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

In reclaiming all that he had seemed to cast away, Dr. B- has not reclaimed or restored " Christ cfruaijied" as the Ke- deemer " whom God has set forth to ie a propitiation through faith in his hlood for the remission of sins that are jpastP The vital part of the Gospel he has taken away and has not restored. He has not restored what God hath set forth as essential to vindicate the divine justice — '■'•that he may be JUST." Nor has he restored, as we apprehend, any thing to establish the vindicatory justice of the law. He even denies that any thing penal, or that any abhorrence of sin is expressed by the death of Christ. Eut the question is not whose opinion is correct as to what is necessary to make the needed expression or impression, but what God taught? "What means has He provided and set forth ? "What object has He ofiered to our faith ? Not Christ simply incarnate ; not Christ the excellent example of obedi- ence ; not Christ the wonderful teacher ; not Christ as simply expressing or declaring the love of God, and assuring us that God is not angry with the wicked, and needs no propitiation ; not Christ, as by all these means of moral suasion drawing men to repentance and to God ;-^-all these the Socinian be- lieves and teaches as strongly as Dr. Bushnell ; — but God has set forth as the object of faith, in order that he may justify the sinner and be just, precisely that which Dr. B. as well as the Socinian has taken away, and rejected with abhorrence : " Cheist oeuoified," "the peopitiation foe oue sins" — " THEOUGH FAITE IN HIS BLOOD," " hoW that he DIED FOE OtTE BINS AccoEDiNG TO THE SoEiPTUEES." Cbrist crucificd, iu this sense. Dr. B. has taken away and has not restored. And in this the Socinian has this advantage over Dr. B., that when the Socinian takes away Christ, he avers that he takes him away because God hath not so set him forth ; and so endeav- ors to save the veracity of the Lord ; while he himself is not driven to the hard necessity of believing what he holds as an absurdity and a lie. Dr. B. admits that God hath so set forth 11 Christ to be believed, but teaches that what is to be be- lieved, as necessary to salvation, is untrue ; and so renders faith impossible, and makes God a liar. With what propriety can he claim that he holds " all the essential truths of evangel- ism,"— all that New England teachers hold as essential, — ^nay, that the very matter of his Gospel is the matter of theirs ? And we ask, with earnest and deep solemnity, are we to ad- mit, on the force of such claims, that a minister of the Gos- pel holds all that is essential to the faith of our churches, — all that is essential to the Gospel of Christ, — when he has most fully, in every shape and modification, and in terms of the deepest scorn and contempt, denied the doctrine of the vicari- ous sufferings and sacrifice of Christ to atone for the sins of mankind ? Sec. V. 1. Whether Dr. B., in his second book, has taken "higher grounds" or made statements which "relieve " or " contra- dict " the teachings of the first book. It may be supposed by some, that although Dr. B., in his first book, denied the vicarious sufferings and sacrifice of Christ ; yet, in his second book, he has " taken higher ground" or made statements which " somewhat relieve " the force of his denial, or which are " contradictory " to it, or at least " incon- sistent " with it. The following passage, p. 215, has been cited, in support of this supposition. " Or, if it be said, that they have no meaning, it is not because they do not recognize, in the fullest manner, the necessity of a ground of justifica- tion, and show as fully what that groimd of justification is — '•'• Christ ov/r righteousness, Christ sOmdtifying by his death and sacrifice the violated law, and preparing thus a way • of par- don, tliat makes it not an act of license, but of ^ustificationP Other passages have been cited, as on p. 235, showing that Dr. B. holds to the necessity of " a ground of justification^'' that " the law desecrated by sin," may be " vindicated in al^- thority " by some " other manifestation of God's righteous- 72 ness, in place of that which punishment would have yielded ;" and p. 237, that " no salvation is adequate, save that which can open a passage through government, without any breach npon its integrity and order," and p. 269, that " God^ as gov- ernor of the world, presides in justice, connecting evil withi transgression; vindicating thus his own character, the integ- rity of his governmental order and sanctity of his law ;" and that he still vindicates the same in the " incarnate mission of Jesus Christ ; " and p. 284, that he " still adheres as firmly as others, to the necessity of a grmmd of j%tstificaiion jpr^ared in the suffe^i-mgs <md death of Christ^'' TO THIS WE EEPLT: 1. That the passages which we have cited, under Sec. 1, of the Atonement, show, that in his second book. Dr. B. has de- nied the doctrine of a vicarious atonement as fully, and in terms as fully indicative of contempt and abhorrence as in the first; and that the denial is so broad, and constitutes so essentially the staple of his doctrine on the subject, that no casual statements apparently inconsistent