Читать книгу One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, Tome 1 - John Williamson Nevin - Страница 13

The merits of the Anxious Bench not to be measured by its popularity; nor by its seeming success.—Circumstances in which it is found to prevail.—No spiritual force required to give it effect.

The Popularity of the Anxious Bench proves nothing in its favor.124 We find it, to be sure, extensively in vogue, and with a large portion of the community in high honor. There are whole sects that seem to have no conception of any thing like a vigorous life in the Church without its presence. And beyond the range of these, scores of ministers and congregations are found who glory in it as the very “gate of heaven,” and consider it no less essential than the pulpit itself to the progress of any considerable revival. During the last winter, as already mentioned, there were places where the spirit of the Anxious Bench might be said to carry all before it, and it is likely that it will be so again during the winter that is to come.

But all who are at all acquainted with the world know that the worst things may thus run for a season and be glorified in the popular mind. And especially is this the case, where they hold their existence in the element of excitement, and connect themselves with religion, the deepest and most universal of all human interests. No weight of fashion enlisted in favor of the Anxious Bench can deserve to be much respected in such a trial of its merits as we are here called to make.

It should be remembered, however, that this popularity, such as it is, is in a certain sense but the echo of a sound which has already ceased to be heard. Whatever may be the pretensions of the Anxious Bench, on the field we are now contemplating, it is after all a stale interest, so far as the Church at large is concerned. Not many years since it stood in very considerable credit in different parts of the Presbyterian Church and over a large portion of New England. But on this ground the thing has fairly exploded. It has been tried and found wanting. Here and there, it may still be held in honor. But in a general view even those who were formerly its friends have come to look upon it with distrust, and are no longer willing to give it their countenance. As with general consent, throughout New England and New York, the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches have abandoned the use of the Anxious Bench for “a more excellent way.”125 With all its popularity then where it now prevails, it is after all a stale interest, worn threadbare and flung aside in a different quarter of the religious world. In these circumstances no great account is to be made of its present credit in any view.

Nothing can be argued again in favor of the Anxious Bench, from the Success with which it may appear to be employed in the service of religion. This is often appealed to for this purpose. We are referred triumphantly to the actual results of the system as tried in different places. We are told of hundreds awakened and converted in connection with its use. God, it is said, has owned it, and impressed His seal upon it by working through it mightily as a means of salvation; and if He choose to honor it in this way, who are we that we should find fault or condemn?126 We should rejoice to see souls brought into the kingdom in any way. We should be willing to make room in such a case for the manifold grace of God, allowing it to have free course in any channel through which it is found to flow, and not seeking to force it into conformity with our own narrow views. All this carries with it a plausible sound. But after all the representation is entitled to no respect.

In the first place, to draw an argument for the Anxious Bench from its immediate visible effects, is to take for granted that these are worth all they claim to be worth. We are pointed to powerful awakenings, of which it is considered to be the very soul. We are referred to scores and hundreds of conversions effected directly or indirectly by its means. But who shall assure us that all this deserves to be regarded with confidence as the genuine fruit of religion? It is marvelous credulity to take every excitement in the name of religion for the work of God’s Spirit. It is an enormous demand on our charity when we are asked to accept in mass, as true and solid, the wholesale conversions that are made in this way. It will soon be made to appear that there is the greatest reason for caution and distrust with regard to this point. No doubt the use of the Anxious Bench may be found associated, in certain cases, with revivals, the fruits of which are worthy of all confidence. But this character they will have through the force of a different system that would have been just as complete without any such accompaniment. In such cases the revival may be said to prevail in spite of the new measures with which it is encumbered. On the other hand, in proportion as the spirit of such measures is found to animate and rule the occasion, there will be reason to regard the whole course of things with doubt. One thing is most certain. Spurious revivals are common, and as the fruit of them false conversions lamentably abound. An anxious bench may be crowded where no divine influence whatever is felt. A whole congregation may be moved with excitement, and yet be losing at the very time more than is gained in a religious point of view. Hundreds may be carried through the process of anxious bench conversion, and yet their last state may be worse than the first. It will not do to point us to immediate visible effects, to appearances on the spot, or to glowing reports struck off from some heated imagination immediately after. Piles of copper, fresh from the mint, are after all something very different from piles of gold.

