Spurious Religious Excitements (Part 2)

SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS

by Robert L. Dabney

These plain facts and principles condemn nearly every feature of the modern new measure “revival.” The preaching and other religious instructions are shaped with a main view to excite the carnal emotions and the instinctive sympathies, while no due care is taken to present saving, didactic truth to the understanding thus temporarily stimulated. As soon as some persons, professed Christians, or awakened 'mourners,' are infected with any lively passion, let it be however carnal and fleeting, a spectacular display is made of it, with confident laudations of it as unquestionably precious and saving, with the design of exciting the remainder of the crowd with the sympathetic contagion. Every adjunct of fiery declamation, animated singing, groans, tears, exclamations, noisy prayers, is added so as to shake the nerves and add the tumult of a hysterical animal excitement to the sympathetic wave. Every youth or impressible girl who is seen to tremble, or grow pale, or shed tears, is assured that he or she is under the workings of the Holy Spirit, and is driven by threats of vexing that awful and essential Agent of salvation to join the spectacular show, and add himself to the exciting pantomime. Meanwhile, most probably their minds are blank of every intelligent or conscientious view of the truth; they had been tittering or whispering a little while before, during the pretended didactic part of the exercises; they could give no intelligent account now of their own sudden excitement, and, in fact, it is no more akin to any spiritual, rational, or sanctifying cause, than the quiver of the nostrils of a horse at the sound of the bugle and the fox-hounds. But they join the mourners, and the manipulation proceeds. Of course, the sympathetic wave, called religious, reaches them more and more. As I have shown, it is the very nature of sympathy to assume the character of the emotion with which we sympathize. Thus this purely natural and instinctive sensibility takes on the form of religious feeling, because it is sympathy with religious feeling in others. The subject calls it by religious names—awakening, conviction, repentance—while in reality it is only related to them as a man's shadow is to the living man. Meantime, the preachers talk to them as though the feelings were certainly genuine and spiritual. With this sympathetic current there may mingle sundry deep original feelings about the soul, to which, we have seen, the dead, carnal heart is fully competent by itself. These are fear, remorse, shame, desire of applause, craving for future, selfish, welfare, spiritual pride. Here we have the elements of every spurious grace. The “sorrow of the world that worketh death” is mistaken for saving repentance. By a natural law of the feelings, relaxation must follow high tension—the calm must succeed the storm. This quiet is confounded with “peace in believing." The selfish prospect of security produces great elation. This is supposed to be spiritual joy. When the soul is removed from the stimuli of the revival appliances, it of course sinks into the most painful vacuity, on which supervene restlessness and doubt. So, most naturally, it craves to renew the illusions, and has, for a time, a certain longing for and pleasure in the scenes, the measures, and the agents of its pleasing intoxication. These are mistaken for love for God's house, worship and people. Then the befooled soul goes on until it is betrayed into an erroneous profession of religion, and a dead church membership. He is now in the position in which the great enemy of souls would most desire to have him, and where his salvation is more difficult and improbable than anywhere else.

The most fearful part of these transactions is the unscriptural rashness of the professed guides of souls. They not only permit and encourage these perilous confusions of thought, but pass judgment on the exercises of their supposed converts with a haste and confidence which angels would shudder to indulge. Here, for instance, is a hurried, ignorant young person, no real pains having been taken to instruct his understanding in the nature of sin and redemption, or to test his apprehension of gospel truths. In his tempestuous excitement of fear and sympathy, he is told that he is unquestionably under the influence of God's Spirit. When he has been coaxed, or flattered, or wearied into some random declaration that he thinks he loves his Saviour, joyful proclamation is made that here is another soul born to God, and the brethren are called on to rejoice over him. But no time has been allowed this supposed convert for self-examination; no care to discriminate between spiritual and carnal affections, or for the subsidence of the froth of animal and sympathetic excitements; no delay is allowed to see the fruits of holy living, the only test which Christ allows as sufficient for other than the omniscient judgment. Thus, over-zealous and heedless men, ignorant of the first principles of psychology, and unconscious of the ruinous effects they may be producing, sport with the very heart-strings of the spiritual life, and that in the most critical moments. It were a less criminal madness for a surgeon's raw apprentice to try experiments with his master's keen bistoury on the patient's jugular vein.

These abuses are the less excusable in any minister, because the Scriptures which he holds in his hands tell him plainly enough without the lights of philosophy, the wrongness of all these practices. No inspired apostle ever dared to pass a verdict upon the genuineness of a case of religious excitement with the rashness seen on these occasions. Christ has forewarned us that converts can only be known correctly by their fruits. Paul has sternly enjoined every workman upon the visible church, whose foundation is Christ, to “take heed how he buildeth thereupon.” He has told us that the materials placed by us upon this structure may be genuine converts, as permanent as gold, silver, and costly stones; or worthless and pretended converts, comparable to 'wood, hay and stubble;' that our work is to be all tried by the fire of God's judgments, in which our perishable additions will be burned up; and if we are ourselves saved, it will be as though we were saved by fire. The terrible results of self-deception and the deceitfulness of the heart are dwelt upon, and men are urged to self-examination.

The ulterior evils of these rash measures are immense. A standard and type of religious experience are propagated by them in America, as utterly unscriptural and false as those prevalent in Popish lands. So long as the subjects are susceptible of the sympathetic passion, they are taught to consider themselves in a high and certain state of grace. All just and scriptural marks of a gracious state are overlooked and even despised. Is their conduct immoral, their temper bitter and unchristian, their minds utterly dark as to distinctive gospel truths? This makes no difference; they are still excited and "happified' in meetings; they sing and shout, and sway to and fro with religious feelings. Thus these worthless, sympathetic passions are trusted in as the sure signatures of the Spirit's work.

Of the man who passes through this process of false conversion, our Saviour's declaration is eminently true: "The last state of that man is worse than the first." The cases are not few which backslide early, and are again "converted," until the process has been repeated several times. These men are usually found most utterly hardened and profane, and hopelessly impervious to divine truth. Their souls are utterly seared by spurious fires of feeling. The state of those who remain undeceived, and in the communion of the church, is almost as hopeless. "Having a name to live, they are dead." Their misconception as to their own state is armor of proof against warning.

The results of these "revivals" are usually announced at once, with overweening confidence, as works of God's Spirit. A minister reports to his church paper that he has just shared in a glorious work at a given place, in which the Holy Ghost was present with power, and "forty souls were born into the kingdom." Now, the man of common sense will remember how confidently this same revivalist made similar reports last year, the year before, and perhaps many years previously. He was each time equally confident that it was the Spirit's work. But this man must know that in each previous case, time has already given stubborn refutation to his verdict upon the work. Four-fifths of those who, he was certain, were converted by God, have already gone back to the world, and declare that they were never converted at all. The means he has just used in his last revival are precisely the same used in his previous ones. The false fruits wore at first just the aspect which his last converts now wear. Is it not altogether probable that they are really of the same unstable character? But this minister declares positively that these are God's works. Now, the cool, critical world looks on and observes these hard facts. It asks, What sort of people are these special guardians and expounders of Christianity? Are they romantic fools, who cannot be taught by clear experience, or are they conscious and intentional liars? The world is quite charitable, and probably adopts the former solution. And this solution, that the representatives of Christianity are men hopelessly and childishly overweening in their delusions, carries this corollary for the most of worldly men who adopt it: That Christianity itself is an unhealthy fanaticism, since it makes its chosen teachers such fanatics, unteachable by solid facts. Thus, the Christian ministry, who ought to be a class venerable in the eyes of men, are made contemptible. Civility restrains the expression of this estimate, but it none the less degrades the ministry in the eyes of intelligent men of the world, as a class who are excused from the charge of conscious imposture only on the theory of their being incurably silly and fanatical.

In the denominations which most practice the so-called "revival measures," abundance of facts obtrude themselves which are conclusive enough to open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. Instances may be found, where annual additions have been reported, such that, if the sums were taken, and only subjected to a fair deduction for deaths and removals, these churches should number hundreds, or even a thousand members, and should be in a splendid state of prosperity. But the same church-reports still set these churches down as containing fifty or seventy members. Others, which have been boasting these magnificent processes, are moribund, and some have been "revived" to death.

