yard-stick with only one end, or of a house with its south side, and no north side. Every man when he thinks knows that this is the condition upon whicli all correct moral principle exists, and he is incredulous about any other. Let me construct a little para- ble. I ask the agnostic, or the universalist, to come with me
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aud watch the proceedings of a certain stranger, of whom all we know as jet is that he claims a high reputation for amiability, philanthropy, equity and charity. He tells us that it is a peren- nial pleasure to him to witness and reward all benevolent and generous actions. I say to him. ^'Stranger, so far, well. I must now point you an opi)osite object. There stands a young repro- bate, the son of a devoted widowed mother, who is known to have robbed her of her little property, to neglect her wants in her destitution, to heap reproaches and curses upon her. and even to strike her venerable face. What are your feelings towards that object?" We suppose the stranger to answer, "Oh, sir, I assure you I am too thoroughly amia^ble to have any feel- ing about it. True, I see nothing in it to admire, but I am too affectionate to detest anything. I have no feeling at all towards that reprobate." I ask, would anybody believe him? Or, if we believe his statement that he felt no reprehension for so de- testable a son, must we not set him down also as a cold-blood- ed villain, whose pretended charity was all sheer hypocrisy? Such is the judgment of every man's common sense.
Let us pass now from the virtuous principle in man to God. I assert that my argument only 'becomes the stronger. The perfectness of God's virtues only renders it more conclu- sive, because the purity, the equity, the truth, the love of God are infinite. It is therefore only the more certain that the cen- tral principle which makes him approve and love the virtuous must prompt him to reprehend the vicious. Men vainly imag- ine that it would be a delightful theology to have a God so amiable as to be sure to reward all good things. Taut also too amiable to be capable of punishing any evil thing. They de- mand an impossibility. The only way to reach it would be to have a God without any moral qualities at all. Who would wish to live under an omniscient and omnipotent Ruler who was not capable of knowing or caring whether he was reward- ing the wicked and punishing the good? If we must desire such moral principle in our Supreme Ruler as will be always certain of acting amiably and justly towards the good, then w^e must be willing that he shall be equally certain to repre- hend the wicked. If they would have a God too amiable to maintain a hell, they must accept one who is also too careless and heartless to provide any heaven.
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Does oue say that still the mysterj' of Grod's permission of evil is not fully explained? I did not promise to explain it fully, which I believe will never be done in this world. What I pr3mised was to satisfy the just and humble mind that God has his sufficient explanation, which we are sure is consistent with his wisdom, benevolence, and holiness, without knowinj]j what it is. Natural theology gives sufficient ground for this consoling conclusion from its splendid evidences that he is all- wise, righteous, and benevolent, which have their prepander- ating force notwithstanding the unanswered question, and es- pecially from this important trait, which runs through the whole mystery, that the plan of his providence is to bring good out of the evil.
But revealed theology gives us a crjwning and all-sulfi- cient satisfaction. It is found in the fact that Grod is so in- finite in benevolence and mercy, that at his own mere option he has made tin? supreme sacrifice for the redemption of his enemies. He provides this infinite blessing for them at the cost of the humiliation and death of his eternally begotten and co-equal Sou, whom he knows to outrank, in the dimen- sions of his infinite being and in his moral desert, all his ra- tional creatures combined together. The gospel tells us that this transcendent sacrifice will not redeem the apostate an- gels, and will not receive full application to all human beings. These are awful truths. But. be the cause of this limitation found where it may, it cannot be sought in any lack or stint of goodness in God. For had there been any such stint in his nature, one fibre of neglect, or injustice, or cruelty, this would inevitably have prevented thf supreme sacrifice for the behoof of any one. There is the triumphant theodicy in the infinite love which prompted redemption — redemption as apprehended by the evangelical triuitarian. There, no doubt, is the supreme glory of this gospel by which the apostle tells us God is mak- ing known to all worlds his manifold wisdom through the church of ransomed men. I will set forth the point of this argument in a closing parable. We see a surgeon enter a dwell- ing. A mother calls to her pallid, limping child, and seizes her in her arms. The surgeon produces one of those treacher- ous cases — so beautiful without with their ornamented woods and gilded clasps, so terrible within with the cold glitter of
538 THE LATEST INFIDELITY.
forceps, bistouries, amputating-lmives, aud bone-saws. The child beholds with wide-eved wonder and then with terror, ere she perceives that these instruments are to be employed on her body. As the surgeon approaches she appeals to her mother with agonizing screams and tears: "Oh, mother, mother, save me!" But we see the woman, with stern eye, compressed lips, and pallid cheek, bare the child's swollen joint, and hold her struggling in her relentless arms, w^hile the cruel knife cuts the tender skin, carves the bleeding flesh, and pierces even to the very marrow of the diseased joint. Is this a mother or a tig- ress? The simple explanation is, that she is a true mother, wise and tender, who knows that this severe remedy is needed to save the precious life of her child, who would otherwise be the victim of a slow, loathsome, and torturing death. Has she not shown the truest love? and has not her fidelity cost her in- ward pangs of sympathy more cruel than the bodily smart of the surgery, which she has lieroically borne for love's salce? But now stei)s forward the caviller, and says: ''Stop, this w^onian is herself a wondrous leech. She knows all healing lo- tions, and all the herbs of virtue, some of which would have cured the diseased limb without a pang while the child slept; or, at least, she could have secured for her child the uncon- sciousness wiiich chloroform gives during the operation. Why, then, did she not use the gentler means to save this life, when she had them at her option? No, she must ibe intrinsically cruel and heartless. She must find pleasure in the gratuitous suffering of her own child." I am compelled to reply: "I do not know her reasons. Her social station is far above mine. She has never taken me into her domestic confidence. I had no right to demand that she should. But I can testify to auotlier fact. A few months ago the cry of fire drew me to a dwelling not far from this place which was wrapped in flames, and evi- dently near the final crash. The parents had (been busy rescu- ing their children, and, for the moment, supposed they had saved them all. But a cry issued from another window. A lit- tle white-robed figure was seen at it through the eddying smoke, crying: 'Father, mother! O save me.' All declared that it was too late. Even the father, amidst his bitter tears, acquiesced. But I saw the mother tear herself from the restraining hands of the firemen, who told her that any effort at rescue was mad-
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ness aud suicide, leaving tlie shreds uf lier raiiueut in their clutches, aud dart up the fuming stairway. The stern men turned their faces away from the horror and stood wringing their hands. But in a minute the woman returned, her sill^en tresses bhizing, her garments on fire, one of her fair cheeks scorched, shrivelled by the blast, one eye blistered in the socket, but with her child in her arms wrapped safely in a blanket. After only pausing to extinguish the flames that were threat- ening her life, I saw her fall on her knees, and say: 'Thank God; I have saved my child.' Pass around this lady's chair, Mr. Caviller, you will see upon the other side of her face the scars of that rescue which, in one moment, blighted the beauty of her young motherhood for life. This is that mother; and this is the same child. Now, sir, I cannot satisfy your curiosity about the disuse of the chloroform, but I know tMs 'heroic mother's heart has its reason. For why? Because I saw her make the supreme sacrifice for this child. After such a demon- stration of boundless love, your cavil is impertinent, if not brutal."
THE ATTRACnONS OF POPERY.
1)1-. Joliu H. Kice. with the intuition of a gix'ixi mind, warn- ed Presbyrei-iaus against a renewed prevalence of popery in our Protestant land. This was when it was so insignificant among us as to be almost unnoticed. Many were surprised at his pro- phecy, and not a few mocked; but time has fulfilled it. Our leaders from 1830 to 1860 understood well the causes of this danger. They were diligent to inform and prepare the minds of their people against it. Hence General Assemblies and Synods appointed annual sermons upon popery, and our teachers did their best to arouse the minds of the people. Now, all this has mainly passed away, and we are relaxing our resistance against the dreaded foe just in proportion as he grows more formidable. It has become the fashion to condenm controversy and to affect the widest charity for this and all other foes of Christ and of souls. High Presbyterian authority even is quoted as saying, that henceforth our concern v.ith Romanism should be chiefly irenicall The figures presented by the census of 1890 are con- strued in opposite ways. This gives the papists more than four- teen millions of adherents in the United States, where ninety years ago there were but a few thousands. Such Protestamt journals as think it their interest to play sycophants to public opinion try to persuade us that these figures are very consoling ;g because, if Kome had kept all the natural increase of her immi- grations the numbers would have been larger. But Rome points to them with insolent triumph as prognostics of an assured vic- tory over Protestantism on this continent. Which will prove correct?
Both logic and Holy Writ teach us that "the thing which hath been is the thing which shall be." Like c^iuses must be expected to produce like effects. For Presbj'terians of all oth- ers to discount the perpetual danger from Romanism is thor- oughly thoughtless and rash. We believe that the Christianity
1 Appeared in The Presbyterian Quarterly, April, 1894. 540
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left by the apostles to the primitive church was essentially what we now call Presbyterian and Protestant. Prelacy and popery speedily began to work in the bosom of that community and steadily wrought its corruption and almost its total extirpa- tion. Why should not the same cause tend to work the same result again? Are we truer or wiser Presbyterians than those trained by the apostles? Have the enemies of truth become less skillful and dangerous by gaining the experience of centuries? The popish system of ritual and doctrine was a gradual growth, which, madifying true Christianity, first perverted and then ex- tinguished it. Its destructive power has resulted from this: that it has not been the invention of any one cunning and hos- tile mind, but a gradual growth, modified by hundreds or thou- sands of its cultivators, who were the most acute, learned, sel- fish, and anti-Christian spirits of their generations, perpetually retouched and adapted to every weakness and every attribute of depraved human nature, until it became the most skillful and pernicious system of error which the world has ever known. As it has adjusted itself to every superstition, every sense of guilt, every foible and craving of the depraved human heart, so it has travestied with consummate skill every active princi- ple of the gospel. It is doubtless the ne plus ultra of religious delusion, the final and highest result of perverted human facul- ty guided 'by the sagacity of the great enemj-.
This system has nearly conquered Christendom once. He who does not see that it is capable of conquering it again is blind to the simplest laws of thought. One may ask. Does it not retain sundry of the cardinal doctrines of the gospel, mon- otheism, the trinity, the hypostatic union, Christ's sacrifice, the sacraments, the resurrection, the judgment, immortality? Yes; in form it retains them, and this because of its supreme cun- ning. It retains them while so wresting and enervating as to rob them mainly of their sanctifying power, because it designs to spread its snares for all sorts of minds of every grade of opinion. The grand architect was too cunning to make it, like his earlier essays, mere atheism, or mere fetishism, or mere polytheism, or mere pagan idolatry ; for in these forms t?he trajj only ensnared the coarser and more ignorant natures. He has now perfected it and baited it for all types of humanity, the most refined as well as the most imbruted.
542 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
I. Romanism now enjoys in our country certain important advantages, whicli I may style legitimate, in this sense, that our decadent, half-corrupted Protestantism bestows these advan- tages upon our enemy, so that Rome, in employing them, only uses what we ourselves give her. In other words, there are plain points upon which Rome claims a favorable comparison as against Protestantism; and her claim is correct, in that the latter is blindly and criminally toetraying her own interests and duties.
(1.) A hundred years ago French atheism gave the world the Jacobin theory of political rights. The Bible had been teaching mankind for three thousand years the great doctrine of men's moral equality before the universal Father, the great basis of all free, just, and truly republican forms of i-ivil so- ciety. Atheism now travestied this true doctrine by her mor- tal heresy of the absolute equality of men, asserting that every human 'being is naturally and inalienably entitled to every right, power, and prerogative in civil society which is allowed to any man or any class. The Bible taught a liberty wiiich con- sists in each man's unhindered privilege of having and doing just those things, and no others, to which he is rationally and morally entitled. Jacobinism taught the liberty of license — every man's natural right to indulge his own absolute will; and it set up this fiendish caricature as the object of sacred worship for mankind. Now, democratic Protestantism in t'hese United States has become so ignorant, so superficial and wilful, that it confounds the true republicanism with this deadly heresy of Jacoibinism. It has ceased to know a difference. Hence, when the atheistic doctrine begins to bear its natural fruits of li- cense, insubordination, communism, and anarchy, this bastard democratic Protestantism does not know how to retouke them. It has recognized the parents; how can it consistently condemn the children? Now, then, Rome proposes herself as the stable advocate of obedience, order, and permanent authority through- out the ages. She shows her practical power to govern men, as she says, through their consciences (truth would say, through their superstitions). Do we wonder that good citizens, begin- ning to stand aghast at these elements of confusion and ruin, the spawn of Jacobinism, which a Jacobinized Protestantism cannot control, should look around for some moral and reli-
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 543
gious system capable of supporting a firm social order? Need we be surprised that when Rome steps forward, saving, "I have been through the centuries the upholder of order," rational men should be inclined to give her their hand? This high advantage a misguided Protestantism is now giving to its great adversary. (2.) The Reformation was an assertion of liberty of thought. It asserted for all mankind, and secured for the Prot- estant nations, each man's right to think and decide for himself upon his religious creed and his duty towards his God, in the fear of Grod and the truth, unhindered by human power, politi- cal or ecclesiastical. Here, again, a part of our Protestantism perverted the precious truth until the "manna bred warms, and stank." Rationalistic and skeptical Protestantism now claims, instead of that righteous liberty, license to dogmatize at the bidding of every caprice, every impulse of vanity, every false philosophy, without any responsibilit}' to either truth or moral obligatian. The result has been a diversity and confusion of pretended creeds and theologies among nominal Protestants, which perplexes and frightens sincere, 'but timid, minds. Ev- erything seems to them afloat upon this turbulent sea of licen- tious debate. They are fatigued and alarmed; they see no end of uncertainties. They look around anxiously for some safe and fixed foundation of credence. Rome comes forward and says to them, You see, then, that this Protestant liberty of thaught is fatal license; the Protestant's ''rational religion" turns out to be but poisonous rationalism, infidelity wearing the mask of faith. Holy Mot'her Church offers you the foundation of her infallibil- ity, guaranteed by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. She shows you that faith must ground itself in implicit submission, and not in human inquiry. She pledges herself for the safety of your soul if you simply submit; come, then, ''trust and be at rest." Many are the weary souls who accept her invitations; and these not only the weak and cowardly, but sometimes the 'brilliant and gifted, like a Cardinal Xewmau. For this result a perverted Protestantism is responsible. If all nominal Prot- estants were as honest in their exercise of mental liberty as the fear of God and the loj-alty to truth should make them; if they were as humble and honest in construing and obeying God's word in his Bible, as papists profess to be in submit ting to the authority of the Holy Mother Church, honest inquirers would
544 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
never be embarrassed, and would never be befooled intr* suppos- ing that the words of a pope could furnish a more comfortable foundation for faith than the word of God.