Again, it does not follow by any means that a thing is right and good because it may be made subservient occasionally in the hands of God to a good end. Allow that the system represented by the Anxious Bench has often had the effect of bringing souls by a true and saving change to Christ, and still it may deserve to be opposed and banished from the Church. God can cause the wrath and folly of man both to praise Him in such ways as to Himself may seem best. And so, under the influence of His Spirit, He can make almost any occasion subservient to the awakening and conversion of a soul. But it would be wretched logic to infer from this the propriety of employing every such occasion, with preparation and design, as a part of the regular work of the gospel. It is sometimes said indeed that if only some souls are saved by the use of new measures, we ought thankfully to own their power, and give them our countenance; since even one soul is worth more than a world. But it should be remembered that the salvation of a sinner may not withstanding cost too much! If truth and righteousness are made to suffer for the purpose, more is lost than won by the result. We must not do wrong, even to gain a soul for heaven. And if for one thus gained, ten should be virtually destroyed by the very process employed to reach the point, who will say that such a method of promoting Christianity would deserve to be approved? There may be movements in the name of religion, and under the form of religion, and yielding to some extent the fruits of religion, which after all come from beneath and not from above. The history of the Church is full of instances illustrating the truth of this remark.

Simeon the Stylite distinguished himself, in the fifth century, by taking his station on the top of a pillar, for the glory of God and the benefit of his own soul. This whimsical discipline he continued to observe for thirty-seven years. Meanwhile he became an object of wide-spread veneration. Vast crowds came from a distance to gaze upon him, and hear him preach. The measure took with the people wonderfully. Thousands of heathen were converted, and baptized by his hand. Among these, it may be charitably trusted, were some whose conversion was inward and solid. God made use of Simeon’s Pillar to bring them to Himself. The seal of His approbation might seem to have rested upon it to an extraordinary extent. No wonder the device became popular. The quackery of the Pillar took possession of the Eastern world, and stood for centuries a monument of the folly that gave it birth. We laugh at it now; and yet it seemed a good thing in its time, and carried with it a weight of popularity such as no New Measure can boast of in the present day.

But why speak of Stylitism in particular? The whole system of monkery may be taken as an example, of the same force, on a larger scale. What a world of abominations has it not been found to embrace? And yet, under what plausible pretences, it sought the confidence of the Church in the beginning! There were not wanting powerful reasons to give it recommendation. The whole Christian world in fact fell into the snare. The interest became a torrent, before which no man was found able to stand. Most assuredly, too, there was the life and power of religion, to some extent, at work in the movement. Monkery was to many, in fact, the means of conversion and salvation. And to this hour an argument might be framed in its favor, under this view not less plausible, to say the least, than any that can be presented for the use of the Anxious Bench.127

The Romish Church has always delighted in arrangements and services animated with the same false spirit. In her penitential system all pains have been taken to produce effect by means of outward postures and dress, till in the end, amid the solemn mummery, no room has been left for genuine penitence at all. Yet not a ceremony was ever introduced into the system that did not seem to be recommended by some sound religious reason at the time. The same thing may be said for the Services of that Church generally.

In another sphere, look at Millerism.128 The error, as it has been zealously preached within the past year (1843), has no doubt had an awakening effect on the minds of many; and some, it may be trusted, have been actually conducted by means of it into the kingdom of God. But will any pretend to say that it deserves to be encouraged on this account? It is said, indeed, that such an idea has been occasionally thrown out. Only, however, where the judgment had been in some measure corrupted by the spirit of quackery previously at work. No morally sane man could be willing for a moment to patronize such a lie, on account of any apparently salutary effects it might be found to have in particular cases.

Let us not be told, then, that the Anxious Bench is a godly interest, because many seem to be convicted by its means, and some are converted in fact. All this may be, and the general operation of the system remain notwithstanding intrinsically and permanently bad.

