chapter 41.

Note F.

The following extract from the _Views and Experiences of Religion_, _by Henry Ward Beecher_, is an example of the vagueness and uncertainty referred to. It is part of an article entitled _How to Become a Christian_.

“The moment you realize this goodness of Christ, his helpfulness to you, his lenient, forgiving, sympathizing spirit, then you know what _faith in Christ_ means. If such a Saviour attracts you, and you strive all the more ardently, from love toward him and trust in him, then you are a Christian: _not a religious man_, but _a Christian_.

“A man may worship through awe, or through a sense of duty, and I think there are hundreds of men in the churches who are _only religious men_, and _not Christians_. A man who feels toward God only awe or fear, who obeys merely from a _sense of duty_, who is under the dominion of _conscience_ rather than of love, may be religious, but he is _not a Christian_.”

There is nothing said in this article of any need of any new creation of _the nature_ of the mind; nor is this Augustinian dogma to be found in any of this author’s published works.

In this article, written expressly to give clear views of what it is to become a Christian, and _how_ to do it, we find it taught “a man who feels toward God only awe or fear, who obeys merely from a sense of duty, who is _under the dominion of conscience_ rather than of love, may be _religious_, but _he is not a Christian_.”

Suppose, then, a person with a strong sense of justice and great natural benevolence, is trained to believe the Calvinistic form of the Augustinian system, so that God appears to him only the awful, incomprehensible author of this dreadful system, and Jesus Christ, this same God, so united to a man (as this transaction is usually represented) that the human soul alone bears all the grief and suffering involved in the expiatory sacrifice demanded. Suppose, also, that, in this view, unable to feel any emotions but fear and awe, he says, “_There must be a dreadful mistake somewhere_. I can not fathom it; but I can and will do this: I will trust the word of Jesus Christ as to the character of God, and I will _obey his teachings conscientiously_ in all things, as nearly as I am able;” and this determination is carried out in his life.

Is such a man a Christian, or is he not? Guided only by the above extract, it would be very difficult to decide, or to state what is this author’s view of regeneration; nor is there any thing in his published writings to remove the vagueness and uncertainty caused by such teachings as are embraced in the above extract, as to what _change_ makes a man a true Christian.

According to the system of common sense (as explained chapter 24, and also on page 258) to form and carry out a ruling purpose to obey the laws of God, as made known by Jesus Christ, is loving God and Christ in the only way in which love can justly be made a subject of command. And when a man forms and carries out such a purpose, he is “under the dominion of conscience,” and is a true Christian.

The point where this writer seems to fail, in this extract, is, in a want of the distinction, pointed out in the chapter above mentioned, between _voluntary_ and _involuntary_ love. A person may be “under the dominion of conscience,” by a purpose to obey all the laws of God, and for want of the true view of God’s character, as exhibited in Jesus Christ, may experience only emotions of fear and awe in performing such obedience.

It is the true, _efficient_ purpose to obey Christ which constitutes a man a Christian. It is right views of God’s character, as seen in Jesus Christ, that gives new _strength_ to carry out such a purpose.

“When we were yet _without strength_, in due time Christ died for the ungodly,” thus giving new motives of love and gratitude, in addition to those of fear and awe. Not until all the false theories that hitherto have vailed the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ are cast away, will the full meaning of the above text be fully understood.

Note G.

Among theologians and pastors there are two classes now existing, in all the great Protestant sects, the one holding to a _real_ depravity of _nature_, and striving to make such a fact consistent with common sense and with the ideas of benevolence and justice in the Creator; the other, holding only to a depravity of _action_ and of character, resulting from such action in this life, are striving to evade open antagonism with the Augustinian theory.

No third position being possible, every man is necessarily Augustinian or Pelagian; either holding that man _is_ depraved _in nature_, or that he is _not_.

In the first class, is one whom, above all others, the writer would prefer to meet in a discussion on this great question. It is one who is remembered in early life as the honest, serious, book‐loving boy; next as the earnest Christian and faithful student, winning the highest honors of a collegiate course; next as a student of theology called to several of the highest city pulpits, even before finishing his preparatory course; next, even in youth, the president of a flourishing western college, taking a decided stand on the slavery question, defending the _freedom of the press_ with its first martyr, and very nearly sharing his fate; next resuming the pastor’s office, mainly to gain more freedom to write and publish his peculiar views, which he well understood would encounter all the organized interests of Christendom, and place a drag‐chain on all his personal and professional interests; finally, one who, as scholar, metaphysician and theologian, in the writer’s view, has never been surpassed, while he never has, and never will, resort to a cowardly or unfair mode to weaken or escape an argument. Thus much, if not allowable toward a brother, may be permitted toward an antagonist.

It is this brother who for years has been laboring to sustain the Augustinian dogma by a theory which—could it be proved—is the only one yet devised that is at once rational, intelligible and actually secures the end designed. For if it were a fact that the _nature_ of mind is depraved, and if it were possible to prove that our race originally, in a preëxistent state, were created with a perfect nature, ruined themselves, and were born into this world for purposes of pardon and redemption, the grand difficulty _would_ all be remedied, and God _could_ be exhibited as wise, just and good in spite of this mournful fact.

But it is _the fact_ of the _depraved nature_ of the human mind, where the writer and this brother are at issue, and not on any theory to relieve the difficulties incident to that fact.