But the men who work this machinery, notwithstanding the fatal condemnation of the facts, are not blind! What are the causes of their perseverance in methods so worthless? One cause is, doubtless, an honest, but ignorant zeal. In the bustle and heat of this zeal, they overlook the unpleasant facts, and still go on, "supposing that they verily do God service." Another subtile and far-reaching cause is an erroneous, synergistic theology. The man who believes in the efficient cooperation of the sinner's will with the divine will, in the initial quickening of his soul, will, of course, seek to stimulate that human will to the saving acts by all the same expedients by which men seek to educe in their fellows carnal acts of will. Why not? Why should not the evangelist practice to evoke that act cf will from the man on which he believes the saving action of the Almighty pivots, by the same kind of arts the recruiting sergeant practices —the martial song, the thrilling fife and palpitating drum, the spectacular display of previous recruits in their shining new uniforms—until the young yeoman has "committed" himself by taking the "queen's shilling"? That volition settles it that the queen is to make him her soldier. It must be the youth's decision, but, when once made for a moment, it decides his state. Thus a synergistic theology fosters these "revival measures," as they, in turn, incline towards a synergistic creed. Doubtless, many ministers are unconsciously swayed by the natural love of excitement. This is the same instinct which leads school-boys and clowns to run to witness a dog-fight, Spaniards to the cockfight and the bull-fight, sporting men to the pugilist's ring, and theatre-goers to the comedy. This natural instinct prompts many an evangelist, without his being distinctly aware of it, to prefer the stirring scenes of the spurious revival to the sober, quiet, laborious work of religious teaching. But it is obvious that this motive is as unworthy as it is natural.

Another motive which prompts men to persevere in these demonstrably futile methods is the desire to count large and immediate results. To this they are spurred by inconsiderate, but honest zeal, and by the partisan rivalries of their denominations. These unworthy motives they sanctify to themselves, and thus conceal from their own consciences the real complexion of them. No word is needed to show how unwise and unsuitable they are to the Christian minister. Here should be pointed out the intrinsic weakness of the current system of employing travelling revivalists in settled churches. No matter how orthodox the man may be, the very nature of his task lays a certain urgency and stress upon him, to show, somehow, immediate results before the close of his meeting. If he does not, the very ground of his vocation as a "revivalist" is gone. He has been sent for to do this one thing, to gratify the hopes, zeal and pride of the good people by, at least, a show of immediate fruits. If he fails in this, he will not be sent for. This is too strong a temptation for any mere mortal to endure without yielding. But the prime fact which decides all true results of gospel means is, that the Holy Ghost alone is the Agent of effectual calling; and He is sovereign. His new-creating breath "bloweth where it listeth." His command to the sower of the word may be expressed in Solomon's words: "In the morning sow thy seed; and in the evening hold not thy hand; for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that." The best minister on earth may be appointed by God's secret purpose to the sad mission given to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and even to their Lord during his earthly course, "to stretch forth their hands all the day long to a disobedient and gainsaying people." Hence, this evangelist has put himself under an almost fatal temptation to resort to some illicit expedients which will produce, in appearance, immediate results. How few, even of the orthodox, escape that temptation!

An old and shrewd practitioner of these human means of religious excitements, was once asked by a man of the world, "if it were possible he could be blind to the futility of most of the pretended conversions?" The answer was: "Of course not; we are not fools." "Why then," said the man, "do you employ these measures?" The preacher answered: "Because a few are truly converted, and make stable, useful Christians; and the rest when they find out the shallowness of their experiences, are simply where they were before." The worldly-wise preacher's statement involved two capital errors. It assumed that the "revival measures " were the effective instruments of the conversion of the genuine few; and that without these expedients they would have remained out of Christ. This is utterly false. The solid conversion of those souls took place not by cause of, but in spite of, the human expedients. The work was the result of sober Christian example, and previous didactic teaching in gospel truths, and had there been no "revival measures" these souls would have come out for Christ, perhaps a little later, but more intelligently and decisively. The mistake as to the second class, "the stony ground believers," is far more tragical. They are not left where they were before; "the last state of these men is worse than the first." I will not repeat the explanation of the depraving influences sure to be exerted upon the heart; but I will add one still more disastrous result. These deceptive processes usually end in making the subjects infidels. Some who keep their names on the communion rolls are secret infidels; nearly all who withdraw their names are open infidels, unless they are too unthinking and ignorant to reflect and draw inferences. First, every young person who has a spark of self-respect is mortified at being thrust into a false position, especially on so high and solemn a subject. Pride is wounded. He feels that he has been imposed on, and resents it. This wounded pride, unwilling to take the blame on itself, directs its anger against the agents of the mortifying cheat. But to despise the representatives of Christianity is practically very near to despising Christianity. The most earnest and clear-minded of these temporary converts has now what appears to him, with a terrible plausibility, the experimental argument to prove that evangelical religion is a deception. He says he knows he was honest and sincere in the novel exercises to which he was subjected, and in a sense he says truly. The religious teachers themselves assured him, in the name of God, that they were genuine works of grace. Did they not formally publish in the religious journals that it was the Holy Spirit's work? If these appointed teachers do not know, who can? Yet now this backslider says himself, "I have the stubborn proof of a long and sad experience, a prayerless and godless life, that there never was any real spiritual change in me." Who can be more earnest than he was? It is, then, the logical conclusion, that all supposed cases of regeneration are deceptive. "Many," he says, "have had the honesty like myself to come out of the church candidly, shoulder the mortification of their mistake, and avow the truth." Those who remain "professors" are to be accounted for in two ways. The larger part know in their hearts just as well as we do, that their exercises were always a cheat, but they prefer to live a lie, rather than make the humiliating avowal, and for these we feel only contempt. The minority remain honestly self-deceived by reason of impressible and enthusiastic temperaments. For these, if they are social and moral, and do not cant, we can feel most kindly, and respect their amiable delusion. It would be unkind to distrust it. This reasoning having led them to discredit entirely the work of the Holy Ghost, leads next to the denial of his personality. The backslider sinks to the ranks of a gross Socinian, or becomes a Deist or an Agnostic. Let the history of our virtual infidels be examined and their early religious life traced; here will be found the source and cause of their error. "Their name is Legion." He who inquires of the openly ungodly adults of our land, will be astounded to find how large a majority of them were once in the church. They conceal, as well as they can, what they regard as the "disgraceful episode" in their history. Their attitude is that of silent, but cold and impregnable skepticism, based, as they think, on the argument of actual experience. In fact, spurious revivals we honestly regard as the chief bane of our Protestantism. We believe that they are the chief cause, under the prime source, original sin, which has deteriorated the average standard of holy living, principles, and morality, and the church discipline of our religion, until it has nearly lost its practical power over the public conscience. Striking the average of the whole nominal membership of the Protestant churches, the outside world does not credit us for any higher standard than we are in the habit of ascribing to the Synagogue, and to American Popery. How far is the world wrong in its estimate ? That denomination which shall sternly use its ecclesiastical authority, under Christ's law, to inhibit these human methods and to compel its teachers back to the scriptural and only real means, will earn the credit of being the defender of an endangered gospel.

One corollary from this discussion is: How perilous is it to entrust the care of souls to an ignorant zeal! None but an educated ministry can be expected, humanly speaking, to resist the seductions of the "revival measures," or to guard themselves from the plausible blunders we have analyzed above. And the church which entrusts the care of souls to lay-evangelists, self-appointed and irresponsible to the ecclesiastical government appointed by Christ, betrays its charge and duty.

No man is fit for the care of souls, except he is deeply imbued with scriptural piety and grace. He must have a faith firm as a rock, and humble as strong, with profound submission to the divine will, which will calm him amidst all delays and all discouragements that God will bless his own word in his own chosen time. He must have that self-abnegation which will make him willing to bear the evil repute of an unfruitful ministry, if the Lord so ordains, and unblenchingly refuse to resort to any unauthorized means to escape this cross. He must have the moral courage to withstand that demand of ill-considered zeal in his brethren, parallel to the ardor purus civium juvenium in politics. He must have the unflagging diligence and love for souls which will make him persevere in preaching the gospel publicly, and from house to house, under the delay of fruit. Nothing can give these except large measures of grace and prayer.

