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

by Catharine Esther Beecher

For it is the nature of any created thing which proves the character and intentions of its creator. If then all human minds are depraved in nature or “constitution,” the Creator of these minds is thus proved to be depraved, and no revelations from him can be reliable. He prefers sin and evil to virtue and happiness, and of course his teachings can be no guide to truth, virtue and happiness. Thus, by his own theory, this author is debarred from any proof of a preëxistent state by revelation.

On page 20 it is further stated that “inasmuch as the mind of man is depraved, and there may be danger in trusting its unrevised, uncorrected decisions as to these principles [of honor and right], it is of great importance, for purposes of revision, carefully to study those developments of benevolent, honorable and just feelings, towards which the human mind, after regeneration, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is found most directly to tend.”

This passage shows that this depravity of the “moral constitution,” generated in a preëxistent state, in the view of this author, is such that there is danger in trusting our mental decisions as to the principles of honor and right at first implanted by God, but vitiated and impaired by the “habit of sinning.” This danger, it is suggested, is lessened “after regeneration,” so that regenerated persons are thus entitled to guide their unregenerate fellow-men in matters of truth and duty. This lays the foundation for the claims of a regenerate church and clergy to superior authority in deciding on the interpretations of the Bible. The tendencies of such claims to pride, dogmatism and persecution, are pointed out in chapter 41.

Note F.

The following extract from the Views and Experiences of Religion, by Henry Ward Beecher, is an example of the vagueness and uncertainty referred to. It is part of an article entitled How to Become a Christian.

“The moment you realize this goodness of Christ, his helpfulness to you, his lenient, forgiving, sympathizing spirit, then you know what faith in Christ means. If such a Saviour attracts you, and you strive all the more ardently, from love toward him and trust in him, then you are a Christian: not a religious man, but a Christian.

“A man may worship through awe, or through a sense of duty, and I think there are hundreds of men in the churches who are only religious men, and not Christians. A man who feels toward God only awe or fear, who obeys merely from a sense of duty, who is under the dominion of conscience rather than of love, may be religious, but he is not a Christian.”

There is nothing said in this article of any need of any new creation of the nature of the mind; nor is this Augustinian dogma to be found in any of this author's published works.

In this article, written expressly to give clear views of what it is to become a Christian, and how to do it, we find it taught “a man who feels toward God only awe or fear, who obeys merely from a sense of duty, who is under the dominion of conscience rather than of love, may be religious, but he is not a Christian.”