(3.) To the shame of our damaged Protestantism, popery remains, in some essential respects, more fairhful to (Jod's truth than its rival. For instance, while multitudes of scholars, call- ing themselves Protestant Christians, are undermining the doc- trine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, Rome holds fast to it in her catechisms and formal declarations. True, she claims in- spiration for others than the prophets, evangelists, and apostles for her popes, namely, and prelates, holding to ''the apostolic succession." But if one must err, it is better to err by excess than by defect on a point like this, where negation cuts the blinded soul of man off absolutely from the divine guidance. Thousands of pretended Protestant believers are advancing their destructive criticism to assert that the I'entateuch is a literary fraud. Rome firmly maintains that it is God's own work through Moses. A thousand deceitful arts are plied to degrade the conception of inspiration, as giving only thoughts, and not the words, or as consisting only in an elevation of the consciousness by poetic genius, and such like treacherous views. Rome still teaches the old-fashioned, honest view. What right have such deceitful Protestants to scold Rome for dishonesty of those historical and spiritual impostures upon which she founds the clai'ms of the popes? Truly, they are dirty enough; for the forged decretals, for instance, too much contempt and reprehension cannot be expressed. But they are not a whit dirtier than the mental dishonesty of the men who, after asserting that they have proved the Pentateuch mostly a literary fraud, done by priestcraft more than a thousand years after its pretended date, still assure us that its value as Scrip ture and divine rule of faith is not wounded. These recent jus- tifiers of pious fraud cannot convict the older ones. The old imposture, like a rotten roof, has become moss-grown with age. and is picturesque and venerable in many eyes. The new im- posture stands ugly and malodorous in its rank freshness.
Again, multitudes of pretended Protestants utterly deny the trinity, the very corner-stone of a theology of redemption. Rome affirms it in all the fullness of the creeds of Mce, Chalce- don, and Athanasius. Myriads of pretended Protestants revere their own ethical philosophy so much more than they do their
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 5-15
God that they must needs utterly reject Christ's vicarious satis- faction for the guilt of sin. Rome continues to aissert it, in spite of spurious philosophy, although she does add to it super- stitious claims of human merit. Myriads of our men have be- come such "advanced thinkers" that they cannot away with supernatural regeneration. Rome teaches it invariably, even if it is in the form of baptismal regeneration, and still ascribes it to the power of God. Such are a few of the biting contrasts. We cannot wonder that many, even of honest and reverent minds, when they witness this ruthless destruction of the es- sentials of the gospel, draw two plain inferences. One is, that all such men pretending to be Protestant believers are, in fact, nothing but infidels wearing a mask, probably for the sake of the loaves and fishes as yet connected with the clerical calling; so that it is mere impudence for such men to assume to warn them against popish impostures — rather too near akin to Satan reproving sin. The other is, that the Romanist theologians must 'have been right in asserting, ever since the days of Lutii- er, that our Protestant way of esta'blishing a divine rule of faith by a rational and explicit credence must turn out nothing but rationalistic infidelity. Souls which value a divine redemp- tion for man shudder as the.y behold this wild havoc of every- thing characteristic of a saving gospel; and they naturally ex- claim, "There is no security except in going 'back to that old foundation, implicit trust in the witness of 'Holy Mother Church' to the Scriptures!" Now, true Protestants know that this conclusion is wretchedly sophistical, but it is dreadfully natural for honest, half-informed men.
(4.) The best argument for any creed is the godly living of its professors. Protestantism used to have a grand and victor- ious advantage on that point. She is ceasing to wield it. The wealth begotten by her very virtues of industry, thrift, and probity has debauched many of her children. "Jeshurun has waxen fat, and kicked." An unbounded fi-ood of luxury sweeps Protestant families away. A relaxed and deceitful doctrine pro- duces its sure fruits of relaxed and degraded morals. Church discipline is nearly extinct. Meantime spurious revivalism, re- lying upon all species of vulgar clap-trap and sensational arti- fice, upon slang rhetoric and the stimulating of mere animal sympathies, instead of the pure word and spirit of God, is hur-
546 THE ATTEAOTIONS OF POPERY.
rying tens of thousands of dead souls into the Protestamt churches. These evils have goue so far that a profession of faith in these churches has come to mean nearly as little as a professed conformitj' to Rome means. No shrewd man regards such a profession as any sufficient guarantee for truth or com- mon honesty in dealing. The lawyers tell us that litigation un- masks about as much intended fraud, purposed extortion, and loose swearing in these church members as in other people. Worldly conformity is so general that the line between the church and the world has become nearly as indistinct as that between spiritual and prafane living in the Romish communion. Meantime, Rome gets up no spurious revivals; she works her sj'stem with the steadiness and perseverance which used to characteriz'e pastoral effort and family religion among Presby terians. It is true that her cultus is intensely ritualistic; but, at least, it does not offend decent people ^by irreverent slang; her worship is liturgical, but her liturgies, however erroneous in doctrine, are, at least, genteel, and marked by aesthetic dig nity. Rome does not venture on sham miracles very much in these United States. It is true she has her spurious relics and other superstitious impostures for impressing the peojjle; but wherein are they less of human artifices and less deceptive than the machinery of our pretended revivals, with their marchings, handshakings, choruses, and ephemeral conversions? Rome's confessional is, indeed, a terrible organ of spiritual tyranny; but still it is a strong argan of church discipline, and it is stead- ily employed as such in every Romish chapel. The average Protestant church member feels that any assumption of real presbyterial authority over him by his pastor would be an im- pertinence, which he would resent with scorn. The Romish priest still wields a potent, ghostly authority over his people. One may cry that he wields it by virtue of superstition, by the threat of withholding his absolution or extreme unction. Yet he wields it, and usually for the credit of his church. He teaches his members to practice the forms of their daily de- votion with diligence and regularity, holding out a powerful motive in the promise of merit thus wrought out. The Prot- estant may exclaim, These are but machine prayers, vain repe- titions told off by the dozen along with the beads! Very true, the most of it may be very poor stuff; but nothing can be quite
tSe attractions of popeey. 647
so poor aud worthless as the living of many Protestant mem bers, who have no family altar and no closet, who say no pray- ers either in form or in spirit, and who have no conscience of keeping either Sabbaths or saints' days. It is a very bad thing in the Romanist to join the worship of Mary and the saints with that of God; but we surmise that it is a still worse thing to be a practical atheist, and statedly to worship nothing, neither saint nor God, as many an enrolled member of a Protestant church now does.
The Romanist's machine prayers and vain repetitious have, at least, this tendency, to sustain in his soul some slight habit of religious reverence, aud this is better than mere license of life. While the two cammunions wear these aspects, we need not wonder that those Americans, at least, whose early preju dices lean towards Rome should honestly regard her as the bet- ter mother of piety and morals.
(5.) We Protestants are also giving away to Rome another powerful influence over honest and thoughtful Christian minds. This we do by secularizing our whole State education. The bulk of the Protestants in the United States have betrayed them- selves, through their partisan political zeal, to an attitude con- ctM'uing the rearing of youth which must ever be preposterous and untenable for sincere Christians. The statesmen and di- vines of the Reformation, the Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes, Win- tlirops, and Mathers, were strong advocates of State education; they were such 'because they believed in the close union of church and State; because their conception of the State was thoroughly theocratic. Had these men been asked, What think you of a theory of education which should train the understand- ing without instructing the religious conscience; which should teach young immortal spirits anything and everything except God; which should thus secularize education, a function essen- tially spiritual, and should take this parental tRsk from the fathers and mothers, on whom God imposed it, to confer it on the human aud earthly organism, expressly secular and god- less? they would have answered with one voice. It is pagan, ut- terly damnable. But they thought that the State might edu- cate, because the State with them was Christian. Thus Sta,t€ education was firmly grafted into the Puritan colonies. New England, with her usual aggressiveness, has pushed her usage
548 THE ATTEACTIONS OF POPERY.
all over the empire. Meantime the Jetfersouian doctrine of the absolute severance and independence of church and State, of the entire secularitj of the State, and the absolutely equal rights, before the law, of religious truth and error, of pagan- ism, atheism, and Christianity, has also established itself in all the States; and still the politicians, for electioneering ends, propagate this State education everywhere. By this curious circuit ''Christian America" has gotten herself upon this thor- oughly pagan ground; forcing the education of responsible, moral, and immortal beings, of which religion must ever be the essence, into the hands of a gigantic human agency, which re- solves that it cannot and will not be religious at all. Surely some great religious body will arise in America to lift its Chris- tian protest against this monstrous result! But, lo! the chief, the only organized protest heard in America comes from the Romish Church. It is she who stands forth pre-eminent, almost single-handed, to assert the sacred rights of Christian parents in the training of the souls they have begotten, of Christ in the nurture of the souls he died to redeem. To-day it is this Rom- ish Church which stands forth precisely in the position of the Luthers, Calvins, Knoxes, and Mathers as to the main, central point, which is^ that the education of the young should be Christian^ and should be committed to Christian hands And what are our representative Protestants saying? Instead of admitting this truth of the ages, and confessing the fatal error into which their haste and Jacobinism have betrayed them, they are only shouting that Rome objects to the American State school because Rome hates republicanism, and wishes to overthrow it. The best they can do is to place themselves Jn this absurd and dishonest position: To boast in one breath of their loyalty to the principles of the Reformers concerning edu- cation, and in the next breath to vilify the Roman Church for reasserting the very principles of these same Reformers. What can they expect save a miserable defeat upon this false posi- tion, if, indeed, common justice and common sense are to con- tinue traits of the American mind; unless, indeed, America is to make up her mind to be atheistic or pagan instead of Chris- tian? These misguided Protestants may be assured that there are hundreds of thousands of serious, devout parents who will be much more likely to honor Rome as the faithful champion of
THE ATTRAOTIOISrS OF POPERY. 549
Christ's rights over their children than to condemn lier as the designing enemy of free government. In this unnatural con- test Protestantism can only lose, while Rome gains; and she will gain the approval not only of the superstitious, but of the most thoughtful and devout minds.
(G.) It lis with this most valuable class of minds that Rome is now gaining anather far-reaching advantage. This is by her doctrine concerning marriage and the relations of the sexes. On these points she continues to hold and teach tlie highest views. It is very true that Rome errs in making marriage a sacrament of the church; but she makes it, as Scripture does, a divinely ap- pointed and religious institution, while Protestant laws and de- bauched Protestant thought tend all over America to degrade it to a mere civil contract. The Roman doctrine and canon law re- cognize no divorce except by the pope himself. They teach that marriage is inviolable. The divorce laws in our Protestant! States provide so many ways for rending the marriage tie that its vows have become almost a farce. We are told that many Protestant wonu^n in America scornfully refuse to talce the vow of oibedience to tlieir husbands, ai)puinted by God in his word; and Protestant i)arsons are so cowardly that they dare not men- tion it in the mai'inage ceremony. But Rome still exacts thijs conjugal ()1)edience of her daugliter's. Romish }»astors also stand almost alone in teaching their people the enomnous crim- inality of those nameless sins against jvosterity at which fash- ionable Protestantism connives. Moral and thoughtful men who know history know how fundamental the sanctity of mar- riage and the family is to society and the church, how surely their corruption must destroy both and 'barbarize mankind, look on aghast at this sjjreading taint in American life. Many an educated jtatriot is beginning to say that Romanism is the only firm and consistent opponent.
Protestants may exclaim that Rome has ever been a cor- i-upting religion; that even the confessional has been made the instrument of profligacy. No doubt these things have often been true; yet another thing is visibly true in these United States: that while degrading views of the marriage relation and of the honor of parentage are eating out the life of so many nominal I'rotestant families, and bringing them to total ex- tinction, the families of Romanists are better protected from
550 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
this bliglir. Their houses are peopled with childi-en, while the homes of rich Protestants are too elegant and luxurious for such nuisances. By the very force of the Malthusian law of population Romanism is growing, while Protestantism stands still.
I have thus described six distinct lines of intiueiice which our unfaithfulness to our principles has betrayed int;> the hands of the Romanist. They are using them all with constant effect, and we, at least, cannot blame them.
II. I now proceed to explain certain evil princijiles of hu- man nature which are concurring powerfully in this country to give currency to popery. These may be called its illicit advan- tages. I mention :
(1.) The constant tendency of American demagogues to pay court to popery and to purchase votes for themselves from it. at the cost of the people's safety, rights and money. Nearly two generations ago (the men of this day seem to have forgot- ten the infamy) William H. Seward, of New York, began this dangerous and dishonest game. He wished to 'be Governor of New York. He came to an understanding with ArehMshop Hughes, then the head of the popish hierarchy in that State, to give him the Irish vote in return for certain sectarian advan- tages in the disbursement of the State revenues. Neither Rome nor the demagogues have since forgotten their lesson, nor will they ever forget it. It would be as unreasonable to expect it as to expect that hawks will forget the poultry yard. It is the nature of the demagogue to trade off anything for votes; they are the breath in the nostrils of his ambition. The popish hier- archy differs essentfally from the ministry of any other reli- gion, in having votes to trade. The traditional claim of Rome is that she has the right to control both spheres, the ecclesiasti- cal and the political, the political for the sake of the ecclesias- tical. The votes of her masses are more or less manageable, as the votes of Protestants are not, because Rome's is a system of authority as opposed to free thought. Rome instructs the con- science of every one of her members that it is his religiouys duty to subordinate all other duties and interests to hers. And this is a spiritual duty enforceable by the most awful spiritual sanctions. How can a thinking man afford to disobey the hier- archv which holds his eternal destiny in its secret fist; so that
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 551
even if they gave liim iu form the essential sacraments, such as the masis, absolution, and extreme unction, they are able clandestinely to make them worthless to him, by withholding the sacramental intention. Hence it is that the majority of An)erican papists can be voted in "blocks"; and it is virtually the hierarchy which votes them. The goods are ready bound up in parcels for traffic witli demagogues. We are well aware that numerous jMpi'sts will indignantly deny this; declaring that there is a Romanist vote in this country which is just as inde- pendent of their priesthood aud as free as any other. Of course there is. The hierarchy is a very experienced and dextrous driver. It does not whip in the restive colt'S, 'but humors them awhile until she gets them well harnessed and broken. But the team as a whole must yet travel her road, because they have to 'believe it infallible. We assure these independent Romanist voters that they are not "good 'Catholics"; they must unlearn thiis heresy of independent thought before they are meet for the Romanist paradise. Men of secular ambition have always sought to use the hierarch}' to influence others for their politi- cal advantage; the example is as old as history. Just as soon as prelacy was developed in the patritstic church, Roman em- perors began to purchase its influence to sustain their thrones. Throughout the Middle Ages, German kaisers and French, Spanish, and English kings habitually traded with Rome, pay- ing her dignities and endowments for lier ghoistly support to their ambitions. Even in this century we have seen the two Napoleons playing the same game — purchasing for their im- perialism the support of a priesthood in whose religion they did not believe. If any suppose that because America is nom- inally democratic theisame thing will not happen here, they are thoroughly silly. Some Yankee ingenuity will be invoked to modify the forms of the traffic, so as to suit American names; that is all.
