Farewell to the First Congregational Church in Norwalk, Conn. (bound with other addresses)

for one moment, on the sold of innocence and virtue, he tmist be no such heing as I have loved and worshipped. Much less can I imagine that he should lay it on the hsad of one whose nature is itself co-equal Deity ? Does any one say that he ■will do it for public governmental reasons ! I^q governmental reasons, I answer, can justify even the admission of innocence into a participation of frovms and penal distributions. Jf consenting innocence , says, 'let the blow fall oil me,' pre- cisely there it is for a government to prove its justice, even to the point of sub- lirmty; to reveal the essential, eternal, unmitigable distinction it holds between inrtocence and sin, by declaring that as wider law and its distributions, it is even impossible to suffer any commutation, any the least confusion of places." See Uie «xtraci; on page 16, of the Remonstrance and Complaint. 56 this is not consistent either with Godly sincerity or with com- mon honesty ; but that it ought to be regarded and treated as an immorality, for which, whoeyer avows such a practice, ought to be deposed from the Christian ministry. All confi- dence, either in the preaching or in the integrity of Christ's ministers, must be destroyed if it be once understood that they regard such a course of conduct with approbation, or even with allowance. We regard the principle in question as "idestroying the foundations of all truth and all morality; as justifying all manner of prevarication and fraud, whenever ,men can imagine it conducive to a usefuLand: pious end; and representing the I^ord our God as setting the example,, and .leading oif this game of hypocrisy and deception, in the very matter .which is of vital importance to the salvation of dying men ; and in which, if any where, his own awful truth and iholiness should shine most conspicuous. We ask,- with earn- estness and. amazement, is such a principle to find allowance -and fellowship among our ministers and churches ? Have we not a right to, demand, that any minister in our connection, who shall, avow it, and avow also that he so preaches a vicari- ,ous atonement while he holds it as untrue, be subjected to discipline for a further oflFense than for simple heresy? 5. If these divine forms are to be preached and believed as the, truth, then how comes it that their power is gone when he who preaches them believes that they are really true ? How is it that they become so much more efficacious when he who preaches them holds them as untrue and absurd? Has a mental reserve of untruth in the preacher so great an advantage over Godly simplicity and sincerity ? But if these Divine forms are necessary to be received "with faith, and are to enter "even as a necessary element into the practical economy of the Christian life," then has not the author of this scheme, by i-evealing their objective falsity, for ever put it out of the power of those who shall receive his scheme to believe in them ? What is more certain than that no man can possibly believe that which he knows to be un- true, how much soever he may talk about '^Divine forms," "Divine art^'' and objective falsities, which hecome verities in their effect, and so turn to subjective truths? Can even ■Dr. B. himself, on his scheme, tell an inquiring sinner what he must do to be saved ? Suppose a case : • Inqitieeb. — ^What must I do to be saved ? De. B. — Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God hath set him forth "as ^sacfrifice, a propitiation ; decla/res the remis- sion of sins in Ms hlood y represents him as heariMg the sins of manTcind in a way ofvioa/rious substitution.^^ " And then he invites us to come and exercise faith in him as being all these, and so a complete salvation.-". So come and believe on Christ, and hang your soul upon him in simple faith. \, . Inquieee. — ^But is this "a faAthful saying and worthy of all mceptatiomV Is all this true, in the manner and form in which God hath set it forth to bo believed? De. B. — ^No, not a word of it ; bnt " the simplest form of absurdity," which, if it were true, would indicate in God *'the loss or confusion of all moral distinctions." If God could do this " for one moment, he is no such God as I have loved and worshipped." : Inquieee.— So I have understood. How, then, can I be- lieve it?' De. B. — " It is necessary that Christ, or the given historic matter of his life and death should be set before us in the ob- jective mystic forms of the altar — -an offering, a sacrifice, rendered up to God, a propitiation , for our sins," [p.- 247.] "When God represents the ' history under these altai" forms, an impression is made that is both impossible and inconceiva- ble under any other," [p. 246.] " Tell the sinner that Christ -is offered once for all as a propitiation for our sins. Call upon ,him to come and helieve on Christ, as being a sufScient and everlasting propitiation," [p. 242.], Then, "when he comes to hang himself in faith upon Christ, as his altar of peace, trusting in his blood for the remission of sins, the faith ha exercises will be found to have carried a total subjective -change," [p. 245.] And so the " Divine art" hid in it trans- 58 forms his inner life. In this way Christ is the life ; " the new creating grace of God and the power." LsTQuiEEE. — I have already understood as mnch ; but the question remains, How am I to believe what I know to be untrue ? De. B. — How believe ? Inquieeb. — ^Yes, how am I to believe, and hang my soul upon, what I know to be untrue and absurd — even the sim- plest form of absurdity ? De. B. — It is the " Divine form." " If we refuse to let Christ pass into this form, we have no mold of thought that can fitly represent him." It is, in fact, " a Divine ritual for the working of the world's mind ;" " a rite or liturgy for the world's feeling," \^God in