The GOSPEL TRUTH

A GENETIC HISTORY OF THE

NEW ENGLAND THEOLOGY

By

FRANK HUGH FOSTER

1907

 EDWARDS' CONTEMPORARIES AND COLABORERS

CHAPTER V:

Joseph Bellamy

 

The impetus given by Edwards to New England theology began to exhibit itself before he himself passed off the scene. A figure so unique as his, and one of so great eminence as a practical worker, could not fail to attract attention and, in the paucity of teachers in New England, draw pupils for longer or shorter instruction in the ministerial calling. It was in this way that he gained for the new principles which he was presenting two adherents who were to prove during his lifetime efficient colaborers with him in his practical efforts, and after his death successors and leaders in his school. These were Bellamy and Hopkins.

The particular course which Bellamy's theological labors took was determined by his position as a pastor and by the number of important controversies which were carried on during his time. At the very beginning of his ministry he took part in the great revival of 1741-43, preaching widely, and observing necessarily the widespread harm done by certain theological errors. It was the direct consequence of this that, in 1750, first among the ministers of his state, he came out against the Half-Way Covenant. He noted and refuted the errors of "Antinomians," "Sandemeans," etc. But there was an inner force in his mind, which had been communicated to him by Edwards, which impelled him to more fundamental work than the mere refutation of errors, and made him a constructive theologian. While thus we find treatises from his pen upon The Half Way Covenant, There is but One Covenant, etc., and Theron, Paulinus, and Aspasio (on justification), his great works are his True Religion Delineated and The Wisdom of God in the Permission of Sin, etc., which are lifted by their themes upon the high plane of constructive discussion, although not without constant reference to the immediate religious needs of men.

The True Religion Delineated discusses the nature of religion, and gives two answers, apparently different, but in the end coalescing in one; viz., that it consists in a conformity to the law of God, and a compliance with the gospel of Christ. These two answers determine the two parts of the treatise. The first treats the law, which it finds perfectly fulfilled in the one exercise of love. The second then considers the gospel, and is thus led to the successive topics of the ruin of man, the atonement, and the application of that atonement through faith, together with the reward of everlasting life promised to the believer.

As might be gathered from the definition given of conformity to the law of God, the leading idea of this whole treatise is that of the Edwardean theory of virtue. We have here accordingly the first application of this theory to New England theology. As might be expected, it is a partial application. The greater and more profound effects of this theory upon the doctrine of sin and of the atonement escaped, at first, the eye of theologians. But at least the theory was definitely held by Bellamy and beautifully applied to his definition of religion.

This agreement between Edwards and Bellamy has sometimes been denied. It has been said that Bellamy did not follow Edwards "in this single exceptional case wherein he was eccentric to his main orbit." But careful study of Bellamy will show a minute, as well as a general, acceptance of the theory of virtue. In a letter dated 1766 he refers to Edwards' treatise by name. In explaining love toward our neighbor he coincides with his teacher in phraseology as well as thought. He speaks of the "esteem" which is due to our neighbor for the valuable qualities which he possesses; then of his "happiness as to soul and body" toward which we are to exercise a benevolent regard; this to be excited by his "capacities;" then of the delight and complacence which we are to feel in his holiness; all of which are strikingly Edwardean. The same idea of obligation is held by him as by Edwards. The obligation to love God arises from the "infinite excellence of the divine nature antecedent to all selfish consideration," and is infinitely, unchangeably, and eternally binding. Love to our neighbor is "right and fit in itself." Like Edwards he opposes utilitarianism, only with a power of sarcasm and a keenness of wit which Edwards, with all his excellences, did not possess.

Bellamy was, then, a thoroughgoing Edwardean as far as the theory of virtue is concerned. Like Edwards, he was also in general upon the plane of the old Calvinism. In many things his positions will be found to be identical with those of Edwards, sometimes, however, with a quiet suppression of Edwards' more daring flights of speculation, as, for example, his attempt to explain the constitutional connection of Adam with his posterity. At the same time, many of his forms of statement and many suggestions proved fruitful in developing among his pupils and successors the new divinity.

