It has been shown that the common-sense theory teaches that all mankind must, in order to eternal happiness, be trained by human agencies to choose what is best, guided by the laws of God, as learned by experience or by revelation.
Under the guidance of this general principle, associated bodies would result, whose aim would be discussion and instruction to discover and perpetuate a knowledge of the rules of rectitude, and to secure all those motives which experience has proved to be most effective in securing obedience to these rules. In other words, the chief end of such associations would be to find out what is best and thus right, and also the best modes of securing right action.
The experience of mankind has shown that the most effective way to extend and perpetuate any religion is to have a body of men supported who shall [pg 266] give their chief energies and time to this object. Social gatherings at regular periods have also been found effective to this end. In short, were a system of religion established, founded exclusively and consistently on experience and common sense, it would include sabbaths of interrupted worldly affairs, social gatherings to promote worshipful obedience to the Creator and a body of men educated and sustained for the express purpose of discovering, instructing in and perpetuating the intellectual, social, moral and religious interests of humanity. Such a ministry would be not dogmatic teachers, but leaders in discussions and investigations.
The great aim of all these arrangements would be to discover by inquiry and discussion what is best in all human interests and affairs, in view of the immortality of man, and the risks and dangers of eternity, and also to devise the best modes of influencing all to right action.
Were this life the end of our being, and were all questions of right and wrong to be settled in reference to the well-being of our race in this short span, no such separate class of religious leaders and organized instrumentalities would be needful. But if men are to be trained to act with reference to the invisible state as the chief concern, then organized instrumentalities to resist the overruling tide of worldliness become indispensable.
The full tendencies of such organizations, based exclusively on the principles of common sense, must be a matter of speculation merely, for the world has had no experience of this kind. As yet we have only the experience of mankind as to systems in which the [pg 267] teachings of common sense have been combined with contradictory influences of false dogmas, which have been sustained by the strongest organizations, civil and ecclesiastical.
We will now trace some of the tendencies of the Augustinian system as they have been exhibited in the history of church organizations.
It has been shown that the Augustinian theory of a depraved nature is the foundation doctrine alike of the Catholic and the Protestant churches. All agree that man by nature is so miserably misformed that the gift of the Holy Spirit purchased by Christ to re-create is his sole hope of escape from everlasting perdition, while there is little or no ability to understand or obey God's revealed will until this gift is imparted. From this originated a priesthood as the medium through which this renewing gift is to be obtained, and who are the only authorized interpreters of God's revealed will. The transmission of this power through the rite of ordination, preserved in direct succession from the apostles, is the leading point in the Episcopal organization. Still more is this carried out to extreme results in the Catholic church.
Both organizations assume that “the church” which has this power, does not include the people, but is the priesthood alone. It is the ecclesiastics of these churches who are to interpret the Bible for the people, and the people are to receive these decisions as from God. This is the theory, while common sense and the Bible have more or less modified its practical adoption, especially in the Episcopal churches.
The Puritans of England were the first among the Protestants who organized churches as consisting solely [pg 268] of those who “profess” to be “regenerated” on the theory of the renewal of the depraved nature derived from Adam. To this profession in most cases must be added an examination by persons who are regenerated in order to ascertain whether the true signs of a new nature, according to their pattern, really exist. Such churches are a close corporation, having a minister to preach and administer baptism and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and deacons, elders, or committees to decide who shall be received as regenerate or turned out as unregenerate.
Among the Puritans and their descendants originated another practice which has become prevalent, by which the churches thus organized as regenerated persons, also claim the right of infallible interpreters of the Bible, so far as to exclude all from their communion who do not profess to agree with their interpretations. That is to say, all persons, in order to be admitted to their corporation and to the Lord's table, must not only profess to be regenerate in the nature transmitted from Adam, but must confess that they interpret the Bible according to the notions of the church they seek to join.
