Читать книгу One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, Tome 1 - John Williamson Nevin - Страница 15

Action of the Bench.—It creates a false issue for the conscience.—Unsettles true seriousness.—Usurps the place of the Cross.—Results in widespread, lasting spiritual mischief.

Let us now fix our attention on the action of the new system, directly and immediately considered. Without regard to its more remote connections and consequences, let us inquire what its merits may be in fact, as it respects the interest it proposes to promote, namely, the conversion of souls. Is it the wisdom of God and the power of God,146 as its friends would fain have us believe, for convincing careless sinners, and bringing them to the foot of the Cross? Let the Anxious Bench, in this case, be taken as the representative of the entire system. No part of it carries a more plausible aspect. If it be found wanting and unworthy of confidence here, we may safely pronounce it to be unworthy of confidence at every other point.

As usually applied in seasons of religious excitement, I hold the measure to be spiritually dangerous; requiring great skill and much caution to be used without harm in any case, and as managed by quacks and novices (who are most ready to be taken with it) more suited to ruin souls than to bring them to heaven. This view is established by the following positions.

1. The Anxious Bench, in the case of an awakened sinner, creates a false issue for the conscience. God has a controversy with the impenitent. He calls upon them to acknowledge their guilt and misery with true repentance, and to submit themselves by faith to the righteousness of the gospel. It is their condemnation that they refuse to do this. When any sinner begins to be sensible in any measure of his actual position in this view, he is so far awakened and under conviction. Now in these circumstances what does his case mainly require? Clearly, that he should be made to see more and more the true nature of the controversy in which he is involved, till he finds himself inwardly engaged to lay down the weapons of his rebellion and cast himself upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. He needs to have his eyes fastened and fixed on his own relations, spiritually considered, to the High and Holy One, with whom he is called to make his peace. The question is, will he repent and yield his heart to God or not? This is the true issue to be met and settled; and it is all-important that he should be so shut up to this in his thoughts that he may have no power to escape the force of the challenge which it involves. That spiritual treatment must be considered best in his case which serves most fully to bring this issue into view, and holds him most effectually confronted with it in his conscience, beneath the clear light of the Bible. But let the sinner in this state be called to come forward to a particular seat in token of his anxiety. He finds himself at once under the force of a different challenge. The question is not will he repent and yield his heart to God, but will he go to the anxious bench, which is something different altogether. Thus a new issue is raised, by which the other is obscured or thrust out of sight. It is a false issue, too, because it seems to present the real point in controversy, when in fact it does not do so at all, but only distracts and bewilders the judgment so far as this is concerned. While the awakened person is balancing the question of going to the anxious bench, his mind is turned away from the contemplation of the immediate matter of quarrel between himself and God. The higher question is merged, for the time, in one that is lower. A new case is created for the conscience of artificial, arbitrary form and ambiguous authority. Can it be wise thus to shift the ground of debate, exchanging a strong position with regard to the sinner for one that is weak? Suppose it were made a point with awakened persons that they should rise up and confess before the congregation all their leading sins, in detail and by name, to break their pride, show their desire to be saved, excite prayer in their behalf, &c.; would not this requirement, interposed as a preliminary to the main point of conversion itself, and enforced by no proper sanction for the conscience, serve only to turn away the attention of such persons from the object with which it should be employed, thwarting the very interest it might affect to promote? And is there not room for objection to the Anxious Bench on the very same ground? It is certainly a little strange that the class of persons precisely who claim to be the most strenuous in insisting upon unconditional, immediate submission to God, scarcely tolerating that a sinner should be urged to pray or read the Bible, lest his attention should be diverted from that one point, are as a general thing nevertheless quite ready to interpose this measure in his way to the foot of the cross, as though it included in fact the very thing itself. And yet a pilgrimage to the Anxious Bench is in its own nature as much collateral to the duty of coming to Christ as a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In either case a false issue is presented to the anxious soul by which for the time a true sight of circumstances is hindered rather than promoted.

It may be thought, indeed, that the movement of going to the Anxious Bench is so easily performed as not to be properly open to this exception. It may be considered a mere circumstance that can have no weight practically in the view now presented. But we shall see that this is not the case. However small the point involved may seem, it is not only of account, as producing for the moment a factitious case of conscience, open to “doubtful disputation,”147 but it includes also actual difficulty that cannot fail to be felt. Whether the challenge be refused or accepted, it becomes in most cases more than a circumstance, and is of no small force in fact in the way of embarrassing the proper exercises of an awakened soul.