These statements and suggestions, found in the True Religion, may be grouped under the following heads:

1. Ability. Here he follows exactly in the path suggested by Edwards upon the will. The Arminians and Antinomians who surrounded him sought in various ways to evade the searching demands of the gospel. He answers them in pungent terms, and we begin at once to see the power of the New England preaching, stimulated and directed by Edwards' leading ideas, to lay hold of the hearts and consciences of men. Something of his style, as well as his contribution to thought, will be seen in the following extracts:

"But to love God, or to have any disposition to love him, is a thing supernatural, clean beyond the powers of nature, improved to the utmost: how can I, therefore, be wholly to blame?" It is a thing supernatural, you say; that is, in other words, you have no heart to it, nor the least inclination that way; nor is there anything in your temper to work upon by motives to bring you to it; and now, because you are so very bad a creature, therefore you are not at all to blame. This is your argument. But can you think that there is any force in it? What! are moral agents the less to blame the worse they grow? And are God's laws no longer binding than while his subjects are disposed to obey them?

And again:

Thus we see, that, as to a natural capacity, all mankind are capable of a perfect conformity to God's law, which requires us only to love God with all our hearts: and that all our inability arises merely from the bad temper of our hearts, and our want of a good disposition, and that, therefore, we are wholly to blame and altogether inexcusable. Our impotency, in one word, is not natural, but moral, and, therefore, instead of extenuating, does magnify and enhance our fault. The more unable to love God we are, the more are we to blame. Even as it was with the Jews; the greater contrariety there was in their hearts to their prophets, to Christ and his Apostles, the more vile and blame worthy were they. And in this light do the Scriptures constantly view the case. There is not one title in the Old Testament, or in the New, in the law or in the gospel, that gives the least intimation of any deficiency in our natural faculties. The law requires no more than all our hearts, and never blames us for not having larger natural capacities. The gospel aims to recover us to love God only with all our hearts, but makes no provision for our having any new natural capacity; as to our natural capacities, all is well. It is in our temper, in the frame and disposition of our hearts, that the seat of all our sinfulness lies.

That paradox of Bellamy's rhetoric--"the more unable to love God we are, the more we are to blame"--became characteristic of the school. Inability, instead of being accepted as an excuse, was itself ground for greater repentance, because it was voluntary. It will be said, of course, that the theory of the will underlying such statements affords no real ground for them, because giving no real ability. It was enough, however, that Bellamy supposed that there was a real ability, and that he preached it as such. No one can get from his words any other impression. It was this impression that prevailed. The theory of the doctrine does not appear in his pages to disturb the mind; the fact of ability is stated with great popular power. Such preaching had its natural effect, and the way was prepared for the improvement of the theory.

Out of such preaching began another style of exhortation to the impenitent which was soon to break up the old paralysis which had crept over the New England churches. Men had ability to repent, and the duty of the minister was to exhort them to exercise this ability. They were no longer to "read the Scriptures," or to "pray," or to "choose God as their best good and last end," and remain impenitent through it all, as in former times they had too often done. But, under the preaching of Bellamy, they were exhorted not "to do any duty in an unholy manner, to hear the word in a disposition to hate and reject it," but to hear "in a disposition to love, believe, and practice it." In short, the preaching became the preaching of immediate repentance.

2. Original sin. In respect to this doctrine Bellamy followed Edwards quite closely, teaching that by divine appointment Adam stood and acted as our public head. This was as well for us in every respect, and better in some respects, than if our condition had been made to depend entirely upon our own acts. He did not, however, follow Edwards into his speculations as to the method of our connection with Adam. Leaving that, and every other speculative element, he enforced in the following manner the direct and unmodified responsibility of the sinner for himself

Let it be by Adam's fall, or how it will, yet if you are an enemy to the infinitely glorious God, your Maker, and that voluntarily, you are infinitely to blame, and without excuse; for nothing can make it right for a creature to be a voluntary enemy to his glorious Creator, or possibly excuse such a crime. It is, in its own nature, infinitely wrong; there is nothing, therefore, to be said; you stand guilty before God. It is in vain to make this or any other pleas, so long as we are what we are, not by compulsion, but voluntarily. And it is in vain to pretend that we are not voluntary in our corruptions, when they are nothing else but the free, spontaneous inclinations of our own hearts. Since this is the case every mouth will be stopped and all the world become guilty before God, sooner or later.

Like Edwards, Bellamy also teaches that our natural corruption, though real, is something privative, so that God does not bring us into the world infected with any positive taint.