It will now be shown that most of our large denominations in this country are so founded on the Augustinian dogma that were the people all to give up this theory the whole basis of sectarianism would be destroyed.
The Congregational and Baptist denominations are severed simply in reference to the rite of baptism as the mode of admission to their regenerated churches. The Congregationalists hold that baptism should be administered by sprinkling, and to the infants of [pg 269] church members as well as to adults joining the church. The Baptists hold that baptism should be administered by immersion, and only to adults who join the church. This is all that divides the two sects.
Of course, if all the people ceased to hold that churches are to consist of persons whose nature received from Adam is re-created, all churches associated on the theory would be ended, and so these disputes about modes of admission would be ended.
Again, the Presbyterians and Congregationalists separate on the question of the appointment and duties of the officers of their churches. The Congregationalists manage by church committees. Each church is the sole tribunal in its own affairs, thus being strictly democratic. The Presbyterian churches manage the business of each church by sessions or elders appointed by the church, and when they fail to give satisfaction, an appeal is made to a Presbytery consisting of ministers and elders of several churches.
Thus again, if churches organized on the Augustine theory of the regeneration of a depraved nature should cease, this dispute in regard to church officers would end, and the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists would find all ground for separation gone.
Again, the old and new school Presbyterian churches separate on questions relating to man's ability to regenerate himself and in regard to what is the nature of regeneration.
This all depends on the fact of a depraved nature transmitted from Adam to be regenerated. If this dogma is relinquished by the people then these two sects will have no ground for division.
Again, the Methodists differ from the other Augustinian [pg 270] sects chiefly in regard to the officers and management of churches organized on the theory of a depraved nature received from Adam, which is to be regenerated. And if such organizations were ended the ground of separation between the Methodists and the preceding sects would be removed.
Again, the Episcopalian sect is founded on the idea of a succession of ordained priests through whose agency the gift of God's Spirit to renew our depraved nature and to impart the true interpretation of his revelations is to be obtained.
If, then, the people discard the dogma of a depraved nature consequent on Adam's sin, and assume that they have perfect natures, and are authorized to interpret the Bible for themselves, the chief ground for the existence of this as a separate sect will be removed. The Catholic church also would soon be ended as a distinct sect were all the people of that church to discard these and all opinions and practices immediately or remotely based on the Augustinian dogma.
The preceding will serve to illustrate the position that the tendency of the common-sense system is to unite all men in efforts to discover and to obey all the laws of God for making happiness the best way for time and eternity.
On the contrary, the Augustinian system tends to organize mankind into sects contending, not for truth and happiness, but for certain outward rites and forms of organization.
The result of receiving church interpretations as infallible, whether of priests or regenerated laity, is the assumption of a similar infallibility by each person who thus accepts them.
This is accomplished by a very singular fallacy, thus:
The regularly ordained priests, or the regenerated priests and laity of the true church, are claimed to be the only persons qualified to understand and interpret the meaning of God's revelations. The question then is, which is the true church? The Catholic says, “Mine, and no other.” The Episcopalian says, “Mine, and no other;” and so says the Presbyterian. The result is, each man decides that the true church is the one that agrees with his views of what the Bible teaches.
Having thus decided that the church that agrees with himself is the true church, the man proceeds, not only to receive reverently the decisions of his church, but assumes that every other man is bound to do the same.
The Catholic receives one set of interpretations from the church that he himself has infallibly decided to be the true church. The Protestant receives the creeds and confessions of the church he has infallibly decided to be the true church, whose regenerated ministers and members are qualified to understand the Bible, as no unregenerated man can do.
Being thus sustained by his own claims as a regenerated [pg 272] person, and also by the claims of the church he adopts as the true one, there is little foundation for poverty of spirit, humility and meekness. How can a man feel “poor in spirit,” as destitute of the knowledge requisite for right action, when he has his own regenerated mind and the guidance of the regenerated true church? How can a man be meek when others strive to enlighten him by showing that he is in the wrong, especially when such efforts are those of the unregenerated, or those shut out of his true church?