Spurious Religious Excitement (Part 1)

This post (and the following) is an article written by Robert L. Dabney on the subject of false religious excitement as it relates to the "Revival movement" of the 19th Century. Although  today's version of such movements are not as wide-spread, the attendant evils are. Because of the article's length, I have split in into two parts relatively equal in length.

SPURIOUS RELIGIOUS EXCITEMENTS

by Robert L. Dabney

It is believed all thoughtful Christians are alive to the fact that religious excitements, which consist of temporary movements of the emotions devoid of any saving operation of the Truth on the reason and conscience, are equally frequent and mischievous in America. This judgment not seldom expresses itself in very queer and inaccurate forms. Thus: good brethren write to the religious journals grateful accounts of a work of grace in their charges, and tell the editors that "they are happy to say, the work has been purely rational and quiet, and attended by not the slightest excitement." They forget that the efficacious (not possibly, tempestuous) movement of the feelings is just as essential a part of a true religious experience, as the illumination of the intellect by divine truth; for indeed, there is no such thing as the implantation of practical principle, or the right decisions of the will, without feeling. In estimating a work of divine grace as genuine, we should rather ask ourselves whether the right feelings are excited, and excited by divine cause. If so, we need not fear the most intense excitement. This misconception is parallel to the one uttered by public speakers, when they assure their hearers that, designing to show them the respect due to rational beings, and to use the honesty suitable to true patriots, "they shall make no appeal to their feelings, but address themselves only to their understandings." This is virtually impossible. On all practical subjects, truth is only influential as it stimulates some practical feeling. There is no logical appeal of the rhetorical nature which does not include and appeal to feeling. Does the orator proclaim, for instance, that waiving all appeals to passion, he will only address his hearers' intellects to prove what is for their interest, or "for their honor," or "for the good of their country"? What is he really doing except appealing to the emotions of desire for wealth, or love of applause, or patriotism?

In the Southern, Presbyterian Review, 1884, I presented a discussion on the psychology of the feelings. I wish to recall a few of the fundamental positions there established. The function of feeling is as essential to the human spirit, and as ever present, as the function of cognition. The two are ever combined, as the heat-rays and the light-rays are intermingled in the sunbeams. But the consciousness intuitively recognizes the difference of the two functions, so that it is superfluous to define them. "Feeling is the temperature of thought." The same kind of feeling may differ in degree of intensity, as the heat-ray in the brilliant winter sunbeam differs from that in the fiery glare of the "dog days"; but the thermometer shows there is still caloric in the most wintry sunbeam, and even in the block of crystal ice. So a human spirit is never devoid of some degree of that feeling which the truth then engaging the intelligence tends to excite. No object is or can be inducement to volition unless it be apprehended by the soul as being both in the category of the true and of the good. But, that function of soul by which the object is taken as a good, is desire, an act of feeling. Whence it follows, that an element of feeling is as essential to every rational volition as an act of cognition. The truly different sorts of feelings were distinguished and classified. But this all important division of them was seen to be into the passions, and the active feelings; between those impressions upon the sensibility of the soul, caused from without, and in receiving which the soul is itself passive, and its spontaneity has no self-determining power (as pain, panic, sympathy) on the one hand, and on the other hand those subjective feelings which, while occasioned from without, are self-determined by the spontaneity from within and in which the soul is essentially active, (as desire, benevolence, ambition, etc.)

It may be asked here: Does the writer intend to rest the authority of his distinction between genuine and spurious religious experiences on a human psychology? By no means. The Scriptures are the only sure source of this discrimination. Its declarations, such as that sanctification is only by revealed truth, its anthropology, its doctrine of redemption, and its examples of saving conversions, give the faithful student full guidance as to the conduct of gospel work, and the separation of the stony-ground hearers from the true. But it is claimed that the psychology outlined above is the psychology of the Bible. It is that theory of man's powers everywhere assumed and postulated in Scripture. It gives that theory of human action on which all the instances, the narratives, and the precepts of Scripture ground themselves. Hence these mental laws and facts are of use, not as the mistress, but as the hand-maid of Scripture, to explain and illustrate those cautions which the Bible gives us.

One inference is simple and clear. The excitement of mere sensibilities, however strong or frequent, can offer no evidence whatever of a sanctified state. The soul is passive in them; their efficient cause is objective. An instinctive susceptibility in the soul provides the only condition requisite for their rise when the outward cause is applied. Hence the excitement of these sensibilities is no more evidence of change or rectification in the free agency, than the shivering of the winter wayfarer's limbs when wet by the storms. Now the doctrine of Scripture is that man's spontaneity is, in his natural state, wholly disinclined and made opposite (yet freely) to godliness, so that he has no ability of will for any spiritual act pertaining to salvation. But it is promised that, in regeneration, God's people shall be willing in the day of his power. He so enlightens their minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renews their wills, that they are both persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ. The very spontaneity is revolutionized. Now the stimulation of merely passive sensibilities, in which the will has no causal part, can never be evidence of that saving change. No evidence of it appears, until the subjective desires and the will exhibit their change to the new direction. That fear, that selfish joy, that hope, that sympathy are excited, proves nothing. But when the soul freely exercises a "hungering and thirsting after righteousness," hatred of sin, desire of God's favor, love of his truth, zeal for his honor, this evinces the sanctifying revolution.

Shall we conclude then that the excitement of the passive sensibilities by the pastor is wholly useless? This class of feelings presents the occasion (not the cause) for the rise of the subjective and spontaneous emotions. This is all. It is this connection which so often misleads the mental analyst into a confusion of the two classes of feelings. The efficient cause may be restrained from acting by the absence of the necessary occasion; this is true. But it is equally true, that the occasion, in the absence of the efficient cause, is powerless to leaving any effect. If the pastor aims to move the sensibilities merely for the purpose of gaining the attention of the soul to saving truth, and presents that truth faithfully the moment his impression is made, he does well. If he makes these sensibilities an end, instead of a means, he is mischievously abusing his people's souls.

People are ever prone to think that they are feeling religiously because they have feelings round about religion. Their sensibilities have been aroused in connection with death and eternity, for instance; so, as these are religious topics, they suppose they are growing quite religious. The simplest way to clear away these perilous illusions is, to ask: What emotions, connected with religious topics as their occasions, are natural to the carnal man? These may be said to be, first, the emotions of taste, or the mental-aesthetic; second, the involuntary moral emotion of self-blame, or remorse; third, the natural self-interested emotions of fear and hope, and desire of future security and enjoyment; and fourth, the emotion of instinctive sympathy. The following conclusions concerning these feelings need only to be stated, in order to be admitted.

The aesthetic feeling may be as naturally stimulated by the features of sublimity and beauty of God's natural attributes, and of the gospel-story, as by a cataract, an ocean, a starlit sky, or a Shakespearean hero. Now it is most obvious that the movements of taste, in these latter cases, carry no moral imperative whatever. They have no more power to reform the will than strains of music or odors of flowers. Yet how many souls are deluded into supposing that they love God, duty, and gospel truth, because these aesthetic sensibilities are stimulated in connection with such topics!

When the ethical reason pronounces its judgment of wrongfulness upon any action or principle, this may be attended by the feeling of moral reprehension. If it is one's own action which must be condemned, the feeling takes on the more pungent form of remorse. But this feeling is no function of the. soul's spontaneity. Its rise is purely involuntary; its natural effect is to be the penal retribution, and not the restrainer of sin.

