The Way They Prove It

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 7, 1865

The Way They Prove It.

THE following easy and convenient method of stifling conscience, overriding God's word, and proving any and every position that a person may be disposed to take, was set forth in sober earnest by Henry Ward Beecher, a professed Protestant, in a sermon published in the N. Y. Independent, of June 23, 1864. It was spoken in relation to Infant Baptism, and was designed to show how a doctrine can be received and maintained, not only with no Bible for it, but independent of the Bible. Apply the same reasoning to any other subject, and we ask, What heresy or superstition that has ever disgraced the name of religion, could not be sustained in the same manner. Mr. Beecher says:—

"But it is still further objected that infant baptism is nowhere commanded in the Scripture; that it is known to be of ecclesiastical origin; that it is founded on a theological doctrine which now all Protestant sects have repudiated; that the practice has become superstitious; and that it stands in the way of a scriptural manner of employing the ordinance. And it is claimed that for all these reasons it is not obligatory, and should be discontinued. I concede and I assert, first, that infant baptism is nowhere commanded in the New Testament. No man can find a passage that commands it; and if it can stand only on that ground, we may as well give it up first as last. Secondly, I affirm that the cases where it is employed, as in the baptism of whole households, are by no means conclusive and without doubt; and that, if there is no other basis for it than that, it is not safe to found it on the practice of the apostles in the baptism of Christian families. Therefore, I give up that which has been injudiciously used as an argument for infant baptism. And thirdly, I assert that the doctrine, that as a Christian ordinance it is a substitute for the circumcision of the Jews, is a doctrine that is utterly untenable, to say nothing more. If there were no other argument than this for it, I should not blame those that rail at it, and set it at nought. It is not commanded by Scripture; there is no well-attested case of its administration in the New Testament; and it is not brought down as a substitute for circumcision.

" 'Well' say men, 'you have knocked the whole moral argument in favor of infant baptism from under your feet.' I beg your pardon; I stand more firmly in my advocacy of it than I should if I held to those views. Is there no liberty for a Christian assembly to do anything that experience shows to be beneficial? If you ask me, 'Where is your text? I answer you by saying, I do not want a text. Show me a thing that experience proves to be good, and I fall back on the liberty which is vouchsafed to every Christian, and which is set forth in the New Testament, and say, 'By this liberty I do it. There is my warrant, and there is my authority.' Paul taught us that we were brought into a dispensation of liberty. Peter declared that he had found out that, after all, God received anybody that had faith to work righteousness. And Christ taught, still more broadly, to the woman of Samaria, that the time was coming when a man should be received, not because he worshiped in that mountain or in that temple, but because he worshiped God in spirit and in truth. The New Testament teaches that there is for man the largest freedom to go to God in any way he pleases. That is the charter of Christian liberty. And if experience shows a certain ordinance to be good, it is your right to adopt that, whether Scripture points it out or not. And if any man says, 'I must not do anything that I have not a text for,' I say to him, it is your privilege to do anything which experience shows to be good. You need no authority for it, except the testimony of experience that it is good. That is divine authority. The fact that it is good gives you the right to choose it. It is your privilege to do so, because you are Christians, and are free, being bound to no ceremonies or usages.

"It is the very genius of the New Testament and of Christianity to permit men to build up their religious life in just such ways as they prefer. The Old Testament prescribed the modes of religious worship and culture. The New Testament gave to men the liberty to seek God as they pleased. Men are supposed now to be sufficiently developed to find their own way, and are not permitted to go any longer as a little child, holding to the hand of the nurse, but as a grown-up child, or man, relying upon himself."

Such is the liberty Mr. Beecher sets before his followers. Who could require more? What broader platform could the Romanist ask, on which to defend all the corruptions and superstitions of his church? And if Protestants can talk like this, it is no wonder that the law of God, and the plainest precepts of his word, lie forgotten upon the shelf, or are trampled in the dust, while tradition has erected her throne, and holds defiant sway, in the professed church of Christ. Mr. Beecher does not want a text of scripture for his position: 'He feels stronger without it!!' Would not the Sunday theory leap for joy if it could be permitted to plant itself on such a basis as this? But what if, when a darling theory has been devised, without any scripture to support it, some text should be found which struck directly against it? No matter, we presume, if the thing was found to be "good," doubtless "Gospel liberty" would override Gospel precept; for men have "progressed," and know better what they want, than did the Bible writers of 1800 years ago! Once it was necessary, intimates Mr. B., that mankind should be under leading strings, which may be fairly interpreted to mean that under the former dispensation men needed a law for their government, and some divinely appointed system of worship. But such trammels are no longer expedient. Men are now presumed to know what they want, and to be able to go alone, every man choosing that way to Heaven which seemeth good in his own eyes. How far is this removed from that most stupid, as well as blasphemous claim of Spiritualism, that men have "progressed" till they have outgrown the Bible and its truths? There is one step more in this direction which Mr. B. might have mentioned, though it could hardly be expected, as it is not so pleasant as the ones upon which he has dwelt; yet it is a liberty just as surely granted to men as the liberty which he tells people they may indulge in in this life, and that is, "the liberty to be damned."