How can a man become very humble and lowly in his own conceit, when, in contrast with most of the world, he alone can feel and act virtuously or understand truly God's revelations?
The natural tendency to pride, self-sufficiency and dogmatism is still further increased by the assumption that humility consists mainly in a low opinion of “the nature” with which we are endowed. Thus, while assuming infallibility in one aspect, they still can claim to be humble and lowly, because they abhor and despise their depraved nature and its results in themselves.
At the same time, the most remarkable self-deception is practiced in regard to their own Christian graces. These all being supposed to spring from a regenerated nature imparted by God, they disclaim all honor or merit, and give all the glory to God, who has wrought these graces from their dead and sinful nature. By this method they imagine they attain a true humility and lowliness of spirit.
But every man of great genius, and every woman of uncommon beauty, understand as truly as the professedly regenerated person, that their gifts are from [pg 273] God, and are willing to give all the glory to him for thus distinguishing them from their fellow-creatures. And the ascription of all the power and glory to God does not save the professedly regenerated person from self-complacency and pride any more than it does the genius or the beauty.
And yet we find religious writings abounding in such disclaimers and ascriptions, which are evidently regarded as proofs of humility and lowliness of spirit. It is true that such expressions do often flow from the hearts of the really humble and contrite; but the fact that a person regards and acknowledges God as the author of his own extraordinary gifts, that raise him above his fellows, is no proof of humility, while it is often so regarded.
In contrast to this tendency of the Augustinian system, the common-sense view teaches that while our nature is noble and perfect in construction—the embryo image of its Maker—it is destitute of that knowledge, experience and training, for which it is equally dependent on God and on man. And as the requisite knowledge can be gained only by the aid of those minds around, whose happiness is affected by our conduct, it is clear that a willingness to learn from any quarter and to be told our mistakes by any person, is the natural result of an earnest desire to find out and obey the truth. And a consciousness of our own liabilities to mistakes, and a certainty that there is no one “that liveth and sinneth not,” tends to induce compassionate sympathy for the failings of others, and an indisposition to force opinions on them by any other mode than calm statement and argument.
At the same time, an earnest desire for inquiry and [pg 274] discussion is generated, which naturally leads to patient investigation, courteous demeanor towards opponents, and to all the graces that wait on a gentle, humble and truth-loving spirit.
It has been shown that the Augustinian system, teaching as it does man's depraved nature and destitution of any principles of right guidance in his own mind, makes him wholly dependent not only on revelations from his Creator, but on infallible interpreters.
Thus we find that wherever this system became dominant there has coëxisted the claim that the people are not to decide, each one for himself, what are the teachings of reason, experience and revelation as to truth and duty. Instead of this, first it was popes and councils, in which the laity had no voice; next, as among the Puritans, it was the church, including both the clergy and the regenerated portion of their flocks.
From this resulted religious persecutions, in this manner: Men are to obey God as their first duty. The church is God's mouth-piece to interpret his commands to mankind. If men refuse to obey God, speaking through his church, they must be forced to do so by pains and penalties. And as in view of eternal happiness and eternal misery, all earthly interests [pg 275] are as nothing, every temporal consideration must be put out of account. Moreover, whoever leads men to disobey the church and thus to disobey God, and so to peril not only their own eternal welfare, but that of others, commits a greater crime than is done by violating any human ordinances. Therefore, the heaviest penalties should be employed to enforce obedience to the church, and the church must take precedence of the civil government.
Thus it came to pass that the more sincere, conscientious and benevolent a person was, while holding these views, the more surely would he become a persecutor.
The pages of history give many mournful illustrations of this truth. One of the most striking will be here introduced.
Isabella of Spain, by whose generosity this western world was discovered, was one of the most gentle, conscientious, benevolent and lovely characters that ever adorned a throne.
