The high, moral and intellectual character of the gentlemen to whom this appeal was thus made, forbids the idea that they would allow such statements and arguments and appeals to go unnoticed if they felt able to [pg 313] afford any light in reply to these questions. It was their highest duty as teachers of theology, if they could do it, to show how to answer the argument of “Young America” against the Bible as containing the Augustinian dogma; to show that the passage introduced above as a specimen of the Pelagianism taught by the New Haven divines either is not the doctrine they teach or is not Pelagianism; to show that there are some passages in the Bible that teach that the nature or the constitution of man is not the best possible in the nature of things, and is different from that of the unsinning angels or unfallen Adam; and finally, to show that there is some passage in the Bible that teaches that the depraved nature of man was caused or occasioned by the sin of Adam.
Not only the professors and editors thus addressed, but all the theologians of all schools, so far as the writer can learn, have maintained a profound silence on all these questions. The Independent also declined any discussion thus: “We have no intention of surrendering our columns to a theological or psychological controversy such as might be introduced by the communication we now publish.”
The writer after this, in several cases, suggested to some of the most active and intelligent minds in some of the above theological seminaries, to endeavor to secure a full discussion of these topics in their lecture rooms, and was told, in reply, that all such efforts were decidedly discouraged.
She also addressed notes to several editors of the secular press to see if their columns could be used for the purpose. From the one whose past freedom led to the expectation of an affirmative answer, the reply [pg 314] was, that he had promised his orthodox friends that he would not needlessly introduce heresy into his paper, and that the greatest of all heresies was common sense!
Finally, on consulting one of the most shrewd and best informed publishers in regard to the future volume, he expressed the opinion that “in whatever else theologians differed, they were all united in the determination that the investigation proposed by the author should not be permitted.”
This being so, the author has concluded, and the public probably will conclude, that the most profound and acute theologians of this country have relinquished the idea of attempting any farther defense of the Augustinian dogma.
Chapter XLVI. Present Position of the Church.
The word “church,” as used in this article, refers chiefly to those close corporations which claim to be regenerated persons, whose depraved nature, transmitted from Adam, has been so far rectified by re-creation, that they are, more or less, in the practice of true virtue, of which the unregenerate world are supposed to be totally destitute.
In this sense they claim to be “the saints,” “the righteous,” “the elect,” “the children of God,” “the salt of the earth,” “the light of the world,” “a holy nation,” “a peculiar people.”