The argument of this work, to prove that there is no possible mode of proving the benevolence of God, or of proving that the Bible is a reliable revelation from him, to any man who teaches that the _nature_ of the human mind is depraved in _any_ sense that can be made intelligible by human language, _this_ is the place where the author of the Conflict of Ages, in due time, will meet this discussion fairly, openly and honorably.

In the second class, mentioned above, is another brother, whom the writer believes to be as decidedly on the Pelagian ground. Whether he yet fully understands his position, is not affirmed by one, who has, for so short a time, fully understood her own bearings in this matter. But ere long, the only question remaining for him will be, whether he shall openly attack this strongly‐entrenched error, this wholesale slander on his Lord and Master, or take the Tract Society mode of evading discussion. All who best know the writer of the _Star Papers_, best understand that any question of _expediency_ will relate, not to the fearless, outspoken exhibition of his opinions, but only to the _time_ and _manner_ in which it shall be done. He must soon perceive that it is as much his duty openly to attack the _African_[A] enslavement of Anglo‐Saxon _minds_, as it ever was to combat the Anglo‐Saxon enslavement of African _bodies_.

It will be noticed that this public appeal to family friends was not made until all other theologians, especially obligated to meet this discussion, had evaded it, and some of them by unfair, ungentlemanly and unchristian methods.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 Note A.

2 The theory of Dr. E. Beecher, as it has not been accepted by any denomination, is not referred to here.

3 Most of the extracts in this and the preceding chapter are furnished by Dr. E. Beecher in his Conflict of Ages.

4 In scientific language, the _object_ of desire is called the _objective motive_, and the _desire_ itself is called the _subjective motive_.

5 These references are to portions of the volume before mentioned which are not introduced into this work.

6 Metaphysicians have mystified this subject thus:—They say “the will” (or choice) _invariably_, “is as is the greatest apparent good.” But when it is inquired, does “greatest good,” as here used, signify that which the intellect decides to be _best far all concerned_, and thus _right_, or does it signify that which causes the _strongest desire_ as measured by our own consciousness? It will be found that, in this metaphysical statement above, it means _both_. This leads to the same sort of confusion as would result from using the word _straight_ to include the two ideas of both _straight_ and _crooked_. With such an enlarged, but improper, definition, it could truly be said that men _invariably_ go _straight_, and as truly that they also _invariably go crooked_.

The only way in which the expression, “the will is as is _the greatest apparent good_,” can be true, is to use the term to include both what is the greatest good as judged by the intellect, and also the greatest good as causing the strongest desire, thus making one word express two _diverse_ ideas.

It is this want of discrimination in the use of the term “greatest apparent good,” by President Edwards, which accounts for the fact that one class of the most acute metaphysicians regard him as the defender of free agency, and another class, equally acute, maintain that he teaches the exactly opposite doctrine of fatalism. It is by this deceptive use of the words _greatest apparent good_, and _strongest motive_, that such _invariableness of antecedence_ and _consequents_ is made out, as is the proof of _producing causes_ and _necessary effects_ in the material world. Thus results the idea of _irrational free agency_, making the mind of man like irrational brutes, inevitably and necessarily controlled by the strongest desire, (or strongest motive) and destroying all idea of _rational free agency_.

7 This is a very important point in regard to the question of a _depraved nature_.

8 This refers to those theologians who teach that regeneration consists not in a change of _nature_ but of _purpose_.

9 In the Greek, the word in the New Testament translated “peacemakers,” is more correctly rendered “happiness‐makers.”

10 Note B.

11 Note C.

12 Note D.

13 This account is taken from Rev. Howard Malcom’s _Travels in Asia_.

14 The Arminians hold that Christ’s death has purchased the return of God’s Spirit withdrawn for Adam’s sin, and that owing to this aid, man has some power to obey God previous to regeneration, so that all the doings of the unregenerate are not sin.

15 Those new school Calvinists, who teach that regeneration consists in the formation of a ruling purpose by man himself, hold that this never takes place until the Spirit of God more or less rectifies the depraved nature consequent on Adam’s sin, and that previous to regeneration every moral act of every mind is “sin, and only sin.”

16 Note E.

17 “State of the Impenitent Dead,” by Alvah Hovey, D.D.

18 From the article on Sanctification, in the magazine _Beauty of Holiness_, January, 1859.

19 Note F.

20 In regard to the author of the _Conflict of Ages_, the writer is still uncertain whether he would or would not assent to the common‐ sense view of regeneration, here stated, as exact and complete, or whether he supposes that the “habit of sinning, generated in a preëxistent state,” is changed by some direct operation of the Spirit of God on the “nature” or faculties of the human mind, which is antecedent to any right voluntary action on the part of man, and without which, every moral act of every unregenerated mind is “sin, and only sin.”

These personal references are introduced to illustrate more effectively the vague and diversified teachings of theologians and religious teachers in answer to the great question, on which they claim that an eternity of blessedness or misery is depending.

21 The extent to which Judaism had spread among the upper ranks is strikingly shown by the fact that one of the first inquisitors, Peter Arbues, was assassinated by a conspiracy formed of the chief officers of the Arragonese government, who were most of them, according to Llorente, of Jewish blood or connections. The Inquisition, however, was odious on other grounds, as a royalist institution, like our Star Chamber.—See Llorente’s _History of Inquisition_.

22 Note G.