2. The Anxious Bench, in the case of those who come to it, is adapted by its circumstances to disturb and distract the thoughts of the truly serious, and thus to obstruct the action of truth in their minds. It is no doubt quite a common thing for persons to be carried into this movement who have little or no seriousness at the time, urged forward by sympathy, or superstition, or a mere taste for distinction. There is much reason in the remark of the Rev. Dr. Miller when he tells us that he should expect, in calling out the anxious, to find the persons rising and presenting themselves to be, for the most part, the “forward, the sanguine, the rash, the self-confident and the self-righteous,” while many who keep “their seats would prove to be the modest, the humble, the brokenhearted,” the very depth of whose seriousness had restrained them from coming forward in this way.148 And yet the measure may be expected to prevail of course with many persons also who are truly under conviction, and whom nothing but the fear of losing their souls could engage to thrust themselves thus into view. In any case, however, the genuine religious feeling that may exist is likely to be in a great measure overwhelmed by the excitement that must be involved in the very act of coming to such a resolution, and subsequently in carrying it into effect. The truth of this remark will be more clear when we remember that young persons, and females especially, form the main body commonly of those who are drawn to the anxious bench. Their susceptibility fits them to be wrought upon more readily than others to the extent that is necessary to secure this point. But the same susceptibility renders it certain that in circumstances so exciting it will be impossible for them to hold their thoughts or feelings in any such balance as the interest of religion requires. They of all others would need to be sheltered from stimulating impressions in this form at such a time instead of being forced to face them in their weakness.

Take a single case in illustration of the way in which the system may be expected to work. Here is a gentle girl, sixteen or seventeen years of age. She finds herself in the midst of a large congregation where at the close of the sermon the minister, encouraged by the general seriousness of the house, invites all who are concerned for the salvation of their souls to come forward and place themselves on the anxious seat. She has been perhaps a long time under some concern, or it may be that God’s truth has been felt for the first time on this occasion; not with great force perhaps, but so at least as to bring her spirit to a solemn stand in the presence of her Maker. She hears the invitation, but shrinks from the thought of doing what the minister demands. The call however is reiterated, and enforced by the most exciting appeals to the imagination. After a few moments there is a stir; one is going forward to the bench, and then another, and another. She is struck, moved, agitated. A struggle has commenced in her bosom, which she herself is not prepared to understand. May she not be fighting against God, she asks herself, in refusing to go forward with the rest? May it not be in her case, at this moment, now or never? All this is solemnly crowded on her alarmed conscience by the whole character of the occasion, in the way in which it is managed by the minister. Already her soul has passed from the element of conviction into the element of excitement. The “still small voice” of the Spirit is drowned amid the tumult of her own conflicting thoughts. But see, she yields. With a desperate struggle she has thrown herself forth into the aisle. Trembling and agitated in every nerve, poor victim of quackery, she makes her way, consciously in the eye of that large watching assembly, from one end of the house to the other and sinks, half fainting with the effort, into a corner of the magic seat. And now, where is she, in spiritual position? Are her tears the measure of her sorrow for sin? Alas, she is farther off from God than she was before this struggle commenced in her father’s pew. Calm reflection is departed. Her hold upon the inward has been lost. Could any intelligent Christian parent, truly anxious for the salvation of his daughter, deliberately advise her in circumstances which have been supposed, to seek religion in this way? Can the pastor be wise who is willing to subject the lambs of his flock to such a process, with the view of bringing the good seed of the word to take root and vegetate in their hearts?

