On another occasion a brother minister quoted, as proof that men in their unregenerate state cannot do anything towards their own salvation, the words of Jeremiah, already once referred to, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" "Do you really think," said I, "that the Prophet is speaking, in those words, of men generally?" "What else is he speaking of?" was the answer. "He seems to me to be speaking of a particular class of men, who have been so long accustomed to do wrong, that they have lost the power to do right—having made themselves the helpless slaves of their evil habits. He is not, I think, speaking of the state into which they were born; but of the state to which they had reduced themselves by long persistence in sin. Hence he says at the conclusion of the passage, 'Then may ye, who are accustomed to do evil, do well.'" "Oh! I suppose you deny the doctrine of natural depravity." "No, I do not," said I. "It is no use saying that," he replied, "when you explain away the passages of Scripture in which the doctrine is taught."
Such encounters between me and my brethren were at one time by no means uncommon. They took place at almost every meeting. The result was often unpleasant. My brethren generally did not like to be disturbed in their notions, or in their way of talking. But few, if any of them, were prepared or disposed to enter on the investigations necessary to enable them to ascertain what was the truth on the points on which we were accustomed to converse. Some had not the power to revise their creeds and their way of talking and preaching, and bring them into harmony with Scripture and common sense. And people of this class were sure to look on all who did not see things in the same light as themselves, as dangerous or damnable heretics. They, of course, concluded that I was not sound in the faith. They felt that I was a troublesome, and feared that I was a lost and ruined man. The remarks which I made to them, they repeated to their friends; and as they seldom succeeded in understanding me properly, their reports were generally incorrect. In some cases my statements were reported with important additions, and in others with serious alterations, and in some cases their meaning was entirely changed. And the change was seldom to my advantage. A difference of expression between me and my brethren was mistaken for a difference of belief; and the disuse of an unscriptural word, was mistaken for a renunciation of a Christian doctrine. A dispute about the "eternal sonship" was mistaken for a dispute about the divinity of Christ, and a difference of opinion about the meaning of a passage of Scripture, came to be reported as the denial of Christ's authority. In one case I gave it as my judgment that there were really righteous people on earth when Christ came into the world, and that it was to such that Christ referred, when He said, He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." This was made into an assertion that the coming of Christ was unnecessary. Inability to accept unauthorized definitions and unscriptural theories of Scriptural doctrines, was construed into a denial of those doctrines. My endeavor to strip religious subjects of needless mystery, was represented as an attempt to substitute a vain philosophy for the Gospel of Christ. An expression of dissatisfaction with a grandiloquent but foolish and mischievous sermon on the "Cross of Christ," was set down as a proof that my views on the sacrifice of Christ were not evangelical. My endeavors to show that Christianity was in harmony with reason, were mistaken for an attempt to substitute reason for faith, and became the occasion of a rumor that I was running into Pelagianism or Socinianism. My own conviction was, that I was coming nearer to the simplicity, the purity, and the fulness of the Gospel; and that is my conviction still. And those of my brethren in the ministry who were in advance of the rest in point of intelligence and piety, and who were least infected with foolish fear and jealousy, expressed to me their satisfaction with my views and proceedings. And the people listened to my discourses with the greatest delight. They flocked to hear me in crowds; and the crowds continually increased. And many were benefited under my ministry. Sinners were converted, and believers were comforted, and stimulated to greater efforts in the cause of God.
To those, however, who had come to believe that I was drifting towards heresy, all this was the occasion of greater alarm, and my great success and growing popularity led them to make increasing efforts to lessen my influence, or silence me altogether. Their conduct caused me great uneasiness, and it was this that first awakened in me unhappy feeling towards them.
CHAPTER VIII.
A SECOND TENDENCY. PRACTICAL PREACHING.