She was trained to believe the church to be the representative of God on earth, and her father confessor, Torquemada, the originator of the Inquisition, was the guide of her conscience. By his commands the Inquisition reared its horrid dungeons. By his counsel the industrious, cultivated and chivalrous Moors, the most useful of all her subjects, were driven from their native soil. By his commands the Jews were brought to the cruel alternative of giving up their religion or relinquishing all that made life dear. And thus the historian narrates this dreadful tale of religious persecution:
“The experiment of conversion was tried upon the Jews, and it utterly and totally failed. In the first place, their position in [pg 276]Christian society was a source of continual discussion. ‘If we admit them to public offices, we have gained nothing,’ said the mercantile classes. ‘If we exclude them,’ said the clergy, ‘what motive is held out for the rest to join us?’ But as a religious experiment, the failure was even more complete. The fathers were nominal converts, and nominal converts the children continued to be. Ostentatiously they attended mass; but in their own houses their Sabbath was kept, their ritual was read, their psalms were sung. Meantime, intercourse and intermarriage with Christians became more fatally easy than it had been before. Shunned by the middle classes, they intermarried with the 'blue blood' of the nobility, they entered the priesthood, and ascended the highest steps of the Catholic hierarchy. Nay, they became, more than once, inquisitors, and wielded against their foes with cynical hatred the terrors of the Holy Office. Of the Inquisition there is no space to speak here;21 sufficient to say that the ‘New Christians’ were the chief cause of its institution, and that during the eighteen years that Torquemada held office, ten thousand persons were burned alive.
“But two thirds of the Jews of Spain had remained unconverted; and with them the Inquisition had nothing to do; for they were under special laws and under royal protection. But Torquemada had not forgotten them. Working on the pride of Ferdinand, on the conscience of Isabella, he persuaded them to sign the celebrated Edict of Exile. They were to leave Spain in three months. They were to take neither silver nor gold with them. If it pleased God to change their hearts, the church would most willingly receive them.
“Ruinous alike to banisher and banished, this edict had cost a struggle. Isaac Abarbenel, wealthy, learned, high in royal favor, rushed into the queen's audience-chamber, on hearing what till [pg 277]then had been carefully concealed from his nation, threw himself at her feet, and doubtless won her over for the moment. To Ferdinand he offered thirty thousand ducats. But, in the wavering of debate, Torquemada appeared suddenly. ‘Judas,’ he said, ‘sold his master for thirty pieces. Your Majesties, it seems, want thirty thousand. Here He is; take Him; and what ye do, do quickly!’ Dashing a crucifix on the table, he left them. The omen was clear, and the die was cast.
“To the Jews one road of deliverance was still left. To renounce the outward garb of their religion, never again to pass the threshold of a synagogue, never to chant a Hebrew hymn nor keep a Hebrew Sabbath; to change every household custom, to break all the rules of life, dear from the nursery and clung to on the bed of death; to repeat a false creed, to enter an idolatrous temple, to kneel down with God's enemies;—this road was open, though treading it they would have trampled on their fathers' tombs. Yet, on the other hand, thousands had taken that course; and would tell them that strict adherence to the laws of the land they lived in, abstinence from all that might offend, performance of harmless superstitions, bowing down for a season in the house of Rimmon, that this was a course plainly marked out by Providence. The loss, too, that they would suffer in exile was immense; and we must estimate this loss before we can estimate the worth of those who chose to suffer.
“We have seen the Jews of France leave it, enter it, leave it again, and count the value of their sojourn at exactly the price at which reëntrance could be bought. It was a market-stall, a field for acquisition; but it was not the seat of Jewish learning, it was not the resting place of their fathers for many generations.