As a general thing, the movement of coming to the Anxious Bench gives no proper representation of the religious feeling that may be actually at work in the congregation at the time. It is always more or less theatrical, and often has no other character whatever. A sermon usually goes before. But frequently this has no felt relation at all to the subsequent excitement, so far as its actual contents are concerned. The writer was present, not a great while ago, as a stranger in a church, where a preacher of some little note in connection with the subject of revivals had been introduced under the expectation and hope that something of the kind might be secured at the time by his instrumentality. The congregation had but little appearance of life at the beginning, and still less as the sermon drew towards a close. The truth is, it was a very dull discourse at the best. The preacher was not well, and altogether he failed to make the least impression on the great body of his audience. A number were fairly asleep, and others were bordering on the same state. The preacher saw and felt that he had preached without effect; and took occasion, after the sermon was properly ended, to express his regret in view of the fact, and to add a few valedictory remarks in the prospect of his leaving the place the next day, without any thought evidently of calling out the anxious, where not a trace of feeling had been discerned. But the new strain adopted at the close, served to rouse attention and create interest. The congregation put on a more wakeful aspect, and something like emotion could be perceived in the countenances of a few. The preacher took courage, and after a few minutes dared to try the Anxious Bench. As usual, the hymn was started, “Come, humble sinner, &c.,”129 etc., and carried through, with pauses, in which sinners present were urged and pressed to seek their salvation by coming forward. Soon a female was seen going to the place, then another, and another—till at last a whole seat was filled. One old lady rose and moved around, trying to induce others to go forward. At the close of the meeting I retired, wondering within myself that educated men, as were both the preacher in this case and the pastor at his side, could so impose upon themselves as to attach any importance to such a demonstration in such circumstances. It was attempted to carry forward the work by an appointment for the next evening. But on coming together at the time, it was found that it would not go forward, and so it was dropped altogether.

Commonly indeed those who deal in the anxious seat rely far less upon the presentation of truth to the understanding than they do upon other influences to bring persons forward. Pains are taken rather to raise the imagination, and confound the judgment. Exciting appeals are made to the principle of fear. Advantage is taken in every way of the senses and nerves. Especially the mysterious force of sympathy is enlisted in support of the measure, and made to tell in many cases with immense effect.

As might be expected accordingly, the most favorable subjects for the operation of the system are persons in whom feelings prevail over judgment, and who are swayed by impulse more than reflection. In an enlightened, well instructed congregation the anxious bench can never be generally popular. Where it is in full favor, a large proportion of those who are brought out by it are females and persons who are quite young.130 It often happens that the “bench” is filled altogether with such cases, the greater part of them perhaps mere girls and boys. So, where a community is characterized by a general ignorance with regard to the nature of true religion, the measure is frequently applied with great effect; and those precisely who are the most rude and uncultivated, are the most likely in such circumstances to come under its power.

It requires then no spiritual power to use the Anxious Bench with effect. To preach the truth effectually, a man must have a certain spiritual force in himself which others are made to feel. But nothing of this sort is needed to secure success here. The object sought is a mere outward demonstration on the subject of religion, which may be gained by other forms of influence just as well. It shows no inward power whatever to be able to move a congregation in this way. It can be done without eloquence, and calls for no particular earnestness or depth of thought. It is truly wonderful, indeed, with how little qualification of intellect and soul a man may be fitted to carry all before him at certain times, and to show himself off to the eyes of a bewitched multitude as “the great power of God,” by having recourse to new measures. He may be vulgar, coarse and dull, and so pointless and sapless in his ordinary pulpit services that it will be a weariness to hear him; and yet you shall find him, from time to time, throwing a whole community into excitement, gathering around him crowded houses night after night, and exercising as it might seem, for the space of three or four weeks, an irresistible sway in favor of religion. Such cases are by no means uncommon. Some of the most successful practitioners in the art of the Anxious Bench show themselves lamentably defective in the power of serious godliness, as well as in mental cultivation generally. The general habit of their lives is worldly and vain, and their religion, apart from the occasional whirlwinds of excitement in which they are allowed to figure in their favorite way, may be said to be characteristically superficial and cold. Nay, the evidence may be palpable that religion has nothing at all to do with the system in cases where it is employed with the greatest apparent effect. Nothing is more common than for those even who glory in the power of the Anxious Bench, as employed within their own communion, to look with entire distrust on its results as exhibited in the practice of other sects. What is trumpeted in the one case as a glorious revival, is allowed to pass in the other without notice as at best a questionable excitement. In this way it is practically acknowledged that the system does not necessarily involve spiritual power. It can be made to work as well in connection with error, as in connection with truth. It is as fully at the service of quackery and imposture, as it can be available in the cause of genuine religion. It is well adapted, indeed, to become the sport of quacks under every name. All wild and fanatical sects employ it with equal success. Campbellites,131 Winebrennerians and Universalists132 show the same power, when necessary, in producing revivals under this form. Millerism, and Mormonism,133 it may be added, are just as capable of doing wonders in the same way; though the last has declared itself not favorable to the Anxious Bench as interfering with regular and rational worship.