How completely this feeling is disconnected with the correct regulation or reformation of the will, appears from this: that the transgressor's will is usually striving with all his might not to feel the remorse, or to forget it, while conscience makes him feel it in spite of himself. A Judas felt it most keenly while he rushed to self-destruction. It is the most prevalent emotion of hell, which gives us the crowning proof that it has no power to purify the heart. But many transgressors are persuaded that they exercise repentance because they feel remorse for conscious sins. Man's native selfishness is all-sufficient to make him desire the pleasurable, or natural good, and fear and shun the painful, or natural evil. Those desires and aversions, with the fears and hopes which expectation suggests, and the corresponding terrors and joys of anticipation, may be stimulated by any natural good or evil, more or less remote, the conception of which occupies the mental attention distinctly. Just as the thoughtless child dreads the lash that is expected in the next moment, and the more thoughtful person dreads the lash of next week or next month, just so naturally a carnal man, who is intellectually convinced of his immortality and identity, may dread the pains, or rejoice in the fancied pleasures, of another life. He may fear death, not only with the unreasoning instinct of the brute, but also with the rational dread (rational, though purely selfish) of its penal consequences. Selfishness, with awakened attention and mental conviction, suffices fully for all this. In all these feelings there is nothing one whit more characteristic of a new heart, or more controlling of the evil will, than in the wicked sensualist's dread of the colic which may follow his excess, or the determined outlaw's fear of the sheriff. Tet how many deluded souls fancy that, because they feel these selfish fears or joys in connection with death and judgment, they are becoming strongly religious. And unfortunately they are encouraged by multitudes of preachers of the gospel to make this fatal mistake. Turretin has distinguished the truth here by a single pair of phrases, as by a beam of sunlight. He says: Whereas the stony-ground believer embraces Christ solely pro bono jucundo, the gospel offers him mainly pro bono honesto. True faith desires and embraces Christ chiefly as a Saviour from sin and pollution. The false believer embraces him only as a Saviour from suffering and punishment. Holy Scripture is always careful to represent Christ in the former light. His "name is Jesus because he saves his people from their sins." He gives himself to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify us unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. But preachers so prevalently paint the gospel as God's method of delivering sinners from penal pains and bestowing the enjoyment of a sensuous paradise, and the guilty selfishness of hearers is so exclusively exercised about selfish deliverance, that we apprehend most men are permitted to conceive of the gospel remedy solely as a bonum jucundum, a provision for simply procuring their selfish advantage. It is true that, if asked, Is not the gospel to make you good also? many of them might reply with a listless "Yes." They have a vague apprehension that their grasping the bonum jucundum is somehow conditioned on their becoming better; and they suppose they are willing to accept this uninteresting formality for the sake of the enjoyment that follows it, just as the epicure tolerates the tedious grace for the sake of the dainties which are to come after at the feast. But were one to tell this gourmand that the grace was the real chief-end of the feast, and the eating a subordinate incident thereto, he would be exceedingly amazed and incredulous. Such would also be the feeling of many subjects of modern revivals, if the Bible conception of redemption were forced on their minds. Hence, one great reform in our preaching must be to return to the scriptural presentation of the gospel in this particular. A grand reform is needed here. This grovelling, utilitarian conception of redemption must be banished. Men must be taught that the blessing is only for them "who hunger and thirst after righteousness," not for those who selfishly desire to grasp enjoyment only, and to shun pain. They must be made to see clearly that such a concern does not in the least differentiate them from reprobate souls in hell, or hardened felons on earth; not even from the thievish fox caught in a trap.

The fourth and the most deceptive natural feeling of the carnal man is instinctive sympathy. It will be necessary to state the nature and conditions of this feeling. First, it belongs to the passive sensibilities, not to the spontaneous appetencies. It is purely instinctive, appearing as powerfully in animals as in men. Witness the excitement of a flock of birds over the cries of a single comrade, and the stampede of a herd of oxen. Next, it is even in man an unintelligent feeling in this sense: that if the emotion of another be merely seen and heard, sympathy is propagated, although the sympathizer understands nothing of the cause of the feeling he witnesses. We come upon a child, who is an utter stranger, weeping; we share the sympathetic saddening before he has had time to tell us what causes his tears. We enter a room where our friends are drowned in laughter. Before we have asked the question, 'Friends, what is the jest?' we find ourselves smiling. We see two strangers afar off exchanging blows; we feel the excitement stimulating us to run thither, while ignorant of the quarrel. Sympathy is in its rise unintelligent and instinctive. The only condition requisite for it, is the beholding of the feeling in a fellow. Third, this law of feeling extends to all the emotions natural to man. We so often connect the word with the emotion of grief, that we overlook its applicability to other feelings, and we forget even its etymology: pathos, in Greek philosophy, did not mean grief only, but every exercise of feeling; so sympathein is to share by spiritual contagion any pathos we witness in our fellows. We sympathize with merriment, joy, fear, anger, hope, benevolence, moral approbation, courage, panic, just as truly as with grief. Fourth, the nature of the emotion witnessed determines, without any volition of our own, the nature of the feeling injected into us. Sympathy with joy is a lesser joy. The glow is that of the secondary rainbow reflecting, but usually in a weaker degree, precisely the tints of the primary arch.

The reader is now prepared to admit these conclusions: that sympathy may infect men with a phase of religious emotion, as of any other; that the sympathetic emotions, though thus related as to their source, have no spiritual character whatever in themselves—for they are involuntary, they are unintelligent, they are passive effects on an instinctive sensibility, giving no expression to the will, and not regulating it nor regulated by it. The animal feels these sympathies as really as the man.

The reader should notice that these propositions are asserted only of the simple sensibility, the immediate reflex of strong feeling witnessed. It is not denied that the capacity of sympathy is a social trait implanted by a wise Creator for practical purposes. It is the instrumental occasion of many useful results. Thus, upon the excitement of sympathy with grief follow the appetency to succor the sufferer, and the benevolent volition. The first is the occasion, not the cause, of the second. On our natural sympathy with the actions we witness, follows our impulse to imitate. But imitation is the great lever of education. So sympathy has been called the sacred “orator's right arm.” Let us understand precisely what it could and cannot do in gaining lodgment for divine truth in the sinner's soul. This truth and this alone is the instrument of sanctification. To Presbyterians the demonstration of this is superfluous. It is impossible for the truth to work sanctification except as it is intelligently received into the mind. Light must reach the heart through the understanding, for the soul only feels healthily according as it sees. To the inattentive mind the truth being unheard, is as though it were not. Hence it is of prime importance to awaken the listless attention. Whatever innocently does this is therefore a useful preliminary instrument for applying the truth. This, sympathy aids to effect. The emotion of the orator arouses the slumbering attention of the sinner, and temporarily wins his ear for the sacred word. Another influence of awakened sympathy may also be conceded. By one application of the law of association, the warmth of a feeling existing in the mind is communicated temporarily to any object coexisting with it in the mind; though that object be in itself indifferent to that soul. The stone dropped into the heated furnace is not combustible, is no source of caloric; but by contact it imbibes some of the heat which flames there, and remains hot for a little time after it is drawn out. So the mind warmed with emotion, either original or sympathetic, is a furnace which gives some of its warmth to truth or concepts coexisting in it, otherwise cold and indifferent to it. But the warmth is merely temporary.

The whole use, then, of the sympathetic excitement is to catch the attention and warm it. But it is the truth thus lodged in the attention that must do the whole work of sanctification. Here is the all-important discrimination. Attention, sympathetic warmth, are merely a preparation for casting in the seed of the Word. The preacher who satisfies himself with exciting the sympathies, and neglects to throw in at once the vital truth, is like the husbandman who digs and rakes the soil, and then idly expects the crop, though he has put in no living seed. The only result is a more rampant growth of weeds. How often do we see this mistake committed! The preacher either displays, in his own person, a high-wrought religious emotion, or stirs the natural sensibilities by painting in exciting and pictorial words and gestures, some natural feeling connected by its occasion with a religious topic, as a touching death or other bereavement; or he stimulates the selfish fears by painting the agonies of a lost soul, or the selfish desires and hopes by a sensuous description of the pleasures of heaven. Then, if sympathetic feeling is awakened, or the carnal passions of hope, fear and desire are moved, he acts as though his work were done. He permits and encourages the hearers to flatter themselves that they are religious, because they are feeling something round about religion. I repeat: if this stimulation of carnal and sympathetic feeling is not at once and wisely used, and used solely as a secondary means of fixing a warmed attention on didactic truth, which is the sole instrument of conversion and sanctification, then the preacher has mischievously abused the souls of his hearers. The first and most obvious mischief is the encouragement of a fatal deception and self-flattery. Unrenewed men are tacitly invited to regard themselves as either born again, or at least in a most encouraging progress towards that blessing; while in fact they have not felt a single feeling or principle which may not be the mere natural product of a dead heart. This delusion has slain its “tens of thousands.”

