Changes

I believe it is a fact generally admitted that there is much less conscience manifested, by men and women, in nearly all the walks of life, than there was forty years ago. and there seems to be but little prospect of reformation. The frauds and villaines in high and low places, among all ranks of men, are most alarming, and one is almost compelled to ask, 'Can nobody be safely trusted?' Now, what is the cause of this degeneracy? Doubtless there are many causes that contribute more or less directly to it; but I am persuaded that the fault is more in the ministry and public press than in any and all things else. It has been fashionable now for many years to ridicule and decry Puritanism. Ministers have ceased, in a great measure, to probe the consciences of men with the spiritual law of God. So far as my knowledge extends, there has been a great letting down and ignoring the searching claims of God’s law, as revealed in His \Vord. This law is the only standard of true morality. 'By the law is the knowledge of sin.' The law is the quickener of the conscience. Just in proportion as the spirituality of the law of God is kept out of view will be manifest a decay of conscience. This must be the inevitable result. Let ministers ridicule Puritanism, attempt to preach the Gospel without thoroughly probing the conscience with the Divine law, and this ''must'' result in at least a partial paralysis of the moral senses. The error that lies at the foundation of this decay of individual and public conscience originates, no doubt, in the pulpit. The proper guardians of the public conscience have, I fear, very much neglected to expound and insist upon obedience to the moral law. It is plain that some of our most popular preachers are phrenologists. Phrenology has no organ of free-will. Hence it has no moral agency, no moral law and moral obligation in any proper sense of these terms. A consistent phrenologist can have no proper ideas of moral obligation, of moral guilt, blameworthiness, and retribution. Some years since a brother of one of our most popular preachers heard me preach on the text, 'Be ye reconciled to God.' I went on to show, among other things, that being reconciled to God implied being reconciled to the execution of His law. He called on me the next morning, and among other things, said that neither himself nor two of his brothers whom he named, all preachers, had naturally any conscience. 'We have,' said he, 'no such ideas in our minds, of sin, guilt, justice, and retribution, as you and your father have. We cannot preach as you do on these subjects.' He continued, 'I am striving to cultivate a conscience, and I think I begin to understand what it is. But naturally, neither I nor the two brothers I have named, have any conscience.' Now, these three ministers have repeatedly appeared in their writings before the public. I have read much that they have written, and not unfrequently the sermons of one of them, and have been struck with the manifest want of conscience in his sermons and writings. He is a phrenologist, and hence he has in his theological views on freewill, no moral agency, and nothing that is really a moral result of free-will and moral agency. He can ridicule Puritanism and the great doctrines of the orthodox faith; and, indeed, his whole teaching, so far as it has fallen under my eye, most lamentably shows the want of moral discrimination. I should judge from his writings that the true idea of moral depravity, guilt, and ill-desert, in the true acceptation of those terms, have no place in his mind. Indeed, as a consistent phrenologist, such ideas have no right in his mind. They are necessarily excluded by his philosophy.

I believe it is a fact generally admitted that there is much less conscience manifested, by men and women, in nearly all the walks of life, than there was forty years ago. and there seems to be but little prospect of reformation. The frauds and villaines in high and low places, among all ranks of men, are most alarming, and one is almost compelled to ask, 'Can nobody be safely trusted?' Now, what is the cause of this degeneracy? Doubtless there are many causes that contribute more or less directly to it; but I am persuaded that the fault is more in the ministry and public press than in any and all things else. It has been fashionable now for many years to ridicule and decry Puritanism. Ministers have ceased, in a great measure, to probe the consciences of men with the spiritual law of God. So far as my knowledge extends, there has been a great letting down and ignoring the searching claims of God’s law, as revealed in His \Vord. This law is the only standard of true morality. 'By the law is the knowledge of sin.' The law is the quickener of the conscience. Just in proportion as the spirituality of the law of God is kept out of view will be manifest a decay of conscience. This must be the inevitable result. Let ministers ridicule Puritanism, attempt to preach the Gospel without thoroughly probing the conscience with the Divine law, and this ''must'' result in at least a partial paralysis of the moral senses. The error that lies at the foundation of this decay of individual and public conscience originates, no doubt, in the pulpit. The proper guardians of the public conscience have, I fear, very much neglected to expound and insist upon obedience to the moral law. It is plain that some of our most popular preachers are phrenologists. Phrenology has no organ of free-will. Hence it has no moral agency, no moral law and moral obligation in any proper sense of these terms. A consistent phrenologist can have no proper ideas of moral obligation, of moral guilt, blameworthiness, and retribution. Some years since a brother of one of our most popular preachers heard me preach on the text, 'Be ye reconciled to God.' I went on to show, among other things, that being reconciled to God implied being reconciled to the execution of His law. He called on me the next morning, and among other things, said that neither himself nor two of his brothers whom he named, all preachers, had naturally any conscience. 'We have,' said he, 'no such ideas in our minds, of sin, guilt, justice, and retribution, as you and your father have. We cannot preach as you do on these subjects.' He continued, 'I am striving to cultivate a conscience, and I think I begin to understand what it is. But naturally, neither I nor the two brothers I have named, have any conscience.' Now, these three ministers have repeatedly appeared in their writings before the public. I have read much that they have written, and not unfrequently the sermons of one of them, and have been struck with the manifest want of conscience in his sermons and writings. He is a phrenologist, and hence he has in his theological views on freewill, no moral agency, and nothing that is really a moral result of free-will and moral agency. He can ridicule Puritanism and the great doctrines of the orthodox faith; and, indeed, his whole teaching, so far as it has fallen under my eye, most lamentably shows the want of moral discrimination. I should judge from his writings that the true idea of moral depravity, guilt, and ill-desert, in the true acceptation of those terms, have no place in his mind. Indeed, as a consistent phrenologist, such ideas have no right in his mind. They are necessarily excluded by his philosophy.

I do not know how extensively phrenology has poisoned the minds of ministers of different denominations; but I have observed with pain that many ministers who write for the public press fail to reach the consciences of men. They fail to go to the bottom of the matter, and insist upon obedience to the moral law as alone acceptable to God. They seem to me to ‘ make void the law through faith.’ They seem to hold up a different standard from that which is inculcated in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which was God’s exposition of the moral law. Christ expressly taught in that sermon that there was no salvation without conformity to the rule of life laid down in that sermon. True faith in Christ will always and inevitably beget a holy life. But I fear it has become fashionable to preach what amounts to an antinomian gospel. The rule of life promulgated in the Gospel is precisely that of the moral law. These four things are expressly affirmed of true faith - of the faith of the Gospel :

I do not know how extensively phrenology has poisoned the minds of ministers of different denominations; but I have observed with pain that many ministers who write for the public press fail to reach the consciences of men. They fail to go to the bottom of the matter, and insist upon obedience to the moral law as alone acceptable to God. They seem to me to ‘ make void the law through faith.’ They seem to hold up a different standard from that which is inculcated in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which was God’s exposition of the moral law. Christ expressly taught in that sermon that there was no salvation without conformity to the rule of life laid down in that sermon. True faith in Christ will always and inevitably beget a holy life. But I fear it has become fashionable to preach what amounts to an [[Antinomianism|antinomian]] gospel. The rule of life promulgated in the Gospel is precisely that of the moral law. These four things are expressly affirmed of true faith - of the faith of the Gospel :

:1st. "It establishes the law."

:1st. "It establishes the law."