3. Election. This is brought out in the clearest terms. The divine sovereignty is exalted in connection with it. God does not elect this or that man for anything that he himself does, or for any goodness that there is in him. The condition of mankind is but one, and that is rebellion and opposition to the will of their Maker. At times, in order to exalt the sovereignty of grace, expressions are used by Bellamy which seem to imply that God acts arbitrarily. But this is not his meaning. If he says, "It is evident that his designs of mercy took their rise merely, absolutely, and entirely from himself," he adds in the next member of the sentence: "from his own infinite benevolence, from his self-moving goodness and sovereign grace." And again: "God does not appear to be a Being influenced, actuated and governed by a groundless, arbitrary self-will, having no regard to right reason, to the moral fitness and unfitness of things."

Election is thus taken out of the realm of the absolutely unaccountable, and one of the most serious objections against it is removed. This is the retroactive effect of the Edwardean theory of virtue. If right be founded, as has been so often said, in the will of God, then it may be that God proceeds in election according to his arbitrary will. It will then be right, for that is what right is. But if right is right in the nature of things, and God himself is obligated to exercise love and to act for the welfare of being, then not even the interests of sovereignty can justify the use of phrases which put the divine action above reason. More and more was this feature to be emphasized in New England theology.

4. The atonement. Upon this topic Bellamy's services were epoch-making, for he introduced to New England thinking an entirely new theory of the atonement, although it was left for another, his pupil Jonathan Edwards the Younger, to propose it in such a way as to secure its general adoption.

It will be necessary, in order to understand Bellamy's work, to review briefly the course of an obscure rivulet of thought, the existence of which has been generally forgotten. In the year 1617 Hugo Grotius, a learned jurist and theologian of Holland, published a Defence of the Satisfaction of Christ, in which he presented a new theory of the atonement, which has received the name of the "governmental theory" because it explains the atonement as a governmental necessity, and transfers the central point of the theory by teaching that God is, in this matter, not the "offended party," but the supreme "Ruler." This work was early known in New England. William Pynchon apparently referred to it. John Norton quotes it in 1653. Charles Chauncy had evidently read it in 1659. Baxter, who adopted the theory, and Samuel Clarke, who improved it somewhat, were both read in New England. Grotius' complete works were in the library of Yale College in 1733. It is pretty certain that the younger Edwards and later New England divines read the Defence. It is quite probable that Bellamy also did.

Grotius' main suggestion must have been a very welcome one to Bellamy. As long as the divine justice was conceived as a single unrelated attribute, and theologians talked of the necessity of the satisfaction of justice by the sacrifice of Christ, the position that God acted as the offended party was the logical one. But as soon as God is conceived as acting always from love, and his justice becomes modified both in what it demands and in the reason for its infliction by this conception, then God must act in the matter of punishment from general motives, dictated by love, or he must act as a general person, and in this case as the divine Governor. Bellamy immediately adopted this line of thought, and put at the very head of his discussion the term "moral Governor of the world" as descriptive of the position of God in the atonement. To this he consistently adheres. He thus effected the transfer of the center of gravity in the New England theory to this new point, and thus determined in what path it should move. This may seem strong language, especially when Bellamy's inconsistencies of expression are remembered. Professor Park claimed for him only that he "directly or indirectly suggested the Edwardean theory." But he did far more than that. He took the two positions which rendered the theory a necessity if they should be firmly held and consistently applied. For his use of the word "Governor" was no mere verbal change in phraseology. Turretin had employed the term "Ruler of the Universe" as the appropriate designation of God when inflicting punishment; but he had never really changed the determinative conception that God was the offended party. Bellamy, however, in his explanation of the term is everywhere governed by the great conceptions of the theory of virtue, and these compel a real change of position. Thus he says:

God does not appear to be a being influenced, actuated, and governed by a groundless, arbitrary self-will, having no regard to right reason, to the moral fitness and unfitness of things; nor does he appear to be a being governed and actuated by a groundless fondness to his creatures . . . He considers the happiness and good of his creatures, his intelligent creatures, as being what it is. He sees what it is worth, and of how great importance it is, and how much to be desired in itself, and compared with other things: he sees it to be just what it really is, and has an answerable disposition of heart, that is, is desirous of their happiness and averse to their misery, in an exact proportion to the real nature of the things in themselves.