Intelligent studentis of church history know that one main agency for converting primitive Christianity first into prelacy and then into popery was unlimited church endowments. As soon as Constantine established Christianity as the religion of the State, ecclesiastical persoiiis and bodies began to assume the virtual (and before long the formal) rights of corporations. They could receive bequests aud gifts of property, and hold them by
552 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
a teuui-e as firm as that of the fee-simple. These spiritual cor- pui'ations were deathless. Thuis the property they acquired was all held 'by the tenure of mortmain. When a corporation is thus empowered to absorb continually, and never to disgorge, there is no limit to its possible wealth. The laws uf the empire in the Middle Ages imposed no limitations upon bequeists; thus, most naturally, monasteries, cathedrals, chapters, and arch- bishoprics became inordinately rich. At the Reformation they had grasped one- third of the property of Europe. But Scrip- ture saith, "Where rhe carcass is, thither the eagles are gath- ered together." Wealth is power, and ambitious men crave it. Thus this endowed hierarchy came to be filled by the men of the greediest ambition in Europe, instead of by humble, self- denying ])astors; and thus it was that this tremendous money power, arming itself first witli a spiritual despotism of the popiish theology over consciences, and then allying itself with political power, wielded the whole to enforce the absolute dom- ination of that religion which gave them their wealth. ^\^ wonder human liberty, free thought, and the Bible were to- gether trampled out of Europe. When the Reformation came, the men who could think saw that this tenure in mortmain had 'been the fatal thing. Knox, the wisest of them, saw clearly that if a religious reformation was to succeed in Scotland the ecclesiastical corporations must be destroyed. They were de- stroyed, their whole property alienated to the secular nobleis or to the State (the remnant which Knox secured for religious edu- cation); and therefore it was that Scotland remained Presbyter- ian. When our American commonwealths were founded, states- men and divines understood this great jtrinciple of jurispru- dence, that no corporate tenure in mortmain, either si)irirual or secular, is compatible with the liberty of the peoi)le and the continuance of conistitutional government.
But it would appear that our legislators now know nothing about that great principle, or care nothing about it. Church in- stitutions, Protestant and Romanist, are virtually perpetual cor- porations. Whatever the pious choose to give them is held in mortmain, and they grow continually richer and richer; they do not even pay taxes, and there seems no liniir \\\nn\ rheir acquisi- tions. And last comeis the Supreme Court of the T'nited States, and under the pretext of construing the law, legislates a new
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 553
law In the famous Walnut-street Cliun-li case, as tliouoh they desired to ensure both the corruption of religijn and the de- struction of free government by a second gigantic iucubus of endowed ecclesiasticism. The new law is virtually this: That in case any free citizen deems that the gifts of himself or l\\t> ancestors are usurped for some use alien to the designed trust, zV s/ia// be the usurper who shall decide the issue. This is, of course, essentially popish, yet a great Protestant denomination has been seen hastening to enroll it in its digest of spiritual laws.* The working of this tendency of overgrown ecclesiatsti- cal wealth will certainly be twofold: First, to Romanize par- tially or wholly the Protestant churches thus enriched; and, secondly, to incline, enable, and equip the religion thus Roman- ized for its alliance with political ambition and for the subju- gation of the people and the government. When church bodiers began, under Constantine, to acquire endowments, these bodies were Episcopal, at most, or even still Presbyterian. The in- crease of endowment helped to make them popish. Then jiop- ery and feudalism stamped out the Bible and enslaved Europe. If time permitted, I could trace out the lines of causation into perfect clearness. Will men ever learn that like causes must l)roduce like effects?
(2.) The democratic theory of human society may be the most rational and equitable; but human nature is not equita- ble; it is fallen and perverted. Lust of applause, pride, vain- glory, and love of power are as natural to it as hunger to the body. Next to Adam, the most representative man \\\nn\ earth was Diotrephes, "who loves to have the pre-eminence." Every man is an aristocrat in his heart. Xow, prelacy and popery are aristocratic religions. Consecjuently, as long as human naturt^ is natural, they will present more or less of attraction to human minds. Quite a number of Methodist, Presbyterian, or Inde- pendent ministers have gone over to prelacy or popery, and thus become bishopis. Was there ever one of them, however conscientious his new faith, and however devout his temjtei-, who did not find some elation and pleasure in his spiritual dig- nity? Is there a democrat in democratic America who would not be flattered in his heart by being addressed as "my lord?" Distinction and power are gratifying to all men. Prelacy and
See* Dabney's Discussions. Vol. 11.. p. ■IQX.
554 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
}»!)I»ei-y offer Mils sweet morsel to aspirants by proiiiisiug to make some of tliem lords of their brethren. This is enough to entice all of them, as the crown entices all the racers on the race-course. It is true that while many run, one obtaineth the crown; but all may flatter themselves with the hope of win- ning. Especially does the pretension of sacramental grace offer the most isplendid bait to human ambition which can be con- ceived of on this earth. To be the vicar of the Almighty in dis- I)ensing eternal life and heavenly crowns at will is a more mag- niflcent power than the prerogative of any emperor on earth. Let a man .mce be persuaded that he really grasps this power by getting a i)Iace in the apostolic succession, and the more sincere he is. the more .splendid the prerogative will appear to him; for the more clearly his faith appreciates the thing that he proposes to do in the sacraments, the more illustrious that thing must appear. The greatest boon ever inherited by an em- peror was finite. The boon of redemption is infinite; to be able to dispense it at will to one sinner is a much grander thing than to conquer the world and establish a universal secular empire. The humblest "hedge-priest" would be a far grander man than that emperor if he could really work the miracle and confer the grace of redemption which Rome says he does every time he consecrates a mass. How shall we eistimate, then, the great- ness of that i)0])e or prelate who can manufacture such miracle workers at will? The greatest being on earth should hardly think himself worthy to loose his sandals from h'i.s feet. The Turkish embassador to Paris was certainly right when, upon accompanying the King of France to high mass in Notre Dame, and seeing the king, courtiers and multitude all prostrate them- selveis when the priest elevated the Host, he wondered that the king should allow anybody but himself to perform that mag- nificent function. He is reported to have said: "Sire, if I were king, and believed in your religion, nobody should do that in France except me. It is a vastly greater thing than anything else that you do in your royal functions." As long as man is man, therefore, popery will possess this unhallowed advantage of enticing, and even entrancing, the ambition of the keenest aspirants. The stronger their faith in their doctrine, the more will they sanctify to themselves this dreadful ambition. In this respect, as in so many others, the tendency of the whole
THE ATTRACTIOlSrS OF POPKRY. 555
eui'i'eiit of Imiiiau nature us to make papists. It is converting grace only which can check that current and turn men sincerely 'back towards Protestantism. I am well aware that tlie func- tions of the Protestant minister may be so wrested as to present an appeal to unhallowed ambition. But popery professes to confer upon her clergy every didactic and presbyterial function which Protestautitsm has to bestow; while the former otters, in addition, this splendid bait of prelatic power and sacramental miracle-w^orkiug.
(.'?.) All the churches which call themselves Protestant, even the strictest, now betray the silent influence of those Komanizing tendencies which have been and are hereafter to be explained. There is an almost universal letting down of the old tstandard of doctrine and worship. A comparison of preva- lent usages of to-day and of seventy years ago in the Methodist, Baptist, Congregational and Presbyterian Churches (except those of the Secession) would startle any thinking mind. Ev- ery one of them now admits usages wliicli were then univer- sally rejected by them, such as architectural pomps, i)ictui-ed windows, floral decorations, instrumental and operatic music. One may say, that these are matters of indift'erence whicli can- not be proved anti-scriptural; but every sensible man knows that they proceed from one impulse, the craving for a more spectacular and ritualistic worship. This is precisely the im- pulse which brought about prelacy and popery in the patristic ages. The strictest Protestant communions are now moving upon the same inclined plane. The descent is gentle, at first, but as it proceeds it grows steeper; and at the bottom i.s popery. The prelatic churches of America now notoriously occupy the middle and advanced parts of this course. Forty years ago, when things were not near so bad with them as now, the head of the American popish hierarchy pointed an eminent Presby- terian divine to a dainty Puseyite clergyman trip})ing t)y, and said, with a sardonic smile: "Doctor, those are the cattle who do our plowing for us gratis. They leave us little to do. My only objection to their work is, that they make their perverts rather too popish to suit my taste as a Komanist." This Right Reverend was, of courise, an Irishman. Episcopalians who teach baptismal regeneration, the real presence, the ajKistolic succession and such like dogmas, must inevitably propel their
f)5r) THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
impils towards popery. If their favorite doctrines have any foundation in logic or Scripture, that foundation sustains I)opery ais fully as prelacy. When one fixes the premises in the minds of his pupils, he should expect to see them sooner or later proceed to the logical consequence; as all rivers run to the ocean, so the ultimate destiny of all high cliurchism is Kome. These covert educators for popery are more efficient f;)r evil than the overt ones. I fear thoise who are on the road to the Eternal City more than those who have fixed their abode there. This head of my argument is, then, that Romanism is sure to win in America, because most of those who profess to be Protestants are really helping her by preparing her way.
<4.) In sundry respect.s I ]»erceive a sort of hallucination l>revailing in people's minds concerning old historical errors and abuses, which I see to have been the regular results of hu- man nature. Men will not understand history; they flatter themselves that, because the modes of civilization are much changed and advanced, therefore the essential laws of man's nature are going to cease acting; which is just as unreasonable as to expect that sinful human beings must entirely cea.se to be untruthful, sensual, dishonest, and selfish, because they have gotten to wear fine clothes. Of certain evils and abuses of an- cient history men j^erisuade themselves that they are no longer possible among us. because we have become civilized and nom- inally Christian. One of these evils is idolatry with its two 'branches, polytheism and image-worship. Oh! they say, man- kind has outgrown all that; other evils may invade our Chris- tian civilization, but that is too gross to come back again. They are blind at once to the teachings of historical facts and to com- mon sense. They know that at one time idolatry nearly filled the ancient world. Well, what was the previous religious state of mankind uj)on wliicli it sujiervened? Virtually a <'liristian istate, that is to say, a worship of the one true (Jod, under the light of revelation, with our same gospel taught by jjromises and sacrifices. And it is very stupid to suppose that the social state upon which the early idolatry supervened was savage or barbaric. >Ve rather conclude that the people who built Noah's ark, the tower of Babel, and the pyramid of CheopiS, and who enjoyed the light of God's recent revelations to Adam, to Enoch, to Noah, were civilized. Men make a strange confusion here:
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 557
They faui-y rliar idolatiT could be pi-evaleut because mankind were not civilized. The histoiical fact is just the opposite: ^lankind became uncivilized because idolatry first prevailed. In truth, the principles tending to idjlatry are deeply laid in man's fallen nature. Like a compressed spring, they are ever ready to act again, and will isurely begin to act, whenever the opposing power of vital godliness is withdrawn. First, the sensuous has become too prominent in man; reason, conscience, and faith. r<>(> feeble. Every sinful man's experience witnesses this all day long, everj' day of his life. Wh}- else is it that the objects of sense-perception, which are comparatively trivial, dominate his attention, his sensibilities, and his desires so much more than the objects of faith, which he himself knows to be so much more important? Did not this isensuous tendency seek to invade man's religious ideas and feelings, it would 'be strange indeed. Hence, man untaught and unchecked 'by the heavenly light al- ways shows a craving for sensuous objects of worship. He is not likely, in our day, to satisfy this craving by setting up a brazen image of Dagon. the fish, god; or of Zeus, or the Roman Jupiter; or of the Aztecs' Itzlahuitl. But still he craves a visi- ble, material object of worship. Rome meets him at a com- fortable half-way station with her relics, crucifixes, and images of the saints. She adroitly smoothes the downhill road for him by connecting all these with the worship of the true God, Again, man's conscious weakness impels him almost irresistibly in his serions hours to seek some being of supernatural attributes to lean upon. His heart cries out, "Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." But when pure monotheism proposes to him the supreme, eternal God — ^infinite not only in his power to help, but in his omniscience, justice, and holiness — the sinful heart recoils. This object is too high, too holy, too dreadful for ir. Sinful man craves a God, but, like his first father, shuns the infinite God; hence the powerful tendency to invent interme- diate gods, whom he may persuade himself to be sufficiently gracious and powerful to be trusted, and yet not so infinite, im- mutable, and holy as inevitably to condemn sin. Here is the impulse which prompted all pagan nations to invent polythe- ism. This they did by filling the space 'between man and the supreme ibeing with intermediate gods. Such, among the Greeks, were Bacchus, Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Theseus, Aescula- pin«. ofr. Tt is a great mistake to suppoise that thoughtful
^58 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
pagans did not recognize the unity and etei-niry of a supreme God, ''Fatliei' af gods and of men." But sometimes the,y rep- resent him as so exalted and sublimated as to be at once above the reach of human prayers and above all concernment in hu- man affairs. Other.s thought of him as too awful to be directly approached, accessible only through the mediation of his awn next progeny, the secondary gods. Here we have precisely the impulse for which Rome provides in her saint-worship. Mary is the highest of the intermediate gods, next to the trinity, the intercessor for Christ's intercession. The apostles and saints are the secondary gods of this Christian pantheon. How strangely has God's predestination led Rome in the develop- ment of her history to the unwitting admission of this indict- ment I Pagan Rome had her marble temple, the gift af Agrip- pa to the ('ommonwealth, the Pantheon, or sanctuary of all the gods. This very building stands now, rededicated by the popes as the temple of Christ and all the saints. So fateful has been the force of this analogy between the old polytheism and the new.
The attempt is made, indeed, to hide the likeness by the so- phistical distinction between /afrta and dulia; but its wortii- lesisness appears from this, that even dulta cannot be offered to redeemed creatures without ascribing to them, by an un- avoidable implication, the attributes peculiar to God. In one word, fallen men of all ages have betrayed a powerful tendency to image-warship and polytheism. Rome provides for that ten- dency in a way the most adroit possible, for an age nominally Christian but practically unbelieving. To that tendency the religion of the Rible sternly refuses to concede anything, re- quiring not its gratification, but it.s extirpation. This cunning policy of Rome had sweeping success in the early church. The same principle won almost universal success in the ancient world. It will succeed again here. Many will exclaim that this prognostic is wholly erroneous; that the great, bad tendency of our age and country is to agnosticism as against all religions. I am not mistaken. This drift will be as temporary as it is partial. ^I. Guizot says in his Meditations: "One never need go far back in history to find atheism advancing half way to meet superstition." A wiser analyst of human nature say.s: ''Even as thev did not like to retain (rod in their knowledge.
THE ATTRACTIONR OF POPERY. 559
God gave them over to a reprobate mind.'' "Professing them- selves to be wise, thev became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible Gad into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts,, and creeping things." This is the exact pathology of superstition. When the culture of the Augustan age taught the Romans to despise the religious faith of their fathers, there was an interval of agnosticism. But next, the most refined of the agnostics were seen studying the mysteries of Isis and practicing the foulest rites of the pagan- ism of the conquered provinces. Atheism is too freezing a blank for human souls to inhabit permanently. It outrages too many of the heart's affections and of the reason's first princi- ples. A people who have cast away their God, when they diis- cover this, turn to false gods. For all such wandering spirits Rome stands with open doors; there, finally, they will see their most convenient refuge of superstition in a catalogue of Chris- tian isaints transformed into a polytheism. Thus the cravings of superstition are satisfied, while the crime is veiled from the conscience b}' this pretence of scriptural origin.