or contradictory can by any means relieve the denial. Moreover, the apparent contradictions or inconsistences are only apparent, and not real; as we shall presently show, from the unusual sense in which Dr. B. employs the terms in which, the supposed in- consistences are involved ; and Dr. B. himself, p. 11, declares, that it is " not his design or wish, in, this article [book], to modUfy amy of his ^sitions,^^ 2. He has taken no "higher ground" on the atonement than he did in his former book ; for that book abundantly embodied passages similar to those cited as taking higher ground. Thus, pp. 216-9, quoted in p. 12 of our Kemon- strance, Dr. B. admits, " as a fundamental condition" the necessity of some es^ession, by which we shall be made " tp feel the intensest possible sense of the sanctity of the law, and the inflexible righteousness of God;"— "to keep us apprised of sin, and to deny us any power of rest while we continue 73 under sin, it was needful that Christ in Ms life andmfferimgs should wnseomte, or re-oonseorate the desecrated law of God, andgi/oe it a more imminent authority them it had heforeJ" But such passages did not relieve bis first book, because, as we showed fully in our Eemonstrance, Dr. B. teaches, that this expressiorh is made, not by any vicarious sufferings or sacrifice, but by the simple incarnation of Christ, his simple example, his simple manifestation of the love of God, by his mjanifestation of regard to the law in rendering it an exact obedience, and by an undesigned and incidental death, like the death of a martyr; without any thing penal in his suffer- ings, or even any thing expressive, by suffering, of the divine abhorrence of sin. 3. The alleged contradictions and inconsistences are shown to be only apparent, and not real, when we consider the pecu- liar sense, in which Dr. B. employs the terms which come into question. Thus, as to "justification," and "ground of justification," we showed in our Eemonstrance, that he uses the terms, not in their ordinary and current sense, but that he denies all the id^as which the term "justification by faith" commonly conveys. He denies that the ohjeot of the faith is the atoning sacrifice of Christ ; he denies that jusUJloation contains any remissipn of sins, or any accepting of the sinner as righteous, in virtue of Christ's righteousness and vicarious sufferings ; he denies that the ground of the justification is the righteous- ness and atoning sacrifice of Christ ; but maintains that it is the sinner's own righteousness, to which he is recovered by the artistic forme of the Gospel; and that we only see our own righteousness in Christ, "just as we see our own pity, in things that are pitiful ;" so, that while he declares that he holds " most emphatically to the doctrine of justification by faith," we showed in our Eemonstrance, and so declared (p.; 31, Eemonstrance), that he holds to " a justif cation, and afcdth" and to ^'^ a jusHfieaUon, hy foAth^'' diametrically op- posed to the common orthodox doctrine known by that name, and utterly subversive of it. [See pp. 19-23, and 31, of our ■u Eeinonstrance.] We also refer to the statements and cita- tions of the note under Sec. 1, of the Atonement, in the pre- sent document, showing that Dr. B. still uses the terms " jus- tification," and "ground of justification," in the same unusual sense. Throughout his second book he still uses such terms and phrases as ' Christ our righteousness," " Christ sanctify- ing by his death and sacrifice the violated law," in the same unusual sense; while he cannot be understood, in such phrases, to take any " higher ground," without understanding them in their ordinary acceptation, the sense in which he does not use them. He has, therefore, taken no " higher ground ; " he has neither retracted nor modified his doctrine. We do not see that he has said any thing contradictory to it, or inconsistent with it ; but he appears to us to use the terms in question very consistently in the same unusual sense ; and in so doing, he simply misleads those who suppose him to have taken " higher ground," or to have " somewhat relieved " his doctrine. It was this unusual and unwarrantable use of terms, which, as we apprehend, deceived his Association in his declaration embodied in the Majority Eeport. [See p. 29, of our Ke- monstrance.J In that declaration, he apparently took even Mgher ground than he has been supposed to take in his second book ; yet, it was only apparently, and because he used the terms out of their common meaning. In that declaration he says, " I hold most emphatically to the doctrine of Justifica- Tioisr BY Faith ; and that any and every form of religion which proposes to save mankind on terms of merit or desert, is not Christianity. As regards the grounds of justification, I believe that without something done, which in Christ is done, to declare the righteousness of God, and maintain the sanctity of law, a free pardon offered to sinners would be nearly equivalent to a dissolution of government." Now, though in his books Dr. B. was privileged to use terms in his own peculiar sense, on giving suitable definitions and advertisement of that unusual meaning; yet, in a de- claration of his faith, as a formal explanation of his views, 15