Nothing can be more precarious, then, than the argument for this system, as drawn from its apparent effects and results. In the sphere of religion, as indeed in the world of life generally, the outward can have no value, except as it stands continually in the power of the inward. To estimate the force of appearances, we must try their moral constitution; and this always involves a reference to the source from which they spring. A miracle, in the true sense, is not simply a prodigy, nakedly and separately considered. It must include a certain moral character.

Especially there must be inward freedom and divine strength in the person from whom it proceeds. No wonder-works could authenticate the mission of a man pretending to come from God who should display in all his movements an inward habit at war with the idea of religion. And just as little are we bound to respect, in the present case, the mere show of force, without regard to the agency by which it is exhibited. Those who deal in the Anxious Bench are accustomed to please themselves with the idea that it is an argument of power on the part of their ministry, to be able in this way to produce a great outward effect.134 This is considered sufficient, it might seem, apart from the personality of the preacher altogether, to authenticate his strength. But no judgment can be more superficial. The personality of the preacher must ever condition and determine the character of his work. It were easy to give a score of living examples in which the semblance of success on a large scale, in the use of this system at the present time, is at once belied by palpable defect here. The men are of such a spirit that it is not possible to confide intelligently in any results it may seem to reach by their ministry. We are authorized before all examination to pronounce them valueless and vain. So utterly weak, in this argument, is the appeal to facts, as managed frequently by superficial thinkers. In every view of the case, the fruits of the Anxious Bench must be received with great caution, while to a great extent they are entitled to no confidence whatever.

124. “It proves nothing against it,” we are told from the other side. The remark is most true; but most foreign at the same time from the point, so far as the position of the tract is concerned. The object of this chapter is, not to present any positive argument against the Bench, but simply to undermine certain presumptions in its favor, which are known to stand in the way of a calm and dispassionate consideration of its merits, as afterwards examined. The argument here is negative, not positive. The patrons of the system, it is plain, make much account of its popularity, of the success with which it seems to be attended, and of the power it is supposed to manifest on the part of those who can use it with effect. In the present chapter it is attempted to show simply that opportunity and apparent success prove nothing, and that the measure is of such a character as to call for no particular moral force to give it effect. In the following chapter the argument becomes positive, showing that there is actual weakness and quackery at the bottom of the whole system.

125. This has been contradicted; with more courage, however, than wisdom. It is notorious to all who know anything about the subject that the system of New Measures, in the sense of the present tract, as represented some years since in the north by such men as Burchard [Jedediah Burchard (1791–1864), a prominent revivalist associated with Finney] and Finney, has latterly fallen into discredit and general disuse throughout the Congregational and Presbyterian Churches. They still cherish of course prayer meetings, protracted meetings, and revivals; and it is quite possible that a number of ministers may still have recourse to the anxious bench as a particular measure at certain times; but the system, to which this measure of right belongs, is no longer in vogue. By general consent the churches have fallen back upon the evangelical method to which the use of the anxious bench can adhere only as an accident, if it adhere at all. The revivals of last winter in the North, according to the testimony furnished concerning them in the New York Observer, were of a wholly different stamp from those of Mr. Finney’s school in former years. These last had strength; but it was such as a wasting fever imparts to a sick man, opening the way for a long prostration afterwards. The revivals of the past winter, it may be trusted, have been the first fruits only of the quiet and enduring vigor that springs from renovated health.