(5.) I proceed to unfold an attraction of Romanism far more seductive. This is its proposal to satisfy man'is guilty heart by a ritual instead of a spiritual salvation. As all know who understand the popish theology, the proposed vehicle of this redemption iby forms is the sacraments. Romanists are taught that the New Testament sacraments differ from those of the Old Testament in this: that they not only symbolize and seal, but effectuate grace tx opere operato in the souls of the recipients. Rome teaches her children that her sacraments are actual charitsmatic power of direct supernatural efficiency wrought upon recipients by virtue of a portion of the Holy Spirit's omnipotence conferred upon the priest in ordination from the apostolic succession. The Bible teaches that in tlu' case of all adults a gracious state must pre-exist in order for any beneficial participation in the sacrament, and that the only influence of the sacrameutis is to cherish and advance that pre- existing spiritual life by their didactic effect, as energized by God's Spirit, through prayer, faith, watchfulness, and obedience, in precisely the same generic mode in which the Holy Sjtirit en- ergizes the written and preached word. Hence, if watchfulness, prayer, obedience, and a life of faith are neglected, our sacra-
o60 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPEIiY.
meuts become uo .sacraments. If thou be a breaker of the law, tliy "circuincLsiou is made imcircumci.sion." But Rome teacbe.s that her sacrament.s. duly administered by a priest havin"- apos- tolic succession, implant spiritual life in souls hitherto dead in sin, and that they maintain and foster this life by a direct pow- er not dependent on the recipient's dilioent exercise of goispel principles. Provided the recipient be not in mortal .sin unab- solved, the sacrament does its spiritual work upon the sinful soul, whether it receives it in the exercise of saving grace or not. (See the article, "Prelacy a Blunder," in Collected Discus- sions, Vol. II., p. 218.)
Now let no Protestant mind exclaim: "Surely this is too gross to be popular; surely jieople will have too much sense to think that they can get to heaven by this species jf consecrated jugglery I" History shows that thisischeme of redemption is al- most universally accepta'ble and warmly popular with sinful mankind. Apprehend aright the ideas of paganism, ancient and modern: we perceive that this popish conception of sacraments is virtually the same with the pagan's conception of their heath- en rites. They claim to 'be just this species of saving ritual, working their benefit upon souls precisely by this opus opera- turn agency. What a commentary' have we here upon this tenr dency of human nature to a ritual salvation. The evangelists and apostles reintroduced to the world the pure conception of a spiritual salvation wrought by the energy of divine truth, and not of church rites; received by an intelligent faith in the saved man's soul, and not by manual ceremonial; and made effectual by the enlightening operation of the Holy (ihost upon heart and mind in rational accordance with truth, not by a priestly incan- tation working a physical miracle. The gospels and. epistles defined and separated the two conceptions as plainly as words could do it. But no ,sooner were the apostles gone than the pagan conception of salvation by ritual, instead of by rational faith, began to creep back into the patristic church. In a few hundred years the wrong conception had triumphed completely over the correct one in nearly the whole of Christendom, and thenceforward sacramental grace has reigned supreme over the whole Roman and Greek communions, in spite of modern let- ters and culture. How startling this commentary ui)on that tendency of human nature I Surely there are deep-tseated prin-
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERT. 561
ciples in man tD account for it.
These are not far to seek. First, men are sensuous beings, and hence thev naturally crave something concrete, material, and spectacular in their religion. Dominated as they are by a perpetual current of sensations, and haying their auimalitv ex- aggerated bv their sinful nature, they are sluggish to think spir- itual truths, to look by faith upon invisible objects; they i-rave to walk by sight rather than by faith. The material things in mammon, the sensual pleasures which they see with their eyes and handle with their fingers, although they perfectly know they perish with the using, obscure their view of all the infinite, eternal realities, notwithstanding their professed belief of them. Xeed we wonder that with such creatures the visible and man- ual ritual should prevail over the spiritual didactic? Does one exclaim, "But this is so unreasonable — this notion that a ritual ceremonial can change the state and destiny of a rational and moral spirit!" I reply, ''Yes, but not one whit more irrational than the preference which the whole natural world gives to the things which are seen and temporal, as it perfectly knows, over the things which are unseen and eternal; an insanity of which the educated and refined are found ju,st as capable as the ig- norant and brutish." But the other principle of human nature is still more keen and pronounced in its preference for a ritual salvation. This is its deep-seated, omnipotent preference for self-will and sin over spiritual holiness of life. The natural man has, indeed, his natural cou/science and remorse, his fear- ful looking for of judgment, his natural fear of misery, which is but modified selfishness. These make everlasting punishment very terrible to his apprehension.
But enmity to God, to his spintual service, to the suprem- acy of his holy will, is as native to him as his selfish fear is. Next to perdition, there is no conception in the universe so re- liulsive to the sinful heart of man as that of genuine repentance and itis fruits. The true gospel comes to him and says: Here is, indeed, a blessed, glorious redemption, as free as air. as se- cure as the throne of God, but instrumentally it is conditional on the faith of the heart; which faith works by love, purifies the heart, and can only exist as it co-existis with genuine repent- ance, which repentance turns honestly, unreservedly, here and now, without shuffling or procrastination, from sin unto God,
562 THE ATTEACTIONS OF POPEEY.
with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience; which is, in fact, a complete surrender of the sinful will to God's holy will, and a hearty enlistment in an arduous work of watchful- ness, self-denial, and self-discipline, for the sake of inward holi- ness, to be kept up as long as life lasts. Soul, emTbrace this task, and this splendid salvation shall be yours; and the gracious Saviour, who purchases it for you, shall sustain, comfort, and enable you in this arduous enlistment, so that even in the midst of the warfare you shall find rest, and at the end heaven; but without this faith and this repentance no sacraments or rights will do a particle of good towards your salvation. Now, this carnal soul has no faith; it is utterly mistrustful and skeptical as to the possibility of this peace of the heart in the spiritual warfare, this sustaining power of the in\'iisible hand, of which it has had no experience. This complete subjugation of self- will to God, this life of self-denial and vital godliness, appears to this soul utterly repulsive, yea, terrible. This guilty usoul dreads hell; it abhors such a life only less than hell. When told by Protestantism that it must thus "turn or die." this car- nal soul finds itiself in an abhorrent dilemma; either term of the alternative is abominable to it. But now comes the theory of sacramental grace and says to it with oily tongue: "Oh I Prot- estantism exaggerates the dilemma! Your case is not near so bad! The sacraments of the church transfer you from the /state of condemnation to that of reconciliation by their own direct but mysterious efliciency; they work real grace, though you do not bring to them this deep, thoroughgoing self-sacrifice and self-consecratiim. No matter how much you sin, or how often, repeated masses will make expiation for the guilt of all those sins ex opere operato. Thus, with her other sacraments of pen- ance and extreme unction. Holy Mother Church will repair all your short-comings and put you back into a salvable state, no matter how sinfully you live." Need we wonder that this false doctrine is as sweet to that guilty soul as a repiieve to the felon at the foot of the gallows? He can draw his breath again; he can say to himself: ^'Ah, then the abhorred dilemma does not urge me here and now; I can postpone this hated reformation; I can still tamper with cherished sins without embracing per- dition." This is a pleasant doctrine; it suits so perfectly the sinful, selfish soul which does not wish to part with its sins, and also does not wish to lie down in everlasting burnings.
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPEEY. 563
This deep-seated love of siu aud self has also another re- sult: The soul is conscious that, if it must do many things which it does not like in order to avoid perdition, it is much pleasanter to do a number of ceremonial things than to do any portion of spiritual heart-work. After I stood my graduate examination in philosophy at the University of Virginia, my professor, the venerable George Tucker, showed me a chea ting- apparatus wliich had been prepared by a member of the class. He had unluckily dropped it upon the sidewalk, and it had f nind its way to the professor's hands. It was a narrow blank- book, made to be hidden in the coat-sleeve. It contained, in exceedingly small penmanship, the whole course, in the form of questions from the professor's recitations with their answers copied from the text-book. It was really a work of much labor. I said, ''The strange thing to me is, that this sorry fellow has ex- pended upon this fraud much more hard labor than would have enabled him to prepare himself for passing honestly and hon- orably." Mr. Tucker replied, "Ah, my dear sir, you forget that a dunce finds it easier to do any amount of mere manual drud- gery than the least bit of true thinking." Here we have an ex- act illustration. It is less irksome to the carnal mind to do twelve dozen paternosters tJy the beads than to do a few mo- ments of real heart-work. Thoughtless people sometimes say that the rule of Romish piety is more exacting than that of the Protestant. This is the explanation, that Rome is more exact- ing as to form and ritual; Bible religion is more exacting as to spiritual piety and vital godliness. To the carnal mind the lat- ter are almost insufferably irksome and laborious; the form and ritual, easy and tolerable. And when remorse, fear, and self- righteousnesis are gratified by the assurance that these obser- vances really promote the soul's salvation, the task is made light. Here Rome will always present an element of popularity as long as mankind are sensuous and carnal.
(0.) To a shallow view, it might appear that the popish doc- trine of purgatory should be quite a repulsive element of un- popularity with sinners; that doctiine is, that notwithstanding all the benefit of the church's sacraments and the believer's ef- forts, no Christian soul goes direct to heaven when the body dies, except thoise of the martyrs, and a few eminent siiints, who are, as it were, miracles of sanctification in this life. All the
564 THE attraOtions of popery.
clergy, and even the popes, must go through purgatory in spite of the apostolic succession and the infallibility. There the re- mains of carnality in all must be burned away, and the deficien- cies of their penitential work in this life made good, by endur- ing penal fires and torments for a shorter or longer time. Then the Christian souls, finally purged from depravity and the rea- urn paenae, enter into their final rest with Christ. But the alms, prayers, and masses of survivons avail much to heli3 these 'Christian souls in purgatory and shorten their sufferings. It might be supposed that the Protestant doctrine should be much more attractive aud popular, viz.: that there is no purgatory or Intermediate state for the spirits of dead men, but that the "souls of believers, being at their death made perfect in holi- ness, do immediately enter into glory.'' This ought to be the more attractive doctrine, and to Bible believers it is such, but there is a feature about it which makes it intensely unpopular and repellent to carnal men, and gives a powerful advanrage witli them to the popish scheme. That feature is, the sharpness and strictness of the alternative which the Bible doctrine press- es upon sinners: "turn or die."
The Bible offers the most blessed and glorious redemption conceivable by man, gracious and free, and bestowing a con- summate blessedness the moment the body dies. But it is on these terms that the gospel must be embraced by a penitent faith, working an honest and thorough revolution in the life. If the sinner refuses this until this life ends, he seals his fate; aud that fate is final, unchangeable, and dreadful. Now, it is no consolation to the carnal heart that the gospel assures him he need not run any risk of that horrible fate; that he has only to turn and live; that very turning is the thing which he ab- hors, if it is to be done in spirit and in truth. He intensely de- sires to retain his sin and self-will. He craves earnestly to put oft" the evil day of this sacrifice without incurring the irrepara- ble penalty. Now, Rome comes to him and tells him that this Protestant doctrine is unnnecessarily harsh; that a sinner may continue in the indulgence of his sins until this life ends, and yet not seal himself up thereby to a hopeless hell; that if he is in communion with the Holy Mother Church through lier sacraments, he may indulge himself in this darling procrastina- tion without ruining himself forever. Thus the hateful neces-
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 565
sity t>f present repentance is postponed awhile; sweet, precious privilege to the sinner! True, he must expect to pay due pen- ance for that self-induloeuce in purgatory, but he need not per- ish for it. The Mother Church advises him not t3 make so bad a bargain and pay so dear for his whistle. But she assures him that, if he does, it need not ruin him, for ishe will pull liim through after a little by her merits and sacraments. How con- soling this is to the heart at once in love with sin and remorse- ful for its guilt I The seductiveness of this theory of redemp- tion to the natural heart Is proved by this grand fact, that in principle and in its essence this scheme of purgatorial cleans- ing has had a prominent place in every religion in the world that is of human invention. The Bible, the one divine religion, is peculiar in rejecting the whole concept. Those hoary reli- gions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, give their followers the vir- tual advantage of this conception in the transmigration of their souls. The guilt of the sinner's human life may be expiated by the sorrows of the soul's existence in a series of animal or rep- tile bodies, and then through another human existence, the penitent and purified soul may at last reach heaven. Classic paganism promised the same escape for sinners, as all familiar with Virgil know. His hero, Aeneas, when visiting the under world, saw many sinners there preparing for their release into the Elysiau fields, ^fo^o extrcentur poenis, et veterum malorum supplicia expendunt. Mohammed extends the same hope to all his sinful followers. For [hose who entirely reject Islam there is nothing but hell; but for all who profess 'There is no Ciod but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet," there is a purgatory after death, and its pains are shortened by his intercession. The Roman and Greek Churches flatter the sinful world with the same human invention. So strong is this craving of carnal men to postpone the issue of turning to God or perishing. ^A'e now see its effect upon the most cultured minds of this advanced nineteenth century in the New England doctrine of a "second probation." Ronu' has understood human nature skilfully, and has adapted her bait for it with consummate cunning. Her scheme is much more acute than that of the absolute universal- ist of the school of Hosea Ballou, for this outrages man's moral intuitions too grossly by rejecting all distinction between guilt and righteousness. This bait for sin-loving men is too bald.
566 THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY.
It must be added that the doctrine of a purgatory and of an application 3f redemption after death is intensely attractive to other principles of the human heart, much more excusable; to some affections, indeed, which are amiable. I allude to the solicitude and the affection of believers for the souls of those whom they loved in this life, "whD died and made no sign." The Bible doctrine is. indeed, a solemn, an awful one to Christians bereaved by the impenitent deaths of children and relatives. It is our duty to foresee this solemn result, and to provide against it by d:)ing everything which intercessory prayer, holy example and loving instruction and entreaty can d3 to prevent such a catastrophe in the case of all those near to our hearts. But human self-indulgence is prone to be slack in employing this safeguard against this sorrow. Let us picture to ourselves such a bereaved Christian, sincere, yet partially self-condemned, and doubtful or fearful or hopeless concerning the thorough conversion of a child who has been cut down by death. Of all the elements of bereavement none is so bitter, so immedicable, as the fear that he whom he loved must suffer the wrath of God forever, and that now he is beyjnd reach of his prayers and help. To such a one comes the Romish priest with this species of discourse. See now how harsh and cruel is this here- tical Protestant dogma I Instead of offering consolation to your Christian sorrow it embitters it as with a drop of hell fire. But Holy Mother Church is a mild and loving comforter; she assures you that yaur loved one is not necessarily lost; he may have to endure keen penances in purgatory for a time, but there is a glorious hope to sustain him and you under tliem. Every minute of pain is bringing the final heaven nearer, and the most blessed part of our teaching is that your love can still follow him and help him and bless, as it was wont to do under those earthly chastisements of his sins. It is your privilege still to pray for him. and your prayers avail to lighten his sufferings and to shorten them. Your love can still find that generous solace which was always so sweet to you amidst yttur former sorrows for his sins and his earthly sufferings — the solace of helping him and sharing his pains. Your alms also may avail for him: masses can be multiplied by your means, which will make merit to atone for his penitential guilt and hasten his blessed release. Who can doubt that a loving heart will be
THE ATTRACTIONS OF POPERY. 567
powerfully seduced by this promise, provided it can persuade itself of its certaiuty, or even of its probable truth? Here is the stron<;h3ld of Romanism on sincere, amiable, and affection- ate souls. Of course, the real question is, whether any pastor or priest is authorized by God to hold out these hopes to the be- reaved. If they are unwarrantable, then this presentation is an artifice of unspeakable cruelty and profanity. Under the pre- tence of softening: the pain of bereavement to God's children, if is adding to wicked deception the most mischievous influences upon the living by contradicting those solemn incentives to im- mediate repentance which God has set up in his word, and by tempting deluded souls with a false hope to neglect their real opportunity. If the h3pe is not grounded in the word of God, then its cruelty is equal to its deceitfulness. But the sutt'ering heart is often weak, and it is easier to yield to the temptation of accepting a deceitful consolation than to brace itself up to the plain but stern duty of ascertaining God's truth.