The reader will remember the masterly exposition by Bishop Butler of the laws of habit as affecting the sensibilities and active powers. Its truth is too fully admitted to need argument. By this law of habit, the sensibilities are inevitably dulled by repeated impressions. By the same law, the appetencies and will are strengthened by voluntary exercise. Thus, if impressions on the sensibilities are followed by their legitimate exertion of the active powers, the soul as a whole, while it grows calmer and less excitable, grows stronger and more energetic in its activities, and is confirmed in the paths of right action. But if the sensibilities are stimulated by objects which make no call, and offer no scope for right action, as by fictitious and unreal pictures of human passion, the soul is uselessly hackneyed and worn, and thus depraved. Here we find one of the fundamental objections to habitual novel reading. The excitement of the sympathies by warmly colored, but unreal, portraitures of passions, where there cannot possibly be any corresponding right action by the reader inasmuch as the agents and sufferers are imaginary, depraves the sensibilities without any retrieval of the soul's state in the corresponding cultivation of the active powers. The longer such reading is continued, the more does the young person become at once sentimental and unfeeling. The result is a selfish and morbid craving for excitement, coupled with a callous selfishness, dead to the claims of real charity and duty. The same objection lies against theatrical exhibitions, and for the same reason. Now this species of spurious religious excitement is obnoxious to the same charge. In its practical results it is fictitious. The merely sensational preacher is no more than a novelist or a comedian, with this circumstance, that he connects topics, popularly deemed religious, with his fictitious arts. He abuses and hackneys the souls of his hearers in the same general way, rendering them at once sentimental and hard, selfishly fond of excitement, but callous to conscience and duty.

Once more; spiritual pride is as natural to man as breathing, or as sin. Its only corrective is sanctifying grace. Let the suggestion be once lodged in a heart not really humbled and cleansed by grace, that the man is reconciled to God, has “become good,” is a favorite of God and heir of glory—that soul cannot fail to be swept away by the gales of spiritual pride. Let observation teach us here. Was there ever a deceived votary of a false religion, of Islam, of Buddhism, of Brahmanism, of Popery, who was not in reality puffed up by spiritual pride? It cannot be otherwise with a deceived votary of a Protestant creed. The circumstance that there is divine truth in this creed, which has no vital influence on his heart, is no safeguard. The only preventive of spiritual pride is the contrition which accompanies saving repentance. Here, also, is the explanation of the fact, that the hearty votaries of those professedly Christian creeds which have more of Pelagianism than of gospel in them, are most bigoted and most hopelessly inaccessible to truth. Their adamantine shield is spiritual pride, fostered by a spurious hope, and unchastened by sovereign grace. Of all such self-deceivers our Saviour has decided that “the publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom before them.”

R.L. Dabney on Using Fiction to Defend Truth

The following paragraphs come from a book review written by R.L. Dabney. The book in question was entitled “Theodosia Ernest,” - the protagonsist's name. The book was written by a Baptist minister, who by use of a fictional story, attempted to defend the doctrine of believer's baptism and refute the Presbyterian doctrine of infant baptism. Dabney rightly takes issue with the author's innumerable misrepresentations of Presbyterian doctrine, practice, and polity. But, in this particular section, he raises the question of the legitimacy of using fiction as a method for presenting and defending theological truth. To be sure, no leading Reformed theologian that I can think of raises this question.

“The folly and unfairness of such a mode of inculcating or defending what is supposed to be religious truth, can scarcely be too strongly represented. In the first place, a moment's consideration should have taught the author, that his selecting such a vehicle for his discussion was really a confession of weakness and defeat. Having failed to overthrow the sturdy Presbyterian champions in the fields of true and legitimate discussion, he is compelled to manufacture fictitious adversaries, in the pretended persons of Pastor Johnson, Dr. McKought, and elder Jones,who should be stupid and foolish enough to give this doughty Don Quixote a chance to claim the victory — If he wished to try conclusions with a veritable Presbyterian champion, why did he not select a bonafide and live controversialist, in the person of some N. L. Rice, or Wm. L. McCalla? Ah; it was easier to gain a seeming victory over a man of straw! And this is not all: Conscious, as it seems,of the intrinsic weakness of his argument,the author must needs throw around it the factitious and illegitimate interest of a love-story. He did not believe, it seems, that his principles were important and interesting enough, to make Christian people read an honest and straightforward discussion of them for its own sake: he must needs sugar the nauseous dose, to make it go down. And then, one of his foremost champions forsooth, is a young, pretty and ingenuous girl, who is painted as attractively as the author's bungling hand knew how; in order to gain the unfair advantage of the feelings of readers for youth, beauty and sex. Sophistries from the mouth of a bearded man would be handled as they deserved; but when they drop from the pretty mouth of a pretty woman, gallantry forbids our testing them too narrowly! So that the author, afraid to meet men, and as a man, skulks behind the petticoats of his heroine.

“And indeed: what is the intrinsic absurdity of sending Christian people to hunt for truth (and that sacred truth), in a work of fiction? It is an insult to the understandings of readers; and a disgrace to the denomination which is judged to need such a mode of defense. No seeming triumph gained over an imaginary antagonist can prove anything; for, as the same author constructed both his adversary's argument and his own, of course he would make the victory fall on his side. Æsop tells us, in one of his fables, how the man and the lion were once, during a truce in their warfare, amicably walking out together to take the air. They passed a picture where a lion was represented as bound, and crouching under the cudgel of a man. The man says to his lion friend: 'You see there the superiority of our race to yours.' 'Nay,' quoth the lion, 'it is because a man was the painter. If a lion had held the brush, the parties would have been in a rather different position.' Let the reader make the application.

“It is said indeed, that Immersionists justify the circulation of the work by saving, that though there is a fictitious plot to make the book readable, all is fair, because the arguments put into the mouths of the Presbyterian characters are the standard arguments which we use when defending ourselves, and that they are fairly stated. But we beg leave to dispute both facts. According to all fair forensic rules, our mere word, repudiating those arguments as fair and full statements of our side, entitles us to arrest a debate conducted on such a plan. When plaintiff and defendant come into court, each party has a sovereign discretion in selecting his own advocate. If the defendant says that the counsel who has volunteered in his cause is not the man of his choice; and that, instead of representing him fairly, he is betraying him, this is enough. It is only necessary for the defendant to say that he considers this volunteer advocate as unfaithful; it is not necessary for him to prove him such. He is entitled to make his own selection of a defender. So, we Presbyterians now and hereby notify Messrs. Graves, Marks & Co., and Messrs. Sheldon, Blakeman & Co., and all Immersionist preachers, colporteurs, members and proselyters, in these United States and the British Provinces, and wherever the far famed Theodosia may be running, that we do not consider, and never have considered the fair water-nymph (who was a full blooded Immersionist before she began the investigation) nor the Presbyterian elder, Uncle Jones, (who was evidently fishy, i. e. indulging partial tendencies to go under the water, from the beginning,) nor poor, old parson Johnson, (who confesses he had never examined the subject much,) as suitable advocates of our cause; that we hereby repudiate them as such; and that we now lay our formal 'injunction' on the progress of the discussion in such feeble and treacherous hands. Now, will our Immersionist neighbors arrest the debate; will they suspend the circulation of the ex parte and repudiated discussion, until the justice of our assertion can be tested; as they are forensically bound to do, in all fairness and honesty? We shall see. But if they are very anxious to prosecute this great cause of Immersionism versus Presbyterianism, at once; let them take the arguments of some real, actual Presbyterians, such as Dr. John H. Rice's Irenicum, Dr. John M. Mason's Treatise on the Church of God, or Dr. N. L. Rice's Debate with Campbell; print the whole of the Presbyterian argument in Presbyterian works, [and not a few disjointed scraps, falsely and treacherously torn from them] along with the best refutations they can get; and lay these two pleas before the great jury of the Religious Public. This, if fairly done, might be fair.

