p. 11 | COUNTING NOSES

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 10, 1878

COUNTING NOSES.

If the doctrine of endless sin and punishment is now getting more discussion and finding more opponents than our conservative theologians like, they have themselves to thank for it. It was they who precipitated the discussion by rejecting a confessedly pious and edifying pastor, who never made a bruit of his peculiar doubts, whose people would hardly have thought to inquire what were his doubts on the subject, just because he could not affirm the doctrine. But for this the installation at North Adams of a pastor who held similar views by a council including Ex-President Hopkins, President Porter, and other able and influential ministers, would have passed without notice and would not have been significant. And now it is The Congregationalist, which makes itself the champion of the majority in the Indian Orchard Council, that has opened the floodgates of error still wider by asking a hundred representative Congregational clergymen their opinion on the subject, and printing their answers. The result is more important than anything else that has yet occurred in the discussion. We get the following results:—

Seventy-three replies are published in response to a hundred applications. Of these, the great majority, as was expected, hold that there should be no relaxation; but that only those should be recognized as pastors whose faith in hell is positive. But there are fourteen who are just as clear that a denial or doubt of the truth of the doctrine should not always disqualify a man from Congregational pastorship. Three others express themselves with such doubt as to show that they are to be counted with the minority, rather than with the majority. How many of the twenty-seven who refuse to reply, or whose replies have not yet been published, would have swelled the minority we cannot judge; but probably more than a proportional number. As it stands, seventeen out of seventy-three, or one less than a quarter of those who cared to respond, would not refuse to ordain a man, otherwise unexceptionable, who does not hold to the endlessness of sin.

This settles the matter. If a quarter of the Congregational ministry take that position, the three-quarters could not keep a man like Mr. Dale or Baldwin Brown out of the Congregational ministry. Still clearer will this appear when the character of the men answering in the negative is observed. They include some of the most honored men in the denomination, and, though none of the theological professors were written to, it is well enough known that a very respectable number of them would take the same position.

From Connecticut three out of seven—Dr. N. J. Burton, G. B. Willcox, and E. W. Bacon—plant themselves on the platform of comprehension. “Under the above view”—that of Evangelical faith—“there is, in my judgment,” says Dr. Burton, “a large range for an innocent diversity of opinion touching the eternal future.” “If he were faithful and earnest,” says Mr. Willcox, “but only beset by metaphysical doubts and questions as to the literal endlessness of penal suffering, I should consent.” Of the four from Maine, Mr. A. L. Park says, “In my opinion, we may safely leave some latitude to individual judgment in this matter.” And Mr. A. P. Tinker says, “I know Mr. Merriam well, and in his case should have voted with the minority of the Council.”

The sixteen from Massachusetts are more nearly unanimous. Yet so clear-headed a man as W. S. Leavitt, of Northampton, says, “No universal rule can be given. Each case must be judged on its own merits.” Letters were addressed to but two New Jersey ministers—Dr. Wm. B. Brown, the Father of New Jersey Congregationalists and most honored among them, and to Mr. R. G. Greene. Dr. Brown says that, if the candidate “in all other respects were an eminently worthy candidate for the pastorate, I should not judge that I could withhold my approbation from him, without, at the same time, withholding it from many other excellent clergymen on other grounds of equal importance;” while Mr. Greene declares: “It is not in charity alone, but in duty, that I forbid not one who in Christ’s name casts out devils. The fact that a church is Congregational is irrelevant. When Congregationalism insists on terms of fellowship other than are written in the Word, its own principles deprive it of all authority.”

There is the same feeling in the West, where we are wont to suppose that Congregationalism is especially conservative. Of the four written to from Wisconsin, Mr. G. T. Ladd, pastor of the largest Milwaukee church, says, “Perhaps it is safest to allow it [the question of disqualification] to be raised and answered in each case for itself.” And C. H. Richards, of the Madison church, says that “if Dr. Dale (Annihilationist), or George Macdonald (Restorationist), or Christlieb (who leaves this as an open question) knocked at its doors, it would welcome them to membership and ordain them to the ministry. . . . There is no more danger from errors on this point than from the Plymouth Brethrenism of Moody or the fatalism of Hodge. Congregationalism will not suffer half so much from ‘inconsistency’ as from silencing a true prophet of God.” From Minnesota so influential and sound a scholar as Pres. J. W. Strong, D. D., says, “Each case should stand on its own merits; but to be free from doubts or to cherish on this point a dogmatic spirit, surely ought not to be prerequisite to the ministry in our Congregational churches.”

After this, as we have said, the question is decided. There will be two cases of admission like that of Mr. Munger where there will be one of exclusion like that of Mr. Merriam. The battle is won; and, while no council will give its sanction to a man who makes it his business to preach Universalism rather than the gospel, no minister need be afraid to be known as approaching the subject with a tender and questioning or even a hopeful doubt.—The Independent.