“Now Spain was something more to them than this. It was no foreign soil, passed and repassed with the indifference of a stranger. They had lived there for twelve hundred years. They had seen the Teutonic forest-creeds moulded and melted into the new faith of Rome. They had seen the Ishmaelite sweep that faith away. By him they had been welcomed as brothers. With him they had lit the lamp of science when all the world was dark. Then they had seen the Cross rise from the northern mountains, and the Crescent wane and wane before it. By the kings of Christian Spain [pg 278]their worth had been acknowledged; they had fostered their trade; they had called them to their councils; they had befriended and loved them. Persecution and jealousy had driven many of their brethren to accept another creed; but the new Christians were Jews still; they had married their daughters to the proudest nobles of a race where the peasant was proud; and not a duke in all Spain could despise them without despising his own mother's blood. Spain, too, was the land where Jewish wisdom had unfolded and blossomed. Their physicians and their astronomers were the first in Europe. Their poets and their philosophers were eminent among their nation. The psalms of Jehuda Halevi were sung in the synagogues of the Rhine. Aben Esra had eclipsed the fame of the great Eastern school of Pombeditha; above all, Spain claimed the son of Maimon, the great prophet of the Exile, famed from the Seine to the Euphrates as the second Moses.
“Such, besides escape from utter ruin, were the temptations to apostacy. And those who issued the decree fully hoped that apostacy would have been its result. Every means was taken. ‘In the public squares, in the synagogues, Catholic preachers thundered forth invective against the Hebrew heresy.’ They might thunder—they were not heard.
“ ‘Come,’ said their priests and elders, ‘let us strengthen ourselves in our faith and in the teachings of our God, against the voice of the oppressor, and the scorn of the enemy. If they destroy us—well; if they will let us live—well; but we will not depart from the Covenant, neither make our hearts froward; but we will go forth in the name of the Lord our God, who saved our fathers from Egypt, and brought them through the Red Sea.’
“The spirit of Moses and of Joshua rested on the aged rabbis, and their words prevailed. Few in number and bold in cowardice were those who yielded. They made ready for this second Exodus where no Canaan glistened in the distance. Forced to sell their possessions in three months, forbidden to sell them for gold, they were glad to exchange large houses or estates for an ass or mule, or for such trifling articles of travel as the wish to be first at the spoiling might induce purchasers to supply.
“Eastward, westward, northward—to Africa, to Portugal, to Italy and the Levant,—half a million Jews went forth. Eighty [pg 279]thousand sought shelter in Portugal, but did not find it. Thousands fell into the hands of the barbarians of Fez. They were sold for slaves; they were left to starve on desert isles; their bodies, yet living, were ripped open for the hidden gold. Thus writes Rabbi Josef:
“ ‘And there were among them who were cast into the isles of the sea, a Jew and his old father, fainting from hunger, begging bread; and there was none to break unto them in a strange country. And the man went and sold his little son for bread, to restore the soul of the old man; and when he returned to his father, he found him dead; and he rent his clothes. And he went back to the baker to take his son; but the baker would not give him back; and he cried out with a sore and bitter cry for his son, but there was none to deliver. All this befell us in the year Rabbim—for the sons of the desolate are “Many”—yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Hasten to help us, O Lord! For thy sake we are killed all the day; we are counted as sheep appointed for the slaughter. Make haste to help us, O God of our salvation.’