No one familiar with Edwards can fail to see the watermark of the master's theology here. Nor is this an isolated passage. For pages the same style of discussion is continued. "Yea, if it was put to his own case, if we could possibly suppose such a thing, he [God] would make it appear that he does as he would be done by, when he punishes sinners to all eternity." "Rewards and punishments . . . are visible public testimonies borne by the Governor of the world to the moral amiableness of virtue on the one hand and to the moral hatefulness of vice on the other. He also many times defines the atonement in terms like the following, which are a full expression of the new theory:

To the end that a way might be opened for him to put his designs of mercy in execution, consistently with himself, consistently with the honor of his holiness and justice, law and government, and sacred authority, something must be done by him in a public manner, as it were, in the sight of all worlds, whereby his infinite hatred of sin, and unchangeable resolution to punish it, might be as effectually manifested as if he had damned the whole world.

Bellamy also taught the doctrine of general atonement. The older Calvinism had taught that the atonement, though sufficient for all men, was designed only for the elect. This position Bellamy expressly denies again and again. For example:

And indeed, was not the door of mercy opened to all indefinitely, how could God sincerely offer mercy to all? Or heartily invite all? Or justly blame those who do not accept? Or righteously punish them for neglecting so great salvation?

Or, at greater length:

Besides, if Christ died merely for the elect, that is, to the intent that they, only upon believing, might, consistently with the divine honor, be received to favor, then God could not, consistently with his justice, save any besides, if they should believe; "for without shedding of blood, there can be no remission." If Christ did not design, by his death, to open a door for all to be saved conditionally, that is upon the condition of faith, then there is no such door opened; the door is not opened wider than Christ designed it should be; there is nothing more purchased by his death than he intended; if this benefit was not intended, then it is not procured; if it be not procured, then the non-elect can not any of them be saved, consistently with divine justice. And, by consequence if this he the case, then, first, the non-elect have no right at all to take any, the least encouragement from the death of Christ, or the invitations of the gospel, to return to God through Christ, in hopes of acceptance; for there are no grounds of encouragement given. Christ did not die for them in any sense. It is impossible their sins should be pardoned consistently with justice; as much impossible as if there had never been a Savior; as if Christ had never died; and so there is no encouragement at all for them; and therefore it would be presumption in them to take any; all which is apparently contrary to the whole tenor of the gospel, which everywhere invites all, and gives equal encouragement to all.

Thus Bellamy laid down the fundamental positions of that theory of the atonement which was later to be called the New England. He did more than this; for we shall see, when we are brought in the progress of our history to the proper point, that he had prepared every element for the hand of that man who gave it its place in the new theology, who was, moreover, the pupil of Bellamy, and had probably derived his entire scheme from his teacher. But of this at the proper place.

5. Total depravity. This common position of Calvinism was firmly held by Bellamy. No one could state it more uncompromisingly than he did in this definition:

The very best religious performances of all unregenerate men are, complexly considered, sinful, and so, odious in the sight of God. They may do many things materially good, but the principle, end, and manner of them are such as that, complexly considered, what they do is sin in the sight of God.

The new element in his view was the reason which he gave for this position. This was derived from the new theory of virtue. Negatively, all acts of unregenerate men were sinful because they lacked the one motive which alone could make them acceptable, since they were not performed from love to God. Positively, they were sinful because they were performed from a motive thoroughly sinful, the motive of selfishness. Bellamy thus propounds the doctrine, which was to become of more importance in later writers, that all sin is selfishness; but he does not go into any proof of it. The gain he makes is simply in the suggestion that it is the life-motive which makes all the acts of the sinner sinful.

So much for the treatise upon True Religion. We pass now to a new field of theological effort, opened by Edwards, in which Bellamy is the first of the New England writers formally to labor--that occupied by the treatise upon the Permission of Sin.

Like all the rest of Bellamy's work, this was suggested by the problems which press themselves upon a preacher of repentance. The difficulties which trouble the minds of inquirers call for an argumentative style of preaching. Edwards had set the example, for the vein of argumentative defense of Christian truth runs everywhere through it, as it does through all strong preaching. From his Miscellaneous Observations a tolerably comprehensive system of Christian evidences could be constructed. Bellamy could not fail to meet the objection to the goodness of God which is constantly drawn in practical life from the pain which men suffer. If he answered this by a reference to the fact of sin, it was only to have the objection return with all the more force: How could a good God permit sin to enter the world? To the full answer of this objection he addressed himself in the treatise before us, and thus began that long line of effort culminating in the famous Taylor controversies, and in the so-called New Haven theology. It was issued in the darkest period of the French and Indian War (March, 1758). "These sermons are the rather published at this season," says Bellamy, "when the state of the world and of the church appears so exceedingly gloomy and dark, and still darker times are by many expected, as they are calculated to give consolation to such as fear the Lord and are disposed to hearken to his holy word."

