p. 90 | A Sensible View

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1884

A Sensible View.

THERE are many professed Christians who seem to regard H. W. Beecher as a veritable minister of the gospel of Christ, notwithstanding his denial of the facts upon which the gospel is based, and of his depreciation of the Scriptures which alone teach the gospel. A sensible view of his position is presented by the New York World, in the following words:—

“The announcement made by Mr. Beecher that he does not believe in the fall of Adam and in the inheritance of guilt, is less interesting in itself than as the prelude or introduction to the subsequent confession of disbelief which we may expect in logical sequence. The rejection of the doctrine of the fall and of inherited guilt naturally dispenses with any necessity for an atonement or for a divine Redeemer. If we reject the idea of vicarious sin we must also reject the idea of vicarious atonement, and the whole divine element in the mission of Christ disappears at once. Such a form of unbelief is easy to understand, but it is not easy to understand why one who thus unceremoniously rejects the divine mission of Christ should take the trouble of calling himself ‘a Christian Evolutionist.’ There would be as much meaning in the words if, under the same circumstances, he should call himself a Christian pagan. It would be more seemly if those who wholly repudiate the authority of Christ would also repudiate the name of Christian altogether.”