“Or listen to the chronicler of Genoa, who saw them as they drifted eastward:
“ ‘This expulsion,’ he says, ‘seemed to me at first a praiseworthy act, done in the cause and for the honor of God. Yet, when we remember that they were not brute beasts after all, but men made by God, surely it must be owned that some little cruelty was shown. Their woes were very piteous to see. The first who starved were the infants at the breast; then the mothers, carrying their dead children till they fell down and died with them. Many perished of cold and of squalor. Unused to the sea, countless numbers died from sickness; many were drowned by the sailors for their wealth; the poor, who could not otherwise pay their passage, sold their children. Lean, pale, with eyes deep-sunken, like ghosts from the dead, hardly moving enough to show that they were alive, they came into our city to find shelter for three days; for our ancient laws forbade a longer stay. Yet for the repair of their ships, and for health's sake, a short respite was granted. They were allowed to live on the Mole, while they made ready for their long voyage eastward. Thus the winter [pg 280]passed, and many of them died. The spring came, and ulcers broke out that had been hitherto kept under by the cold, and all that year there was a plague in that city.’ ”
This mournful narrative exhibits one of the most sublime examples of religious faith and conscientious self-sacrifice to what was deemed truth and duty in the persecuted. At the same time, when the avaricious Ferdinand relinquished thirty thousand ducats, and the tender and benevolent Isabella turned a deaf ear to such prayers and sufferings from her people, there can be no doubt that conscience ruled the persecutors also. Even Torquemada himself may have been acting from the most conscientious and benevolent motives in all the disastrous influences he brought to bear on his royal mistress.
This passage of history also teaches that honesty, and sincerity, and conscientiousness will not avail without a knowledge of the truth. Nay, more; had these persecutors been less conscientious, the natural instincts of humanity or personal interests would have mitigated or withheld the cruel doom.
It is in this light that we are enabled, in spite of their mistakes in opinions, to look upon theologians as among the noblest sufferers and confessors for what they believed to be truth. From the time of Augustine and Pelagius to the present day nothing can be more clear than that the combatants on both sides were actuated by a sincere love to God and to man, each believing, as sincerely as did Saul of Tarsus, that in these conflicts they were verily doing God service, and that all they were called to suffer was for the true church of God and the salvation of their fellow-men.
But the main purpose for which this record of history [pg 281] now appears is to illustrate the natural tendency of the Augustine theory in leading to dogmatism, persecution and ecclesiastical tyranny.
The tendency of the common-sense system can not be illustrated by history, for unfortunately Christendom has never yet had an opportunity to test by a fair experiment its true tendencies. We can only imagine what would be the results were all ecclesiastical restraints and teachings based on the Augustine theory removed from our pulpit ministries, our hymns and prayers, our religious literature, and, most of all, from long established habits of thought and feeling.
Then all our religious organizations would have for their leading aim, not to maintain some outward rite or modes of organization, but to promote free discussion for the discovery of truth and harmonious coöperation to promote happiness according to the laws of God.
Then the ministry of the Word would be committed to men distinguished not only by natural endowments, acquired knowledge and skill in debate, but also ensamples to their flocks in the virtues of humility, meekness, and a gentle and teachable spirit. Then the points that would divide men into parties would be chiefly practical questions, so that where no agreement in opinion could be secured, each would peaceably try a fair experiment and eventually bring the results forward for the general good.
Then every individual would be free to protest against all that he believes to be injurious and wrong, in regard to individuals, to the family, to the church and to the state, and be met in his efforts as a benefactor rather than an opposer or an enemy.
It is the aim of this chapter to show that the chief controversies and chief sects of Christendom have resulted from the Angustinian system, and from attempts to eliminate it from the system of common sense with which it has been combined.
The dogma of a depraved nature consequent on Adam's sin, was a philosophical theory introduced to account for the prevailing sinfulness of the human race. The attempt of Pelagius and his associates to oppose this dogma, was met by civil and ecclesiastical power and persecution. “And thus,” says the historian, “the Gauls, Britons and Africans by their councils, and the emperors by their edicts, demolished this sect in its infancy and suppressed it entirely.”
For long ages after this, no attempt was made to oppose the system based on this theory in any of its branches. The doctrine that man, being so depraved in nature as to be incapable of knowing or judging aright, and having no standard of right and wrong but express revelations from God, resulted in the unresisted claim of popes and church councils as the only authorized interpreters of the Bible.
