An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The great consummation, when those that are hopelessly ruined will be separated from the good, is at an indefinite period ahead, and may be many ages, while the same process of labor and training are proceeding in the unseen world, and yet so that the conduct and character formed in this life have a decided influence on the whole course of existence that follows.

Thus when the good man dies we may hope that his upward career is eternally secure. But when the wicked die there must be “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.”

The Creator does, has done, and will do all that is [pg 262]possible to save all that can be saved from this doom, and as the highest possible motives we can conceive to secure this end, would be the appearance of our Creator in human form as a teacher of his laws, an example of virtue and a self-sacrificing Saviour, we infer that he has done or will do this, at the time and in the manner which is best fitted to the great end in view.

The Augustinian system presents a view of the character and conduct of the Creator in mournful contrast to this.

Our only idea of a perfectly benevolent being is that of one who prefers happiness to suffering, and who does all in his power to promote one and prevent the other. Our only idea of a malevolent being is, that he wills misery when he has full power to make happiness in its stead. Our only evidence of the moral character of a being (or that exhibited in willing) is the nature of his works. On the Augustinian theory, all the chief works of the Creator's hand, the immortal minds, which alone give value to any other existences, are depraved so totally that there is no really good act done by any one of them till created anew.

In other words, the Creator, having full power to make every mind perfect in nature, and who still has power to re-create all with perfect natures, has instituted a system by which the sin of one man entails a depraved nature on a whole race, while the evil as yet has been remedied only in the case of a small, “elect” number. All the rest are doomed to eternal misery for conduct which is the certain consequence of this misformed nature.

To save men from the punishment of the sins consequent [pg 263] on their depraved nature, Christ, the most perfect and only unsinning being that ever visited earth, undergoes deep humiliation and excruciating sufferings.

To call such conduct as this just, or kind, or merciful, is a violation of all our ideas of the meaning of such terms. What kindness is there in giving existence to any being on such terms? What blessings are all the comforts and enjoyments of this life, so soon to be snatched away, thus making the contrast of future misery so much the more horrible? What mercy is there in any mode of rectifying a wrong so needlessly inflicted? What mercy, or what justice is there in adding to all the miseries of our race the sufferings of so noble and lovely a being as Jesus Christ, when all, and more than all, effected by his agonies, could be so much more justly and reasonably secured by regenerating all the minds thus needlessly ruined in their nature? This strange and mysterious transaction only adds to the terror and gloom that shroud such a Creator, whose character can be learned only by the nature of his works.

To call all this a mystery is a misuse of terms, for there is no mystery about it. More direct, clear, and open injustice, folly and malevolence, can not possibly be expressed in human language than that here set forth and ascribed to God.

Every mind instinctively asks, why did not the Creator give us a perfect nature when he has the power to do so? Why does he not stop all the sin and misery resulting from the depraved nature of man by regenerating all, when he has power to do so? How can we either respect or love a being who [pg 264] has done such awful and endless wrong to our race, and for no conceivable good made known to us? What cause of gratitude for the sufferings and death of Christ to save the few of us who alone are to escape from such needless and intolerable evils?