Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The circumstances that favor and indicate such a renewal are, in the first place, a gradual change that has been going on the last thirty years in the theological world as the result of discussions on these very subjects. Some of the most candid and acute minds that have been interested in such discussions have, more and more, been led to feel the difficulties involved in the accepted theory of Augustine; and though few have come to such clear convictions on the subject as to feel warranted in taking any public stand as innovators or reformers, many are ready to examine and discuss in a very different attitude of mind from what has ever before been so extensively experienced.

One striking indication of this change is the almost universal neglect of "indoctrinating preaching" among the younger clergy in those sects where, forty years ago, it was deemed indispensable to success to thus establish the "five points of Calvinism."

A still more important change is an increase in that practical preaching that urges on the consciences of men all their domestic, social, and moral duties, as constituting an essential part of religion, as truly as the affections toward God and the special duties owed to him.

An equal or greater change is apparent among the laity. The strong Calvinistic doctrines that used to be so reverently received are either simply tolerated or quietly rejected. This is particularly the case with mothers and teachers, both in the family and in the secular and Sunday schools. Thousands of practical, tender mothers utterly refuse to teach their little ones that a depraved nature has descended to them from Adam, and that they can never perform any thing that is right or pleasing to God till this nature is recreated; or, if they use such language, it is with explanations entirely un-Calvinistic.

Instead of this, they teach their offspring that they can please and obey their Heavenly Parent as truly and acceptably as they do their earthly parents; that when they have so learned to love and please Him (or to feel and act right) that it is their chief desire thus to do, they have a new life. This "new birth," they also teach, is the result of that aid from the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which both parents and children so need that they can never succeed without it, and yet which is promised to all who earnestly desire it, and seek it by proper methods.

Multitudes of parents and teachers are pursuing this method in churches whose ministers would entirely revolt from the idea of denying the Augustinian theory or the system of Calvin resting upon it. Many are doing this, unconscious that they are taking a course that is contrary to the standards of their Church.

In conclusion, the author would ask attention to the chief points presented in this volume.

The main question is, are these principles of reason or common sense, and the rules for interpreting language here set forth, accepted as guides in deciding the great questions of life?

Next, are the deductions gained by their aid as to what can be learned without a direct revelation from the Creator accepted?

Lastly, is the Augustinian theory of a depraved mental constitution consequent on the sin of the first parents of the race, as tried by these principles, supported either by reason or the Bible; and, if not, should not all men renounce it, both theoretically and practically?