Then began the powerful influence of education. Every child was trained to believe the doctrine of a depraved nature as a part of the word of God, to be received with unquestioning submission. Thus the [pg 283] most powerful influences were enlisted to enchain the feeble and plastic mind of childhood at the starting-point of thought and reason. It was also taught by theologians to all the young ecclesiastics as a system, thus adding a new force to early educational training by the authority of the church, with all its solemn and awful sanctions.
The idea that every man is to receive the teachings of Christ, uncontrolled by church authority, as he understands them, and that he is a Christian just so far as he understands aright and obeys them, found no advocates for long centuries. Meantime the ecclesiastics, as the only infallible interpreters of God's word, and the only source by which to gain regenerating influences, abused the influence thus acquired, to build up the awful prelatic power that ruled Christendom for ages. At last, with many other abominations, the regular sale of indulgences to commit all manner of crimes at fixed prices, brought intolerable follies and crimes to a crisis.
Then Luther and his compeers arose and waged war, not against the root of these evils, but against those inevitable branches, the infallibility of church interpretations and the substitution of outward creeds, rites and forms for the spiritual principle of love to God and man exhibited by obedience to the Creator's laws.
Luther claimed that he and all men were bound to interpret the Bible for themselves, and not to submit their judgment to any pope, council or ecclesiastical power. And he claimed that the Bible teaches that man is to be saved [justified], not by outward forms, but by faith in Jesus Christ. But retaining the doctrine [pg 284] of man's ruined and helpless nature, his ideas of faith and of the mode of attaining it, were vague and conflicting. Thus originated the long conflict between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, involving some of the most bloody and cruel wars and persecutions that ever afflicted humanity.
Next came Arminius and his associates, who, still clinging to the fatal root of a totally depraved nature, labored to devise some way in which, in spite of this ruin, man could do something to secure regeneration from God. For, as shown in the early chapters, Calvinism maintained that man was utterly helpless, and that all the doings of the unregenerate were sin and only sin, and therefore utterly unavailing in gaining regenerating aid from God. Hence originated the long conflict between Calvinism and Arminianism, which has been continued to this day.
Both these schools of divinity rested on the dogma of an entirely depraved nature, but their tendencies were diverse.
Calvinism, maintaining the utter helplessness of man, tended to despairing inefficiency. If man really could do nothing, why should he attempt any thing to secure salvation?
On the other hand, Arminianism, promising help through certain forms, rites and influences conveyed by ecclesiastics, tended to a reliance on rites and forms. If man is to be saved by these instrumentalities and can do nothing himself except through them, then, these being secured, the natural tendency must be to rest in them.
These two diverse tendencies finally resulted in an equal torpor and indifference to religion in both parties, [pg 285] which was interrupted on the Arminian side by Wesley and Whitfield, and on the Calvinistic side by Jonathan Edwards.
Wesley and his co-laborers taught anew the Protestant doctrine of man's independence of ecclesiastical interpretations and church forms, and the necessity of an immediate and higher spiritual life. From his efforts and those of Whitfield originated the great Methodist denomination in Great Britain and America.
In this sect is carried out the theory of regeneration, not as a slow process of educational training, but as an instantaneous change, manifested in excited sensibilities. As the depravity consequent on Adam's sin consists in the “deprivation” of God's Spirit, and regeneration is the return of this gift, to be secured by prayer and other “means of grace,” we find their prayers, hymns and preaching all conformed to this theory. They gain grace when the Spirit comes, and when it departs they “fall from grace.”
While Wesley and Whitfield, in Great Britain, appealed directly to the people in combatting the Arminian tendency to forms and laxness, Jonathan Edwards addressed the leaders of metaphysical thought in his profound and acute writings. He attempted to meet the universal paralysis consequent on the Calvinistic doctrine of man's inability, amounting almost to the loss of a consciousness of personal freedom.
His aim was to restore to man a sense of ability and responsibility. Thus originated his theory of natural ability and moral inability, which amounts simply to this: that man has natural power to obey all that God requires, but that he so lacks moral ability, on [pg 286] account of his depraved nature, that it is certain that he never will make a truly virtuous choice till he is regenerated, and regeneration is not to be secured by any unregenerated doings.