I have thus set in array the influences which Rome is now wielding through )ut our country for the seduction of human souls. Some of these weapons Protestants put into her hands by their own unfaithfulness and folly. God has a right to blame Rome for using this species of weapon in favor of the wrong cause, but these Protestants have not.
There is another class of weapons which Rome finds in the iblindness and sinfulness of human nature. Her guilt may be justly summed up in this statement: That these are precisely the errors and crimes of humanity which the church of Christ should have labored to suppress and extirpate; whereas Rome caters to them and fosters them in order to use them for her aggrandizement. Rut none the less are these weapons potent. They are exactly adapted to the nature of fallen man. As they always have been successful, they will continue to succeed in this country. Our republican i-ivil constitutions will prove no adequate shield against them. Our rationalistic culture, by weakening the authority of God's word, is only opening the way for their ulterior victory. Our scriptural ecclesiastical order will be no sufficient bulwark. The primitive churches had that liulwark in its strongest Presbyterian form, but poi)ery steadily undermined it. What if did once it can do again. There will be no effectual check upon another spread of this error except the work of the Holy Ghost. True and powerful revivals will save American Protestantism; nothing else will.
THE INFLUENCE OF FALSE PHILOSOPHIES UPON CHAKACTER AND CONDUCT.'
Tboughrful men who read the vai'ious st-hools of philosophy are struck with one feature common to the erroneous theories. This is the Icfh' assumption bv their authors of complete irre- sponsibility for results. Let the corollaries of their positions be destructive to either ethics or theology, that does not con- cern them. They say, philosophy has its supreme rights, let them prevail, whatever else perishes. This, of course, clearly implies the cool assumption by each author that his philosoph}' is the al)solutely true one; which again implies that he believes himself infallible in it. Yet each contradicts the sound phil- osophers, and also each of his fellow heretics. Schwegler dis- dains all the great scholastics, pronouncing them incapable jf real philosophy, because they avowed the supremacy of the Roman theology over all speculation. He evidently knows lit- tle about them, or he would have been aware how little their license of philosophic speculation was really curbed by pre- tended respect for Bible, councils, or popes. They could al- ways evade their restraints by their distinction — that what was theologically true, might yet be philosophically false.
Xow it is as plain as common sense can make it, that if there are any propositions of natural theology logically estab- lished, if any principle of ethics impreguably grounded in man's universal, necesisary judgments, if any infallible revelation, any philosophy that conflicts with either of the.se is thereby proven false. Xow, I believe there is an infallible revelation. There- fore, unless I am willing to become infidel, the pretended phil- osopher who impinges against revelation has no claim on me to be even listened to, much less believed; unless he has proved himself infallible. There are also fundamental moral principles supported by the universal experience and consent of mankind, and regulating the laws of all civilized nations in all ages. All
1 Appeared in Homiletic Review, January, 1896. 568
THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 569
human history and God's Word testify, moreover, that the dom- imincj^ of these moral principles is the supreme end for which the universe exists, and for which Providence rules (read But- ler's ''Analogy"). The rule of God's final judgment is to be: everlasting goiod to the righteous, condemnation to the wicked. Here then is a criterion, as firmly estaiblished as the founda- tiofUiS of human reason and the pillars of God's throne. He who discards this criterion makes man a reasonless 'brute, and the world an atheistic chaos; that man has no longer any right to any philosophy, any more than a pig. For has he not discarded the essential conditions of all philosophy, intuitive reasons in man, and rational order in the series of causes and effects? We may, therefore, safely adopt this criterion as a touchstone for every philosophy — that if it unsettles cionscience and God, it is erroneous.
I have now brought my reader to the eminent point of view from which he sees that the real tendency of all false philosophy must, in the end, be against good morals and religion. Lord Bac«n has nobly said that all the lines of true philosophy con- verge upward to God. The ethical criterion, which is the final, supreme rule of God, mankind, and the universe, must be the apex of a true philosophy. The philosophic lines which curve aside from God and right morals must therefore, in the end, pervert character and conduct.
I shall be told that many speculators, whose philosophy I hold wrong, lived better lives, perhaps, than mine. A Spinoza, a Fichte, a Littre, a Stuart Mill, a Tyndall, were virtuous men; even Helvetius was an amiable neighbor, and an honest fiscal officer. Granted. Again, they resent my conclusion, as a big- ot's insult, and a tyrannical ^bond upon philosophic freedom of thought. I reply: Nobody has any freedom rightfully to think against God and righteousness. I reply again: I have assert- ed this evil tendency, as only a tendeaicy, in many, not always a present result. Personally, I am glad to give full credit to the goiod character of individual opponents. Again, the virtues of these errorists were really the fruits of the side influences and social habitudes of the very religion and philosophy which they tried to discard. Spin6za was reared by Jewish parents under monotheism and the ten commandments. Fichte, like Kant, was a candidate for the Lutheran ministry. Tyndall and Dra-
570 THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
per were both sons of pious mou-conformist ministers in Eng- land. But tlie real question is: What of the moral influence of their philosophies on the untrained and ignorant masses? Lastly, whatever the civic virtue of these gentlemen, none of them ever pretended to spiritual .sanctity; wliicli is the higher and only immortal phase of virtue. The character which re- gards man, the less, but disregards God, the greater, can not be wholly sound, and can not retain its partial soundness per- manentlj'. This is the inspired argument; and it is a fortiori:
"A son honareth his father, and a servant his master; if then I be a father, where is mine honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O prieS'ts, that despise my name" (Mai. i. 6).
I. A question concerning the influence of a false philoso- jtliy may be tried historically. Here are the facts. The national philosophy of China is that of Confucius, which, we are told, is simply modern agnosticism. The civil administration of China, and the domestic morals, are rotten with corrujjtion. Lying, oi)ium drunkenness, cruelty, bribery, cheating, infanti- cide are current. India has a great and ancient philosophy — pantheism. Her religions, Brahmanism and Buddhism, are pantheistic. When the British went there, despotism, bribery, polygamy, the suttee, infanticide, ofiicial plunderiugs, lying, and cheating were prevalent institutions. Oaths in court count- ed for nothing at all in administering justice. Thuggism was a religion. In Greece, the sounder philosophy was supplanted by that of the E})icureans, Sophists, Skeptics, and the New Academy. Then the glory departed, and Greece ^became vile enough for her slavery. Then Roman virtue also died, and a vast moral rottenness brought on the ''decline and fall' of the empire. In the eighteenth century, France adopted the sensu- alist philosophy of Voltaire, and the selfish ethics of Helvetius. The fruit was the Keign of Terror. In Russia, the Nihilism of Bakunin is a philosophy, that, namely, of materialism and ag- nosticism; its products are anarchy, i»rostitution, and assas- sination. The same philosophy has shown us the same fruits in Paris. New York, and Chicago. Lastly, everybody sorrow- fully admits the decadence of political, commercial, and domes- tic virtue in this country. We need not detail the melancholy instances, or paint the contrast between the Americans of to-
THE INFLUElSrCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 571
day and the America of Monroe and J. Q. Adams. Since the hitter epocli, the philosophy of Conite, Stuart Mill, and Darwin haiS been rapidly gaining ground.
Shall I be told that these are only chance coincidences and nor causal sequences? According to the inductive lagic, se- quences so regularly recurring raise a strong probability, if not a certainty, of a true causal relation. Again, could instances be adduced of the reverse order, where the incoming lof a true l)hil(Ksop'hy resulted in a decay of morals, our opponents might have some offset to our facts: but there are no such cases.
II. And I now proceed to shiow that the sequences are causal, by disclosing in these false philosophies obvious causes of corruption.
Here an important fact should be brought forward. ]\Ian's moral nature is diseased. Some perversion of will is inherited by every man. Hence, farther moral decay is natural and easy; while the ascent back toward a higher virtue is arduous. Hu- man souls are like a loaded train upon a down grade, whose slight inclination, below the horizioutal, increaises as it advances. The natural tendency of the train is to descend slowly at first, then with accelerated speed toward the final crash. A good brake (a true philosophy) is quite efficient to keep the train sta- tionary; thus much of good it can do. But the 'best brake can not push the train upgrade, while a false lone, failing to lock the wheels, insures the descent and ruin of the train. Divine grace furnishes the omly sure power for driving the train up- ward against nature.
I know that it is the trick of all erroneous philosophies to (miit or deny this natural evil qualifying the moral disposition of man; tio pretend not to see it, to philosophize as though right- eouisness were as natural to man as sin is. To this arrogancy I shall not yield am inch. As a philosophic analysis, it is false; it dishonestly refuses to see a fact in human nature as plain and large as any other fact in psychology. This evil disposition now qualifying man's essentia is as clearly proved as any other fundamental instinct, faculty, lor appetency. How do they find out that man, unlike the i)ig or the ox, is an esthetic creature? In the very same way, were they consistent, they should find out that he is by nature a sinning creature. All human experi- ence, all expedients of legislation, all history, every candid con-
572 THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
sciousness, confirm it. I say, therefore, plainly, that I shall postulate, throughout this discussion, this tendency in man toward moral decadence. It is a fact, and my argument shall be that eA-ery dogma in theology, philosophy, politics, or busi- ness, which lifts off the soul any form of moral restraint, tends to moral corruption. Let us see whether each of these false philosophies does not abolish some moral check.
The key-note of Buddhism is, that since feeble man's pur- suit of the rjibjects of his appetencies results in failure and pain, his true virtue is to annihilate all appetencies, and thus win nirvana. Then, of cour-se, not only the animal, but the social ap- petencies— ^sympathy, benevolence, pity, friendship, conjugal, filial, and even parental love — must be expunged out of the philosopher's soul in order to make him holy, forsooth! For the appetencies set in motion by these affections are the occa- sions of far the deepest and most pungent grief?; of human ex- istence. That is to say: the Buddhist saint, in order to be per- fect, must make himself a cold, inhuman villain, recreant to ev- ery social duty. Such, indeed, their own history makes their chief "hero of the faith.'' Prince Gautama, who begins his saint- ship by absconding like a coward, and forsaking all his duties to his wife, his son, his concubines, his parents, and his subjects. But they say he afterward showed sublime altruism by offering his body to be eaten by a hungry tigress, which had not suc- ceeded in torturing and devouring enough antelopes to make milk for her cubs. Bah I methinks he would have done better to care for his own deserted human cub I
Once more, the scheme founds itself on an impossibility, ^[an can not by his volition expunge native appetencies, be- cause these furnish the only springs of volitions. Can the child be its own father? Eating results in dyspepsia; therefore, not only cease eating absolutely, but cease being hungry. That is the recipe for the distress of dyspepsia! But first, it i.s impos- sible; second, were it done, all mankind would be destroyed in a few weeks. Common sense says that when a man goes to pro- fessing the impossible he begins to be a cheat. And this is the practical trait of Buddhism.
They say the doctrine of transmigration is a great moral check, teaching the Hindus to avoid sin by the fear of migrating at death into some more miserable animal form. Is it not a
THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 673
better check to teach them that at death they will at ouce staud in judgment before an all-wise, just, and almighty Judge? May not that Buddhist doctrine also frequently incite living men to the fiercest brutality to animals, by the supposition that those animals are now animated by the souls of hated enemies?
The pantheism of China, India, and the modems has com- mon moral features. And the fatal influences are so plain that, while they are of vast and dreadful importance, they may be despatched in few words.
Then, first, when I act, it is God acting. You must not cDudemn me, whatever villainies I act, because that would be condemning God! Second, whatever men and devils act is but God acting. Then where is the possibility of God's having, in himself, any rational standard of right, by which to condemn our sins? Does God's will in himself judge and condemn his same will emitted in our actions? Or can that will be any moral standard at all which is thus self-contradictory? Such a moral ruler would be worse for the pulpit, than none at all — atheism less confusing and corrupting than pantheism. Third, God's existence and actions are necessary, if any actions are; but God acting, I have no free agency. But if not a free agent, I can not be justly accountable. Fourth, God is an abs9lute unit and unchangeable being, eternal and necessary. There- fore, if all happiness and misery in creatures are, at bottom, God's own affections, there can be no real difference between happiness and misery (Spinoza's own corollary). What will be the effect of this inference upon that excellent quality, mercy? The dogma must breed indifference ta others' suffering, as much as stoicism under one's own. Its tendency is toward a hard- heartedness as pitiless as the tiger, the fire, and the tempest. Fifth, if God is all, there is but one substance in the universe. All other seeming personal beings are modal manifestations of the One. Hence, each creature is but a temporary phenomenon, a wavelet upon this ocean of being. Death, therefore, is a re- absorption into the One. It is nirvana, the absolute, eternal extinction of personality and consciousness — thus all panthe- ists. Then for this other reason there can be no personal re- sponsibility, or reward, or punishment in the future. All the moral restraints of the doctrine of future judgment are as much swept away as by atheism.
574 THE INFLtlENCE Of MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
We must be brief. Hartinanu and Schopenhauer have shown that idealistic pantheism must lead to pessimism. But all our new-fangled philosophies seem to think pessimism a very naughty thing. It is their favorite bad word, with which to pelt a Calvinist, a conservative, or an3' other wh^m they di.>- like — to cry: "Oh. he is a pessimist!" But seriously, is pessim- ism a hopeful or healthv outlook for a good man? What room does it leave for the tria of supreme virtues: faith, hope, and charity? On this head it is enough to name the charge, often and justly made against the Darwinian doctrine of the "su?- vival of the fittest/' and the fated extinction of the naturally weaker; that it tends to produce a pitiless hardheartedness. Tbe inference is logical; look and see.