126. “Who can behold a congregation of christians wrestling for an altar full of penitent, anxious sinners, and witness the success of such instrumentality, and say, this is ignorance or fanaticism? God blesses only one way, which is the right way; He has blessed this way, therefore it is the right way”—Correspondence of the Lutheran Observer [10, no. 24], Feb. 17, 1843 [p. 2].

127. [W. H. C. Frend introduces monasticism in The Rise of Christianity, 574–79; M. A. Smith provides a popular treatment of the entire phenomenon in The Church Under Siege, 99–123. Nevin had not yet developed the appreciation of pre-Reformation Christianity he would evince after his interaction with Philip Schaff.]

128. [American William Miller (1782–1849), founder of the Adventist church, believed that the end of the world and the return of Christ would occur in 1843.]

129. [Written by an English Baptist pastor Edmund Jones (1722–1765) who introduced hymn singing to his Exeter congregation in 1759.]

130. “Females and persons who are quite young have souls to be saved, as well as males and persons who are advanced in life; nay ‘mere girls and boys’ have an eternal interest pending.”—Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no.17], Dec. 29, 1843 [p. 3].

“And was not woman last at the cross, and first at the tomb of the Son of God?”—Davis’ Plea [James M. Davis, A plea for new measures in the promotion of revivals, or, A reply to Dr. Nevin against the Anxious bench (Pittsburgh: A. Jaynes, 1844)], p. 45.

“‘Low and jejune’ indeed ‘must be the conception of a religion’ which can allow a divine to attempt to destroy a ‘measure,’ through which ‘females, girls and boys,’ run to as a means to enable them to flee the wrath to come.”—Denig’s Strictures [John Denig, Strictures on the mourners’ and anxious bench (Chambersburg: Thom. J. Wright, 1843)], p. 26 [Denig’s emphasis; Denig is parodying Nevin in the single quotes, although he adds “females”; the editor has added the first two sets of single quotes].

What a coincidence of judgment, among the critics of the tract, at this point! And what shall we say of the relevancy and honesty of the criticism itself, in view of the passage thus censured, as it actually stands, and taken in its plain sense? This is a fair specimen, however, of a large part of all that has been argued against the tract in these publications. [For a further argument that the “Awakenings” introduced an “emotional appeal” into the conversion experience, see Layman, general introduction to Born of Water and the Spirit, 8–10.]

131. [Presbyterian pastors Thomas Campbell (1763–1854) and son, Alexander (1788–1866), sought the unification of Christians into a single body patterned after the New Testament church. In order to restore the New Testament Church in nineteenth-century America they believed in no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, and no name but Christian.]

132. [According to the Unitarian Universalist Association (www.uua.org), Universalism developed in American in, at least, three geographical locations. By 1781, Elhanan Winchester had organized a Philadelphia congregation of Universal Baptists. At about the same time, in the rural, interior sections of New England, a small number of itinerant preachers, among them Caleb Rich, began preaching salvation for all. John Murray, an English preacher who immigrated in 1770, helped lead the first Universalist church in Gloucester, MA. After officially organizing in 1793, the Universalists spread their faith across the eastern United States and Canada.]

133. [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), more commonly known as the “Mormon” church, traces its origins to Joseph Smith (1805–44) who claimed to have been called by God to restore the church that Christ had established on the earth, but which had been lost after the deaths of the original apostles.]

134. “Who ever dreamed that a single invitation to penitents to come forward, and a personal conversation with them on their spiritual condition and duties, demanded uncommon inward spiritual force?” Thus the editor of the Luth. Obs. [Lutheran Observer 11, no. 11], Nov. 17, 1843 [p. 3], mystifying the point as usual. His colleague of Pittsburgh, however, comes up boldly to the mark, “A quack may preach a sermon and make a long prayer,” he tells us; “but it takes something more than a quack so to preach the truth that sinners will immediately come forward to the anxious bench.”—Davis’ Plea [Davis, A plea for new measures], p. 32. Right bravely spoken; but the very dialect of Quackdom itself.