“The real motive and design of this advocacy of pretended truth by fiction, is this: It was hoped that the love-tale, the pictorial illustrations, the influence of sex and youth in the heroines favor, would make a multitude of ignorant people swallow the book, with its whole dose of misrepresentations, false issues, and unfounded assertions; who would never have taste, patience, or capacity, to read any such reply as Presbyterians could condescend to write. These readers would gulph down the low novel, but they would be very secure from the danger of reading a manly, straight-forward discussion of its pretended arguments and statements, unseasoned with fiction or demagogueism. The whole enterprise is a calculation on the gullibility of mankind; and it must be confessed, a calculation which was certain of realization to a large degree. But then it is also true, that the very element which ensures this partial success to the book, is the element also of its unfairness. It is successful because it is so unfair. So, in crimes of blacker character, the very treachery of the assault is oftentimes the thing which makes resistance ineffectual. When an honorable enemy meets us fairly by daylight, and face to face, we have a chance of successful self-defense, according to that measure of prowess which God has given us. But if our adversary is wicked enough to turn assassin, and waylay our path, we are very free to confess that we are in his power; except so far as a good Providence interposes, the strength and skill of a Hercules will not avail.

“Let it be distinctly understood then, that we neither hope nor expect to be attentively and dispassionately read by the persons for whom the shrewd managers of Theodosia Earnest have set their trap. People who are foolish enough to go to a work of fiction to learn sacred truth, are not likely to attend to a scholarly and solid discussion.” - R.L. Dabney, Fiction, No Defense of Truth

Evolutionism is not Operational Science

It never ceases to amaze me when evolutionists (whether atheists or the so-called “theistic” variety) accuse creationists of being unscientific by ignoring evidence. The following paragraphs will point out a number of instances where evolutionism ignores greater demonstrable evidence than what they accuse creationists of ignoring.

First of all, let us assert plainly and forcefully: Evolutionism is not operational science! The scientific method, the true basis for any and all scientific knowledge, requires observation. Hypotheses are developed based on the observations. These are in turn tested by various experiments. The hypotheses are tweaked to conform to the outcome of the various experiments, resulting in a “theory.” Evolutionism begins with a theory, then it subjects data to experiments born from the very presuppositions this theory already believes. It then creates hypotheses to explain the results of his experiments, and then brushes aside as irrelevant the obvious fact that no one has lived long enough to witness the touted evolutionary changes. What exactly about this backward procedure is scientific?

It is worth repeating that science is not objective. Indeed, objectivity is impossible in any scientific field. This means we have good reason to doubt the outcome of all experiments that are relied upon to “demonstrate” evolution. It's not that we assert that the results of the experiments are fudged, but that the very experiments to which the data are subjected are, by nature, skewed in favor of the result the scientist hopes to achieve. They are a form of question-begging, and therefore, logical fallacies. The very experiments chosen are chosen precisely because they suit the experimenters presuppositions. No one who believes that apples are red would ever subject apples to experiments designed to prove that they are gray. The very experiments conceived of by the scientist will be conditioned by his presuppositions. It's just that simple. How exactly is begging the question scientific?

But let's cut a little closer to the bone. Evolutionism stakes everything on what is calls the “law of natural selection.” To any impartial observer, this is another crass case of begging the question. The very term “selection” is pure sophism – utterly inconsistent logically with the underlying philosophy of evolutionism. Selection is an act of an intelligent free-agent – the very thing evolutionism denies exists as a cause of the universe. As if this weren't stupid enough, the term gets partnered with the word “natural.” The 'Nature”' of the evolutionist is unintelligent. She acts by haphazard. The most common “explanation” offered by evolutionists is “chance.” There is no torture to which the word “chance” can be subjected in order to make it mean “intelligent free-agency.” Furthermore, there is no such thing as chance! There is no such entity. It is a piece of meaningless drivel, and an affront to rational beings to ask them to grant full personhood to a nonentity that can then be substituted for God as the creator of the universe.

Darwin was aware of the problem with the term “natural selection,” so he opted for Spenser's term, “survival of the fittest.” This nothing but the same absurdity wearing the disguise of a metaphor. The very notion “fitness” implies design! Fitness is an adjustment. It is crazy enough to say that the physical interaction between an organism and its environment should regularly result in this adjustment, but the simple fact is, there are countless cases where the notion is impossible. There are multitudes of know examples of fitness existing between organisms and conditions and/or environments it almost never encounters.

The fossil “record” is perhaps the greatest example of the unscientific nature of evolutionism. One of the most notable features of all discovered fossils is that they all represent established genera. Missing links are still missing 15 decades after Darwin hatched his theory. But their nonexistence is a much bigger problem for evolutionists than most people realize. Let me illustrate. On evolutionary theory, organisms adapt to their environment over the course of millions of years. If this were indeed true, nearly every fossil discovered would be a missing link, because the transition phases would outnumber established genera by far. At the very least, we should expect to see both sides of the blind process of evoltion played out in the fossil record. Along with developed species, there should also be fossils of the maladapted forms. Where are the million of years worth of fossil birds with useless stubs instead of developed wings? Where are the myriad fossils that would undoubtedly be the result of millions of years of failure? How is it that evolutionists only seem to be aware of the successful mutations? The downside of evolutionary change should be thousands of times more plenteous.

A more devastating critique is this: In what conceivable way can the fact that nature more regularly fails be called an “evolution?” Nature's failures outnumber her successes a billion to one. How on earth is that an evolution? How exactly is that scientific? On evolutionary theory, one should be able to make the same arguments without appeal to the fossil record at all. If nature is indeed evolving, where are all the living transitions? Why is every single plant and animal part of a clearly defined, established genera?

Never mind dinosaurs and apes for the moment. Let's just consider humans as they live today. Humans as supposedly the high point of evolution – the most complicated result of this supposed process. Is it natural to assert that man has adapted over million of years to his environment when men live comfortably and naturally in every climate on earth? Based on the central tenets of evolutionism, this is diametrically opposite to the result touted with regard to every other species.

Evolutionists typically respond to the above criticism that blind chance, given enough time, amid the multitude of its experiments may sometimes happen upon results that bear the appearance of an orderly plan or design. The problem with this response is that it lies about the nature of the case. Nature does not get it right “sometimes” on the evolutionary scheme; it get is right every time. Always! What evolutionists have failed to account for is the observable fact that nature's results always have an orderly adaptation. How exactly is it that every single organ of every single life form living today or represented in the fossil record shows us orderly adaptation? Where, pray tell, are nature's failures? Where are the vast remains of nature's random, non-intelligent, haphazard failed efforts?

Robert Dabney mentions the famous illustration of the someone throwing a basket of printer's type letters, until, after an infinite number of throws, he happened to get precisely the arrangement of letters that composed the poems of Ennius. In response to the question: Why couldn't this happen, Dabney replies, “Suppose, I reply, that the condition of his experiments were this: that he should throw a different basket in each trial, and that a considerable part of all the types thrown in vain should remain heaped around him; then, he and his experiments would have been buried a thousand times over beneath the rubbish of his failures long before the lucky throw were reached. But this is the correct statement of the illustration. The simple making of this statement explodes the whole plausibility, leaving nothing but a bald absurdity. For, as has been already stated, Evolution must admit the teachings of Paleontology. But the later asserts that the organized beings of vast ages still exist, in the form of fossils. Now, will the Evolutionist pretend that the durable remains of the hurtful variations were less likely to continue in the strata than those of the naturally selected? Not one whit. Then, there should be, on his supposition, as large a portion of the printer's types from every unsuccessful 'throw' left for our inspection as from the sole successful one. Where are they?”