The old saw, "'Extremes meet," was never truer than it is of pantheism and atheism. The latter says: "There is no Gad at all"; the former: "Everything is God." But the moral re- sults of both are closely akin. In this, my indictment includes genuine Darwinism; for there is now no doubt that Dr. Darwin, like his most consistent pupils, Haeckel, Buchner, etc.. believ- ed that the doctrine ought to exclude both spirit and Gad. Their logic is consistent; for if all teleology is 'banished out of na- ture, and if that in man which thinks, feels, and wills is but an evolution of brute impulses, inherent in sensorial matter, there is no spiritual substance. We must have materialistic monism. Then every moral restraint arising out of the expec- tation of future responsibility, rewards, and punish- ments, is utterly swept awa}'. Whj^ should men conclude anything but. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we dieV"" To borrow Carlyle"s rough phrasing: "If mine is a pig's destiny, why may I not hold this -pig philosophy"?" Again, if I am but an animal refined by evolution. I am entitled to live an animal life. Why not? The leaders in this and the sensualistic philosophy may themselves be restrained by their habits of mental culture, social discretion and personal refinement (for which they are indebted to reflex Christian influences); but the herd of common mortals are not cultured and refined, and in them the doctrine will bear its deadly
fruit.
Our opponents say that they can discard these jld-fash- ioned restraints of theologic superstitions, and apply better and
THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 675
more refined checks upon the coarser vices, Aiz., by showing- men that the refined pleasures of temperance, esthetic tastes, cul- ture, and altruism are higher and sweeter than the coarse plea- sures of vice; and that the two classes are incompatible, so that the lower should be sticrificed for the higher. Yes; the world has known of that subterfuge from the days lof Epicurus; and Imows its worthlessness. Here is the fatal reply; and its logic is plain enough to 'be grasped by the coarsest: '^porcus de grege. Epicuri cute bene curataP Refined Mr. Epicurus, it depends entirely upon each man's natural constitutional tastes which ckiss of pleasures shall be to him highest and sweetest. You say that to you music, art, letters are such; you were born so. I am so born that these are but "•caviare'' to me, while my best pleasures are gluttony, drink, lust, gambling, and prize-fights. The philosopher is answered.
Little space remains to me for unmasking the e\il tenden- cies of other sensualistic, expediency, and utilitarian i>hiloso- phies. The reader must take hints. Their common key-note is : no a priroi, common, ruling intuitions of necessary, rational truths, either logical or moral. Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu. Very well! Neither spirit nor God is cognized by any sense-faculty. Therefore, philosophy should Icnow noth- ing about either, b^econdly, the concept of the moral good, or virtuousness in actions, is not cognized by any sense-faculty. Is it seen as a fine color, smelled as a perfume, heard with the ears as a harmony, tasted with the mouth as a savor, felt with the fingers as satin or velvet? No. Then philosophy should know nothing at)out it. It should say there are no such things in the soul as distinctly ethical feelings; nothing but sensitive ones and their combinations. For mind can only feel as it sees; where it sees nothing it should feel nothing. Then there are two results; there is no science of ethics, nothing but a psych- ology of sensibilities, which being merely personal, there is no source for any altruism; it is a silly fiction. And, next, since the sensibilities are only moved by objective causes, there is no free agency. Look and see. Hume was logical in 'becom- ing fatalist and atheist. So Hobbes, the father of modern sen- sualism.
Finally, there is a modem class of professed religionists who seem to regard Mill, Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley as very
576 THE INFLtlENCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
apostles of philosophy (wh^-, we know not); and when thereaf- ter proclaiming- their agnosticism, add, that they still leave i-oom for religion; that while religion has no stauding-grr>nnd in philosiophy, she may be admitted in the sphere of feeling. Our pious neighbors are very thankful! This is the "advanced thought" destined to sweep everything before it; and we are so grateful that it still leaves us a corner for our dear religion! But common sense says: "Thank you for nothing, Messrs. Ag- noistics. You have not left any comer for our precious religion. Better speak out as honest atheists. The universal law of mind is that it can only feel normally as it sees intelligently. ^Yhere there is no logical ground for credence, there should be no source for feeling."
In trutli, they let me keep my religion at the price of turn- ing fool!
THE SAN MARCOS RIVER.
Mysterious river! whence thy bidden source?
The rain drops from far-distant field and fell. Urging through countless paths their darkling course.
Combine their tiny gifts thy flood to swell. What secrets hath thy subterranean stream
Beheld; as it has bathed the deepest feet Of everlasting hills, which never beam
Of sun or star or lightning's flash did greet? Over what cliffs rushed rhou in headlong fall
Into some gulf of Erebus so deep Thy very foam was black as midnight's pall;
And massive roof of rock and mountain steep Suppressed thy thunders, so that the quick ears
Of fauns recumbent on its lofty side Heard not: and grass blades, laden with the tears
Of night dews, felt no quiver from thy tide? Through days and weeks, uncounted by the sun,
Thy waters in abysmal caves have lain In slow lustration, ere they sought to run
Forth to the day, purged from earth's least stain. Pallas- Athene of the i-ivers, thou!
Who leapest adult in thy glittering might From yonder hoary mountain. Zeus' brow.
Whose cloven crags parted to give thee light. Thou teachest us. wise virgin; as through caves,
Sad and tear-dropping, steal thy sobbing waves, Then flash to day; so virtue's weeping night
Shall surely break into the dawn's delight.
Emblem, thou, of maiden's love.
Buried deep in modest heart;
Growing there to secret strength.
Hiding, swelling, till at length
Its Lord's caresses bid it start
To life and joy! Then forth it springs.
Circling glad in radiant rings;
Bliss and fruitfulness it brings.
Naiad bright, so deckest thou
With wedding wreaths thy shining brow.
Trailing ever verdant bands
Of fern and lily; as the lands
Thou weddest with thy close embrace,
In thy laughing, seaward race.
578 THE SAN MARCOS RIVER.
Or dost tliou tell us of a sterner tbeiue?
How souls of heroes, like thy forceful stream. Are bred and nursed in silence and the night.
Fed from the rills of secret pra.ver; their mi.ght Recruited iu grim strife with foes concealed:
rntil. in fearful hour, the earthquake shock. Of war. or civic crisis, cleave the rock.
Then, startling foe and friend, they move revealed In beauty terrible, as pure as strong:
But seek the ocean of eternity (Too soon, alas!) to which their names belong.
Oh. flood! though earth-born, thou dost seek the sky, And this is thy prime lesson: On our tomb
Our resurrection waits: our souls shall fly
To heaven's sunlight from its blackest gloom.
This is the highest, this the noblest hope, To publish which thy secret caverns ope.
THE DEATH OF MOSES, i
The .am stood flaming o'er the western deep.
Dyeiii.u' its tri)!tj;s of fliuds and purple plain With red and liold: while up the lower steep
Of Neho. stole the slanting- shade, to gain His naked brow. Then c-ame there up to meet
The evening rays a reverend man. with step Sedate, but grand: and sncadfast eyes' which greet
The opposing sun. mournful, yet strong to face His tierces.t beams. His loeks and beard are white
As Hermon's erest. whieh props the northward sky: Yet limb and feature move instim-t with might
Of manhood, and the soul that doth nor die. On topmost height - he pauses, pedestal meet
For Israel's Prophet King, the goodliest man Earth ever saw. since Adam from his seat
Reviewed his Paradise. Thus, he to scan The scene stood long, then spake:— "The heritage
To Abram pledged^ 1 see: oh goodly land. To which our Patriarchs turned from age to age
With longing faith, to which my guiding hand Hath led the ffribes. as sires* their infant charge.
For forty weary years, through burning sands. • Thy face how grand, thy boundaries, how large!
Not like those pastures where we wore the bonds Of our disgrace, parched with torrid heats.
Or drenched 3 with turbid floods. But thoji dost drink 6 From crystal founts that hold their airy sea'ts
In Heaven, fed from old ocean's farthest brink. Thy features how harmonious., yet sublime!
Northward a wall of green, whose summits pierce The lofty heavens. I see: but ere they climb
Into the clouds, put on a robe diverse. Can earth-born things assume a garb so pure?
How do blacK scar, and tawny peak outvie The fairest tints of doudland. yet endure.
I'nmoved amid their change, the while the sky Doth ki.<.s the earth! 'Tis Hermon clad^ in snow.
Celestial raiment, woven of frozen dew.
1 Appeared in Union Hem'Tiary Magazine
IDuet. 34:7. 2 Duet. :?:27. 3 Gen. 17:8. 4 Duet. 1:31. 5 Duet. ll:lii 6 Duet. 11:1], 7Jer. 18:14.
580 THE DEATH OF MOSES.
(A sight which swelteriu.y Egypt could not know)
In awful beauty, here mine eye doth view. The Giant preacheth to thee, Oh, my soul!
Thus must God's robe of heavenly righteousness. Blood-washed, rhiue earthly soil of sin enroll.
Ere thou cans't soar and meet the skies in peace. This side the mighty ramparts' foot, behold
The upper lake, mid its encircling hills. Gleams like n mirror, which enameted gold Binds with its rim. Here Jordan lights
His verdant vale with many a sinuous coil. Beyond, hills rise and fertile valleys spread
And plains expand, teeming^ with wine and oil And plenteous corn; whose glittering streams are fed
From springs perennial, mounts like billowy waves Which winter's breath congealed e'en as they rose,
I see; within whose veins and darkling caves Lie riches, matching what their fields enclose.
Iron and ruddy brass - Here, at my feet. Sheer down two thousand cubits, sullen sleeps
The lake of doom, (hemmed in by borders meet Of savage crags and thunder riven lieap.s)
Above the accursed cities of the plain. Beyond those ridges spreads an azure band.
Which shows us where old ocean doth restrain The western margin of the utmost land.
Here is thy hame, Oh Israel! here thy rest. In these green vales thy dwelling thou shalt plant.
And on these swelling hills thy God hath blest. Here shalt thou guard the holy covenant
I gave you, taught by future line of seers; While peace shall multiply thy teeming seed
To fill the land, until the promised tears Of Shiloh ^ come; whose hand divine shall lead
Your hosts, and wield at once my kingly rod. The Prophets crook, and Aaron's censer lit
With heavenly flame; and shed that awful blood (Which meaner S:treams where e'er our altars sit.
Dimly foreshadow,) that shall cleanse the world. From yonder hills, with Israel's temple crowned.
Messiah's flag of peace shall be unfurled. While earths remotest nations gather round
To catch his gospel light, and learn* his ways. The Sun of Righteousness shall, on that hill.
Hold his fixed zenith, and from thence his rays With light and holiness and peace shall fill
All gentile lands, the foul and bloody seat
1 Duet. 11:14-9. -' Duet. 8:9. 3 Gen. 49:10. 4 Isaiah I'Sl-A. Lsa. 62:10.
THE DEATH OF MOSES. 581
Of the usurper Satan. Israel's race,
Nation of Pri<?sts5. shall lead their willing feet And cleansed hearts to seek Jehovah's face. '
All lands'^ shall Canaan's be, and this our home
Again the Paradise of God. But I, Such his decree7! I must not hope to come
To that good land; but look, and long, and die! Would it were mine (can mortals' hearts suffice
To check the wish?) to lead my people still In this, the crisis of their great emprise
To prosperous ends, and so my charge fulfil. Across the .stream, yon cityi of the Palms
Pollutes its goodly seat with noisome sin. I hear its trumpets blow their loud alarms;
Its saucy warriors with defiant din Insult the air, and crowd the hither wall
Like moiling ants; the blazonrj- of hell, Inscribed on streamers, flags, and pennons tall.
Likeness of Molock, Ashtaroth and Belle, And Dagon, Scaly God, affronts the skies.
Thrusting incarnate fiends, who personate Murder and brutisli lust, blaspheming lies.
And rites obscene, into the holy state Of our Jehovah. L a dying man.
Uenounct? your doom of death. Ea^'th could nut beat- The sins of Sodom longer, which out-ran
God's longest patience — yours beyond compare Exceed your fathers'. See their ghastly tomb
Beneath you bitter waves, whose funeral stroke Measures the tread of your approacliing doom.
Fain would I live to see those ramparts broke; To head those martial hosts I taught to tame
The rage of Sihou and of Bashan's king. Jehovah'sS banner, folds of cloiul and flame.
Should be the topmost sky their terrors fling. My great Lieutenant! and my dog5 of war.
Jephunneh's stalwart son, would I unlash. My trumpets' summons, Israel's fierce hurrah.
And chai'ge resis,tless, should these bulwarks dasli Like flim.s.y shreds away; whose wrecks should be
Defiled graves forever for God's foes. Or if such moments must not come to me.
In which the joy of battle overflows The hero's spirit, there were calm delights
.5 Exod. 19:6. «i Ps 7:2:11. 7 Duet ;^:23-:2il. Num. 20:8-12.
1 Joshua 6:1. 2 Gen. 18:20. oh. lit:24. 3 E.xod. 13:21. Exod. 17:15. 4 Duet. 34:9. .5 Caleb means do^.
582 THE DEATH OF MOSES.
For which I yearned. I hoped to see the tribes, Seated in prosperous peace with oMered rights
In this good hind, where holy priests and scribes, Nut Captains stern, should teach the milder ways
Of love and faith; and gentle evening Psalms Instead of trumpet's blare should close the days.
Swelled by sweet mothers sitting neath their palms. And children*' voices soft. I thought to share
The sacred rapture of that final feast. When all our hosts, purged from stains of war.
Shall to The altar come with grateful breast In long procession, while the silvery note
Of Levites horns, and choirs of chanting priests Make the high echoes of our anthem float
From earth to Heavens own arch; and smoking beasts Of holocaust and incense pure shall raise
Their cloudy columns, fragrant with our thanks. To speak to God a ransomed nations praist-.
When I had led my people's jtibilee. Should come my rest, perpetual Sabbath rest.
With brain and heart, and we.ny members free From those hard toils whicli had my life oppressed.
The kiugi in Jeshurun no more, but only one Among my equal brethren, should I dwell
In my own modest'home, my like-work done; And to my children's children daily tell
God's works and laws; until, as yonder sun. Whos.? nether limb e'en now doth touch the deep.
His toilsome race of power and splendor run. Sinks in his azure bed to quiet sleep
Amid serenest lights; thtis shotild I seek The grave, my couch of calm and glarious rest.
But why this earth-born wish, as vain as weak! Against that fixed decree, that stern arrest
Of hoi>e and life"? I must not cross this flood. Nor share those joys, debarred by my offense.
Once small appearing; till thy chastening rod, Oh Father, taught me. and the clearer sense • My conscience gains from heaven's approaching light. I bow my guilty head; for thou hadst placed
My state so high, no trespass could be slight Which I might work, nor folly, which disgraced
Thy power, deputed to my creature hand. Just is my sentence, black my sin with pride And heat- forgetful of thy strict command. So thy sole glory fam would I divide
1 Duet. 33:5. 2 Num. 20:10.
THE DEATH OF MOSRP. TlcSH
Betwixt myself and tlioo. Oh wish profane! As though thy rod of power were mine to wield.
Blessed be God! 'tis not a wrathful' blow Which smites my sin, but those soft strokes that yield Medicinal cure: And that blest stream which tlows
Along the ages from his smitten rock,3 Pretigured by the meaner blood we draw
From dying substitutes of herd or flock. Hath washed nie white from guilt of broken law.
