"Dr. Chapin, knowing the feeling of the church against the new ism, boldly became its preacher, for he recognized its great and noble mission. That sin had its recompense, he never doubted, but his doctrine of 'God is love,' was so eloquently preached that the theologians reconsidered their doctrines of retribution. Even the Episcopal Church, he says, in recently reviewing the articles, struck out the one about eternal punishment. When Universalism began its mission, religion so to speak, had become ossified and rigid, and it was necessary, to meet the advanced thought of the age, that some change be made in it. The force that wrought this change, developed outside of the Orthodox Church, and it has been instrumental in banishing much of the barbarism and cruelty of expression which Christians borrowed from the Pagans."
The Presbyterian and Methodist Churches have had their experiences in the agitation of these questions involving the acceptance or rejection of the leading points of theology held by them in the past. But the freest and boldest utterances on this subject seem to have come from the Congregationalist Churches. Members of the Beecher family have been quite conspicuous in their allusions to the old and abhorrent doctrines of Calvinism; as for instance, Mrs. Stowe, in her "Minister's Wooing" and "Old Town Folks;" her sister Catherine, in her emphatic saying, that, as this theology is set forth, "there must be an awful mistake somewhere;" Dr. Edward Beecher, in his "Conflict of Ages" (a work ably reviewed by Rev. Moses Ballou); and Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who has just now affirmed that he will never more preach the horrible doctrine of endless punishment. After repeating a statement he had made, that the dogma of endless suffering is the cause of increasing infidelity, Dr. Edward Beecher says, that "Universalism is no longer restricted within denominational lines, but is now diffused more widely than some suspect," that "the preaching of the doctrine is largely neutralized by a latent Universalism within the walls of evangelical churches," that some of the clergy "dare not investigate the dogma (endless suffering) in an impartial, scientific method, lest they bring themselves into conflict with the creed they are expected to defend;" and closes thus: "Meanwhile the creed-doctrine of an endless punishment is seldom discussed from the pulpit, and never willingly heard by the pews." Significant indeed is the closing of his volume on the "Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution:" "Even admitting that the doctrine of eternal punishment is the word of God, it seems to be forgotten that allegations may be attached to it that shall make it to be not the word of God, but the greatest falsehood in the Universe."
At the Congregationalist Convention in Boston in 1865 the difficult problem came up to be solved, "how they could state what they themselves had come to believe, without appearing to deny what the fathers believed." Assembled at the old Burial Hill of the Pilgrims in Plymouth, they affirmed their adherence to the "substance of the Westminster and Saybrook Confessions of Faith." To clothe this "substance" in verbal forms, making it a true statement of the old theology of Puritanism, and at the same time a living thing of to-day, would seem to be an undertaking resulting in as great a confusion of tongues as in any instance recorded in the history of the past. To keep intact the theology of the past in their churches is an impossibility.
For, let us understand that the most thoughtful among the theologians of nearly all the churches are now beginning to feel the force of the question hitherto hushed down, as it has been boldly asked or even whispered in the face of the theology of the past: What is the Divine responsibility in the creation of man? It is the question asked by Hosea Ballou, in his youth, of his father, a Baptist minister: "Would it be an act of goodness on my part to create a human being,—had I the power,—knowing that his existence would prove an endless curse to him?" a question which the father was unable to answer, and which the son did not press strongly upon him. This question, though familiar enough to Universalists and long made a ground of argument concerning human destiny, has usually been evaded by the supporters of the popular theology, as beyond the reach of human reason. They have regarded the inquiry as to the responsibility of God in the creation of man as irreverent on the part of his feeble offspring. But the question has been considered and earnestly examined, and the discussion of it has elicited the most outspoken opinions as to the result of the investigation.
Rev. W. W. Patton, D. D. of Howard University, has recently spoken very definitely on this subject, although he acknowledges that it has not been a legitimate one to be decided upon by the theologians of his school. He affirms that the Divine reason like our own (we being made in the Divine image) includes the eternal, unchangeable, and imperative idea of right, the practical synonym of which is love,—love being that which always, everywhere, and in all beings, expresses the right or sums up duty. He reaches the conclusion that God chooses love as the rule of his activity, that when he creates rational sensitive beings, by that very fact he put himself voluntarily into a relation which calls upon him to act upon the principle of love, which gives them a right to expect that he will so act.
It is an answer to the question of Abraham, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" and of Paul, "Is God unrighteous?" In agreement with this reasoning of Dr. Patton, is that of Rev. John Miller of Princeton, N. J., who just now affirms:—
"A deformed God is a great light gone out from any religion, and is the chief ally of infidelity. God is not to be worshipped because he is powerful, any more than Satan is; but because he is moral. If he wrongs me in bringing me into being, he is no sovereign to me."[60]
In the same strain comes this testimony from Miss Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, of Andover, in a late number of the "North American Review:"—
"The Bible meets us squarely upon the deepest and the highest question which the finite intellect has the right to ask: What, having made us at all, is God's moral attitude toward us? When he thrust into space this quivering ball of pain and error, did he mean well enough by it to justify the deed? Profounder than all our philosophy, wiser than all our protest, comes the sublime and solitary answer: 'He so loved the world that He gave his only Son.' This magnificent reply, which theology has distorted out of its grand and simple proportions, to which science has refused its supreme reasonableness, the true human heart and the clear human head have accepted. The contortions of faith and the malice of doubt have almost equally united to shake the hold of this great re-assurance upon the world. The world will have it in spite of both. The world will have it, because it is the best it can get; and by all the iron laws of common sense it will keep the best till God or man can offer it something better."
Even so. Amen!