I had a second powerful tendency which helped to get me into trouble, and so became an occasion of unhappy feeling, namely, a practical tendency. This was bred in me. It was a family peculiarity; it ran in the blood. My father had it. Religion with him was goodness of heart and goodness of life; fearing God and working righteousness; loving God and keeping His commandments. And his belief and life were one. I never knew a more conscientious or godly man. And I never knew a man who could more truly have uttered the words of the Psalmist: "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of its mother; my soul is even as a weaned child." What God had left mysterious, he was willing should remain so; he found sufficient to meet his wants and to occupy his thoughts in what He had clearly revealed. He never troubled either himself or his children with those incomprehensible subjects on which many people are so prone to speculate and dogmatize. He read but few books, and those which he read he carefully compared with the sacred Scriptures. The Bible was his only authority, and by it he tested both books and preachers, receiving nothing but what he saw and felt to be in harmony with its spirit and teachings. He liked Bunyan, especially his Pilgrim's Progress; and he liked Wesley; but he liked the Bible best. There were no bounds to his love and reverence for the Scriptures. He regarded them as the perfection of all wisdom, the true and perfect unfolding of the mind and will of God. He read them every morning on his knees, before the rest of the family were up. Whatever might be the calls of business, he spent a full hour in this exercise. He read them every noon to his family. He read them at night before retiring to rest. He read them with a sincere desire to learn God's will, and with earnest prayer for Divine help to enable him to do it. He read them till all the plainer and more practical portions were safely lodged in his memory, and deeply engraven on his heart. He read them till their teachings became a part of his very nature, and shone forth in his character in all the beauty of holiness. He was a thorough Christian. The oracles of God were the rule both of his faith and conduct. They leavened his whole soul. They mingled with all his conversation. They were his only counsellors and his chief comforters. They were his law, his politics, his philosophy, his morals. They were his treasure and his song. And he received their teachings in their simple, obvious, common-sense meaning. He had quite a distaste for commentaries, because they would not allow the Scriptures to speak forth their own solemn meaning in their own plain, artless way. He hated the notes to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress for the same reason. He could understand the Bible, but he could not understand the explanations of it given by theologians. He would not study theology. He would study the Bible and Christ; he would study precepts and promises, exhortations and warnings, examples and historics; but not theology. And he never bothered us with theology. There was no theology in his conversation. There was none in his prayers. He never used theological terms. In all he said on religious matters, whether to God or man, he used the simplest Bible terms. He seldom talked much to his children about religion; he taught us more by his deeds and spirit than by words; but when he did say anything to us on the subject, it was the pure, unadulterated Word of God. The idea of making us theologians, in the ordinary sense of the word, never entered into his head. He wished us to think and feel and act like Christians, and that was all; and the end of all his counsels and labors was to furnish us unto every good word and work. If he had written a system of divinity, he would have left out most of the things which many put into such books, and put in many which most leave out. It would have been a book to help people to live right and feel right, and not to dream, or speculate, or wrangle. If he had been a preacher, he would have filled his sermons with the living words of Moses and the Prophets, of Christ and His Apostles, and pressed them on the consciences of his hearers with all his might. He would often have "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and a judgment to come," but never troubled his hearers with human theories of Christian doctrines. The drift and scope of his sermons to the ungodly would have been, "Cease to do evil; learn to do well." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." "Repeat and be converted, every one of you, that your sins may he blotted out." The substance of his sermons to believers would have been, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." "Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your bodies and your spirits, which are His." "For ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your evil way of life received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ; who gave Himself for you, that He might redeem you from all iniquity, and purify you unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." "Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh, reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially to those who are of the household of faith." He would have spoken of the love of God, and of the death of Christ, and of all the great moving facts and doctrines of the Gospel; but, like the sacred writers, he would have turned them all to practical account. His aim in everything would have been to bring men into subjection to God's will, and into full conformity with the teachings and character of Christ.
My eldest brother was a minister, and this was the character of his preaching. His favorite books were Baxter's works and the Bible. His favorite minister was William Dawson, one of the most practical, earnest, and common-sense preachers that ever occupied a pulpit. Like his father, he kept scrupulously to the simple teachings of the Scriptures, and he was once charged with unsoundness in the faith, because he would not be wise above what was revealed, nor preach more than the Gospel committed to him by Christ.
It was the same with myself. I looked on Christianity, from the first, as a means of enlightening and regenerating mankind, and changing them into the likeness of Christ and of God. In other words, I regarded it as a grand instrument appointed by God, for making bad men into good men, and good men always better, thus fitting them for all the duties of life, and all the blessedness they were created to enjoy. And I considered that the great business of a Christian minister was to use it for those great ends. And I think so still.
The Bible is the most practical book under heaven, and I cannot conceive how any one can read it carefully, with a mind unbiased by prejudice or evil feeling, without perceiving that its great object is to bring men to fear and love God, and to make them perfect in every good work to do His will. How any one can study Christianity without perceiving that its design is to bring men into harmony with God, both in heart and action, and to make them steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, is a mystery to me. Antinomianism is Antichrist. The preaching which tends to lessen men's sense of duty, or to reconcile people to a selfish, idle, or useless life, is contrary both to Christianity and common sense. And all interpretations of Scripture which favor the doctrine that men have nothing to do but to believe and trust in Christ, are madness or impiety. The impression which God seeks to make on our minds from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is, that if we would have His favor and blessing, we must do His will. The whole Bible is one great lesson of piety and virtue, of love and beneficence. Christ is "the Author of eternal salvation to those" only "who obey Him." Those who obey Him not He will punish with everlasting destruction. Christ and His Apostles agree that, if we would see God and have eternal life, we must be "holy as God is holy," "merciful as our Father in heaven is merciful," "righteous as Christ was righteous;"—that God, who is love, and Christ, who is God, must dwell in us, live in us, work in us;—that carnal, sinful self must die, and "grace reign in us through righteousness unto eternal life."