Let that sink in: If Nature has thrown out billions of baskets-full of letters hundreds of millions of times, we would never see the one good throw because we'd be buried in the leftover letters from all the unsuccessful throws! Planet earth should be a gigantic bone pile the size of the solar system.

But there is an even bigger problem: Evolutionism asserts that given enough time (which is the only reason their theory requires billions of years), the chance reshuffling of matter could produce the universe as we know it. But this is a grossly deceptive presentation of their case. It's not that after 100 billion attempts, Nature (whatever that means) could get it right. Before responding to this, let us note the personification of Nature (indicated by the capital N), which implies intelligence and design, the very things evolutionism is supposed to reject! Back to the subject: On the evolutionist's scheme, it's not that Nature might get it right after 10^1,000,000 times. Evolutionism actually proceeds as if Nature gets it right every time! It's not just that a zillion random reshufflings of quarks luckily turned into Oxygen; the same would be required for all 118 known elements. Then a zillion reshufflings (each!) of these elements are required to get all the various molecules that make up water, countless types of rock, breathable atmospheres, life forms that breathe said atmospheres, on and on the list goes. The number of lucky breaks required numbers more that the sum total of particles in the universe.

Science is established by experimentation, which means that predictable, repeatable results. No chemist would be confident in recommending his latest concoction as a cure for anything, without years' worth of predictable and repeatable lab results. Evolution, as far as it pretends to be science, affirms this too. But its entire superstructure is built on an actual denial of this scientific foundation. No repeatable proof, not predictable results, no “this is what happens every time.” Evolutionism actually requires accepting as legitimate exactly what every scientist in every discipline would reject!

One cannot escape the impression that evolutionists have built their empire of illusion by accounting for the movement of the train by explaining that that there are billions more railroad cars than previously believed. This logical fallacy neglects the basic fact that multiplying the train cars infinitely still doesn't account for the movement of the train. For that, you need an engine.

An Educated Ministry (Part 3)

This, and the preceding two posts are from an essay written by R.L. Dabney for the periodical The Southern Presbyterian Review, for the April 1883 edition. It was written in response to an October 1882 & January 1883 article, entitled "An Inquiry into the Aggressiveness of Presbyterianism."

We have been told that by this way we should get a cheaper ministry for our new fields. Men thus trained, not having spent so much in their training, would work on smaller salaries. Now, the only experience we have does not support this hope. Most of the Methodist evangelists were trained thus; but they really receive better salaries than the Presbyterian. When the various allowances are added up, theirs is found a better paid ministry than ours.

The urgent comparisons made between our method and that of Methodists and Baptists cannot but suggest another thought:—that we, if we make the proposed change, shall be in danger of “putting on their old shoes just when they are throwing them away.” If these denominations are good exemplars for us, then it is to be presumed that they understand their own interests; their fine results indicate wise management. Now, it is significant that both these denominations are now expending great effort in making certain changes in their methods of rearing ministers, and that these changes are in the direction of the way we are now advised to forsake. They have tried, and are trying, two different ways. They are in a transition state. Before we make their way our guide, it will be well to wait and see which of their two ways they are going to approve finally for themselves. If we are correctly informed by those who are in closest intelligence with their influential men, these are yearly less and less satisfied with their old species of training, and more and more desirous to have all their ministry improve the advantages of the excellent seminaries of theology which they have founded. Hear, for instance, the testimony of Mr Price in the Southern Presbyterian:—“And, in proof of this view, it is a remarkable fact, that those very causes to which this writer ascribes their more rapid growth, are becoming more unpopular every day with those denominations.” While he and others in our church are advocating a lower standard of ministerial qualification, that we may keep pace with the Baptists and Methodists, these denominations are directing the most intelligent energies of their respective churches to raising their grade of scholarship; their uneducated men are losing caste and influence; the ministers coming forth from their theological schools are establishing a public sentiment and a more rigid rule of systematic theology, and of clear and accurate statement in doctrine, before which the loose and extravagant discourses of a class of preachers that once exercised. a powerful influence fall under sharp censure, and are even occasionally exposed to ridicule.

“There are unlearned men in these churches, and such may be licensed and ordained in ours, under our provisions for extraordinary cases, whom the most intelligent are bound to respect as called of God, and whose usefulness none can deny; but when our Baptist and Methodist brethren are casting off certain methods, which they have weighed in the balance and found wanting, it becomes us to consider well before we take up that which they throw away, especially when they are free to confess that our example, and the evident fruits of our more thorough training, have powerfully impelled them towards change.

“The writer in the Review has heard of the Cumberland Presbyterians. If he has been correctly informed, he will find that no branch of the Presbyterian Church has, in proportion to its numbers and resources, more colleges, universities, and theological schools. If he attends their General Assembly, he will be impressed by the distinct and painful line of demarcation between their learned and their unlearned men. And when he sees and hears some of the latter, though he may find much to admire in the vigour of their speech and the vigour of their labours, he will not wonder that, as a people, our Cumberland brethren are making, perhaps, more vigorous effort”, than any other Presbyterian body to educate their ministry, and thus obliterate one of the distinctive features upon which they went out from us. When the Revelation Dr Lyon brought into our General Assembly, some years ago, a report against certain proposals of union with the Cumberland Presbyterians, he did not hesitate to present, as one of the arguments of the committee that he represented, that, by such a union, our church will be brought under the control of an overwhelming majority of uneducated men. If some of the theories now in vogue among us are put into practice, we may reach this alternative without uniting with the Cumberlands; and they, in turn, by raising their standard, as they now seem determined to do, may be in a position, by and by, to raise the same objection to a union with us.

“We are reminded that our system now requires a longer and more expensive preparation than the other liberal professions. And why should it not, when our professional tasks are infinitely more responsible? But facts here argue on our side again, in that society is steadily demanding a raised standard of preparation from lawyers and physicians. Is this the time to lower ours? The well-furnished young physician, for instance, gets, in his youth, a pretty fair classical education; then he reads medicine a year with some doctor; then, if he graduates in one year (most have to spend two) in a good school of theoretic medicine, like that in the University of Virginia, he does remarkably well; then he goes into a New York or Baltimore hospital one or two years, to get the clinic instruction. And even the plainer country neighbourhoods are now requiring so much of training of their doctors! The other professions are advancing largely; it is no time for ours to go back.”

It has been often and justly remarked that it requires more mature training and ability to teach unenlightened minds accurately than cultivated ones. It was considered by discerning persons the crowning manifestation of Dr John H, Rice's trained capacity, that he could not only preach to the edification of General Assemblies in Philadelphia, but could go then to the Bethel Seamen's chapel and preach with equal effect to the rough sailors. If we are to bring poor and rude communities into our denomination, then they will need the best trained, not the inferior, minds, to inculcate on them our logical and profound system. And as regards the frontier communities, there is no greater mistake than that of concluding that, because their exteriors are rough, the ill-furnished minister will suffice to instruct them. The testimony of Dr N. L. Rice, for instance, in the Assembly of 1857, was wholly the opposite; and he spoke of his own knowledge. Said he:—“The garb of the frontiersmen may be rough; their dwellings may be cabins; but they include the most independent, active, inquiring minds anywhere to be found in America. It is the fact that their minds and temperaments are such which has made them emigrants; the plodding, the slow, the minds that like to lean on precedent and prescription, and are content to be led—these stay in the old neighbourhoods. It is the adventurous minds who seek new fortunes. A very large portion of them are men of thorough education. The educated emigrant is most often a 'free-thinker,' so-called; for one main impulse which pushes the man of culture to brave the roughnessess of the frontier is, that he has broken all intellectual trammels, if not all sound restraints of orthodox thinking. Hence we find these frontier societies seething with most eager speculation, questioning all old foundations. To suppose that the good man of slim intellectual resources can control these minds is the most fatal mistake. The man who is to command them needs to have the most mature resources of learning at the readiest possible command. He needs to be a walking library, of the most advanced learning, not only in divinity, but in all connected studies.” This witness is also true of our Southern frontiers. You shall see the “cow-boy” of Western Texas, sometimes reclining on his greasy blanket to read a pocket edition of Horace or Moliere. In their “shanties,” alongside of the whiskey-jug, will be found the writings of Huxley, Bradlaugh, and Büchner, with the Westminster Review, and the works of Renan. Our evangelists confirm Dr Rice's testimony, and tell us to send none but thoroughly furnished men to the frontiers.