The work is divided into four discourses. The first defines what is meant by the permission of sin and defends the wisdom of God in permitting it. By God's permitting sin we are not to understand that he loves sin; nor that he deprives the sinner of his free will in permitting it. It consists simply in his not hindering it. He does not permit it in the character of an unconcerned spectator who does not care how affairs go, but only because, all things considered, he judges it best not to hinder it. He may at times interfere to prevent individual sins, and when he does so, this is justifiable, commendable, and praiseworthy. In all this Bellamy does not pass beyond the Westminster Confession.

Thus Bellamy seeks by his earliest definitions to disarm the objection which was commonly made--that, upon the Calvinistic system, God foreordains sin. His relation to sin is merely one of permission. Bellamy thus appropriates the phrase of Edwards in his Freedom of the Will. We may regard his treatise as the natural supplement to Edwards' somewhat restricted remarks. But it is noticeable that, as he writes the first formal treatise upon this subject, so he falls short of Edwards in the philosophical part of the matter. The philosophy of motives is not introduced to explain the method of God's providential government.

Bellamy then proceeds to justify the ways of God in thus permitting sin. He conducts the argument by means of a multitude of scriptural examples in which he shows how God overrules the sin of men to work out in the best way possible his own plans. The final result, for example, of the course of wickedness on the part, first of Joseph's brethren, and then of the Egyptians and especially Pharaoh, was to reveal the heart and character of God as it could not otherwise have been revealed, to give his creatures a true specimen of themselves, and thus to advance his own glory and their good. For the greatest thing we can possibly have is an increased knowledge of God and of ourselves.

This ends the first discourse, and here Bellamy has touched only upon the problem of justifying the wisdom of God in permitting sin when it has once entered the world. But how shall his wisdom, in permitting it to enter be justified? This is the topic of the second discourse.

He takes as his starting-point the position that God in creating the world has chosen the best of all possible plans, and that this is, accordingly, the best possible world. He says:

In the days of eternity, long before the foundation of the world, this system, now in existence, and this plan, which now takes place, and all other possible systems, and all other possible plans, more in number perhaps than the very sands of the seashore, all equally lay open to the divine view, and one as easy to Almightiness as another. He had his choice. He had none to please but himself; beside him there was no being. He had a perfectly good taste, and nothing to bias his judgment, and was infinite in wisdom: this he chose; and this, of all possible systems, therefore, was the best, infinite wisdom and perfect rectitude being judges. If, therefore, the whole were as absolutely incomprehensible by us as it is by children of four years old, yet we ought firmly to believe the whole to be perfect in wisdom, glory, and beauty.

This will remind every reader of the optimism of Leibnitz. Every Christian, indeed, must be an optimist. If God is infinitely wise and good, he must be able to produce the best possible world, and he must have the goodness and the will to do this. Thus, says Bellamy, "were there no instance in which we could see the wisdom of God in the permission of sin," this argument would alone convince us that it must be wise to permit it. But we have more than this. God's ways are uniform, and what is true of particular parts of the universe will be true of all. If wisdom is evident in the particular parts which we can behold and estimate, then it will be found in the rest of the system, though we may not be able to examine the whole. Now, such wisdom is evident in limited portions and ranges of experience--as, for example, in the history of Joseph and Israel in Egypt already cited. Therefore, could we but examine more widely, we should everywhere find traces of the same wisdom, till its proof was complete.

This positive argument is strengthened by the answer of objections which is next presented. Bellamy insists upon the ignorance of man. This is so great that our inability to see the meaning of any particular action or course of action cannot be employed as an argument against the wisdom of such action. Under the darkest circumstances perhaps God may have such plans in view as justify his course. And with the light shed upon the subject by the Scriptures we have positive reason for believing this in spite of seeming difficulties.

So far the second discourse. In the third, Bellamy advances still nearer the heart of the subject. God, he says, does not act arbitrarily, but upon good and sufficient reason. Relying upon this truth, we may advance with confidence in the attempt to discover the reason of this great mystery.