Christ, p. 258.] "If the soul is ever to get her health and freedom in goodness, she must have the Gospel, not as a doctrine only, but as a rite before her, a righteousness, a ransom, a Mood offered for her cleansing be- fore Jehovah's altar. Then reclining her broken heart on this, calling it her religion, she secures a grace broader than consciousness, loses herself in love," [^Qodin Christ, p. 266.] I myself find that I could not work my mind and heart in the exercises of my own Christian experience without this. Inquieeh. — Oh, then you believe in a vicarious atonement yourself, notwithstanding its untruth and absurdity? De. B. — Not at all, speculatively. I " discard" it, [p. 247.] It is insignificant, untrue, and absurd, indicating a loss or con- fusion of all moral distinctions, [p. 271.] But it is necessary to give up the faith and feelings, to be run in this mold. It is the *' Divine form of Christianity." The Unitarian rejects it, arid has nothing left but a sxibjective truth, the most impo- tent and inefficacious of all forms of thought [pp. 254, 248], though it is the real truth. Inquieer. — How is this? Eeceive it with faith as true, and yet discard it as urilij^'ne ? De. B.— •" Though I coincide with the speculative absurd- ity of imputation, I undertake also to show how these objec- tive conceptions get their proper validity, and so enter, even 59 a8 a necessary element into the practical ecoBomy of the Christian life;" [p. 333.] Inqtjieee. — ^Yes, I understand how these objective concep- tions get their validity when once received with simple faith ; and I see no difficulty in the way of faith, on the Orthodox theory that they are true. The difficulty is to exercise faith in what I must regard as untrue. Since you have shown me the falsity and low absurdity of these dogmas, the difficulty is how to believe them. To be plain, Dr. B., by revealing the falsity of what God calls upon me to believe as the truth, you have rendered faith impossible. I cannot believe what I know to be untrue. De. B. — But " True Evangelism" believes. She " goes to Christ in perfect simplicity, to believe in him as the propiti- ation, the sin offering, the expiatory sacrifice, the blood of remission ; taking these objective forms according to their most natural power and expression, to hang itself on them as the altar of peace and' forgiveness ; self is forgotten ; and the soul, breathing out her contrition by the altar against which her faith is leaning, feels a change transpire within. She is free. In the name of Christ she lives," [p. 255.] Inquieee.— Does true Evangelism do all this, knowing all the while that what she so receives, in perfect simplicity, is untrue and absurd ? De. B. — ^Have I not said (p. 271, God m Christ), that " Probably the philosophic or subjective view may be allow- ed to come into a somewhat more prevalent use among a cul- Uvated peojale, and in a philosophic age of the world ?" Have I not said also (p. 267, God in Chrisf), that " I might speak also" " of the sad figure that would be made by the rude masses of the world, in applying a Gospel of philosophic causes to their own nature, for they hardly know as yet that they have a nature ?" Inquieee. — Can a " cultivated and philosophic" mind be- lieve what he knows to be untrue and absurd ? Can he pious- ly and in faith work his mind and heart in forms which he knows to be not only untrue and absurd, but destructive of 60 the Divine justice and morality, and which cast a "double ignominy on God?" Dr. B., do you so believe, and so work your mind and heart, in what you regard as untrue, and de- rogatory to the righteousness and goodness of the Lord? Dr. B.^ DO YOU BELIEVE, or do you NOT BELIEVE, what you have de- clared to be so untrue, absurd, and abominable ? It matters not which alternative Dr. B. shall choose to adopt ; he either believes or he does not believe. If he really does believe what he has with so much contempt and scorn discarded as untrue, then it is time for him to renounce his scheme with the deepest repentance, and with the amplest confessions both towards God and man. If he does not be- lieve what he admits that Gcid has set forth to be believed, then has he an account of imhelief to answer before God; for " He that helieveth not, God hath made him a liar, he- cause he BELIEVETH NOT THE EECOED THAT GoD GAVE OF HIS Son." 1 John, v. 19. Nor is it possible, on his scheme, to tell a sinner what he must do to be saved; for no man, even under peril of his soul, can possibly believe what he knows to be untrue. It is idle for any man to say that he works his mind and heart in forms^ the truth of which he utterly dis- cards. 61 Sec. ly. Showing how the author of the scheme^ having dist;arded the doc- trine of an atonement by the vicarious sufferings of Christ as untrue and absurd ; [271] and having declared still more em- phatically than before, that the ijohole scheme of suffering in Christ substituted directly for penal sufferings in us, is a bare assumption, justifed by no Scripture authority whatever, [284] reclaims and restores all that is essential in that doctrine; and holds as earnestly as others, though under a different form, all which they suppose him to deny. Moreover, that he is more Orthodox on the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, than most of the Orthodox teachers in New England ; since his doc- trine coincides with the real truth of imputation, justifying a qualified assent to that doctrine, requiring it in the practical uses of life, and containing all that has made it true to its adherents ; precisely that neither more nor less ; while never- theless he coincides with those who regard that doctrine as un- true and absurd. Also that the Gospel, as commonly set forth in our treatises of theology, is no Gospel, but only a dull me- chanical contrivance of theology, a speculative figment, cold and dry.