It has been shown that the common‐sense system results from the implanted
principles of mind, so that no person can be entirely free from its
influence.
The Augustinian system has also been shown in its Calvinistic and Arminian
tendencies.
The Calvinistic form, making it certain that, owing to the depravity of
nature consequent on Adam’s sin, every moral act is sin and only sin,
while there is no revealed mode of securing regeneration, leads to
hopeless inefficiency and neglect of religious advantages. The Arminian
form, maintaining the efficacy of certain rites and ceremonies in securing
regeneration, tends to a disastrous dependence on outward observances.
Those parents who are trained in the Calvinistic school, usually _begin_
education more or less on the common‐sense theory that children can and do
please God when they are obedient, gentle, kind, self‐denying and
conscientious. Prayers and hymns are also taught to the little ones that
make this impression.
But when advancing years bring the pulpit and other Calvinistic influences
to bear, these impressions, more or less, fade away, and are followed by
the depressing feeling that nothing that a child does is either good or
pleasing to the heavenly Father till the “wicked heart” is changed by God,
and that there is no definite, practical mode of securing this change. The
consequence, in many cases, is, that all prayer and all attention to
religious instruction ceases, and a desperate course of worldliness and
departure from all recognition of God ensues. In other cases, the natural
result of this Augustinian theory is more or less counteracted by
conscience, common sense and the Bible.
On the other hand, the Arminian view of the efficacy of rites and means of
grace sanctioned by God as the mode of securing regeneration, has led to
great stress on the use of those rites and forms. The Catholic and a
portion of the Episcopal church, have taught that the rite of baptism was
the appointed mode of remedying the depravity engendered from Adam. And so
indispensable was it deemed to the salvation of infants, that not only
laymen, but women were allowed to administer this rite at the approach of
death, when no priest could be obtained, lest the infant soul should go to
endless perdition with the taint of Adam’s sin unremoved.
There have been great dissensions in the Episcopal church as to the
efficacy of baptism. Some have taught that regeneration was imparted by
this rite. Others have taught that this rite secured the implanting of “a
seed,” or some new mysterious principle, which if cherished and cultivated
by the church, would result in Christian character. Those who hold this
view, rely chiefly on the training of children in the church as the
appointed mode of securing their salvation.
That branch of the Arminian school which left the Episcopal church under
Wesley and his associates, were driven off by the laxity and want of
spiritual life consequent on these tendencies to reliance on rites and
forms. In place of this, they urged the doctrine of instantaneous
regeneration, to be gained by certain means of grace. According to these
teachers, regeneration consists in the return of God’s Spirit to the soul,
which is withheld in consequence of Adam’s sin. The tendency of this view
was to lessen reliance on educational training and to exalt the importance
of other means of grace by which regeneration seemed to be secured, and to
which the Bible, as was claimed, promised success.
Thus, in the Arminian sects, where the efficacy of rites and forms by a
regularly ordained and authoritative priesthood has been relinquished,
educational training has conformed more to the Calvinistic view. As
eternal salvation depends on securing regeneration, every thing is made
secondary to those methods by which regeneration is to be gained.
The Episcopal Arminians, therefore, depend more on educating the young
aright, and have little dependence on revivals, while the Methodist
Arminians look less to education and more to revivals and other modes of
securing religious excitement.
But the foundation difficulty alike of the Calvinists, the Episcopal
Arminians and the Methodist Arminians, is the assumption that
_regeneration of a ruined nature_ is the thing to be sought, both by
children and by adults, as the indispensable prerequisite to salvation,
and that “the means of grace” are not for the training and development of
a perfect nature, but to gain from God the cure of a ruined and helpless
one.
In contrast to this, the common‐sense system recognizes all that is
practical in any of the three methods. It teaches that man’s _nature_ is
perfect, and yet that he is utterly helpless without the _knowledge_,
_training_ and _motives_, for which he is dependent alike on God and on
man. It teaches that this nature can be trained to “a new life” by
educational instrumentalities and by a slow and gradual process. At the
same time it teaches, that when men have lived a worldly life there may be
a _sudden_ change of character by _voluntarily_ commencing a life of love
and obedience to God, in place of a life of unregulated self‐indulgence.
Since the days of Pelagius and Augustine, there has never been any large
body of Christians who have trained children on the common‐sense system
dissevered from the Augustinian theory. This experiment is yet to be tried
before its full and proper tendency can be truly developed.
The Unitarian sect, who reject the Augustinian dogma, also reject some of
the fundamental principles of the common‐sense system, especially that on
which the whole system of moral and religious duty and motive rests, _the
dangers of the race_ in the invisible world, and the _power of motive_
secured by “God manifest in the flesh” as the long‐suffering and self‐
denying Creator, coming to aid his creatures by his teaching, sympathy,
example, and abounding love.