God acts reasonably. What, now, in the first place, was exactly that which he did? He erected a grand and noble theater, the world, fit to be the scene of so great events. Upon this he placed man, a noble creature, an intelligent free agent, capable of moral action, and a proper subject of moral government. He treated him with distinguished goodness in making him capable of knowing, loving, and obeying God; and in giving him all things necessary for his comfort in such abundance. Man was thus under the highest obligations to love God, his Maker, and to dedicate himself to his service. These obligations God specially revealed to him, put him under a law, and told him the penalty which would be inflicted upon him in case he disobeyed. God thought that he had now done enough, and that he might reasonably suspend the destiny of man upon his own action, without taking further precautions for his safety. Man rebelled, sinned, and fell.

Now, here were three designs: man's design, to gain rapid and surprising advance in knowledge and happiness; Satan's design, to thwart the purpose of God by ruining man; and God's design, to permit Satan to succeed so far in his attempt as to furnish God with an occasion to attain more honor, to make the holy part of his creation more humble, holy, and happy, and to defeat Satan in his schemes as effectually as he did Pharaoh when he overwhelmed him in the Red Sea. How was God's design justifiable?

It belongs essentially to the nature of finite beings to be mutable and peccable. Consequently holiness can be absolutely maintained only when sin is positively prevented, or when God himself becomes surety that a given individual, or number of individuals, shall not sin. He must confirm such beings in holiness.

But innocent, holy beings, though mutable, if they have never felt the least inclination to sin, do not feel themselves exposed to the danger of sin. Was it possible for Peter to feel that he was in danger of denying his Lord? He felt the greatest aversion from such a deed, and only repeated experience of his weakness could teach him the possibility of such a fault.

Now, if God had confirmed these holy, mutable beings in holiness, so as to prevent all apostasy on the part of any of them, although the kindness done them would be infinitely great, and so perceived by God himself, they would have been in no position to perceive God's goodness, and so their knowledge, both of God and of themselves, would have been inadequate. They were, therefore, not fit to be confirmed; and to have confirmed them would have been to deprive the universe of a great portion of its knowledge of God and of itself, which would have been a great loss to it. Hence it was better not to confirm them till their need of confirmation was evident. But this involved the permission, and resulted in the actuality, of sin.

The fourth discourse adds nothing essential to the argument. It meets the principal objection to this line of thought, which is thus phrased: "But was there no other way in which God could have made angels and men as holy and happy, without the permission of sin?" The answer is: "Not if there was no other way in which be could so fully reveal himself. For aught I or the objector knows, this, of all possible plans, may be the best contrived to give a full and clear manifestation of deity. And its being chosen by infinite wisdom before all others, demonstrates that this is actually the case." Thus Bellamy closes the argument where he began it--in the assumption that this is the best possible world.

This doctrine is that which has been condensed in the phrase, "sin a necessary means of the greatest good." The greatest good involves the fullest possible knowledge of God. This cannot be attained without the existence of sin.

Therefore sin, because it is necessary to a complete divine self-revelation, which is the greatest good, is permitted. This is the first position taken by New England divinity upon this theme.

The following year 1759, a reply to Bellamy appeared in the form of a tract by S. Moody (anonymously printed), entitled An Attempt to Point out the Fatal and Pernicious Consequences of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Bellamy's Doctrines respecting Moral Evil. If Bellamy's treatise had been an epoch-making one, this reply was also epochmaking. It was not merely an evidence that every theological proposal in New England was sure to receive the fullest and freest discussion--itself a most important fact, and one promising that theological innovation should result in theological progress; but it also revealed the fact that the young school of thought which was now slowly coming to the front was but one of the profoundly earnest and progressive movements of the day, and that these several movements, even when opposing each other, had much in common. If most of them came to naught, and if one of them took later a wrong direction and cut itself off from the line of evangelical advance, while New England theology held a straighter course and came to a sounder result, it was not because they did not all feel the same great influences. The superiority of the one school was in its leaders; and their superiority consisted in their mingled conservatism and radicalism. Underneath the whole seething surface of the controversies lay the question of human freedom. Apparently the only safeguard just then against an abuse of the idea of freedom was a restriction of the idea. Edwards had given this restriction; and in his theory of virtue he had at the same time given a great impulsive power toward a better view of man. The co-operation of these two tendencies kept the Edwardean school from many a premature position and many an error.

Mr. Moody objected against the idea that "it is most for the glory of God and the good of the moral system that there should be moral evil." While he conducts the discussion upon the surface of the theme, and seems scarcely to be conscious what his fundamental difference from Bellamy is, they really held irreconcilable ideas of the nature of man and of his freedom. Moody could not see anything but evil in sin, and referred it in its whole entirety to man, as a free agent acting in opposition to God. He thus gave the creature an independence before God which Bellamy was in no condition to admit. And when Bellamy urged his a priori line of argument by which God must always do the best, since he was infinite and perfect, Moody put in the reply of the agnostic, that such positions are speculative and beyond our powers.

