ARTICLE VII.

UNITY AMID DIVERSITIES OF BELIEF, EVEN ON IMPUTED AND INVOLUNTARY SIN;

WITH COMMENTS ON A SECOND ARTICLE IN THE PRINCETON REVIEW RELATING TO A CONVENTION SERMON.

Dmaza

By Edwards A. Park, Abbot Professor in Andover Theol. Seminary.

"Among

Ir is a grateful anticipation of all believers, that the leopard will one day lie down with the kid. It is also a consoling idea, that even now many wranglers in the church are disputing less on theology than on lexicography. The inward union of good men will soon be, and indeed already is more extensive than we imagine. In our bellicose propensities, we magnify the rumors of war. those who admit the atoning death of Christ as the organific principle of their faith, there are differences, some of them more important, but many far less important, than they seem to be." There are differences. It were idle to attempt an entire fusion of our evangelical creeds into one. These differences are important. All truth is important. The more exact our ideas of the Gospel, so much the more worthy will be our imaginative illustrations of it. Just in proportion as the theology of the head is the more complete, may the theology of the heart be the more copious and impressive, and the whole religious life may be the more in unison with heaven. Every new truth may call out some new grace, and if we have no idea of law, we can have no motive of obedience. But let us not plunge into extremes. Let us not infer that pious men, believing "the doctrines which concentre in and around a vicarious atonement," must either become latitudinarian and care nothing for their differences, or else denounce each other as Pelagian, and magnify their minor disagree

1 Convention Sermon, Bib. Sac. Vol. VII. p. 559.

2 See Convention Sermon, pp. 542-546, Notwithstanding all that is here said on the necessity of religious knowledge for the culture of religious feeling, our critic devotes several pages of his last Review (Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, Vol. XXIII. pp. 333-845) to prove, that this sermon is founded on a theory which rests on the principle that religion is a "blind feeling"! Is not the Reviewer in haste? He contradicts himself by elsewhere condemning the sermon for its theory that all moral character consists in a choice to obey or disobey a known law!

5

8 Convention Sermon, p. 544.

1851.]

Essential agreement of Evangelical Creeds.

595

ments. At the present day, when Christians long for a more obvious unity in the faith, it is cheering to reflect on the particulars and on the methods in which they do harmonize, notwithstanding their frequent discords.

And, first, it is a delightful idea that the great majority of good Christians have received their faith immediately from the Bible, and have therefore agreed in adopting its essential truths. The men who trouble Israel are not the fair-minded theologians, but the polemic divines. It is these who go around beating the drum, brandishing the sword, crying "To arms," and already have their quarrels filled the world with spiritual orphans; but the women and children who pray in the vales and in the mountain fastnesses, have not understood the meaning of the war-cry; they have been called Lutherans, or Calvinists, or Zuinglians, or Baptists, or Methodists, or Presbyterians, and have scarcely known wherefore, but one thing they have known, and this has been their chief joy—that "Blessed is the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." "The great mass of believers have never embraced the metaphysical refinements of creeds, useful as these refinements are; but have singled out and fastened upon and held firm those cardinal truths which the Bible has lifted up and turned over in so many different lights as to make them the more conspicuous by their very alternations of figure and hue." We insist on the usefulness of these metaphysical refinements, and being so understood we shall not be accused of undervaluing any truth when we say with our worthy Reviewer, that "the mass of true Christians, in all denominations, get their religion directly from the Bible, and are but little affected by the peculiarities of their creeds."2

As yet, then, being in some measure harmonious with our critic, let us proceed to a second remark: pious men often adopt systems which agree with each other in their essential principles, but are irreconcilable in subordinate particulars. Augustinism is essentially right, notwithstanding its theory of baptismal regeneration; and Pelagianism is essentially wrong, notwithstanding its acknowledgment of Christ's divinity. The doctrinal system of Pictet, is different from that of Bellamy, but the difference is superficial, not fundamental. The great truths involved in the atonement of our blessed Lord, overpower various errors in philosophy, which may be fabricated around it; and every system which includes and is formed mainly

1 Convention Sermon, p. 560.

2 Bib. Repertory, Vol. XVII. p. 85. This article is generally imputed to our Reviewer.

1

upon those truths, has the right substance, even although it may have some unsightly protuberances. Those doctrines are the requisites for a faith which saves. They are welcomed by various sects. In a late Convention sermon, it was therefore said, that there is an "identity in the essence of many truths which are run in scientific or aesthetic moulds, unlike each other." This ought not to have been understood as meaning, that the moulds, i. e. the scientific theories, are the same, but that the substance of the religious truth cast into them, is the same. The truth that Christ was a vicarious sacrifice in suffering the most expressive pain for sinners, is not philosophically identical with the notion that he suffered the exact punishment of sinners; yet, the general system of Dr. Edwards, which includes the vicarious sacrifice in one of its philosophical forms, is essentially like the general system of Abraham Booth, which includes the same doctrine in another of its philosophical forms. It was not said in the above named sermon, that all systems were alike, but that many are. Our earnest Reviewer perseveres in confounding "many" with “all.” He says of the author: "When he stood up-to foretell the blending of all creeds into one colorless ray;" but the author said for himself: "Many various forms of faith will yet be blended into a consistent knowledge, like the colors in a single ray." 2

Thirdly, we are also pleased to observe, that good men often contend about modes of presenting truth, when they agree in the truth presented. The same doctrines presented in certain forms constitute the theology of the intellect, and presented in other forms constitute the theology of the heart. This latter theology often "indulges in