Thou chastening, pitying (Jod. I bow to thee In peace supreme, my fond desire recall
From earth and time, to find in Heaven and thee My home, my land, my church, my all in all!
Now earth, and sea, and sky, and sun, farewell! I look my last, nor would tlie look renew.
A fairer scene tlian Canaan casts its spell On my enraptured spirit. To my view
A piirer radiance rises, at whose beams Yon sinking orb looks dull. I see from whence
This flood ineffable of glory streams, Not by corporeal eyes, but inner sense
Of spiritual sight, which to my soul reveals. The Heavenly gates, whiter than Hermon's snow.
And loftier than his peaks. And from them peals Celestial harmony, whose accents flow
In mingled strains, so soft, so high, so clear. Our Sanctuary's psalms discordant sound.
Earth, thou are nauiglit.^ My I'avished lie.nt and ear Forget thy charms. T'pun this verdant ground
I lay me down, weak with excess of bliss. To drink the glory in with steady gaze.
The vision brigliter glows. What trance is this, Which thus exliausts my soul with glad amaze?
I feel the fanning wings of Cherubim, I bear their voices whisper: •'Bi'other, couie!"
Now death - tliuu vaniiuished foe. lead me to Him Whose bosom is my everlasting home. Mose.s dies Satiin iippears rising from a darli ravine to seizes his body, but Michael witli a troop of Angels repulses him with majestic and grave rebul^e; whereupon his company bear away the corpse to its burial.4 chanting a hymn to Messiah.
3 1 Cor. 10:4.
1 Ps. 73::25-26. 2 Duet. :i4:h. ;! Ep of Jude v. ',). i Duet. 34:6.
THE CHRISTIAN WOMANS DROWNING HYMN.
A MONODY.
(A Christ i:iu lady aud organist, weut .Inly. 1886. with, and at the request of her sister, for a few days" excursion to Indianola. They arrived the day before the great night storm and tidal wave, which submerged the town. Both the ladies and children, after hours of fearful suspense, were drowned, the house where they sought refuge being broken to pieces in the waves. A survivor stated that the or- ganist spent much of the interval in most moving prayer. Their re- mains were recovered on the subsidence of the tempest, and interred at their homes., amidst universally solemn and tender sympathy.
The following verses are imagined, as expressing the emotions of the Christian wife, sister and mother, during her long struggle with the waters:)
Sister, awake! Oh list! there is a change:
The moon, whose flood of light, at eventide Made of the placid sea an ans-wering range
Of star-lit sky, the upper heavens beside; Sheds now its fitful gleams through angry rifts.
The fanning breezes that caressed our locks Are swollen to a gale, on which there drifts
The s.hriek of drowning men; and sullen shocks Of waves, like trampling hosts, as.sault the groujid—
Oh hear beneath the hollow, deep sea-moan Sob of unrest eternal! where doth sound
The smothered agony, and parting groan Of all the dead that ocean's caverns keep.
Our hearts, oh! sister, yesterday were bright As was the sun-lit surface of the deep:
Our mirth was like its ripples tipped with light — AYe thought but in this summer-sea to lave.
Our members fevered by the dog-star's ray. And yet, beneath our laughter's rippling wave
My spirit heard a moan, which seemed to say In tone half-felt, unreasoning; beware!
Thou art the type, thou beauteous, treacherous sea Of mortals' lives, whose sunny joys show fair
But to prelude the the storm. I Come, let us flee!
See these intrusive surges, each more nigh
Thau its audacious fellow! Sister, come!
BAPTISMAL HYMN. 585
Too late, thou sayestV 'Ere now the breakers fly,
Crowned with crashing wrecks and seething foam, Across that narrow isthmus, where alone
Our path to safety lay. Remorseless deep. Thy cunning, faithless work, thou hast well done.
We are thy helpless prey, which thou wilt keep Fast caught in thine embrace, to wait the death
Thy fierce yet stealthy tread will bring. Oh fate So sudden, unforeseen! to end our breath
In our strong prime! To set so short a date, One eve. betwixt our joy and our despair!
Insidious foe: kuewest thou that manly breast. Those nervous, sheltering arms are absent far.
Which even thy mighty rage would dare contest For her he loved? Against two women weak.
Two frightened babes, inexorable king, Resounds thy diapason dread, the shriek
Of wailing beasts, that bear upon their wings The hissing spray, and thunder of thy hosts
To drown our puny cry.
So with thy shout. From far-off tropic deeps and Carib-coasts
Thy huge reserve of floods thou callest out To whelm these helpless lives. Our bruised limbs
And garments rent are tossed like leaves that float On autumn blasts; while ever nearer climbs
Thy cruel, lapping wave, to clutch our throat. Yea. thou art mighty in thy rage, oh sea!
Thou, atheist Titan, wouldst assault the sky And fain wouldst bid the frighted stars to flee
From thy vast tumult! But they do not fly! Between the storm-rent clouds I see their beams.
Slender but steadfast, and serene as clear, Disdam thy brutal wrath: and with them streams
That still, small voice believing spirits hear; Soft, but more potent than thy deaf'ning roar.
It is thy Master's voice, insurgent deep. Who sits above those stars, who shuts the door.
Or opens to the storm, who bids thee keep Thy subject bounds, and measures all thy flood
In his mere palm; when he bids. "Peace; be still:" Thy waves shall crouch like beasts, beneath his rod.
Thou tossest wide thy billows' hands to kill. The everlasting arms enfold and keep
My better life; Jehovah, he who guides Yon starry worlds, as shepherds lead their sheep.
Inspires my psalm of faith, above the tides Of thy vain tumult, ringing high and clear, '
586 BAPTISMAL HYMN.
Belov'il on eartli. f;irewelll ()li beaveuly spouse I oomel tliy voice dorb cast out all my fear
And charms my soul aloft. Thy will allows To the devourer, naught but this poor clay.
Earth-born like it. Then, take it. ravenous seal Thy futile s-poil; thou hast an empty prey.
Even this for a day— nor shall it be The food of thy sea monsters, nor be drawn
To thy dark caverns. This my soul foresees. Grown prescient in the liiiht of heaven's near dawn.
Whilst thou shalr cower at my Lord's decrees Back to thy kennels, this poor frame shall lie
Embalmed In loving tears, and take its rest Beneath the tiowers and sheltering groves, hard by
The peaceful homes of men: and temples blest Of Christ: until his resurrection-morn
And that new wor:,!. when "Seas shall be no more. Thus, from thy stormiest crest, with holy scorn.
I mount to peaceful mansions, where thy roar No more shall reach, than to yun starry orbs.
A SONNET TO LEE.
Israel oue David, Arlieus oue IVrieles. Thebes one Epaminordas could produce. Thy State, O, Lee, of greatness, more profuse, Nurtured two Washingtous upon her knees; The tirst to crown on earth his God did please; But thy reward was set thee in the skies. Sterner thy fate than Jackson's; him to I'ise And fee: no fall, appointed Heaven's decrees. From thy high noon thou turnedst to the west. By clouds infolded, thunderous and dark. Which yet. reluctant, spread around thy rest. Purple and golden glories, prescient mark Of that eternal radiance which hath blest Thy soul, beyond our sun's inferior arc.
GENERAL T. J. JACKSON.
AN ELEGY, 1887.
Six days our hearts ftood still with keen snspi'usi':
Our champion lay sore smitten of God's hand.
The seventh, our hope was slain, for he was deadi
Our prayers were vain; and now our palsied sense
Knows not our grief to utter. Weep. O land!
Who shall inspire thy threnody, and wed
Thy wails to numbers mournful as thy breast?
Invoke no pagan Muse, whose fabled sigh
And painted tear but mimic woe sincere.
Come rather, thou, the Spirit who dost rest
In truth's, eternal seat; it was thine eye
Illumined him we mourn: and thy pure fear
His greatness was. Thee then, we call to teach
Our pain tit voice, who didst thy seer's lament
Attune to chant meet dirge for Ziou's fall.
"Oh that our heads were watersi" Then might reach
Our floods of tears to the full argument
Of our calamity, as we recall.
In contrast black, our hero's glorious morn
With this drear night that clouds it at midday.
But twice twelve moons before. A'irginia said:
"Hither my sons to meet the invaders' scorn I
They deem we withered in obscure decay.
My bosom dry of that proud milk that fed
My Washingtons and Henrys. O'er my head
They shake the loathed scourge, as though to sway
To slavery this soul to freedom born."
Then of her- myriads, rallying to her cry.
Our mother's instinct owned him foremost son.
Modest as prompt, with spirit trained to might
In secret prayer, with Bayard's chivalry
Of faith begotten; with a valor won
From God's own strength and truth's serenest light.
She gave her banner to his. stainless hand.
Thence, like the day-star blazed he in her front:
His sweep, the wind's, his stroke the knell of fate
To them who durst pollute her sacred land.
Onward and upward, through the war-cloud's brunt.
He soared with steady wing, as though to' instate
GENERAL T. J. JACKSON. ^89
Her flag in freedom's peaceful citadel.
TJaen, midst his loftiest fliglit, our eagle fell!
That we were fall'n with him we learned too late.
Yea, bow, O Lee, in grief that kingly front
To which all others bent; and weep thou drops
Such as were shed by Israel's warrior king.
For Jonathan and Saul the highty shiiu.
For now from thy right side disaster lops
The arm which wont thy victories to bring;
And could thy grandest purposes explain
In grander deeds. Yea, weep thou hoary chief!
For with his parting soul success hath flown.
To come no more. Not that thy worth is less,
Or patriot- will to win thy land relief;
Nor all thy heroes with their pattern gone.
Still shall ye toil and die; but full success
No more shall crown these toils, stanch as his own.
Still shall your gallant struggles honor save,
Losing all el.se. And weep, ye rugged hosts.
Who laughed in battle's dead-lock: He is gone
Whose shout worth fresh battalions: "On ye brave!"
Inspired your charge. Weep too, ye martial ghosts,
Who, parting from your bleeding flesh, were glad
That he still battles to avenge your fall.
For none remain that vengeance to demand,
Until the heavenly court's decree be had.
But chiefest thou, Virginia, round thee call
Thy mourning women; drape thy widowed laud
In blackest weeds, and let thy eyes be wells
Of bitter waters. Yea, and thou didst mourn!
Twice didst thou bury him; thy maids with flowers.
Thy elders with his mother-earth. Thy bells
With dismal stroke and cannons' bellowing groan
Measured thy funeral step, as all thy powers
L"nrolled their gloomy ranks.
But hadst thou seen with his presaging eye.
How much was lost with him; hadst broke the seal
Of fate for thy succeeding years, and read
As he had read, that thy best sons should die.
Yet win no rescue for the commonweal
By their rich blood, as vain, as freely shed:
How conquerors, ruthless in their pride of power.
Should trample thy fair neck, whose queenly foot
Found rightful place upon the oppressor's liead:
Cunning and malice rule the dismal hour
Of thine eclipse, and fraud and force uproot
Each right implanted by thy fathers dead:
How doltish serfs and alien thieves should foul
590 GENERAL T. J. JACKSON.
Thy seats of power, once by thy sages graced; While all thy noblest, fairest, wisest sank In want obscure, hounded by slanderous howl: And worst, how some, thy sons, whom thou hadsr pl.KM d 'Neath thy free banner, in the honored rank Of thy defenders, wooed by filthy greed. Should aid. Oh shame! their mother's chains to draw: Hadst thou seen this as thy dead champion saw: (And that it might not be was fain to bleed) Then hadst thou wept, not tears of brine, but blood! Yea, woeful mother, weep! There is no herb. Euphrasy, rue, nor balsam, that can buy Health for thy deadly hurt; this saw thy Lee: Hence in the battle's edge the end superb Of those who for, and with their country die. He sought, but could not find; thus God's decree. So as he must not fall, nor could endure To see the glories bought with fathers' blood So foully ravaged, lost beyond recall, His mighty heart-strings brake, his spirit pure AVeut up where wrongs no more oppress the good. Lift up thy wail. Virginia; thy stone wall Thy tower of strength is prostrate. Mothers, weep: Who for your country gave your bodies' fruit. Dearer than life; yet willing their dear blood Should buy her dearer freedom. Widows, weep: And ye. unwedded maidens, wan and mute. (Tit mates for heroes) who for country's good Could nuptial jo.\-s forego, and think her weal Full recompense for all your widowed lives: For HE IS lead: your priceless price is spent. And no deliverance bought. Ah! harshest deal Of sightless fortune! this the thought that rives- Your aching hearts. Oh Gotl, why hast thou sent Such mockery of hope"? Why bid arise Such champion of our cause, and let him bring The boon so near our grasp, and then withdraw Thy gift, his work unfinished, to thy s.kies? Forgive the faithless question. Sovereign King. We read its answer with repentant awe. In our own sin. He was thine overture; Thy merciful proposal to us. writ In characters more clear than prophet's word. And more divine, in life and deed too pure For earth-born virtue; such as could befit No source but Heaven. And l)y his righteous sword. Great rescue and defense didst thou bestow. Plucked from the jaws of death and i)eril dread
GENEKAI. r. J JACK80X. 591
Not ouc-e. but oft; wherein this meaning shone:
"Woiikl ye be free and great? Your giant foe
Wouhl ye o'erthrow. and crush his ravenous head?
Be what your Joshua is: as he hath done Do ye. Like unto his, be all your ends
Your God's, your country's and the trutlfs: your ease
Denied for duty, and your valor taught
Of my true fear. This way your (Jnd conmienils:
Will ye walk in it to a glorious peace?
Fair overture and true! The State inwrouglit
With this man's virtues, all her sons like liim.
Had been unconquerable, absolute.
Achilles of the nations, panoplied
Not by the baptism of the infernal stream.
Lucre and cunning and the strength of brute
Conferring: but with holy power supplied
From that clear flood, that watereth the street
Of God's eternal city' impregnable.
So ours, fenced by this righteousness, had stood
'Gainst Satan's world. On what wise did we meet
God's overture?. Our purpose mutable
Postponed His call: we fain would have the good
And yet neglect its source; would seize the crown.
Yet slight the appointed race. So sluggish peace
And hope deceitful lure the thoughtless brood
Not worth the prize; who draw the angry frown
Of God, and His avenging hand release.
But thus not all. Thus spake the goodlier host:
"Yea Lord, we will be free, and on thy terms!"
And these God's model followed where he went.
To bloody graves; or else, to mourn their lost
And chant their dirge, remain. Our sin contirms
The just decree. "Thy visitation sent
In mercy's chosen day thou knewest not
O land! But in thy wealth hebete and gross.
Thou wouldest not read aright God's ofEere<l gift."
That question solved, before disaster blot
The scutcheon of God's knight, or honor's loss:
Up to his rest doth he his servant lift:
His task is done; the woe he must not feel.
Boast not upon his fall, ye haughty foes:
Ye slew him not. Your stores no missile held
To touch that sacred life. No bolt, nor steel
Forged for your greed or malice could unclose
The links of heavenly mail the truth did wi-Id
Across that breast. The' intent was yours, and guilt:
But impotent as foul. God's was the deed.