Moody begins by pointing out fallacies in Bellamy's fundamental principles. He has no right to argue that "because God educes many happy consequences from moral evil . . . therefore he thought best that moral evil should be introduced into a system where all were perfectly holy;" nor that "the sight of the distress of others greatly enhances our pleasure in this state: therefore a view of the misery of those who fell made a prodigious increase of the happiness of those who continued innocent and holy;" nor that God "must necessarily always will and do that which is most for his own glory." His thought in this last is that "in no definite period of time, in no oven quantity of space can there be a full discovery of God's glories." He questions whether this present scheme can be properly said to be God's. To God belong its "order, good, and happiness;" "all the sin, confusion, and misery to Satan and wicked Men."

He next presents a number of the common objections, such as that the theory of Bellamy makes God the author of sin, and sin a good, not to be opposed or lamented, etc. And then he presents the argument which in N. W. Taylor's hands, long afterward, was to be one of the principal arguments to destroy the idea that sin was the necessary means of the greatest good; viz., this, that if all rational beings had continued holy and perfect, there would have resulted an amount of blessedness which would have been more to the glory of God than the present existing evil. Finally he objects to the reasoning of Bellamy: The present scheme is a fact; therefore it is best.

The meaning of the whole pamphlet was, therefore: Bellamy makes sin the necessary means of the greatest good; to sustain this, he makes all the steps necessary, leaves no place for man's responsible personal action, and throws upon God's purpose an onus which belongs upon the will of man.

Bellamy issued the following year (1760) a Vindication in reply. He does not touch the point really at issue, nor advance anything essential to his view of the subject, and hence the book need not detain us long. He shows, however, one of the first qualifications of a controversialist, when he tries to find common ground with his adversary, and specifies eight points in which they agree. The "grand point of difference" he understands to be the optimism of his position, whether "God's present plan is, of all possible plans, the best." The proposition to which the book is directed is that "God, who is a being of infinite wisdom and perfect rectitude, always conducts agreeably to his own most glorious perfections;" and this he carries out in a very skilful dialogue, in which he puts aside the unnecessary agnosticism of his opponent. The real gain of this controversy was therefore the negative result--not then fully understood, because the point of the whole had not been brought out--that to defend the freedom of man the overruling government of God must not be so treated as to reduce it to a nullity.

But the process which was hereafter to distinguish the history of New England theology had begun. Our divines, who were so absorbed in the practical labors of the ministry, which demand certainty and consistency of teaching, as constantly to overlook many of the implications of their own positions, were to be gradually pushed on by their adversaries, whom they confuted at some points, but from whom they had to learn at others, into greater and greater modification of their original system. The problems of the day were perceived by many minds; the progress of conviction was the same at points apparently very diverse; the evolution of New England theology was more the work of the age than of the leaders in whose works it was gradually formulated.

We pause here in our review of Bellamy, to recur to him as to minor points repeatedly in connection with his successors. It was evident to his contemporaries that a new force had appeared in American theology, and we can now see that it was a new school. Upon central portions of the theological system a number of valuable suggestions are made, all deriving their force from a new theory of man, as embraced in the ideas of virtue and of freedom, which had entered into the thinking of the times, partly in consequence and partly in spite of the labors of Edwards; and at the central point of all, in the doctrine of the atonement, the theory is propounded which is to constitute the principal service of New England theology to the world, and is adequately presented in its leading idea and in the reasons for this. Above all, a new air breathes through Bellamy's writings--the air of freedom; and a new intellectual disposition is everywhere manifest--the disposition to discuss, not merely in order to refute, but also to learn, and to meet new difficulties by new propositions suited to the day. It is the unmistakable influence of Edwards that we see here. The protagonist has passed through the first great struggles of a new epoch, and come to a knowledge of himself and his work; his successor stands already in the full freedom of the new position gained and in the joyous consciousness of his powers addresses himself to the task prescribed by the situation. It was with a feeling of great expectation that men looked forward to the future, to its struggles and to their outcome. And this feeling of buoyant hope long continued to be the dominant feeling of the New England school, as it was of the entire new American nation.

 

 

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