It has been supposed that great gain-would result from the alternative of an “English course” in our seminaries for such candidates for the ministry as could not find time or means for mastering the original languages of Scripture. A manual of church history might be taught, it is supposed, without involving Latin or Greek; and the exegetical and doctrinal studies would be founded on the English version alone. Were the teachers in these seminaries entitled to any consideration in this discussion, their friends might perhaps raise an embarrassing question on their behalf. Their time seems to be already fully occupied in the teaching of the fuller course to their classical students and the exposition of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, which alone are the ipsissima verba of God. Shall they cease to give this course, in order to do justice to the other class of their students? Or shall they give the latter class a light, perfunctory. Sabbath-school course, such as they will have time for? Would such a little sketch be a worthy training for a Presbyterian minister?

It will behove the advocates of this system to consider three consequences which are very distinctly involved in it.

One is, that it will admit the imperfect education of a great many more men than should be entitled, according to the new plan itself, to enter the ministry upon it. Men's over-haste, or indolence, or ill-considered seal, or self-confidence, will prompt many of the candidates to plead that they also are poor enough, or old enough, or gifted enough, or married enough, to claim to enter through the English door, of whom the judgment of our innovators themselves “would be, that they had no grounds for claiming that easier way.” The pressure of churches and Presbyteries for more labourers to be speedily gotten will assuredly second their pleas. The result will be the general breaking down of our standard. The majority of our ministry will be the uneducated, the minority the educated, as it was in the other denominations in those old ways from which they are striving so hard to escape.

The second will be, that the students of the English course will be much at the mercy of the professor for their doctrinal and exegetical opinions. When the teacher gives his construction of the text, if the English pupils attempt to say that the English version, or the commentaries thereon, seem to sustain another meaning, he has only to reply:—“I assure you, young gentlemen, that the original supports only my construction; and if you understood that language, you would see it to be so.” That is, to those students, an end of debate. Or else they must learn to hold their teacher in suspicion and disesteem, as a man capable of imposing on their ignorance. There will be one caste of minds which will resent this mental domination, the self-sufficient and crotchety. The consequence will be, that to this class their teacher will be no guide; but this is the class to whom influential guidance will be most necessary. Now, we surmise that this sweeping power in the professors of our seminaries will not be very agreeable to that large class of our presbyters who cherish along with us a well-grounded jealousy of seminary dictation, and all other forms of centralisation. It may be said, our present professors may all be trusted. But they cannot remain always. Unhappily, such things have been known in seminaries as heretical professors, and yet oftener as crotchety professors, fond of riding exegetical hobbies. Shall we arm these with this dangerous power of leading off the English students after their error?

The third consideration is, that if the new plan of training is to be carried on to any successful extent, we must reconcile our minds to become a “broad church.” We must lose our doctrinal unity. Again, we advance the experimental evidence as the most solid. All the denominations which practice the methods of training ministers proposed become broad churches. The Immersionists are a broad church; we have ourselves heard Calvinism and Arminianism preached in it from the same pulpit. The Cumberland Presbyterian is a broad church. The Methodist is a broad church. As we remarked, the Wesleyan theology receives from Methodist ministers various interpretations, from moderate Calvinism down to Pelagianism. There are ministers and presiding elders who hold the perseverance of the saints, just as we do. The church of Alexander Campbell is a broad church; he himself declared that in it “all sorts of doctrine were preached by all sorts of men.” In this we are not reproaching these denominations. We use the phrase “broad church” in no sense offensive to them, but as a ready and familiar phrase to describe a condition of things among them on which they congratulate themselves, namely, a tolerance in the ministry of the same body of different schools of theological opinion, “within the scope of the fundamental doctrines of salvation.” But we only point to the fact that it has been the conscientious fixed policy of us Presbyterians not to have these doctrinal diversities and contrarieties among our official teachers. We receive all shades of opinion, compatible with true repentance, to our communion; but we require the voice of our official body to give one sound as to revealed theology.

Now, the experience cited above proves that if we are willing to lose this doctrinal harmony and unity, the chief glory of a church of Christ, we have only to imitate these other denominations in their method of training ministers. The explanation of the result is easy. Human minds are imperfect instruments of thought, and their opinions naturally tend to variety and diversity. Again, the religious world teems with competing clashing doctrines, each striving for recognition and pressing itself on others with its utmost ingenuity of argument. The proposed method of training, by reason of its comparative brevity and imperfection, must leave its pupils more pervious to the injurious religious errors which obtrusively meet them. These different “grades” of preachers will not have the unifying bond with each other of a complete esprit de corps. The result will be doctrinal divergence; and our church must either submit to become a “broad” one, or be again rent by schism. We are aware that there is no patent infallible process, in fallible men's hands, for transmitting a doctrinal homogeneity from age to age. But the means which comes nearest, the only means of any tolerable efficiency is, under the grace and light of God's Spirit, the thorough education of ministers in an orthodox theology, and that by similar methods for all. Thus not only is the competent knowledge of the divine science acquired by all, and the practical skill in moral reasoning and exposition, which detect error and sophism in false doctrines, but all imbibe, so to speak, the Presbyterian and orthodox idiosyncrasy of mind The doctrinal affinity in the correct creed is propagated through the whole body. Now, he who really doubts whether the Presbyterian theology is right, may also doubt whether it is proper to employ these influences for unifying and stereotyping men's belief in it. But those who, with us, are sure that our theology is right, will also feel that it is not only allowable, but our duty to wield those influences for making our theology permanent in our ministers' minds. It is the only human way to avoid the tendencies to “broad Churchism.”

In conclusion, we most emphatically affirm all the regrets expressed at our lack of a holy aggressiveness, and every ardent aspiration for a remedy. But this remedy is not to be found by innovation upon our system, but in the reformation of the persons who work the system. What we need is not a class of imperfectly educated ministers, but repentance, holy yearning for souls, prayer, and more abounding labour by educated ministers; more family religion and true Christian training in households, which is, after all, the Presbyterian's main lever; more self-consecration in our laymen; and especially our employment of the “dead capital” now lying unused in our eldership. The elder need not be a “local preacher,” after the pattern of the Methodist “local,” but the intelligent elder ought to be something much better; active in spheres of work which the church needs much more than sermonising or formal “preachments,” vis., catechetical instruction, teaching the gospel from house to house, oversight, social meetings, exhortations. Sabbath-schools. Do we feel a “crying need” in our out-lying destitutions for such work as this, and for labourers to do it more cheaply than the educated evangelist? This is precisely the work which intelligent ruling elders ought to do. All the elders in Scripture, ruling and teaching, were required to be “apt to teach.” Our conception of the New Testament organisation of the congregation would not pull down a part of the ministers to an uneducated level, but lift up all the elders, including the ruling elders, to the level of official teachers. Each congregation was governed and taught, not by a one-man power, a sort of local prelate, but by a board, a plurality of elders, all of whom were teachers, though not all of equal teaching authority, learning, or gifts. But, to ensure full intelligence and permanent orthodoxy, we should require the presiding elder in this board to have the full equipment of well attested theological learning. One such man, thoroughly furnished, presiding over the board, and regulating and harmonising their joint instructions, would give a sufficient guarantee of soundness in the faith. The others under him, in their less authoritative teaching sphere, would safely fill in the details of the work. The ruling elder would not act as catechist as though he were an independent integer, but as a member of the board, under its direction, and especially under the direction of the president, who is fully trained and tried; even as he, in his public work as authoritative herald of salvation, does not act independently, but under the control of his Presbyterial Board, the Presbytery. Thus the didactic work of each congregation would assume a largeness, occupying several men's hands; while the thorough theological furniture of the one man at the head would guarantee doctrinal safety in the whole. Such was evidently the apostle's conception in the pastoral epistles.