Wherefore, as instruments He chose the friends
592 GENERAL T. J. JACKSON.
Who for this life would joyfully have spilt Their dearest blood; unwitting as. the steed Which bore him, or the lightning's bolt which rends The clouds to minister Jehovah's will.
For not of wrath, but love the stroke was pleflge. It took God's favorite from the coming doom. Whose baleful shade, than Artie night more chill. On his prophetic soul now cast its edge. Prognostic of the blacker, coming gloom Of freedom lost. Thereat his swelling soul. Spurning the shameful bonds with grand disdnin. Burst from the fetters of his earthly frame. And soared forever free. Asunder roll The' eternal gates; while from their glittering fnne The spirits troop, his brotherhood to claim. Who free from chains of bondage lived, or died. But we, alas I unworthy of his fate. Live on to wear the chain, and watch his dus.t By venal and contemptuous tongues belied; Of manhood scarce retaining such poor state As dares to guard aright our funeral trust. For on the s.oil baptized by his blood. His comrades raise no monumental stone To make his name endure. The lowly grave. That keeps what earth reserves of him, had stood Unmarked, but that a weeping woman, lone And widowed, still than bearded men more brave. Planted her modest shaft; and maiden's hands Weekly bedeck his sod with wreathed flowers. Soon withered, like the cause he loved so well. Thus lowly lie. in this dishonored land
Valor and truth and those imperial powers Of genius -.'onsecrate (in Heaven they dwell
In state supernal!) while the sordid dust Of coarse oppressors, great but in their crime. Greedy of gold and blood, their people's shame. Usurps the honor sacred to the just, An-d flouts the heavens with braggart shaft sulilime: While mercenary mobs resound their name,
And fawning priests, worst traitors to Christ's word. Teach them to cry: "Success, thou art divine!" "Be thou our God, for thou dost .sate our lust." Thou sittest judge of all. O righteous Lord! Thou wilt arise and let Thy judgments shine. And they shall clear the memories of the just. Our grievance we revoke; thou, mighty shade. Lackest no mausoleum, while true hearts. And such there are, enshrine thy memory. These nobler temples of thy fame, noi made
GENERAL T. J, JACKSON. 593
By earthly hands, nor graven by men's arts. Shall keep thy glory! And these mountains free, Eternal watchmen round thy modest tomb. They are tit sentinels; their soaring peaks Point to the skies which thou inhabitest: Steadfast like thee, wheths^" the winter's gloom Change them to iron, or Aurora's streaks Emblazon tliem like mansions of the blest; Or glittering snows enwrap their giant forms. White as thy heavenly robe, so earth meets sky. And mortal ken can scarce discern their bound; These keep their faithful ward through calms and storms Nor cease to speak thy name, till time shall die And thy great Captain's final trumpet sound.
ANNIHILATION.
They boast that "death is au eterual sleep."
Where, if no morniug e'er restores delight. At least, no mourner ever wakes to weep—
The simile is false; the endless night That has no dawn, brings not the soul to rest:
But to despair: For he who rests awakes To conscious ease that satisfies his quest
For recompense of pain— The life that makes A woeful ending is a woeful life.
He is the victor who retains the held When battle ends: And thus the closing strife
Of earth-born anguish, if the future yield No compensation, must forever cast
Its blackness backward on the wretch's fate. Let nature si)eak, whose craving, deep and vast
Yearns for existence, be our conscious state Or sweet or bitter; like the seeing eye
Insatiable of light, or ear of sound. Desire instinct, inwrought of God most high
Not rule of interest astutely found By after calculation, as is taught
Of our first father's sleep in Paradise His drowsed sense, untroubled, though he thought.
He then to nothing wlience he took his rise Was lapsing swift. It is the voice divine
Speaking within us, which instructs our wish For endless being. Else why is it mine
Unlike the unreasoning bird or beast or fish. To recollect the past; to anticipate;
To fear the future woe; to hope the goodV Accursed was the gift of prescient thought
That raised our empty pride above the brood Of brutish things; for it a lie hath taught.
The hind can crop the herb and course the lawn. Or drink the mountain spring with thoughtless glee,
Untroubled by the hour her dying fawn Cost her a transient pang; nor doth foresee
The hunter's coming shaft that seeks her breast. No memory brings past sorrows, no foresight
Arrays its future terrors to molest Her present joy: One sudden thi-ill of fright.
ANNIHILATION. 595
One stroke, one death-throe ends the whole cnreer, Simple and brief, but rounded in its .ioj-.
Why should I die like her if I must fear. Remember, hope, desire, doomed to employ
My noblest powers of being to pursue Futility? Why mine to stretch the thought
To progress onward, and the endless view Of growtli of soul witli larger glories fraught.
In widening vistas mounting through the realms Of knowledge boundless? Why when present love
With its alluring bliss the heart o'erwhelms. Is it ordained our foresight still must rove
To future days, that love might fill like this With equal joys, yet know it must not be?
Why is it reason will not. cannot cease To frame that thought supreme, eternity;
Capacious of infinitude of good, Mocking the soul with cravings infinite.
If life must be the span the bestial brood Enjoys? AbhoiTed span! that art but meet
To shew us Being's woes, and then its loss Irreparable. Cursed be the boon
Of such existence, cheating with its dross The golden hopes it sancticneth, as soon As they begin to glow— The better lot
Is given the brute, who drinks the trivial cup
Of life, and ends, forgetting and forgot. If death ends all. a blaekf^r thought looms up:
Then all we love must perish when they die; We part forever, and the love that blest
Our hearts remains a wound that shall not dry Its bitter stream till Nothingness arrest
Our woe and being by one common blow. Love is immortal: all things else may die;
The forest kings decay, the ceaseless flow Of ancient rivers, proudly sweeping by
Long buried cities, wane, the steadfast heads Of everlasting mountains waste and stoop.
Tlie hoary seas desert their sunless beds; This ordered frame may backward droop
To endless chaos-— But the eye That shines with love's self-sacrificing light
Outlasts the beams which from Arcturus fly. Orion or Bootes: it is bright
With God's own rays. He is the sun of love And they the orbs that round the centre roll
Reflecting him, as they forever move In circles shaped by his supreme control.
He is eternal; so the gift divine!
596 ANNIHILATION.
Is all we love tlieu, mortal? Do the flres Of geuius, klnaled from the heavenly shriue Of truth and beauty, perish, as expires
The gilded butterfly or tinted rose? Or shall the Sage's vision, that can pierce
Through Nature's secrets, make the sea disclose His deep abyss, and ride his billows fierce.
Can map the planet's pathway and foretell Their sure returns, can bridge the flood;
That can the storm-cloud's subtile bolt expel. "Can look from nature up to nature's God."
And in his works can read his deeper thought; Be quenched iu darkness like the rotting eye
Of newt or toad? The heroism that wrought A nation's disenthralment, fain to die
For country's weal, and seek no recompens*^ But conscious right, the martyr's steadfast faith
Which joys to die for Truth, and own no sense Of fiery torments: mother's love, which hath
No thought of self, consummate effluence Of heaven's own virtue; perish evermore
As utterly as hypocrites' pretense. Or as the bubbles bursting on the shore.
Or as the glitter of the serpent's scales Decaying back to dust? 'Tis blasphemy!
Bethink ye; If this creed of death prevails To doom our spirits to mortality.
It leaves no trace of God on nature's page— If man is soulless, then an atheist world
Is all he knows, where senseless forces rage In tire, and sea. and storm, and suns are hurled
With troops of waiting stars, by aimless might, Through voids immense, and blind mechanic fate
Inexorable, on its throne of night. Sightless and pitiless maintain its state
In earth or heaven there is no ear to hear The sufferer's prayer; no heart to feel his woe:
No hand to shield the gust, or to repair The foulest wrong that nithless force can do?—
So right eternal perishes, and crime Endures eternal, scorning all repeal.—
Then are this lower earth these heavens sublime One vast machine, 'neath whose remorseless wheel
The corn is human hearts, instinct of pain. And joy. and hope, and fear, that writhe and bleed.
Till ground to nothingness. Oh piteous grain! Oh dreadful engine! Monster! that dost feed
Thine endless grind with countless precious lives!
ANNIHILATION. 597
Is such a world our home? 'Tis dark as. hell!
Its joys but mock us. since no joy survives; But death and loss irreparable dwell
Perpetual masters. Yet, one other fate There is more black— the eternal recompen>^
Which conscious guilt forewarns it, may await Tlie soul which cannot'die. nor find defense
Against the Judge changeless, omnipotent— Ah! this the thouglit which drives the coward hcnrt
The desperate alternative to choose 'Twixt hell and nothingness- A better part
Appears to faith— Then why, Oh mortals, lose That nobler choice. Redemptiob? bought witli blood
Of God incarnate, wrought by power divine. The safe inheritance of perfect good.
The grace that s-hall your inmost souls refine From error, sin and sorrow, and J^estow
The angels' life of bliss and purity. Whose years are measured only by the tiow
Of God's eternity: The gift as free Vj every thirsting soul as air of heaven!
AVhy do men turn from glories such as these To dreary niglit and death? and still elect
Infinite loss and naught o'er boundless seas
Of joy? Because, O shame! Their guilty fears detect The treason and the folly they have wrought
Against themselves and their best destiny
In serving sin! This infamy hath taught
(And this alone) the atheist's grovelling plea, That^ death may be to them -eternal sleep."
THE TEXAS BRIGADE AT THE WILDERNESS.
(Written May, ISOO.i
It was upon the sixth of May, five miles from Lee away.
Our corps amid the forest lay, before the break of day.
Our limbs by the hard march distressed, close to the ground wo
pressed, As by forgetful slumber blest, we took our dreamless rest. Tho' now and then the cannon's boom disturbed the silent gloom; Our ears, locked up as in the silent tomb, gave to the sound small
room; But what is this bids sleep depart; and makes each soldier start. The hot l)lood throbbing at his heart, with sense and mind alert V The long roll beat! "Fall in!" they cry; "Fall in, the minutes tiyi" For these five miles we must pass by our succor to supply. The teeming foes our friends confront, whose weary swords .u;'
blunt So we are needed at the front to bear the battle's brunt. Our rest was short; our food was none; but our fatigue was gone; Our leader calls and we press on, as eager racers run. The stars above, so calm and bright, shed down their solemn light Through forest leaves with dews bedight. Over the waning uiglit Aurora sprtads her rosy fire. The timid birds aspire To tune their thankful, morning choir. But hark! the contrast dire. The cannon's roar and sulphurous flash, and bloody weapons clash; The thud of trampling, panting steeds, the wounded wretch wlio
bleeds. Bewailing pangs which no one heeds, amidst all deadly deeds! And now the sun confronts our eyes, lurid with battles' dyes; Beneath, the tangled forest lies, whence fumes of tophet rise. Thereat we strain our thews anew, we pierce the tumult through; Alas! the sight that meets our view: who stand and fight are few. From broken ranks the many flee. But. courage! Yonder, see, Fpou the battle's, edge is Lee! The god of war is he! Serene, elate, with steadfast will, he bids the storm be still. He plants his heroes on the hill, the deadly breach to fill. We lead our march; to us he turns. That heart, each man ir.s;-enis. Big as a world, with pity yearns, and yet with valor burns Sterner tliau death and fate.
"Ye Texas men whom Hood has led. Who for our land so oft have bled, But from the foe have never fled;
THE TEXAS BRIGADE AT THE WILDERNESS. 599
Now !>■ your tiino to ti.aht!
"This hour decides your country's weal; Quick! into line of battle wheel. And give the enemy cold steel; And Uod defend the right."
What answer gave the fierce hurrah that rent tli(> lowering s.ky?
Our purpose grim, our fiery will, resolved to do or die.
But well we understood the task, now set for us to do.
Our corps was near, its ranks were full, its men worp staundi and
true; But time must lapse before the mass is formed in due array; And to our foes what vantage ground may not this space betray? It is our blood that must redeem this time, and so giA'e pause Till ampler food be ready made to till this Moloch's jaws. "Forward, the First Bridgade!" cries Gregg, but not alone leads he; For lo! beside him at the front, the towering form of Lee. Where he sends us he too will go. A crisis woirth our blood He sees; his own more precious drops must join our cheaper flood. He bares his head; the s.unbeams stain his hoary locks with fire; He speaks no word, but look and mien sublime all hearts inspire, Then from the grizzly soldiers' eyes who wont in battle's throes To laugh, and mock at peril's dread, the briny flood o'erflows. Not coward-tears are these, but such as come from martyr's eyes; Who for Christ's truth, and heavenly joys, the stake and fire despise. Ye proud invaders, well may ye these weeping foemen fear; A thousand drops from next your heart, shall pay each generous tear. F'or hear their word: "For that old man we'll charge the gates of
hell! Not shall he share the deadly risk!" for he is loved too well. Let lives the cause can better spare make up the holocaust. Here then we halt, till he retire to his more proper post. At last he yields. Now shall he see, how we will do our pax'ts. "Forwa'rd again!" with trailed arms each man impetous starts, Like hounds unleashed that seek the game, we pierce the smoking
wood. Five to our one, in leafy screens ambushed, the foemen stood. "One volley, boys, low. in the breast; then to the bayonet!" As through the tangled brush wo tore, a second line we met, And iniow a third, replacing those that fled before our blows. And worse; their overlapping wings our right and left enclose; With fire in front, and fire in flank, our thin lines melt away. Our charge must pause; we are too few! But hei'e at least to stay! And we will die so hard and slow, that Lee the time shall save He needs, to form his battle lines— so shot for shot we gave, And death for death at closest range; till half the hour was spent. At last! thank God! at last 'tis done. Hark to that shout which rent The very heavens! Hurrah! They come, Longstreet and Anderson.
600 THE TEXAS BRIGADE AT THE WILDERNESS.
Earth shakes beneath their myriad feet! Hurrah! The day is won! Two miles abreast, an alavanache of fire and steel they rush; AndU'ank on rank in fragments break, as ocean billows crush The rotten barques; and drive the shreds, as chaff before the storm. Six hundred men and seventy-two there were that mora, to form The sturdy remnant of the lines, at first three thousand strnnc;. Four hundred now and fifty lay the bloody trail along. Bleeding or dead. How far we kept our pledge these numbers tell. Ghosts of our comrades dead, know this: Ye were avenged well. If streams :of meaner blood could pay for each rich drop of yours. All honor to our gallant Gregg! As yet the heavenly powers Bore him unscatched in danger's front. All honor to our slain. Who gave their all for country's sake; their names shall live again While we can sing their deathless deeds. All honor to the chief Who fain would spend his blood with ours, to buy our land relief.
Pnnceton Theological SeminarY-Sp^e'' Library
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Detected references
Unreviewed Scripture matches found in this section.
- Luke 12:4-5
- Matt. 16: 3
- Heb. 11: 33
- Eph. 3: 17
- Ps. 40: 1
- Eph. V. 23
- Titus ii. 5
- Gen. 17:8
- Jer. 18:14
- Gen. 49:10
- Exod. 19:6
- Ps 7:2
- Num. 20:8-12
- Joshua 6:1
- Gen. 18:20
- Exod. 17:15
- Num. 20:10
- 1 Cor. 10:4