SECTS.
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 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 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, 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 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 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
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, 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.