From this resulted the division into the old and new-school Calvinistic parties in the Congregational and Presbyterian churches.
Lastly, the New Haven divines, while in some of their writings they held exactly the views of President Edwards, and claimed to have made no innovation, in others they came exactly to the Pelagian ground, maintaining that man “has not a depraved nature in any sense, nor a corrupt nature, much less a sinful nature,” “but rather that in nature he is like God.”
This is the same doctrine as was held by Pelagius, and if it were only carried out consistently and not contradicted, would be the entire elimination, root and branch, of the Augustinian system.
From this resulted a theological controversy that has agitated the Presbyterian and Congregational churches for the last thirty years.
There are two denominations which all the Augustinian sects agree in excluding from their fellowship as not entitled to the name of Christian sects, which have had great influence in undermining the hold of the Augustinian theory. These are the Universalists and the Unitarians.
The former do not formally deny the Augustinian theory of a depraved nature consequent on Adam's sin, but leaving it undisputed, gain great influence by it. They allow that God has power to restore man to his original perfectness, and then maintain that the [pg 287] very idea of a benevolent being, who is the loving parent of all his creatures, makes it certain that he will do so. For, as shown before, our only idea of a benevolent being is, that he wills to do all in his power to secure that which will make the most happiness with the least evil. As, therefore, all the Augustinian sects concede that God has power to make all minds perfect at the first, and to regenerate all minds that are ruined through the sin of Adam, Universalists maintain that the very idea of the Creator as a benevolent being necessarily involves the certainty that he will in the end, bring all the creatures he has made to a state of perfectness, both in mental construction and mental action. This argument is unanswerable, and the people very extensively are led to so regard it, and to adopt this view of the future state of our race.
The question, with this sect, all turns on whether it is possible in the nature of things for God to construct mind on a more perfect pattern than that of the human mind; and whether it is possible, in the nature of things, to make the best possible system of minds that are free agents, and yet save all of them from perpetuated disobedience to the laws of that system and the consequent suffering of the natural penalties.
It has been shown that the common-sense system teaches that it is not possible, so that it must be by revelation only, that man could gain such a doctrine as the eventual perfect holiness and happiness of the whole human race.
While the Universalists gain great power by not contesting the Augustinian dogma, the Unitarians have taken the ground of a full recognition of the [pg 288] Pelagian doctrine of the perfect construction of the nature of man. At the same time they have, as a sect, almost universally adopted the Universalist doctrine of the eventual salvation of the whole of our race.
Both these sects have embraced men of great popular talents, who have widely influenced the public mind, in their attempts to lessen confidence in the doctrines and sects based on the Augustinian theory.
Meantime, in the scientific world, mental philosophy has made great progress in clear analysis and accurate definitions. The Scotch school of metaphysicians, headed by Reid and Stewart, have clearly developed and established in a popular form, the principles of reason and common sense; though as professors in a Calvinistic university and community, they never ventured to apply these principles to the investigation of religious theories as to the “depraved nature” of the human mind. They passed over the whole question in utter silence.
Still more recently has been developed the system of Phrenology, which is based on the constitutional diversities in mental faculties. This system has effectively warred on the theological theory of implanted evil propensities, by teaching that every faculty, when developed and regulated aright, tends to the best good of the race, so that the extinction of any faculty or propensity would not be an improvement, but rather an injury to the constitution of mind.
At the same time, by the influence of our schools, our colleges, our pulpits, our popular lectures and our wide-spread periodicals, both religious and secular, the mind of all classes has been rising to a larger development, [pg 289] and to clearer and more discriminating views of mental and moral science in every department. Thus the people are gradually throwing off the chains of ecclesiastical authority and assuming that liberty of thought and action, which their Almighty Father designed as the chief birth-right of all his intelligent offspring.