3. The Anxious Bench is adapted to create and foster the ruinous imagination that there is involved in the act of coming to it a real decision in favor of religion. It is well known in the Church of Rome certain observances are held to carry with them a sort of inward merit in this way, as though by themselves they had power to secure a spiritual blessing. There is a constant tendency with men, indeed, to invest the outward under some form with the virtue that belongs only to the inward, so as if possible to “get religion,” and hold it as property or means for some other end, instead of entering into it as the proper home of their own being. It is not strange then that the Anxious Bench should be liable to be so abused. It is only strange that sensible persons should make so little account of this danger, as is sometimes done. We are gravely told, it is true, that coming to the anxious bench is not considered to be the same thing as coming to Christ.149 The measure is represented to be important, on other grounds, and for other purposes. Certainly it is not imagined for a moment that any one in his senses will be found ready to say that coming to the bench is itself religion. But still that some such impression is liable to be created by the measure, and is extensively created by it in fact as it is commonly used, admits of no dispute. It is not uncommon indeed for those who make use of it to throw in occasionally something like a word of caution with regard to this point; and in some few instances, possibly, such prudence may be observed as fully to guard against the danger. But this is not common. As a general thing, even the cautions that are interposed are in such a form as to be almost immediately neutralized and absorbed by representations of an opposite character. The whole matter is so managed as practically to encourage the idea that a veritable step towards Christ at least, if not actually into His arms, is accomplished in the act of coming to the anxious seat. I have had an opportunity of witnessing the use of the measure in different hands and on different occasions; but in every case it has seemed to me that room was given for this censure.150 Indeed I do not see well how the measure could be employed in any case with much effect without the help of some such representation. We find accordingly that the whole process, as it were in spite of itself, runs ordinarily into this form. Sinners are exhorted to come to the anxious bench as for their life by the same considerations precisely that should have force to bring them to Christ, and that could have no force at all in this case if it were not confounded more or less to their perception with the other idea. The burden of all is presented in the beautiful but much prostituted hymn usually sung on such occasions, Come humble sinner. The whole of this is made to bear with all the weight the preacher can put into it on the question of coming to the anxious seat. Every effort is employed to shut up the conscience of the sinner to this issue; to make him feel that he must came or run the hazard of losing his soul. Advantage is taken of his hopes and fears in every form of awakening and stimulating appeal to draw him from his seat. The call is so represented as to make this the test of penitence. Those who come are welcomed as returning prodigals who have decided to come out from the world and be on the Lord’s side; while all who refuse to come are treated as showing just the opposite temper; and it often happens that the preacher, in the warmth of his zeal, charges upon their refusal in this view the same guilt and madness and peril precisely that lie upon the deliberate rejection of Christ himself. Now it is an easy thing to say, in these circumstances, that after all the Anxious Bench is not substituted for Christ. So the Puseyite and Papist disclaim the idea of putting into His place the Baptismal Font.151 But in both cases it is perfectly plain that Christ is seriously wronged notwithstanding. In both cases the error is practically countenanced and encouraged that coming to Christ and the use of an outward form are in whole, or at least to some considerable extent, one and the same thing; with the difference only that the form in one case is of divine prescription, while in the other it is wholly of man’s device.

It is true indeed that the “mourners,” as they are sometimes termed, are still treated after coming to the bench or altar as persons yet unconverted. This should neutralize, it might seem, the idea of any such saving virtue in the measure as is here supposed to be encouraged in the usual style of calling out the anxious. But this is not the case. The coming is not accepted at once as conversion, though exhibited apparently as the same thing immediately before; but still it is taken practically for something closely bordering on conversion. The mourners are counted nearer to the kingdom of heaven than they were before. They are exhorted now to “go on,” as having actually begun a divine life. The process of conversion is commenced. They have come to the birth; and all that is wanted to bring them fully into the new world of grace is the vigorous prosecution of the system of deliverance to which they have now happily committed their souls. The Anxious Bench is made still to be the laver of regeneration, the gate of paradise, the womb of the New Jerusalem. Conversion is represented to be far easier here than elsewhere. We find accordingly that this idea fairly carried out leads certain sects of the full New Measure stamp to profess a peculiar tact and power in carrying the process of spiritual delivery regularly out at once to its proper issue. It is only for want of proper treatment, they say, and because “there is not strength to bring forth,” in other cases, that souls are brought thus far without being born at once into the kingdom. Their Anxious Bench, or the altar where their mourners kneel and roll, is commended to the world as a more perfect organ of conversion. Once fairly within its grasp, the soul as a general thing is quickly set free; often in the course of a few minutes, and very commonly before the close of the meeting. They know how to “get the anxious through.” All this is sufficiently extravagant; but still it is only a gross expression of the feeling, commonly encouraged by the use of the Anxious Bench with regard to its virtue as a help to conversion. The whole measure is so ordered as to promote the delusion that the use of it serves some purpose in the regeneration of the soul.