1 Convention Sermon, p. 559.

2 Compare Bib. Rep., XXIII. p. 341, with Bib. Sac.. VII. p. 561.

3 A form of a truth involves that truth in that form. Modes of theological exhibition are theological doctrines exhibited in certain modes. A style of theology is theology in a particular style. It is immaterial whether we say that the theology of the intellect is a kind of theological representation, or that it is theology represented in a certain method. The theology of the intellect and feelings" is one system of truths exhibited in two modes. This is the single theory of the sermon under review. The attempt of the Reviewer, in Bib. Repert. VolXXIII. pp. 333-339, to prove that there is another and a "German" theory, can serve no other purpose than to link the sermon with the (to many persons) “hard name" of Schleiermacher. It is an unworthy attempt. Had he given a fair exhibition of either the German theory or the sermon, he could not have failed to show their antagonism. He pretends that the sermon grows out of the indirect idea that "right moral feeling may express itself in wrong intellectual forms," by which he means, false statements literally understood. No such thing. The contrary is asserted throughout the discourse. If the Reviewer will take the trouble

1851.]

Modes of Presenting Truth.

118

597

a style of remark which for sober prose would be unbecoming, or even when associated in certain ways, irreverent;" "in language which we fear to repeat." "The Princeton Reviewer, for example, makes the following remark: "Paul says that Christ, though he knew no sin, was made sin; i. e. a sinner." If Paul had said that Christ was made a sinner, we would reverently repeat the words, even as we say with awe, "Then the Lord awaked as out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine." But inspired men never venture upon the declaration that our blessed Lord was made a sinner; and if uninspired authors wish to invent such phrases, they should do it with caution, and should step on this perilous ground with their shoes from off their feet. We hope, indeed, that our Reviewer means to express a truth by such a bold declaration, and that he here deviates from New England theology in respect of taste rather than doctrine. We believe also that other divines have, in certain states of mind, a right idea concealed under their dangerous, intense phraseology, when they say, as does the excellent Dr. Crisp, "Christ himself becomes the transgressor in the room and stead of the person that had transgressed; so that in respect of the reality of being a transgressor, Christ is as really the transgressor as the man that did commit it was, before he took it upon him." Interpreted as bold metaphors, such expressions may sometimes, but always with extreme peril, be borne for a moment in the theology of excited feeling; but when literally interpreted, they belong neither to the theology of a sound head nor to that of a good heart, but are the occasions of infidelity and sin.

Fourthly, it is also a pleasant reflection, that good men often believe in a false doctrine as logically deduced from certain premises, and reject it in their pious meditations. They disagree as logicians with the advocate of truth, but as devotional Christians, they agree

to examine the discourse, he will see that the word "intellectual" is one of his own interpolations, and is an unwarrantable gloss.

1 Conv. Sermon, Bib. Sac. VII. p. 538.

8 Psalm 78: 65.

2 Bib. Rep. VII. p. 426.

* See Crisp's Sermons, edited by Dr. Gill, Vol. I. pp. 429, 431, 437, 440, 261 -264, 301, etc. We must believe that this good man does, in certain moods of feeling, use these terms in a figurative sense, although he denies that he so uses them here.66 To affirm,” he says, p. 438, “that the Lord laid upon Christ the guilt of sin and not the sin itself, is directly contrary to Scripture; for you have many testimonies affirming that the Lord lays sin upon him; what presumption then is it for a man to say, he lays on Christ the guilt, and not the sin itself." See how careful the Spirit of God is to take away all suspicion of a figure in the text," (he bare the sins of many). p. 430.

with him. 66 'Dogmas of the most revolting shape, have no sooner been cast into the alembic of a regenerated heart, than their more jagged angles have been melted away." Lest our Reviewer suspect this remark of Germanism, let him have the goodness to reperuse his own saying: "this is a doctrine which can only be held as a theory. It is in conflict with the most intimate moral convictions of men ;" and further, "it is a product of the mere understanding, and does violence to the instinctive moral judgment of men ;" and further still: "even among those who make theology a study there is often one form of doctrine for speculation, and another simpler and truer for the closet. [!] Metaphysical distinctions are forgotten in prayer, or under the pressure of real conviction of sin, and need of pardon, and of divine assistance. Hence it is that the devotional writings of Christians agree far more than their creeds." Our critic here agrees very happily with the Schleiermacherian sermon, which declares that "in unnumbered cases, the real faith of Christians has been purer than their written statements of it."4

Sometimes, however, the erroneous formulas of the metaphysician are not "forgotten" in his prayers, but are merged into a merely intense expression of practical truth. In his study he regards them as literal statements; in his closet he uses the same words as bold metaphors. While his heart is cold, he adopts them as a theology of the intellect; but when his heart is warm, he changes them into the theology of feeling. The ice mountain in which he is frozen up as a scholar, melts into pure and refreshing water around him when he is in the glow of devotion. Imagine, if you can, that an exemplary divine should exclaim in his address to God: "I have done as well as I could do;' 'I have had no more power to change my disposition than to annihilate myself,' therefore I have lived up to the very extent of my ability,' but my debt has been fully paid,' and now 'it 1 Conv. Sermon, p. 560.

6

6

2 Bib. Rep. XVII. pp. 91, 87. Here, and throughout this Article, the italics are made by the author of the Article.

Bib. Rep. Vol. XVII. p. 85.

4 Conv. Serm. p. 560.

5 Our earnest Reviewer not only confounds “many” with “all,” but also “a” with "the." The theology of the intellect is not, as he seems to think, Pelagianism, but it is the theology of a sound mind, i. e. it is the truth. The theology of feeling is not a class of doctrines adapted to a wrong heart, but to a right one; i. e it is the truth, the same in substance but not in form with the preceding. On the other hand, a theology of intellect may be any form of religious error, and a theology of feeling may be any kind of injurious theological statement. See Conv. Serm., Note B. Not all the expressions of our Reviewer belong to the theology of feeling.